by Mark Horrell
26. The Ladder of Death
Sunday 6 May, 2012 - North Col, Everest, Tibet
At 6.30 this morning I'm resting inside my tent when Phil shouts from outside the door:
"Hey, Horrell, Meteotest were wrong about the weather."
Although their forecasts are remarkably accurate, on this occasion the European weather forecasting service had predicted there might be a lot of snowfall. We had considered spending an extra rest day at ABC if this were the case, as none of us fancied going up to the North Col in a blizzard, but it appears the weather is fine.
"It's a fucking summit day out here," says Phil.
We get ready promptly, have a 7.30 breakfast and leave before eight o'clock. At the very last minute, true to his character, Ian, who had been intending to rest today because of his cough, decides to get ready and join us. Being the speedster he is, he catches up with us before we reach Crampon Point. The rest of us walk at more or less the same speed and arrive together. It's much warmer than it was on our first rotation, and I don't have any problem with cold fingers this time. Once I get into a rhythm, the slow plod is easier as well. Crossing the ice plateau is a total contrast. On our first rotation a cold wind howled into our faces, but now it's fine and calm. Today the conditions are benign.
To make our climb even better, we seem to have the North Col Wall to ourselves today, as many other climbers chose to go up yesterday while it was snowing. I reach the bottom of the face at about ten o'clock. There Ian, usually quite bullish, makes the wise decision to turn around. He went all the way up to the North Col on our first rotation, and the most important priority for him now is to get rid of his cough before the summit push. (He later tells us that as he crossed the plateau on his way back to ABC he passed Andrew Lock coming the other way. "Why are you coming back – isn't there any alcohol up there?" said Andrew.)
The rest of us clip into the fixed rope and begin climbing together, although Phil goes first and disappears up the wall in a puff of snow, and Mark decides to head back down again when he gets to the top of the first rope. The rest of us – me, Mila, Grant, Dorje, Margaret and Chedar – stay together all the way up, mainly because I'm leading and I'm not the world's quickest climber. I was fine walking yesterday; I can walk for as long as you like, but on steep slopes I get exhausted very quickly, and this year the route up the North Col Wall is steep, much steeper than it was when Mark, Ian and I climbed it in 2007. We climb slowly with frequent rests, often stopping to let a team of Sherpas pass us. By the time I reach the steep and exposed section where I turned back last time, I'm extremely tired and subjecting Mila, climbing behind me, to a barrage of sound effects: fucking hell, for fuck's sake, fuck, shit, I keep murmuring, as well as uttering more eloquent syllables such as the occasional grunt and groan.
I rest at the top. It's been unrelentingly steep for a while now, and all that remains is a short traverse along a rib of snow, followed by a tricky ladder section onto the col. I slump down in the snow where the slope has flattened and get my breath back. Grant continues onwards to the ladder, but the others are content to wait for me. Chedar says that it's just 25 minutes now. When we catch up with Grant, he's waiting at the bottom of the ladder with his video camera, watching someone else climb up. In reality the ladder is two 5 metre ladders tied together at a 60º angle over a deep crevasse. At the top of the ladder is a wall of ice with a narrow gully of snow leading off to the right even more steeply. It's this gully leading from the top of the ladder that appears to be more of a problem than the ladder itself. A tangle of ropes has been attached to the wall at the top of the ladder for climbers to pull on, two of which continue up the gully to the top of the col. The gully looks hideously exposed, even without the yawning crevasse directly beneath it. I let Grant go first to watch how it's done, since he climbed up here on our first rotation. There's a rope each side of the ladder, and he attaches his safety carabiner to one and his jumar to the other. At the top of the ladder he switches them to the two ropes leading up the gully. There are some notional steps on this section where people have been before, but because Grant's axe was packed away on his backpack when he climbed the ladder, the most secure way of climbing up is by pulling hard on one of the ropes with his jumar. I follow behind and make good progress, but just at the top of the gully I chance to glance down, and I'm sickened by the exposure. The only way I'm going to get down that thing, I think to myself, is by abseiling, but the angle is awkward and the tangle of ropes above the ladder may cause a problem. One thing is for sure – I'm not looking forward to going back down again.
The so-called Ladder of Death
But for now I'm on the North Col, having found it an order of magnitude harder than when I climbed up here five years ago. Snow and ice conditions differ from year to year, and the route up the wall is never the same. This year it seems the route is much more "direct". I make my way slowly along the broad ledge of snow that is the North Col campsite, Camp 1. Tents line both sides of the path which leads through camp. There are probably about 50 tents here, and our camping space is somewhere in the middle. I see Phil, who has been waiting here for an hour or so, and Andrew Lock, who overtook us on the way up and is busy pitching his tent. It's about 1.30; the sky has clouded over slightly and a light snow is falling. We are all very tired, and any thought of walking a little higher up the North Ridge is far from our minds. Even walking to the end of the campsite and beyond, to see the summit ridge in touching distance and the view across to the south side, is pointless now that everything is hidden from view. These are sights I looked upon five years ago, and they convinced me that one day I might be able to do this climb myself and stand on the roof of the world. We hope to see them again when we come back up on our summit push.
We rest beside the tents and enjoy a light snack. Margaret, an Australian herself, provokes collective groans when she asks to be photographed with Andrew, Australia's most celebrated high altitude mountaineer.
"Groupie, groupie!" cries Phil.
Andrew takes a photo of the seven of us from the Altitude Junkies' team who have made it up here, and then we begin to think about heading down again.
"I'm going to have to abseil down that ladder section," I remark.
"You can't. The rope's too tight. It's a handrail only," replies Phil.
"Are you serious?"
Mila and Margaret seem to be as nervous about descending it as I am. Margaret has Chedar as her personal Sherpa, and Phil agrees to guide me down it while Dorje guides Mila. We say our goodbyes to Andrew, who is spending a night here before doing a carry up to Camp 2 tomorrow, and walk slowly back to the top of the wall. While we wait above for some Indian climbers to descend the ladder section, Phil offers me some useful advice for descending fixed ropes using a two-handed technique he calls hand wrapping. I've been taught how to arm wrap, a technique which involves wrapping the rope around my arm as I descend. It provides safety by locking my arm in the rope in the event of a fall, but it doesn't give me any control – nothing to reduce the likelihood of me falling in the first place, which in this steep, exposed gully is a distinct possibility.
Phil makes his way down the gully in front of me, shouting up instructions as he goes along. He makes it look easy, but as I wait above him staring down the gully, I have to swallow my fear. He gets to the bottom and it's my turn. I carefully lower myself down some vertiginous footholds, and clip into the rope at the top of the gully. As I do so I realise Phil's hand wrapping technique, which involves gripping the rope firmly with gloved hands, rather than wrapping it around the arms, and using my upward hand as the dominant point of safety, gives me a great deal of stability. Instead of loosely relying on the rope to hold my fall, I'm using it to control where I go, and I'm much more stable. I even have the confidence to unclip my carabiner halfway down the gully when I realise I'm clipped into the wrong rope. At the top of the ladder there is a step of faith where I have to face into the ice wall and step down without being able to see where my foot is
going, but once onto the ladder things are easy.
Phil and Grant are waiting at the bottom of the ladder with another group of climbers who are on their way up. They still have a while to wait. Dorje and Mila descend together but in a straightforward fashion, but above them Margaret is finding it more difficult. Unlike us, she's decided to face into the slope, but she has much shorter legs, so her descent is a series of steps of faith instead of just one. But Chedar climbs below and guides her feet carefully and expertly, and we all reach the bottom of the ladder safely. There remains the question of the rest of the North Col Wall. Although we've descended the hardest bit, many steep and exposed sections remain. On our previous visit I found four of them steep enough to warrant abseiling, but having hand wrapped down the gully I'm damned if I'm going to abseil down any of the other bits. Armed with Phil's technique I carefully make my way down. Although it's tiring I feel remarkably stable. I'm very slow, but Phil decides to stay behind me all the way down to keep an eye on me. It's a big confidence boost when I reach the bottom. I feel like I've learned something today and I'm a better climber thanks to Phil (although I know purists will argue that descending a fixed rope isn't proper climbing).
We wait for each other at the foot of the wall, and make our way across the ice plateau together, reaching ABC at around four o'clock after an eight hour round trip. All our Sherpas are crowded into the kitchen tent and we're offered refuge. Pemba gives us a plate of chips, which is greedily wolfed down, along with a few mugs of tea. It's been a tiring but rewarding day.
27. East Rongbuk monotony
Monday 7 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
Phil has some momentous news at breakfast, which has been emailed to his satellite phone by his wife Trish. One of the biggest expedition teams on the south side of Everest, Russell Brice's Himex team, are quitting the mountain because of the danger of rock fall on the Lhotse Face [we later learn that even more hazardous conditions in the Khumbu Icefall were their main concern]. It's big news. There are usually hundreds of summits on the south side every year, but if the Himex team has pulled out then it seems likely other teams will follow. It's still early in the season and there's plenty of time for conditions to improve, but already it's looking like a bad year on the south side. By contrast here on the north everything seems to be going smoothly, with no real dramas.
We're tired, tired, tired this morning, but the thought of another rest day up here at ABC is about as appealing as a dinner date with Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan. One by one after breakfast we drag our weary feet out of camp and begin heading down the East Rongbuk Glacier. I leave at nine o'clock behind Mark, Ian, Grant and Mila. I walk so slowly that I don't expect to see any of them before Base Camp. The terrain is very difficult for tired feet, never flat, with loose stones and boulders to trip me up at every moment – real ankle-twisting stuff. The scenery is now very samey, with many sections that seem to continue monotonously for hours. Chief among these is the part between Changtse Base Camp and Interim Camp, up and down and up and down over rough, loose rocks. It doesn't help when I meet a herd of yaks coming the other way on a narrow section which ascends steeply from Changtse Base Camp. There's no space to pass, and I can't scamper down the slope because of the risk of rocks being dislodged; so I have to scramble hastily up some loose boulders, and this knocks the stuffing out of me for a good few minutes. I pass Grant a little later, who has stopped to talk to Jamie. Several of Jamie's ABC trekkers also pass on their way up. The other really tedious bit is the dry dusty desert section below Interim Camp. A wind whips up, and I feel like dust is being sucked into my lungs. Phil catches me up on a section where the trail cuts across an ice lake. Below this, the scenery is more variable, more changing, and I feel like I'm making progress rather than stuck in a time warp where every footstep seems to get me nowhere. I reach the end of the East Rongbuk valley, where it meets the main Rongbuk Glacier, and complete the flatter section back to Base Camp in a little under an hour.
Descending the Magic Highway from ABC
I reach the haven of Base Camp, home again, at two o'clock. This time Phil is there to welcome me with Lhasa Beer rather than Red Bull, but unlike the first rotation, when our return to Base Camp signalled a bit of a drinking session, today feels different. We're more tired. It's cloudy, windy and cold at Base Camp, and I have a bad cough. I feel sure it's from all the dust I've swallowed. I have to take a nap in the afternoon, and I even decline the red wine I'm offered at happy hour. Da Pasang cooks another beautifully tender chicken breast for dinner, but I have a coughing fit on my way back to my tent and end up bringing much of it back up again. Still, at least we have a few rest days to recover now, and it's always a great feeling when I climb inside my huge down sleeping bag at Base Camp and let my head hit the pillow.
28. "Visiting the monastery"
Tuesday 8 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
We have more news from the south side at breakfast, when Grant decides to crank up his computer and check all the Everest blogs. We learn that although one of the larger teams, Himex, has pulled out, conditions on the Lhotse Face have now stabilised, and people are going back up again. It seems there will be summits on the south side after all. At lunch Phil explains the real reason why they're having such a disastrous time on the south compared with what we're experiencing here on the north.
"Dorje tells me it's because with all those 350 western climbers at Base Camp this year there's going to be a hell of a lot more people having sex, and the mountain gods don't like it."
It's certainly true that sort of behaviour isn't happening in the Junkies' camp, or at least not that I'm aware of.
Today's weather forecast states there may be high winds above 6000 metres until the 15th, which means we'll be sitting tight here at Base Camp for a week or more. I mention that I might go for a walk down to the Rongbuk Monastery in a couple of days' time.
"Oh, yeah?" says Phil. "We know what that means."
He mimes someone drinking. In his parlance, "going to the monastery" is a euphemism for walking down to the tented Tibetan Village and getting drunk in one of the teahouses. I look across at Ian.
"I think I might join you, Mark," he says.
Everybody roars with laughter. Ian has been on antibiotics for the last few days to try and shake off his cough, and this has meant staying off the booze. In a couple of days' time he will have completed his course, and he will be able to drink again. The funny thing is, I did genuinely mean I wanted to visit the monastery, but there's a fat chance of a story like that being believed by this cynical lot.
29. Lock Unlocked
Wednesday 9 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
Another rest day at Base Camp, and once again we're back into the routine of having a leisurely eight o'clock breakfast and then doing various odd tasks such as showering, shaving and clothes washing. We try to get more information about the south side dramas, but there doesn't seem to be any news to report today. If anything, conditions on the Lhotse Face seem to be getting safer and summits are looking ever more likely, which makes Himex's and other teams' decision to pull out early all the more baffling. At eleven o'clock Crazy Chris comes over with a box of Jaffa Cakes left behind by a member of his team who decided Everest wasn't for him and has now gone home. His visit coincides with Phil's eleven o'clock weather forecast, which predicts the high winds will continue until the 16th, but may drop off thereafter. We have now prepared ourselves for a long wait here at Base Camp.
At four o'clock Andrew Lock arrives – quite coincidentally, I'm sure – just as we're sitting down for happy hour. He's returned from completing a carry up to Camp 2, and Phil invites him for dinner as we work our way through several Lhasa Beers. He tells us the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) have definitely fixed ropes as high as Camp 3 (8300 metres). Apparently there's not much space left on the various ledges that form Camp 2, but our Sherpas raced past him on juice (in other words, they were using bottled oxygen). Altho
ugh they like to remind Phil they can climb without it, it always makes him happy when they use oxygen because it shows his Sherpas are well-treated. We need strong Sherpas for our summit push, so the fact they're using oxygen for these essential load carries is a good thing. Andrew also reports that Asian Trekking took over our camping space at Camp 1, which is bad etiquette and is bound to annoy our sirdar Dorje.
As the evening progresses Phil and Andrew get more talkative, and start reminiscing about climbers they have known. We learn that Andrew has a strong dislike for a particular well-known climber, who I'm going to call I.P. Freely on the basis there can't possibly be a real person with that name. We know he intends to retire and write a book after this expedition, so we don't push him for details of anything he may be saving for it, but in the end he can't help himself.
"Alright then, do you want to know why I hate I.P. Freely so much?" he suddenly says.
We all cheer.
He launches into a story that happened to him on one of the Pakistan 8000 metre peaks, when I.P. Freely was his climbing partner. I don't want to steal it off him and repeat it here, so I'll tell you a very similar one instead. When you think of all the villainous incidents that have taken place on 8000 metre peaks, you might think of Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli on the first ever ascent of K2 in 1954. They were resting in their high camp at 8000 metres, preparing for their summit attempt the following day, when they heard the cries of team mates outside. Walter Bonatti and the Pakistani porter Mahdi had brought up vital oxygen supplies, but it was getting dark and they were struggling to find the tent. Compagnoni and Lacedelli needed the oxygen for their summit assault, but they didn't want to share the tent. There's also been speculation that they were worried Bonatti, a young hotshot climber, might want to joint them on their summit attempt and share the glory if they succeeded. Instead of getting up and guiding them to the tent like any decent person would, they stayed where they were, and shouted for their team mates to dump the oxygen and head back down. But Bonatti and Mahdi were too exhausted to do anything of the sort. They dumped the oxygen, but they had to spend the night outside, huddling together on a precipitous snow slope as the wind battered against them. Compagnoni and Lacedelli became the first men to climb K2, but Mahdi had severe frostbite as a result of their selfishness, and the consequences could easily have been worse.