The Cholatse Expedition

Disclaimer: This will likely be the final installment of the blog, as I’ll be returning to New York in a few days.

I’ve now been in Nepal for about two and a half months, filling my time with trekking, meditating, and hanging around both the capital of Kathmandu and the lakeside city of Pokhara. I was also set on climbing a mountain while here, and eventually selected Cholatse, a 21,000 foot, technical and exposed peak in the Everest region. In this context, “technical” means that some of the climbing would be on rocky, vertical terrain, and “exposed” means that other sections were extremely narrow ridges with sheer drops of thousands of feet on either side. There are of course professional climbers pursuing significantly more extreme objectives, but as far as guided amateur climbing, Cholatse is about as technical and exposed as it gets.

Here’s a photo of Cholatse, which I took from the base camp. Our plan was to climb to the summit along the ridge on the right:

Cholatse was different from my other mountaineering objectives, on which the terrain had been much more straightforward. I wasn’t particularly excited for the nature of the climbing on Cholatse, but chose it anyhow, predominantly because I’d be able to climb with my dad, who had already signed up for the Cholatse expedition. The expedition would also take about two weeks, which was more appealing than the month-long expeditions of the larger peaks. I had recently come off a month-long expedition in Pakistan, and wasn’t sure I had the mental bandwidth to do it immediately again.

Our expedition started in Kathmandu, from which we departed by helicopter, headed directly for the town of Namche:

En route to Namche, the chopper stopped in Lukla to refuel. Avid blog readers may recall that I once spent 3 full days reaching Lukla by jeep and on foot. I can now report that a 45 minute chopper is the superior mode of Lukla transit.

From Namche, we trekked for 3 days to the base camp. Here’s a photo of one of my teammates, Martin, arriving at the base camp:

Speaking of my teammates, there were five of us in total. Here’s a team photo:

From left to right: Martin (Belgian), myself, Dan (American), Lenny (Australian), my dad, and our expedition leader, Phil Crampton.

Phil is an interesting character in every regard. I could list infinite examples, but here’s one: many years ago, he received an honorary doctorate in ethics for a high-risk rescue he had pulled off on Everest. We called him “Doctor Phil,” accordingly.

We had 3 climbing Sherpas on the team as well. They carried our team gear (tents, ropes, etc.) above the base camp, and fixed ropes to the steeper sections of the mountain. They are the foundation of every commercial climbing expedition in Nepal, and their strength is truly incredible.

As expected, the base camp was a cold but comfortable place. Apart from our team, there was a group of eight Belgians and a handful of independent climbers. Below are some photos from around the camp. The cluster of blue tents were ours:

Here’s a photo of my dad and I at the base camp:

On our third day at the camp, a Buddhist Lama arrived from a nearby village to conduct a Puja ceremony, in which he blessed our expedition for safe passage. Notoriously, the Sherpa will not set foot on the mountain until the Puja is complete. Here’s a photo of the Lama performing the Puja:

After the Puja we were officially blessed and could start to climb. Before heading for the summit, we first took a day trip to the sole campsite higher on the mountain, at 18,500 feet. The climb took about 8 hours roundtrip. We ascended a nearly vertical headwall, but it was an otherwise uneventful day, as the more harrowing climbing on Cholatse is above the high camp. Here are some photos from the climb:

I had a slight head cold, but felt great otherwise and climbed quickly to the high camp. It was a nice reminder of the strength I’ve gained through the climbing and trekking I’ve done this past year.

While descending from the high camp, I slipped and slid into a rock, banging my knee badly. The initial pain was intense, and I figured there was a good chance that I was seriously injured. However, after laying on the ground for a few minutes, the pain subsided and I stood up and descended with a slight limp.

I had avoided serious injury, but something pivotal happened as I fell: along with the pain, I had simultaneously felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the prospect of being too injured to climb.

Once back to base camp, I retreated to my tent and began contemplating the fact that I had subconsciously preferred serious injury to participating in what was a completely voluntary activity. I have attempted to describe my contemplations below, but for those interested in the shorthand version, the outcome was as follows: the next morning, I informed the team that I would not be climbing Cholatse.

Since the start of the expedition, I had been dreading the Cholatse summit day, more so than that of any other mountain I’d climbed. This was mostly because I wasn’t craving the added challenge of technical and exposed terrain. For me, high altitude provides a sufficient physical and mental hurdle. But dreading a summit push is a universal part of the sport, and is also no different from the psychological dynamic of all sorts of athletic endeavors, like running a marathon, for example. Something felt different here though, and I was struggling to pinpoint what exactly it was.

In every facet of life, we weigh the pros and cons of our options and make decisions accordingly. In the mountains, for example, if the satisfaction of reaching a summit will be worth the suffering involved in getting there, we climb. If not, then in theory, we don’t climb. But simply choosing to not climb Cholatse had never really occurred to me, probably because I hadn’t specifically thought about whether or not the satisfaction would outweigh the suffering (and also the risk). But while I sat alone in my tent, trying to make sense of the relief I’d felt in the pain of my fall, I began to realize that on Cholatse, the suffering just didn’t seem worth it.

In hindsight, this was a predictable conclusion. Climbing any mountain requires an intrinsic motivation, which on Cholatse, I’m not sure I ever had. Earlier I described my rationale for choosing to climb Cholatse specifically: my dad was going and it would only take two weeks. Both reasons are completely valid, but at the end of the day, they aren’t enough to get up that particular mountain.

My dad (and the rest of the team) were incredibly supportive of my decision. A few hours after I’d informed them, a chopper landed in base camp, and I was en route to Kathmandu. Here’s a photo of Sonam, the Sherpa I had climbed with, escorting me to the chopper:

Back in Kathmandu, I returned to the Airbnb that has become like a second home these past few months. Once again, I caught up with friends over gin and tonics on the patio, listening to a Bob Dylan playlist while gazing at the hills of the Kathmandu valley. These are some of my favorite memories from my travels.

A few days later, I received the following message from my dad via his satellite phone:

He would later describe a summit day that challenged and scared him nearly to the brink, and went as far as to say that he would have felt immensely guilty had I been up there too. As for the other team members, Martin had, like me, decided not to climb. He seemed mostly fixated on the risk involved (a few days before we reached base camp, a Czech climber had died on the route we intended to climb. It had particularly weighed on the team members with children, like Martin). Lenny and Dan had tried to climb, but were physically exhausted in advance of the summit, and turned back. Hearing how the summit day had unfolded, I felt validated in the choice I had made.

Interestingly, even before hearing the summit day report, I had never once second guessed my decision to leave Cholatse. On the contrary, I was proud of myself for knowing when to drop my usual “I am not a quitter” rhetoric, and make a rational decision to back down.

Despite the outcome on Cholatse, I am ironically quite keen to climb more mountains. A goal of mine is to climb a 7,000 meter (23,000ft) peak like Spantik (on which I got altitude sickness). Rest assured that I will chose one that is neither technical nor exposed. I’m not sure how I’ll find the time for another month-long expedition, but I do know that when the time comes, I am prepared to really suffer for this goal.

As I mentioned, this may very well be the last blog post. It’s been a magical year. As always, thanks for following.