Imja Tse

Three of us (plus Sirdar and porter) trekked in from Jiri after the obligatory hellish bus ride from Kathmandu. We Arrived at Dingboche 12 days later,dropped my girlfriend at the Snowland Hotel and after a nights rest headed towards the peak. Climbing were myself,my American mate Mike,the Sirdar Ang Kami and our untirable porter Ram Singh. We Skipped basecamp and after a steep lung busting 3 hour climb in HIGH winds but under a sunny sky in very COLD temperatures we reached high camp. Because of the season (Winter) there was no water available and as the snowline and glacier are about an hour or mores climb above high camp we were reduced to cracking ice off rocks and melting that which was a major pain in the ass as the wind kept howling and late afternoon it started to snow meaning eveything had to be done in crowded tents. After a fairly ordinary nights "rest" we awoke at 3 a.m and started melting more ice, it was still very windy and snowing lightly and my mate had a mild case of A.M.S, he decided to stay behind with the porter and the Sirdar and i left high camp at 4.15 a.m. For the first 2 hours or so of the climb we hauled ourselves up the mountain over rocks moving to the right as we went up, this section can be a little tricky, especially in the dark so make sure your headlamp batteries are o.k. When we reached the snow line/glacier and stopped to put our crampons on I found myself standing on a narrow ridge with an awsome drop each side of me (CAREFUL here). After donning crampons we started up again but now moving to the left as we went. After climbing a few small ridges we found ourselves on fairly wide "plateau" of snow looking across at the ice wall that leads to the summit ridge. After carefully crossing the "plateau" (several nasty crevasses) we started climbing the ice wall. Due to it being so early in the season there was no fixed ropes from previous climbers so my Sirdar went up and fixed a line as he went after about 40 minutes of jumaring over really shitty wind eroded ice we reached the summit ridge, turned right and carefully moved towards the summit in very high winds, after jumping one medium size crevasse we reached the summit at 9.55 a.m. Took some photos and video (VERY IMPRESSIVE view) stayed about 25 minutes and started down in high wind and very cold conditions reached high camp at about 12.30 p.m packed up, had some noodles and headed down to Dingboche arriving about 4.30 pm. Momos never tasted so good. A thoroughly enjoyable climb although a little cold at times, should probably have left it for a month.

Ian.A

p.s Sorry to burst your bubble Mr Tom Trimmer but you werent quite the first to Summit in 2000,

an American Peace Corps guy summited 2 days before us and 2 Japanese guys summited the

day before us,but well done and congrats anyway.