THE gutsy woman lets on that she teared – “but only a little” – when she turned her back on the world’s highest peak.

It was at 5am on the ascent of a treacherous glacier when the pain in Miss Sim Yihui’s chest became unbearable. As she decided to turn around, tears welled up in her eyes.

This was their first summit attempt in mid-April, a month before they managed to conquer Mount Everest. And the pain had left her trailing far behind – by half an hour’s climb, she reckoned – her teammates.

Every eight to 10 steps, she had to pause, lean on her ice axe, then pick up the pace to try to catch up with the others.

But the pain didn’t go away. It got worse. Alone in the cold and darkness, she finally stopped again and tried for one last time to wrestle back control of her body, and cling on to her dream.

But the air at 5,500m was thin. Ahead, the ice blocks, some as big as three double-decker buses, piled up into the sky.

Five agonising minutes later, Miss Sim finally turned and began gingerly picking her way back down, overwhelmed by emotion.

As she did so, she passed climbers from other teams heading up.

They asked about her, but she didn’t answer. Couldn’t find the words, she said. She just pointed to her chest.

And long after the line of climbers had passed, Miss Sim would turn back, time and again, to linger at the sight of the headlamps snaking their way into the night and battle the temptation to follow after.

This was the turning point that saw Miss Sim, a 26-year-old training facilitator at Raffles Junior College, return to Singapore as the only member of the Natas Singapore Women’s Everest Team who didn’t make it to the top.

In the two weeks since the team’s success, news of her failed ascent had hung awkwardly as one-liners in otherwise jubilant reports.

The group picture taken at Changi Airport on Monday night upon the team’s return had her flashing the same megawatt smile as her teammates, but a caption awkwardly singled her out as the woman who didn’t make it.

Initially, her failed ascent was attributed to “reasons unknown”. Later, it was attributed to “chest pain”.

But what really happened up in the clouds? What did she feel deep inside?

Meeting The New Paper on Wednesday, Miss Sim described how she battled against the elements – and herself – en route to Everest.

That night on the stretch of glacier known as the Khumbu Icefall, Miss Sim was trying to block out the pain that she had first experienced a few days before on an acclimatisation climb.

It had kept her awake at night. “It felt like someone pressing down on my chest,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe.”

But she wasn’t too worried as altitude sickness was common, even among mountaineers. In mid-April, she joined in the first summit attempt.

Most dangerous stretch Reputed to be the most dangerous stretch of the Everest ascent, the Khumbu Icefall separates Base Camp (5,300m) from Camp One (6,100m).

The fast-moving ice here (it moves 0.9m to 1.2m per day) creates an extremely crevassed surface. Climbers have to be fast.

They start early to finish before midday when the ice starts to melt and render the path unstable.

It was here that Miss Sim turned back. Said team coach Lim Kim Boon: “A chest pain can mean anything. It can be the muscle, it can be the heart.

“At that altitude, we couldn’t take chances.” While the team continued their push to the top, Miss Sim called home from Base Camp and told her brother, a 25-year-old undergraduate, what had happened.

“She didn’t dare call me,” said her mother, Madam Irene Ho, 59, a Mandarin teacher.

Madam Ho had been worried sick since the team left for Nepal, making frequent trips to the Goddess of Mercy temples at Joo Chiat and Waterloo Street.

After hearing the news from her son, Madam Ho called and e-mailed Miss Sim, but received no reply.

“I think she was trying to come to terms with it on her own first,” she said.

In the meantime, Madam Ho spent the next few nights tossing and turning in bed.

“I kept dreaming that Yihui called me and told me she was coming back. And then, I would wake up and realise it was all a dream.”

That summit attempt was eventually derailed by bad weather.

At Base Camp, while waiting for the weather to clear, Miss Sim sensed a second chance, and joined her teammates on easy acclimatisation climbs, even going down to a village at a lower altitude to try and recuperate.

She had been diagnosed by a doctor at Base Camp with costrochondritis – an inflammation of the breastbone and rib bone.

It is a condition that usually takes weeks to heal.

The lack of oxygen at high altitude made it more difficult.

Up until the eve of the successful summit attempt, Miss Sim was in two minds as she watched her teammates pack.

But after a long talk with Mr Lim, good sense prevailed.

“We always said this was a team effort,” said Miss Sim. “I didn’t want to be rash and think that I had to reach the summit no matter what and put my teammates’ lives at risk.”

For the next five days, Miss Sim stayed by the radio, tracking the progress of her team as it pushed for the summit.

On 20 May at 3.45am (Nepal time) as Miss Sim laid in her tent, the radio crackled to life. “Dao le!” (“Arrived!” in Mandarin).

It was teammate Lee Li Hui, a 27-year-old lecturer. She had made it.

Her next words were: “Yihui, this is for you.” For the second time on the trip, Miss Sim cried, as she shouted into the receiver: “Congrats! Take more photos!”

The other team members made it to the top, one by one, over the next few days.

Each time, Base Camp resonated with the clanging of pots and pans, the traditional way of marking a successful ascent.

As the team made its descent, Miss Sim busied herself with a flurry of phone calls to team members’ loved ones and sponsors.

She also called her mother – finally.

The team finally reunited a few days later at the base of the glacier one late afternoon, embracing in a group hug, “Most of us were crying," said Miss Sim.

Back in Kathmandu, the team celebrated with a simple dinner at a Thai restaurant and a round of Everest Beer.

“Nobody felt bad for Yihui. There was no need to... it was a team victory,” said Mr Lim. Will she try again?

“I don’t want to give a definite yes or no at this point,” said Miss Sim.

After two months away from home, she just wants to “spend time with my family and friends”.

This article was first published in The New Paper.