UKC

I am currently in Chukkung waiting with a group to attempt Island Peak with our Sherpa guide.  We are reasonably well acclimatised, gone up to 5,400 metres.  The ascent was originally planned as a 2 day climb; base camp ( 5,000m) to high camp (5,600m) on day one and then hjigh camp to summit ,6,190m on day 2.  Our guide is proposing doing teh climb in one day, ie 5,000 to 6,189.

Anyone else done the same and, if os, how did it go? 

Hi - I did it (as part of a KE trip) in 1 day (base camp - summit - base camp) in a day back in 2001ish.  Big day, but not really a problem.  We had a few similar days on the trip (Mera / Island).  We had great conditions on the day.  Early start and back to camp by mid afternoon.

Great day though - enjoy!

Dave, thanks for the reply.  From your profile looks like you were in your twenties when you did it, preumably young and fit    am considerably older so fingers crossed it will work out OK.

I was mid-30s (I'm 56 now).

Being young and fit was not a help!  There were some younger, fitter people on the trip, but the older folks generally did as well (maybe better) than the younger - mainly because they paced themselves.  Pushing hard at altitude is very counter-productive!

One word of caution about advice from those who did it some time ago (me in ‘81 for example). I’ve heard conditions on the mountain are now significantly leaner, than in days gone by.   

was in Nepal last year. My friends did this. Its a big day but not insane at all.

If you are acclimatised then Base Camp (5000m) to the summit should be no problem at all. I did this with a sherpa guide mid December in 2018.  With an early start from base camp (which is flat and comfortable) we were ahead of those emerging from a poor nights sleep at the optional high camp at 5600m. Ie the high camp seemed un-necessary. It was nice to be the first on the route that day, we then descended to Dingboche and on to Lukla the following day. If you get a chance it's interesting to walk on the flat beyond the base camp to overlook the Imja glacier lake which is a bit of a bell-weather for climate change.

I see from your profile you're 99. I wasn't quite that, but I was in my early 50's when we did it in a day from base camp. Most people jumar up a fixed rope on the steeper headwall. We got there first as we wanted to pitch it and swing our ice axes a bit. That felt quite strenuous, but overall it was fine. We only got to do one pitch, since a queue was building up below and the guides were getting rather restive and pointing at the rope! The views from the top are marvellous.

Indeed...

Excellent. Here's a couple from our day. In the obligatory summit shot, I'm the one in red. See if you can spot which one of my two mates had spent the preceding night with projectile D&V - but still made it up and down!

My experience in 2019 is not quite as positive. My acclimatisation schedule was brought forward 2 days by the guide due to possible bad weather coming. So we went from Chukkung to high camp in a day then summit the next day and descend. 

I felt a bit giddy but we pressed on to Gorak Shep then a few days at EBC where I got a cerebral oedema and ended up 5 days in Katmandhu hospital. I'm fairly certain it was due to the changed plans for Island Peak. 

However the Peak is great, the ladders a bit scary and I insisted on using an axe on the headwall as just jumaring felt a bit weird.

Good luck!

Um, why would you do this?

If the weather supports it, doing it over two days will be much more fun. 

That's a pretty stiff schedule!  We'd already been trekking for over 2 weeks (including reaching the top of Mera - c6400m - a week or so previously) so we were pretty well acclimatised by the time we reached Island.