Ama Dablam 6814m
Boris: I don’t exactly remember the beginning of my passion for mountains, but suddenly it was there.
It began with scrolling through books and magazines, noticing names of mountains that caught my attention, summits I couldn’t get out of my mind.
Slowly but steady my list of mountains and routes that I wanted to climb one day grew and my notebook was steadily floated with new ideas.
Ama Dablam, 6814m, is one of those mountains which caught my attention as a young climber.
I could vividly imagine what it would be like to reach that peak, climbing in the thin air at that altitude, nourished by all the stories I had read.
Ama Dablam, the impressive peak in the Khumbu region of the Himalayas in eastern Nepal, rises majestically to a height of 6,814 meters (22,494 fit).
The name “Ama Dablam” is translated as “mother and her necklace” in Nepali and carries an enchanting meaning that reflects the mountain’s distinctive shape.
The mountain is characterized by its pyramid-shaped structure, an impressive formation of sheer granite rock faces rising to the summit, with ice ridges framing the peak like an elegant necklace. With four prominent ridges extending from the central massif, Ama Dablam is one of the most recognizable and iconic mountains in the region and it is also one of the most beautiful mountains on earth.
When I was asked to work on that mountain, the answer was clearly: yes.
And so I traveled to this mountain accompanied by my friend Ines.
Ama Dablam is not only a challenging mountain to climb, but also, because of its exposed ridge, a really cold one.
Or maybe not? Perhaps Ines can answer that question to you.
Unlike Boris, I didn’t have the opportunity to “live” the mountains from an early age, as I grew up in a small village near Frankfurt and my parents didn’t like the idea of their daughter doing dangerous stuff like mountaineering, climbing or alpinism. Therefore I was about 29 years old when I started getting to know all about alpinism and found that great love for mountaineering when I first met Boris in 2018.
After some intensive and hard training, I flew to Nepal for the first time in 2022, which should be a “once-in-a-lifetime”-trip.
Due to the great group dynamics which we had from day 1, I decided to change my original tour so that I could accompany the group to the end of the Khumbu-Icefall, entering camp 1 of Mount Everest.
This was indeed a scary decision, not only because the Khumbu-Icefall is one of the most dangerous places in the world, but also a very cold place, especially while resting at night.
Of course my fear about the cold came true, kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy or just the natural course?!
Already in Everest Basecamp, at around 5300m, the icy cold nights in the tent kept me awake very often.
Maybe one could say it was kind of my own fault, because I changed my route during that expedition, without being properly prepared for 12 nights in a tent. But as we say “hindsight is always20/20”.
From time to time – if possible – other group members lent me a second sleeping bag to keep me warmer and we also decided to share the tents with two or three people, which made it a little more bearable.
During that entire expedition, the view of Ama Dablam accompanied me and was a breathtakingly beautiful mountain to look at, so deep inside my heart I already made the decision to try to climb it in following year.
These considerations became more and more concrete in the beginning of 2023, so I finally decided to climb Ama Dablam together with Boris.
Full of anticipation for the tour, we started planning and organizing, discussed topics such as life’s experience and indeed about our personal fate and certainly about the risk we take climbing these kind of mountains.
Another thorn in my side was of course the issue of the cold weather and the associated need to organize suitable clothing.
It wasn’t only a thorn in my side, but I actually become panicked when I remembered the cold nights the year before and that, for this reason, I could possibly not reach the summit of my dreams.