That night at Makalu La was very grim. I felt exhausted and spent most of the night coughing and with a splitting headache. I spent about two and a half hours melting snow for water between 1am and 3.30am. I was suffering the early signs of mountain sickness and I needed to make sure I was rehydrating properly. Dawa had a headache too, but he had been at altitude for much longer and adapted to the height with fewer problems.
All mountaineers have to go through a long acclimatisation process when they arrive at a mountain.
It can take three to four weeks before I am fully acclimatised and ready to go for the summit. The best way to acclimatise is to climb up, then return to base camp to recover, climb higher and again return, then push higher still and return until finally I feel that I am ready for the summit attempt. By pushing as high as 7400m at Makalu La I may have gone a bit too quickly, but I have helped to speed up my acclimatisation process. At about 4am the wind got up and for the next five hours nearly ripped the tent away. By 9am the winds dropped.