Dead Lucky

by Lincoln Hall

  “A lot of guys got frostbite up there. Much worse than this.” He gestured at his toe. “Much worse.”

  His words reminded me of the latest tragedy.

  “What’s the story with David Sharp?”

  Bob paused and grimaced. “He was history from the first time we saw him. It just felt like I was walking past a dead body—that’s how far gone he was.”

  It was a very unfortunate affair, and the media kept feeding on it, but eventually the full story of David Sharp would come out. I could imagine he would have wanted the truth to be known.

  WE DID NOT SEE Bob Killip again, as he would be preparing to leave for Kathmandu while the four of us spent the next day readying ourselves for our own summit push. Late in the day news came through that one of the Norwegians had died skiing the Great Couloir. There was no more information until the morning, when we learned that it was Tomas Olsson. The name meant nothing to me. I knew only of Fredrik Schenholm, the photographer whose details I had jotted down when we had crossed paths. Tomas had been attempting to rappel into the very top of the couloir, where the snow was ski-able and the real descent could begin for both him and his partner, Tormod Granheim. The anchor he’d used for his rope had held long enough for him to rappel one hundred feet—then it gave way and he fell the last forty feet to the top of the couloir and beyond. I remembered the spot well—it was my high point in 1984—and I knew it was too steep for him to be able to stop.

  Tomas fell over 6,000 feet to his death. In a state of shock, Tormod had to climb down the rock-face to the top of the couloir. He must be a very skillful mountaineer, I thought, to have been able to complete the short descent without a rope. From that point, the obvious escape route was to do what he had come to do—ski the wide gully of the couloir. He managed it safely, but on that day there would have been no satisfaction in becoming the first person to achieve the feat. High-altitude extreme skiing is exceptionally dangerous—both men would have known the risks, but that did not make Tomas’s accident any more palatable.

  Richard, Christopher, and Mike set off after breakfast the next day, but I was in no particular hurry. Richard was not in good shape, so he would be traveling slowly with Christopher. Base Camp was deserted because the A-Team had moved up to Intermediate Camp the day before. When I was finally ready to go, I was treated to the arrival of the garbage truck. The piles of bagged-up rubbish were in a dry watercourse less than thirty yards from my tent, so I witnessed the full show. The truck pulled up, a team of cheerful Tibetans leaped off the load, and then heaved the bags of rubbish up into the truck in a competitive manner, as if there was a prize for speed and accuracy. I snapped a few photos of the scene. This was the first expedition I had been on where there was a garbage-removal service. On other climbs we had carried rubbish down to below the snowline and burned our combustibles there because the Sherpas did not want to offend the mountain gods with unclean smoke. Noncombustibles we buried. I suspected that the Tibetans were excited about the work because it was one of the rare ways to earn money in this part of the world. Expeditions arrived with their own staff, not leaving much room for local employment. When the truck was loaded, the Tibetans hauled themselves up onto the top of the rubbish and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  It was time for me to disappear as well. Casting my eyes around the empty camp, I thought briefly about the members of the A-Team, who would be arriving at Advance Base Camp today. The chances were that we would not see them until they returned from the summit, with or without success. Several climbers had already gone home without setting foot on the mountain. Bill Tyler had hurt his back and headed home with his wife, Barbie. Vince Bousselaire, who the previous year had attempted Everest from the Nepalese side, was now forced to retreat from Tibet as well. It was altitude problems that sent him packing from ABC—his goal of placing a Bible on each of the Seven Summits put on hold. Torbjørn Orkelbog learned that his wife was pregnant and took the first Jeep out of Base Camp, choosing new life over possible death.

  Three hours later I was well into the walk. I plodded slowly up a steep part of the trail where the ice was thinly covered by rocks. A figure was coming toward me, but I thought nothing of it. He approached quickly, and I expected he would slow down so that we could pass each other easily. Instead, he maintained his speed and overtook me on the uphill side, leaving me no room to step off the track. As he brushed past me, the lilt of his body caused a ski to swing and whack me on the shoulder. The unexpected blow almost knocked me off balance.

  “Hey!” I shouted after him. “Watch what you’re doing!” He turned and looked at me as I rubbed my shoulder, as if he did not understand.

  “You hit me with your ski and almost bumped me off the path.”

  “I am sorry,” he said, his hand raised in a conciliatory gesture. “I was not aware.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, raising my hand as well.

  He nodded and continued down the path.

  A few steps up the path, I realized that the man must have been Tormod Granheim, the surviving skier, still stunned by the death of his friend. I looked back, but he was already gone.

  AFTER I RECOVERED from my thoughtless confrontation, I increased my speed until I caught up with Mike and the others not far from Intermediate Camp. When we had arrived here during our first hike to Advance Base Camp three weeks ago, snow had covered the rocks and ice of the glacier. Now the ground was bare rocks and patches of hard ice, and the intensity of the high-altitude sun hitting soggy yak dung released an aroma that made the place smell like a stable. By late afternoon the temperature had dropped dramatically, and with the warmth went the stench of the yak dung.

  The next day was Thursday, May 18, and we awoke to find not a cloud in the sky. Mike, Christopher, and I felt strong, but Richard was finding it tough. If worst came to worst, he would monitor Christopher’s climb from the North Col. The three of them began to plod up the slope to the main trail above. My pack was full, ready to go, but rather than following my friends, I snapped some photos around camp to compare with those of three weeks ago when there had been much more snow.

  As I put my camera gear away, Tendi stepped out of the kitchen tent and called out to me.

  “The Brazilian man—he is dead. They tell me on the radio.”

  “Hajur?” I said. The word for “yes” meant “please repeat.”

  Tendi stood there saying nothing, perhaps so I could absorb what he had just said. I scrambled the few yards up to him, and he told me again. A Brazilian climber had died the previous afternoon. He had reached the summit without oxygen but could not come down. He had chosen to climb completely unassisted. In the end he called for help, and a Sherpa had been able to bring him down to the High Camp at 27,000 feet. It was there that he died.

  I was stunned by the announcement, almost directly after the news of Tomas Olsson. Vitor had told me that he would climb without oxygen and that his friend Rodrigo would not. It had to be Vitor Negrete, Harry’s summit-mate of 2005.

  I thanked Tendi and Dawa for looking after me, and for the news, sad as it was. Then I shouldered my load and trudged up the short slope to the easy trail that led along the crest of the glacier. I walked slowly because I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

  By midafternoon I had caught up with Richard, Christopher, and Mike, just as a team was hurrying down the mountain. Toward the end of the line was a Sherpa carrying someone on his back, all wrapped up, hands and feet buried under bandages, someone not yet dead but as unresponsive as a sack of potatoes.

  “Japanese,” muttered Richard, as we let the team past. “I asked the Sherpa. That poor guy spent the night out at twenty-eight thousand feet. Lucky to be alive.”

  What was it that this mountain did to people? I thought. Then I realized that was the wrong question. Blame could not be apportioned to the mountain. The question was: Why did we expose ourselves to it?

  It was a very sobering sight. I wondered how they had rescued him from such an inaccessible place. We w
ere not far from Advance Base Camp—there would have to be someone there who would know. Eventually, I discovered from Billi Bierling that the man being carried was not Japanese but a Sherpa member of a Japanese expedition. His name was Ang Temba, the sirdar of the Tochigi Mount Everest Expedition. The team of four Japanese and three Sherpas had reached the summit around midday on May 17. They’d celebrated with hugs and photographs and then set off down the mountain. Ang Temba had been last to leave the summit and had felt very weary as he descended. He’d rappeled the Second Step and continued down, still behind the rest of his team. His weariness overwhelmed him, and he’d sat in the snow to rest. When he awoke, many hours had passed, night had fallen, and he had run out of oxygen. He had realized he would have to stay put until daylight.

  At dawn, three Tibetans climbing up the mountain had told Ang Temba they would help him on their return from the summit. He’d known he could not wait that long and had begun to stagger downward.

  Ang Temba had been intercepted by Phil Crampton, of the SummitClimb Expedition, who’d already had his hands full. Very early that morning he had aborted his ascent at the Second Step so that he could bring down teammate Juan Pablo, who had been stricken with cerebral edema—even staying put with that serious form of high-altitude sickness would have been fatal. Survival had depended on descent.

  Meanwhile, veteran guide Dan Mazur had continued upward with the remaining SummitClimb climbers, two of whom had reached the summit. Expedition sirdar Jangbu Sherpa was helping Phil with Juan Pablo when they encountered Ang Temba tangled in the ropes. They’d checked on Temba’s condition and found him lacking coordination— also a symptom of cerebral edema. But he had seemed strong enough and sufficiently connected to reality to be able to continue down. Jangbu had looked after him while Phil headed down with his charge. Both the sick men survived, but when Temba was safely down the mountain, he had fallen apart. His legs had become paralyzed, which was the state he was in when we encountered him on the trail. He had also lost his memory, a problem which rectified itself over the coming weeks.

  As the climbers from the 7Summits-Club A-Team headed up the mountain, they’d also passed Ang Temba as he was being helped down. When the A-Team arrived at Camp Two at 25,000 feet, guide Sergey Kofanov and the Sherpas frantically pitched spare tents to replace several that had been destroyed by the strongest winds yet experienced this season. The mountain was revealing its potential. Luckily, the winds had since died down, but not everyone was able to cope with the altitude and the dry cold air.

  Despite his high hopes, Petter Kragset’s breath-warmer had proved ineffective against his uncontrollable coughing. For the second time in two years Petter was forced to descend from Everest, the final peak of his Seven Summits quest uncompleted. Johnny Brevik chose to retreat with his friend, while David Lien decided that he was content with reaching Camp Two. The effort had been enormous and would not lessen as he climbed higher. Nor could he expect any mercy from the elements or the decreasing amount of oxygen in the air. He decided to quit while he was ahead. Frode Høgset waited for his friends at the North Col, which had always been the cutoff point for his own personal exploration of Everest.

  AT ADVANCE BASE CAMP on the morning of May 21, I was up early to monitor the progress of our A-Team in their final hours to the summit. The sun shone on the summit, but the entire Advance Base Camp area was in shade, keeping it bitterly cold. I had expected Alex to be up early, like me, reporting on progress with his eyeball frozen to his big telescope. Instead, he was smart enough to stay in his sleeping bag, attempting contact via radio. I shrugged off my impatience and returned to my tent.

  By breakfast time an hour later, much had changed. Not only had the sun reached the camp and warmed the air and the insides of our tents, but also, through the telescope, figures could be seen on the final snow pyramid. We took turns watching them, dots moving almost imperceptibly, a mile and a half above us in the sky. It was an extraordinary sight. The climbers were hidden for the final half-hour to the summit, with Alex keeping track only by radio.

  Sixteen members of our team summited that morning. Guides Igor Svergun and Sergey Kofanov helped clients Arkadiy Ryzhenko, Henrik Olsen, Kirk Wheatley, Noel Hanna, Lorenzo Gariano, and Slate Stern to achieve their dreams. The Sherpas who orchestrated this extraordinary success—Furba Kushang, Passang Gyalgen, Mingma, Renjin, Pasang, Jangbu, and Nima—were led by Mingma Gelu.

  Although Igor Plyushkin, Ilya Rozhkov, and Ronnie Muhl climbed to the Second Step at 28,400 feet, all three had to turn back short of the summit. Remaining at Advance Base Camp and hoping to reach the top were Harry, Thomas, Pemba, Passang, Christopher, Richard, Mike, and me, along with our other Sherpas, Lakcha, Dorje, Dawa Tenzing, and Pasang.

  During the past six days we had heard of four deaths on Everest and two narrow escapes. But with so many of the 7Summits-Club team summiting on this glorious morning, perhaps the tide of death had turned away from the mountain. I certainly hoped so because on this beautiful day it was our turn to head for the North Col to begin our summit push. If everything went according to plan, we would reach the highest point on the planet on May 24—Dylan’s eighteenth birthday. In two hemispheres there would be cause for celebration, but I would not have the breath to blow out any candles.

  Eleven

  RUSSIAN ROULETTE

  BY LATE AFTERNOON on May 21, my optimism had vanished. Alex and Doctor Andrey had spent most of the afternoon on the radio, attempting to sort out some problems with Igor Plyushkin, who was at 25,500 feet in a tent just above Camp Three. Everything was being said in Russian, so I had no idea of the nature of the discussion. I was waiting to speak with Alex because I wanted to confirm arrangements for my summit push the next day.

  The situation with our Australian team had changed dramatically that morning. After breakfast the four of us had set off for the North Col with our four Sherpas. Richard was feeling weak so he went ahead early with a light pack. That left Mike, Christopher, and me, and the four Sherpas, loosely walking together. Uncharacteristically, Christopher was plodding along slowly at the back with the Sherpas, so half an hour out of Advance Base Camp, Mike and I stopped and waited for the others. When Christopher arrived, he crumpled onto a rock and gasped that he could not breathe. I leaped to my feet, stretched out Christopher’s legs, and got him to sit back against me. This freed up his chest and diaphragm so that when I instructed him to take deep breaths he found that he could do it. Once he was breathing properly, I ran ahead to fetch Richard, overtaking Harry, Pemba, Thomas, and Passang on the way. Although I was acclimatized to being above 21,000 feet, running was very hard work. Another half an hour later all of us were back at Advance Base Camp. Andrey took over, stabilizing Chris with an hour of breathing oxygen and meanwhile determining that he had suffered a “collapse,” a severe drop in blood pressure.

  By chance, Italian mountaineering legend Simone Moro had just appeared on the scene, after climbing up the Nepalese side of the mountain and down the Tibetan side. It was his third ascent of Everest. Simone knew Alex and had dropped by for a chat. Simone had a keen interest in high-altitude physiology and shared his thoughts with Andrey, because he had suffered from the same set of symptoms, but only once, with nothing like it ever troubling him again. However, I suspected that the expedition would be over for Christopher.

  And so it was that I sat with Luda on the rocks outside the communications tent, waiting for Alex to be free. At last Alex joined his wife and me, but before I could start talking about logistics, another woman appeared from inside the tent. She was weather-beaten, with sun-bleached hair, and wore a huge red down jacket. Immediately, she began to talk—with a strong French accent—about her husband.

  “They are saying that he is dead, but the Sherpa said he was alive when he left him. So maybe he is alive.”

  Obviously this was a conversation being continued.

  “From yesterday he is dead,” said Alex. “Maybe before. From the radio we have heard this. It must be
he is dead now.” Alex shrugged, his gesture emphasizing what he considered to be the obvious. The Russians tended to have a black-or-white view of things, with no interest in exploring shades of gray.

  “If that is so, I must have Sherpas bring him down.”

  “I meet him,” said Alex. “He is big man, maybe two hundred twenty pounds. Not possible to bring from there. I think twenty-eight thousand five hundred feet.”

  The radio crackled inside the tent, so Alex disappeared to take the call.

  The woman turned to me and began to talk. Her name was Caroline. She had climbed up to the High Camp with her husband, Jacques-Hugues Letrange, and his friends and climbing partners, Roland De Bare de Comogne and Freddy Journet. At the High Camp, Caroline’s Sherpa had said she must go down, that to go on would be too dangerous. She had stayed until the Sherpa told her she was too weak to remain at 27,000 feet.

  “And so I come down, but I hear at the North Col he is dead.”

  I could understand the confusion of her conversation with Alex. I explained that at high altitude time and memory can be clouded by lack of oxygen—as she must know, having been there herself. I reminded her that many of the Sherpas do not have good English and that they often confused past and present tenses.

  Caroline accepted each of my points but continued to find pockets of hope in the events that had unfolded since Jacques-Hugues had been regarded as dead on the evening of May 17. She told Luda and me that her husband had fallen against a rock and had bruised his side. Perhaps the injury slowed him down, she said. Perhaps it was an internal injury and that he was not suffering from cerebral edema, which was what the Sherpa who had climbed up to help him had initially surmized.

  I understood why she was putting forward an alternative to cerebral edema—the only outcome of prolonged exposure to it at extreme altitude is death. I had witnessed the condition from a rescuer’s perspective. During an expedition to Mount Trisul in the Indian Himalaya, a member of the team we were guiding was incapacitated by cerebral edema. John Coulton had become separated from the team in a snowstorm at the relatively low altitude of 19,000 feet. He was adequately equipped to survive a night out, but when we found him the next morning and brought him back to camp, we discovered he had developed cerebral, and possibly pulmonary, edema.