by Fergus White
“Hi Fergus, everything ok?” Khalid arrives with Jingbar.
I explain the situation to them.
“Ok, you go down. We’ll keep him away from the rope,” Khalid says. “I’ve got spare water. We’ll get him down this section. It’s easier after that.”
I make fast progress through the white valley, passing Greg, and scramble down the Yellow Band. I traverse the Lhotse Face and then turn right to look straight down its slope.
I’m lugging a heavy pack. The sun has risen into the clear, blue sky. My legs cannot answer the demands I make on them. What I thought would be a simple stroll downhill is anything but.
At each connection point I rest to calm my breathing. The sun is beating down on me. Sweat rolls off my brow. My thighs scream for release.
I’m sitting, my left forearm on the snow and my face centimetres from its cooling effect. I stare down at Camp 2, a kilometre below. I could give up. There’d be no sense of dishonour. I think back over the last month, over last night. It was a rotten evening, disappointing. But we lived on the edge. I’ve been near the 8,000 metre mark.
For the last year I’d trained with a backpack, its model name: “South Col”. If that bag could have spoken, it would have mocked me. Filled with dumb bells, I’d exercised in a city of four million people in the Middle East. But yesterday, stuffed with an oxygen tank, I took her home. I carried her and me to her namesake. It’s a place where few have trod. I’ve had adventure, astounding altitude. I lived a night of drama at Everest Camp 4. I’ve pushed myself as far as I can. But now I’m exhausted. I’ve done enough. If I had to go home now, I could say I’d had my fill.
But I’m not quitting.
The pack murders me. My face boils under the mask. I stretch it outwards to suck in cooling air. My legs are struggling to keep me upright. Greg catches up and strides past. At each connection point, one or two other climbers catch their breath as I fight for mine. The sun’s rays bounce off the white surroundings.
I must drink water. Setting out on an empty stomach I can handle, but not dehydration. I’ll stop at Camp 3, two hundred metres lower, and boil snow. I descended from there to Camp 2 in just over an hour when we acclimatised; it’ll take longer today. I set mini-targets to make it from one connection point to the next, maybe fifty metres in length. My legs wobble. A misstep will shoot me down the fixed rope. A cut to a calf muscle from a crampon must be avoided. I wipe sweat out of my eyes.
I look back. Some of the guys now descending the Yellow Band may be climbers or Sherpas who summited at dawn. For them it’s almost over. The realisation sickens me. I have to ascend and do it all again.
An icy fog has rolled in over the upper few hundred metres of Everest. It’ll be a whiteout up there, probably windy. If I’m exhausted here, there may be several worse above me.
We were warned yesterday to be back at Camp 4 by noon. I wonder how low trouble might drop. I’d convinced myself that I’m in the lowlands; that I’d descended into safe, oxygen-laden air. But it only takes a glance in front to realise this is not the case. I’ve been on airplanes lower than this. I can see over the peak of Pumori. Six months ago, I’d gazed up to it and considered it the most dangerous place I’d ever seen. Now I’m looking down on it, shattered and out of water, while a blizzard approaches. The hiss of oxygen in my mask has ceased.
Close to Camp 3 I fight hard ice as I descend. Panting, I arm rappel to stop myself falling forward. Where it’s too steep for that I abseil. My crampons scratch over the surface. I search ahead and to the left for our tents. The clouds reach down to me.
About 1pm I stumble into Camp 3. I peel off the pack and drop onto a snow shelf. My head droops. For a minute I do nothing, just stare at my boots, puffing. Greg taps me on the shoulder.
“Fergus, I’m just about to leave.”
“Ok, see you later.”
“Come over here, Fergus.” Khalid beckons me to join him in a tent.
I clamber down into it; half a metre of fresh snow surrounds it.
“Khalid, where do you keep getting all this water from?” I stare at a pot that’s just coming to the boil.
He pours half a litre into my bottle. I gulp it back.
“Hey guys, any water in there?” Roger calls in from above the entrance.
“Pass in a bottle, Roger,” Khalid says.
My day should be finished. I’m drained from lugging a full pack after a night at the South Col. But we’re at 7,100 metres and a storm approaches.
“Let’s get out of here in ten minutes,” Khalid says.
“Man, I could do with a rest and more water. But you’re right,” I say. “We need to be off this mountain.”
“Roger, we’ll head in a few minutes,” Khalid says.
“No, I’ll stay here,” Roger says.
“What?” Khalid looks out to him. “We’ve got to get out. There’s a storm coming.”
“No, this’s great here. I’ll stay, at least half an hour.”
“Roger, we need to get moving. It’s not safe here,” I say.
“I’m enjoying it here.”
“Roger! We’re all out of here in a few minutes,” I say. “Khalid, where’s his Sherpa? And thanks for the water.”
I haul the pack back up and tighten the chest straps. If I lose the race against the snowstorm, it contains the sleeping bag and mat I’ll need to bivouac. Roger moves out to the fixed rope. I follow.
Just below camp, Roger is struggling to switch his safety to the next rope. It should take less than five seconds. His personal Sherpa gives directions. They’re talking, but the swap is not made. I can’t see the problem; climbers further down have passed through this point. I think Roger’s unhappy with how the rope is connected to the ice-screw. The Sherpa knows more about such matters than me.
“Guys, I’m coming past. Stay still.” I stretch my right arm around them, slap my safety onto the next rope, and walk on downwards.
Snow under my feet eases the passage. Clouds shroud Everest above and the valley below. The route becomes quiet, the air still. The break and water has postponed my collapse. I count each anchor point as an achievement.
I reach the Bergschrund, the last challenge of the day. My head falls forward between breaths. The damp rope has iced over. My damaged hands fight to make a loop in it and hold it there. Standing on a ridge centimetres wide, I wrestle it into the carabiner on my harness. A jagged bone breaker looms beneath me. There’s no one in sight if this goes wrong.
Below the Bergschrund, visibility drops to forty metres. There’s no guiding rope. Crevasses lurk off-route. I stop and kneel on the snow. Jingbar, who accompanies Khalid, will lead me to safety. I got from here to Camp 2 in thirty minutes last time. It’ll take twice that in my current condition.
After fifteen minutes, Khalid and Jingbar materialise through the clouds. They abseil down the wall.
“Hi guys.” I exhale. “Thought it best to wait. The route’s hidden.”
“How’re you doing?” Khalid looks down on me.
“Shattered.”
“Jingbar will take some of your stuff.”
“No way, he’s got a full pack.”
“Come on, it’s best, a few kilos,” Khalid says.
“No problem,” Jingbar says.
“No way.”
Khalid grabs my upper body and holds me face down in the snow.
“Jingbar, quick. Take some stuff,” he says.
Jingbar opens my pack and ransacks it. I’ve little left with which to battle. An Omani sits on top of me in a whiteout as a Himalayan storm approaches. Meanwhile, a Nepalese man does me a favour and steals my belongings. He gets one or two items before laughter gets the better of the three of us.
We follow Jingbar’s yellow jacket through the wet, soupy cloud. I see a boulder up ahead, the only landmark. I’m just about lifting one foot in front of the other. Dehydration and a lack of salt and food have flogged me. Beside the rock stands a person, the first we’ve seen in almost an hour. We get cl
oser. The Sherpa’s holding a flask. I stop, my eyes close. I let out a long breath.
“He’s one of ours.” I point.
“I know,” Khalid says. “He’s also with me. At Camp 3 I asked him to shoot down and bring up a flask to meet us. I knew it’d be a hard finish.”
“Winner.”
The Sherpa produces three camp mugs and fills them. Slumped against the rock, I open my eyes to direct the mug to my lips, take a mouthful, and let my eyelids fall again. Warm lemon tea runs down my throat.
I follow them to camp. I strain to lift my boots above the snow. Jingbar looks strong. My body hurts trying to hang onto their coattails. We cross a trickle of melt water where there’d been ice and snow a few days ago. The Icefall will become unstable. I presume I’ll descend it one more time. Will I do so, knowing I reached the summit and take whatever it throws at me once more? Or will I trudge down, despondent, regretting having ever come here?
May 17 – May 19
Back at Camp 2
We’re sitting in the mess tent around the stone table. The last three days have been a waste. Few words are said. The food has all but run out.
We learn over the radio that Hugo, Charlene, and Pete reached the summit this morning. They’ll recover at Camp 4 tonight and descend to here tomorrow. They’ve shown it can be done. Charlene has succeeded in her quest to become the first woman from her country to summit Everest, but she’s far from safety.
We’re aiming to summit on the morning of the 23rd. That means we’ll push up from Camp 4 at 6pm on the 22nd. None of us trust the stoves to boil enough snow for the night time assault; therefore, we’ll spend the night before at the South Col. That’ll give us all day on the 22nd to get hydrated and fill two bottles each. We’ll set off from here to Camp 3 on the 20th.
Angel has been outside on the walkie-talkie to Base Camp. He comes back in. We need a resolution on the food situation.
“Ted says we’ve to go down to Base Camp and bring up food.” Angel looks at us.
“What the fuck? How can we do that and summit?” I ask. “It’ll take us a day to descend, which is tomorrow, the eighteenth. That’ll burn up energy.”
“Not the damn Icefall again,” someone says.
Voices rise. Angel has the radio in his hand; the anger focuses on him.
“Then we’ll have to climb up through the Icefall the next day with a load. That’ll waste more energy. Then the following day, we’ll start straight into the summit push and ascend to Camp 3.”
“Look, that’s what I was told,” Angel says.
There is near mutiny.
“Well, that’s bollox. We’re thrashed. We’ve no food. How in God’s name will we get through the Icefall twice and then try for the summit?” I ask. “We just spent a night at the South Col.”
“After all this training, to crash out because of no food, that doesn’t make sense,” someone says. “There’s loads of food down in Base Camp.”
“Angel, get on the radio and tell Ted to send up a Sherpa with food. This is ridiculous.”
Angel steps outside. He comes back in. He hesitates.
“Ted says that if the Sherpas bring up food, they’ll be too tired to assist a summit push.”
Someone shouts at Angel. Ade shakes his head and mumbles something.
“Angel, this is beyond a joke,” I say. “If the climbers are tired, there’s no damn summit for anyone. What in God’s name are we keeping the Sherpas fresh for? If a Sherpa who carries a load through the Icefall is no longer able to reach the top, then the same must be true of us. The purpose of the expedition is to get the climbers to the peak, not the Sherpas. If us lads sitting here can’t climb, then nobody goes to the summit.”
“Look guys, I’m on your side,” Angel says.
“Angel, about three hundred climbers arrived in Base Camp, right?”
“Yes.”
“Forty summited last night. Probably twice that number has already quit. Correct?”
“More or less.”
“The season’s almost over. There must be dozens of Sherpas down at Base Camp who’ve nothing to do. They’d be delighted to get an extra carry. That’s what they do for a living. That’s why they’re here. They get paid a pittance to haul rubbish off this mountain. I’m sure we can offer above the going rate for one of them to bring food up to hungry climbers.”
“Well, I’m not sure what arrangements have been made,” Angel says.
“Angel, tell Ted to send the damn food up here or we’ll arrange it ourselves.” I turn to the faces around the table. “Lads, we can have a word with Teshi or one of the others. They understand business; they’re not fools. We’ll come to an arrangement with them and they’ll sort out someone they know to bring up the food. If Teshi makes a few dollars on the side, that’s fine by me. He deserves it. I’ve busted my ass too far to throw it away over a few lousy dollars.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ade says.
“And another thing. I don’t see why the damn Sherpa who carries the food has to be the same one who goes to the summit.”
Angel comes back in from the cold.
“Ok, we have a solution,” he says. “A Sherpa will bring up the food -”
“Finally, progress,” Greg says.
“But he won’t do so until the twentieth.”
“The twentieth? But we’ll have left that morning.”
“The Sherpa will bring the food up to Camp 3,” Angel says. “We’ll set out and it should arrive about the time we get there.”
“And what have we got here to eat till then?”
“It won’t be great, but it should get us through.”
“Ok. By the way, Angel, I didn’t mean to shout at you. I was pissed off with Base Camp, not you. You were the conduit to there. Nothing personal. Sorry again,” I say.
“No problem.”
The dust settles.
Angel tells Roger he cannot continue. He believes Roger has HACE (high altitude cerebral edema). His climb is over. The update shocks Roger. Angel explains that fluid leakage causes a potentially fatal brain tissue swelling. The person is not aware it has occurred, and deterioration can be very quick. Early symptoms include confusion, a change in behaviour, unclear speech, and hallucinations. Prompt prognosis is usually only possible by a trained professional or a buddy who may note unusual or out of the norm actions. Roger refuses to step off the team. An argument develops. I feel gutted for Roger. I’m just as surprised by the sudden turn of events.
Angel has to step up his persuasion. Untreated HACE progresses into blindness, partial paralysis, unconsciousness, coma, and death. The dangers are compounded by the victim denying there’s a problem. The treatment, if recognised in time, is simple: immediate descent and then complete rest.
Angel recounts to Roger that on more than one occasion he was not connected to the fixed rope while descending the Lhotse Face. As a result, Angel had spent several hours performing a double clip-in, whereby he ensured Roger was always tied to him on the descent, while he in turn was linked to the rope. The argument heats up. I think back to what Hugo told me about HACE: when a person is irrational, they’ll have no memory of it after the event.
Horrid as the situation is, I can’t leave Angel swinging by himself. I apologise to Roger in advance. In front of the team, I detail my encounters with him over the last two days. It’s as unpleasant a task as I’ve ever had to do. I lay down the facts, as seen through my tired eyes, and then let the decisions fall where they may.
Greg speaks up and confirms that he believes Roger has HACE.
“Roger, you must descend. You have HACE,” Nurhan says. “There is no choice.”
I now realise I’d seen a few irrational climbers over the last two days. It might have been best if someone had sent them back early. I saw a man at the Yellow Band hold a metal carabiner in his bare hands. The task he performed was meaningless. There was also the person with no oxygen tank, who twice this morning tried to kill me.
Angel a
nd Roger continue the argument outside the tent. A sombre Angel returns to say that Roger will descend in the morning.
The radio crackles to life. We hear Ted’s voice from Base Camp. He asks why we didn’t stay at the South Col and attempt another summit after the botched effort. No one says anything. I swap glances with my climbing buddies. Heads shake. Eyes close. Greg’s head slumps in both hands.
Ted suggests that Ade should continue the descent to Base Camp and quit. The words scandalise me. We stare at each other. A firm response is given. The radio is set down on the table.
“Up to us from here on in, lads,” Greg says.
♦ ♦ ♦
It’s May 18th. The on-going sleep and oxygen deprivation has sapped my energy. The thought of having to start all over again has drained my spirits. This is life high in the mountains. I’m sitting in the mess tent looking at the plate in front of me. A dozen chickpeas stare back at me.
“This is not mountain food.” Nurhan, our legendary climber, thrusts a hand towards his plate.
After our Pumori climb, I’d filled in a questionnaire for Ted and added several paragraphs of suggested improvements. Among other items, I can remember writing “a better quality of food is needed; I will not get up Everest on the same diet.” It kills me to be now playing with the same food again.
Private grumbles have been bubbling to the surface. Greg had confided in me that he expects no miracles from Base Camp in our bid for the summit. Ted’s public lack of faith in Ade has walloped him. His climbing buddy, Martin, has already dropped out, and now he appears to have no team support. Ade’s initial anger has been replaced by a deep sense of being abandoned. I assured Ade that I’ve got his back, but countered that by reminding him that I’m thrashed and won’t be able to step into the breach should he need a hand.
Our reduced numbers leave plenty of space around the stone table. Yet still, we eat in our tent, while the Sherpas squeeze around the pots in the kitchen tent. No one questions the arrangement. Perhaps language has created the barrier. Maybe we represent the latest batch of egotists; we’ve travelled to their country to defy dangers that our Western lifestyle already protects us from. In that process, we’ll force them into harm’s way for a handful of dollars. Or is it that simple human shyness, on both sides, hinders the breakthrough?