6

Swimming to the Moon

May 2017 came around all too quickly, but my deployment schedule had been kind. I’d been confirmed as a member of the G200E, where I would be working as a team instructor. A second attempt at the world’s tallest peak was back on, but this time I wouldn’t have to secure a hefty bank loan to finance the trip. I was a member of the British Armed Forces, my expenses would be paid, and I intended to squeeze the experience for every last drop of adventure.

For a while I’d harboured the idea of climbing Everest and the neighbouring peak of Lhotse, before taking on nearby Makalu in a two week period. Though all three mountains were 8,000-ers, I reckoned it was in me to nail them in around a week or so, but the schedule would require me to move quickly after topping out with the G200E – no mistakes, no hold-ups. The celebratory expedition was made up of around twenty climbers and included Gurkhas, one or two faces from the military elite, and a handful of officers, one of whom was the expedition leader.

If I eventually summited, I’d have to break away and descend at speed, reaching the South Col.FN7 From there I could move quickly, climbing Lhotse and heading down to Base Camp. If everything worked out as planned, I’d then party in Kathmandu for a bit with my Gurkha brothers before taking on Makalu.

I was ready for the challenge. The way I’d made it to the tops of Everest and Dhaulagiri had previously reaffirmed my hunch that I was a strong high-altitude mountain climber. But it wasn’t simply about physical strength, my mindset felt different, too. I seemed to have a very unusual drive when compared to a lot of the climbers I’d met and I often wondered if I carried a different motivation. Like my work with the military, climbing wasn’t about ego, or fame. It was about service.

During operations I constantly reminded myself about the commitment I’d made to the Gurkhas, the British Special Forces and the United Kingdom. I needed to do them proud. The last thing I wanted was to dent their image by failing on a mission and I experienced the same desire on expeditions. I knew that if I could climb Everest, Lhotse and Makalu, the reputations of every institution I’d ever believed in would amplify, as would the efforts of my brothers within them. I also fancied putting my limits to the test, like a runner who sets out to do a five-kilometre run one morning, but ends up doing ten . . . because they can. The mountains were there to be climbed. Did I have the minerals to take them on?

Prior to the G200E, I’d even mentioned it to my officer-in-command. ‘Look, I want to climb Everest, Lhotse and Makalu while I’m there,’ I said. ‘It won’t need me to take any time off. I’ll do the climbs while the other lads are resting in Kathmandu after the expedition and I’ll be on the same flight home.’

‘That can’t be done, Nims,’ he said dismissively. ‘It sounds fucking impossible.’

Untroubled by his pessimism, I readied myself for the challenge anyway. I had to give it my best shot.

We travelled to Nepal in April and once we’d arrived at Everest, the G200E party was divided into two teams. My first job was to guide one of them through the acclimatisation rotations required to reach the summit. The process, which happened gradually, took the expedition into Camp 1 and then over the Western Cwm to Camps 2 and 3. From there we would return to Base Camp, by which point everyone should have been physically primed for a summit push.

When stacked up against my first attempt at the world’s tallest peak, this felt like a tactically wiser operation and I thrived. My confidence had grown so much, but it also helped that some of the group I was leading were both strong and resolute, and able to operate at high altitudes quite comfortably. However, others weren’t so well-equipped and, worryingly, a handful of climbers, which included senior leaders, looked exhausted by the time we reached Camp 1 for the first time. They were slow to acclimatise, which led me to wonder how they could lead if they weren’t up to speed on what was considered to be a fairly straightforward acclimatisation rotation.FN8

Because it was clear which climbers were making serious headway and which ones were fading, I decided to take the strongest on to Camp 2 and then 3, while the slower team members rested at Camp 1 for an extra day of acclimatisation. After completing their respective climbs, the two teams took a couple of days to rest in the nearby town of Namche Bazaar, before briefing day arrived in Base Camp – the moment when the groups would be organised into two expedition units.

Team A was set to lead the climb. Team B would start their ascent once the first group had summited. But when the two parties for our historic expedition were revealed, it had been decided that the slower, struggling leaders should go first, which conveniently included the officers in the group. (I found that a bit weird — a lot of the officers I’d served with in the military elite had put the interests of their men before their own). Meanwhile, most of the stronger climbers were set to follow on as Team B – myself included, as well as two Gurkha Special Forces instructors. For some reason, we’d been resigned to the back of the line. I was pissed off. We’d earned the right.

‘Why are the fastest climbers not on the lead party?’ I asked, the meeting having drawn to a close. ‘Your mission, the mission of the British Government, is to put the first serving Gurkha on the summit. But the strongest have been put to the back.’

The room fell silent; there wasn’t a lot for anyone to say. Their decision had been political and it was painfully transparent. Team A was made up of slower leaders with a handful of Gurkhas chucked in. One of Team A’s members tried to end the dispute by claiming that everybody was now fully acclimatised, and equally strong, but I wasn’t convinced.

‘I saw you all at Camp 1 during the acclimatisation rotations,’ I said. ‘You were knackered and struggling to keep up. How can you lead the strongest members when you are slower than them? What happens if a rescue situation kicks off?’

I was exasperated. ‘OK, if you want to play politics, play politics. It’s not my fight. Good luck.’

Tensions had been running high for days, probably because the mission was looking increasingly precarious. The weather conditions on Everest had been horrific. High winds ravaged everything above Camp 2 and within a week, a series of storms were due to roll in. Then, twenty-four hours prior to us setting off for the summit push, it was announced that some of the fixed lines still weren’t in place. The team charged with setting the last of the ropeFN9 had given up around the Balcony, a crest on the south-eastern ridge, which was positioned 8,400 metres above sea level.

Apparently, the weather was too bad to climb any higher, and with the work incomplete, the G200E suddenly seemed in jeopardy. The mood became bleak, especially as this was our second attempt at getting the job done, taking into account the tragedy of 2015. If the decision was made to abandon our climb, there was a risk we might not get another chance. As a Gurkha, I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that we had failed to scale Everest, even though it was in our home country.

When I scanned through the climbing order again, I realised I was the only person on the mountain who could take on the responsibility of fixing the lines. A number of more experienced mountaineers, who had planned to climb Everest at that time, were packing up and going home. I was the strongest climber by far; I carried the experience and the capability to function in extreme temperatures, and as an elite operator, I certainly possessed enough resilience to nail the mission. Plus, I trailblazed like a badass.

Who else could they rely on?

‘I’ll go up and set the ropes,’ I announced, as the worrying intel about our fixing team spread through the group.

Most of the lads around me had assumed the mission was effectively over and seemed pleasantly taken aback at my offer, even though everybody on the G200E team had learned first-hand about my mountaineering skills. The fact that I’d scaled two 8,000-ers already, one of which was Everest, was now common knowledge too; as was my rescue of Seema.

Meanwhile, my role on military operations was to get the job done, no questions asked, and personal agendas or politics were always put to one side. I adopted the same attitude with the G200E team. Any negativity was ignored.

‘Trust me, I can do it,’ I continued.

Eventually, the G200E leaders agreed with my plan – nobody could really argue – and it was decided that I would lead a fixing team, which included two Special Forces operators, both of whom were Gurkhas, and eight Sherpa guides. The expedition schedule was also changed. If our against-the-odds, line-fixing mission ended up being successful, it was decided that the majority of climbers would switch to Team A. While they climbed, Team B would wait at Base Camp, only moving up once the first group had summited.

The pressure was high, but I felt confident enough, climbing steadily by using the trailblazing techniques I’d first learned on Dhaulagiri. We worked comfortably to Camp 2, sleeping overnight before heading to Camp 4. Having rested briefly, we then made our summit push and, keen to lead by example, I burned alone for 450 metres, from Camp 4 to the Balcony. It felt important that my teammates realised I was happy to put in the hard yards, rather than asking a Sherpa guide to do it instead. In situations of that kind, respect and credibility were earned.

The sun was up. As we worked across the South Summit and, later, the Hillary Step, it was impossible not to be overawed by the view of Nepal and Tibet around me. But I had no time to stop and gawp. As the leader of a line-fixing team, I knew that if we were unable to set these last few ropes, the entire expedition would collapse. According to comms, Team A were rapidly closing in on Camp 4 behind us. If we were turned around now, everybody would need to leave for Base, because the expedition’s supplies of food and oxygen were about to be used up. The entire mission would need to be resupplied and that would take time and serious effort. Given the season for climbing Everest was about to close and there was no other weather window in sight, the G200E hinged on our progress.

Luckily, my stamina hadn’t faded. Around ten metres from the peak, as some of the slower lads in the line-fixing crew caught up, I held back from making the final push alone. ‘Brothers,’ I thought, ‘We’re doing Everest as a team.’

Once everybody had joined up, we put our arms around one another’s shoulders, making the last steps together.

This was history. We had set the fixed lines and thirteen soldiers from the regiment eventually made it to the top during the G200E. (Our ropes would also provide a route for climbers on Everest at the end of that season). For some of those lads, the climb was a clearly defined endgame, a challenge that couldn’t be topped. Where else would they go next? But I was a million miles away from closure. When I looked across at the mountain ranges below me, I knew the next phase of my adventure was waiting. A new beginning had been set in motion.

* * *

I was ready. To immediately climb Lhotse and then Everest once more – where I was due to help the second G200E team to the top as the only designated instructor with the stamina to climb the peak, back to back – I’d need support. A Sherpa guide had been called in for each of my summit attempts and several oxygen cylindersFN10 had been distributed across the mountains for me. But everything came crashing down shortly afterwards. As I prepared to leave the South Col for my second peak of the day, word filtered through that the lines on Lhotse were also incomplete. Having experienced the same conditions as the team on Everest, the fixing crew had temporarily halted their work shortly after Camp 4.

Even worse, the Sherpa I was supposed to be climbing Lhotse with had fallen sick and was already descending to Base Camp. I moved from tent to tent trying to convince one of the other guides to join me, but everyone seemed unable to make another summit push in such a short space of time.

My heart sank. Climbing Lhotse solo for the first time was probably beyond me and one fuck-up would have impacted on the hopes of Team B waiting at Everest Base Camp – they needed me to lead them to the summit. I didn’t want to let them down. The group had worked so hard to achieve their dreams of scaling Everest with the G200 Expedition. I packed up and headed down, fuming.

By the time I’d reached Camp 2 and rested overnight, it was announced that Team A had reached the top, around eighteen hours after I’d finished my Everest summit. I felt triumphant; our efforts had been worth it, but in a heartbeat the good news was overshadowed by some bad, when it was decided that the expedition was effectively over. Because a number of serving Gurkhas had already summited, the mission had been completed and it had been decided the climbing should stop. The lads still waiting for their shot at Base Camp, blokes who had sacrificed their time and, in some cases, money to fulfil their dream, were going home. It felt like a really selfish move. When I later met up with Team B, the scene was heartbreaking. A few of the lads were in tears.

What had been the point in cutting them down? Some people might argue that, yeah, the job had been nailed, so was there any point in risking more lives on such a dangerous mountain? But those Gurkhas, while not the quickest in the group, were certainly stronger than a lot of climbers that would successfully top out on Everest at the end of that season. They had also understood the risks associated with high-altitude climbing, so there was no harm in sending them up.

But in the fallout, it also dawned on me that had everything gone to plan – if the official fixing team had done their job, and had the original Team A made it to Everest’s peak – my role in Team B would have been redundant, too. I’d have been stuck at Base Camp with the others.

I later partied with my Gurkha brothers in Kathmandu a couple of days later, but the buzz of success was offset by a sense of bitterness within the blokes that had been held back. They were pissed off and I couldn’t blame them. The expedition had ended on a sour note. And as I knocked back beer after beer, the same question came back to me, over and over. Yeah, but can you do even more, brother? My first attempt at Lhotse had been written off, but I was now hearing that the fixed lines had been set all the way to the top. That meant my aim of climbing Everest and then Lhotse and Makalu in the two-week window I’d previously set for myself was back on, though the timing was bloody tight. (And I’d have to climb Everest once again, but I figured, What the hell?). I mission-planned my routes along the three peaks, estimating I’d need some luck with the weather to nail the schedule. I’d first work my way up to Everest’s Camp 3, climbing across to the summit of Lhotse. I’d then backtrack across to the South Col before scaling Everest. Once that was done, I could then travel over to Makalu’s base camp via helicopter.

This was a huge test of endurance, but logistically, I had zero concerns: my oxygen was already in place and I could scoop up the cylinders as I worked my way across the mountains. Plus, the Sherpas I’d booked for the initial attempt were still happy to climb. Yes, I was a little behind schedule, but I’d topped a couple of 8,000ers before and never required anything in the way of recovery time afterwards, so it was within reach for me to move quickly. All I needed was self-belief.

And then disaster struck.

An entire book could be devoted to what happened next, but having arrived at the foot of Everest a day or so later, I noticed a cluster of oxygen cylinders on the ground alongside a pile of other discarded equipment from the G200E. When I looked closely, I realised the bottled air was mine. A Sherpa, having wrongly assumed that I’d decided to pack up and head home, had brought some of my air down from one of the camps. I hit the roof. And then, at the worst possible moment my smart phone vibrated. My brother Kamal was calling. When I answered, he was shouting angrily.

‘What the fuck are you still doing up there?’ he yelled. ‘You’ve climbed Everest twice already. Last year you saved someone’s life. Now this year you saved a whole expedition from being a failure. Your name’s already flying around. People know you . . . what are you hoping to prove?’

At first, I tried to explain. I wanted to tell Kamal about what I hoped to do. Surely he’d understand that this wasn’t about me, or my name? But there was no time and my brother wasn’t in the mood to listen. Having been caught in an emotional drama due to my dumped oxygen, it seemed important to avoid any further flashpoints or setbacks. So I hung up. Kamal and his lecture could wait.

I needed time to think. Close to being overloaded with equipment and oxygen bottles for my next climb, I didn’t have the space for the extra air I needed, but I consoled myself with the fact that I had air waiting for me at another two camps across the mountain. However, as I ascended to Everest Camp 2 and then Camp 4 at Lhotse, it was clear that nearly all of it had gone. Angrily, I searched the tents and scrabbled around in the freshly dumped snow, as the harsh reality of mountain life dawned upon me.

Someone had stolen it.

I was furious. Climbing without air would go against the principles I’d set for myself following the rescue of Seema. Yes, I had the strength to scale Lhotse, Everest and Makalu anyway, but if I started undervaluing the promises I’d made, the process would become habitual and I’d never hit my targets.

This was an ethos I’d long applied to life: if I ever got up in the morning and told myself that I was going to do three hundred push-ups that day, I made sure to do them, wholeheartedly, because to skip the effort would be to break a commitment, and breaking commitments led to failure. But I also understood that getting angry about the situation wasn’t going to help. Military training had taught me it was imperative to remain emotionally strong: flipping a negative event into positive momentum was the only way to remain focused on my primary objective.

Get it together, Nims. Stay tough, bro. You are different – you will find a solution to this problem.

Drawing in some settling breaths, I reframed the developing shit show. I visualised my oxygen going to a better place. I forced myself to believe the cylinders had been swiped to save the life of another climber. Someone has survived because of your oxygen, Nims. Having emotionally reset, I adapted to the situation, tweaking my schedule and moving across to the South Col again. My plan was now to top Everest first, in what was shaping up to be a stormy event. I’d then climb Lhotse – where I’d arranged for a friend to drop some bottled air for me at Camp 4 – and finally Makalu.

The wind howled around me and for a brief moment, there was a feeling of self-doubt. What I was about to attempt was huge. But could I make it?

I steadied myself.

Yeah. You can.

I scaled Everest when the mountain was at its most vicious – hurricane winds swirled at the peak, shards of ice seemed to strike me like bullets, in conditions so severe that a number of other climbers would die that day. But leaning into the blasts, and knowing that my speed would help me, I worked as quickly as I could with my Sherpa; the pair of us fearing for our fingers and toes in the cold as we waited for forty-five minutes at the Hillary Step, a traffic jam of climbers moving up and down its face to the peak. When I eventually topped out, I then dropped to Lhotse with a new Sherpa, pushing on to Camp 4. I looked at my watch at its summit. I’d been climbing for ten hours and fifteen minutes. Now only Makalu remained untested.

Full disclosure: at that point I had no idea I’d broken the world record for climbing Everest and Lhotse in such quick succession. It wasn’t my aim, only topping three peaks had been in my sightlines, but when I was told at Base Camp that the previous best had been twenty hours, I was shocked. I’d accidentally cut nearly ten hours from the fastest registered time.

Another record was in reach. If I could climb Makalu in the next few days, I’d break the world record for the quickest time taken to top Everest, Lhotse and Makalu. I was then informed that nobody had ever climbed Everest twice, plus Lhotse and Makalu in one climbing season. I fancied my chances even though I’d never climbed Makalu at that point and it was the fifth highest mountain in the world. With a helicopter set to take me to the next base camp, piloted by my good mate Nishal, one of the best high-altitude pilots around, I buzzed with excitement at the potential of what was within reach.

‘Brother, you’ve just smashed a world record,’ said Nishal, hugging me at the landing zone.

‘Yeah, and I can get another one at Makalu.’

I wanted to rush my next steps, but Nishal was keen to put my achievements into perspective. ‘Mate, you said you’d do all three mountains in fourteen days,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a few days to crack Makalu and still catch your flight home with the G200E guys. Why don’t you enjoy the moment? Party for a bit!’

He then pointed out that 29 May was coming up, an event in the Himalayas also known as Everest Day. The celebration marked the first-ever summit of the mountain in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary.

‘Bro, there’s going to be drinking and parades,’ said Nishal. ‘Everyone’s going to be having a lot of fun. You should think about it.’

Realising I could celebrate Everest Day and still have time for the world record, I agreed. I was on holiday after all. Nishal’s helicopter swooped into Namche Bazaar and I partied hard, drinking and dancing with some business friends. All the while, though, I remained fixed on Makalu. And Nishal reckoned he had a scheme that would save me even more time.

‘Nims, you don’t seem tired at all,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you stay here for a bit longer and I’ll drop you off at Camp 2 on Makalu rather than Base Camp? No extra charge.’

By my estimate, a chopper ride to Camp 2 usually arrived with an eye-watering price tag of several thousand pounds. What Nishal had proposed was an incredibly generous offer (and he’d stayed sober for my ride the next morning) – but it wasn’t for me. To his surprise, I shook my head. By climbing Makalu the next day, from bottom to top, I’d have broken two world records, and learned a lot about the limits of my physical and mental strength. There was no way I wanted to be accused of cutting corners. I needed everything to be legit.

‘Thanks, but no way, man,’ I said. ‘I’m doing this properly.’

Nishal scowled. His friends looked a little annoyed too and I sensed my decision had been mistaken for rudeness, or a lack of gratitude. As the hours passed and the drinking became even sloppier, they couldn’t believe I’d passed up such a generous offer. The debate warmed up to the point where a fight looked set to explode. Then Nishal made his final attempt at twisting my arm.

‘But no one will know!’ he shouted.

‘I will! Sure, I could lie to the whole world. I could make out I’ve climbed all three mountains from bottom to top, but I won’t lie to myself, brother. No way. I’m doing this properly.’

Through the fug of beer, the guys around us gradually came to understand my motives. I explained to everyone that I’d appreciated the gesture, but Makalu was now so much more than the scaling of another peak, or one more achievement on a bucket list of mountains. It was about conquering the last in a hat trick of Himalayan peaks, but in the right way, with integrity, which was important because the effort was a moment of self-discovery on what I could truly achieve if I threw all my physical and psychological resources at a bold expedition idea.

And I smashed it.

Having left Makalu’s base camp twenty-four hours later, brutally hungover, I blasted to the peak, all 8,485 metres of it in one hit, leading from the front with my small team and trailblazing through heavy snow, high wind, and disorientating cloud cover until I’d reached the top. This in itself was an achievement. Nobody had climbed Makalu that season, though a number of teams had tried, only to be pushed back by the treacherous conditions.

Once I’d made it back to Base Camp in one piece and discovered our helicopter ride back to Namche Bazaar had been shit-canned thanks to some terrible weather, I then took on one of the hardest treks in Nepal on foot with my Sherpa team, at speed, running all the way to Kathmandu, only stopping to drink beer and whisky, until we’d completed a six-day journey in eighteen hours. Only one dude, Halung Dorchi Sherpa, had lasted the pace with me and I’d felt strong, drawing on my combat training to push through the pain.

I had broken two world records – by climbing Everest and Lhotse in ten hours, fifteen minutes and then topping Everest, Lhotse and Makalu in five days. I was also the first person to climb Everest twice, then Lhotse and Makalu in the same season. And I didn’t even feel done.

Having made it to England in one piece, joining my G200E brothers on the flight home, I eventually visited Kamal to see how he was doing. His voice cracked as we spoke. I could tell he was trying not to cry.

‘You are my brother,’ he said, explaining his anger. ‘I was worried about you.’

Any frustration I’d felt for him had faded. ‘Listen: it’s all good. But when you called me, I was in a moment where I was doubting myself. And then when someone like you, who I respect, tries to put negative energy into my head, it can be hard work to turn it around. I needed positivity. That’s why I had to hang up the phone.’

‘Why didn’t you explain?’

‘I had no time! There had been a fuck-up with my oxygen, there was too much going on and I had to focus on that rather than justifying myself to you.’

By the time we’d finished chatting, Kamal understood the whys of what I’d done. It was then my job to figure out the how.