Ascent Into Hell- Mount Everest

by Fergus White

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Back on the trail we hike past single storey stone homes from a bygone era. A woman has come alongside me.

  “Hi Charlene, I hear you’re racing to the top,” I say.

  “Well, not quite racing, but yeah, kind of. I hope to be the first woman from my country to summit.”

  Up to now we’ve exchanged little more than pleasantries. Short, shockingly blonde hair complements her red close fitting top, adorned with sponsors’ names.

  “How long have you been planning this?” I ask.

  “I quit my job a year ago, in banking. So pretty much full time since then.”

  “You’ll go back to the job afterwards?”

  “I don’t think it’s there. There’s a lot of media coverage back home on this: TV, newspapers, you know. If I make it, I’ll guide trekking groups full time afterwards. I’m supposed to write a book about this too. And make some speeches.”

  “You’ve started the book?”

  “Not yet.”

  “God, you’re going to be busy. Has anyone tried it before?”

  “You mean another woman from home?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ve tried, but none succeeded.” She steps around an oncoming mule. “But this year, someone else is also trying.”

  “What? There’re two of you trying to be first? Where is she?”

  “Somewhere on this trail I guess. We’re both aiming for the same weather window in May.”

  “Do you need me to break her legs?”

  “Not yet.”

  The trail drops down and crosses the river. Then it sucks us further into the Himalayas. The steeper sections resemble a rocky staircase. Perhaps a motocross rider could penetrate here but nothing else of the motorised variety.

  I’ve been trekking alongside a teammate named Greg for a few minutes. The same height as me, he’s also in his late thirties. The short uphill sections don’t trouble him. He looks more muscular than me. That difference will show once we get up high.

  “How’d you end up here anyway?” I ask.

  “It was almost by accident. I’ve been climbing for years, but I didn’t think I was in the Everest category. I’m a doctor and -”

  “A doctor? What kind?”

  “Surgeon, urology. But anyway, I wanted to get a taste of Everest and work as a Base Camp doctor for two months. I was looking at various team websites. I realised I was as qualified as the rest to climb this. They’ll take anyone.”

  “Tell me about it; how’d you think I got here?” I jump over a puddle. “You’ve been in the Himalayas before?”

  “Nope, I grew up in east coast USA. A few years back I moved to Australia.”

  “Australia? I thought the States was the place to be a doctor, ridiculous salaries and all that.”

  “You’re right. The salary’s a fraction of home. But you can’t beat the lifestyle. I don’t see myself going back anytime soon.”

  We chat about our college days, our differing lives, and what the next two months might have in store for us. His repartee will shorten the nights in a mess tent. I hope this guy makes it to the top.

  “Listen up, guys. For the next week we’ll sleep in hostels,” Ted calls out. “It’s two to a room. We’ll get to Monjo in an hour and a half; so, pair up now or I’ll do it for you.”

  It feels like the month before Prom night. Sharing is more than just crashing out for a few hours every night. Heaps of equipment crammed in a tight space, tired legs and sore heads play their part. One might be having a bad day. Roommates usually end up trekking beside each other. I reckon this Greg bloke will be a fine lad to share with, but I’m not sure of the protocol. He’s hiking behind me somewhere. I can’t just ignore those around me and shout back to him. A minute passes.

  “Hey Fergus, are you up for sharing a room?” Greg arrives at my shoulder.

  “Is this an indecent proposal?”

  “Whatever you want it to be.”

  “Sounds great. Good man, thanks for that.”

  Lumbering, laden yaks announce their presence via heavy Alpine cowbells hanging from their collars. Locals peer at us as we walk past their doors.

  We close in on Monjo late afternoon. We leave a trail of tiny farming villages behind us. In places, we hiked through forests where dense foliage blocked out the sun. At other times, the trail was hemmed in on both sides by metre high stone walls. Beyond each lay a small tilled plot, a basic two roomed home, and an outhouse.

  I’ve drifted off the back of the group on a climb up rocky steps. I think Monjo is just a few metres around the next bend, but I’ve no intention of getting out of breath. The less I stress my body over the next week, the more strength it’ll have to acclimatise.

  “Ok there, Fergus?” a voice asks.

  “Grand, Hugo, thanks. I’m going to take it real slow this week.”

  “Good plan, you’ve got the right idea,” he says.

  He’s one of two guides on the team. From Wales, he now lives in the USA as a firefighter. I don’t know much about him. A few years older than me, he’s well-built and looks powerful. Since his youth, he’s enjoyed a passion for climbing. He’s mountaineered on several expeditions. I think he’s scrambled in this region before, but he’s never tried to summit Everest. This too will be a first for him.

  We reach the village while there’s still some warmth in the sun. A few houses along both sides of the trail for a hundred metres form the guts of the settlement. We locate our hostel on the left of the track. Just behind it, the river flows fast and white down the valley. On the far side of the water, the green banks rise into the sky.

  Upstairs I find Greg who’s already settled into a room with two beds. I pull a few items out of my pack and head downstairs. The rest of the group is sitting on benches in the main room. All the hostels employ a similar format: a score of bedrooms, a kitchen, and a large room for eating, socialising, playing cards and team planning. The bathroom facilities are usually Spartan: a shared hole in the ground, or if we’re lucky, a porcelain throne. Tonight, our luck is in. Dinner normally runs from 6pm to 8pm. Trekkers and climbers retire well before 10pm; the hostels get cold, and only a few dim solar powered bulbs provide the lighting. The climbing Sherpas and porters hang out in the kitchen. Once the main room has emptied, that makes space for them to sleep on the cushion covered benches under blankets. It seems a little racist, kind of a two-tiered structure, but that’s how it appears to go up here.

  I wash down as many potatoes and vegetables as I can with tea and a bottle of Coke. Noisy conversations, as people get to know each other, fill the air. After this morning’s early start, a gain of 1,800 metres in altitude from Kathmandu, and a day’s trekking, our numbers soon shrink. Within an hour of eating, Greg and I also call it a night.

  “How’s the head?” I ask.

  “No problems. And you?”

  “Perfect.”

  Regardless, I swallow a Brufen tablet. In day to day life I refrain from pills, maybe a little Aspirin when struck with a bad cold. But up here the rule book gets thrown out. We’ll push our bodies to the limit of their endurance day after day. It’s too late taking action once they’ve broken. The last time in this valley, I woke up with headaches above 4,500 metres every morning. No one understands why this happens. Suspicion falls on a lack of oxygen as the respiration rate slows down while sleeping. Whatever the cause, I can recall the pain, and it lasted most of the day. I must postpone those debilitating problems for as long as possible. I plan to take a Brufen every morning and evening. Coupled with a slow ascent, the pills should resolve any glitches and keep my blood thin and flowing while I sleep.

  Lying in the dark at 2,800 metres, I contemplate that day one of sixty has furnished success. I’ve arrived in the mountains a few kilograms heavier than last time. I feel strong. The bed feels warm. Crucially, I’ve not picked up any illness. As I drift to sleep, I’m reminded that health in this valley is not something that can be taken for granted. Ju
dging by the sounds coming from the toilet next door, some poor soul will suffer a long night. If it’s a member of the squad, our team size could be down tomorrow.

  Everest’s Location

  April 2

  Trek from Monjo (2,800m) to Namche (3,400m)

  “God, that was some night.” Greg sits up on his bed.

  “What happened?”

  “The toilet’s just on the other side of this wall. My head was up against it. It must be made of paper.”

  “It woke you?” I ask.

  “Woke me? I hardly got a wink. There must have been fifty trips in there, puking and diarrhoea.”

  “Come on, fifty?”

  “I’m telling you, man, it was non-stop. I started to recognise some of the styles.”

  “Dude, spare me. I’ve not eaten yet. I hope it was none of our guys.”

  We head downstairs for a breakfast of toast and cereal at 8am. Within the hour, we carry our backpacks out onto the patio. I’m sitting around a table, chatting with a few of the team, still struggling to remember who everyone is. Everybody looks healthy on this cool morning.

  “It must have been another group that got hit,” Greg says.

  “There were only a few other trekkers here,” I say. “Somebody somewhere has been very sick.”

  All present, we set out. The route flashes back to me from six months ago. It’ll undulate to start and then drop down a hundred metres to the river. We’ll walk along the bank four or five kilometres. Then we’ll cross the river and ascend six hundred metres through a forest to Namche. That incline will chasten us, with no let-up in the gradient. But we’re facing a short day and should have it finished by lunch.

  I know I must arrive relaxed and place my body under as little strain as possible. Last time I’d rocketed up the hill. I’d been trying to prove my mettle and left our group behind. I recall checking my watch altimeter as I’d gained a hundred metres in altitude every ten minutes. Panting and dripping sweat, I’d climbed from the river to Namche in an hour. I can’t remember when the headaches had crept in, but it wasn’t too far after that town. That had hampered my body’s ability to acclimatise and to consume enough food each day to perform.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The real, challenging stuff won’t hit us for many days, but at close to 3,000 metres with a modest backpack, Greg strides over the uneven terrain. Trekking alongside him, it’s as if we’d been travelling companions for years.

  “I’ll take it real slow when we hit the hill,” I say. “A snail’s pace.”

  “That’s fine by me. I don’t want to get out of breath either. We’re only starting to acclimatise.”

  “From what I’ve read, I think going fast is the main cause of headaches. They killed me last time.”

  “Speed is a problem,” Greg says, “but there’s more. As we go up, our bodies will change to send more oxygen around. The changes will start straight away and go on for a few weeks. We’ll breathe quicker; it’ll make up for the low oxygen in the blood.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I say.

  “But as well as getting more oxygen into the lungs, it also causes more carbon dioxide to be lost.” He steps onto a rope bridge. “The lost CO2 turns the body alkaline. Some say that’s the real cause of altitude sickness.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been reading the Lancet. I thought the problem was just a simple lack of oxygen? You’re saying that too little CO2 is the problem? So how on earth do we solve that?”

  “You pee.”

  “Pee? You’re joking.”

  Greg explains that to remain healthy, the body must somehow regain its balance. To achieve this, the kidneys excrete bicarbonate, an alkaline, into the urine. This transformation should occur within a day or two of our increased breathing.

  “So I just pee away my headaches?” I ask.

  “Exactly, but that’s only possible if you’re hydrated. We’ve got to take on about four litres of liquid every day.”

  “I never read anything like that.” I jump over a rock. “So racing and sweating like a dog is just stupid?”

  “Now you’ve got it. We need to be drinking or peeing, never rushing. And a clear stream too.”

  “Well, you’re the bladder doctor.”

  “If you say so. The more you sweat, the less you pee. The alkaline stays in your system, and your body becomes unbalanced. Altitude sickness kicks in. The next thing you know, you can’t hold down food.”

  “Game over?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll go even slower than planned. I’ll bring up the rear every day to Base Camp, starting now.”

  “I’ll be beside you,” Greg says.

  We walk through a small village of stone houses. Brightly coloured trekkers sport cleverly designed backpacks and the most modern hiking boots. Porters, wearing tattered, dull clothes, lug massive loads in shoddy footwear or just flip flops. Children, half dressed in rags, stare up at us as we go by. There’s no local obesity here.

  A few hundred metres ahead, a metal-cable rope bridge stretches far above the river. Colourful prayer flags hang from it. We aim for it. On top of the hill on the other side, six hundred metres higher and hidden beyond the forest, lies Namche. Straining my eyes, I spy the brown track as it winds up through the dense, green foliage. Perhaps a kilometre away and several hundred metres above, we see the dots of trekkers hiking up.

  The team gathers, and we snap a few group photos with the bridge behind us. Sitting beside Greg on the banks of the river, I munch a Snickers bar to keep up energy and take a few sips of water.

  Bridge across the Gorge

  Mules, mountaineers, trekkers, and porters cross the river. A steep pull up to Namche rises to the left of the photo.

  “I’m going to stop for ten minutes after every hundred metres we gain,” I say.

  “I think that’s a bit over the top,” Greg says.

  “I don’t care. There’ll be no oxygen debt or sweating on this one.”

  “Ok, count me in.”

  Backpacks on and break over, the team climbs up the rocky steps towards the bridge.

  Greg and I stop halfway across the bridge. A huge drop looms under its hundred metre width. The centre bulges down as we gaze along the valley. The summit of Everest can be sighted from the trail somewhere between here and Namche. When I was last here on an overcast day, there was no chance of a viewing. But under today’s blue sky, I hope I won’t pass by the observation point.

  Now it’s time for some serious acclimatisation.

  We toil up the steep, dusty, brown trail through the forest. Our pace drops. Breathing under control, talking fades. I’m keeping an eye on my wrist altimeter, counting down a hundred metres.

  We sit down in a shaded spot for our first ten minute break. Observers might be puzzled that two would–be Everest climbers have stopped to recover on a slope such as this. Trekkers, mountaineers, porters, and beasts of burden pass us. We watch the world go by and discuss our up-coming challenge. Greg sounds prepared for what’s ahead. He knows how gruelling it’ll be, and how success and failure are equal possibilities. He’ll be a fine man to have on the team. I don’t think I could have asked for a better person to be paired with.

  “And that’s ten minutes. Let’s get back to it.” I push myself up to my feet.

  Gravity forces down on our bodies and backpacks, but the pace does not raise our breathing. We earn another hundred metres and find a grassy bank to sit on.

  “Last time I came up here so fast, I never noticed that view down the valley,” I say. “What a dick I was.”

  “How on earth did you miss that?”

  “Head down, powering up like a fool.” I sip water from my camelbak. “There’ll be a lot of new stuff to see over the next few weeks.”

  “Yeah, here’s how I see the next two months,” Greg says. “From here to Base Camp is preseason, as they say in football. We’ve got to keep on track, stay with the program, and stay healthy. Nothing taken for gra
nted. A poor performance and we’re off the team.”

  “Right.”

  “Then we’ve got to get from Base Camp to Camp 3, acclimatise, and drop back down again. That’ll be the season proper. It’ll take us to about seven thousand metres. The thin air will kill us.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Presuming we make it back down to Base Camp in one piece, we’ll qualify for the playoffs: the climb back up to Camp 3.” Greg tightens his backpack. “That’ll give us a crack at the title, the finals. We’ll need the game of our lives. But unlike football, it won’t be over if we win. We’ve still got to get back off the mountain. And we’ll have little in the tank.”

  Greg has laid out some season in front of us. If bookies were taking bets on who’ll reach the top, I’m not sure what odds they’d give on these two lads sitting at the side of the trail. Eighty thousand trekkers a year hike in the Himalayas, to catch a glimpse of Everest and perhaps touch Base Camp. By contrast, about three hundred climbers a year try to summit Everest from this southern side. Most are seasoned veterans. Only half succeed. Of those on their way up this month, three or four will not return. If this was a sporting event, I reckon I could back myself at ten to one. The chances of Greg and I both reaching the peak? Probably fifty to one.

  “Two hundred metres down, four hundred to go.”

  I’ve adjusted to our slow rhythm; my breathing doesn’t suggest we’re ascending.

  “This is almost easy.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Greg says.

  Up higher, this mountain will inflict a terrible toll on our bodies. In 2004, three climbers succumbed to exhaustion near the summit and never made it down. I think Greg’s three words may become our motto.

  We’re leaning back against a tree on our third break, three hundred metres above the river. Our guide, Hugo, and Nadia, a Canadian who’s aiming to summit Island Peak, join us from behind.