No Such Thing as Failure

by David Hempleman-Adams

  The first couple of days in Kathmandu were spent sightseeing and talking incessantly about Everest as we got to know each other. Then one night as we sat in the lounge of the Summit Hotel drinking beer Steve came in looking like a ghost. Our original permit for fourteen people to reach the summit had suddenly been reduced to seven. The only solution to the problem was for half of us to claim we would in fact be climbing Lhotse, the peak adjoining Everest and at 27,940 feet the fourth highest mountain in the world, for which you take exactly the same route only diverging to the right rather than left on the South Col at 26,200 feet. Steve assured us the Nepalese had agreed that any of the Lhotse party who ended up climbing Everest could pay their peak fee retrospectively, but I think we were all still desperate to be part of the group that would be openly aiming for Everest from the outset, and by now I’d completely forgotten any thoughts I might have had about my own limitations. We had to draw lots.

  Some things were already determined. Steve as team leader had to be there, as must Roger Mear and Martin Barnicott, who as the most experienced climbers would act as guides. Brian also had to go, because of the BBC interest, so that only left three certain places. Ten pieces of paper went into a hat, just three of them with the capital letter ‘E’ scrawled on them. Two people drew blanks, then it was my turn. I thought I’d seen Steve screw one of the ‘E’ pieces up more tightly than the others, and when I looked into the hat there it was slightly smaller than the rest. I grabbed it and held it up, my breath in my mouth, and from the look on everyone’s faces I knew I’d come up trumps. I’ve always been somewhat superstitious, and I started to see this as a good omen.

  From Kathmandu we flew to a small village called Lukla where we met up with our Sherpas, cooks and porters, to begin the trek on foot to Base Camp nearly 100 miles away. The reason for this long trek is that first of all there is no other way of getting there, although it is now possible from the south to fly in and out by helicopter, mostly just done to evacuate casualties in medical emergencies, something the Chinese will not allow from northern Base Camp on the other side of the mountain. But the main reason is to start the process of acclimatization to the altitude, as even Base Camp at 18,000 feet is significantly higher than anywhere in the Alps. Much of the journey is through vegetation, so in that respect you might not realize how high you actually are, but you certainly feel it. If you flew straight into Base Camp you’d probably be dead within a matter of hours.

  Acclimatization is a life or death necessity, because if you travel too high too fast you are bound to get altitude sickness: dizziness, headaches, exhaustion and weight loss, in the worst cases total disorientation, unconsciousness and ultimately death. The most immediate danger is the collection of fluid on the brain or in the lungs, which can kill you very quickly, but the disorientation you experience can be more than enough to do so by precipitating fatal mistakes. I’d experienced that very clearly myself just at Base Camp back in 1979, and almost as seriously on Mount McKinley. You need to climb higher slowly, allowing your body the chance to adapt itself to the decreasing levels of oxygen in the air. At Base Camp there is one third less oxygen than down in Kathmandu, so a slow trek is absolutely essential. On the summit the air only carries a third of the oxygen you would receive at sea level. How well you cope is partly down to fitness, although also dictated by the natural physiological differences between people, but with acclimatisation your blood thickens enabling it to carry more oxygen. The countervailing danger is that this thickening of the blood also means a much greater risk of heart attacks and strokes at very high altitude. Many very fit and well-acclimatized people never manage to make it beyond Base Camp, and although I had been higher I had no real idea how well I would cope.

  Another advantage of the long trek to Base Camp is that you have plenty of time for getting to know your fellow climbers, and naturally start to form judgements concerning who you might want to climb with, who you would want with you in a crisis, and equally who you would not. It was already clear that some of the party were struggling, often coming in up to four hours after the rest of us, although at the time I wondered if they were simply trying to preserve their energy. In Brian Blessed we were obviously blessed with a natural raconteur who provided plenty of entertainment.

  After walking through the Nepalese national park we reached Namche Bazaar, the capital of the Khumbu region. It was in the local market there that I met a former Sherpa who ran a tea shop, and also had for sale what is called a ‘Z’ stone, said to provide exceptional good fortune and protection to the person who carries it. I decided I wanted to buy it from him to bring me luck on the climb ahead, but not at the price he quoted of $200, then about half the average Nepalese annual wage. I don’t really like haggling, particularly with someone for whom the money obviously means vastly more than it would to me, but at the same time I was unwilling to spend so much on what at the time I considered to be no more than a good luck charm. Eventually we managed to strike a deal. I would pay $50 now, and then the balance if I returned safely from the summit of Everest. We shook hands on that, and under the circumstances he wanted to wish me well. I’ve carried the stone with me ever since, wherever I have gone on a trip, and I think I have come genuinely to believe in its powers. If I ever lost it I would probably be seriously worried and when at home I put it away somewhere safe, just in case its luck runs out.

  It was at the Thyangboche Monastery that I first caught sight of Everest’s summit through the clouds. However much you have seen of the mountain on film or in photos, I don’t think anything can prepare you for the reality of glimpsing it for the first time. It’s an exhilarating and frightening feeling, and it makes you seem very small and insignificant in comparison. It spurs you on, but it also makes you realize what you will have to go through if you are to have any chance of getting to the top. The local lama gave us each a blessing and presented us with a piece of red string to wear around our necks, which I used to convert my ‘Z’ stone into a necklace.

  At Pheriche it had been planned that we would stay for ten days, now at an altitude of 14,000 feet. From there the idea was that we could carry out some climbing higher up, but always returning to sleep at a lower level. You continue a similar process all the time as you move higher up the mountain. I was frankly rather surprised at how fit and strong I felt, and was even going out for morning runs, until Steve took me aside and with an arm around my shoulder advised me that I should slow down a bit, make sure I did not burn myself out before the really hard work that lay ahead.

  From Pheriche we climbed to Lobuje, taking in Island Peak at 17,000 feet or so, and at something like 14,000 feet came to Gorak Shep, a handful of small huts where a few local people still live and the last inhabited area before Everest itself. Then we struck out across the Khumbu Glacier, where the terrain changes dramatically from vegetation to ice, and we left a trail of rocks behind us to mark the route should we need to retrace our steps to Gorak Shep. The fourteen of us, plus all our Sherpas who would accompany us up the mountain, our porters and a fleet of large woolly yaks carried all our equipment up across the glacier to Base Camp. It was 1 September when I reached there again for the first time in fourteen years. It seemed almost like a bustling village when we arrived, although with hindsight nothing like it would be today, since apart from us there were only two other groups on the mountain at the time, a small group of Spanish climbers from the Basque region and a military team from France.

  It is here at Base Camp, 11,000 feet below the summit, that the full extent of what you are about to try and do finally strikes home. You can actually hear the mountain groaning at night, the sound of rocks and ice creaking and cracking in the wind. One of our party had to drop out at this point, and having been initially diagnosed with a virus by Ginette was picked-up by helicopter and taken to hospital, although it later transpired that he had a heart complaint. I started to share a tent with a droll New Yorker called Dave Callaway, who was a similar age to me and had been on the mountain
twice before. He did have the rather disconcerting habit of suddenly shouting out ‘we’re all going to die!’. It was the sort of dark joke that climbers often revel in, but I did manage to convince him to stop before someone actually did kill him.

  It was only now that I really began to understand the reverence with which the Sherpas regard the mountain, which even if it appears superstitious to us no sensible climber would do anything other than treat with the utmost respect. Another lama and a small entourage of monks made the climb up to Base Camp to conduct a simple but vitally important ceremony called a ‘Pujah’. A wooden altar was constructed and a pole fixed in the centre, with scarves tied to the top serving as prayer flags. As the flags flap in the wind it is believed that they release prayers towards the mountain, and juniper is burnt as incense, a smell that always pervades your whole stay there. Rice is thrown in the air, and gifts are laid on the altar. It doesn’t seem to matter what they are, but the intention should be that they are significant to the giver, which in our case apparently meant Marmite and a bottle of Jack Daniels.

  As I’ve said, I do have a tendency towards superstition, but this was clearly a step further than wearing my lucky pair of socks. No Sherpa, however, would ever dream of setting foot on the mountain without first going through this ceremony, and when I saw hardened and more experienced climbers than myself throw themselves into the service, I was quick to follow. I don’t know whether there are gods living above Everest, or whether the mountain is a god itself as some locals clearly believe. What I do know is that climbing Everest is a humbling experience, one that leaves you in no doubt that your fate lies in the hands of the mountain itself.

  We then started to climb. The process was simple and the same as before: climb a little before returning to base, then venture a little further up before returning once more. In this way we would eventually climb to a height of just over 20,000 feet, the site of the first camp, and stay. This would then be repeated, until we felt confident that we could set out for the summit from camp four. It meant that in total we would probably climb the height of Everest three times, but it was an essential part of preparing us for the challenges of altitude and weather that we might otherwise be climbing blind. Every step from now on would be dangerous. Even tackling the Khumbu Icefall, a massive river of constantly moving ice between Base Camp and camp one, is riddled with pitfalls. The Sherpas kept constructing ladders, bridges and laying lots of ropes across a series of wide crevasses, we would follow, clipped on at all times. That way, if you fell into a crevasse, there was a chance you could be hauled out. Otherwise you and your body would disappear entirely.

  Still back at Base Camp the process of bonding between us continued, although I am not entirely sure how much our probable altitude world record games of Monopoly actually helped. We also became friendlier with the Spanish team, who always welcomed us with open arms and invited us to join them for dinner. They were still enjoying meals of mussels and prawns with wine, whereas our diet of rice, pasta and chips always tasted slightly of kerosene. I’d also developed a hacking cough, especially at night, which became progressively worse even though I was plying myself with Lemsip and Tunes. Following advice on how to rid myself of a cold at 18,000 feet I was spending much of my time with my head a few inches over a steaming bowl of hot water.

  On 6 September we achieved our first carry to camp one, a non-stop climb heaving around 50lbs of weight on our backs, then back again to Base Camp. We set off at 7.00 a.m. and it was imperative to return by 3.00 p.m. before the heat of the sun could vastly increase the risk of avalanches. Despite my cough I seemed to reach camp one with ease. My confidence was growing, and staring around at the inspirational scenery I felt that even getting this far was a bonus for someone who had started out initially just set on a training exercise. Three days later we moved up from Base Camp to stay at camp one.

  On 12 September, after a further return to Base Camp to relax, we climbed up into the Western Cwm and carried up to camp two. Dave Callaway and myself, the two biggest men on the trip, were now beginning to understand each other as climbers. Roped together and climbing at a distance between us of about fifty feet, we were very much out there alone by ourselves in the Western Cwm, with other pairs as much as a couple of hours ahead or behind us. The entire South-West Face of Everest loomed to the side and above us, vast and foreboding. My cough now really hurt, and back down at Base Camp I was checked over by Ginette and a Spanish doctor. My chest seemed to be in constant niggling pain, which became excruciating when I actually coughed. Their joint diagnosis was that my coughing itself had led me to crack a rib, which ultimately proved to be correct. The only cure is rest, but Steve told me the choice was mine and by now the Everest bug had well and truly bitten me, so hard that I felt despite the pain only death would stop me.

  On 17 September we made the big climb all the way from Base Camp up to camp two, which proved a long and hard day. On the way down we were fortunate that a couple of avalanches decided to miss us out, one party having to run like hell to avoid what Brian Blessed described as a ‘white rhinoceros’. A couple of minutes later an even larger one obliterated their tracks and enveloped camp one in a heap of snow crystals.

  Back at Base Camp during breakfast the next morning, a Sherpa reported that a body had just emerged from the icefall, the first we would see on this trip. It was soon clear that it was that of the Australian climber Tony Tighe, who had been killed at the top of the icefall by boulders of falling ice, or ‘seracs’, on Chris Bonington’s unsuccessful 1972 expedition. The corpse was still well-preserved, his clothes and parts of his equipment clearly distinguishable, and it had taken more than twenty years for the body to move down from the top of the icefall to Base Camp. It was a sobering thought that this experienced climber had died on the icefall that we were crossing every day to reach camp one and beyond, a reminder (if that was necessary) that Everest can strike at any time and takes no prisoners. This at least was a case where the remains of someone previously believed lost on the mountain forever could be returned to their family.

  We carried up to camp three on 19 September. Now at nearly 24,000 feet and much of the way up the Lhotse Face, we really were climbing at high altitude. We had to use a fixed rope to negotiate an almost vertical wall of ice, but even with thick rope and crampons you are only using your front points and I could feel my calves almost bursting from the back of my legs. It was tough going, but we all wanted to prove we were up for it and would be capable of climbing all the way to the summit, and although I was still coughing I refused to allow the pain to prevent me from matching everyone else’s efforts. On reaching camp three we dropped a load of oxygen bottles and made a swift return to camp two, then the next day downwards again to camp one.

  Until my great hero Reinhold Messner, together with Peter Habeler, climbed Everest without supplementary oxygen in 1978 it was a huge psychological barrier, very much like the four-minute mile. People doubted their achievement, so a couple of years later Messner just went back and did it again, solo, in winter, by the harder northwest route. There will probably always be arguments about the use of oxygen and some of them are circular. In 1922, when George Finch absolutely proved the advantages it provided with his immensely faster rate of ascent compared to those climbing without its benefit, many still considered it ‘unsporting’, and you even see that attitude today. It almost makes you wish the mountain was five thousand feet higher, if only because then there would be no chance of reaching the top unaided. I think anyone should get there however they can, with oxygen or pulled up on fixed ropes by a guide. Each to their own.

  On our climb we all planned to use oxygen. Our plan now was actually to descend all the way back to Pheriche for a few days of relaxation, as Steve felt it was crucial for us to have rest and keep our spirits up. Most of us felt ready for that, and were starting to imagine the taste of the beers that would be awaiting us. We were getting ready to leave, when two Sherpas radioed our camp to say that a huge aval
anche had just wiped out camp three, sweeping away everything including all the oxygen we’d carried up there. Our relief was palpable that we had no longer been on the ice face, as it was patently clear that none of us would have survived, yet now the whole expedition seemed in jeopardy unless we wanted to attempt the summit without oxygen, which none of us considered to be an option. Steve sent a couple of Sherpas back up the mountain to try and recover any oxygen bottles they could find, and Roger Mear agreed to trek all the way back to Namche Bazaar to buy as much oxygen as he could lay his hands on.

  The rest of us made our way back to Pheriche. It was good to be able to enjoy a decent meal and a hot shower, but we were all despondent and concerned that our chances of climbing Everest had been taken away from us, swept away with camp three. Roger returned a couple of days later with some more oxygen, but not quite enough for the whole party. Our original intention had been to use oxygen as we climbed from camp three to camp four, at 26,200 feet on the South Col. We would sleep there that night using oxygen, then push for the summit and back down again to camp three the following day. At a meeting it was agreed that we would split into two teams, but none of us would be able to use oxygen until we reached camp four, except for a small amount at camp three only to sleep on.