That was the logical response. I convinced myself that he would follow us up in his own time. The pause gave my feet a chance to go numb; wriggling them inside the plastic boot, I could sense them freezing up. My hands were also, for the first time, beginning to freeze.
Something inside me made the decision.
‘Let’s go,’ I told Lhakpa. The words were whipped away by a sudden gust. He stepped down the slope next to me to hear better. I didn’t bother shouting again but just pointed up towards the summit. He nodded and tapped his wrist to indicate we were running out of time.
I tightened the wrist strap of my ice-axe, and followed the three Sherpas up the steepening ice.
Inside me a tiny voice was making a faint protest, posing a few uncomfortable questions: shouldn’t you go back to check? Shouldn’t you consider the possibility that here nothing is certain – anything can happen? Some accident might have befallen Al, his oxygen valve might have frozen, he might have broken a crampon, he might have pulled out a rope anchor on the third step.
Pausing for breath, I looked back again at bottom of the snowface. Still no sign of Al. I carried on climbing.
Back came the soothing logic, extinguishing those glowing embers of doubt. Relax. He’ll be fine. He’s always run his own agenda. He’s climbed K2. He’s probably stopped for a call of nature. Perhaps he just doesn’t want to summit with us … preferring to reach the top alone?
Three rope lengths up the ice-field. I looked back again. Nothing. I carried on climbing towards the rock which marked the end of the triangle. And this time I didn’t look back.
I had crossed another of those invisible lines in the snow. That same force – the one which had been unlocked from its cage inside me back at the Col – had now taken complete control. I wanted the summit so much that I was turning my back on Al whatever had happened to him.
In that final hour there was really only one single focus in my entire being; the desire to reach the top of the world had become all consuming. It had extinguished my concern for my fellow climber, blocked my capacity for questioning my own actions, and turned me into little more than a robot … placing one foot in front of the other like a pre-programmed machine.
Summit fever had me body and soul, and now a new wave of strength seemed to flood power into me. I suddenly felt myself driving upwards almost effortlessly, and only having to stop because the Sherpas in front of me were moving more slowly. Even in my disorientated state it occurred to my mind to wonder where this new surge had come from. I was sure that by now my body should have been running close to the point of exhaustion.
What exactly was it that was propelling me up to the highest point in the world?
Now the Sherpas were tired. Lhakpa’s lightning pace had run down like a discharged battery. At the start of the snow pyramid they were resting every five or six steps. At the top of the four-rope-length pitch, they were managing only one or two steps between rests.
8,750 metres. Just under 100 metres of vertical ascent to go.
The snowfield arched up, ever steeper, in a soaring curve towards what I imagined was the summit. But instead of continuing up the ice as I had hoped, Lhakpa led the way back into another of the rock cliffs which flank this final buttress.
My heart sank. More rock … again with the crampons.
In fact, as I saw when I examined the ice route in more detail, the top section was obviously prone to avalanche. Fresh avalanche debris, blocks the size of cars, lay scattered not far away. The way up the rock cliff was the safer of the two, if safe is the right word.
First came a traverse along another tiny ledge, eroded into a fault in the rock. Clipping on to a rope which looked like it had been there for decades, I carefully made my way along, swinging my right foot far out to avoid snagging the left. Midway – about fifty metres – along the ledge, an outcrop forced a fine balancing manoeuvre to ease the body around a bulge and back on to the ledge on the other side. At that point, the rope was forced to rest against the rock. The wind had beaten it down to just one single frayed strand, about the width and strength of a piece of knitting wool. And about as much use in stopping a fall.
I found myself laughing as I shifted my cramponed feet into position to make the move.
The drop falling away beneath us here was the most sheer yet. We had made our way across the Face and were now positioned almost exactly below the summit, far to the right of the great couloir. The small stones and flakes of rock which we all unavoidably kicked loose, didn’t bounce their way down as they had before … they just fell out of sight into the abyss.
My face sliding against the rock to press as much of my weight away from the fall, I inched nervously around the obstacle and then rested, gasping for breath. Only then did I realise that I had held my breath during the move … a wave of blackness, a desire to faint, swept over me as I struggled to get oxygen into my body. Regaining my composure, I carried on along the decaying ledge. I had thought I was moving faster than the Sherpas, but they had already rounded the corner and were out of sight.
At the end of the traverse, the route stepped up abruptly in a series of ledges similar to those we had encountered on some of the night stages. I used my arms to pull myself up wherever possible, still stubbornly reluctant to trust my weight to the crampon points.
On one of the steps my safety sling got snagged into an old piece of rope and caught me in mid-move. I had to fall back on to the ledge and regain my balance before clearing the snag and continuing on.
After perhaps twenty minutes of climbing, we emerged on to the upper slopes of the summit pyramid snowfield, having effectively bypassed the more avalanche-prone section and gained about fifty metres of height.
During the detour, the wind had increased again. Now the snow ridge, and the skyline above us were cloaked in snarling clouds of airborne ice. The wind was fickle, blowing with unpredictable violent blasts. The upward view was the most intimidating, with a huge circulating mass of ice particles twisting like a miniature tornado above what I presumed to be the summit, just twenty metres of steep ice above us.
We found some shelter in the lee of a rock outcrop and waited there to gain our breath for the final push. So close to the summit, I found myself barely able to wait. An irrational wave of paranoia swept over me; we were just minutes away … what if it was snatched away from us at the final moment?
Lhakpa looked at his watch again and then spoke to Gyaltsen. I couldn’t hear their words but, in my paranoid state, I imagined them discussing how dangerous the wind would be on the top … agreeing that we should turn back. …
Then my senses snapped into gear, and I recognised my paranoia for what it was: the insidious beginnings of high altitude sickness where irrational thoughts are often the first stage. Since leaving the tent eight hours before, I had not drunk a single drop of fluid. My body was dehydrating dangerously.
Lhakpa led the way up painfully slowly into the cloud of spindrift, with Gyaltsen and Mingma behind him and myself at the back. There were no ropes here and I took care to dig as many crampon spikes as I could into the ice. Halfway up, I took out the plastic camera and framed it vertically for a shot of the three Sherpas as they rested.
I hadn’t thought that it might be a false summit. But it was. Reaching the crest of the snowfield, I was taken completely by surprise by what lay before us. Instead of the short final stage I had imagined, we were now standing at the beginning of the final ridge; with the great bulging cornice of the true summit waiting at the far end. Between our position and the top lay a series of switchback ice waves, blown into shape by the wind, and overhanging the Kanshung Face.
By some trick of perpective, or perhaps another irrational side effect of oxygen starvation, the ridge looked huge, and the summit seemed kilometres away. For another of those bizarre moments of doubt, I thought Lhakpa and the others would pull the plug and decide not to continue. The wind was blowing hard now, and more consistently. The plume was running and we were about
to walk right into it.
Then I noticed the clue which revealed the true perspective of the ridge; a string or prayer flags which had been fixed to the summit was now hanging sadly down the side. I could clearly make out the individual pennants of coloured silk. That visual reference pulled the ridge back down to scale and I realised it was much smaller than I had at first thought.
The summit was just a few hundred metres away.
I moved into position behind Lhakpa and we began to negotiate the undulating waves of fluted ice. It was as dramatic an approach to a summit as one could have wished. To the right, the mountain fell sheer away for 10,000 vertical feet, leaving unrestricted views across to the fairy-tale peak of Pumori, 7165 metres, and the other northern sentinels of the Himalayas. Beyond them lay the arid brown plateau of Tibet with the curvature of the earth clearly discernible.
To the left, down the Kanshung side, nothing was visible at all … just the white mass of the plume as it swirled off the ridge. There were no footprints or crampon marks to be seen. We favoured the right-hand side of the approach, where rock was still visible, to avoid stepping out on to one of the overhanging cornices.
Taking out the plastic camera once more, I took a shot of Lhakpa in front of me as he continued, head down, with the great bulging nose of the summit itself framed in front of him.
Hearing the successful click of the plastic camera set my mind off again on another worry: would the video camera work when we got to the summit? To get the summit pictures was the only way to resolve the film. I had had camera failures before at critical moments. I breathed a silent prayer that everything was going to work.
Then it occurred to me that, without Al, I would have no meaningful summit sequence anyway. The film had shifted sharply away from Brian after his decision to turn back, and was now firmly focussed on Al and the Dalai Lama’s scarf which he had promised to take to the top.
I looked back along the ridge, hoping against hope to see Al following us. Nothing. I told myself to take things one step at a time, get to the summit first and then worry about how to film it.
Strangely, the nearer we got to the summit, the more the wind seemed to drop, even though the plume was still blowing as hard as ever. At the beginning of the ridge we were buffeted strongly by each blast, enough to have to lean into the wind to avoid being bowled over. But, now, as we took the final few steps on to the summit of Mount Everest, the wind magically dropped away.
I placed my hand on the summit pole and pulled myself up on to the top of the world. To my surprise I found I was in tears, the first time I had cried since childhood.
I looked behind me on the ridge. Mingma and Gyaltsen were following up, but I could still see no sign of Al. With four of us on the summit, there was not much room to spare. Shaped by the prevailing westerly wind, the very top is about the size of a billiard table, sloping steeply away to the north and south, and jutting out in a bulbous overhanging cornice to the east.
Lhakpa took off his overmitts and pumped my hand up and down in joy. We all shook hands in turn and shouted muffled congratulations.
My overwhelming impression was of stupendous height. Even though it is surrounded by other gigantic 8,000-metre peaks like Lhotse and Nuptse, Everest does not compete with them once you are on its peak … it dominates them completely. Everest does not jostle for position in the heart of the Himalayas, it presides over its lowlier cousins with effortless majesty.
But the view was not complete. To the east, almost one-third of our horizon was blocked by the soaring cloud of ice crystals forming the plume. Seen this close, the plume has a hypnotic quality which is quite mesmerising. I watched the clouds of ice for a few moments and then realised why the summit was so calm. The wind was striking the North Face and then curling above our heads in a great ‘rotor’ before doubling back and biting into the Kanshung Face.
Planting one leg on the south-facing slope, and one on the north, I sat down astride the summit crest and pushed my ice-axe as far as I could into the crust. Technically I was straddled on the precise borderline between China and Nepal.
In front of me was the alloy summit pole, festooned with a colourful collection of prayer flags and scarves. Leaning against it were some curious alloy panels – perhaps a reflecting device for a past height survey – and two empty orange-coloured oxygen cylinders.
Conscious that our oxygen supply was diminishing with every minute, I retrieved the video camera body from Mingma and dug one of the lithium batteries from my pack. There was work to do. I had to remove my overmitts to complete the fiddly task of connecting up the battery. Then, with bated breath, I clicked on the switch. Pushing the ski goggles up onto my forehead, I looked through the tiny postage stamp-sized viewfinder and there – just as it should be – was the picture I desperately needed to see.
The camera was working perfectly. I pressed the record switch and watched the red REC light flash on. Eureka! Filming on the top of the world.
Still sitting, I started with two long sweeping panoramic shots which began at the cloud-covered mass of Lhotse and ended on the three Sherpas. Lhakpa was trying to get base camp on the walkie-talkie so I zoomed in on the end of the lens to get a close-up.
When Lhakpa finished his conversation he handed me the set. Placing the camera down to take the walkie-talkie, I heard an exclamation from Gyaltsen. Following his outstretched arm, I saw Al working his way along the final ridge towards us.
I had a few words with Barney and then Brian’s ecstatic voice came out of the set.
‘Matt? We’re all thrilled down here! Don’t forget to say a few words for the Dalai Lama!’
A sudden thought occurred to me.
‘Make sure Kees films all this at your end.’
‘Kees is right here now, he’s filming now.’
‘OK. Over and out.’
I returned the walkie-talkie to Lhakpa and picked up the camera once more. This was perfect. I could cover Al’s arrival at the summit, and then shoot him having a radio conversation with Brian. Down at base camp, Kees would film the other half of the conversation and we could intercut the two to form a unique summit sequence.
Holding the camera as steady as I could, I framed up on Al and filmed him as he slowly plodded towards us. Every few steps, he would pause for breath as we had done. He looked like he was having a hard time. My heart was racing, and not just from the lack of oxygen; those few moments of filming were exquisitely exciting … the most thrilling of my life. Here I was, sitting on the summit of Everest filming one of the world’s great mountaineers as he fought his way up the final snowfield to that sacred place.
This was no re-enactment, no set up scene, this was the shot that was going to make this Everest film – my Everest film – special … the shot that would take the viewer up there with us.
Realising I couldn’t stay on the wide shot indefinitely, I zoomed in to Al’s feet and held for a few seconds as he kicked up the slope. Then I panned up his body and got a close-up on his face, the icicles clearly visible on the oxygen mask.
As he stepped up the final few metres I pulled back wide again and held the shot as the Sherpas let out a cheer.
‘Well done, Al. We’ve made it.’
‘Finally made it. On top of the world!’
Al paused for a long breather. His shoulders were slumped and he seemed pretty exhausted but he was speaking coherently. Lhakpa handed him the radio set.
‘Brian! Can you hear me? I’m on the summit. I’m on the summit and I’ve got the Dalai Lama’s scarf here with me!’
‘Is that that Yorkshire lad? How’s tha’doing?’ Brian’s booming voice resonated through the airwaves. ‘I’m down at base camp. Can you see me? I’m waving at you!’
Al turned his head around and looked back down the Rongbuk glacier. The scale of the landscape was so huge that we couldn’t even make out the monastery, let alone the tiny tents of our camp which was a good sixteen miles away!
‘Well not quite, but I can imagin
e I can.’
‘We’re all very proud! You’re both great heroes, and the Sherpas too. Just get back safe and say a prayer for world peace for the Dalai Lama! Don’t forget, Om mane padme hum.’
Al gave the handset back to Lhakpa and unravelled the scarf from his neck. There was a muffled exclamation of delight from the Sherpas as they realised what he was going to do. Taking the length of white silk, Al tied it to the summit pole and let the ends fly free in the wind.
He said a brief prayer for peace as Brian had asked.
I held on the scarf for as long as I could, and then gave the camera to Al to film me as I had a few brief words with Brian on the radio. I thanked him for being the impetus behind the expedition … and the film. After all, it was Brian’s genuine passion for Everest which had brought us all here in the first place and I didn’t want him to think I had forgotten that.
The one shot we didn’t have was a wide establishing shot of us all on the summit. Al took the camera back ten metres down the ridge and framed it up. When the camera was running, we cheered and waved our ice-axes in the air. And that was it. Job done.
‘We’d better get out of here.’
Oxygen was now running low, we had been on the summit for far longer than any of us had anticipated. Almost fifty minutes had elapsed.
Hurriedly, we took our stills, mine with the plastic camera which was still happily clicking away. The temperature seemed to be dropping drastically, or perhaps it was just the amount of time we had been motionless on the summit. My hands and feet were both freezing up and becoming numb. It was time to go.
Then I remembered the Christmas pudding – a gift cooked with love by my mother and which I had saved for this precise occasion. It took a few moments to find it at the bottom of the rucksack. The bacofoil had ripped a little in transit, but it was otherwise in good condition. I peeled back the top section of foil and took a large bite.
It was as hard as granite, frozen solid. Furious at the thought that I had carried this half-kilogramme load up the highest mountain in the world for nothing, I very nearly tossed it down the Kanshung Face in disgust.
Death Zone Page 24