Doctor's Orders..

On return to basecamp, I had a long discussion with a Doctor that I know quite well as there we a few things that were on my mind.  My feet were the prime concern, had I stopped soon enough?  It would seem so, no lasting damage and the time with the hot water bottles was well spent.  I had seen something that stuck with my on the way down and couldn't really get it out of my head, a dead body.  It was only a few metres away but from the way it was facing you would think it was a tent or something else on the way up.  On the way down, he's looking right at you and you can't miss him.

It had warmed up lower down and the snow was not great, between some wind blown crust at the top, to soupy spring at the bottom, it was not the greatest ski of my life.  We were stopping at all the camps on the way down to collect all of our stuff that was strategically placed for the ascent.  Once we had reached Camp 1, it was home free but there were still odd bits to be collected.  While we were standing there, a climber was just reaching it for the first time and so we started chatting.  He was a Slovenian who had just arrived to try and ski the entire mountain.  He had just spent two weeks trekking with his family in the Khumbu region and had now come to climb.  When I mentioned frostbite, he showed me his left hand which was missing his pinky and ring finger.  After a bit of banter about skis and other things, we wished him good luck and were on our way.

In order for us to have made a second summit attempt, we need about 3 days of rest, then another 4-day clear window of good weather.  The forecast we were getting was showing that in just two days, the jet stream was moving right over Manaslu and we would have 110 km/hr winds on the summit.  In addition to this, there was snow coming.  It would seem that we had used all of our good weather karma and now if there was to be a second attempt it would be in 7-10 days.

Putting all this in the pot and letting it stew, it was time to go.  The next morning, we set about packing everything and then headed down to Samagaon.  The walk down is not trivial and actually my legs were still sore two days later.  As luck would have it, there was another group waiting for a military helicopter to take them back to Kathmandu and they had space.  We waiting patiently with them as the Interior Minister of Nepal was the current passenger and he needed to be finished before we could take up occupancy.  It would have been too good to be true to arrive in Samagaon, then straight to Kathmandu, we ended up spending the night.  The next morning, not exactly on time, but it was there.  We were tricked once when a B1 flew overhead toward basecamp, but shortly after this lumbering beast appeared on the horizon and the 14 of us with all our kit were loaded inside.  The bit that did match up was that we had already changed out flights so that we landed at domestic and went right to international to catch the flight to Bangkok.  Well, one hitch, they hadn't brought our bags so Tchouky jump on the back of a motorbike for a death defying journey to the hotel and back.  It all happened very quickly, and then we were gone.

The sad and sobering footnote to all this is that the B1 that flew overhead on the day of our departure was trying to pick up our new Slovenian friend.  He had been caught in a serac avalanche and was lying in base camp with a cerebral haemorrhage.  It took a couple of attempts to get him out but he was not in a good way.  On our own summit push, we had seen about 4 major avalanches in the area and I stood having that chat with my Doc friend whether or not to proceed.  I don't know exactly where he was but somewhere between Camps 1 and 2.

So as I sit here nursing a slight sunburn and wondering when the sensation will come back to my toes, I can honestly say I have no regret about leaving.  Given the decision of: Toe or Top, I chose to keep the toe and return (maybe) to fight another day.  That's all for now.

Dr. D