Mental Toughness, Technique and Staying Healthy

Physical fitness is only a small part of the formula for success in high altitude mountaineering.  Equally important are mental toughness, climbing technique and staying healthy on the mountain.  Mental toughness involves willing yourself to continue even when those surrender demons sit on your shoulder urging you to give up and fight another day.  Mentally, I feel totally prepared for this challenge.  Climbing technique involves (i) moving slowly, (ii) allowing plenty of time to acclimatize (see below), (iii) plentiful hydration, (iv) eating large quantities of food in the face of a dramatic loss of appetite, especially at high altitude, (v) pressure breathing and (vi) rest-stepping.  Staying healthy may seem like an obvious imperative, but many Everest trips have been scuttled because of bugs picked up in Kathmandu, on the trek to Base Camp and while staying at Base Camp.  This risk is so great that many climbing teams virtually quarantine themselves from other teams and tourists at Base Camp.  Staying healthy also requires diligence to avoid the ever-present risks of frostbite and sunburn. 

Acclimatization 

There are two methods of climbing big mountains--alpine-style and siege-style.  In alpine-style, the climber moves steadily up the mountain to the summit without retreating to lower camps.  Very few of the 8,000 meter mountains in the Himalayas are climbed this way.  In siege-style, the climber moves up the mountain in stages, setting up camps ever higher on the mountain, and then returning to lower camps for rest and acclimatization. Acclimatization is the process by which the body creates red blood cells to increase the capacity of the lungs to capture oxygen and deliver it to the oxygen-starved cells of the body.  I will be climbing Mt. Everest siege-style.  Because of the multiple trips up and down the mountain, I will essentially climb the mountain more than once (with the exception of the push from Camp IV to the summit).