My trip to the top of Everest

[MBVitoria]

Wow defo another interested party here, love to hear more.

Always intrigued to hear what people actually do when they get to the top. From what I gather, you're on borrowed time and need to get back down ASAP so is it just a couple of minutes look around, take a selfie or two and then start back down or can you actually spend some time to sit and take it all in.

[UTH]

threespires said:

Has anybody ever seen the top of Everest or just the snow on the top?
Is it a plateau or is there an actual point?

Just a snow tip, sort of thing. The bit I'm sitting on in that photo could, in theory, have collapsed under me, which my guide pointed out so I moved pretty quickly. But everyone does sit on that point as it is the highest, but who knows, one day maybe it will give way!

[HTP99]

This is a fantastic thread.

How much did it cost to do, from flying out to getting up, then down and then home?

[shirt]

Deffo interested in hearing more
, including the steps In between. Also if you wouldn’t mind breaking down the costs?

[Craig W]

That timeline is crazy. This is almost book worthy isn't it? From watching a film/doc to doing it yourself in 2 years. Pretty incredible stuff.

I'm just as interested in the Eiger, having been there myself a few times on the train. Which route did you take up it?

Any moments in the whole journey where you were scared for your life, or has it all been quite event free?

[UTH]

MBVitoria said:

Wow defo another interested party here, love to hear more.

Always intrigued to hear what people actually do when they get to the top. From what I gather, you're on borrowed time and need to get back down ASAP so is it just a couple of minutes look around, take a selfie or two and then start back down or can you actually spend some time to sit and take it all in.

I reckon we were there 20 mins. Little list of things to do, make sure I'd taken photos, quick video, photo of me holding a photo of Mrs UTH, photo of me holding our hockey club hat (there was an ongoing competition of people taking our hockey club beanie to various holiday spots etc, so I thought I'd basically win that competition by bringing it to the top of Everest).

You can stay longer probably, but people are slowly arriving so not much point hanging around forever.

[keo]

Amazing thanks for sharing!

[Wacky Racer]

UTH said:

Of course, the thread is probably very uninteresting without the money shot:

That looks remarkably like the top of Ben Nevis to me........







Bookmarked.

[UTH]

shirt said:

Deffo interested in hearing more
, including the steps In between. Also if you wouldn’t mind breaking down the costs?

It's certainly not a cheap way to basically end with some stories and a few photos.

From what I can remember:

Kit must have cost getting on for £5k-£8k
Chamonix climbing week - £3k
Mont Blanc - £5k
Eiger/Matterhorn - £7k
Manaslu - £30k
Everest - £70k

Those numbers might be slightly off, as I remember thinking in my head the whole thing from day 1 to Everest was about £100k.
I did use the two companies considered best in the business at the time. You can do Everest etc for a fair chunk less than that, but didn't really fancy going with a cheapo when I might end up dead. I can spend the rest of my life paying off the mortgage.

[Random84]

Epic adventure!

I went up Snowdon recently (No need for a base camp and I couldn't really say "Climbed" in this thread) and there are loads of people just queueing for a photo at the top, is it like this on Everest?

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of rubbish and poop everywhere, is Everest clean or are there loads of discarded oxygen cylinders etc.?

Did you see people who clearly had a lot of money and no climbing ability?

Would you do it again?

[ChocolateFrog]

Thanks for putting the costs up. Its gone from circa 40k when I was looking for the attempt itself and is a bit of an eye-opener.

I've done basecamp, which was fun but painful when you have to turn round and go home. I've also climbed to 7000m in the Andes. I don't think I acclimatise very well, I'm always quite ill whenever I go above 4000m.

Amazing to think in that photo that of the 8 billion people on the planet none are higher (while on land)(insert celebrity druggie here).

[Gogoplata]

Absolutely fantastic stuff! Amazing to do it from zero in that length of time. Thanks for sharing, bookmarked!

[peterperkins]

Great achievement.

Respect to the other 'client' who turned back before getting caught in the death zone and landing you all in serious trouble.
To have come so far and then not go on to the summit took guts and sensible decision making. Hope he made it back down ok.

[NicheMonkey]

UTH said:

It sounds so weird, but because we were so lucky with the weather, we had a small team, and generally in such good shape, I was almost disappointed not to have moments where I was wondering if we should keep going.

That said, the one other climbing 'client' who was with me, did the whole trip, no problems, until the last day (summit day) - we left camp 4 on the 10 hour or so trip to the top.....his head lamp got further away from us from the moment we left camp. Radio back to him and he decided to head back to the tents and stop. He just knew he was shattered from our camp 3 to camp 4 journey with only a few hours rest, and he knew he'd be in mega trouble further up. All that effort time and money to turn yourself around at the last moment.
At that point I looked at my guide and just thought "of COURSE people like me/us don't get to the top of Everest, and THIS is where it all falls apart, right?"
He just gave me a fist pump, told me to get my head in the game and let's go.....and on we went, successfully.

(I promise more photos coming when I get a bit of time to sort them into some sort of 'story timeline')

It's a fantastic achievement! you almost make it sound easy! Looking forward to updates

Edited by NicheMonkey on Wednesday 21st June 12:47

[UTH]

Random84 said:

Epic adventure!

I went up Snowdon recently (No need for a base camp and I couldn't really say "Climbed" in this thread) and there are loads of people just queueing for a photo at the top, is it like this on Everest?

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of rubbish and poop everywhere, is Everest clean or are there loads of discarded oxygen cylinders etc.?

Did you see people who clearly had a lot of money and no climbing ability?

Would you do it again?

Yeah the top can get pretty busy with people milling around taking their photos etc. We had a record breaking year for weather window to summit, so the crowds were quite spread out. The following year was that famous photo in the paper of a queue of 100 people near the top, so that would have been a different story.

Rubbish on Everest is a big problem. Our company took every single thing off the mountain, including stting in plastic bags and taking that down with you to basecamp to be removed. Lots of other companies have no regard for things like that, so rubbish is a major problem.

On summit day we passed a fair few people we imagined were well beyond their ability. Luckily on the way back down we didn't pass them lying dead, so they obviously managed to get down.

For a while afterwards I thought I'd never want to do anything like that again as it was hard and at time long and boring, but of course when the memories of the bad bits fade, all I'm left with now is wishing every day I was back there as it was epic.
I'd love to do K2, but finding another £50k and 3 months off work isn't going to happen....

[UTH]

Again apologies for lack of photos yet, if I was reading this thread I'd already be annoyed at the lack of them haha

If not before, I have a fairly clear weekend of babysitting my daughter, so I should be able to spend some good time putting a few together, I myself am looking forward to piecing the story back together.

In the meantime, here's one of many favourite shots of my every day view back then, taken from Lobuche which was a smaller peak opposite Everest we used to stay fit and acclimatise so we didn't keep going through the dangerous icefall:

Edited by UTH on Wednesday 21st June 12:54

[UTH]

peterperkins said:

Great achievement.

Respect to the other 'client' who turned back before getting caught in the death zone and landing you all in serious trouble.
To have come so far and then not go on to the summit took guts and sensible decision making. Hope he made it back down ok.

Yeah, bold decision by him, and he got back fine and happy.
Here he is before we left camp 4 to head back down after I'd been to the top

[GiantCardboardPlato]

UTH said:

Of course, the thread is probably very uninteresting without the money shot:

this could just be wales though

[pidsy]

Fantastic.

I’ll think of some questions….

[Matt..]

5yrs have passed. What have you done since then or was this the achievement met and that was the end?

What was your training plan like for the initial phases and getting up Mont Blanc?