The Climb

by Anatoli Boukreev

  KLEV: Lene and I were ahead of you guys. I believe we came down maybe a different set of fixed ropes. And we came down maybe two or three hundred yards to the right, skier’s right, of you. When we reached the end of the fixed ropes, then we realized that we had one broken headlamp and we made an immediate traverse to join you.

  NEAL: Okay, that seems accurate, because it was—it seemed very shortly after we started walking that you two joined us.

  KLEV: Let me back up. It could be very well that we did come down the same fixed ropes. However, we were so far ahead of you, and you guys, immediately, when you got to the end of the fixed ropes, started to the skier’s left. That’s where our divergence came from. Tim, I see you shaking your head. Or, nodding your head. That’s what you believe happened? That is probably more than likely what happened.

  NEAL: Okay. It wasn’t really clear that there was a leader versus a non-leader or followers at that point, because people were being buffeted by the wind around and walking based on whoever had a headlight in front of them. I tried to yell several times that we needed one leader and one headlight to follow, otherwise we would be wandering aimlessly. My intention was to not walk directly towards Camp IV, even though for one minute at the bottom of the fixed lines I knew the direction to it, because of the fact that the rope gave a line that I could follow. What I wanted to do was side-hill on the left a bit. I had looked at the terrain from up above, before the storm came in, and made a decision that if the storm came, that the best thing to do would be to avoid the Lhotse Face and that precipice as much as possible. I’d heard of people falling off there before. I’d been warned by friends who had climbed to be very, very careful of getting sucked down into that gully, because once you get into the gully and you lose the side hill, it’s very easy to think you’re walking on the flat but in fact you’re walking right towards the edge of the cliff. So I continued to walk with the Japanese woman on my arm and, I believe, Sandy, Charlotte, and Tim behind. Mike Groom and Beck were somewhat in front of us. The two fastest people at the time were the two Sherpas, and they seemed to dart in front of us in many different directions, or at least changing directions. I tried to remember, watching my feet, to stay on a side hill, not too great of a side hill but a slight side hill which would put us at the saddle of the South Col, near a high point, and at that point is where a rock, a very distinct rock band, crosses the [South] Col. And, I knew that once we found that rock, if we just turned right and wandered downhill within the rocks, we would either hit the camp or the Geneva Spur or the fixed ropes coming up to it or all the trash right around. That was the plan or the tack that I thought was best at the time. Because of the wind and because people were being pushed forward and backwards and wandering around and also because I could not travel to the front of the group, carrying the Japanese woman, and I didn’t have a headlight out yet, it’s my impression that we side-hilled too much to the point where we were on the crest of the ridge and the side hill went away. Once we lost the side hill, I personally lost all orientation to what direction we were walking. There was nothing left to follow in terms of terrain. We wandered as a group for a while. I don’t know how long. It seemed like quite a while. We were moving slowly. Different people would come to the front and fall behind, but we kept yelling, all of us, to stay together as a group. I felt very strongly that if any person made an attempt to find the camp by themselves or left the group, that either they would be extremely lucky and find the camp, but most likely be lost completely. At some point in this wandering, we most likely got turned around and got onto the Tibetan side of the South Col. Even though this may have been something I understood in my mind at the time, my oxygen had well run out a long time ago, everybody else was staggering around, and it just was extremely hard to think and to try to make sense out of the things that we saw, the direction of the wind or whatnot. It was like being inside of a milk bottle. The winds were blowing. I’ve asked people, trying to estimate [the wind speed]. I don’t know; [it was] anywhere from, on the low side, forty miles an hour up to maybe gusts of eighty [mph] or more. They were enough to knock us off our feet many times. Finally, during this walking or at some time during this walking, maybe an hour’s worth I’m guessing, people were getting extremely cold. All faces were iced up. Maybe another headlamp went out. I don’t recall. There weren’t very many following us, or with our group. I recall seeing a small dip in the ground. We were on very difficult ice with rock sticking through. The dip in front of us was illuminated by the headlamp. It rose up a little bit and I walked to the edge of the rise and looked over, and whether I actually saw something or sensed something, I just knew that was totally dangerous. There was no terrain like that on the South Col that we should be even close to, and I got very, very scared and came back to the group. I recall, with the help of Tim and Klev, yelling and screaming at people that we absolutely had to stay together and I suggested or yelled or barked or ordered or whatever it was that we huddle up and wait. I remembered from the night before that during the very bad storm somewhere before ten o’clock, before we left, a similar storm had subsided and became very still. I was banking on the fact that, if the storm did let up for just a minute or [if] we could see some stars or see the mountains, we could get our orientation and we could at least pick the direction that we wanted to go. I had no idea if we were looking at the Kangshung Face or the Lhotse Face or any other face up there. We did decide to huddle up. We got into a big dogpile with our backs to the wind. People laid on people’s laps. We screamed at each other. We beat on each other’s backs. We checked on each other. Everybody participated in a very heroic way to try to stay warm and to keep each other awake and warm. This continued for some period of time I don’t know how long. Time is very warped, but it must have been awhile, because I was extremely cold pretty shortly after that. We were checking our fingers. We were checking each other’s consciousness. We just tried to keep moving. It was something of an experience that I’ve never really had before, being what I felt so close to falling asleep and never waking up. I had rushes of warmth come up and down through my body. Whether it was hypothermia or hypoxia I don’t know, a combination of both. I just remember screaming into the wind, all of us yelling, moving, kicking, trying to stay alive. I kept looking at my watch. I thought I saw times. I can’t really say that I knew what I was looking at. I was just looking at my watch, hoping that the weather would clear. At some point in the night, the winds did not subside, but the snow let up a couple times. Once, just enough. I looked up and I recall seeing vaguely some stars and then it closed in again. That gave me a lot of hope and I recall talking to Tim and Klev that there were stars and that we could figure what was going on, and we all started thinking in those terms and turning our minds onto what we could possibly gain by seeing stars or the mountain. Another time, after that, it cleared again, enough to look up. The wind was still howling, but I recall yelling myself that there was the Big Dipper and the North Star. Either Klev or Tim said, “And, yes, there’s Everest.” I remember looking at it and being perplexed, not even knowing if it were Everest or Lhotse. But, Klev, I believe, took the initiative and was absolutely positive. He had in his mind; he knew what direction camp was. He had figured it out with that bit of information. We decided somehow. I don’t recall the process. It was more of a mass-type standing. We tried to get everybody stood up. The Japanese woman was still hanging on to my arm I recall. It was very hard for me to move or to look around. I tried to pull people up as well as everybody else around. About the only person that I recognized was Sandy because of the distinct color of her jacket. Everybody else was just bodies and voices. When we got up, we all started to move. There was one headlight—I don’t know who had it on—who seemed to be moving in a direction forward. I tried to follow with the Japanese woman and somebody else under or behind my right arm; I don’t know who it was. I kept asking Klev, “Are you sure? Are you sure?” And, he was positive. He seemed to be totally aware and understanding of which mountain
was which and what direction that we needed to go. It was in the opposite one that we had come. It was uphill and it just all of a sudden seemed to make sense to me too. Somewhere along the way, the movement, the motion of people, split. There were people that could move and there were people that could not move. It was a choice at that time to stay or to make a break for it and hopefully find the camp. Whether this is just my perception or whether it’s something that I felt as—

  KLEV: I’d like to jump in a little bit—back up maybe to where we broke the huddle when we had our bearings. We had our bearings, and we discussed, Tim and Neal and I, that it was time to move, and it took some time like you were saying. We got everybody on their feet, trying to walk in place, whatever it was, to get things moving. There were several people that, like Neal said, couldn’t get up. We also had in our huddle—I don’t know that it was mentioned—Beck [Weathers] and Mike [Groom].

  UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: And two Sherpa.

  KLEV: And two Sherpa. Who was it?

  SANDY: Tashi and Ngawang Dorje.—This tape is going to run out in about two seconds.

  SANDY: All right, this is Everest debriefing tape four, May fifteenth, 1996.

  KLEV: I think I had jumped in there just to correct from the point where we broke the huddle on. We stood up and tried to exercise everybody’s legs to get them moving. And it was obvious that Charlotte and the Japanese woman, Sandy, were very immobile. They were able to stand, but walking unsupported was impossible. So we took people on our arms. My recollection was I had Charlotte initially and the Japanese woman, and quickly realized that there was no way, because I was on my knees most of the time, just trying to get them back up. And then—I wish Tim was here.*

  NEAL: Stop the story.

  SANDY: Stop it.

  [GAP ON RECORDING]

  KLEV: So, [on] our first attempt to get people on their feet, we had various people on our arms, went a few feet, and then I recall kind of juggling everybody around to try and see if we could try different combinations that worked. I had to leave the Japanese lady, and I believe at that time Tim then picked up Charlotte. Lene and I got teamed up.

  NEAL: I went to Sandy. Your gloves were off—somehow—you were pleading with me to put your gloves back on. I tried to put my arm around you and pull you along and you said that you can’t walk. I remember telling you if you can’t walk that you needed to crawl. And then somewhere close to that, in my account, Klev and I and possibly Tim—I don’t recall Tim—Klev and I had this conversation that—

  KLEV: Lene was there.

  LENE: I was there.

  NEAL: That either we were going to go and make it and send help, or—

  KLEV: Huddle up or something.

  NEAL: Or huddle back up or it wasn’t going to happen. There was a pretty intense fear and high adrenaline at that time because of the clearing, and I think at that time we decided that we would go. And we stumbled, got up, stumbled, ran, walked, whatever we did, up this hill, and sometime, not too far over the hill, we were fortunate to see a flicker of a headlight in the distance, and we ran toward it, and it was Anatoli and one other person—I don’t know who—just outside of our tents.

  LENE: Pemba.

  NEAL: We all fell in front of the tents. Anatoli helped us with our crampons off and directed us, shoved us, pushed us, into different tents.

  KLEV: By that time we had walked a thousand, twelve hundred feet, into the wind, and I think we were snowblind.

  NEAL: Frozen thick and solid.

  KLEV: We were totally snowblind. Lene, you were not?

  LENE: I don’t think I was snowblind, and I wasn’t filled with fear or adrenaline. I was at no point convinced that we were going to die or anything.

  KLEV: I recall—I want to give Tim some credit here, because I saw him at least twice, maybe three times, put Sandy’s gloves back on. For some reason [Klev laughs], Sandy, you were obsessed with taking those things off. I think you owe Tim—

  SANDY: Those [brand name deleted] gloves don’t work very well.

  KLEV: It sounds like Neal put them on a few times. I think those guys saved your fingers, for sure, in my mind.

  NEAL: Well, sorry to indicate that I thought everybody ran with fear and adrenaline. [Klev laughs.] I did. I didn’t realize that Lene was totally under control.

  LENE: I was totally under control within myself, Neal.

  NEAL: I’m glad.

  LENE: I am, too.

  SANDY: Neal’s recollection of what happened is also mine. I share that. He said, “We’ve got to bolt for it now. This is our only chance. There’s a break in the wind and if you can’t walk, then crawl.” Which I did.

  KLEV: I don’t believe there was a break in the wind. It was the visibility. We had a break in the visibility.

  SANDY: Not the wind. I’m sorry; the visibility. And I actually did crawl. I thought that sounded like a good idea, because I could crawl, but I couldn’t walk. The wind was just knocking me down every time. And I do remember there was like this—there was a figure that darted off by itself without a headlamp, and I don’t know who that was, but it could have been Beck at that point.

  INGRID: The man with the mandolin?*

  SANDY: No, it wasn’t the man with the mandolin. It was before I got delusional. But, anyway, I crawled and I did manage to follow the group for a while, but then, when they crested a hill, I lost sight of that lamp and realized that my only hope was staying with somebody else, and so I saw another lamp and I yelled out, and said, “Hello, hello, hello.” And, Tim didn’t know who it was. He hello’d back and eventually I rejoined Tim and Charlotte and the three of us huddled together.

  TIM: What happened was, I had Charlotte on my arm, back, head, wherever, and I couldn’t see where to go. And I also didn’t have the strength to drag or carry her to camp. She refused to walk. So, I decided—so we sat down for a second and then I heard a moan about fifteen, twenty yards, about twenty feet behind us, which was the Japanese girl. So I went back and I grabbed her and brought her up to where Charlotte was. Also Mike was still tethered to Beck. Beck was having a very hard time walking also. So, I told Mike, since I presumed he was still functional, that he has go to camp also and come back and get help.† That was probably the dark figure that Sandy made reference to. The plan at this point was just to sit still and hope somebody would come back for us. There was five of us in the group once Sandy came back: myself, Sandy, Charlotte, the Japanese lady, and Beck [Weathers].* We tried to do the same thing which the bigger group did earlier, just stay huddled together, stay awake, and try to keep each other warm. The time of night I have no clue, but what did eventually happen was word was gotten to Anatoli and after a try or two, he did find where we were sitting, and as he recalled, he picked up Charlotte, gave an oxygen bottle to Sandy, hauled Charlotte back, and then sometime later made a second trip with tea and another oxygen bottle where he grabbed Sandy, hauled her back, and I followed. And that’s—I believe I was the last member into Camp IV.

  KLEV: Neal, how far from camp did you think we were? In our original huddle?

  NEAL: When it cleared, how far did I think we were?

  KLEV: No, I mean how far do you think we walked, ultimately, reality? How far were we from camp?

  NEAL: I would say four hundred meters. And I think that was confirmed the next day by people that went out and found our gear where it was strewn, and the Japanese woman.

  TIM: I know when the first time Toli came and found us he mentioned that he thought it was a twenty- or thirty-minute walk. Which didn’t instill a whole lot of hope in me, but as it turned out, it wasn’t that far.

  SANDY: It didn’t seem like it was that far at all. I don’t think that, even assisted, I was up for a twenty- or thirty-minute walk. It seemed more like it was a ten-minute walk at the most.*

  TIM: I think the difference was the path that we took. His was a lot longer than ours.

  NEAL: Also, as part of the next morning confirmation, four hundred meters was the estima
te given by some of the people that went out to the packs. Also another estimate of ten to fifteen meters from the edge of the Kangshung Face was given.

  [BRIEF DISCUSSION ABOUT DISPOSITION OF DEBRIEFING TAPE—DELETED]

  SANDY: —but the next day Anatoli went up to find Scott.

  INGRID: Well, the first thing that happened was the Sherpas went up to find Scott.

  SANDY: And do you know that fact? Do you have radio?

  INGRID: Yeah. Well, I have the radio call was that they left between— they left around 9:50 [A.M.].

  NEAL: I personally saw Ngawang [Sya Kya Sherpa] and Tashi. Ngawang, Old Ngawang [Lopsang’s father], came up to me and slapped his chest and said, “I carry oxygen. I go look for Scott.” And I wished him well and looked up the hill myself. There appeared to be two other people somewhere above the hard ice, maybe right at that bottom of the first fixed lines at that time. And I assumed that they were the other two Sherpa. I’d heard that they had been sent out to go help.†

  INGRID: Did you give them any instructions before they left?

  NEAL: No, it seemed pretty clear to me that they would go up and do the best job that they could. They had oxygen. Their goal was to go find Scott and bring him down.

  INGRID: And the report we got from the Taiwanese Sherpas—it was about four o’clock that afternoon—was that Makalu was back, that they had found Makalu and that Scott—they first said he was dead. And there was a lot of people could not believe that at Base Camp, that Makalu would survive and Scott wouldn’t. And so, the Sherpas were further questioned, and they said, “Well, yes, he was breathing.” And at that point Anatoli had already decided to go up, I believe, and Caroline,* the doctor from Rob Hall’s camp, talked to Anatoli over the radio and gave him instructions. Anatoli can give his account now of what happened when he went up to find Scott for the second time.