Aftershock: One Man's Quest and the Quake on Everest

by Jules Mountain

  “Please get me Donat or Iwan. They need to speak to the Polish guy.”

  Soon, Donat’s voice came over the radio. Petar was eager to talk to him, so I passed the radio over.

  They chatted away in Polish for a minute or two: double Dutch to me.

  Donat spoke to me.

  “He OK – the son. He no rush – he have breakfast. In two hour he come down.”

  My heart lifted. I had true admiration for Andrzej – in spite of the earthquake and avalanche, as well as the unknown conditions, he had climbed solo up to Camp 1, to get their equipment. A lot of the climb would have been in the dark, and he had spent the night there alone. Now, he was relaxing cooking himself breakfast, with no rush – it was impressive.

  “That’s great news!”

  I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me. There was no reason to go any further; we could head back to Base Camp knowing that Petar’s son was safe. He would come down shortly, and once he was safely back at Base Camp, everything would be fine. I now felt I had done my bit to help father make contact with son, and there was no shame in turning around.

  Also, I had now been this far up the Icefall twice, and Andrzej had made it all the way to Camp 1. This proved it was possible – so, hopefully, we could carry on with our expedition now.

  Petar hugged me, laughing. There was a huge smile on his face and a real glint in his eyes – the eyes of a very relieved and proud father. Although his son had done a stupid thing going up on his own, he had actually made it to Camp 1.

  So we turned and made our way back down the Icefall. We left the rope that we had secured at the fourth ladder and used to belay Petar into the crevasse, so that Andrzej would be able to use it on his return.

  A huge ice serac had collapsed across the route between our going up and coming down. It had shattered into a million pieces and buried the rope beneath it. It had looked quite stable earlier, but now it was smashed into tiny pieces, with a few very large chunks lying around. If that had come down on our heads, it would have killed us both outright.

  We had to shimmy around the ice that now blocked the route, with our backs to the wall…

  I couldn’t have a sensible conversation with Petar about the pros and cons of squeezing ourselves through that gap between the huge fallen serac and the crevasse wall, because he didn’t speak enough English. Instead, I just had to get on with it; get on with the madness.

  I went first, taking off my rucksack and pulling it behind me as I inched my way through – the walls were pressing against my chest. I felt very claustrophobic, and I was praying there would be no aftershocks that might dislodge any of the ice. Any slight movement of the ice and it could have crushed me to death.

  I made it through the cavity and Petar followed. As he was about to clear the gap, we heard an almighty crack.

  We both froze.

  A large chunk of ice dislodged itself. It smashed to the ground, inches from our feet, showering us with freezing ice.

  “Quick,” I said.

  He nodded, hauled himself out of the gap, and we increased our speed of descent, eager to get out of the melting Icefall before it killed us. The sun had risen by this point, beating down on us and threatening to bring more ice down around us.

  Eventually, panting, exhausted, we reached the relative safety of the glacier floor. We stood near the SPCC tent gasping for breath.

  “Thank…you…” Petar said, between huge gulps of thin air.

  I patted him on the back. I felt proud to have helped him in my small way. It was great to know that his son was safe and would hopefully be back at Base Camp shortly. I thought about my daughters and hoped that, if we were ever in a comparable situation, someone would help me to rescue them.

  On a personal level, I also felt I had climbed part of Everest twice now, having been up the Khumbu Icefall two days in a row.

  The Icefall was passable; I knew that. Andrzej had climbed it, and we could, too – we just needed to go earlier, avoiding the sunlight and the melting ice, and carve a new route around the fourth ladder, or put it back into place, and we could get to Camp 1.

  I was very excited to get back to Base Camp and tell the others.

  * * * * *

  As we were walking back to Base Camp, we saw three men approaching us. They appeared to be heading in the direction of the Icefall.

  At this time of day? Were they crazy?

  As they got closer, I could see that one of them was wearing a blue helmet with SPCC emblazoned on the front in large, white letters.

  “Where you come from?”

  These were the mystical Icefall doctors, who set the route through the Icefall with ropes and ladders each year.

  “From near the football pitch,” I replied.

  “No. Impossible. No ladders,” one of them said, as we stopped to chat.

  “Yes there are. The first three ladders are fine,” I said. “It’s just the fourth one that’s collapsed.”

  It seemed they had been listening to the false rumours that the route through the icefall was impassable.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked them. “Are you repairing the route through the Icefall?”

  “No. We remove ladders.”

  I thought about Andrzej, calmly sitting at Camp 1 having breakfast. If they removed the ladders, he would be stranded.

  “You can’t do that. There’s somebody at Camp 1,” I said.

  “No, no – impossible.”

  They looked genuinely shocked.

  “Somebody climbed up to Camp 1 yesterday. He’s coming back down this morning,” I explained.

  “Our manager said remove ladders.”

  Petar, even with his limited English, appeared to understand what was going on.

  “Son,” he said, pointing towards Camp 1.

  I patted his back.

  “You can’t remove the ladders; his son is still at Camp 1.”

  “We have instruction.”

  “He won’t be able to get down!”

  I was exhausted after our climb.

  The Icefall doctors were Nepalese, but they spoke reasonable English. I tried to explain the situation – that Andrzej needed the ladders to get back down, otherwise he would be stranded up at Camp 1 with no way of getting back.

  This was my main concern, but in addition, if they took the ladders down, our summit attempt was over. We would have no hope of continuing. And most of our team seemed keen to carry on.

  “Our boss...”

  “I don’t care what your boss said. If you take those ladders down now, somebody else could die.”

  There was silence. The SPCC guys looked uncomfortable. They shared nervous glances.

  “We leave ladders. Talk to boss.”

  “Good.”

  It was fortunate that we had bumped into the SPCC men. Otherwise, they would have removed the ladders, and Andrzej would have been stranded. I looked at Petar, trying to reassure him that his son wouldn’t be left halfway up Everest to fend for himself, or wait for a helicopter rescue which they couldn’t afford.

  I felt sorry for the SPCC men. They were just pawns in this process, doing what their manager told them. They risked their lives every year to make the route through the Icefall safe for us.

  We trudged on, leaving the SPCC guys to return to their tents.

  We arrived back at the perimeter of Base Camp at around 11 in the morning. Petar was camped at the top end of Base Camp, while I was at the bottom. He had a large smile on his face as he hugged me.

  “Dziekuje – thank you,” he said.

  “Let me know when your son gets down,” I replied, slowly pointing at Camp 1 and then moving my finger down to Base Camp, hoping that he understood what I was saying.

  He nodded, and we went our separate ways, waving to each other. (I heard later t
hat Andrzej did successfully come back down the Icefall, taking six hours instead of the usual two, because of all the heavy equipment he was carrying with him. He had risked crossing it when it was at its most treacherous – in the middle of the day – but had survived unscathed.)

  I felt a warm glow – I had climbed the Icefall again, which I had actually really enjoyed, I had made Petar happy, and we had prevented the Icefall doctors from removing the ladders before his son got down.

  All in all, it was a very good morning’s work.

  I walked back along the stream in the glacier to our camp. Very few people now remained, and I did not see anybody on my way back.

  It was just over a week since the avalanche. While a lot of the debris had been removed, reclaimed or rebuilt, there were still unclaimed items scattered everywhere.

  I passed a piece of plastic jutting out of the snow. I grabbed it with my gloved hand and yanked it free – a laptop!

  It almost certainly didn’t work, having been outside in freezing temperatures for a week. I placed it on a nearby rock. Somebody might want it, and I didn’t know what else to do with it.

  Soon, I was walking into the white pod. There was a faint chatter of voices.

  I looked around the pod – it was quite amazing how much could change within a week.

  There had been a great sense of camaraderie before the disaster. Now, our group seemed fractured, broken, divided. The guides kept to themselves, Lincoln, with his broad welcoming smile, was gone, Iwan and Donat kept their distance from Donald. It was a completely different place.

  The night before the avalanche we had had a party, right here in the white pod.

  The guides, Louise, John, Donald, Paul, Lincoln, Elia, Hilary, Iwan, Donat, Hachiro, Taka, Bill and I – we had all danced the night away. Happy, excited, enthusiastic, looking forward to our big adventure up Everest.

  That was before the earthquake.

  Now, I sat down with Louise and John, who were seated in the reclining chairs to the right of the pod.

  “We can do it,” I said. “The Icefall is passable.”

  “He’s back,” said Louise.

  “Who?”

  “The expedition leader.”

  The expedition leader had pretty much left us to our own devices since we arrived at Base Camp. He’d left the day-to-day running of the expedition to his guides and had gone back to Kathmandu before the earthquake. We hadn’t seen him for eight days.

  “When did he get back?”

  “This morning,” said John. “He went to see the Icefall doctors straight away. He hasn’t even come to say hello to us.”

  That would be why they were off to close the Icefall then. If he had pressured them to take the ladders down, they’d give in pretty quickly.

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?” asked Louise.

  “The Icefall doctors. Where can I find them?”

  “They usually hang out at the Indian Army camp,” said Louise. “But why?”

  “I’m going to go and talk to them,” I said, standing up. “The Icefall is still passable. You still want to try don’t you?”

  Louise and John looked at each other.

  “Of course we do,” said Louise. “It’s why we’re still here.”

  “Exactly. If we can put pressure on the doctors to keep the ladders in place, and we find some willing Sherpas to assist us, we can still go. We can still try and summit Everest.”

  “They’re not going to be happy about that,” said Louise, her eye shifting over to the guides sitting across on the far side of the pod. The pod was some 10 metres across, so they couldn’t hear us.

  “They’ve been trying to find any reason to avoid going up and doing what we’ve paid them to do. It doesn’t matter to them – they still get full pay whether we go or not, and if we don’t, they spend the next three weeks lying on a beach with some Thai girls.”

  Louise and John smiled.

  “I’m going to find the Icefall doctors,” I said, spinning on my heel and leaving the white pod.

  Duplicity and dashed hopes

  It was a 30-minute hike right across BC to the top end, then, after asking five people, I eventually found the Indian Army’s camp. The Indian Army was one of the few full-strength expeditions remaining, with some 25 people. The army comes every year with soldiers to climb Everest. I assume it must be part of their training programme.

  The Indians were very welcoming, very lovely. As soon as I arrived, I was greeted.

  “Hello, my friend!” said an Indian officer in impeccable English. They were wearing thick downing clothing, much like the rest of us, but with army insignia stitched to the arms and lapels.

  I didn’t waste time.

  “I’m from another expedition,” I said. “We still want to climb.”

  The Indian officer looked at me, as if assessing my merits.

  “You had better come with me then,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulders and leading me into a tent. “I’ll introduce you to Ank.”

  We walked into the tent where a large number of Indians and Nepalese were sitting around a very large table that filled the middle of the tent. There was also a Westerner with a ponytail and a bright orange jacket, a Belgian called Damien. I learned that he had been with another expedition, which had left BC, but Damien wanted to stay and try for the summit, so the Indian Army had kindly offered him food and a tent in its camp.

  Some people were eating in the tent. “You must join us and eat something.” They thrust a silver dish into my hand full of samosas, rice and dal bhat. It looked and smelled delicious. I sensed a camaraderie here that no longer existed in our own camp.

  There was a very large Nepalese man sitting across the table, who seemed to fill the tent.

  “This man and his expedition still want to climb,” the officer said.

  The large man had the air of an important official. He looked up from his seated position, his face serious and composed. This was the Icefall boss – Ank.

  “I have asked my team to remove ladders, ropes, everything,” he said.

  “I know – I saw them when I was coming down the Icefall. You can’t take them down, though. There’s still somebody at Camp 1.”

  The large man raised an eyebrow

  “You went up the Icefall?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence had fallen in the tent – everybody seemed interested in the outcome of this conversation.

  “I have been told it is not passable,” Ank said.

  “That’s not true. I’ve been up it twice, seen it with my own eyes. Three of the ladders are intact.”

  He seemed to weigh up this new information.

  “In our expedition,” I continued, “there are nine of us who want to carry on. There are also five from the South African team. Plus these guys…” I gesticulated towards the Indians. I had sensed their keenness as I talked. The Indian officer nodded seriously.

  “We still wish to go up,” he said.

  “There’s a lot of people here at BC who want to give it a shot, to try and achieve their dream. We’ve all paid for our permits, the route is accessible and we’re all in good shape, already acclimatised. We ask for your support to achieve our dreams.” I knew I said it with an air of desperation, although I was trying to keep my voice steady.

  I showed him pictures of the Icefall from my camera.

  “I was told it was worse – that only one ladder remained,” he conceded.

  “There are three.”

  “You need the Sherpa support,” he said.

  “I understand that.”

  “It will take many Sherpas to make the route from Camp 1 to the summit. Can you find 16 Sherpas willing to go? You must not pressurise them, and they must be willing to go,” he emphasised.

  “With our expedit
ion, the Indian Army, and the South Africans, I think I can.”

  He paused, went silent, seemed to freeze in place like a great Buddha statue.

  “If you demonstrate this to me,” he paused for what seemed like an age, “I will reopen the Icefall.”

  The whole tent lit up. I saw huge grins on the faces of the Indian Army men, including their captain. There was real hope here again. I shook his hand, thanked him and stood up. He nodded.

  “Bring me 16 Sherpas willing to go,” he repeated.

  The Indian Army officer led me out of the tent. As he pulled back the flap, he shook my hand.

  “Well done,” he said. “Well done – we still have a chance.”

  “We do,” I said. “And thank you for your kind hospitality and support.”

  I headed back to our camp, another 30-minute, breathless trek across rough, uneven ice and rocks. It was now past midday, and I’d been up since four in the morning. I was very tired. The adrenalin had been pumping for hours, first with the Icefall, and now with this renewed opportunity, and I was intensely thirsty, but I had to give this my best shot. With the expedition leader back, he was the last person I had to persuade, and then we could have a real shot at the summit...

  In spite of my exhaustion, I was going to give it my all to corral the teams for the rest of the day.

  Eventually, I reached the white pod. I opened the entrance flap and stepped inside.

  “That’s it then – meeting closed.”

  The expedition leader was sitting in a chair in the centre of the white pod, with the guides beside him. The rest of the expedition team was seated in front of him.

  “What meeting?” I said from the entrance.

  “I’m afraid you’ve missed it,” said the expedition leader.

  “Nobody told me there was a meeting!”

  “You weren’t here.”

  “I was here earlier. You were around this morning and you didn’t even say hello to anybody, and now you’re suddenly telling me that there was a meeting planned! You could have told me this morning and I would have come to it.”

  I felt betrayed. I knew this meeting was to close down the expedition, and I knew they had made little attempt to tell people about the meeting in the hope that there would be fewer people to object. I felt they had deliberately avoided telling me, to try to sideline me.