FKT: Erin Ton - Mera Central Peak - 2024-11-08

Made it from Lukla to Khare in just under 10 hours. Spent the night at the Alpine Mera Lodge- thank you for the hospitality and great food! I wanted to start my summit push earlier the next morning, but it was just too cold when I woke up and I didn't want to mess around with frostbite again, so I began around 5:30. Overall, the climb was easier than I thought it would be. Conditions were really good and it was a bluebird day with no wind (thanks Chris Tomer for the forecast). I saw a couple people with skis up there and 2 French guys who flew off the peak down to Khare. There were 2 fixed ropes in place and a traffic jam going up/ down the final summit pitch. I didn't linger long on the summit, just enough for a 360 of all the views and a few pics. Definitely ranks among the best views I've ever had on a mountain, and I've been lucky to have some incredible views in my time. I think I could have descended muuuch faster, but it was around this time that my feet started killing me. I think my shoes must have been a half size too small, plus with the Gore-Tex they were trapping in heat and my crampons were too tight. This resulted in my toes being rubbed raw, which caused me significant pain for the remainder of the run back to Lukla (I will spare you the pic of what my feet looked like upon taking my shoes off and save that for a future OnlyFeet account). The final climb up the pass was actually pretty nice. Going up did not hurt my feet and I was treated to an epic inversion coming out of the jungle. I had to put my crampons back on for the upper part of the pass because it was really icy, but at that point I was home free! Going down took me longer than I would have liked, but I was stoked to see Chris, Tyler, and Jim back in Lukla. For nutrition, I used a variety of things including CarbsFuel, Snickers bars, cookies, and Sprite lol