Enska 2012
Mount Everest
I’m not an experienced mountaineer, and climbing Mount Everest hadn’t even crossed my mind before 2004, says South African, Paul Trumpel, aged 33. Then, around three weeks before I was due to leave I started to have doubts. I met a guy from New Zealand who had summited Everest. He had climbed the north side, the Tibetan side, and he talked for two hours about how tough it was.
It was really depressing. Then I spoke to a friend who said: “Paul, if you don’t go you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.” From then on I was fine.
I didn’t do any specific training. I did a lot of mountain biking, running and endurance work, walking for 10 hours a day with a 30 kg backpack. But with Everest, it’s 95% mental. Most of the preparation you do for summit day happens on Everest. It happens from the day you arrive in Kathmandu.
We started in Lukla and there we met a Buddhist lama who blesses all the climbers on the way up. He took my head in his hands and bumped it against his own, twice. Then he recited a prayer, looked me in the eye and touched my shoulders and my knees. I’m not religious but I was glowing inside. It was if I suddenly had loads of energy, like someone had stuck a battery in me.
It took me and my companion, Tanner eight days to trek to base camp, where we spent three days acclimatizing. You have to give your body time to adapt to the altitude. From the base camp we did our first trip up the mountain to camp one, at 6,065m high.
Normally, from there, we could have progressed to camp two, which is 6,500m high and part of the acclimatization process. But this year was different because the Chinese had closed the mountain from May 1-10 to make way for the Olympic torch. It was really frustrating not being able to ascend. We spent five days in a lodge in the valley, resting and eating to fatten up.
Once the Chinese had summited, it was game on, but we had to wait a further five days for the weather conditions to be perfect.
Summit night was eerie. It was hot up there and dead calm, which was worrying because you generally want a bit of wind. We set off
in the darkness and all I could see were little yellow spots on the ice – the head torches of other mountaineers. Within the first two hours I was sweating like anything. I wanted to take everything off, but I knew that if you start warm you stay warm – it’s when you start cold that you’re in trouble.
It wasn’t until I saw the south summit that I realized I was actually making it. It was still dark but the horizon was going pink, and I could see the curvature of the earth. I realized I was really high – It was like being on a plane.
The summit was another 20-minute climb from the Hillary Step. I walked up an ice peak littered with rocks. You realize you are literally walking on thin ice. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the summit appeared. It’s a little peak covered with prayer flags. And I was there on top of the world.
