The oldest woman in China to summit Everest: On an 8,700-meter-high mountain, the 52-year-old looks into the eyes of a victim

It was a pair of victim's eyes, half-squinted, revealing a black slit. Chen Min, 52, was only 20 centimeters away from it, "almost touching", and she instantly felt "pulled into the position of death".

At that time, she was climbing a 5-meter-high rock on the 8700-meter high mountain of Mount Everest, and as soon as she climbed to the top, she saw those eyes, and the victims curled up in the V-shaped stone crevices, their faces dead gray.

She screamed, slipped off the rock, and cried until the guide's cries came from her ears, "What are you doing?" Do you want to be the next him? She came back from her fear.

It was the spring of 2021, and Chen Min was the closest to death on a 45-day trip to Everest. For a long time, she couldn't forget those eyes, assuming that her final end was also lying there, would she regret climbing Everest?

"No." She was sure about it. However, in the eyes of the family, it is a crazy thing for the 52-year-old to climb Mount Everest. In order to dispel her idea of climbing Mount Everest, the eldest brother sent her photos of the bodies of the victims of Mount Everest, and friends advised her to "cherish her current life", and her daughter, who was studying abroad, strongly objected, "It is too dangerous, I don't know what will happen." ”

But Chen Min insisted on climbing, and wanted to climb to the top, in order to erase the "shadow" of almost dying on the mountain when climbing Mount Mustag a few years ago, but also for the answer she had never found, "Who am I?" What kind of person am I going to be? ”

"Everest is like a mirror, and everyone can see themselves from it." After saying goodbye to Everest, she confirmed this even more.

Cypress Hill

This wasn't the first time she'd faced such a life-and-death moment.

Once, when they entered Tibet, their car drove to an uphill slope and suddenly rushed to a cliff, and the rear wheels hung on the cliff, and the whole car hung on the cliff.

At that time, Chen Min sat in the co-pilot's seat, his body flipped at 90 degrees, the barrels of gasoline and bags in the trunk were smashed down one after another, and the car kept shaking. She cried in horror, "Feeling that the weight of the tears can make the car fall off the cliff." ”

She spent 8 minutes in the car. Fortunately, there was a car behind her, and three or four men dragged her up with a rope.

Before climbing Mount Everest, Chen Min had not climbed the mountain for more than two years. The last time I climbed the mountain was in 2016. It was also that year that Chen Min began to try to challenge high-altitude peaks. Previously, she had summited several low-altitude peaks and had more than a dozen years of adventure.

She has crossed the "Sea of Death" Lop Nur 3 times, drove into Tibet five times, and crossed the Argin Mountains and the No Man's Land of Coco Siri. She walked farther and farther away, more and more dangerously, from traveling together to starting alone. In 2012, when she entered Tibet for the fourth time, her partners stopped at an altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level in Ali, Tibet, and she went to the Everest base camp alone, carrying more than 50 kilograms of bags at the intersection to take a taxi, and 3 hours later, a kind person carried her to the Everest base camp, she knelt on the ground and prostrated her head three times.

She admitted it was a dangerous attempt, but once again "tested her ability to explore outdoors."

Constantly gaining self-confidence in the distance, she fell into a trough in reality.

She worked in Huatugou in the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai Oilfield for 7 years. There is hardly a single flower or grass in the Gobi Desert, and the wind and sand are raging. In 2004, due to job transfers, she and her lover were transferred to Tangshan, Hebei Province.

Around 2012, she was working in Tangshan to manage party affairs in a large area, and she was almost depressed because of her complicated interpersonal relationships. During that time, she couldn't laugh, often quarreled with her family, and was plagued by headaches.

She felt like she was in her twilight years, her life was repetitive, she played cards 4 times a day, she had 3 meetings a week, she was always dressed in formal clothes and with a tie, "Life has no color." "But in reality, she was beautiful, with deep eye sockets, thick wavy curly hair, and a toned body.

Encouraged by her husband, she stopped focusing on her work and tried to prove herself "on another channel."

She tried photography, every weekend and holiday, she drove to the countryside around Hebei to take documentary photos, but always dealt with "marginal areas, poor people", she felt that "there are fewer and fewer sunny things in her heart", and gave up after taking pictures for two years.

She felt that mountaineering was more suitable for her. The mountains make her "away from the crowds" and feel the "generosity" of nature. Chen Min enjoyed the action of picking up an ice pickaxe to pierce the ice, and at that moment, she felt like a Tibetan antelope, "presenting beauty in nature." ”

That process also reminded her of the picture of running as a child. There is a cypress tree mountain in Delingha, Qinghai, her hometown, and she likes to run all the way through the slopes of Berlin with open arms, and the air is filled with the scent of cypress leaves, "as comfortable as the sun basking on the back, too free." ”

shade

In 2016, she wanted to prove herself by climbing the mountain. In order to enhance her physical fitness, she developed a strict training plan, running 10 kilometers, 5 kilometers twice a week, and 3600 steps of weight climbing, and did not stop in the New Year.

Six months of training began to bear fruit. In the summer of 2016, Chen Min climbed the Jade Everest Peak at an altitude of 6178 meters, and on the way down, she lost two toenail covers due to the steep slope cushioning. However, this did not stop her from continuing to advance. A month and a half later, she decided to anaerobically climb The Muztag peak at an altitude of 7,546 meters.

Later, Chen Min realized that she was too anxious to prove herself, such a high-density climb was a damage to the body, but also a "contempt for the mountain".

When climbing to the 6800 meters of Muztag Peak, Chen Mingao's height was aggravated, and the porridge drunk into his mouth instantly spewed out. She pressed her trekking pole against her stomach and threw up while walking, vomiting for 2 days and 1 night.

When climbing to an altitude of more than 7200 meters, Chen Min had no strength to speak, she rushed to the guide and pointed to the front, and then pointed to the back, meaning to go back or go forward, the guide said to go back, the eyes revealed disappointment.

Chen Min began to walk back, walked less than ten steps, shook his head, and thought, No, I came to climb to the top. Walked back again, just a few meters, gasping for breath, and walked back again, back and forth three times.

Seeing that she couldn't walk, the guide walked in front and asked her to follow. Chen Min dragged his tired body up another 100 meters, feeling a blur in front of his eyes, trying to find a sheltered hill bag and lie down to die.

She knew that once she lay down, she wouldn't wake up again. "I must live." Half an hour later, she finally reached the top.

After that, she was helped by the guide all the way back to the base camp. That night, Chen Min felt every muscle in his body being torn apart, as if "all the cells were competing for oxygen."

Two months after returning home, Chen Min's toes regained consciousness, during which he also fainted once because of drunken oxygen. This climb brought Chen Min great frustration, "I can't forgive myself, because you are not a beautiful climber, you don't love yourself, and you don't pay attention to life at all." After that, she told her family that she would not climb the mountain again.

Over the next two years, Chen Min began experimenting with stories about outdoor people, hoping to become a biographer.

She also wants to prove herself through beauty. She participated in the "2018 Third China's Most Beautiful Mothers Public Welfare Selection National Exhibition" competition, and her reason was simple: she never wore a cheongsam. She customized a blue cheongsam for 8,000 yuan, and she felt that she "deserved it herself".

During the performance, the other mothers sang and danced, and she wore sports underwear and played Muay Thai on stage. At the finals, she found that the eyes of the audience moved with her in the evening dress, "At that moment, I was the queen." ”

She felt that her hometown healed her and also limited her. When she was 18 years old, her sister returned from a business trip and gave her a creamy yellow skirt, which she wore for the first time.

In this beauty contest, she won the runner-up and regained her self-confidence, "In fact, I knew that I was beautiful before, but I lived in the eyes of others." Eventually I became less confident. ”

Once, when she was in the unit, she was the host, and one of the leaders said that she had a slight Northwest accent and was old enough to be a host. She was sad about it.

When she stood on the stage of the "most beautiful mother", she realized that the previous "palm-sized stage" could not define herself, "Who you present what you present to, who really sees you, this is very important." ”

However, even if her image appeared on the CCTV screen, she still remembered the "shadow" brought to her by Muztagh Peak, "I never went out, I was not willing." ”

Until 2019, she went to Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, to visit Wang Tienan, an explorer who made the first ascent of Mount Bogda in China. Wang Tienan said that you have been exercising for two years and are playing boxing, if you train well, you should be able to climb Mount Everest.

Later, looking back, Chen Min felt that Wang Tienan was just "casually mentioning it." But at that time, she took it seriously, and felt that "her heart was magnified at once."

"Climbing Everest is not a battle alone"

There are two options for climbing Everest, one is from the north slope of Tibet and the other is from the south slope of Nepal. Chen Min chose to climb from the south slope because climbing from the north slope required climbing the mountain at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters. In addition, the registration fee for the north slope climb is 100,000 yuan more than the south slope.

For Chen Min, this is not a small expense. She calculated that in addition to the sponsorship fee, the trip to Mount Everest would cost at least 300,000 yuan, which must be supported by her family.

The next day after returning from Xishuangbanna, in the kitchen, she asked her husband tentatively while choosing dishes, "I still want to climb the mountain." "What mountain to climb?" The husband asked. "I want to climb an 8,000-meter mountain." "Is it Everest?"

"How do you know?" She asked in surprise. "You've always had the pain of Muztagh in your heart, and you want to find an exit, right?" Hearing her husband say this, Chen Min's eyes were "instantly covered with a layer of water."

On the same day, the two finished eating and went to the park next to their home to determine the exercise venue. This is a new park in Chongqing's Yubei district, where the family moved in 2017.

There is a tall ginkgo tree in the park, surrounded by a small activity field, 50 meters in the outermost circle. In order to run enough 10 kilometers, Chen Min runs 200 laps a day. She felt bored and started running in the park.

In addition, she climbs a 33-story tall building at least once a week, carries more than 40 pounds of books, and takes ten minutes to go back and forth. In the summer, the temperature in Chongqing is as high as 40 degrees Celsius, and Chen Min climbs in a baseball cap, and after climbing once, the sweat on the brim of the hat flows down like a small stream.

In order to supply the body with huge consumption, Chen Min needs to ensure a nutritious daily diet. The husband stir-fried four or five dishes per meal, and each meal must have beef and mutton, or stew ribs and make fish. The eggs at home have not been broken, and Chen Min eats four or five a day.

Sometimes, seeing that Chen Min wants to be lazy, her husband urges her to go for a run. In February 2020, when the epidemic broke out in China, Chen Min's running field was replaced by his living room at home, and he had to make 750 laps for 10 kilometers. She ran at home for a month, first running with willpower, and later running became a "mechanical exercise."

Every time I run, Chen Min used to run "a little more", "I always want to increase my willpower to the extreme, because I want to come back alive." ”

However, Chen Min did not expect that the first year's trip to Mount Everest was cancelled due to the epidemic. On March 13, 2020, the Nepalese government issued an announcement to cancel the climbing of all peaks in Nepal.

In those days, she didn't talk much, hiding in the quilt at night and crying, "I don't know what the state will be in the second year, what should I do next year?" ”

After 3 days of depression, Chen Min decided to continue training and re-bought a pair of running shoes. This year, in addition to maintaining the amount of exercise, Chen Min paid special attention not to let himself be injured. She goes out to take the bus, rarely drives, when she runs, she will avoid it in advance when she sees small puddles, and when she goes out to take out the garbage, she has to support the handrail, for fear of falling, "the same as the elderly." ”

In order to make her go out less, her husband became the "logistics minister" of the family, and he couldn't help complaining, "Serving you every day." "But after complaining, I still cook honestly."

He sighed, "Climbing Everest is not a person fighting."

In March 2021, Nepal kicks off its spring climbing season, and this time, the Everest trip is really coming.

leave

In order to meet this day, Chen Min prepared equipment more than a month in advance. In the cold high mountains, warmth and waterproof are the most critical, climbers need to wear sweat-wicking underwear, grabbing down jackets, thin down jackets, climb to more than 6400 meters, but also wear a jumpsuit weighing up to three or four pounds.

In addition, everyone needs to prepare more than 100 pieces of equipment such as sun hats, sleeping bags, hiking poles, and hand warmers. In order to ensure that not a piece of equipment is left behind, Chen Min checked it 3 times, the daughter was responsible for checking and ticking on the paper, and the husband helped pack and packed two luggage bags. The bag also contained energy gel, pickles, compressed biscuits, raisins, and beans sent from Qinghai by her mother's family.

On April 14, Chen Min and eight teammates from the mountaineering company traveled from Chongqing to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

Husband and daughter drop off the plane. Later, the daughter told Chen Min that after the plane took off, she and her father went to dinner, eating and eating, and her father's tears fell, saying that he regretted sending your mother to the plane, can he still chase her back?

At the end, dad cheered her up again, "Your mother is sure to be fine."

After the group arrived in Kathmandu, the mountaineering company conducted a nucleic acid test for them. On April 16, a small plane carrying 12 people took them to the small village of Lukara at an altitude of 2,845 meters, and for the next 12 days, they will hike the EBC (Everest South Slope Base Camp) route, all the way to Mount Robche at an altitude of 6,119 meters, and then to the Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,400 meters.

Climbers will pass through this route to adapt to the high altitude environment and test their physical fitness. In the first 10 days of hiking, Chen Min's mood was cheerful and energetic, and he was always the first to arrive at the station, drink coffee with foreign friends, and have a few simple chats.

Many people are not climbing Everest for the first time. She had heard of a foreigner in his 50s who had climbed Mount Everest 6 times, getting taller than once, but had never reached the summit. This time, he came again. Later, she also met a climber, who had climbed Everest 4 times, and this time she had just arrived at Everest Base Camp, heard that someone in the camp had new crown pneumonia, and immediately returned to Kathmandu.

According to the German news agency, on April 23, at least one Everest climber tested positive for the new crown virus. Because of the vaccination, Chen Min did not feel fear.

Her sense of crisis came when she reached the Robche Station at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters. At that time, she had high reflexes, stomachaches, dizziness, and "ears were stuffed with cotton." "Because her legs were weak, she slowed down and gradually fell behind the players. After drinking two bottles of Coke in a row, she felt that her body was energetic, and the excitement was too high to cover the discomfort.

While climbing The Peak of Robce, Chen Min met his guide, BaiMa, a smiling Sherpa man in his 30s. As early as the registration, Chen Min selected him, he is an international guide, many times led the team to the summit of Mount Everest.

Before climbing Robce Peak, Baima checked Chen Min's safety rope and figure-eight ring to help her attach crampons to her alpine boots until safety was confirmed. The two cooperated very tacitly, and Baima praised Chen Min, "Your physical fitness is really good, you can definitely reach the summit of Mount Everest." ”

However, as soon as he returned to the Camp Ofuche, Chen Min's high reaction returned and continued to increase. On the way from the Robuche camp to the base camp, Chen Min vomited all the way, opened his mouth, and inhaled cool air in his stomach.

On April 27, when he walked to the base camp on the southern slope of Mount Everest, Chen Min's stomach hurt like "something is hanging inside."

Stronghold: Hope and Conflict

Everest South Slope Base Camp is located in Everest National Park, the highest national park in the world. A few days ago, sherpas hired by mountaineering companies had set up colorful tents, and the toilets here were divided into toilets and squats, as well as separate baths.

The team members rested for a day and began to train on glaciers. In order to prevent colds and save calories, Chen Min only took two baths in the whole process, did not eat spicy, and drank honey every day. Each meal is four dishes and one soup, and some teammates bring beef jerky and old dry mothers to relieve hunger, and some people drink alcohol on foot.

It's a vibrant scene. When not training, the team members basked in the sun and chatted outside the tent, and during the day, the sound of helicopter propellers was surrounded by the air over the base camp, and at night, the sound of "rumbling" ice crashes was heard.

"The base camp is a place of hope, contradiction, and pressure, where all kinds of people gather, and everyone's personality is completely magnified here."

Recalling the days at the base camp, Chen Min lamented that in addition to the hustle and bustle, climbers also faced competition, conflict and the fear of the unknown. Due to the dry and cold air near the Khumbu Glacier on Mount Everest, the lungs are prone to inflammation, and many people suffer from "Khumbu cough".

On 29 April, as the outbreak worsened in Nepal, Kathmandu declared a two-week lockdown. The sound of coughing filled the base camp, and a teammate worried about the outbreak of the epidemic advocated that everyone use public chopsticks, and on the first day, the team members collectively complied.

The next day, the leader wants to use his own chopsticks to pick vegetables, Chen Min reminds him to use public chopsticks, the person said that she is special. The leader asked her to eat somewhere else, and she quarreled with the leader.

There is a saying in the mountaineering world, called "no brothers do not climb mountains". Chen Min felt that because he had no familiar friends, he was excluded from the base camp. Because of anger, her body appeared puffy.

On May 1, the team members began the second round of adaptive training, climbing from base camp to C3 camp at an altitude of 7100 meters in five days.

Halfway through, they passed through the Khumbu Glacier to camp C1 at an altitude of 6,100 meters. The Khumbu Glacier is considered one of the most dangerous sections of the south slope climbing route, with climbers having to cross 14 cracks in the ice hundreds of meters deep, and with each step on the aluminum ladder, a "creaking" sound can be heard.

Chen Min looked intently at his feet, not caring about the stomach pain caused by the high reaction. She didn't eat all the way, and by the time she reached 6,800 meters above sea level, her face was swollen twice as large, her eyes narrowed into a slit, she was weak, and her feet "felt like they were bound by chains." ”

Chen Min told Baima that he could not move. Baima encouraged her to go a little further and try. Chen Min walked for more than ten meters, then stopped again and found a large stone to lie down on. Afraid that she would catch a cold, Baima put her backpack on the stone.

"This can't be climbed, what will happen in the future?" Chen Min felt that the frustration of climbing Muztag Peak had returned. She wiped her tears with her back to Baima, crying that her teammates were bullying her, she was in a bad mood, her legs were swollen and she couldn't lift them, and she couldn't walk.

Baima comforted her with a simple Chinese, and every camp would quarrel and fight, "Ignore them, you are here to climb Everest." ”

On the way down, she fell 8 times, vomited all the way, and arrived at the base camp, more than 2 hours slower than the other team members.

At the base camp, Chen Min quarreled with the team leader again because of stomach medicine problems. In the meantime, an older teammate called her an "old woman", and Chen Min felt insulted and cried in the tent for hours.

Chen Min once again felt malice against her gender and age. She believes that female climbers bear more things in the mountains than men, "also on a rope, some men must want to surpass you, once the woman is in front, they feel humiliated by men, he wants to hit you, exclude you, make you lose self-confidence, can not reach the top." 」 ”

Sometimes, malice also comes from the ground. A man once asked her, "Are you women climbing a lot because of broken feelings?" ”

Chen Min later heard a friend say that crying on the plateau would lead to disturbances in the central system of people, and swelling of the body was a sequelae. At base camp, one day, she found that her urine was full of sediment, "that means you have a kidney problem."

Choice

On May 7, Chen Min and his teammates returned to Nanchi to recuperate and wait for the window period.

In those days, she forced herself to be calm, listened to the Heart Sutra every day, slept after eating, and did not go out to play. She found that the swelling in her body was slowly disappearing and returning to the state she was in when she was hiking. Back at base camp, she can trot all the way from the restaurant to her tent.

This gave Chen Min the confidence to reach the top. On May 15, they ate dumplings at the base camp and held a blessing ceremony to prepare for the summit.

If all goes well, they will reach the summit in 5 days.

Crossing the Khumbu Glacier again was smooth. But after they reached Camp C2, dark clouds began to appear at the top of the mountain. This means that the weather at the top of the mountain is bad, and further up the climb may face unknown risks.

Everyone decided to wait and see. Two days before the wait, everyone was still talking and laughing, some people chatted, some people watched movies downloaded in advance, and Chen Min stayed in the tent to sleep, putting a hot water bottle on the sole of his feet.

On the third day, the weather did not improve, and the head coach of Nepal, who was in charge of the climb, suggested that we first return to the base camp and then climb the summit according to the weather. Chen Min was determined not to return, she felt that staying here might consume heat, but it was more dangerous to go back through the terrible "Khumbu Glacier".

After discussion, it was decided to continue to wait for the window period.

By this time, the camp had run out of food, and the Sherpas were carrying new supplies from the base camp. By the fourth day, anxiety began to spread. Chen Min noticed that everyone went to the toilet and began to walk together, and someone explained the aftermath to the guide, saying that if he died on Mount Everest, he must take his body home.

Chen Min couldn't help but think, what if he died on the mountain? She checked her clothes layer by layer to see if there were any mud spots or holes, thinking that even if she died, she would give "nature a decent self."

Death is a proposition that all climbers have to face. Before leaving, Chen Min wanted to write a suicide note to his family, for fear of scaring them, and finally did not write it. She told a good friend not to take her down in case she died on the mountain, "Staying on the mountain is the best destination for a climber." ”

Before leaving Chongqing, she made a special trip back to her hometown of Delingha, Qinghai, in order to carry out the last high-altitude training, and more importantly, to say goodbye to her parents. She took a bouquet of flowers to her parents' grave and told them that she was about to climb Mount Everest, and if she was lucky enough to climb the summit, they would be proud, and if she could not come back, please ask them not to worry, that was her fate.

In fact, Chen Min's husband and daughter did not understand her sense of fatalism. At first, her husband thought she was going outdoors just to distract herself, but then she went farther and farther, and the mountain climbed higher and higher.

Once, she wanted to go into Tibet again, and her husband felt that it was too dangerous, "I have been there twice, why should I go?" What is the temptation? After the quarrel, Chen Min sat alone on the bus to Beijing, thinking that her husband would not send her, and just sat down, he saw his husband waving to her.

The family ultimately chose to support her dream. In the few days when she rushed to the top, there was no news on the mountain, and her husband prayed to her every day, and when he was upset, he would find friends to drink tea and chat, "Let yourself relax." ”

The husband thought that if his wife had an accident on Mount Everest, he would fly to Nepal and bring her ashes home. Later, when the epidemic broke out in Nepal, he comforted himself, "It's all fate, look at her creation." ”

Looking back now, the night I went from Camp C2 to Camp C3 was indeed a gamble.

At that time, they had been stranded for 4 days until 10 p.m., and the person in charge was still communicating with the base camp whether to climb the summit, and they finally decided to go up.

At this time, the weather was gray, the temperature was as low as minus ten degrees Celsius, Chen Min did not feel cold, after starting to inhale oxygen, her high reaction symptoms disappeared, the state was getting better and better, and gradually walked to the middle of the team.

Five or six hours later, the team arrived at camp C3 at an altitude of 7,100 meters above sea level, passing through the 1,200-meter-long Lhotse Wall, which is full of steep ice layers that reflect the blue light of the tiles.

One of the most dangerous is the 30-meter-long cross-cutting section, a path carved out by the "Glacier Doctor" on a vertical ice wall, which can only accommodate one alpine boot.

Chen Min clutched the rope in his left hand, and on his right hand was a cliff. It was not easy to reach the end, it was another small steep slope, Chen Min did not dare to go, with a cry in her voice, Baima comforted her, walked slowly, not afraid.

The further back you go, the stronger the wind gets, and when you reach an altitude of 7800 meters, the wind speed reaches 20 kilometers per hour, and Chen Min is blown to the east and west, and he has to turn sideways to resist the beating of the cold wind.

By camp C4, the wind had risen to 40 kilometers per hour. Chen Min heard the wind and snow whistling outside in the tent, "I feel like I'm going to flip the tent over." ”

At 9 o'clock in the night, moving points of light appeared one after another on the mountain, which were foreign mountaineering teams. At 11 o'clock in the evening, the team members decided to continue to move forward, in case the weather conditions were not good, and the foreign mountaineers withdrew, they would retreat.

After resting for more than 10 hours, Chen Min and his guide began to rush to the top. Every few steps, Chen Min needed to stomp his feet to prevent numbness. Not knowing how long he had been walking, Chen Min felt a little tired and stopped. A few meters ahead, Bai Ma grabbed the rope and signaled her to continue walking forward, Chen Min wanted to step on his feet, but felt "pressed by a big mountain."

Baima pulled the rope again, but still did not move. He dragged hard, and Chen Min's left foot stepped out, and his body stayed where it was. Feeling that something was wrong, Baima immediately ran over. Chen Min heard BaiMa knock the air vent of the oxygen mask, and a cool breath followed from her nose, and she greedily inhaled a few sips, Suddenly it seems to be alive.

Chen Min realized that the suction hole of the mask had just been blocked by ice and snow. If the guide hadn't found out in time, she would have probably lost consciousness. With oxygen, she felt her footsteps brisk and continued to trudge through the night.

At 6:00 a.m. on May 23, the sky gradually lit up, first light white, then pale yellow, followed by pink, Chen Min took a few steps, stopped to look, walked along, a round of orange sun seemed to suddenly jump out from behind the mountain, illuminating the snowy mountain.

Under the sunlight, Chen Min saw the peak not far away, which towered in mid-air, looking cold and solemn. She walked calmly to the summit, climbed the rocky Hillary Steps, and at 11:05 a.m., came to the summit of Mount Everest at 8,848.86 meters above sea level.

The highest point of meaning

8848.86 meters, which is the latest "height" measured by human beings for the highest peak of the earth. Over the past 60 years, more than 6,000 people have left their footprints here.

Chen Min had imagined that after reaching the top, she would hold her teammates or guides and cry, in fact, when she actually stood here, she could not cry, nor was she excited, and her heart was extremely calm, "like sitting on her mother's knee." ”

She was the second in the team to reach the top. The summit of Everest is a three- or four-square-meter ramp platform that can only accommodate five or six people, in addition to another teammate, and several foreigners who are taking pictures.

Chen Min took out seven red banners prepared for photos, some for sponsors, friends, and one for himself, which read, "2021 Chen Min Everest 8848.86 meters." ”

After taking the photo, Chen Min prostrated his head three times in the direction of the motherland. At this time, the sky on the top of the mountain is clear, fine ice crystals are fluttering in the air, and the distant mountains are staggered and arranged, and white clouds are fluttering.

"You became today." Chen Min said to himself in his heart.

She also brushed a new record, the oldest woman in China to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

She explained the reason for climbing Everest, perhaps from the year she was 17 years old, in her hometown, she and 4 friends wore rubber shoes, carried a small tape recorder all the way, carried pots and pans, along the reeds through the swamp, stepped into the salt alkali beach, crossed the Crook Lake wetland. They walked for 21 hours, 30 kilometers, and when they reached the protection station, five or six blood blisters were grinding out of the soles of their feet, covered in mud.

"It's very fulfilling." Chen Min felt that after that, "that wild thing in his heart sprouted."

After staying at the top of the mountain for more than 20 minutes, Chen Min began to retreat, an hour and a half faster than his teammates.

Soon, she came to the Hillary Steps, and it was here that she suddenly saw the half-squinted eyes of the victim.

Seeing her crying, the guide scolded, she turned back, picked up her spirits, and continued to climb up, this time, she did not look, and stepped forward.

Chen Min said that she will never forget those eyes, and this sleeping person will always remind her, "To live well, but also to treat your own life well." ”

This is also the most important lesson taught to her by the trip to Mount Everest, "Life is impermanent, how can you live this life well?" Really do what you like in time, and be enthusiastic. ”

Whirling around, Chen Min felt that mountaineering was her "warmest expression in life." In the past, she used to think that adventure is excitement, but as she went to more and more places, she had a deeper understanding of outdoor adventure, "The real adventure is not adventure, but in the competition with nature to know themselves, forming independent thinking about people and things." ”

Muztagh taught her humility, "Don't despise any big mountain. Everest made her feel the "ruthlessness of people" in a desperate situation, "This climb is too significant for me, and I have a higher standard for my examination of a person from now on." ”

Of course, Everest also gave her worldly success. She mentioned several times that she gained "tremendous confidence" from this climb, "My abilities are best proven on Everest." ”

She was "seen" by more people. After returning to Kathmandu from Mount Everest, she stayed in Nepal because of the epidemic, and then traveled to Egypt and the United States, and returned to China after 5 months of wandering. When stranded in Egypt, chen Min's operations director at the hotel heard that she had climbed Mount Everest, took a photo with her, and offered to upgrade a suite for her free. Chen Minwan refused.

After returning to China, she shuttled through different cities to share the experience of climbing Mount Everest, and circled the audience's testimonial circle to listen to the speech. Some people think she's showing off, but she feels that it's someone else's approval of herself.

At the base camp, Chen Min told a friend that if he could reach the top, "the world's view of Chinese women will be different." This age group could have been at home with children, indicating that we still have the spirit of struggle. ”

In the eyes of a good friend, for many years, Chen Min has always wanted to "prove his worth" and "live to the extreme every minute and every second". Sometimes, she felt that Chen Min was too tired to live, and persuaded Chen Min that there were many forms of expressing value, not necessarily mountaineering, "life is the first."

But Chen Min did not feel so, "In the past, in order to be a leader, I lost myself, I lived for my family, lived for my friends around me, lived for people at all levels, and in the end I didn't live for myself, I wanted to live for myself." ”

She felt like her life had just begun. During a chat, she flipped through a photo of a 40-year-old, dressed in a gray mink, with a half-exposed breast and a beautiful face. "I'm going to send a circle of friends and let them see, I don't care."

She had also posted the photo before, but it was quickly deleted. She was afraid of other people talking, but now, she didn't care about other people's eyes, "Every minute from now on, I have to live for myself." ”

To celebrate her return home, her husband gave her a bracelet, and her daughter bought her a laptop to encourage her to write. She did not tell her family that the day after retreating from Mount Everest to Kathmandu, she decided to continue climbing "7+2" (an extreme adventure activity that climbs the highest peaks of the seven continents and hikes to the north and south poles), which she envisions within two years, "ageless".

When she waited for the day when she couldn't move, she planned to put on the cheongsam again and become an old model, "there are wrinkles, you can still be a demon." ”

Column Editor-in-Chief: Zhao Hanlu Text Editor: Yang Rong Title Image Source: Figure Worm Image Editor: Su Wei

Source: Author: China Youth Daily