Today is November 5th and this is the day we’ve been
waiting for since making our decisions to climb Ama Dablam. Our team is leaving base camp and heading up
the mountain over the course of a few days to attempt the summit. The morning is clear and cold, and our energy
is high. Smiles permeate the group as we
ready ourselves for the climb.
It’s traditional to meet at the puja site before heading
up. The Sherpa climbers have a small
prayer ceremony and then walk around the monument clockwise with us
following. Then we just keep walking,
out of base camp and up the hill.
Today we’ll climb all the way up to Camp 1, bypassing Yak Camp. It’s a 4,000 ft elevation gain in
one big push. The first few hours are
just walking uphill, crossing ancient glacial moraines standing parallel to
each other like great waves of rock and gravel.
The scale of this place is still amazing to us, with ridges extending
for miles. As we climb, the clouds rise
with us, seemingly blocking us off from base camp and civilization
below. We are approaching the technical
parts of the mountain now and will need to sharpen our focus.
Soon, we enter the boulder field which is our first
technical obstacle. It’s an ascending
traverse gaining close to a thousand feet through boulders ranging in size from
a microwave to a Volkswagen. While not
steep, this section is tricky, and we move carefully through. During our few days of rest, we heard that a
guide leading a team on the north ridge of Ama Dablam was hospitalized after
falling in a boulder field on that route and knocking out a few teeth. The photo below shows tents at Camp 1 at the
top of the ridge. Our camp is to the
right of the perpendicular ridge and slightly out of view.
On Wednesday, November 6th our goal was to climb
from Camp 1 to Camp 2.7 with a stop at Camp 2 where we cached our crampons and
our big boots. This will be a big day of
climbing with significant elevation gain, and vertical efforts on both the
yellow tower and the Grey Couloir. The
traverse to the Yellow Tower is one of my favorite parts experienced so
far. While not super steep, the mountain
is mostly slabs in this area so we clip safety lines for protection and round
the corner to the bottom of the Yellow Tower while leaning out on the ropes for
stability.
The Yellow Tower is a significant milestone in the climb
because it divides the less steep sections of the lower mountain with the more
vertical parts of the upper mountain. As
described previously, it’s nearly vertical with some features to aid the
climbing effort and some blank spots that require jugging on the ascender. Our safety lines are clipped around at least
two ropes for redundancy, since a fall here would be very serious.
Even the second time around with enhanced acclimatization
this is a challenging effort and each of us takes a breather at the top. This view from on top of the Yellow Tower
provides some perspective on the route from Camp 1. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see the tiny
tents just below the ridge. Ours are the
4 dark yellow ones in a row just off the closest part of the ridge.
Looking up from the very top of the Yellow Tower, you can
see Camp 2 perched above and along the ridge.
We found this camp to be quite crowded and dirty during our visit on the
last rotation. Based on this condition,
the decision was made to bypass Camp 2 and continue to Camp 2.7 during our
summit bid. This eliminates one day on
the upper mountain which helps our schedule but also makes for two longer days
of climbing.
While the Yellow Tower gets more attention than the Grey Couloir, many of us felt the Grey Couloir took about as much effort to
climb. It felt longer, was definitely
higher and it was also the main part of the extra climbing we had to do today
to reach Camp 2.7. We were now above our
previous high point, and in new territory on the upper mountain.
We were very lucky with the timing of our summit bid. While the Camp 2 rotation seemed quite busy
on the mountain and we experienced “traffic jams” both going up and down the Yellow Tower, our summit bid was quiet with only a few people to pass either
way. When passing, it’s safer and
usually more convenient to do so at an anchor.
In this case, I was ascending while the other climber was descending. She waited at the anchor for me to clip
around her. This pass is done one safety
tether at a time, with the first one being removed and clipped back on above
the other climber and locked. Then the
second safety is unclipped from below and clipped back onto the safety line
above for redundancy. It’s the same
process as performed for each anchor and becomes routine. Do it the same way every time and the muscle
memory is there for when you’re tired on the way down.
The route on the upper mountain is really interesting. We had a combination of vertical walls, snow
gullies, ridges, traverses and bulges to negotiate. This was so much fun as compared to slogging
on a continuous uphill slope one foot in front of the other. Here’s an airy ridge above the Grey Couloir
where we paid extra attention to our footing!
The last major obstacle before reaching Camp 2.7 was this
narrow traverse. It’s one of the few
photos I’m not smiling in and for good reason.
You can see all of the fixed lines and I clipped a few with both safety
tethers, but this was about my limit for exposure. At this point I was about 5,500 ft above base
camp with nothing but air below me.
Finally, we reach one of my favorite spots on Ama Dablam, Camp 2.7 at 20,626 ft. This was a great
little spot protected from the wind and kept clean by sanitation conscious
mountaineers. Today was a big day and
we’re glad to be in camp finally by mid-afternoon. We eat, drink and sleep hard knowing that
2:00 am will be our wake-up call for summit day.
November 7th is summit day! As promised, we had an early wake up. The stoves were started at 1:45am and we were
moving out of camp by around 3:00. I was
pretty pokey this morning and was last to be ready, which didn’t impress my climbing
partner Phunuru. We made up the time while
climbing though, so it all worked out. Above Camp 2.7 the route becomes more straight forward with fewer features to
negotiate. It’s also continuously steep after
we pass the site of Camp 3 on the Mushroom Ridge. There were no tents at Camp 3 this year so it
seems everyone was attempting the summit either from Camp 2 or Camp 2.7. Here’s
the route:
As we climbed past the Dablam (hanging glacier), we could
see the outline of it on our left silhouetted against the sky. With only the light of our headlamps, the
Dablam loomed like a giant shadow keeping watch over our progress. Once past the Dablam, we gained the long
steep summit ridge which traverses slightly left as it climbs to the summit. Now, at over 22,000 ft elevation, the climb
becomes a steep uphill push where one step is followed by two breaths. It’s hard work but I knew we were getting
close and could feel the summit fever propelling me up.
Finally, we reach the summit at about 6:30 am shortly after sunrise. The entire team made it and we celebrated
together on top with many of the world’s highest mountains surrounding us. From the left is Matt, Sonam, Pete, James,
me, Ang Karma and Phunuru. Dawa took the photo.
The temperature was probably in the teens or single digits with only a
slight breeze from the west. We spent almost
an hour on the summit and had it all to ourselves. What a privilege that was!
Of course, it’s been said many times that getting to the
summit is optional but getting down safely is mandatory. We were a long way up and it was time to
begin our journey back down with the goal of reaching Camp 1. Everyone was in good shape and we began
retracing our steps through the myriad features that Ama Dablam presented along
our route.
Almost all of our descent will be accomplished by repel with
the steepest sections using a repel device like the ATC guide or figure eight, and
less steep sections using an arm wrap or simple hand repel. There’s always a balance between safety, skill
and speed and it’s up to each climber to use the technique best suited for them
at each pitch. Finally, at 3:15pm I walked
into Camp 1 tired but satisfied after a 12-hour summit day. This was the most technically challenging climb
in my career, and I felt great about how I did!
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