Wandering Goat

Travel stuff by Miguel A. Villarreal

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Location: New York, NY

Friday, August 05, 2005

Ascent Part IV

7-31-2005, Summit Day
 
Summit Day begins at night, at like 2:30 AM, due to weather issues (you have to cross a huge ice field/glacier on the way to and from the mountain, which you don't want to do in the afternoon unless you "VANT TO GO SVEEMING".  Our cook thoughtfully prepared a dinner of baked beans, which I declined as Ed Viesturs would consider it cheating, inter alia.  So I turned in around 8 pm to sleep a bit and plot my victory speech.
 
After the 2 AM wake up call, I loaded up my backpack (strike two for Dashi the cook, who prepared an unconscionably heavy lunch filled with stuff I won't eat like boiled eggs) and strapped on the most godawfully uncomortable, lead footed set of mountaineering boots ever assembled.  Seriously these things were like 4-5 lbs each.  My previous hikes were with lightweight sneaker type shoes, not even close to this kind of weight.  It was like the difference between running a mile and running a mile with a cartoon ball and chain on each ankle. 
 
Making matters worses was that the initial ascent from base camp is punishingly steep and nasty if not dangerous in the dark.  I did it with little trouble yesterday but today with the gravity boots on it was a hideous, hideous challenge.  My lungs were fine due to the diamox but the lactic acid burn in my calves by the time I got to the first ridge was more painful than a naked picture of Gertrude Stein.  After the first 30 minutes I was dreaming up scenarios to bow out gracefully and find a way to waterproof my normal shooes and try again rather than deal with the hell boots.  Not helping matters was that Tundep (T) and the cook Dashi (D) were setting a ridiculous pace as if they had somewhere importaint to be.  Around that point they forced me to start using my climbing pole (which really purple and cute in an elton johnish way), or as they called it " steek" which made matters a bit better.
 
I figured I'd last till Advanced Base Camp and then quit to make it respectable, but as we got past it and into the icefield around hour no. 3, the pain started to fade a bit as we headed up the Southeastern face of Stok Kangri (Kangri means glacial peak in Ladahki, btw).  I was still slow and tired but then strapped on the crampons and got a bit of a second wind going (by withholding steek and crampons from myself till absolutely necessary, I find it gave me a bit of a mental boost) and started making my way up the face and veering left towards the ridges, away from the summit but a gentler route.  A minor setback occurred around 5:30, when the sun rose and I put on my heinous looking glacier glasses, in the process dropping my gloves and watching them slide tantalizingly down the mountain.  Also around that point another group, which had chosen the steeper route, had somebody turn back, which made me feel good in a perverse way. 
 
After another hour or so I started to fade again so I jacked up the MP3 player and started big pimping my way up and up along with Jay-Z.  This was another mental motivational device that lasted for about 30 minutes and then faded, so I switched to the "step salvo" approach after that, where I'd plan to take 5 steps and take 7, 8 and take 10, etc, gasping in between.  I was way behind T&D at this point but was still making a decent if sporadic pace up the mountain, considering that I had to pause to readjust the world's shittiest set of crampons every five minutes by banging them with steek
 
Around 7 or 7:30 I made it to the top of one of the high ridgelines around 19k feet or 5600 meters or so.  I had a minor scare on the way when a handhold gave way (btw, this shit is really, really dangerous) on the way up but was otherwise OK.  I paused to inhale a juicebox and then popped another diamox for the final push to the top.  At this point, neither the muscial-climb-along method nor the step-salvo method was working due to sheer exhasustion.  So, to take things over the top I resorted to a method known to every Catholic school kid and honed in the classrooms of St. Rose, Seton Jr. High, and St. Thomas: self-flagellation. 
 
This consisted of repeating a few phrases mentally and out loud to myself over and over again, and went a little something like this: "come on, stop being such a bitch, do you want this you bastard? Then go take another step! Look at Tundep & Dashi, their families are poor! Probably because you didn't donate to the canned food drive and were busy watching wrestling! But they're already up there! Do you want to be a man! Then get the f- up there you little poseur! GO!"
 
At 8:35 am India time, I made it to the summit, 6,150 m (20,295 ft) above the earth's surface.  The feeling was a mixture of relief, euphoria, absolution, fatigue, and the tiniest bit of disappointment that a challenge had been removed.  I probably could have made it a bit higher, maybe another few hundred feet, but was pretty glad to be at the end.
 
[to be continued tomorrow, the computer is fading here]

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Miguel.

Congratulations!

Keep up the good work!

6:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Goat has summited...long live the Goat!! Hey, Mig, I just KNEW all that tuition to the good sisters and fathers was money in the bank, what a payoff!! Congratulations, Dad is almost as high as you were. Enjoy a few days of rest and a big high 5 to "T" for helping you safely up and down.
H&K,
Mom

8:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jesus man. My goal in the month off I have before starting work again -- and it's 50/50 whether I'll get this done -- is to hang pictures on my walls and put together the desk I bought. If either of those involved anything called "crampons" (sounds like a SNL fake commercial product), there would be no way.

8:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Allow me to be the fourth to congratulate you.

As for me, I managed to climb out of bed this morning!

10:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Praise God and Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, you made it. We've been thinking about you.

1:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats! Please tell that's NOT a guy talking on a cell phone in the background.

12:11 PM  
Blogger Miguel V said...

yeah, that's the only place where he could get reception of course - otherwise it's blocked by mountains

12:36 PM  

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