Page 10 - AMA Summer 2023

GUESTWRITER
All was going swimmingly until 2019 when the world was struck by the covid pandemic. My plan was to climb Mt Everest in 2020 during my gap year between A levels and university. It was absolutely gutting to receive the phone call, days before I was due to fly out to Kathmandu, that Nepal had closed its borders and Everest was officially cancelled. 4 years of intense training, 6 days a week, 3-4 hours a day and suddenly it was all taken away from me indefinitely. Of course, there were much bigger issues happening in the world relative to my want or ‘need’ to climb Everest but for me it felt like a brick wall was suddenly erected in my pathway to achieving my lifelong dream of climbing the highest mountain in the world. My plans were ruined.
It was at this point, still in tears, that I decided this was not going to defeat me and that I should call someone I knew was going to organise some kind of expedition during covid, Nirmal Purja. Nims is famous for climbing the fourteen 8000m peaks in record time as well as now running a very successful expedition company. I messaged him on social media first and he instantly replied with a phone number telling me to call him right away. So, I did. He felt like a friend right away, like I had known him or climbed with him for years. It was quite strange that someone who had no clue about me could be so open and supportive and even offer me
the opportunity to come on an expedition to Everest in October. Everest is never climbed in October, it’s just too cold and the weather is unpredictable, but I didn’t care at that point, all I could see was myself at base camp amongst the world’s highest mountains and this burning desire to climb which was never going to stop me. October came round quickly, and we were deeper into the covid problem than ever so that was not going to happen, but again, after a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself as all teenagers do, I called Nims again and we met up face to face in Reading.
It was interesting. A few glasses of red wine and a three-course meal in, and he suddenly brought up his winter project, something that only the most extreme climbers would ever dare to do; K2 Winter. The excitement at even just the sound of this project was immense, this was going to be an expedition that would go down in the history books and I wanted to be a part of it somehow. Climbing K2 in the winter was really the last big achievement left to fight for and damn, did people want that crown badly. I asked Nims if I could join him to base camp and possibly climb to camp 1 as a training challenge for my pending Everest expedition, and without hesitation he agreed. That was it, I was officially going to Pakistan in less than two months for the adventure of a lifetime, with a group of the world’s best and most
Training with Dad (Scafell Pike)
talented sherpas, who I didn’t know, and who all spoke minimal English. It really was all a dream come true.
K2 Winter really was the expedition that changed my life. Here I met my climbing partner for life, Gelje Sherpa. I also met 8 other insanely talented sherpas and knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was sat in one of the com- munication tents by the portable heater as at base camp it averaged -25 degrees C, when Nims came in. I had just returned from climbing and spending the night at Camp 1 and had no idea what was coming. He told me point blank “You need to climb the 14 Peaks; you were made to do this”. That reassurance and motivation woke a fire inside me, leading me to instantly call both my university and my parents and tell them that I wasn’t coming home, and I was going to put my life and soul into climbing the fourteen 8000m peaks and becoming the youngest and first British woman ever to do so. And that’s exactly what I have been doing ever since.
Now, the journey has not been smooth, there have been moments of stress, anger, anxiety, happiness, sadness, love and all the emotions in between! Mountaineer- ing is such an all-consuming sport that requires multiple different components to make it work. Aside from the climb itself you must organise all the logistics,
10 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER