When I eventually topped out, I then dropped to Lhotse with a new Sherpa, pushing on to Camp 4. I looked at my watch at its summit. I’d been climbing for ten hours and fifteen minutes. Now only Makalu remained untested. Full disclosure: at that point I had no idea I’d broken the world record for climbing Everest and Lhotse in such quick succession. It wasn’t my aim, only topping three peaks had been in my sightlines, but when I was told at Base Camp that the previous best had been twenty hours, I was shocked. I’d accidentally cut nearly ten hours from the fastest registered time.
