Day 14 - Last Full Day on the mountain for me

Today is a weird day as the only people that wake up in base camp are me and Tim. We have a nice breakfast and lunch. I go and take a walk across camp to explore areas of it I may have not seen and then I take a meditation / self reflection walk to the nearby glacier. I ponder and think. I keep wondering what is taking place up above in C2 and how the team is doing. I keep thinking of Rob. I am glad I am on wifi so that I can call home and check up on things. You know… dopamine rush from Instagram and those sort of things.

Tim and I chat. It’s a weird day. You can feel tension in the air.

The group and the guides come down at around 4pm. We greet each one of them and we are excited to hear their stories and to catch up. A lot of chatter goes on and off for about 2 hours. Then we also have Nims get on the phone and he talks to us. There is a discussion of a possible 2nd summit attempt although the weather is not that great and the new summit push would have to come in a few days. So I start thinking whether I should give it another try or whether I can afford the extra time on the mountain.

What’s weird is that aside of the local news media we are not told much about Robs situation. I sure hope he is ok.

We get served dinner and continue the chatter. We are also given some wine bottles so we give them a tasting. We start to enjoy ourselves more after some liquid encouragement and we end up chatting all the way late into the night.

I think I made up my mind and I will go down tomorrow. Again a tough decision especially after putting in 2 weeks of time here and all the money and months of preparation. It’s tempting to give it a second chance. Plus I am well acclimatized now.

However, I am short on 1 to 2 days since I have a flight in 4 days to Buenos Aires to meet up with my girl and dad. They are flying in to meet me so that the 3 of us can go down south and see Patagonia :) that’s a positive outlook :)

Perhaps it’s for the best. I have had enough red flags and I am not comfortable with going up again under the same guide and company leadership. They have lost my trust. Especially the main guide has lost my trust after being unprofessional and rude to me. My ego doesn’t forget. Neither do I. I trust myself and my abilities and skills more than his and my evaluation here is to not put my life on the line with this person. Done. End of discussion.

I have made up my decision. (I am a firm believer of making a decision and sticking with it and trusting the outcome (faith) but I am also a firm believer of knowing when to change direction.)

Now that I feel rested, I don’t feel sick, and the trip is “over” I can give my 100% to socializing, having fun and getting to know the team members. So I converse, drink and socialize. These humans that I call teammates and friends now are just wonderful! So thankful to have met them here.

I truly hope Peter gives it another try. He has it in him albeit it will be a tough mental task to commit to! He’s got it!

I go into my tent at 1am and I pack up all my stuff and go to bed. Tomorrow is a 30+km hike out of here!

PS: What made me happy this day is that I got to slack line on a high line set up at altitude (inside one of the dome tents) and that I was not bad at it (after all my training at home :) )