so bad. I was launched back into the chaos of home life, of work, getting the kids to school, of teaching and recording my podcast. Because I had to keep it together for the kids, I ended up having no time to dwell on worry. I had the odd snatched conversation with Ben, but since neither of us are great on the phone, he sent pictures of his trek to Base Camp instead.
A few months before he left, he asked me what I thought of asking my father to join him on the walk to Base Camp. My father has always loved walking and adventure. It was he who took us as children, often moaning and unwilling, up the Austrian mountains during our long summer holidays. His walking boots were well worn in and he was never happier than when he had my grandfather’s old canvas rucksack slung over his back and a pair of binoculars in hand. While resting, his nose was often buried in a book recounting some extraordinary adventure. It was he who first introduced me to the genre of literature that I would become fascinated by, handing me his well-thumbed copy of Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.
Ordinarily, taking a long period of holiday would have been impossible. For nearly 50 years, my father has been a GP and taking that much time off from his practice would not have worked. However, he’d made plans to retire in February and the March departure of Ben, Kenton and Victoria could not have been better timed.
My father needed little persuading. As a family, our greatest worry was that our father, who seemed to thrive on a busy and full life, would be bored in retirement. He was honoured to be asked, but wanted to check that Ben was only asking him because he genuinely wanted him along, rather than because he felt duty bound to do the right thing.
Having a 70-year-old retired GP on a trek to Everest is probably not something Kenton and Victoria had anticipated. But for years his patients had joked that he’d somehow found the secret to eternal youth, regularly drinking from some fabled elixir that prevented him from ageing. In spite of his years, he is lean and fit and his dark hair is only just starting to become peppered with grey. We were having lunch shortly before he left, after visiting an outdoor shop to kit him up, and I’m sure many people presumed that I was actually his wife.
I loved Ben for asking my father to join him on the walk to Base Camp. I hadn’t ever thought about the possibility, but the suggestion was perfect. It shows what a thoughtful and insightful person my husband is. Instead of being consumed by the stress of the preparation of such a mammoth expedition, he continued to think about our families, not blinded by what lay ahead.
The weeks before they set off, I saw the eager anticipation in my father’s eyes. ‘Well, actually I’m off to Everest,’ he’d tell people who asked what his retirement plans consisted of, his eyes twinkling with the thrill of it all. His friends, family, patients and colleagues were beside themselves with excitement. One weekend, as the children played in the garden, I set up an Instagram account so that he could keep us all abreast of his adventures. Within a week, hundreds of friends were following, desperate to follow his adventure.
It was these updates, starting with a selfie of Ben and my father, shortly after arriving in Kathmandu, with flower garlands around their necks, smiling goofily at the camera, that were the highlights of those early weeks. As their trip started, @TheWanderingGP, my father’s Instagram moniker, recounted his hair-raising flight into Lukla, the world’s most dangerous airport, where the carcasses of less fortunate planes littered the apron and hillside around; their overnights in teahouses and the people whom they encountered on the trail. My favourite showed my father with his arms around Kenton and a Nepali climber, Kami Rita Sherpa, who had summited Everest an astonishing 22 times.
‘Between the three of us there have been 33 successful summits of Everest (Kenton 12, Kami Rita Sherpa 21, The Wandering GP 0 (for now)),’ he wrote, brilliantly signing off JH (Jonathan Hunt), reminding us that his understanding of the 21st-century phenomenon that is social media would only go so far.
Everywhere I went, all anyone wanted to talk about was Everest, about Ben and how my father was getting on. And inevitably they asked whether I was worried, whether I was sleeping and how I was coping, and honestly, I responded that I was okay … for now. The reality was that I was only okay because they weren’t yet doing the dangerous bit.
CHAPTER FOUR
I would describe Kathmandu airport as organised chaos. We navigated around huge piles of grain sacks and boxes being loaded onto the aptly named ‘Yeti’ Airlines plane. Bags and passengers were weighed. Vast piles of identical, tough North Face kit bags soared like a mini mountain range. It seemed every hiker, trekker, traveller and mountaineer had packed the equipment. And it also seemed impossible that each bag would arrive at the correct destination.
Not that it would be a problem for me, because I didn’t have any bags.
Ahead of our expedition, I had spent the best part of six months assembling the best kit and equipment I could. It began when Victoria and I had visited the Manchester factory of PHD, a company that has been making cold-weather expedition gear for years – and which I first came across when I walked across Antarctica to the South Pole. PHD provided a pair of their thick down mitts, which were the best kit on that whole trip, and I had vowed that if ever I was to return to a polar region or to high altitude, I would use their bespoke services.
Victoria and I had caught the train up from London and together crossed the city that had been the home of British Cycling and therefore also her home for many years. PHD still occupies one of the old mills that dominated this part of Northern England. On the factory floor, half a dozen women, who all seemed to be called Margaret, worked on sewing machines, making individual bespoke sleeping bags, jackets and the all-important ‘summit suits’.
Jacob, the manager, showed us around the small factory and took us into the ‘down’ room. It was only after I watched Victoria squirm when she was offered a handful of down feathers that I remembered she is vegan. Despite her animal welfare sentiments, Victoria had agreed, on the advice of high-altitude experts, to use down rather than synthetic filling.
While synthetic filling is a perfectly good substitute in normal life, up in the death zone (anywhere above 7,600 metres) temperatures regularly plunge below minus 40 ˚C, and a good quality down-filled jacket can mean the difference between life and death.
Victoria had consistently struggled with the cold during our training climbs and we knew that she needed the best insulation in both her sleeping bag and her clothing. We decided to opt for full-down summit suits and sleeping bags which we would then complement with a range of kit and equipment that could be worn underneath.
Before Marina, the children and I set off for our holiday in Sri Lanka, I filled two giant duffle kit bags with all my gear including climbing boots, crampons, harness, ice axe, jumar, summit boots, climbing helmet, summit gloves, pee bottle – everything you need to climb Everest.
I filled a third bag with enough food, treats and snacks to last me the eight weeks on the mountain. One of the side effects of altitude is a loss of appetite. Without food, climbers quickly lose weight, muscle and energy. I knew I had to pack as many things to pique my appetite as possible or risk failure in our summit bid. So, I packed fresh coffee and chocolates, Jelly Babies and kimchee to add to our food. I also bought tins of sardines and packets of salami just in case.
The bags were all carefully packed, labelled and shipped to Nepal weeks before I was due to arrive.
Only they hadn’t arrived. Or if they had, no one was sure where they were. I was stuck in Kathmandu, about to climb the tallest mountain on earth, with just the clothes on my back – which amounted to a thin shirt, shorts, a thin jacket and a pair of sandals. To be absolutely honest, I also had a tiny carry-on bag that contained a spare pair of shorts, and my walking boots which I always take in my hand luggage just in case, but that was it.
To make matters worse, we were on a tight timeframe.