by Mark Horrell
Andrew's story reminds me of this one, and I have some sympathy when he leans back at the end of it and says with a wry grin, as though it happened so long ago that it's nothing more than a funny story now: "And that's the reason I hate the bugger so much!"
I look forward to reading his book, which Grant says should be called Lock Unlocked. Mark suggests the alternative title, I.P. Freely and Other ****s I've Known.
30. Russian hospitality
Thursday 10 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
At breakfast this morning Margaret tells us about her Everest summit day last year on the south side.
"Remember when I dropped my glove and you caught it," she says to Phil. "I still don't know how you did that!"
"It's because I have superhuman powers," says Phil.
Five of them were climbing up to the South Summit in the dark, with Margaret at the front and Phil at the back, when Margaret's glove came off and was taken by the wind. Had she lost it then, it would probably have meant the end of her summit attempt at best, and severe frostbite at worst. But she shouted, and Phil stuck out his hand and caught it.
"To be fair," says Mark, "if you were a superhero and your superhuman power was glove catching, then you'd be a bit pissed off!"
Phil's comment ends up backfiring, and we spend the rest of the morning calling him Glovecatcher Man.
After lunch Phil, Mark, Ian and Grant decide to walk across the boulders to Jamie McGuinness's camp and accept Andrew Lock's reciprocal offer of afternoon beers. To prevent an invasion, and because I don't feel comfortable about commencing drinking that early in the afternoon, I decide to stay in camp, have a snooze and read a bit of my book. Everything is set for an uneventful afternoon. Chomolungma clouds over and the wind picks up. By the time I leave my tent for four o'clock happy hour, it's really quite cold and it doesn't seem overdoing it to put on my down clothing. No sooner have I joined Mila and Margaret in the dining tent, than Ian bursts in and says the Russian 7 Summits Club team are having a party tonight and everyone in Base Camp is invited. 7 Summits Club have learned that we have a Russian on our team, and Ian has been sent on a special mission to fetch Mila.
The Russian camp is located at the furthest end of Base Camp, directly underneath the tall bank of terminal moraine at the snout of the Rongbuk Glacier. They have a huge white dome with chairs around the edge and a table in the middle, which seems to contain as much free food and drink as everyone in Base Camp can manage. It's extremely generous of them, and there's a nice gesture when their leader Alex Abramov stands up and makes a speech to say we should all be prepared to help each other out on the mountain and not compete. My companions make great efforts to circulate with other teams, but for the most part I'm content to stand at the edge and watch. There are a good 50 or 60 people. Most of the Russians are sporting sizable beards and facial whiskers, and many of the other Europeans seem to have craggy faces that look like they've been hewn from a rock face using an ice axe. Many people have quite severe sun and wind burn, and halfway through the evening it occurs to me that I've never been in a room with so many ugly people. If there was a mirror then I'm sure I would count myself among them. There are a number of Australians, and Andrew and Margaret discover they have a few fans who ask them to pose for photographs. Mila acts as interpreter for a couple of portly Chechen climbers who are keen to talk to Andrew. All I can make out of the conversation are the words, "Ah – Andrew Lock, Andrew Lock!" repeated in deep-voiced Russian accents. There is enough to keep me amused without getting too involved in conversation, and when some of the more hirsute mountaineers find their way onto a makeshift dance floor, it's considerably more entertaining than watching Strictly Come Dancing.
At the Russian party
For three hours we take advantage of Russian hospitality, but back in the Junkies' camp Da Pasang and Pemba have been busy cooking another delicious chicken breast and chips, so at 6.30 we pull ourselves away and return for dinner. One or two tins of Lhasa Beer seem to have found their way into deep pockets, and we toast Russian warmth and generosity on our return.
31. The Tibetan Village
Friday 11 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
Feeling slightly guilty about our over-indulgence yesterday, Ian and I decide to get a bit of exercise this morning. We wander down the road to the lower part of the Rongbuk Valley. About an hour's walk below Base Camp is a settlement of about 60 tented souvenir shops arranged around a square, known as the Tibetan Village. Just before we reach it, a small gompa perches high on a rocky outcrop above the valley. This is the Zarongbuk Monastery, an outlier of the main Rongbuk Monastery further down the valley. When we came here five years ago, Ian and I had the surreal experience of being pulled down a trapdoor by a group of boisterous Tibetan pilgrim women, and found ourselves in an underground crypt where a monk was lighting butter lamps. Today the place is deserted, and we spend a few minutes exploring its compound. Tiny monastery buildings, prayer flags and chortens are spread out among a tumble of sheltered rocks, with Everest as a backdrop. It's tucked away off the dusty road and is very peaceful given that it's right next to a major tourist attraction, with bus loads of sightseers driving past from time to time.
Down in the Tibetan Village we stop for a Coke in one of the tented tea houses. The wind has dropped and it's swelteringly hot as we sit and sip. The Tibetan tea house owner tries to converse with us in broken English, but we don't get very far. There's a post office here, and we stop for Ian to write postcards to his nephews. He buys too many, and offers some of them to me.
"Are you sure you don't want any postcards, Mark?"
"Postcards?" I reply. "This is the 21st century."
I sit on a rock and wait for him, tapping away on my iPhone, and posting my geographical location to the social networking site FourSquare. I post a photo of Ian to Facebook, which I took with the camera on my phone.
Everest from the Tibetan village
It takes us about an hour to return up the hill to Base Camp. Ian isn't capable of walking slowly, and he sets a vigorous pace. I linger behind, sweating profusely in the hot sun. Luckily the China Winds are behind us, cancelling out the effect of the prevailing winds which otherwise would have blown a large quantity of silver dust into our faces. It's been a good three hour workout, and we get back to Base Camp at around midday.
Back in camp Phil is very excited about the latest weather forecast. "We should be able to summit on the 20th or 21st," he says.
This means we have another two or three rest days before we head back up the mountain. After lunch he gives us an explanation of how we'll be splitting each of our six oxygen bottles among the three high camps. We start on our first bottle between Camps 1 and 2, and continue using it to sleep on while we're at Camp 2. A second bottle will get us from Camp 2 to Camp 3, and we set out from Camp 3 on our summit push with two bottles each. The second bottle should have enough oxygen remaining to get us through the night when we return from our summit attempt, and a fifth bottle will get us back down to Camp 1. We each have a sixth bottle to use as a spare in an emergency. Phil gives a practical demonstration on the dinner table, using espresso cups to signify the bottles, but it's a bit complicated to follow. I certainly need a strong coffee to get my head round it, and I suspect he may have been smoking something more potent than coffee beans while we were away. Discussing our summit push doesn't exactly fill me with anticipation. On the contrary, it has the reverse effect of making me feel nervous. There are so many little things to consider, but most of them are common sense which experience makes you do mechanically. Chongba will be climbing Everest for the thirteenth time, so I'm hoping he'll be able to help me out with the oxygen routine.
32. How not to write an expedition dispatch
Saturday 12 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
A day of small, minor setbacks which conspire to leave me feeling slightly down. In the morning I decide to read Grant's blog post from yesterday, whose title hints that he has s
ome insight into the whereabouts of Sandy Irvine's body, something that has been intriguing people ever since George Mallory's body was found on slabs below the First Step in 1999. Mallory was believed to be carrying a camera when he disappeared with Irvine in 1924, but it wasn't found on his body, so many people now believe Irvine was carrying it. They hope that if the camera can be found and its film developed, it will confirm once and for all whether the pair of them reached the summit 29 years before Hillary and Tenzing. Personally I believe Irvine must have fallen all the way down the North Face (the rope around Mallory's waist was broken) and his body is now crushed somewhere deep inside the Rongbuk Glacier. It'll emerge at the glacier snout in Base Camp many years hence, by which time the camera won't be in very good condition. Even if they did get to the summit, they didn't get back alive, and getting back alive is quite an important part of any climb.
In any case, despite the title, Grant's blog post isn't about that. It turns out to be the most depressing rant about all the ways he might die on summit day, and how every moment spent in the death zone (deep voice and evil laugh) is slowly killing him, and how it's so cold up there that if he takes his gloves off he might lose his fingers "for ever" (cue loud organ music and more evil laughter), which suggests there are some ways of losing your fingers and getting them back again, but climbing Everest isn't one of them. He talks about how he might fall down the North Face and die instantly because the thin air of high altitude gives him the mind of a seven to ten year old boy.
I've been reading the post out to Mark in my best husky Hollywood mover trailer voice, and at this point he interrupts.
"But how does that work - how can a lack of oxygen make him more intelligent?"
We both agree that Grant should have to pay some sort of forfeit for writing such a depressing post just a few days before our summit push.
Then at eleven o'clock Phil brings the latest weather forecast, which suggests the winds will pick up again on the 21st. This would mean the 18th, 19th and 20th is the only possible, narrowest of summit windows. Crazy Chris comes over and confirms the ropes have only been fixed as high as 8300 metres. The rumour is that some impatient teams went over to the CTMA to complain the ropes weren't being fixed quickly enough, to which the leader of the rope fixing team responded in a fit of resentment by immediately ordering his rope fixers down from the mountain. We're now told the last bit of the route will be fixed on the 18th and 19th, narrowing the window even more, and opening up the scary possibility that everyone on the north side of the mountain will be trying to summit on the 20th. Phil then asks me if I would mind sharing a tent with Grant on our summit push.
"Not at all," I reply, "as long as he agrees to keep the conversation light."
Luckily Grant's blog post was written for dramatic effect, presumably for the benefit of readers back home who aren't worrying about him nearly as much as they should be, and in reality he's nowhere near as pessimistic in real life as his writing style suggests.
But today isn't all bad news. In the afternoon our Sherpa crew return from their long, exhausting stint at ABC and above, during which they established all our supplies right the way up to 8300 metres. This means the only remaining pieces of the jigsaw are the fixed rope to the summit and a decent weather window (there's the rub). But later in the afternoon I look out of my tent and see Chongba emerging from behind the dining tent. He greets me with the most cheerful grin you could possibly imagine, and although he's probably been having a celebratory beer or two, the sight of my summit day Sherpa looking so buoyantly optimistic completely erases any lingering depression caused by this morning's other developments.
In the morning Mila and Margaret walked down to the Tibetan Village, and on the way they bumped into the famous Russian explorer-priest we first talked about in Tingri, who is supposed to be hoping to place a cross on the summit. We hadn't heard anything more about this story until we went to the Russian party the other day, and saw the cross standing proudly outside their dome tent. It was an impressive looking thing, about six feet tall, made from wood and standing on a sturdy platform. It won't be easy to carry it up, or back down again. The priest confirmed to Mila that he hopes to carry the cross to the summit and leave it there, but the good news is that he's sensitive enough to realise he needs to apply for permission from the Chinese government in order to do so. The chances of a Communist government allowing a religious symbol to be placed on the summit of their highest mountain seem about as high as me making it up there without oxygen, blindfolded and walking on my hands. I think Mila can rest assured that Chomolungma is not going to be defiled in this way.
Later in the evening we discover there's something else she's not so happy about. Phil posted a dispatch on the Altitude Junkies website that included a photo of her at the Russian party. The photo was taken by me, and at dinner time she comes into the tent and tells me I've made her lose her job because her employer doesn't know she's away climbing Everest. I don't know what story she gave them to explain a two month absence, but I didn't even know she had a job. She's been good company over the last few weeks, and a helpful and considerate member of the team, so this latest development is unexpected. In the last year, at the age of only 25, she has climbed on Manaslu, Ama Dablam, Ganchenpo, Cholatse, and now Everest. Later this year she intends to return to Manaslu and also climb Ganesh with Phil. It's an astonishingly impressive Himalayan climbing CV. I don't think I ever had the energy or motivation to climb so many mountains in such a short space of time, even when I was her age. But it's not a lifestyle which is conducive to holding down a regular job. She's very lucky to be able to do so much so young, and unfortunately for Mila the rest of us are all much older. We had to work for many years before we could afford to tackle any big mountains, and we find it difficult to sympathise with her predicament, if predicament it is. I hope this incident is only a one off, and by tomorrow she is calmer again. I suppose on the positive side it's refreshing to come across someone who hopes to climb Everest and remain anonymous.
Grant then atones for his blog hell and tries to lighten the mood by describing an incident that happened when he was a student in Dunedin, New Zealand. He tried to urinate his name into the snow on the main street while police were driving past. He was arrested and made to spend a night in the cells. I ask if it gave him a lifelong grudge against the police, as such an incident seems to do for many otherwise sensible people.
"Hell no, it was my own stupid fault. They were only doing their job."
There's a lesson in there somewhere for the rest of us, if it's only to give Grant a wide berth when he stops on some snowy ledge during our summit push.
33. An emergency meeting
Sunday 13 May, 2012 - Base Camp, Everest, Tibet
We have a full camp once again. Yesterday our superstar Sherpa team came down from the mountain after two heroic load carries up to 8300 metres. They were tired, and spent most of the day resting; poor Dorje has injured his leg, which means he may not be able to join us on the summit push. Although we're not due to go up again for another two days at the earliest, I spend much of the morning with a feeling of nervous tension. The best way to ease this anxiety is not to think about the climb as a whole - that I am planning to climb Everest, the highest mountain in the world, with a rich history of deadly incidents - but to take each day as it comes, that today all I need to do is walk from A to B, then rest. I suppose it's the same with any big project: there's no point getting intimidated by the scale of the whole thing - just break it down into manageable chunks. As the Tibetans might say, if you're going to eat a whole yak you can only do it one bite at a time.
My anxiety is eased when I see Chongba again while I'm brushing my teeth outside the tent. He still has that broad grin on his face. He's climbed Everest 12 times, but never from the north. This will be his first time, just as it was for both of us when we climbed Manaslu together last year. He looks like he's brimming with confidence, and I realise I'm a lucky man. With Chongba to look af
ter me how can I fail? I certainly can't let him down, that's for sure.
Yet this growing apprehension in the pit of my stomach remains for much of the morning. I try to take my mind off it by writing a blog post, but the post is about Mallory and Somervell climbing up to the North Col, and it focuses my mind on the task instead of easing it. Phil is nervous, too, for a different reason. As I sit and type in the comms tent, he's waiting for the eleven o'clock weather forecast which may change our plans, but it never arrives. It will be good to get moving.
Much later, at eight o'clock in the evening after we've had dinner, I'm tucked up in my sleeping bag reading by the light of my Kindle when Phil starts wandering around camp. He shouts through every tent in turn: the weather forecast has just come in and it's very important, so important that we all have to get up immediately and discuss it. It's not very often a man likes to be dragged from his bed to be given bad news, but Phil is only doing what he has to do. I put all my down clothing back on and climb out of my tent to attend an emergency meeting in the kitchen tent. All of the Sherpas are there too, and everybody is filled with anticipation. The bad news is that the summit window is even shorter than it was yesterday. The jetstream will move back in again on the 20th, our intended summit day, producing winds of 50 miles an hour. Since it's likely the ropes to the summit won't be fixed before the 18th, the 19th is now our one and only summit day opportunity. It means that if we want to keep to the same schedule, with a rest day at ABC on the way up, we must leave tomorrow. This option produces about as much excitement as a request for somebody to empty the toilet barrel urgently. There's a silent groan, and we very quickly agree unanimously that we'll stay here in Base Camp tomorrow, as planned, and that we'll have to push on through ABC without a rest day. This will make things tougher for us, but we all believe it's possible. My biggest concern is what is technically termed a clusterfuck on the Northeast Ridge. If the 19th is the only possible summit day, then doesn't it mean every climber in Base Camp will be going for the summit that day? I have no idea how many climbers can be on the summit ridge at any one time before it becomes unsafe, so I ask those with more experience for their thoughts. All of the Sherpas remain silent, and it shouldn't be that surprising. Apart from Chedar, none of them have summited from the north, and they'll take whatever opportunity they can. They're all keen to go on the 19th but they don't want to influence our decision, so they keep quiet. Phil says that over 300 people went for the summit on the same day on the south side last year; and although they didn't all summit, there was no accident. Margaret makes the very valid point that a calm day with many climbers is very much safer than a day with high winds and few climbers. It's the weather that poses our biggest danger, not people.