North Col of Everest
The most complex and expensive trip. I found out you could join a real Everest Expedition, in this case Australian, who would get you on Everest right up onto the North Col. The permit fee alone was $2,500 and I think $10,000 for a summit permit. And it would be a five week trip. We met most of the others in Beijing and ten travelled 48 hours in a train to Lhasa in Tibet then overland to Base Camp. It was a week just to get here.
Eventually we had all the teams together but there were early casualties from AMS even at Base Camp and illness would be a big feature of the journey. To complicate things we would exit Tibet into Nepal for our journey home. My wife Margaret was planning to meet me at base camp and possibly more places in Tibet but her itinerary changed and she was always a day behind until we met on her birthday in Zangmu, a bit of a dump of a border town.
I managed to get onto the North Col, but my usual climbing partner, Marguerite was too ill and we had to walk off Everest from Advanced Base Camp to Intermediate Camp on our own due to a mix up with porters. I was always scared I would get the bug to want to climb Everest but it actually put me off and a bit of a circus but some experience.
