by Fergus White
“Of course, slap it on.”
After fifteen minutes we stand up, tighten our light packs on our shoulders, and get ready to descend. This was a much shorter push into the Icefall than I’d expected. Despite the slow pace, I was close to my limit. The heat has destroyed me. It will take everything I have just to get back to Base Camp. What hidden powers must I find in the next few days to scale this Icefall? I wonder if Ade and Martin are struggling with similar realisation and doubt. They’re cheery, but if they’re descending with me, they’ve also had their asses kicked this morning.
“Hey, look, just above,” Ade says, “it’s the others.”
It heartens me to see them; they can have only been a short distance ahead, maybe thirty metres above us. I may not have achieved as much as I’d hoped, but at least I’m on track with the rest of the team. Ade, Martin, and I start the descent, so we can clear the ladder bottlenecks before the others.
We pass over them with little fanfare. That’s half a dozen crossings today at different angles, various rope tensions, some wobbly, and others with beaten rungs. This morning, the thought of ladders perched across crevasses was the stuff of legends. Now they’re just something lying between us and an afternoon snack.
Ade Crosses a Crevasse in the Icefall
He has clipped in two carabiners and has tensed the ropes behind him. Two ladders have been bound together to bridge the void. I look on.
We make good progress, albeit draining. Rope by rope we descend closer to camp.
We’re standing at the top of the vertical face we ascended this morning. We peer over it.
“There’s no climbing down that,” Ade says. “Let’s hook up for an abseil.”
“Yeah, better safe than sorry,” Martin says.
“I’ll go first.” Ade forms the rope into a loop. “You guys follow.”
Once he’s cleared the base, I’m ready to go. I put my trust in the rope as I lean far back over the edge and let the line and harness take the strain. I feed the rope through my right hand and walk down backwards. I watch my foot placement on the uneven ice face. At the bottom I unclip.
“Off the rope!”
Martin steps forward, and I move out of the way in case debris precedes him.
We continue our descent down the Icefall route.
“That’s the end of the fixed rope,” Ade says. “Just the ridges now.”
Hugo catches up with us and strides past. I up my pace to stay on his heels. As soon as we strike the ridges, he climbs up over the first one and vanishes.
“Man, he’s fast,” I say.
“Let’s just make it to the finish. Let him go,” Ade says.
Clearing each ridge exhausts us. Up, down, up, down. The thin air pushes my cardiovascular system to its threshold. I never expected the Icefall to be this taxing. The trek up the valley was a breeze by comparison. The heat maintains its assault.
Another thirty minutes brings us to the edge of camp. Crampons off, the three of us are now sitting in the mess tent gulping down water. There’s only one topic of discussion: that was tough, and that was hot.
♦ ♦ ♦
I spend the afternoon resting in my tent, sipping on water, or snacking in the mess tent while chatting with the lads.
Dinner chatter covers the events of the day. Ted tells us of a huge serac collapse in the Icefall early this morning that was off the route. It’s a common occurrence on the moving glacier. The ice doctors selected a passage that’s as safe as possible and away from the worst dangers. But every now and then a movement will hit their chosen path. Over the next six weeks, the doctors will repair and improve the route as the glacier thwarts their careful plans, unseats their anchor points, and buckles the ladders.
“The two Turks, Nurhan and Yener, are sleeping at Camp 1 tonight,” Ted says.
This is no surprise. Nurhan will test the limits of human performance to summit without oxygen tanks. He’s following a different acclimatisation schedule to us. His good friend Yener, a six foot two inch mountain rescue professional who’s spent a lifetime clinging onto rock faces, will climb alongside him. Yener can’t speak English. Our conversations, while lively, have lacked recognisable sentences. After two years working in Turkey, I can do little more in his language than order a beer.
“And congratulations to Linda, good climbing by her today,” Ted says.
She’s a Canadian with whom I’ve spoken little. She set off before us this morning, with her personal Sherpa and also accompanied by her friend Domhnaill from another squad. They climbed through the Icefall almost to Camp 1 and then descended all the way back to Base Camp. Here she sits at the same table, having accomplished so much more than the rest of us today. She doesn’t look fatigued either. I’m a long way behind the likes of Linda, Nurhan, and Yener. When did this team split into two tiers with me sunk in the lower league?
April 15
Rest Day at Base Camp
It’s dull inside my tent; there must be five centimetres of snow on top of it. In no rush to go anywhere, I turn another few chapters of my book.
After breakfast I set out for Everest ER. I want the doctor to give my throat the once over. Pain’s been building all week. As I nod off to sleep each night and swallow saliva, my body shudders with the pain and jolts me awake. I’m sure it’s just the usual discomfort that climbers suffer at altitude but best to verify it’s nothing more sinister. Cold, dry air damaging the respiratory mucosa in the throat usually causes the ache. The increased breathing rate then further aggravates the already delicate area.
I scramble over rocks and around boulders for five minutes and reach a white tent with a big red cross on it. The clinic provides medical assistance to mountaineers and Sherpas who get into difficulty during their Everest attempt. Staffed by volunteer doctors from all over the world, they treat cases on site and stabilise patients for evacuation. Ninety per cent of those assisted are climbers and their support staff. The remainder are trekkers and media. The doctor is already attending to someone inside; so, I wait outside for a few minutes. No sofas and glossy copies of Hello magazine are available out here.
“Come in,” the doctor says. “What brings you to ER this morning?”
She appears in good spirits for someone who has to both live and work at this altitude. The tent is less than ten paces long and has two beds, a desk, and a chair. At the far end, a chest contains various medicines.
“My throat’s killing me. Can you take a look?”
She confirms it’s only as bad as might be expected in these conditions.
“How’s business?” I ask.
“There’s a steady flow, but climbers are still arriving into Base Camp. It’ll get busier once they move above the Icefall, always does.”
She hands me a dozen lozenges. They’re gold dust here. I’ll have to ration them over the next few days.
Cold Day at Base Camp
1: Angel’s tent
2: The two Turkish tents
3: The three tents of Martin, Ade and Doug
4: The three tents of Roger, Hugo and Pete
5: My tent
6: Greg’s tent
♦ ♦ ♦
Lunch comes and goes. The altitude has thrashed my appetite. I do my best to clear boiled tinned frankfurters from my plate but only manage small bites at a time; I feel I might throw up. I do better snacking on biscuits in the mess tent mid-afternoon, McVitie’s Hob Nobs a particular favourite. I relish two chocolate bars in my tent. They’re easy to swallow. They pack two hundred and fifty calories each; that’s five hundred a day I can count on. But on this expedition I’ll incinerate close to five thousand calories a day.
“Angel, how’s Doug?” I ask. “I’ve not seen him.”
“We brought him over to ER this morning. The doctor said he’d dehydration. He’s on electrolytes and water now.”
That’ll bring him around, but he’ll face the same challenge again very soon.
I hear an update on the Island Peak team. I’m not sure if I’
ve got the full story. Des reached the top. I think he was the only climber from the squad of six to make it.
The mess tent now has background noise. The radio has been set up, and we hear Sherpa chatter from above the Icefall. The teams have distributed the various frequencies between them. This allows us to chat uninterrupted within a team, but also listen to what else is happening on the mountain. As yet we’ve had no need for radios, but we’ll carry them when we climb higher. The base system can reach as far as Camp 2. Once beyond it, we won’t have direct transmission to here. Instead we’ll broadcast a message down to Camp 2. Someone there will relay the dispatch down to here. The rules are not hard and fast. Conditions on any given day as well as battery strengths will result in greater or lesser ranges.
As we listen to the Sherpas at Camp 1, we hear of a lucky escape for the Adventure Consultants team in the Icefall. Massive ice boulders smashed onto the route close to their position. They described the horror of staring at a gigantic grinding machine racing towards them. It was only when the powder cloud cleared that they managed to count their numbers and verify no one was injured.
“The more time a climber spends in the Icefall,” Ted says, “the sooner their luck will run out.”
I again consider the strategy of the Himex team who are acclimatising on Lobuche, up to its peak at 6,100 metres, the same height as Camp 1. This saves them the exposure of at least one rotation through the Icefall.
“Tomorrow we’ll trek down off the glacier and then hike up Kala Patthar,” Ted says. “That’ll keep us safe and prepare us for the push to Camp 1.”
We can see Kala Patthar’s apex at 5,640 metres. The dark bulge of rock stands below the south face of Pumori. Many trekkers hike up it as part of a trip to Base Camp, since Everest is not visible from here. The non-technical climb provides the most accessible view of the uppermost summit in the world. On a clear day it offers a magnificent panorama of Everest and Nuptse. For trekkers, it’s the highest point they’ll reach in the Himalayas, most likely the highest they’ll ever be in their life, excluding perhaps a visit to Amsterdam. We’ll swap our crampons for hiking boots and then walk off the glacier, most of the way back to Gorak Shep. Ascending three hundred metres above Base Camp is still solid acclimatisation. After yesterday’s beating in the Icefall, I’ll take any acclimatisation I can get.
April 16
Acclimatisation Hike up Kala Patthar
We trek out of Base Camp at 10am on an overcast morning.
“This place is getting busy,” Greg says. “There’re tents everywhere.”
“I think teams are still arriving. They’ve loads of time till the window opens.”
We meander past the other camps at an even pace. We’re hiking faster than when we arrived last week, but my breathing stays relaxed. After three quarters of an hour we’ve left the tents behind us and have stepped off the glacier. Our group stretches out in a line along the rock and sand ridge that runs adjacent to it. Ted leads. I trek third in line but have no intention of rushing today. We’ve plenty of time to get to the top of Kala Patthar, spend an hour on lunch, and then return.
“I’ll leave you guys here,” Ted says. “Got some work to do on the internet in Gorak Shep.”
“All right, team,” Hugo says, “follow me this way.”
We’ve dropped a hundred and fifty metres since leaving Base Camp. We now face a four hundred and fifty metre uphill hike.
“God, that looks steep,” Ade says.
“No point in just looking at it,” Martin says.
I’d been dismissive of today’s trek, but looking at the grassy incline in front of us, I realise that this afternoon’s acclimatisation will be no freebie. The hill is so steep it blocks our view of all that may lie beyond it. If it was much sharper we’d need ropes. At its base we survey the memorial to Rob Hall and several others who succumbed to an Everest storm in 1996.
Our neat, single line format disintegrates as each of us picks out a route. A zigzag pattern works best. My breathing increases. I ease off the pace and try to just breathe through my nose and not work up an oxygen debt. Hugo pulls away from the group. He’s making this look easy. I toil up the slope alongside Ade and Martin. No one struggles behind us.
The slope levels out to a more gradual incline, and the view opens up in front of us. Further ahead I see a steep track that will take us to the peak. The top hosts an antenna and coloured prayer flags. The last fifty metres will be a scramble over boulders. The team peppers the grass in ones and twos. Hugo has almost reached the path. Dotted all the way to the summit I see other trekkers. Below to my left sits Gorak Shep and the Khumbu glacier. Behind us, Nuptse reaches up to nearly 8,000 metres.
“Relentless,” Martin says. “It’s got to be done though.”
“I wish there was an easier way.” I pull in a deep breath.
The overcast late morning air is just right for trekking. We suffer none of the scorching heat we battled in the Icefall two days ago.
Ade and Martin drift ahead of me, but I’m enjoying wandering alone in my own thoughts. I’ve so much to consider, so much to achieve in the next month. But each adventure continues with the next step, and I need to ensure I stay with the programme today and ascend to the top of Kala Patthar. I set a mini-target that I’ll stop for a break on reaching the steep track ahead.
I turn right onto the path. The breeze tugs at my collar; it must have been behind me on the way up. I’ll need shelter for my break. I push up a few steps until I find a hollow a metre high with protection on the windward side. I’ll be able to hide in there. Off with my light backpack and out with the water bottle and a Mars bar. I position the pack to insulate me from the rock and enjoy the treat.
I didn’t intend to go sightseeing today, and this is unexpected. Peak after peak presents itself in the distance. The snack delivers a smile to my face. I’m in no hurry to restart; the cove grants a temporary relief from the exertion. The team is far above me, but it matters not. I’ll enjoy a few more minutes here in this tiny sanctuary, accompanied by my thoughts and this spectacle.
When I can put the inevitable off no longer, I force myself up the trail. The summit of Pumori stands over a kilometre from where I labour. I can see the point where we turned around six months ago at 6,300 metres. The mountain defeated us that day. As yet, we’re still a long way from that altitude. What a disappointment if I don’t at least get higher than that mark on this expedition. That line lies somewhere between Camp 1 and Camp 2 on Everest. Given what happened in the Icefall the other day, reaching such a height is far from certain. But I must stay positive; just keep ascending.
I’m closing in on a trekker just ahead of me.
“How’re you doing?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Feeling well?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
He’s a New Zealander and close to spent. He shouldn’t push himself any higher. I’m no expert to give a lecture on altitude. I just encourage him to go easy and rest as necessary. I continue upwards and keep an eye behind me, in case he should come to harm.
It looks like he’s stopped. Let’s hope he leaves it there for the day.
The rocky section awaits a hundred metres above me. I see Hugo descending through it. He’s already spent thirty to sixty minutes at the top, driving his body to acclimatise to this new height. I know there’ll be a short chat as we pass. I’m keen to make it evident I’m setting my own pace rather than struggling. We exchange cheery greetings. I think he’s surprised there’s such upbeat humour from a man so far off the pace. He bounds on down while I toil higher. I should be at the goal in twenty minutes.
I find Nigel, from our team, sitting among the rocks. His trim, fit physique disguises his sixty years. I’m concerned to find him stationary so close to the finish.
“Hey Nigel, all good?”
“Fine, fine,” he says. “I’ve been on top of Kala Patthar before. No need to do it again.”
“Ok then, no problems?�
� I ask.
“None.”
His personal Sherpa lingers beside him; so, I climb on.
The prayer flags are no longer just a visual marker. I can hear the wind that’s blowing over the summit tear at them. I scramble over a few more boulders and join the others at the finish. I shelter behind a rock.
“Another twenty minutes and I’m done,” Greg says.
“I’m going to put in an hour,” I say. “Head down without me.”
I get busy eating lunch and chat with the lads. One by one they head down, having hit the requisite forty-five minutes at this altitude. Once I’m fed, I pull out my camera and take a few shots. With the low cloud they’ll not come out great, but there’s no harm in trying. Those of us with cameras try to capture Everest. The clouds, however, conspire against us. The summit appears for just a few brief seconds at a time, never long enough for a gloved hand to take a focused shot. With the world’s highest peak out of sight, I can only give my camera to Khalid, who captures a few photos of a windswept me. In due course he too descends, with his personal Sherpa Jingbar.
View from Kala Patthar
1: Khumbu glacier
2: Base Camp
3: The Icefall
4: Nuptse
5: The West Shoulder
6: Clouds drift across the summit of Everest
Those of us remaining strike up a conversation with an English trekker. In his late twenties, he’s travelling alone. He’ll journey no higher than this in the Himalayas. Our plans for the coming weeks seem to impress him. We answer his questions about Base Camp life and what we’ve seen of the Icefall so far. All the time, dark clouds threaten over Pumori.
“Another ten minutes has me at the hour mark,” I say.
“Sounds good to me,” Doug says.
Ade and Martin pipe up, and it’s agreed the four of us will return together.
At 5,640 metres, this is the highest we’ve reached. My body will push itself further tonight and squeeze out a few more red blood cells.