Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day

by Zuckerman, Peter

  For the action sequences and dialogue exchanges, we relied on interviews conducted with witnesses separately and, when possible, together, asking them what they said and did. When film footage of the incidents was available, we used their recorded words. The majority of the interviews were conducted in the sources’ native languages. We relied on interpreters and, for ease of reading, all the quotes were translated into English.

  PROLOGUE: THE DEATH ZONE

  The descriptions of the climb down the Bottleneck in this chapter (and in chapters 11 and 12) come from the recollections of Chhiring, Pasang, and Pemba. We also viewed photographs and videos of this location.

  5 “at the beach” Mine Dumas, quoted in Hugues’s memorial blog.

  1: SUMMIT FEVER

  The descriptions of Beding and Chhiring’s childhood are from interviews with him and his family during Zuckerman’s three-week trek to Rolwaling in 2009 and subsequent interviews with the authors in Kathmandu in 2009 and 2010. The standard version of Beding’s history, and much of the Rolwaling history, comes from correspondence with Professor Janice Sacherer and her writings.

  12 “like a yam between two boulders” According to King Prithvi Narayan Shah, founder of the Shah dynasty in Nepal.

  13 job description According to the common usage, sherpa means a high-altitude mountain worker of any ethnicity, and the word is spelled with a lowercase S to distinguish it from the ethnicity, which is spelled with an uppercase S.

  13 150,000 Sherpas Government of Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics. 2001 Nepal Census, Population by Caste/Ethnic Groups. The most recent ethnic-group–specific census was conducted in 2001, when the Sherpa population was 125,738 and .64 percent of the total population; 150,000 is an estimate for 2008.

  13 Rolwaling Sherpi tamgney See Janice Sacherer, “Sherpa Kinship and Its Wider Implications,” in Han Language Research—34th Session of the International Han Ji-no-kura Language and Linguistics Conference Proceedings (Beijing: Zhaojia Wen Feng Shi National Press, 2006), pp. 450–57.

  14 astonishing amounts of potatoes In 1977, Sacherer did a study in which she calculated that an average Rolwaling family who ate nothing but potatoes most days of the year would consume approximately twelve pounds a day, for a diet of 6,000 calories. The potato represented a revolution in food security with three times the calorific value of barley, the Sherpas’ alternative crop.

  14 giant horse and plow This is according to Rolwaling’s oral tradition, dating back to 1870. See Janice Sacherer, “Rolwaling: A Sacred Buddhist Valley in Nepal,” in Rana P. B. Singh, ed., Sacredscapes and Pilgrimage Systems (New Delhi: Shubhi Publications, 2010), pp. 153–74. The written tradition differs. Tibetan texts of the thirteenth century describe beyuls as always present on earth but rendered invisible by Guru Rinpoche’s powers of meditation to preserve them until sanctuary was needed.

  14 center of the universe This is based on the version told by Ngawang Thundu Sherpa, Chhiring’s father. As he recounted the legend, relatives and friends interjected with elaborations. Some parts of this story are based on these elaborations.

  16 120 years old The actual mortality rate in Rolwaling was much starker during Chhiring’s childhood. According to a 1973 survey of Beding, preadolescent mortality was 28 percent, and hardly anyone lived past seventy. Death in childbirth, disease, hunger, and nutritional deficiency were commonplace. See Ove Skjerven, “A Demographic and Nutritional Survey of Two Villages in the Upper Rolwaling Valley,” Kailash: Journal of Himalayan Studies (Kathmandu) 3, no. 3 (1975).

  16 land of three borders The Buddhist text, Tseringmi Kangsu, makes reference to Takar Dolsangma’s flight to a mountain in a northern region that straddles three borders. Rolwaling lama Ngawang Oser Sherpa believes this mountain to be K2. The Tibetan translation of Chogori (possibly Chomo go ri), as well as the nearby Chogo Lungma (Chomogori lungma) Glacier, invokes five mountain deities, likely the Tseringma sisters.

  17 Hrita Sherpa This is based on Sacherer’s research.

  17 “most isolated, traditional and economically backward” Janice Sacherer, “The Recent Social and Economic Impact of Tourism in a Remote Sherpa Community,” in Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ed., Asian Highland Societies: An Anthropological Perspective (New Delhi: Sterling, 1981), pp. 157–67. Sacherer gives a comprehensive description of the local economic forces.

  19 Pem Phutar See photo included in this book. Chhiring’s paternal grandfather had been a porter for the Merseyside Himalayan Expedition in 1955. After this service, Pem received a commendation letter, which he kept inside a box at his home in Rolwaling. This family history came as a surprise to Chhiring, who discovered the letter in 2011. Pem had never told his son—Chhiring’s father—about his experience as a porter. Of Pem, expedition leader C. P. Booth wrote: “He has carried heavy loads over difficult country and has proved to be a safe and steady porter under the most adverse conditions.”

  19 two members of the 1934 expedition The men who abandoned the Sherpas on Nanga Parbat were actually Austrian but their German-run expedition was blamed. The tales of unlucky Germans appear to have surfaced in modern Sherpa folklore during the late 1930s.

  20 “remain a virgin” John Roskelley, Last Days (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1991). Roskelley actually had more than one goddess to contend with. The mountain is shared by up to five Buddhist goddesses, one on each of the five summits seen from Beding, as well as two Hindu gods, as evidenced by the two summits seen from Kathmandu. Shiva, also known as Shankar, resides on the highest summit, sharing it with Tseringma. Parvati (Gauri), Shiva’s consort, occupies the second highest summit with one of Tseringma’s sisters. Roskelley trampled on the highest summit, presumably offending the two most powerful deities—Shiva and Tseringma.

  20 ill effects from the climb John Roskelley was unaware that his climbing partner, Dorje, had objected for religious reasons. He believes his conquest of Gauri Shankar and the subsequent flash flood were unrelated.

  20 The third died Personal correspondence, Professor Janice Sacherer, October 2011. See also “Tsho Rolpa, GLOFS, and the Sherpas of Rolwaling Valley: A Brief Anthropological Perspective,” Mountain Hazards, Mountain Tourism e-conference, 2006.

  21 If driving rules exist See “Traffic Fatalities in Nepal,” Journal of the American Medical Association 291, no. 21 (June 2, 2004).

  21 World Health Organization standards See Sumit Pokhrel, “Climatology of Air Pollution in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal” (master’s thesis, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, May 2002).

  24 up this high This encounter is based on Chhiring’s recollection.

  26 twenty-three permanent residents This was the population of Beding when Zuckerman visited in spring 2009 during the trekking season. The population is higher at other times of the year.

  26 Playboy centerfold In 2006, Playmate Martyna Wojciechowska summited Everest.

  2: DOORWAY TO HEAVEN

  This version of the 1939 Fritz Wiessner expedition was interpreted by elders in Rolwaling, but we supplemented the story with details from Wiessner’s writings and accounts of alpine historians, including Maurice Isserman, Jennifer Jordan, Andrew Kauffman, William Putnam, and David Roberts. The actions of the climbers are consistent in both accounts. Although Pasang told Wiessner that he saw a supernatural being, historians rarely attribute the problems of the climb to Takar Dolsangma, as Buddhists in Rolwaling do. For information on the 1954 Italian expedition, we interviewed Lino Lacedelli, Erich Abram, and Bruno Zanettin of the 1954 expedition on K2; Leonardo Pagani (son of Guido Pagani of the 1954 expedition); Sultan Ali, Liaquat Ali, and Zulfiqar Ali (son and grandsons of Amir Mehdi of the 1954 expedition); and Haji Baig (friend of Amir Mehdi during their 1953 Nanga Parbat expedition). The description of Chhiring and Dawa’s argument comes from several interviews with them in Kathmandu during 2009. The sequence of quotes is from Dawa’s recollection, and each quote is what the speaker remembers saying. We also visited the house in Colorado where the argument took place.

&
nbsp; 28 highest pass The Karakorum Pass is 18,290 feet, or 5,575 meters.

  28 affirmed the title Charles Close et al., “Nomenclature in the Karakoram,” The Geographical Journal 76, no. 2 (August 1930), pp. 148–58.

  29 Chogori Correspondence with Sacherer. Chogo means “great” and ri means “peak” in both Balti and Tibetan. Sacherer proposed another interpretation of chogo. In Tibetan, cho means “god” and go means “door.” Balti is a form of archaic Tibetan once written in Tibetan script. Persian script was imposed during the Islamic conversion of Baltistan in the sixteenth century.

  31 averaged 0.7 for the previous decade The Himalayan Database calculates the rate based on all those who attempt the peak, not just those who succeed. Although it is common practice, calculating the death rate based on the number of summiters is misleading: “This is sort of like calculating auto death rates by using only the number of drivers and ignoring all the passengers,” explains Richard Salisbury of the Himalayan Database. “Death Analysis” in The Himalaya by the Numbers.

  33 “most bizarre tragedy” See Galen Rowell, In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977). See also Jennifer Jordan, The Last Man on the Mountain (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

  33 heard a rustle According to lamas who interpret this incident from a Buddhist perspective. Wiessner did not report seeing or hearing a goddess.

  33 “No, sahib” This is what Wiessner heard Pasang say. Correspondence with David Roberts, who got the quote from his interview with Fritz Wiessner in 1984. The quote also appears in Roberts’s Moments of Doubt and Other Mountaineering Writings (Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1986).

  34 sunbathed nude Wiessner was sunbathing in the threshold of his tent. It’s likely he became sunburned, which would have severely sapped his strength, making the climb the next day all the more grueling. See Jordan, The Last Man on the Mountain, pp. 190–91.

  34 “fear of the evil spirits” Fritz Wiessner, “The K2 Expedition of 1939,” Appalachia (June 1956).

  34 They turned around Wiessner left his sleeping bag in camp, intending to use one he thought had been left for him lower down the mountain.

  34 “a funny little noise” Fritz Wiessner, interview with David Roberts, 1984.

  34 “dug in” Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

  34 “how stupid” Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

  35 “sabotaged” Ed Webster, “A Man for All Mountains: The Life and Climbs of Fritz Wiessner,” Climbing (December 1988), quoting Wiessner interview.

  35 three rescuers The fourth member of the rescue team, Tensing Norbu, stayed behind in a lower camp. When the rest of the team never returned, he went down to Base Camp and told others what had happened.

  35 nearly full moon Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

  35 lunar charts “Planet Notes for July and August, 1939,” Popular Astronomy 47 (July 1939), pp. 314–15. (Data courtesy of Maria Mitchell Observatory, Harvard; provided online by NASA Astrophysics Data System.)

  35 bigger problem than a turquoise dragon Headlamps were invented in 1972 by Petzl. The handheld bulbs that Wiessner and Pasang would have used to light their high camps were too dim for effective night climbing.

  37 “This is it!” See Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver, Fallen Giants (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 313.

  38 “wiggled himself loose” Charles Houston interview with Bill Moyers, 2004.

  39 fifty years of polemic See Lino Lacedelli and Giovanni Cenacchi. K2: Il prezzo della conquista (Milan: Mondadori, 2004).

  39 Amir Mehdi He is also sometimes referred to as Amir Mahdi or Mehdi Khan.

  39 join their summit bid This is the account Amir Mehdi gave his family when he returned to Hassanabad, Hunza. Interview by the authors, 2009, in Hassanabad, Hunza, with Mehdi’s son, Sultan Ali, and grandsons Liaquat Ali and Zulfiqar Ali, and the recollections of Mehdi’s friend and fellow porter on Nanga Parbat in 1953, Haji Baig, in Gilgit (interview with Zuckerman, 2009). Bonatti acknowledged that he offered Mehdi a shot at the summit but says this was a trick to motivate him to carry the oxygen bottles.

  39 “yelling crazily” Bonatti interview with David Roberts, 2003. Bonatti declined the authors’ request for an interview. “I’m 80 years old,” he replied, “and tired of talking about the bivouac!” He died in 2011.

  39 two sizes too small The Italians had provided army boots for their high-altitude porters, but Mehdi’s feet were too big for any of them. The Italians wanted to stretch and cut the boots to fit, but Mehdi objected, fearing this would slash their resale value.

  39 sipping chamomile Compagnoni said that he wanted to pitch the tent out of the fall-line of the seracs. Although this sounds plausible, he chose an inconvenient location that was exposed to rockfall.

  40 oxygen allegedly ran out See Robert Marshall, K2: Lies and Treachery (Herefordshire, UK: Carreg Ltd., 2009). The summit photo shows that the oxygen systems had been carried to the summit. If the bottles had been empty, they would have been discarded as unnecessary weight. The frost on Lacedelli’s beard corresponds to the shape of an oxygen mask.

  40 “Like an elephant” Erich Abram interview with Paolo Padoan, November 2009.

  41 a single summer See Jim Curran, K2: Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989). For a survivor’s account, see Kurt Diemberger, The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny (Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1991).

  41 “Conquistadors of the Useless” Lionel Terray used this term for his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna (Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 2008, reprint).

  42 “more resort than wilderness” See Ed Douglas, “Mount Everest: a not so novel feat,” The Guardian, May 19, 2010.

  43 forty summit-hungry climbers Estimates of the number of summiters who passed Sharp vary.

  45 “treat me like a sherpa” Chhiring is using the term sherpa (with a lowercase S) to mean any high-altitude mountain worker.

  3: THE PRINCE AND THE PORTER

  The description of the massacre is from the official reports issued by the government of Nepal during the summer of 2001. The initial June 14 report, by a two-member panel of Supreme Court Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya and House Speaker Taranth Ranabha, compiles the testimony of crime-scene investigators and all surviving witnesses. We supplemented our account with a visit to the palace and the massacre memorial site, photos of the crime scene, discussions with Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times, and interviews with Dr. Raghunath Aryal, the royal astrologer who knew many of the victims and was familiar with the locations. We also corroborated these accounts with the BBC Panorama documentary about the massacre, Murder Most Royal, and Jonathan Gregson’s book, Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal (Talk Miramax, 2002). The quotes are what witnesses heard, and Ketaki Chester’s interviews with Kunda Dixit and the BBC were a major source for these quotes. The descriptions of Pasang’s childhood are based on interviews with him during Zuckerman’s trek to Hungung and the Upper Arun Valley in 2009, and from interviews with his friends, family, and neighbors. The interactions with Ms. Go are based on Pasang’s recollections. The description of the Hotel de l’Annapurna is from the authors’ observations of the hotel and Pasang’s recollection. The authors interviewed Pasang, Ngawang Bhote, and Tsering Bhote about this meeting at the hotel.

  48 bloodbath See Jonathan Gregson, Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal (Talk Miramax, 2002). See also Murder Most Royal, a BBC Panorama documentary (2002).

  49 probably opium According to official investigation reports, Dippy was smoking “a special kind of cigarette prepared with a mixture of hashish and another unnamed black substance.” The description and effects match those for “black hash,” an opium-and-hashish mixture that the prince liked to smoke. No one tested the exact composition of the joint.

  49 lower social standing Not by much. Devyani’s mother is a member of the royal family of
Gwalior state in India. Queen Aishwarya nevertheless considered the maharajahs of Gwalior to be beneath the royalty of Nepal.

  49 stripped of royal status Despite the laws of succession set forth in the constitution, Queen Aishwarya could have “excommunicated” Crown Prince Dipendra just as his uncle, Prince Dhirendra, once had been.

  49 high cholesterol King Birendra’s last conversation with his wife, Queen Aishwarya, concerned his family’s predisposition to high cholesterol.

  50 an aunt Princess Ketaki Chester interview with the BBC in 2002. Information from the official report is supplemented by Ketaki Chester’s June 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times.

  50 last words “Ke gareko?” in Nepali. This is according to official reports and subsequent interviews with witnesses, including Ketaki Chester’s 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit.

  50 Two relatives Gorakh Rana, the husband of Dipendra’s sister, Princess Shruti, and Dr. Rajiv Raj Shahi, the king’s nephew, sprang forward to help.

  50 “That’s enough” “Pugyo Babu” in Nepali. Babu is a term of endearment for younger brothers, sons, and grandsons in Nepal.

  50 from the landing This comes from Ketaki Chester’s interview with Kunda Dixit, 2011. It is also possible that Dipendra shot his brother from a position in the garden beside the stairs, according to the official investigation report.

  51 surrendered From Ketaki Chester’s 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit.

  51 shot her in the face Queen Aishwarya’s face was so mutilated that a porcelain mask, painted to resemble her, was used during her funeral.

  51 released a statement The statement may have been mistranslated or misreported at the time. See Gregson, Massacre at the Palace, p. 214.

  51 clumsy cover-up See Ketaki Chester’s interview with Kunda Dixit. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala consulted with Queen Mother Ratna, who asked that he provide full disclosure to the public. Her instructions were not followed, and the ensuing media blackout allowed conspiracy theories to flourish.