My trip to the top of Everest

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Went slightly off topic on another thread, but some interest was shown in me starting a thread about my 'journey' for want of a better word, that ended with me at the top of Everest.

As you can imagine, I've got a hell of a lot of photos and videos of the whole thing, happy to share as many or few of them for anyone interested.

To kick off, a very quick rundown on how this happened:

Friend tells me to watch "Everest Beyond the Limit" TV series on discovery channel, because it's very cool.
I get hooked, watch every season. One night, drunk at 2am, I email the company that documentary follows saying something along the lines of "I've never done climbing, I'm a keen skier, what would the many many steps be if someone like me actually wanted to climb Everest?"
Woke up with hangover, thought was a silly billy emailing them at all.
Few days later, the owner of the company (same guy on the TV show) emails back thanking me for the interest, and says he's in London in a few weeks if I wanted to meet to talk it through.
Went for a few pints with him, he said step one if I was actually keen is to go for a week's ice climbing skills course in Chamonix to see if I have any real interest in that sort of thing.
Did that, like it. Next step? Get training and sign up to climb Mont Blanc.
Did that, to my surprise. Next step? Keep training, and sign up to climb the Eiger and the Matterhorn in an intensive 2 day attempt.
Did that, again to my surprise!! Next step? Keep up the fitness training and sign up to climb Manaslu, 8th highest in the world out in Nepal and experience what high altitude climbing is like, working with Sherpas, camping high up etc.
To my surprise, did that as well! So, what's next? Well, you're ready for Everest!
Signed up to that, and fast forward a bit, March 2018 headed off......May 17th 2018 I was sitting on the summit of Everest in glorious sunshine, still not quite believing that in the space of about 2 years I'd gone from having only climbed stairs and ladders to climbing the highest mountain in the world.

So, in a very very short summary, that's the whirlwind that got me to the top.
Now, no idea if anyone has any interest in more details etc, so I'll see how this thread goes.
In terms of photos, I documented everything from sitting in the airport heading to Chamonix for that first week all the way to sitting on top of Everest, so I'll see what if anything anyone would be interested in seeing.

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

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Cool, watch this space, think I'll rather enjoy the trip down memory lane so I might be very self indulgent and kick off from the Mont Blanc trip.
Just dug out the hard drive, there's a lot! I'll pick and choose some nice ones that sum up each part.

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NicheMonkey said:

Amazing picture and I would definitely like to see more, great idea for a thread.

Whilst climbing Everest did you have any moments where you thought this is a bad idea? And how was it/did you feel when you seen the various people who succumbed to the mountain and were left there forever, like did that spur you on to complete the mission?

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')

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AWRacing said:

and... bookmarked!

where is the 'this thread is worthless without pics' emoji?!

Seriously though, this sounds awesome and would love to see any and all photos. Also;

How long did the climb take?
How did you find climbing in high altitudes?
How was the weather?
Did you get on with the rest of the group?
How did you find climbing past those who didnt make it or have most the bodies on the main trail been removed now?

The whole trip was late March to early June. Basecamp trek maybe 8-10 days, can't quite remember.
Once we'd done a lot of up and down to various heights to let our bodies get ready, it was about 7 days from basecamp to top then back to basecamp.
High altitude climbing is slow, and at first it takes some times for your brain to accept that it's going to take you 10 mins to walk 30 metres when all of your life that takes seconds.
Weather was best it had been in many many years that year, luckily.
Rest of the group was me, one other climber and our American guide for the most part. We got on amazingly which was very fortunate. When you turn up, it could be anyone!
Only saw one dead body on the way down from the summit.....by that time couldn't care less, very tired but elated. Quick glance, sad for them, but that isn't going to be me!

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SteveStrange said:

That's amazing. I'd have thought it would have been a lifelong training thing - 2 years seems like a fantastic achievement. I can't imagine anyone has ever done it in less than that? Surprised to see no oxygen mask - I always thought it was almost like having surgery going up there, with life support and all sorts.

Was it scary? Did you have any moments where you thought "I shouldn't have done this"? ETA I see you've answered this already...

Yeah it does surprise most people and myself that I went from zero to what I achieved in such a short period of time.
We were on oxygen most of the time from camp 2 on the summit push, but you could last some time at the top without it on, it wasn't like being in space.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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....

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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

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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

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GiantCardboardPlato said:

UTH said:

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

this could just be wales though

Slightly better view though

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Matt.. said:

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?

I hate that it's already been 5 years, I still think about it every day. Sadly I have found out that I am the sort of person with zero motivation for fitness, running etc without a goal like this. And after Everest, K2 would be the next one I'd really love to do, but there is very little chance of that happening without a lottery win and not having a job anymore. So short answer is I've done very little of note like this since, although did do the 3 peaks challenge the year after because Mrs UTH fancied it.

My training plan was weirdly simple, and it did worry me I hadn't done enough. I ran a fair amount, often 10km home from work, and I went to the gym to do a fair bit of leg work. And that was actually about it!
Between the Manaslu trip and Everest I had to leave my job as they didn't want me off work for the month or two it takes to do these trips, so I had 6 months where I had no job, so I was doing a 5km run to the gym, 30 mins in the gym doing my legs, and repeating that 4 or 5 days a week. In my mind as long as my cardio fitness was good, and my legs were strong, I'd be ok. And it turned out I was right.

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GiantCardboardPlato said:

Was it hillier than you expected?
Were you tempted to take a sledge up?
Could you see your house from there?

Having done Manaslu, I think it was pretty much as I expect luckily.
Was tempted to take my skis, but you need more permits for that and more ££
Well, I could see my tent?

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LimaDelta said:

Not to diminish the feat - we all know how deadly it can be, but I am genuinely surprised at how easy it seemed, from the timeline, to the low amount of fitness training required. Did it really feel like you had achieved anything? Is the achievement more financial than physical, in that you managed without great effort? The hardship for most it seems is not the fitness or ability barrier, just merely a question of affordability?

You mentioned K2, which is known to be a much harder climb, and has been summited by fewer people than have travelled to space IIRC. Would you be expected to carry out more training before attempting that one? Are there tourist operators which offer that climb, or would you have to organise your own expedition?

Why do you think so many people chose Everest, rather than K2 or another unclimbed peak, either of which would arguably be more of an adventure? Is it the relative ease or the simple matter of it being the highest?

Yeah I can see where you're coming from, and perhaps it did surprise me that it was slightly 'easier' than maybe I thought it would be. That said, if weather was worse and we spent more days battling through worse conditions, but still making the top which many people do, then it would have been harder of course.
There is an element I think that I seem to have somewhat natural physical attributes to this sort of thing. Pretty much day 1 in Chamonix the guide could see I immediately needed to be taken to harder things straight away.
But, overall, if you are in great shape and you have the mental side sorted, then yes Everest should be achievable to a large number of people.....if they can afford it. And people choose Everest because it's Everest. Personally I'm almost more pleased with my Manaslu expedition. FAR fewer people have ever stood at the top of that one, I did it as the first team that season to summit so we climbed with nobody around.....but say Manaslu to someone and they look blankly at you.

K2 is a LOT harder, but I think I'd stick to similar training, but more intense. End of the day it's still climbing, so strong legs, strong heart, good cardio and I don't think there's actually much more to it in terms of your body.
And in the same way you sign up with an operator for Everest, you do the same thing for K2.....not quite as many operators run there, but that list is growing every year though.

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So, quickly going to try and get a post up for the start of the journey.
Having met up with the leader of the company that would ultimately run my trip to Everest, he had suggested I head out to Chamonix. At this point I'd never even put a crampon (spikey things on your boots) on before, never held an ice axe etc, so this was the first step where you give these things a go and you may well decide "nope, hate this".
Somehow I managed to convince Mrs UTH to come with me - she's usually up for trying things once (fnar fnar) so she said why not, could be an experience. She's not a fan of cold weather, never really skied or spent time in the mountains, so fair play that she came along. Every day was up at 6am to head off up the mountains to crack on with what was planned that day.....by day 3 she had decided that a) this wasn't for her and b) she was holding me back so she spent the next few days enjoying Chamonix while I carried on up the mountain doing increasingly more challenging stuff.

This is probably not the most exciting part of the overall story, so just a few photos of the sort of thing we got up to - learning ropes, crampons, ice axes and general mountain stuff:

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Zaichik said:

Congratulations on those summits - I am jealous of the EU ones!
I took a similar route though over more than two years, starting with trekking to Everest and getting hooked. I subsequently returned becoming more adventurous/higher/challenging each time - Mera, Island, Lobuche, then Aconcagua (argentina), Lenin (Kyrgyzstan), Alpamayo (peru), Ama Dablam then Everest.

I didnt summit Everest - several days at camp4 (up and down from BC twice) with very poor weather including all our tents and equipment being blown away/destroyed. So may return at some point - though I would prefer a different 8k mountain to everest as I have been on and around it so much already and it is now very expensive, bc a circus and the icefall becoming very sketchy.

Like you I have been lucky with weather (mostly) and most of what I have done isnt technically challenging (Ama Dablam and alpamayo perhaps needing some skills), having a very high degree of fitness made it all enjoyable. My training boiled down to lots of hiking long distances over hills with a heavy backpack (100km per week at times) and lots of running. I smoked cigarettes on all these mountains except the higher everest camps when my lighter stopped working).

Now, Aconcagua certainly appeals! A trip to Argentina with the steaks and Malbec, with a lovely climb up a mountain all part of the trip would be amazing. How long did that whole trip take, I seem to remember we're talking a couple of weeks or so, right?

Ama Dablam I wish we'd been able to do as part of our Everest trip, sadly no one was really offering that as part of the package. Annoyingly, the company I went with switched their 'training peak' from Lobuche to Pumori the year after I went.....I wished I could have climbed Pumori.

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Dan_1981 said:

Wow.

How old are you if you don't mind answering?

And how much is actually 'climbing'? Or is it like walking up a pretty steep, snowy hill?

Are there points with huge drops below you?

38 now, depressingly haha. So 33 when I was at the top, so started this whole thing just after 30 really.

I'd say the Matterhorn was probably the one with the most 'climbing' in it.....although actually one of the 'training days' in Chamonix where we went actual ice climbing was probably the most 'climby' thing I've done.
Everest had its moment, but even parts like the Lhotse face which is very famous, that was a case of a very steep ice slope that you just put the toes of your crampons in and keep going up and up. Nothing like hanging on for dear life with your finger tips or an ice axe that might let go any second:

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marine boy said:

What an amazing achievement OP, from an idea to 'done it' in 2yrs, truly inspiring

Dominate your stairs with a big photo on your upstairs landing wall of you proudly sitting on the summit of Everest, the top of the world!

I'll post a photo later of the 'shrine' my wife insisted went at the top of the stairs, including framed originals of the newspaper the day Everest was first climbed. Turns out my Mum's neighbour had stacks of ancient newspapers in their garage, including that one!! Quite a find and very kind to donate to me.

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BoRED S2upid said:

Amazing and how you should do Everest. You hear of rich folk paying to get them to the top with very little climbing experience. You did it properly.

Well, to be fair, I did pay a lot, and started with no experience? But the company I wanted to go with would never let anyone even attempt it without doing the steps I did.