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mentally preparing for what lies ahead, I felt that to have a guitar was a real coup. Although I’m not sure the rest of the team quite saw it
like that over the next few months. Heathens.
    At 6.30 a.m. I strapped the guitar to my rucksack and we said farewell to the Nepalese. They grinned and bade us good luck in what the Tibetans call the ‘poisonous gas’: the thin air
of high altitude. We lowered our faces to the morning chill, and headed off for the last five-hour stretch that would bring us eventually to Base Camp.
    We hadn’t got far, though, when the first effects of the food we had eaten began to kick in.
    ‘Won’t be a second, Mick,’ I announced as I scurried off behind a large rock on the glacier to get rid of the better part of me that morning. But it wasn’t all of me by
any means. Frequent stops every ten minutes along the way followed, to the great amusement of Mick.
    Getting the ‘runs’ though, is part of life when climbing in the hills of Nepal. The locals never wash much, and their food cannot be kept fresh for long – so their resistance
to bacteria is therefore higher. I had been brought up on picking my pork chop up off the floor at home if I had dropped it, but, even for my stomach, some of the food we had at Lobuche was proving
a bit much. The best and only way to cope with these ‘part of life’ occurrences was just to allow the body to work its course naturally. When it expels whatever is reacting against you,
you feel instantly better. Bunging yourself up with Imodium or other diarrhoea tablets just delays the whole process.
    By mid-morning I was much better, but a little dehydrated. We were slowly contouring our way along the side of the glacier, winding through the ice and debris of rocks that had been deposited
along the route. These piles of rocks create a vast wasteland, and we followed an old yak-trail to avoid becoming disorientated. We were exhausted though by this clambering up and down huge
boulders, and rests became more and more frequent.
    Part of me felt maybe only now was I beginning to realize the ‘enormity of the task ahead’, to quote Mallory; the enormity of this challenge that maybe should have remained just a
dream. I was struggling at even this height. How on earth was I going to be able to go up into the extreme altitudes that we knew lay ahead, kilometres vertically above where we were now, when I
was currently worrying about the 100 feet or so of height change that day?
    My goals at this time were so small, and I couldn’t really focus on much more. But maybe that would be the key. I remembered hearing that to eat an elephant one has to start with a small
bite. But at present I was having difficulty digesting even that.
    As we continued along the route, we came to a cluster of stone memorials. These had been built in honour of some of the men who had died on Everest. Each one being about eight feet high, with a
photograph wedged in the middle. These served as a chilling reminder of the authority of the mountain. Rob Hall’s memorial stood quietly there, with a few prayer flags billowing on top of it.
The tragedies keep happening, yet people still come back. I wondered if that showed bravery or recklessness; and couldn’t decide. The numbers though tell the story simply – 162 lives
lost on her slopes.
    The final three hours towards Base Camp took us right into the glacier itself. From this point on, being so early in the climbing season, there was no established route, and we weaved our way
along, heading in the direction of Base Camp. At certain points in the glacier, we would glimpse the Sherpas’ tents in the distance. As we then descended back into the mass of rocks and ice,
the tents would once more become hidden from view.
    Dramatic drops that led down to frozen lakes below endlessly blocked the route. We would then be forced to try another route, winding through the maze of glacial rocks. Going up and down huge
scree slopes and