Porters, young and old, men and women, carry their loads hung by a rope with a strap on their foreheads. Each load weighs at least 30kg and very often they have to carry more than one load. Porters here use a thick T-shaped walking stick that doubled as a luggage rest.

Porters carrying heavy loads

D. Chukung and beyond
Upon arrival in Chukung, Pasang informed us that this was not an ideal place for training in ice climbing because the ice field was a 3-hour trek away. He suggested that after a day of acclimatization in Chukung we moved on to the Base Camp for our training.

We were rather skeptical about Pasang's suggestion because we thought he was trying to cut cost as staying in camp would cost less than in lodges. Though we did not disagree with Pasang, we nevertheless asked him to find out from others the nearest location where ice-climbing training could be carried out. He later informed us that his Sherpa friend had just returned from a training session in a place not too far away from Chukung. So we thought the matter was resolved and we would be staying in Chukung for the next three days.

At Chukung Ri

It was probably not the best thing for us to trek to Chukung Ri the way we did. As experienced trekkers, we know full well that rapid ascents can cause AMS, Acute Mountain Sickness. As expected, our descent caused the vision in my left eye to become blur and cloudy, a frightening reminiscence of my encounter on Kilimanjaro. Luckily, with Diamox, my vision recovered after a good night's sleep.

After our return from Chukung Ri and a rest in the afternoon, we were shown a range of ice climbing equipment for hire by the proprietor of the Lodge. These consisted of plastic boots, crampons, harnesses, ice axes, carabineers and jumars. We had to hire them here because this was the last place along the route with gear for hire and the next day (31st Oct) we were to have our first lesson on ice climbing.

Though the choice was limited, we tried on boots, crampons and harnesses and selected those that fitted us well. As expected, we had to pay exorbitantly for the hire of these gears, much more than if we had got them in Namche.

On 31st Oct, we departed the Lodge at 8.30am to trek to the ice field to start our training. It was indeed a long trek, which took us more than three hours to reach, at an elevation of 5,168m. We first put on the boots, crampons and harnesses, which took us a while because we were new to this game.

Pasang first showed us the basics: the use of crampons, ice axe and jumar, a simple mechanical device that uses a toothed cam to grip the rope attached to the harness. We then learned to walk on ice with angled steps to give a firmer grip on the ice.

We walked up the icy slope to a location where Pasang installed an anchor to the ice and attached a rope to it. This was to be a fixed rope for climbing on steep ice. Pasang showed us the way to use it with the jumar, ice axe and the crampons' front-points to haul oneself up the steep icy slope.

We took turn to use the fixed rope to climb up the slope. When all had ascended, Pasang showed us the use of the figure-of-eight to abseil down the fixed rope. We also learnt to rope up with a follow through figure-of-eight knot, each climber 5m behind the other, so that in case one of us were to fall into a crevice, the person in front and/or behind would be able to provide the necessary restraint to prevent a free fall into the abyss.

It all looked simple enough, but we needed more practice to do it well.

Ice climbing training

We spent two hours training and over two hours to return to the Lodge. The sun was down by 5.00pm and the temperature began to plummet. Soon it was pitch dark and cold. Luckily our porter and Rabin came with torches to show us the way back safely to the Lodge just after 6.00pm but we were all feeling deadbeat.

It was a long and tiring day and we realized that Pasang was right when he told us that Chukung was not the place for ice-climbing training. So we decided to move on to the Base Camp the next day to continue our training.

When we arrived Chukung on 29th Oct, two porters left us to return to Namche. From here on, yaks had to be deployed to move our luggage, food and other essentials up to the High Camp.

We left Chukung late in the morning on 1st Nov after we had settled the rental for the ice climbing equipment and Pasang had sourced three yaks with a yak herder.

Route from Chukung to Island Peak

The journey to the Base Camp (5,010m) was not too difficult and we reached the camp in less than three hours of trekking. At the campsite, the tents - two for sleeping, one for dining and one for cooking - were already in place. These belonged to the proprietor of the Lodge we stayed in Chukung.

The Base Camp

We rested in the afternoon and delayed the final ice climbing training to the next day.

We slipped into our sleeping bags after an early dinner of soup and curry noodles because it cold, much colder than in Chukung. However, sleep did not come to me the whole night because I felt chilly even though I had put on four layers of warm clothing. As a result I was feeling rather groggy and depressed the next morning (2nd Nov).

In the dining tent in the morning, I discovered that KC also did not sleep well and coupled with his loss of appetite, he was feeling a little downbeat. Except for Kenny who had brought along a liner for his sleeping bag, the rest did not have a good night's sleep.

My initial reaction to this predicament - the extreme cold and sleepless nights - was to abandon our mission of climbing Island Peak as it would be even be colder up in the High Camp. KC too felt the same and decided not to proceed further. However, we did not have enough time to plan an alternative trek and I also felt it would be unfair to Kenny and Larry who were ready for the challenge.

Suddenly, I remembered our Mongolian camping expedition when Kenny and I were not able to sleep at nights because of low temperatures. We overcame this predicament by buying a blanket each to wrap our sleeping bags with at night.

I asked Pasang whether I could hire a blanket at the Base Camp and if yes, I would carry on with the climb. When Pasang replied in the affirmative, Larry also requested to hire one and as for Kenny, though he had brought along his Mongolian blanket, he had left it in Chukung and asked Pasang to get a porter to retrieve it. We then decided that KC would go down to Chukung with Rabin to wait there for our return.