The Climb

by Anatoli Boukreev

  They began to talk about the plans for summit day, and Scott told Lene that in a few days we would all ascend to Camp III, and then, from there, the clients would go onto oxygen and make the summit bid with supplementary O’s. This plan upset Lene, who was still holding to her plan to climb without oxygen, and the conversation became loud and heated.

  Gammelgaard had been counting on extra days to continue her acclimatization excursions because the delays in establishing higher-altitude camps had not given her enough time at higher altitudes to test her physiology. Now, Fischer was announcing to her that everyone would be climbing with oxygen, and she was furious. “I was saying [to him], ‘There’s no chance I can acclimatize enough to climb without oxygen… . For half a year you’ve been supporting me in this, knowing the conditions on your expedition… . I’ve been creating my own expectations, training for this… . You’re not together in your head.’ ”

  Fischer told Gammelgaard that she had no chance to ascend without oxygen, and like everyone else, she would fall into line and go on the bottle. Holding tenaciously to her position, Gammelgaard continued to harangue Fischer for his pushing her to “fit in.” “I got mad… . It’s not something that enforces my respect for a grown-up expedition leader… . I got fucking mad.”

  The issue unresolved, Fischer and Gammelgaard ended their conversation. Boukreev, sensing that he might be able to help settle their dispute, left his tent and caught up to Fischer as he headed toward the quiet and privacy of his own tent.

  We had much to catch up on, and I asked him how it had gone with Pete Schoening. Scott told me that it had gone well enough, but that Pete was still unable to sleep without using oxygen. About Dale, he said he felt that Dale had been lucky, that if he had descended any later from Camp III, he could have been at serious risk for HACE. But about Dale or Pete Schoening, he was not at that moment prepared to say no. Instead, he felt that we should keep them under observation, that on our “final push” we could turn them around at Camp II or III if they proved not to be fit.

  Boukreev was concerned with Fischer’s decision, and Martin Adams, though not in a position to directly intervene, was also concerned. “Scott’s got everybody going. He’s got Dale going; he’s got [Pete] Schoening going. It’s obvious that these people are sick; they can’t do it, but for whatever reason they want to go, and Scott says fine… . I mean Scott desperately wanted to get people up the mountain for advertisement’s sake… . I told Neal at Base Camp … ‘Look, these guys have no business going up there. You get somebody killed and you’re going to get more publicity than if you get them up the mountain, so you better consider what their life is worth before you take them up there.’ ”

  Scott was totally frustrated with Lene. When I asked about her intentions to climb without oxygen, he just threw up his hands and shook his head, so I offered to intervene and speak with her, because, like him, I thought that for her to climb without oxygen would be dangerous. She had neither the experience to properly judge her physiology nor the proper acclimatization.

  Just before dinner I went to Lene’s tent and asked her if I might speak to her about her intentions, and she welcomed me and my thoughts. I explained that when I had climbed Everest without oxygen for the first time in 1991, I had gone as far as to spend a night at the South Col before descending to Base Camp in order to push my acclimatization. Because she had been no higher than 7,300 meters on the expedition, and because she had no experience upon which to calculate the probability of success, I suggested that she give up the idea, promising that if she was successful in climbing with oxygen, I would repeat the climb with her and assist her in her effort to climb without O’s. I confess now that I knew she probably would not have the energy, but I was serious in my offer and would have made the effort if she had decided to take me up on it.

  That evening in the mess tent Fischer addressed the Mountain Madness clients, excepting Charlotte Fox and Tim Madsen, who had yet to return, and Martin Adams, who had headed down to the forest zone, and told them that on May 5, after a prolonged rest and weather permitting, the expedition would begin its final push to the summit. Joking about Boukreev’s and Adams’s decision to descend lower than Base Camp for their final resting period, he said he suspected they were motivated primarily by their interest in meeting women trekkers and in drinking beer.

  On the heels of the joke, Lene entered the mess tent and came up behind me, putting her arms around my chest and giving me a kiss on the cheek. In a voice that everyone could hear, she said, “Thank you very much, Anatoli,” and then she went to an empty seat at the table. Everyone in the tent, not understanding her purpose in saying this, grinned and looked from me to Lene. Scott, though, understood. He knew the oxygen problem had been solved.

  *As one of Fischer’s clients has put it: “There is a romantic notion about Base Camp, that somehow the people there are in some kind of suspended animation, members of a spartan cult. But, who you are at home, that’s who you are in Base Camp. You smoke at home; you smoke at Base Camp. You have a cocktail before dinner; you have one at Base Camp.”

  *This is a band of overlapping, yellowish slabs of limestone.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE COUNTDOWN

  Saying good-bye to everyone that evening, I switched on my headlamp and began my descent, but within an hour the night was brilliant as a nearly full moon rose and illuminated the Khumbu Glacier. To my right the silhouette of Pumori was for a while my companion, and then, as it fell behind me, I was alone on the trail, thinking about the richness of the air and the warmth into which I would be descending. My body felt properly acclimatized and healthy, but because of my activities in the past several weeks my reserves of energy were low and I needed to replenish my strength.

  For several hours Boukreev continued his descent. Passing through Lobuche, the scene of the Bromet-Pittman satellite-phone showdown, he took a left fork of the trail that took him toward Dingboche (4,350 m), where he hoped to connect with Martin Adams. At 1:00 A.M., still thirty minutes out of the village, he bivouacked under the stars.

  The next morning I went to the lodge where I thought Martin would be staying, but the Sherpani who was managing things said that no one had arrived the day before, so I had breakfast and then continued my trek, arriving less than an hour later in Pheriche (4,280 m), where I found not Martin but Ingrid, our expedition doctor, who had just returned from Kathmandu.

  Dr. Hunt didn’t have good news to report. Ngawang Topche Sherpa, who six days earlier had been airlifted from Pheriche to Kathmandu, had lapsed into a coma and appeared to have suffered brain damage. If he survived his ordeal, Ngawang Topche Sherpa, as Fischer had suspected, was probably going to require extended medical care.

  After hearing of our high-altitude Sherpa and his tragedy and visiting with Ingrid and some of my acquaintances from Himalayan Guides who had come down from Base Camp for a rest, I continued my descent, arriving finally around dinnertime at the Ama Dablam Garden Lodge in Deboche (3,770 m), a small village in the last stand of forest as you ascend toward Everest Base Camp.

  For two days in Deboche, Boukreev followed a simple routine: rest and moderate exercise, enjoying “the fatigue of the organism” and the “saturation of the air.”

  I was sure that my plan of rest and rehabilitation would allow me to gather my strength and provide me the reserve I would need to get our clients to the summit, and I committed to protecting and strengthening my body for that purpose. I regretted that Scott had not endorsed my plan for himself, Neal, and our clients, and I hoped that the rest they would get at Base Camp would be sufficient.

  At 4:00 P.M. on the afternoon of May 4, feeling “remarkable” and “restored,” Boukreev began his trek back to Base Camp. Stopping only briefly in Pheriche at a Sherpa teahouse for some tea and fried potatoes, he hiked steadily and arrived at around midnight. Weaving through the tents of the various expeditions, he could hear the errant sounds of late-night conversations and see in the moonlight an occasional figur
e moving about, but in the cluster of Mountain Madness tents all was quiet. All the lights in the tents of the guides and clients had been extinguished; even Sandy Hill Pittman’s communications tent was dark. In the mess tent Boukreev found a thermos of hot tea and poured himself a cup. From Deboche to the Everest Base Camp, the temperature had fallen by at least forty degrees.

  Awakening on the morning of May 5, Boukreev could hear the familiar voices of the clients as they moved around the camp, but absent was the unmistakable voice and Khumbu cough of Sandy Hill Pittman, who, Boukreev later discovered, had descended while he was in Deboche.

  On Saturday, May 4, a Sherpa runner had brought to Base Camp news that three friends of Pittman’s had trekked to Pheriche and were eager to see her, so she and three Sherpas, one of them packing her satellite phone, trekked down to meet them.

  I was surprised that someone with her experience had acted in that way. She was an experienced climber, yes, but I thought her rapid descent was not a particularly smart thing to do just prior to a summit bid. An extended rest would have been beneficial, but the quick up and down, I suspected, had cost her a great deal of energy.

  Except for Pittman, all the clients were in Base Camp on the morning of May 5. She had not returned because, before her departure, Fischer had announced that May 6 was the day the expedition would begin its final push. Adams, who had descended to Pheriche but missed Boukreev when he was in the village, looked strong and rested. Fox and Madsen looked reasonably good after their rest, but Boukreev was extremely concerned about their acclimatization. Only higher on the mountain would the truth of their situation become apparent. The other clients were no better, no worse than he would have expected, but Fischer, he learned, was having problems.

  Scott, I heard, had gone with Neal during the rest period onto Pumori to take photographs. That was an expense of energy, especially given the schedule Scott had been maintaining, that I found troubling; even more so when I heard that Scott had not been feeling well and was taking antibiotics. While there is no evidence of which I am aware that antibiotics are particularly dangerous if taken before a high-altitude summit bid, I have always been wary of taking them—or any drugs for that matter—before such an effort. I like to know what my body is doing, and I don’t want drugs covering any of my body’s signals.

  Pittman had returned to Base Camp the night before, and on the morning of Monday, May 6, at 5:00 A.M., she was back at work. In her communications tent she powered up for a satellite connection to NBC, and for the world of Internet cruisers she detailed the events of her past few days down the mountain. Her news was upbeat, enthusiastic, and strangely focused.

  “We had a great yak steak and french fries at my favorite restaurant… . I had only the day to visit with my friends, and on Sunday, we walked up to Lobuche, where we had lunch. I then scampered back to Base Camp Sunday night.”

  A remote report from the scene of a plane crash that detailed what the victims were wearing would not have appeared less strange to anyone who knew what she was looking at, what was ahead. In less than two hours she would be leaving to attempt the summit of Mount Everest. As Lene Gammelgaard would later say, “I just couldn’t get her climbing history to fit with the way she behaved in the mountains.”

  While Pittman dictated her adventures, the rest of the Mountain Madness climbers made their way to the mess tent for the last of their big-table spreads. The banter was mostly practical: matters of gear, what to take, what to leave behind, but it was not all matter-of-fact; some of it was deadly serious.

  Martin Adams remembered coming into the mess tent and seeing Scott Fischer and Dr. Ingrid Hunt in a conversation that he characterized as “tense and strained.” Whatever they’d been talking about, it appeared they didn’t want to share it with others. Adams suspected it may have had something to do with the conversation he had had with Dr. Hunt the day before when she had expressed concern about the health of some of the team members and their fitness to make a summit bid. Adams, seeing her concern, advised her to ask for a release of liability from Fischer, absolving her of responsibility.

  Dr. Hunt never got her release. In the early morning hours of May 6—with Mountain Madness clients in tow—Beidleman strode away from Base Camp, headed for the Camp II.

  As Boukreev sat in the mess tent eating his breakfast, the climbers headed into the Icefall for what they hoped would be their second-to-last trip through its fractured hazards. The last trip through, if they were lucky, would be in a mood of celebration and thanks. They would have made the summit and would be headed home.

  I met with Scott after breakfast because he had stayed behind to get everyone off, and I asked him if I needed to be with the clients, because I preferred to save my strength and move at my own speed to Camp II. Scott asked me when I wanted to go out, and I told him that I would like to shower, rest a little more, and then start later in the morning. We agreed to this plan and shortly afterward Scott left camp.

  Then, the Mountain Madness compound at Base Camp was virtually deserted. In the quiet, without the distractions of day-to-day operations and routines, Boukreev had some time to consider what he’d seen of the climbers before they departed. To his relief, Beidleman’s severe bout of coughing had stopped, and he looked fit and ready, but Boukreev’s concerns about Fox and Madsen continued.

  I now understood that Scott intended to let Charlotte Fox and Tim Madsen ascend even though they had broken the acclimatization routine, had not yet spent a night at Camp III. At Camp II, I could only assume, Scott would look more closely at them and the other climbers. By Camp II, on the final summit push, climbers are usually experiencing something—a cough, headaches, intestinal problems—and because it is the final push, climbers are not always their most objective. If they are hiding a problem, they can put themselves and the other climbers at great risk.

  Boukreev did not know that Madsen and Fox had their own concerns about making the bid without proper acclimatization. A few days before the push they confided in another member of the expedition their concerns about the projected May 10 summit day. “We sat around and talked about the time line. I said, ‘You’ve just got to tell Scott that you don’t want to go, that you want to wait and try your attempt after you’ve acclimated.’ Which they did. And Scott said, ‘Well, we’re not set up to make two attempts. We’re only going to make one attempt.’ Which was a big surprise for everybody, because we paid all this money and we only get one shot at it!’ … I thought that’s not what the advertising said.”*

  Shortly after 11:00 A.M. Boukreev went to the mess tent to eat some lunch. He estimated it would take him four hours to reach Camp II, that he would be in well before dark and could sweep anyone who was straggling. After his meal, as he was preparing to leave Base Camp and head into the Icefall, Boukreev met three trekkers, women who introduced themselves as Pittman’s friends, the ones with whom she had spent the previous weekend. As Anatoli politely made the small talk he was loath to make as he was gathering his focus, he considered again Pittman’s french-fry folly: “Not so very smart.”

  Impatient, eager to get up the mountain, Boukreev excused himself and headed toward the Icefall. He had tarried too long. Martin Adams, above him at Camp I, had come upon a disturbing scene.

  “I came up on Kruse and he was in one of the tents at Camp I. Well, we weren’t supposed to stop at Camp I, so I said, ‘What’s with you? What’s wrong?’ He said he wasn’t doing well, feeling pretty bad, that he was going to rest up, maybe spend the night and catch up tomorrow. ‘That’s not the plan,’ I’m thinking, and right behind me are Tim and Charlotte, and I say to them, ‘Hey, go check on Kruse. I don’t think it looks too good.’ So they went into the tent and talked to him, and they thought he was a little out of it, too. When I got to Camp II, Scott and Neal were already there drinking some tea. So I told them Kruse was in trouble. They said they’d suspected he’d have a problem, and Scott said, ‘Okay, he’s out of here.’ So I said, ‘Hey, look, just wait until Tim and
Charlotte get here and get their take on the situation; just hang on.’ So Tim and Charlotte came up and they had seen it the way I did. So Scott and Neal went down to tell Kruse he had to go down.”

  Not knowing where Boukreev was on the route and not having supplied him with a radio so the two could communicate, Fischer headed down, irked. Another trip down! He could have climbed the mountain three times for all the distance he’d covered in the past several weeks.

  Just as I came out of the Icefall and was moving onto the plateau of the Western Cwm, I saw Scott and Dale Kruse coming toward me [Beidleman had returned to Camp II], and Dale was not in good shape. Scott seemed tense, a little upset. Seeing that he was stressed and feeling he should be with the team, I offered to take Kruse down, but Scott said he would prefer to do it himself.

  In their brief meeting Boukreev considered Fischer’s condition. Whatever the reason for his taking antibiotics, the trouble seemed to have passed, and Scott didn’t in any way seem to be struggling. As they parted to head in their separate directions, Boukreev looked up the Western Cwm and noticed that the sky had changed dramatically and was ablaze, full of purples and crimsons, a possible sign of unstable weather. He feared a repeat of Scott’s earlier Camp II experience: high winds of a velocity that could destroy their advance base camp. That would mean a retreat to Base Camp and a wait until the Sherpas could rebuild Camp II, another delay.

  At around five-thirty in the evening Boukreev reached Camp II, where the other climbers were already having dinner. Below, at Base Camp, Fischer had safely returned with Kruse. According to Pete Schoening, who had decided to take himself out of the bid for the summit, Fischer was “joking around, had a beer, wanted Dale to have a beer.” Dr. Hunt didn’t see anything that gave her any concerns about Fischer’s health. “He was Scott. I had no indication that he was sick.”