Everest diaries: A ‘pretty brutal’ journey through Khumbu Icefall before weather impacts climb

"A couple of days at base camp? Scrap that, we’re making ourselves at home." Galway-born Johnny Ward is documenting his 50-day journey to the top of Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world, weekly on irishexaminer.com.

Johnny Ward shares an update from his Everest climb, including the journey through Khumbu Icefall

May 2 

Just got back to base camp. Furtenbach Adventures try to keep you healthy, well fed, etc. A lot of the time failure for Everest is people getting sick. Sometimes you get heavy news. We were at camp two last night and there was a guy from another operator sitting in camp.

So about six days ago we headed off through Khumbu Icefall our superstar guide Dave Watson, around 11 at night. Obviously it was dark so we had head torches and it was kind of okay.

I do a lot of ultra marathons, also I love numbers so I checked the distances so I said okay, of course it’s going to be tough on the altitude but it’s only going to be 8k, 6k, 9k or whatever and Khumbu is only 8km or something but it’s pretty brutal. 

'The icefall itself is gorgeous'

Three Sherpas died fixing the ropes about three weeks ago so we had to pass that point both going up and going up and going down, pretty heavy.

The icefall itself is gorgeous, so you’re clipping in, clipping out, climbing up and peddling down and once you get through 80% there’s a snowy plateau with massive crevices and you have to go up those and you get to camp one. We spent a couple of nights at camp one - pretty basic and pretty cold. 6300m. Just chilled there, just trying to get your body to produce more red blood cells.

'We spent a couple of nights at camp one'

Then after that, we went to camp two. There's a dining tent, it’s basic but it means there’s a place to hang out. Then the snow hit and all our tents were covered in snow so it was pretty chilly. During one of the three days we were there we went up to just shy of 7000m, towards camp three, but we didn’t go up to the field ropes of camp three. That’s that really, six days - it went pretty fast - this morning we came down the Khumbu, obviously it's a lot easier than going up the thing! The ladders were pretty cool to go over. I’m feeling confident, I trained hard - it’s probably more difficult than I thought it was going to be but still manageable.

We’ll be at base camp for a couple of days recovering now, and then a couple of more days looking at the forecast and we’ll wait until there’s a weather window and we’ll go again and that will be a week-long summit push. A night at Khumbu, a night at camp one, a night at camp two, a night at camp three and kind of a night at camp four but try to attack the summit that night and come down again - which is half the stress!

May 8 

A couple of days at base camp? Scrap that, we’re making ourselves at home. I have trained for nine months, acclimated for two months, been on the expedition for five weeks, done our rotations, experienced the Khumbu icefall and now we are making Everest Base camp home.

Johnny Ward: 'I’m feeling confident, I trained hard'

The weather isn’t playing ball, so we are holding tight and waiting for a window to start the summit push. When we start, it’ll be almost a week. But nothing is looking likely for at least another five to seven days. So we wait. Patience isn’t my strong suit but I’m trying my best.

With Furtenbach Adventures we have the best base camp on the mountain, when we push we have the best oxygen in the business, we are where we are supposed to be. Hopefully two weeks from now we’ll be successful and safe. Preferably drunk in some dive bar in Kathmandu!

May 9

So the weather is still really bad, really windy. Some Sherpas have got frostbite trying to get oxygen and other stuff up higher. We’ve had a couple of people quit from our expedition already, they flew out on a helicopter yesterday. Then my Irish mate Tom Cleary quit last week too. So day to day I’ve just been working on various projects, including my blog. 

Obviously Everest is expensive so I have to keep paying my bills and to complete the overall challenge I need to go to Mount Vinson and South Pole (December!) which costs about €90k so I have to keep working!

Day to day - we go for a hike every other day. It’s quite funny as it's only a couple of hours and we’re all quite fit and strong but every hike is higher than Kilimanjaro summit day. We just go in the morning and come back for lunch. It feels nice to feel strong but yeah, even when I talk I’m out of breath as it’s still so high. For breakfast, lunch and dinner we have an Argentinian chef and three or four Nepalese in the kitchen tent. 

We have a hot shower - it’s not as luxurious as it sounds as we can only have it once a week, it’s quite a lot of work to get sorted. I had one today for the first time since I returned to base camp which was glorious. 

Other than that, I’m spending my time getting to know people, it's a really cool group of people that sign up with Furtenbach Adventures - they’re the best in the business as I keep saying. It’s a really interesting group of people and also it’s a weird slice of society that can afford to pay for these crazy adventures! It’s so interesting listening to people's stories.