Some final thoughts...

Well I'm back safe and sound in London, it's really nice to be home. Sitting here, I'm not sure what was more dangerous, Manaslu or the Friday night out in Phuket. So many memories but it's all a big blur right now. I've spent the last few days trying to organise photos and all the video. We took over a thousand photos and hours of video so I have my work cut out for me. So much so that my first bit of retail therapy was to buy a new computer, some super Mac that will solve my life's problems. Thailand was great, climbing, eating, drinking, new friends, and some time with wifey. Six weeks has gone since I left, a long time but some good reflection on the trip and life in general.  

First let me say congratulations to the Helen Sovdat from Canmore on becoming the first Canadian to summit Manaslu. Helen is a mountain guide and worked hard to get up and down. It was nice to see the smile on her face when she was on the way down.  

Next, let me say that my thoughts and sympathies go out to the family and friends of Franz Oderlap. Franz died from his injuries after being caught in a serac avalanche just above Camp 1 on Oct 1, the day after we came down from our summit attempt. He was climbing with Davo Karnicar who we met at Camp 1 to film his ski descent. Very sad...  

Since I've been back, I seem to get two questions from almost everyone: 
1. How was it? 
2. What's next?  

The first is the hardest to answer and I think I would have to write a book to fully answer. The short version is it was great, hard but great. The second is a bit vague right now, with only about ten weeks until Christmas, I don't think I have time to climb another 8000 m peak by the end of the year. The short answer to that one though is spending time with my wife, visiting with friends, and god-forbid a bunch of little projects that resemble work. For everything in between, here's a bunch of random thoughts on the experience and what's coming:  

I think my best memory, aside from the joy that I wasn't going to loose any toes, was coming out of the tent at Camp 3 on our summit attempt. After making a slow and deliberate exit from my sleeping bag, covering my body parts with down-filled clothing as I exit, having a bowl of tea that tastes like last nights rama noodles, I struggle with the tent flap and emerge to the world at 6850 m. The air was still, the sun had come onto the col and it was warming us up nicely. My motivation had been lagging the night before and I awoke with a new found drive to get to the top. I'm not sure what it was that was dragging me down the night before, perhaps the incident below or maybe just fatigue or something else. When I think back to people asking me why I was doing this, I still don't have an exact answer. What I can say, is that there are moments in life which are special and for me, I find these a lot in the mountains and I think it is part of what makes me return. When I sit here and think about them, there is always something that is lost but the memory is still there. I can only really describe them as complete moments. This particular one, with the sun on us, a sea of clouds below us, hearing the snow crunch beneath my boots and my nostrils freezing as I inhaled the cold air. Slowing turning through the panorama of peaks piercing the clouds, Annapurna, the Himals, some nameless peaks in Tibet and finally the route to the summit right in your face. Knowing that it was me that had climbed there, and then there is the silence. These are the moments that make people go running for their camera in hopes of capturing some of what they are feeling so that they will trigger any level of sensory recall in the future. I already have a favourite picture from the trip and it does just this for me.  

I think you can generalise and say that most people that enjoy the mountains also respect them. They take the time to educate themselves on how to minimise their impact and conduct themselves accordingly. I can honestly say that one of the lowpoints in the expedition was on Sept 28 when I reached Camp 3. Most of the commercial groups had moved up their summit attempts to that day because of the weather forecast they had received was showing bad for Sept 30. (This was the day we planning for) This meant that my arrival at Camp 3 coincided with some of the group that had been up to the summit. This particular group was from Russell Brice's Himex, consisting of a few clients, the lead guide Adrian, and about ten Sherpas. It starts with an american girl, or United-Stater as Michel consistently insisted was the geographically correct term, sitting on her pack, eating a can of Pringles. She finishes the can and sets it on the snow beside her. A few minutes later, she gets up and starts to make her way down; the other clients start down as well. There were three Sherpas holding bags of garbage, the first throws his into a latrine and kicks the snow wall onto it, the other two are not as determined as the first and just find a simple hole. The lead guide, witnesses all this and even bends down to make sure that the can of Pringles is empty before he leaves it and starts down himself. It struck me that this was everything that commercial mountaineering should not be about. This arrogant attitude was rife through the entire group. Who would want to summit a mountain and leave a trail of garbage behind them? The clients, the lead expats employed and the locals have all been instilled with this and thought it was just fine. Himex was not the first group and certainly won't be the last to dump on the mountain but this what we witnessed in action. We collected two of the three bags of garbage as well as the can of Pringles, none of us had the stomach at that point to go digging in the latrine. An interesting footnote to this is that Russell had told Tchouky that he employs an extra Sherpa to bring down all of their garbage. I guess maybe the garbage Sherpa was sick that day.  

One of the problems I see with commercial operations is that they depend on their summit stats and most first-time clients probably wouldn't look past that, well aside for what kind of internet access they are offering. This could be one of the reasons for putting people on oxygen from 7000 m or even lower in some cases. As they had all moved up their summit runs by at least two days there were some repercussions, mostly people getting sick. We spoke to a Swiss guide who was the only one of three to make it because his friends got sick at Camp 4 and had to turn around. There was also the story of another small commercial group, 5 of them I think, who turned around because of altitude sickness as well. In talking with Kathryn, she was relaying what was written on websites and on this particular one, it was claimed that they had reached the false summit and not continued to the true summit because there were no fixed ropes. I think the chairlift was also broken that day. There is no guardian of the summit, stamping passports at the top so it's down to honesty and integrity to give a true account of your experience, sadly human nature and ego take over for some.  

Before this turns onto a full on hater blog on Commercial Mountaineering, let me say that there was a group that I met that seemed like the gold standard. In fact, you didn't even know it was a commercial operation. The owner likes to keep a low profile and seems quite careful on the clients he accepts.  

Going into this, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life. I had trained hard, done everything I could, and with the exception of a little flu bug a week before departure, had no issues. One of my reality checks in Chamonix was going from the house (1100 m) to the top of the Index at La Flegere (~2500 m) with a 15 kg pack, my best time for this was just under 2.5 hours and I felt good when I got there. That being said, getting from Camp 2 to Camp 3 the first time we went up (nothing on my back) was one of the hardest physical and mental days I've had in my life. If I were to do it again, I would have that experience for the mental side but I don't think anything would change the physical aspect. And still the question, would I do it again? I guess it is more a mental than a physical game. I will say that this is the hardest thing I have ever done.  

My new friend Guillaume ended up doing what I was always mentally prepared to do; wait it out in basecamp. After we left, there was 1.5 m of snowfall and they waited. Then they waited. Then waited some more, then they finally went home. He was in Kathmandu for a few days waiting for a seat in the plane to get back to Paris. Alain, David and Phillipe all packed it in just after us, I think the serac avalanche pushed them over the edge aside from the weather. David has been on a gap year and was due to start business school shortly after this trip so he didn't have much margin for error. We were extremely lucky with the conditions, sun and no snow for the entire month. Damn feet... I'm not sure we or anyone else could ever expect that again, and to top it off, those that made it up went to the true summit. In true Manaslu fashion, the weather went bad eventually.  

So sitting here looking out the window, it's time to move on. October is well underway, November is looking busy with a couple of trips back to the US/Canada. Then December comes with the Christmas season. I've been booking lunch with friends, cleaning up the house, and trying to figure out where to put my energy. Some work projects are cropping up, ice stuff again, as well as a few new opportunities. Kathryn and I have been dying to get a dog but life style just doesn't permit. You might see Coco, our Chocolate Lab puppy in a few of the pictures from the trip. He came with me and really had a good time. Now that I'm back in some reasonable shape, Kathryn is talking about her new career as a triathlete and planning trips around the world, Wildflower in May looks good. I'm sure that means she wants a new bike, I guess I probably need one too. Then there's that ever present question about a family...  

So there you have it, pictures should be up shortly, videos to follow. I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read this along the way and especially to those that took the time to comment or send me a note while I was gone. I'd like to say a special thank you to Tchouky for being a super guide and friend on the trip, and to my my wife for all her love and support along the way.  

D