Planting the crampons of my right boot solidly into the ice, I glanced down the snowy incline on my left and spotted another splash of color. It was another body, limbs splayed out unnaturally. My mind may have been playing tricks on me, but it looked like you could see the path of the fall written in the snow—the outline of the body bracketed by arcs where the climber must have been flailing his arms and legs.
Whoever this climber was, his feet were almost exactly where mine are now just before he slipped.
That brightly clothed corpse had been a person, someone whose family would never have a body to mourn over or to bury. How long had he been down there? There was no way for me to know. It might have been years. Then again, the accident could have happened only a few hours ago. Much later I would learn that in the several days leading up to and following May 24, a total of six people met their end on Everest, many after summiting.
One climber, known simply as Green Boots, had a permanent place on Everest. In 1996, he was too weak to keep going and took shelter under a rock overhang, eventually dying there. For years afterward, everyone heading for the summit on the northeast route had to pass his body, still curled up with his torso under the ledge and his legs and green boots sticking out toward the trail. What would he have thought of going out like that? If someone had said, “Hey, you can reach the top of Everest, but you won’t make it down, and your body will freeze and stay there for years and basically be used as a climbing checkpoint,” would Green Boots have thought it was worth it? Without summit fever, I bet he’d have said “heck no” and turned back toward safety.
I had made more than my share of bad judgment calls on the mountain so far. But I’d have plenty of time to beat myself up about it later (I hoped). A gust of wind hit my back with the force of a wrecking ball, then dropped away just as suddenly. Each time that happened, I had to tense every muscle in my body and make myself a statue to avoid being plucked from the face of the mountain.
An Doja’s summit earlier in the day had been his sixth. I’d had years of rigorous and grueling physical conditioning and could hold my own against a lot of people, but here on the mountain, I had nothing on An Doja. He seemed superhuman.
For a moment, the wind seemed to die away completely as if a protective bubble had popped up around us. As a curtain of blowing snow fell away, I caught a glimpse of ant-sized tents at Camp Three directly below us. This gave me an idea of our progress. We had left the last of the snowfield known as the summit pyramid and were nearing the top of the Second Step, a roughly thirty-foot downward climb of chunky rock. The upper and lower portion of the three-rock obstacles surrounded the bull’s-eye of the notorious Second Step.
Okay! Keep pushing. The sooner we start down the steps, the sooner we’re past them, I told myself. I resumed my silent mantra.
Focus. Step. Pray. Repeat.
Our route angled slightly to the left before the step, and An Doja leaned in toward the steep incline. A ripple moved through the rope to my hand, an echo of An Doja’s movement to free a section of rope from the ice. The wind still hadn’t returned.
The air was so clear I could see the webbing of An Doja’s black harness and the weathered creases of his snowsuit’s red fabric. I noticed his left foot come up, higher than it should. Too high. As his leg rose, An Doja reached up and over with his right arm to counterbalance, his hand still clutching the rope. In the time it took me to take a quick, deep inhalation, his body pivoted so that his head and shoulders swung around downslope and his right knee began to buckle.
Before I could exhale, An Doja pitched forward. For a split second, he was falling, frozen in time, his left arm a blur of red against the white backdrop below.
Military instinct kicked in. Take a knee. I dropped to a knee, gripping the rope with both hands. Then I tried to make myself an anchor as my partner, guide, and friend toppled off the path toward the snowbank on the edge of Mount Everest slanting seven thousand feet toward the glacier surface below.
19
Dancing with Death
RACHEL
The sound of a rooster crowing woke me up. I had slept on the second story of a small cement-block building in Guatemala and could see the sun rising. Still snug in Harold’s camo military sleeping bag on the hard tile floor, I reached my hand over to where my phone had been charging. No messages.
If my timing was right, Harold should have summited.
I should probably know something by now.
My friend Morgan knew I was on edge and asked if I wanted to try to use her phone. She had T-Mobile (just like Harold) and could occasionally catch a signal. I texted both Tommy and Harold from her phone, asking for updates. I was planning on walking to the small internet café next door to check my email, but it didn’t open until 8:00 a.m., so I sat waiting, staring at the phone.
Morgan’s phone started ringing. It was an 870 number that I didn’t recognize, but I picked it up immediately. It didn’t connect. I called for Morgan, feeling alarmed, and asked if she knew the number. She didn’t but said it could just be a random Guatemala number. I tried to call it back, but the call wouldn’t go through.
A few minutes later, a text popped up.
Have Rachel Earls call this number ASAP.
I started to panic.
What does this mean? He must be hurt. Something awful has happened.
I tried to call again, but there was still no answer. My anxiety was rising, and I was barely keeping it together. I texted back.
Calls aren’t working, but text is.
No response. The silence was deafening. My mind had now gone to thinking the worst.
I grabbed my wallet and started to head for the door as streams of tears rolled down my face. I was going to try to see if they would let me into the internet café early. Just before leaving, another text came through. I looked at Morgan with fear as she studied her phone.
“Oh no, it’s good,” she said, handing me the phone. The first three words gave me a huge sense of relief.
It’s your LOML.
This meant “love of my life,” a nickname we called each other.
I was on top of the world this morning, and I’m back at Advanced Base Camp and safe.
The weight of my body released, and I collapsed into Morgan’s arms. I had no control in that moment. I just completely lost it.
My mind had gone from thinking the worst to now knowing Harold was safe. All the weight of the worry I had been carrying around with me was finally gone, and I could breathe again.
Then a voice mail came through. It was from Harold. His voice was the best sound I had ever heard. I smiled and cried at the same time. My hunny was safe and would be coming home to me! A sense of peace came over me as I started to calm down. He went on to say that Chad and Dave were behind him and hadn’t made it back to Advanced Camp, so I should be praying for them.
Despite the very unreliable service, I was able to get in contact with Amy, our publicist, and Harold’s parents to tell them the news. Then I made my way to the internet café to update social media for everyone following the climb.
It was around 2:00 p.m. the next day when we headed into the town of Antigua and stopped to have some lunch. I connected my phone to the restaurant’s Wi-Fi for the first time since being in Guatemala, and suddenly my phone started buzzing and wouldn’t stop. Emails and text messages flooded my phone all at once.
Since I’d been running the social media the entire expedition, serving as the main source of communication between Harold and the world, everyone had been trying to reach me. By that point, they all knew more than I did.
It was an influx of confusion as I tried to piece together what actually happened up there on that mountain. As far as I knew, Harold was safe and healthy. That’s all he had told me, and I had no reason to think otherwise. Then I read a USA Today article saying th
at Harold had suffered bloody, frostbitten toes.*1
As I read the article, these words and phrases ran through my head: frostbite, lost goggles, snow blind, and falling off a ledge. I sat at the end of the table, my eyes glued to my phone, and completely lost it again. I must have made everyone feel so uncomfortable while they were trying to eat, but I had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t walk outside or I’d lose the connection.
May 25, 2016
RACHEL: I’m just now reading all these updates.
AMY (with Pitch Publicity): I talked to Harold on the phone today. He said his feet were beat up, but it wasn’t too bad, and he can climb down with no problem. He sounded really good.
RACHEL: You promise? I’m nervous he isn’t telling all the truth not to scare me since he didn’t tell me anything.
AMY: I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know if he’s telling me the truth. But he did sound good.
My world flipped upside down in those moments. The relief of feeling that he was safe had just been taken away from me. I’d heard his voice, so I knew he was alive, but what else wasn’t he telling me? Why hadn’t he told me any of the other details? I felt like he was hiding information to protect me, and I had no real way of getting the full story until I saw him in person.
HAROLD
When An Doja tripped and fell off the narrow path, I thought he very well could have fallen seven thousand feet and joined the bodies below. And maybe taken me with him.
The rope connecting us, secured by ice screws in the rock face, became taut from the weight of his body. I dropped to my knee and tried to hold the rope, but I don’t think it actually helped, as the ice screws were still in place. I remember feeling the sensation of the rope catching, and he fell just a few feet into a snow slope right off the path. The ropes held. I can’t describe the look we gave each other; it felt like it lasted an eternity, although it was just a split second. He didn’t say anything and neither did I, but we both knew death had been as close as it can be without winning.
He quickly climbed back to a secure spot on the ledge off the steep snow slope, and we both took a breather while the winds howled and picked up speed. Later, we learned that wind gusts were reaching seventy-five to eighty miles per hour. The noise was deafening.
It would have been easy to become crippled with fear, but my military training helped. Whenever you experience or see something that might be hard to take in, like the close call with my Sherpa or the sight of the dead climbers, you can’t hesitate. You see it, take it in, and press forward. An Doja and I were a buddy team, a fire team as we call it in the military, and it was our job to take care of each other.
My strength was depleted, and I felt weaker and weaker, like my stomach bug was returning and zapping any remaining energy. We started the final descent toward Camp Three, fighting our way through the winds, unable to see much. Snow was blowing up underneath the sunglasses I’d borrowed from An Doja. My hand was freezing because I’d also lost a mitten and had only the liner. I tried keeping that hand balled up into a fist as much as possible to prevent my fingers from getting frostbite.
We kept pushing downward. Right after the Second Step, I noticed I was extremely tired and dizzy. I felt drunk. I was losing my balance. I didn’t know it, but my body was craving oxygen, and as a result, I was quickly fading.
“Your tank is no good,” An Doja yelled above the wind. It was empty. He quickly replaced my tank and turned up the flow. An immediate jolt of life sprang back into me as I was pumped with Os. Wow! I love oxygen, I thought.
It was like a resurrection of sorts, renewing my determination to get down the mountain. We gathered some steam as we got lower in altitude, out of the death zone, increasing the level of oxygen in our blood. We made quick stops at the upper camps before pressing on to Advanced Base Camp.
Camp Two was a wasteland by the time we got there. The storm was on top of us and had blown away nearly all the tents. Polls sticking in the ground were the only remnants of an orange tent city that once existed. We found one of the only remaining tents and climbed in as the winds ferociously shook it. We needed a break from the storm. We were physically depleted and sucking bad. A Sherpa came by and said, “You must keep moving! It’s not safe here!” We pressed on, my body in agony and utterly depleted of energy.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my toe had gotten frostbitten from the time I had spent sitting outside my tent at Camp Three, waiting to depart for the summit. All I knew was that my feet were burning in pain. When we finally made it down, I felt like we’d been gone forever.
I saw Tommy standing outside his tent and mustered up the energy to yell his name. He looked over at us, appearing confused, not making out who we were. He hadn’t expected us to come down so quickly. We were supposed to spend the night at Camp One or Camp Two, but the weather was so bad we just kept pressing downward to safety. We had climbed from Camp Three to the summit and then back down, passing Camps Three, Two, and One, all the way to Advanced Base Camp in about thirty-six hours of straight climbing and no sleep. We had been dancing with death.
Tommy and I gave each other a huge hug. He handed me a Coca-Cola, which was a rarity in this remote area. I sat down and took my boots off to find my feet bloody and toenails missing. Not surprising, given I’d descended nine thousand feet with my toes ramming the front of my steel boots. Strangely, my big toe wasn’t bleeding but was stone white.
May 25, 2016
RACHEL: Harold got frostbite?!
KIRBY: Frostnip! I think! Not as bad.
RACHEL: What!!! He almost went blind?! And fell off a ridge?
KIRBY: Yeah, apparently! The Sherpa that H was tied to almost fell 7,000 feet, but Harold grabbed the rope and the rope caught after about 10 feet.
RACHEL: OMG. I don’t know if I should know any of this.
KIRBY: Harold is fine now! We were worried for a while because we didn’t hear from him from the time he left Advanced Base Camp until he returned after summiting.
RACHEL: This is horrifying.
Same day
RACHEL’S MOM: Have you talked to H? Chad and Dave are not back yet. So extremely thankful H and the rest of the team are at ABC, but praying for Dave and Chad.
RACHEL: What? Isn’t everyone safe? I see now Chad and Dave aren’t back.
RACHEL’S MOM: No. Dave got a stomach bug on the climb up. The team ended up separated.
RACHEL: I see now. OMG! I can’t handle all this.
RACHEL’S MOM: Harold summitted at 7:40 a.m. and then Chad and Dave at 8:35 a.m.
RACHEL: I can’t believe everything that happened to Harold.
RACHEL’S MOM: Harold then booked it hard back to ABC. Exhausting descent, but he made it. Dave and Chad made it down to Camp Three. It was a bad storm and getting worse, but thankfully they made it there. They were originally expected to make it to ABC by dinnertime, but they had to stop higher up the mountain.
RACHEL: Gosh, I’m praying. I’m really thankful I wasn’t home for this because I can’t handle it. This is really hard to process right now.
HAROLD
I had been trying to reach Rachel from my satellite phone but couldn’t get ahold of her. My heart broke knowing she was sitting by the phone, distraught and anxious, desperate to hear my voice.
I texted Rachel’s friend and told her to call me ASAP. I wanted Rachel to hear the good news straight from my voice, not through a measly text! After I was able to let Rachel know I was safe, I chatted with Tommy and other teammates about the last point on the mountain where we had seen Chad and Dave. Other climbers from our team had made it back ahead of me, but Dave and Chad were still behind me. It became clear no one had any idea where they were on the mountain or if they were okay. The gravity of our team’s communication mistake really began sinking its teeth into me.
Even as calls began coming in from ABC News and Good Morning America, I had two members of our team still out there on the mountain. My stomach was in knots, and I felt numb with exhaustion. The anxiety was so intense that I stepped out of my tent to throw up. There are no words to adequately describe the weight of emotion you experience with the knowledge that because of your bad decision, someone might die and you have no way to remedy the situation.
Our publicist, Amy, was getting calls from a variety of media. Having just gotten off the mountain, I felt physically drained and emotionally vulnerable. I didn’t realize it then, but I definitely was not prepared to begin telling our story. I took the call with ABC News while in my sleeping bag, trying to get warm. It was a decision I would instantly regret, as we still had two climbers on the mountain getting pounded by a storm while I was back in the comfort of my sleeping bag, talking to the media about our summit and cause.
In hindsight, talking to the media at that point was an immature act and not something expected from a leader and teammate. I should have been doing everything in my power to figure out how to communicate with Dave and Chad. Even worse, during the interview, I let the journalist steer the conversation away from our cause and to my rough descent and the storm. Normally, I was good at keeping the messaging on point with our awareness cause so that the story remained about our cause and not about us. But when the story broke, it was headlined “US Soldiers Recount Harrowing Descent from Mt. Everest” and mentioned virtually nothing about our cause and those we were trying to help.
A Higher Calling Page 15