Our climbing objective was Island Peak at 6,189 meters (20,305ft) that is next to Lhotse and Mt. Everest. It was me and Tenzing Lakpa Sherpa and a porter named Bibusan Rai. We started our journey by flying from Kathmandu to Lukkla which is ranked the most dangerous airport in the world and after flying to and from I believe it. We were flying in on a turbo prop plane from the 80s and the runway was an uphill ramp that was probably half as short as it should have been but the angle of the runway made the plane stop faster… if it didn't we were going into the side of the mountain. But the pilots were incredibly skilled so even though it felt chaotic, it was another form of organized chaos.

We started walking from Lukkla through little towns that have no cars, just trails with mountain locals and porters walking carrying supplies. Wow, life is even more simple and with a society of not having motorized vehicles shows how incredibly strong and resilient these people are. The porters are wearing sandals and carrying loads up to 100kg with only the use of their neck and back. We spent the next 6 days hiking tea house to tea house enjoying the views of Everest, Lhotse, Ama dablam and many more peaks that I cannot pronounce nor know how to spell. 

We made it to chukung at 4750 meters  (15,500 feet) and the altitude finally started to hit me where I started getting pressure headaches when lying down but when walking the altitude only took the wind out of me if I started walking too fast. The next day we made our way to high camp at 5,500 m (18,000ft) which is the highest point I have ever slept at. Following my meditation retreat and practicing meditation everyday up to this and during, it was an incredibly peaceful time for me where my only obligation was walking everyday and letting my thoughts flow like clouds in the mountains. It's funny how mornings are always clear and the clouds come in during the afternoon, so similar to our minds.

Wow, High camp was special except we did not have a water source nearby. We ended up hiking an hour each way with a backpack and trash bag to fill up water for the day. Easy if you are at sea level but something else at this altitude. 

Just like any alpine climb, the alarm rings too early. I went to bed with a killer headache and slept next to Tenzing who might be the loudest snorer I have ever heard. I was wondering drifting to sleep if his snores could set off avalanches on the mountain. Tenzing and I became super close even with his snoring. The most peaceful man with a child laugh and calves the size of my head. He taught me about Tibetan buddhism, stories of his climbs up Everest and Ama Dablam and every day we had a word of the day in Nepalese. It was a special time hiking and climbing with him and I could not have done it without him. Sherpas do not get the credit they deserve when it comes to climbing here and in my opinion they are the best mountaineers in the world. We also played about 5-6 chess matches a day going back and forthwith who was punishing the other for a mistake. 

If you look up Island Peak online, you would see that it is a technical mountain with ropes to jumar up and more of a slog to the summit. We were the first team of the season to climb it and it was nothing of what I expected or read. 

We left high camp at 3 am and made our way through 3rd and 4th class scrambling to crampon point at the start of the glacier at 5,800 m. We made good time and arrived at 5 am as the sun was beginning to rise. We started on the glacier and very quickly realized that there were no ladders, no path, no ropes, and a lot of crevasses. The route turned into a complex maze of crevasses where we started belaying each other across thin snow bridges. It was the most amazing feeling having the creativity of climbing a mountain without a path, especially in a place as epic as the Himalayas and the setting that we were in. We made our way safely through 3 crevasse crossings where we were traversing 80-90 degree ice walls with crevasses looming below us. Absolutely exposed and epic. 

The first set of crevasses we crossed led us to a huge low angle snow field. This was the base of the head wall.  The head wall had no clear way through and went from 50 degrees to about 80+ degrees of crevasse, rock, ice, and snow. I was incredibly intimidated but was determined to find a creative way to the summit. We made our way through some of the steepest ice climbing I have ever done through 3 snow bridges and a steep couloir to a set of tattered fixed ropes that were from last season. Tenzing warned me not to pull on the ropes because the cores freeze and thaw and lose their mechanical properties and can rip. So that being said, I hooked my jumar up to the one rope that looked the best and while Tenzing belayed me with the intent of no falls, I Ice and mixed climbed my way up about 60 meters using the jumar as my safety and carefully not weighting it.

I arrived at the last of the ropes where the ropes were buried with snow and Ice and did not look good. I belayed Tenzing up the steep face about 40 meters from the summit. My sat phone read 6140m. We were looking down on the knife edge and could see the summit so close that we could touch it. It was 9 am and it took 4 hours for us to make our way through the maze of crevasses and the head wall. We were exposed and on an anchor or 3 ice tools. 

Tenzing started leading up the final pitch where he quickly realized the snow was losing its strength as it was starting to warm and after 5 m downclimbed sketched out. From there we made the decision to turn around just a short way from the summit to climb another day. We were the first climbers of the season to make it as far as we did with a mountain that changed a lot from last season. For me I was not attached to the summit but grateful to flow in the mountains and be in such an epic and beautiful place and have it all to ourselves. A team the next day attempted it and made it to the same spot we did with protection. We were soloing everything. It would have been nice to have had a couple of pickets and ice screws. We snapped our high point photo and started the hairy descent.