Well folks, on March 6 I was the first in our group to summit Island Peak. The pics you see below are me by myself on Island Peak, an area about 4x4 feet with a few flags, crazy drops on all sides, and winds so strong I was afraid to stand up to do the victory self-portrait.
Out of our original group of 6, only 3 made it. The rest dropped out from exhaustion. Honestly this was the hardest physical task I have ever done in my life. Far harder and more dangerous than the YouTube videos made it look. At 6180m, it is hard to do physical things. You are constantly out of breath, and I almost always had a nasty headache. We had to jump over crevasses, deal with broken or rotten ropes, walk over ice bridges, ascend and descend ice walls, and in general do a ton of climbing in ice and snow.
When we made it back to base camp I crawled into my sleeping bag with my clothes still on, covered in grime. I was so tired I was shaking and could not eat or drink. It felt like a fever for 10 hours.
I have to say that I underestimated this expedition. But that's how I roll.
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