Beyond Possible by Nims Purja

Author:Nims Purja [Purja, Nims]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529312270
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 2020-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

12

Into the Dark

Kanchenjunga is the third tallest mountain in the world at 8,586 metres above sea level, but it was also potentially the toughest expedition within Phase One. That might sound weird considering the intimidating kill rate of Annapurna, but Kanchenjunga was renowned for being brutally tough to climb; few people had the resilience, luck, or strength to reach its peak because the ascent to the summit from Camp 4 – which was pitched 7,750 metres above sea level – was a soul-breaking grind. Despite there being only around a thousand metres in altitude remaining to scale, the distance left to travel was long, while deep snow often smothered the ascent up to the shoulder that ran towards Kanchenjunga’s peak.

Having made it to the final ridge, a mountaineer was then exposed to awful winds and biting cold. The oxygen levels dropped to 33 per cent and the terrain was a head fuck – a bewildering minefield of loose rock, ice-covered boulders and blinding spindrift. Psychologically the route felt never-ending, the summit seemed forever out of reach, and many people turned back for home long before making it to the top. On average around three hundred people climbed Everest successfully every season; at Kanchenjunga that number came in at around twenty-five.

I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the challenge. We had blitzed the first two mountains in double-quick time under incredibly gnarly circumstances, so I knew we had it in us to charge up Kanchenjunga too, but there was little doubt that everyone within the team was feeling frazzled. Having spent five days on Dhaulagiri, fixing lines and digging up the rope that had been buried by a heavy snowfall, while carrying thirty kilos of gear on our backs, we were battle bruised. When we arrived at Kanchenjunga’s base camp on 14 May, the team fell into a short period of relative luxury, stuffing our faces with some fried chicken bought in a nearby village while we readied our tactics for the next twenty-four hours.

We were to move fast, pushing immediately to the top in one hit, rather than resting for a day at Camps 1, 2, 3 and 4, like normal expeditions usually did. No fucking around. Our intense work rate was born out of necessity, though: we were already acclimatised to high altitude and because of our fading energy levels, to stop and rest would have caused us to fail. I’d have fallen asleep on the spot; Gesman and Mingma were joining me for the push and were tiring as well.

We set out in high spirits, switching into a powerful gear and climbing quickly through the valley to Camp 1, spiking our heart rates and shocking our bodies into action. Beneath us, the snow-covered terrain was booby-trapped with hidden crevasses. Above, the lower slopes were notorious for dropping heavy avalanche payloads and rock fall onto unsuspecting climbers, though the weather had created further dangers.

A number of boulders around us had been frozen together, but because the sun was high during the day, any thawing ice had the potential to trigger a mini avalanche.

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