The Climb

by Anatoli Boukreev

  ANATOLI: The next day, after our attempt and after terrible night, when I know some our Sherpa go up with oxygen, I like to see the situation. And, from my experience, I saw our members, and I saw this is, will be everything okay, not big deal. I afraid just about Scott, because, actually, I believe for his power, for his experience, he can survive this night, maybe little frostbited, but with down jacket with One Sport, I know this many examples people survived this without big frostbited. And our Sherpa go up with oxygen and I saw the situation. And, somebody ask about me, helping to go down.† But my decision, it was [to stay] in Camp IV and wait this situation about Scott. And I am sorry for Klev. Klev ask me helping, but I said I talked with Neal little bit, and I think is most important wait, because for me, I was sure. Scott maybe have some—maybe he tired—but he can survive this.

  SANDY: The next morning—the weather—let’s just ask about [that]. Can you mention what the weather was the next morning and day?

  ANATOLI: Weather, it was like not so bad. It is okay. Look like good visibility, not very strong wind. It was windy, but not very strong, like cold. Just cold. Maybe I felt like this cold. And when members left, all members left, I saw the situation. I saw somebody go up, somebody go down face of Everest, this couloir where fixed line above fixed line, yellow fixed line. And I saw the situation. I slept like few hours and eating, little rest, and I felt before in morning I felt like empty, not go up, not go down. But then members left, I little rested. I felt much better and I waited this result from Sherpas. Maybe in one o’clock or two o’clock I have not information. Maybe Lopsang have contact. I don’t know. I just waited. Also I talk with Todd Burleson and Pete Athans* about this situation. These people was ready to help me and we talked about this situation, about crazy situation, and he [Scott] depended of people. But Scott just alone. He is strong with experience, and we waited result from Sherpas. Afternoon, I saw somebody go down. It was Tashi [Sherpa], more stronger than father of Lopsang. He was much stronger, and somebody, also, Todd Burleson told me [about] Makalu [Gau], one Taiwanese man, came back. He survived this night together with Scott. I can talk with this man. I talked with this man. He said, “Oh”—but he was very; is very difficult situation, frostbited and cannot say too much, but he told, “Oh, Scott didn’t sleep; talked all night; keep power; great person.” [This is] what I understood from this man.

  INGRID: I’m sorry. I’m not sure I understood. Makalu, he told you that Scott was talking to him all night?

  ANATOLI: All night, yeah. And this is—I believe Scott, maybe, get some problem, but he will survive. And when I talked with Tashi and Lopsang and Lopsang’s father and these people told me he didn’t walk. They found him at the rock, at the steps, and he without moving, without anything what is possible. I understood this from Sherpas. He gets like cerebral edema; he didn’t talk; he have problem; but he— maybe it possible to help him. And began three o’clock [3:00 P.M., May 11, 1996], began snow, wind again, and I prepare oxygen, tea, and I prepared for my trip to go up again. But all people told me, Toli, it is impossible for you to help him, because Sherpa told he is— he have cerebral, like cerebral edema and impossible to help him. I saw the situation, and I like to see from my eyes about this situation. And, I took oxygen, two bottles. It was difficult to find because our oxygen gone. I saw Sherpas tent. I found these bottles. Sherpas use oxygen. I took this oxygen from Sherpas. No so easy. [Boukreev laughs.] And also Sherpas don’t like if I go up because he said impossible. They was right. I get Scott too late. And when I spent two hours to go up with oxygen. After yellow ropes, after white ropes, maybe like two hundred, between 8,200, 8,300 [meters] I found his body. Without—what is possible to say for English—without …?

  INGRID: Signs of life?

  ANATOLI: Signs of life. His eyes like closed and go down. I tried to open; impossible, frozen. Color, all face like frozen. Down jacket open; one hand from down jacket, without down jacket, without down suit. All hand without mitts. And down jacket also open and oxygen finished. Time, seven o’clock [7:00 P.M.], just same time when I get Scott, begin very strong wind. And, very fast and with snow, and I lose all visibility. I began little keep his body, because impossible. I saw this. I have little experience with this, and I saw impossible for me to move his body to life. And just put his pack in his body, put oxygen, ropes, little packed his body what I can. And also began dark, and I was hurry. I go down very fast. I take his ice ax, little things from his self for his family, and go down very fast. Visibility gone after fixed line, incredible time, like last night again. Without eyes [and] without visibility, I tried to find our camp [Camp IV]. It was very difficult. Sherpas slept; didn’t help me; nobody.

  KLEV: The Sherpa slipped? A Sherpa was with you?

  INGRID: The Sherpas slept and didn’t put a light out for him.

  KLEV: Oh, slept. I’m sorry.

  ANATOLI: Not light. Just before when I go up, also, I believe I can to help for Scott because I saw this one guy from Rob Hall expedition came back; he survived this night. He lose maybe hands, like half of hand, he survived this night.*

  KLEV: That was Beck?

  INGRID: Yes.

  ANATOLI: Before, when I go up, I ask him [Beck Weathers], “Did he see [Scott].” But, he [Weathers] understood nothing. Like he—he was very crazy, and I hope I can help for Scott, but this man just made voice and this voice I heard it. Is like my intuition helped me to find camp in the night.* And also very, very cold. I get very cold, very tired. So is my night at the South Col, but I survived it. It is no problem. And, what I can say about this?

  *Rob Hall was the leader of the Adventure Consultants expedition.

  †Here Lopsang appears to be referring to a Montenegrin (Yugoslavian) expedition that had reported fixing some ropes above Camp IV on May 9, 1996, before abandoning their summit attempt.

  *While the recording of the debriefing was of fairly good quality, it is often difficult to understand Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa. His command of English was limited. The symbol [UI] will be used in those places where his comments were unintelligible and in a few other places in the transcript where the spoken words of participants were not readily understandable.

  †Boukreev often speculated that Lopsang’s sickness was due primarily to his having broken his acclimatization routine when he had helicoptered to Kathmandu with his uncle, Ngawang Topche Sherpa, who was suffering from an altitude-related illness to which he would later succumb.

  *On a couple of occasions before his tragic death by avalanche on September 25, 1996, Lopsang explained: (1) a guide from a Montenegrin expedition that had made a summit attempt on May 9, 1996, had told him that his team had fixed some ropes as they climbed toward the South Summit, where they abandoned their attempt; (2) Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants expedition left forty-five minutes before the Mountain Madness expedition, and if any ropes needed fixing, it was their responsibility to do it; (3) his sickness was not due to not having been using supplementary oxygen or to his having assisted Sandy Hill (Pittman) for a brief time, but it did interfere with his capacity to fix ropes when it was discovered that neither the Montenegrin nor the Adventure Consultants expeditions had fixed ropes ahead of the Mountain Madness team; and (4) Neal Beidleman and Anatoli Boukreev should have been more aggressive in their efforts to fix ropes.

  †Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa summited somewhere in the vicinity of 2:30 P.M. and waited on the summit until approximately 3:40 P.M. when Scott Fischer finally arrived. Approximately fifteen minutes later they began their descent; Fischer first and then Lopsang. Just below the summit Lopsang stopped to retrieve his ice ax where, on his ascent, he had anchored it in the snow to fix a length of rope for ascending climbers. On his descent Lopsang noticed that Rob Hall, who had summitted around 2:30 P.M., had come off the summit and was assisting an exhausted Doug Hansen, one of Hall’s clients, up the rope that Lopsang had fixed to his ice ax. Lopsang, wanting to make certain that Hall and Hansen would be secure on their descent, waited by his ice ax in subzero
temperatures until the two climbers made the summit and returned (somewhere between 4:15 and 4:30 P.M.). Lopsang would not catch up to Fischer until approximately 5:45 P.M. by which time Fischer was in serious trouble.

  Why Rob Hall encouraged Doug Hansen to continue his ascent remains one of the most perplexing questions of the Everest tragedy. An experienced and respected guide whose penchant for going by the book was well-known, he broke one of his cardinal rules by not turning Hansen around. What may have motivated such a careful and responsible guide to shelve his better judgment has been a matter of endless speculation. What is known is that the decision to take Hansen to the summit directly impacted the subsequent decisions of Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa and Andy Harris, one of Hall’s guides, drawing their attention from other problems that were developing on the mountain.

  *Pete Schoening and Dale Kruse were Mountain Madness climber-clients who did not climb on summit day, May 10, 1996.

  *As has been noted (see p. 154, The Climb), Fischer had authorized all seven Sherpas who had climbed to Camp IV to make a summit bid. Unbeknownst to Fischer and other Mountain Madness expedition members on summit day, Lopsang had ordered one Sherpa, Pemba Sherpa, to remain at Camp IV during the final assault.

  †Here, Lopsang appears to be noting that at 8,820 meters, just below the summit, he gave the full canister of oxygen that he had been carrying to Sandy Hill (Pittman).

  ‡Lopsang repeats Tashi Tshering Sherpa as one of those who made the summit. The fourth summiting Sherpa, it is believed, was Ngawang Dorje Sherpa.

  *In 1989 Boukreev was as a member of a Russian national team that successfully traversed the summits of Kanchenjunga. Boukreev, at the insistence of his coach, used supplementary oxygen.

  *Boukreev knew that the climbing Sherpas were to carry one bottle to the South Summit for each of the climber-clients and that a reserve of oxygen was to be on the mountain for him, but he was unsure how many bottles of oxygen were actually delivered.

  *The plan had been for the Mountain Madness Sherpas to deposit—at the South Summit—ten bottles of oxygen. From that supply, each of the six Mountain Madness climber-clients on the final assault, Neal Beidleman, and Scott Fischer were to take one bottle on their descent. The additional two bottles, it is assumed, were the bottles that Fischer had agreed he would make available to Boukreev in the event he needed them on summit day (see p. 52, The Climb).

  Like Mountain Madness, Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants expedition was to have extra oxygen bottles cached at the South Summit for its climbers. How many bottles of oxygen remained at the South Summit as members of the Adventure Consultants team began their descent remains a question to this day. Mike Groom, one of Rob Hall’s guides, and Jon Krakauer, one of Hall’s climber-clients, have offered different figures in their published accounts of their expedition’s summit attempt. Krakauer has said that “at least six” bottles remained when he, Andy Harris, Mike Groom, and Yasuko Namba, another climber-client, arrived at the South Col. Mike Groom has said that he distributed “full” bottles of oxygen to Harris, Namba, and Krakauer, took one for himself, and that two full bottles were taken from the cache by Ang Dorje Sherpa and Ngawang Norbu Sherpa, two of Rob Hall’s climbing Sherpas who had descended ahead of Hall and Doug Hansen. If there were no more than six bottles of Adventure Consultants oxygen at the South Col when that expedition began its descent and if Groom’s account of how that oxygen was parceled out is accurate, that means that no bottles of Adventure Consultants oxygen remained when Hall (and perhaps Hansen) reached the South Summit. However, it should be noted that Jon Krakauer has said in Into Thin Air that Rob Hall, upon his arrival at the South Summit, “had possession of two full oxygen canisters.”

  *On the audiotape of the debriefing that was provided to Boukreev, there are occasional breaks in continuity. Boukreev recalled that at certain times during the taping, if someone wanted to go off the record, the taping would be halted. Boukreev was unable to determine, in listening to the audiotape, whether a break in continuity was intentional or due to recording or copying procedures. Whenever a break in continuity was noted, the transcriber inserted “[GAP ON RECORDING].”

  *Andy Harris passed on assisting Beidleman; instead, he proceeded up the mountain with Jon Krakauer, a climber-client with the Adventure Consultants expedition, who had become concerned about his dwindling oxygen supply. (See “Mountain Madness Everest Debriefing,” p. 324 and The Climb, p. 147.)

  *Boukreev, here, is referring to his encounter with Fischer above the Hillary Step, as Boukreev was descending from the summit and Fischer was heading up the mountain.

  *Andy Harris and Jon Krakauer of the Adventure Consultants expedition, like Beidleman, Fischer, and the Mountain Madness climber-clients, had been allocated three canisters (approximately eighteen hours) of oxygen for their summit bid. At this encounter with Beidleman—around noon—Harris and Krakauer had been climbing for more than twelve and one-half hours.

  *Dr. Ingrid Hunt was confirming with Lopsang that he had been carrying a black radio that was tuned to the frequency being used by those Sherpas at Camp IV, Camp II, and at the Everest Base Camp. The “small yellow” radios previously mentioned did not have the capacity of the black radios and were not used to communicate with the Everest Base Camp on summit day.

  *Neal Beidleman has since reported that he and the four Mountain Madness climber-clients on the summit with him began their descent at 3:10 P.M.

  †Fischer topped the Hillary Step at approximately 2:35 P.M. He made the summit a little over an hour later, at approximately 3:40 P.M.

  *After the Everest tragedy, in conversations with his coauthor Weston DeWalt, Boukreev described Fischer as being tired, but not apparently ill. Perhaps, Boukreev speculated, Fischer was already beginning to fail but was not consciously aware of the seriousness of whatever it was that overtook him. In their exchange above the Hillary Step, Boukreev told Fischer that the clients on the summit all looked good, but he expressed concern that, given the cold and the dwindling oxygen, there could be problems. Fischer said he felt that things were “okay” at that moment, that he would be on the summit soon and that, if things went well on the descent, it was possible that the Mountain Madness climbers could make Camp IV before dark. However, given the delays to that point and the hour of the day, Boukreev said that he and Fischer decided that the best place for him was in Camp IV where, if the climber-clients were further delayed or ran into trouble, Boukreev could be ready to offer assistance to those above him. Boukreev, because he had already considered the value of that option and decided that it was the best course of action for him to take, was pleased that he and Fischer saw things similarly.

  When his descent ahead of clients was made an issue in the media, Boukreev revisited Fischer’s and his decision to consider if there might have been a better course of action for them to have taken. Boukreev concluded that, given what they both knew at the moment of their meeting at the Hiliary Step, they had made the right decision. Had he known, he said, that Fischer was ill and that Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa’s attention would be drawn to members of Rob Hall’s expedition, certainly, he would not have made a rapid descent.

  *Upon arriving at Camp IV and running into Pemba, Boukreev was not aware that Pemba had been in camp throughout the summit day. He thought Pemba had made an attempt on the summit and had then turned back. Neither was he aware that two other Sherpas were at Camp IV, Mountain Madness climbing Sherpas who, after reaching the South Summit, had returned to Camp IV and gone to their tent.

  †Here Boukreev was referring to Camp IV, not the Everest Base Camp.

  ‡During Boukreev’s first attempt to locate stranded Mountain Madness climbers, he’s said that he started to lose track of time (see p. 168, The Climb). After reviewing this transcript, he said that he still felt his timing of Adams’s arrival was reasonably accurate, but that, because he had not specifically noted the time, he was prepared to accept Adams’s own recollection.

  *Dr. Hunt is referring to the b
lack radios that Fischer had provided for the expedition, the radios operating on the Everest Base Camp frequency (see pp. 60–61, The Climb).

  †Gyalzen Sherpa, who had been the cook at Camp II during the expedition, was stationed at Camp II on summit day.

  ‡Ngima (Neema) Sherpa was the Everest Base Camp sirdar for the Mountain Madness expedition (see p. 44, The Climb).

  *There were no satellite phones being used by Mountain Madness climbers or Sherpas on summit day, so it is assumed, here, that Dr. Hunt was referring to a radio, not a phone.

  *Neal Beidleman has reported that he arrived at the South Summit at 9:58 A.M.

  *Doug Hansen, it has been reported, did not summit until after 4:00 P.M.

  †Fischer’s transmission was made from the summit around 3:45 P.M. (see p. 160, The Climb). Because Fischer’s transmission from the summit was made on Lopsang’s black radio and because Fischer had not been in direct communication with the Everest Base Camp after the morning of May 8, some have speculated that his radio may not have been functioning properly.

  ‡Lopsang has said that Fischer was not out of oxygen (see “Mountain Madness Everest Debriefing,” p. 343), that he’d picked up a third, full bottle at the South Summit, but for some reason, after he made the summit, he was unwilling or unable to draw upon that supply.

  *At approximately 8,650 meters Fischer had come to some fixed lines that required some complex rope work. Tired and failing—and without Lopsang who had been delayed just below the summit—Fischer opted to glissade (slide on his butt) down a snow slope that terminated about a hundred meters off the route he should have taken.

  *Andy Harris, a guide for Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants expedition, offered Lopsang five hundred U.S. dollars to take oxygen to Rob Hall and Doug Hansen, who were atop the Hillary Step.