The ascent of Island Peak is quite straightforward, hence its popularity (it is the most climbed mountain in the whole Himalayas!). From High Camp, things start with an ascent of a rock buttress on a fairly good path, with a minimal amount of scrambling, done in the dark and with no protection. After about 2 hours, the summit of the buttress is reached on a snow platform and a hanging glacier on a small plateau is the next obstacle. It changes every year but usually features a good track and straightforward climbing around the many crevasses, and people usually rope up but don't place protection. Without too many acclimatisation problems, this takes about one hour, until the headwall is reached, a 40-50 degrees snow slope, about 80 metres high. Most commercial expeditions (including ours) will put fixed lines to the top, even though it is not very exposed and has a nice gentle snow bowl at the bottom to catch any falling climber. Finally, a few minutes of climbing on a gorgeous snow ridge will lead the happy but tired climber to the true summit, at an altitude of 6189m.

Everything went as planned for us and we mostly kept the times we were aiming for. The mountain was extremely crowded, we counted more than 70 people on the glacier and were no less than 30 standing on the (fairly small) summit at the same time, which led to some traffic jam problems on the fixed lines. This took away some of the fun of summitting my second 6000er, though the view of the now very close Lhotse-Nuptse wall was as awe-inspiring as anything I have ever seen in the mountains. Though no AMS symptoms presented themselves, this was much higher than anything we had done so far and we all struggled with various levels of exhaustion.

The descent was fast and quite pleasant in beautiful sunshine, though heavy legs and hungry stomachs soon made us dream of the comforts of Base Camp, still a couple of hours away. We reached it by mid-afternoon, tired but contented after a good day of climbing and a beautiful summit.

3am, the start of the climb on the rock buttress by headlamps.

The start of the glacier section, with the top of the rock buttress visible in the background.

Going up the glacier.

A rope team bypassing a deep crevasse on the glacier.

The path on the glacier zigzagged a lot to avoid the many crevasses.

Rising sun over the rope team on the Island Peak glacier.

Chyote leads the way at the end of the glacier, with the headwall and the summit ridge a short way in front of us.

Mungo and the others coming up to the bottom of the headwall, the last major obstacle before the summit.

Chyote trying to untangle the polyprop rope used to fix the headwall.

Two climbers descending the summit ridge, with Ama Dablam in front.

Karma on top of the headwall, with Ama Dablam in the background.

A climber coming up the last few meters of the summit ridge.

Norrie finishing the summit ridge.

Summit mugshot, with Lhotse in the background. From left to right, standing: Chongba, Chyote, Norrie, Rachel, Jo, Karma, Mungo. Sitting: Mark, Chris, Dave.

Karma descending the traffic jam on the summit ridge. The sherpas ended up having to fix a second line for other climbers to ascend simultaneously.

Panorama from the summit ridge. Only the much higher Lhotse-Nuptse wall is not shown here.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Chongba starting the abseil of the headwall.

A solo climber above a crevasse on the Island Peak glacier.

The bottom of the glacier, showing the Ambulapcha lakes and the top of the rock buttress.

Rachel looking one last time at the summit from the bottom of the glacier.

A climber enjoying the view from the top of the rock buttress.

Chongba starting the descent of the rock buttress.

Back in Base Camp, the Milky Way made an appearance to finish a beautiful day.