White Limbo: The Classic Story Of The First Australian Climb Of Everest

by Hall, Lincoln

  The next priority was to make sure Tim, Greg and Andy drank as much as they could to offset the dehydration of their exhausting high-altitude push. All the pots and water-bottles we had with us were full of the water I had melted. The atmospheric pressure at 8150 metres was so low that the water boiled at a much lower temperature, and consequently our hot drinks cooled quickly. No one had any appetite so we lay down to sleep.

  At that height I found the dark claustrophobic. Sleep was supposed to be a state of rest but instead, as I dozed and my respiratory rate dropped, I plunged into a frightening world of suffocation. Opening my eyes did not relieve the panic because the darkness continued. There was nothing for my mind to hang on to in the swirling blackness; I breathed violently and deeply until at last I calmed down. Sleep was impossible so I lay in my sleeping bag and considered our situation.

  My three friends seemed to be able to sleep. Exhaustion ruled them completely. Greg in particular had not moved since crawling into his sleeping bag. In a few hours it would be dawn. Hopefully Andy would be able to descend without assistance; if he could not the descent would be doubly difficult and dangerous. It was ludicrous to be near the top of the highest mountain in the world with no rope at all, but for our small team, everything we carried had to be justified. With forty-five years of climbing experience between the four of us we felt confident we could climb most obstacles safely without a rope. The extra speed from having light loads gave a greater safety factor than the inherent security of slower-roped climbing. Now we faced the consequences of our decision.

  With the first light I was able to sleep. When the panic of suffocation overcame me I could stop it by opening my eyes, and thus see I was still safe in the tent. Being able to make that orientation was sufficient to allow me to overcome the panic and drift into sleep.

  At ten o’clock I awoke. It was time to get ready to leave. The first chore was to stock up on fluid so I roused everyone and cleared a space on the floor for the stoves. Greg remained virtually unconscious; grunts were his only answers to questions. For an hour or more we lay there as I piled snow in the billies to make a continual relay of hot drinks. Tim and I talked while the others dozed.

  “Okay,” I said at last. “Let’s get ourselves organised and out of here.”

  Being fonder of bed than of anywhere else it was most unusual for me to make the morning’s first move. Today, though, as the person with the most strength and the clearest head, I needed to set the example. When I had put on my down suit and packed I helped Andy. With frozen hands he could not put on his harness, boots, crampons, nor his clothing. Tim meanwhile had got ready and began to pack Andy’s rucksack. Everything except Andy’s survival gear was left for the rest of us to share. The easier it was for Andy to balance, the safer he would be. Some of his fingers had blistered already which meant I had to slit his gloves before his fingers would fit inside.

  He talked of what had happened. “Above the Yellow Band I stopped to fix my crampon. I took off my gloves except for the last layer, and because I was working with metal my fingers got incredibly cold. I suppose that was when I got frostbitten. I managed to put on my fibre-pile gloves but I couldn’t pull my overmitts on again, so I kept going without them.”

  “But surely Tim or Greg would have put them on for you.”

  “Yes …,” and he paused to think “It was dark when they reached me and, well, I forgot. You know what your mind is like up here when all your energy goes into physical effort.”

  Andy tested his grip on his ice-axe. It was secure. I unzipped the door and helped him outside.

  “We’ll catch you up soon,” I said as he started climbing down.

  “He doesn’t seem to be having too much trouble,” said Tim. “Thank God for that.”

  I turned to Greg who was still in his sleeping bag. “Come on, you lazy bugger.”

  He groaned and sat up.

  I warmed my fingers in my crotch and watched Greg. He was usually quick to get ready and sometimes irritated at having to wait. Tim and I assumed he had been lying there until Andy’s departure left some space in the cramped tent. It was soon apparent that his slowness was due to something more serious than that. His movements were awkward and slow and his attempts to put his crampons on were very clumsy. Though I had wanted to keep my fingers warm I grabbed his crampon and fastened it to his boot.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “Here, give me the other one.”

  Tim, meanwhile, stuffed away the few odds and ends that Greg had neglected to pack

  “Pass me your sleeping mat,” said Tim.

  Greg moved from a sitting position onto his knees. The sharp points of his crampons tore the floor of the tent as if he had forgotten they were on his feet. He rolled up the thin foam pad to where his knees pinned it down, and seemed annoyed that it would not continue to roll. It was as if his knees, pressing into the middle of the mat, did not exist. I shot a horrified glance at Tim. He was watching in glum amazement.

  “Here, Greg. Get off it,” I said. “Let me do it.”

  Greg sat on the floor, his crampons tearing the fabric again.

  Tim and I had a major problem on our hands. At best, severe exhaustion had left Greg in a sleepy stupor; at worst he had cerebral oedema. Many climbers had died of that illness at these altitudes because their companions did not have the strength to help them down. We did not even have a rope.

  Tim radioed Jim at Camp I to say that we were on our way down, and to ask advice about Greg’s condition.

  “Bring him down! Just get the hell out of there! Get down or he’ll die.”

  It was hardly the message of reassurance we needed.

  I immediately started off with Greg. There was no time to strike the tent, and no energy to carry the extra weight. The next bout of strong winds would blow it to shreds. The time was four o’clock, four hours after I had hoped to leave. Andy was just a tiny spot near the bottom of the main part of the Couloir. Looking up I could see that Greg was following me very slowly. Tim was still in the tent, having remained behind for reasons I did not commit to memory.

  My mind was filled with more important things, such as the incredible urgency that had come with the realisation that Greg was no longer able to look after himself. At any minute I expected him to topple over and plunge to the bottom of the Face, but I had forgotten to take into account his exceptional abilities as a climber. Over the years his climbing had become as automatic as his reflexes. Now, he was moving slowly but with a confidence which belied his mental state.

  We climbed down to the Couloir, out of the sun and into the cold. A stiff breeze swirled across the wide gully. Though the avalanche danger was greater I moved back to the edge of the Couloir where the snow was softer but still in the sun. Greg was frustratingly slow. I hurried ahead to where I could shelter from the wind beside a rock. Tim was coming down now, and soon overtook Greg.

  He reached me and stopped to talk. “Greg’s really slow.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to get down. I don’t want to spend another night up here.”

  I knew what he was saying. I sighed inwardly then said. “Okay, you do down, and I’ll stay with Greg.”

  If Greg fell, that was the end of it. Otherwise, one of us could look after him as well as two. I well understood Tim’s desire to get off the mountain. I felt the same, but since my early retreat had left me with greater reserves of strength it made sense that I should stay with Greg.

  “You’ve got to hurry, Greg!” Tim shouted up to him.

  “See you when it’s all over,” I said.

  Tim smiled and started down, his determination and strength showing with every step. His endurance never ceased to amaze me. The man had just climbed Everest without oxygen and now, the following day, planned to descend all the way to Camp I. And I knew he would do it.

  Greg drew level.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” he mumbled.

  “Well, let’s keep goi
ng. We really have to hurry.”

  Greg nodded but continued at the same slow pace.

  A few hundred metres lower we escaped from the worst of the wind. I sat and stared at the panorama. At last I viewed the magnificence of the mountains with acceptance rather than awe. Greg caught up and stopped a short way above me. We had been descending for over an hour but were not even halfway to Camp III. What a huge mountain this was.

  From there Greg and I moved down at almost the same speed. He had little energy to spare but now seemed to be much more alert, a fact which gave me hope that his problem was exhaustion rather than deadly cerebral oedema. Tim was out of sight, but far below we could see Andy abseiling the ropes down White Limbo. At least he and Tim would reach Camp II that night. As the sun sank lower in the sky it was looking more and more likely that Greg and I would not make it past Camp III. Even so, the 700-metre altitude drop from Camp IV would make a great deal of difference to how well we rested.

  About a hundred metres above Camp III I tended too far to the left, onto hard, icy snow. On such ground it is much easier to over-balance, and to stop a fall would be almost impossible. Consequently I halved my speed, then decided it was not worth the risk, and traversed the fifty metres back to easier ground.

  Meanwhile Greg, who had remained on the softer snow, overtook me so I continued down about ten metres behind him. The slope steepened for the last hundred metres down to the crevasse where we had made Camp III a few days earlier. We had climbed down this far facing out from the slope, heels dug in and using an ice-axe in the fashion of a walking stick. There was a point where the slope was too steep to allow that technique and one needed to take the slower option of kicking toes into the snow, and jabbing an ice-axe into the slope as a handhold. As the slope reaches the crucial angle, facing outwards becomes increasingly insecure.

  Greg was moving steadily and apparently quite under control when suddenly he caught his right crampon on his left boot and tripped, falling forward and somersaulting down the slope. Horror-struck, I stopped and stared. There was nothing I could do but watch him slide towards the edge of the huge ice cliffs and certain death below. After a couple of somersaults he managed to roll onto his stomach and dig into the snow with the pick of his ice-axe. It pulled through without slowing him down at all. In desperation he used the shaft of his ice-axe and finally managed to stop. He lay motionless against the slope.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” came the shaky reply.

  This is too much, I told myself, we are getting too close to the edge. As Greg slowly began to move again, I swung my pack off my shoulders and unstrapped by ice-hammer. It was time for caution. Although only a spectator I trembled from Greg’s tumble. The sun had set just as Greg fell. It was as if the two most important things in my life at that instant had fallen away from me. Greg had been reprieved; but the sun had gone. Thoughts of how close I had come to spending a night alone on the mountain were put aside as I began to concentrate on climbing down. I faced into the slope with an ice-tool in each hand. It was much slower and needed more energy, but the extra safety of the technique made me feel immeasurably more secure.

  The sunset was incredibly beautiful. The rugged skyline was softened by clouds crowding the lower peaks in Nepal. It grew dark quickly. I did not want to stop and replace my prescription sunglasses with my spectacles since the effort of kicking a ledge and removing my mittens so that I could rummage for my glasses was too great. It was better to continue as fast as I could and hope to reach camp while I could still see. Unfortunately it was further to our crevasse than I had remembered. I took off my sunglasses and let them hang around my neck. Short-sighted in the semi-darkness I found it impossible to judge the size of the ice cliffs around the crevassed area. My memory could not tell me much; either the cliffs were very small and close at hand or large and further away. My concern was because I was at the top of a steep section which would be okay to descend if short, but dangerously tiring if long. I took the safest option of climbing back up and across, then dropping down on easier-angled ground. I had enough spare energy for a smile when I realised from below that the steep part had been only three metres high. I had guessed thirty!

  I began to wonder about Greg. Had he gone ahead, missing our crevasse in the bad light, or had he fallen, this time unable to stop? I was saved the agony of worry by his shout, which was alarmingly close.

  There he was, only ten metres away standing on the lip of the crevasse. “I thought maybe you’d try to reach Camp II tonight,” he said.

  I bent over my ice-axe to gather some breath to speak. “Not today. Not in the dark. It’s too cold, too far, and I’m too buggered.”

  “Yeah, so am I.”

  Behind him the snow was glowing from the diffused light of the candle he had lit in the crevasse.

  “Not much of a beacon, is it?”

  We crawled inside and lay back exhausted until, after only a minute or two, the cold prompted us to unpack our sleeping bags. We stretched out on the ledge we had dug three days before. Greg seemed very much more aware and in control of himself as we set up the stoves in the space between us, and began the long process of melting snow.

  It was about ten o’clock by the time we were sufficiently organised to sit back and radio the others.

  From Camp II Geof joked with us that the meal he had prepared for us would now be wasted.

  “Just bring it up the ropes, Geof,” I said in reply.

  Andy had abseiled down to Camp II and was firmly ensconced in his sleeping bag being waited upon by Geof. Tim had reached the base of the Face and was about to ski down the glacier to Camp I with Howard. Everything had gone according to plan apart from the fact that Greg and I were six hundred metres above the snow cave in a much less comfortable camp.

  After our cramped tent at Camp IV, our four-person-sized ledge in the crevasse at Camp III seemed luxurious. Greg soon dozed off to sleep. The wall to my left was of ice, so I had to disturb Greg and ask him to dig some snow from the wall on his side. He grunted then went back to sleep. Five minutes of cajoling culminating in persistent prodding with the snow-shovel was needed before Greg sat up and dug snow for our drinks. In the process he knocked one stove over. The lukewarm water poured down my arm and froze almost instantly on the outside of the sleeve of my down suit. I said nothing. Clumsiness was easy when exhausted at this altitude. As he settled in his sleeping bag again he knocked over the second pot, this time onto my sleeping bag.

  I could not help but curse him, especially when he was reluctant to sit up and get more snow to replace the wasted water.

  Having assured Jim at Camp I by radio that Greg was almost his normal self, I began to doubt my judgment. In a situation such as our descent from Camp IV, where a lapse of concentration could be fatal, Greg had held himself together. Now, when the demands upon him were less immediately directed to his survival, he had no energy to spare for them. It was good that he rested. Tomorrow he would need all of his reserves.

  We both slept well that night though my cold feet did not warm up at all. When I had finished cooking our basic meal at one in the morning, Greg straight away vomited his onto the snow. My patience ran out, even for the important task of warming my feet.

  At 6900 metres in the snow cave at Camp II we had slept well, but above that height, lack of oxygen prevented proper sleep. For the last three nights we had done no more than doze, and though our bodies relaxed they did not gather strength. Each day it was harder to overcome lethargy and marshal some momentum. The end was close; one more demanding day and we would be down.

  I was woken shortly before dawn by Greg preparing to light the stoves. My first thought was that my feet were still numb. I had been stupid not to warm them the night before. At worst, I would have minor frostbite which would not inconvenience me until we were off the mountain, and that was not an issue to worry about right now. Greg could not remember where he had put the cigarette lighter so we dozed again until first light when I foun
d another lighter in my pack.

  Thirsty though he was, that morning it was even more difficult to rouse Greg into shovelling snow into the “kitchen” space between us. As I prepared breakfast, I radioed Camp II where Geof was cooking and Andy was fast asleep. Geof would descend with Andy to help at those places on the fixed ropes where he needed to use his hands. Jim and Colin would come up to the bottom of the Face with Colin’s sled and our one oxygen set, since immediate treatment might help save Andy’s fingers.

  Breakfast made Greg nauseous again. He leant his head over the crevasse, ready to vomit but trying desperately to keep the small amount of food down. Being short of oxygen, sleep and food for several days, left us dangerously weak. It was important that we take as much nourishment as our bodies would accept, and that was a miserably small amount.

  Shortly before the sun reached the crevasse at midday, we began to descend. Greg had been slow but had managed to dress and pack without assistance. Now he climbed down slightly ahead of me, no doubt keenly aware of how close he had come to death the previous evening.

  The sun shone but it was bitterly cold. It seemed that we had made our summit bid at exactly the right time. The strong winds which had begun to blow again gave us added incentive to descend as quickly as possible. First of all we had to make the long traverse across the top of White Limbo to the fixed ropes. The ropes had become frozen into the slope again, and neither of us wished to expend the energy needed to pry them out. We had been climbing ropeless for over three days now, so having a rope nearby offered a security greater than we were accustomed to. Just the same, it was a great relief, a short distance below, to be able to clip into the rope halfway down White Limbo. The rope would catch us if we fell. Now we were safe, so long as we continued to exercise the same caution and attention to detail which had become second nature to us over the last two months. The problem was to prevent our tiredness interfering with our commonsense.