Not recorded
Timing:
0815hrs - Left Chhukhung Resort
1045hrs - Arrived at Ice Wall for training
1500hrs - Left Ice Wall
1700hrs - Arrived back at Chhukhung Resort
The trek to the ice wall for the training was a long and tiring compared to the day before. We had to carry our plastic boots and climbing equipment in our own daypack, making it the heaviest load we had carried since we started from day one - blame it on our over-reliance on porters. Although we had carried even heavier loads when we trekked in Malaysia, the altitude and cold in Nepal just made everything weigh heavier than they actually were.
At some point, I had difficulty breathing and had to gasp for air. We stopped regularly for the slower ones to catch up. It was stressful because ND and PK had said that they would be assessing our capabilities during the 2 days of training to determine if we qualified to climb Island Peak. Quietly, Yew Hoong and Kin Peng had private conversations with ND regarding our performance. ND said that we trekked too slowly (excluding the Israeli climber) and that some of us might not make it to the summit..*gulp*.
After a tiring trek up, we were rather disappointed to find our ice wall melting under the sun. While we had a chance to ice-climb with technical ice-axes, we did not get to practice how to do self-arrest (a method to stop sliding down an ice slope and recover from the fall) given the limited area.
Kin Peng
Yew Hoong
Agnes
Kin Peng belaying
Ater a cold session, we headed down the ice wall to have a bowl of nice hot instant noodle cooked by ND. It was the first time we tasted this Wy-Wy instant noodle brand and we practically fell in love with it.
The return journey was a pretty scary experience. By 4.00pm, fog started to blanket the journey down and visibility became very low of less than 15m. There were several occasions Agnes lost sight of the person she was trailing and had to wait for PK, who was the last man, to give directions. We were all tired and cold, and the last thing we wanted was to get lost or wander onto the wrong trail.
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