Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

Reading this, you probably don’t get the sense of how surreal that summit day
feels. You start climbing in pitch black. The only sounds are panting and the
squeak of plastic boots in cold snow. No one has the energy to talk – it takes all
your breath just to put the next foot forward. It’s 5am in the freezing morning.
But as you walk out over the glacier, it starts to get light. And as it does, you
realise where your days of panting and slogging have got you. Your rope is strung
out over a perfect bowl of snow. All around you are ice-fluted Himalayan giants.
And now, for the first time, you are looking across at them, not up. It’s the kind of
view normally reserved for the elite of the mountaineering world, yet here you are
enjoying it. There are crevasses to peer down. Snow-bridges to cross. You feel a
strange mix of privilege and stuttering confidence, as though you are a fraud who
could be found out at any minute and escorted down the mountain for not really
belonging.
But you do belong. You walked here.
And slowly, step by breathless step, you reach the top of the glacier and the
steep slope above it.
From here to the summit is 820ft (250m) of fixed rope that loops its way along
the perfect snaking S of a ridge 3ft (.9m) wide. With a fixed rope to clip into, it’s
the safest and most exhilarating part of the whole climb.
You put your head down and keep breathing, keep trudging. Then you hear a
primal scream of joy from the first of your group to make it. That gives you the push
you need and pretty soon you’re there too.
You’re standing on a platform big enough for five people. All around you, the
ground falls steeply away. It might not be the actual top of the world, but it feels
close enough. From here you can see why it’s called Island Peak – the 20,305ft
(6,189m) summit rises jagged from a sea of glaciers. Beyond those glaciers tower
some of the biggest mountains in the world: Everest, Makalu, Lhotse, Ama Dablam.
You’ve made it – your very own Himalayan peak.
You wait for the rest of your group to join you and desperately try to paint the
view into that section of your memory labelled ‘Special. Do not delete. Ever.’
Monday-afternoon daydreams will never be the same again. PP
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
‘Sherpa’ is the name of the ethnic group that lives in the Everest region, even