Dom was true to his word, he woke us at 12:30 am. There was warm water for coffee, and to refill our water bottles. Breakfast was a breakfast bar. The cache of stuff we left at Camp 2 was retrieved and divided. Everyone was zombie-like as we tried to remember what we had cache’d, and whose snowshoes were whose!The bags were getting heavier with each camp we passed. Crampons were exchanged for snow shoes, and we were walking by 1:30 am.
The early start was again to cross this crevassed section when the snow was frozen, or as cold as possible. Six miles and over 3,000 feet of downward elevation to go. It was still snowing.
It was a slog. After getting through the prayers, I needed some distraction. My quads were sore. The chest strap on my bag was annoying me, as it constantly detached – really bad design! For only the second time on the trip, I tuned into some podcasts. Football Weekly and Barry Glendenning, The Rest is Politics and Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart.
We stopped at Camp 1 to pick up some more cached gear. Bags got heavier again. We criss-cross crossed the glacier to avoid known crevasses. Dominic had been here many times and he saw or sensed where the dangers lay. The snow turned to rain, and the underfoot snow was soft and slushy. The slushy snow was sticky for the sleds. Just keep going, it can’t be much further. At the end of the trail, you have to go about 500 feet uphill, on what’s known as Heartbreak hill. So hard! I remembered going in the opposite direction as we set off 19 days ago. The downhill section then seemed nowhere as steep as it was now going up. Back then I had no idea of what the adventure, the highs and lows the intervening 19 days would hold. I recalled how we passed teams, and they too seemed zombie like, and I had no idea why. How could they be so grumpy and disengaged after completing their adventure? Now I knew!! Just get me to the airstrip.
The rain had stopped, but the cloud was low. Please God, make the clouds go away, we need to get a plane to land to collect us, I cannot spend another night on this mountain, another night in a tent.
As we approached the “runway” we heard an engine. A plane was landing to connect another group, Dallas’ group, who were there ahead of us. Thank you God! We were at basecamp )and the airstrip) at 9:30 am. We had descended over 10,000 feet in 19 hours, 2 of which were sleep. I was done, wiped out, looking forward to a bed!
At 9 am we heard another engine, and we saw the red K2 De Haviland bank steeply to the left and land, followed shortly by another. We were getting off the mountain. We were going home!
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