Sharp, who had given up his engineering job for the expedition and was due to start teaching in the autumn, was on a low-budget attempt on the mountain. Instead of spending $60,000 on joining a well-resourced commercial expedition he had chosen to spend $6,200 with Asian Trekking, which supplied some logistics only up to Advanced Base Camp. He climbed up the fixed ropes put into place by Sherpas employed by other, better-resourced teams, primarily Brice’s, and probably reached the summit on 14 May at around 2:30pm. That is when his troubles really began.
I could see that Brice was worried in 2006. Four Sherpas had died on the mountain in April, but of course we didn’t yet know that there would be seven further deaths that season. In the event, Brice attempted to avoid the crowds of lemming-like climbers by sending his clients to the summit much earlier than usual, in mid-May instead of towards the end of the month. Word slipped out, though, and as usual the other teams copied what he was doing, leading to the queues below the summit. David Sharp was one of those queuing.
Sharp had previously climbed Cho Oyu, an 8,000m peak often used as an introduction to Mount Everest. Like Mallory, he was on his third attempt to climb Everest. As such, he was more experienced than many who are guided to the summit every season.
At the outset, he had been offered a far better-resourced trip than the Asian Trekking offer. For an extra $1,000 he could have gone with his friend Jamie McGuinness, a New Zealand climber and guide who was leading a commercial group, Project Himalaya. But Sharp was something of a loner and wanted to climb the mountain on his own.
This is where it starts to get complex. Reinhold Messner had done exactly that in 1980 and had won universal acclaim. What was the difference? Sharp had no Sherpa support and no radio, and Asian Trekking could not have mounted any form of rescue even if he had called for help, so you could say that his was also a solo attempt. But the big difference from Messner is that Sharp climbed up fixed ropes put in place by other people, on a well-trodden trade route, and perhaps he felt more secure, being surrounded by other climbers. Little did he know how illusory that feeling was.
The first question to ask is this: when the mountain resisted seven pre-war expeditions with multiple, highly skilled climbers, how can someone climbing alone on the same route manage to get to the summit of Mount Everest in 2006? As so often, the answer can be found in the past:
It has frequently been noticed that all mountains appear doomed to pass through the three stages: An inaccessible peak – The most difficult ascent in the Alps – An easy day for a lady.1
The quote is Mummery’s, and he refers to a process that many previously impossible objectives seem to go through. A friend of mine, Brian Hall, who was on Everest’s West Ridge in 1980, asked the question I had been ignoring for years: ‘When did Everest get so easy?’ Now complete amateurs who cannot walk straight in crampons or even tie knots stagger to the summit every May.
One answer is precedent. When three friends and I went to attempt the unclimbed Kellas Peak in a rarely visited part of Sikkim we struggled the whole way. The bureaucracy took three years to penetrate. We couldn’t get enough yaks or porters. We ran out of food. In the end we attempted the wrong mountain and ignored the right mountain, which was standing next to it. And yet we had rough maps, GPS receivers and satellite photographs. We weren’t that stupid and we were experienced mountaineers. We simply didn’t know where to go.
Now amateurs can be driven in minibuses to Everest Base Camp, led through all the early difficulties and guided through any technical passages by following fixed ropes that are strung all the way up the mountain. They can eat luxury food and breathe through oxygen masks. Mount Everest is not a particularly technical mountain. In fact, it’s sometimes called the highest trekking peak in the world, and therefore if you have fixed ropes from bottom to top, ladders and good guides, you will probably get away with it. I liken it to walking across a relatively quiet motorway blindfolded; the chances are that you will survive, but if you are hit it will be the end of you.
Then there is the case of Geoffrey Bruce, who was on the 1922 expedition with Somervell. He and Finch made an oxygen-assisted attempt on the summit on 26 May. On the first climb of his life he climbed higher than anyone else had done before. In other words, he set a world record in a sport completely new to him – a unique achievement – and proved that to climb high on Mount Everest doesn’t take a lifetime of Alpine experience. Just a good guide.
The precedent of others gives rise to another factor: you know it can be done. The fear of the unknown is hugely inhibiting to adventure, and plodding in the footsteps of a guide who has been there before is far easier than striking out on a new route. This can, of course, lead the inexperienced into danger.
The advance of technology is another factor that leads to countless advantages. In the 20th century we went from the first powered flight to a landing on the moon in just 66 years. Mountaineering technology has also improved. Better clothing keeps us warmer, better boots and crampons make it easier to climb, better nutrition and hydration keep us healthier. Small, powerful radios keep communications open at all times, unlike the written notes Mallory et al. had to send by runner. And accurate weather forecasting by satellite communication makes a huge difference to success on summit day.
When Somervell made the first attempt to climb Mount Everest, even though he was a physician, he had no idea of the effects of high-altitude dehydration. As a result his companion Morshead was severely frostbitten. Now climbers know that they must drink copiously, and they also have drugs such as acetazolamide (Diamox) that help with acclimatisation, and steroids such as dexamethasone, which is used to treat cerebral oedema.
There is much more to come in this pharmacological area. In 2011 I tested Viagra (sildenafil citrate), as I’d heard it could improve the speed of ascent at altitude by up to 30 per cent. It works by relaxing the arterial wall, decreasing pulmonary arterial resistance and pressure. Despite the jeers of my colleagues (‘Everest the Hard Way’, etc.), I tried timed climbs up the slopes of the North Col. The best result I got was an improvement of 12 per cent, but I’m sure there are further gains to be made with other, as yet untried drugs.
Another reason for Mount Everest becoming easier that I believe has not yet been appreciated relates to air pressure. As a result of warming in the region,2 there has been a corresponding increase in summit barometric pressure.3 This, in effect, has made the mountain slightly lower. Although a climber may be breathing supplementary oxygen from a mask, a large component of the oxygen being breathed comes from the atmosphere. As I will discuss in Chapter 19, a climber nearing the summit is also nearing the limits of human physiology, and the tiniest drop in air pressure can make a considerable difference.
Climbing Mount Everest is never easy. I found myself vomiting with exhaustion the last time I went up to Advanced Base Camp in one day. But it is much easier than it used to be. So, unbelievably, in May 2010, a 13-year-old boy from California, Jordan Romero, climbed to the summit (realising my own dreams at that age). On the same day Apa Sherpa, somewhat older at 50, broke another record, reaching the summit for the 20th time. All the Everest books and TV films that people like me have produced have made non-climbers realise that they, too, can climb Everest.
The upshot of all these factors is that nearly any fit, healthy person with enough cash can now climb the mountain. Many of the people who now go to Everest are wealthy businessmen or people who are successful in some other arena of life. They want the cocktail-party trophy; they want to tick the box. They are treating the mountain more as an extreme bungee-jump than a potential killer. You can spot them around Base Camp, the rich guys with the suspiciously new-looking gear. If they go with one of the best commercial expedition organisers and pay the fee of $60,000, they might be lucky. By acclimatising for the statuary nine weeks or so, by obeying instructions to the letter and by investing a fair amount of physical exertion, they will probably top out and get the summit photo. But where is the romance? Wh
ere is the mystique?
There is a great deal of vanity driving this, just as with the big-money trophy hunters who paid to shoot big game in the past. In 2007 I went back to the south side of Everest and saw some of the boasting that now goes on. On the walls of the lodges are the vanity posters.
These posters are quite simply boasts from the climbers who pass through, and they don’t appear to advertise anything except the egos of those who have commissioned them back in their hometowns. Our hero with the obligatory thousand-yard stare is usually striking a pose, and there’s often some flattering text beneath. My favourite was the Canadian climber who lists his accomplishments as: ‘International Adventurer. Tour Guide. Speaker. Filmmaker. Writer. Humanitarian.’ I liked that last epithet. No surprise this man is now a politician. And no surprise that all these boasters are men.
However, there are funny ones: an 81-year-old Japanese man whose photograph features him swimming in an ice-encrusted glacier pool – two years running. Then the mysteries: a photograph of a Russian nuclear submarine. Presumably the crew came climbing for a breath of fresh air.
What is far more worrying is the fact that Mount Everest has now become a trap for the unwary. If you don’t have that much money, it is tempting to go with one of the cheaper expedition organisers. As a result, people with frighteningly little ability are finding themselves far, far too high on the mountain. In the past the weaker climbers would drop out low enough to get back safely. Now it is relatively straightforward to ratchet your way up the fixed ropes to the North Col, up to Camp I, II, III … and then on to the summit. The danger is that you don’t know how little you have left in reserve. In his briefings Brice tells his clients that they must have 25 per cent of their strength left when they get to the summit. He monitors them on the radio and has strict turn-around times. If they haven’t reached the top by the set time – usually around 1:00pm – he demands that they turn back, no matter how close they are. By far the most fatalities happen on the descent. Sometimes you will just run out of oxygen, and sit down in the snow and wait for rescue. The chances are that rescue won’t happen.
So the mountain has become easier but is just as dangerous. This is the trap that David Sharp walked into. There is more to it, however, than that. It is extremely difficult to stage a high-altitude rescue, and the guides from the commercial teams are concentrating on looking after their paid-for clients. Money talks.
I listened to the whole David Sharp episode on the team radio, and I watched what happened on the cameras worn by the Sherpas. After probably summiting on 14 May, Sharp descended the mile-long North-East Ridge heading for the Exit Cracks that would have led him back to his tent. Night would have fallen before he got there, and so he crawled into the cave where the dead Indian climber known as Green Boots has lain as a signpost since 1996. The first climbers to see him were a Turkish group making the next day’s summit attempts. One of the Sherpas told him to get up and get moving, but he waved his arms to say he was all right. Later, groups of Turkish climbers saw him motionless, and the Turkish leader, Serhan Poçan, was convinced that Sharp was dead. Two Sherpas agreed, saying they would identify the body after they descended.
The next to arrive were Brice’s climbers. Some did not see him at all, but New Zealanders Mark Woodward, one of the guides, and Mark Whetu, who was filming for our Discovery film, both saw him at around 1:00am. Quoted in the Sunday Times, Woodward said he was
sitting almost on top of Green Boots, curled up in a foetal position. His nose was black with frostbite and he had very thin gloves on and he had no oxygen. Whetu kind of yelled at him, ‘Get going, get moving,’ that sort of thing.
When Woodward shone a head torch into Sharp’s eyes,
There wasn’t even a flinch of his eyelids. I was just like, ‘Oh, this poor guy, he’s stuffed’ … We pretty much considered that he was, if not dead, then not far off it. We all looked at him and realised he was pretty close to death and continued on.4
The night passed, then an hour after dawn the returning Turkish climbers saw Sharp’s arm move. They tried to give him something to drink, but had their own problems. The next to arrive from the summit was the Lebanese climber Maxime Chaya, who was on our team and who was going well. He tried to speak to Sharp but couldn’t get a response. In a radio call he spoke to Brice, who was watching events at the North Col at 23,000ft (7,010m). Unlike other leaders Brice prefers to observe events through a telescope from a tent equipped with a radio.
The context is important in this very complex story. Brice had two clients near the summit who he had been trying to turn around by calling to them on the radio. One of them, 62-year-old Gerard Bourrat, was badly frostbitten because he had taken his gloves off and was clearly in a confused state. With limited resources, Brice had the prospect of having to organise a rescue for both of these clients. Then, at 9:30am on 15 May, he suddenly had this other problem on his hands. I heard and recorded the whole exchange between Chaya and Brice on the radio.
I heard Chaya weeping as he tried to administer oxygen to Sharp: it was one of the most harrowing things I have ever heard. He did his very best to help, and he was with him for around an hour. I watched the footage from our cameras and saw the bad state David Sharp was in.
Both Mark Whetu and Mark Woodward saw Sharp on the way up. I have worked with them on several trips on the mountain itself, know both men well and consider them to be decent, moral people who enjoy helping others on the mountain. That is the nature of their work. For example, Mark Whetu nearly died trying to rescue his client Mike Rheinberger from the summit in 1994.
Mountain guides tend to be loyal to their own team on summit day. Everyone’s mind is concentrated on their team’s welfare, like a platoon of soldiers on a battlefield. Rather like Somervell’s triage experience with the wounded after the battle of the Somme, people who seem to have little chance of life tend to be ignored. However, if Sharp had been one of Whetu or Woodward’s clients I think he would have survived.
This seems to me to be the moral turning point of this story. As in Mallory’s day on Mount Everest, on just about any other mountain nowadays the people you encounter on the way up will be fellow climbers. They are part of your ‘in’ group, and as such are peers who you will go to enormous lengths to rescue. David Sharp was, very sadly for him, part of no one’s group, and as a result of the enormous pressures on those walking past he was allowed to die.
The press had a field-day. Sir Edmund Hillary had been very vocal about the changes that had taken place around the climbing of Mount Everest in recent years, and he had this to say about the 2006 season:
I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say good morning and pass on by.
He went on to say that he was appalled by the callous attitude of today’s climbers:
They don’t give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn’t impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die.5
The scene has changed: in his day mountaineers had a code of conduct and only real mountaineers would attempt the big mountains. Climbers helped those in trouble. But now people pay money to climb Mount Everest. That is the difference.
But not all climbers behaved callously in 2006. Russell Brice, for instance, collected Sharp’s gear and met his parents, even though he wasn’t part of Brice’s expedition. In fact it was completely ignored by the press that Brice’s expedition had already rescued a fellow climber that season; indeed I have seen Brice’s guides perform this kind of rescue every season that I’ve been with them, with no mention in the press. His team has performed around 15 rescues, Brice never gets paid for the oxygen (at $400 a bottle) and rarely gets any thanks. Yet when a dying climber is encountered high on the mountain there is a storm of criticism.
The simple truth is that it is very hard
to rescue someone from near the summit. Everyone is very near their personal limit, everyone is self-absorbed, and it takes a huge effort of will to organise a dozen other people to carry the casualty, prepare tents and safeguard the route down. And let’s be blunt; when people have paid $60,000 for a package holiday they are reluctant to turn away from their goal.
In my experience most professional climbers I meet are decent people only too willing to help. They have a code of ethics that they are proud to adhere to. But people who have not developed their climbing within this moral framework often seem to bring the ethics of the market place to the mountain: ‘Screw you; I’m alright.’ Near the summit of Mount Everest, up in the death zone, their moral being is stripped away and what’s left is a self-preserving core. It is an ugly sight. Frankly, the situation on the north side of Everest is now disorganised and dangerous, and if it was located in the US it would be the subject of litigation. The Chinese authorities really ought to enforce the kind of vetting that is seen on Denali in Alaska, and discourage climbers who are not in a position to look after themselves.
There is an interesting study of the psychology of climbers on Mount Everest, published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, and prompted by the 1996 disaster involving the adventure-climbing companies Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness.6 In it, the authors suggest that the switch to commercial expeditions from traditional skilled-climber expeditions such as Mallory’s led to huge psychological pressures on the entrepreneur-leaders of these expeditions. Unlike General Bruce, they not only have to make all the climbing decisions – they also have to turn a profit.
Last Hours on Everest Page 19