Last week, Facebook reminded me of my Chulu West expedition in Nepal.
Six years passed, yet I still cannot fully explain why I failed to reach the summit.

Maybe the mountain was teaching us something.
Confidence without preparation is just arrogance at high altitude.

Six years ago, we set out to climb Chulu West, 6,419 meters.
Year earlier, I successfully summited Island Peak, 6,189 meters.
So I assumed Chulu West would be the natural next victory.
Less than 300 meters difference felt like nothing.

I trained for a full year.
Rock climbing, belaying, bouldering alone at age 50.
My confidence grew faster than my fitness.

Where things went wrong!

On Day 3, we reached Manang at 3,500 meters.
Normal climbers take two or three days of slow trekking to acclimatise.
But not us.
We told ourselves we were mountaineers, not hikers.
So we skipped the slow walk, skipped the acclimatisation hikes, and took a Jeep straight up from low ground.
We stayed one day in Manang to acclimatise.

By Day 4, we headed to Ledar at 4,200 meters, then continued to Chulu West Base Camp at 4,900 meters.
The terrain shocked us.
It was nothing like Island Peak.
Loose rocks, unstable ground, and every wrong step meant sliding down.

Near Camp 2, it got brutal.
No fixed rope.
We used bare hands and basic rock climbing skills.
Below us was an open cliff dropping thousands of meters.

Then came the snow slope.
Soft snow, steep angle.
Every step, we had to kick the snow with our boots to make a platform.
If not firm, kick again.
I fell multiple times.

At 5,000 meters, every breath felt like sprinting with no oxygen.

The moment everything changed

At high camp, around 5,500 meters, Acute Mountain Sickness hit my teammate.
Headache, breathlessness, confusion.
The summit was already visible less than 1,000 meters away.
But it no longer mattered.

We aborted the climb.

We even planned for helicopter rescue.
The pilot hovered above us, came close… and turned back.
No safe place to land.
We just watched it fly away.

That same day, the experienced European climbers also called off their attempt to summit
The snow had reached hip height.
Even they decided it was not worth dying for.

The next morning, we trekked back to Ledar in silence.
No photos.
No celebration.
Just an empty feeling inside.

Looking back

The truth is simple :
We were unprepared!
Too confident!
Too fast!
Poor acclimatisation!
Maybe not enough water!
Maybe too technical for us!

Chulu West taught me a lesson success never teaches … humility.

I am grateful my teammate survived.
Grateful we chose to turn back.
Some failures hurt, but some failures save lives.

The mountain is always there.

Maybe one day I will return to Chulu West.
Maybe on a mountain bike, maybe on a motorbike, but probably not on foot along Annapurna again.
Maybe I will never go back.