by Bear Grylls
They say that to climb Everest successfully, you actually climb the mountain five times over – in the process of going up and down. It is a giant game of snakes and ladders, and like in the game, the higher you go, the further you have to fall.
The highest that our bodies would be able to acclimatize to would be Camp Three – at about 24,500 feet. Beyond that we would be into what is called the Death Zone where the human body cannot survive for long. You cannot digest food and you weaken rapidly, due to the body’s starvation of its vital fuel – oxygen. From then on, we knew we would be on borrowed time – even if our bodies allowed us to reach that height. Our aim had to be to try to acclimatize to Camp Three as soon as possible. We hoped this would be some time around the last few days of April.
Our fight would then be against the weather. The fierce jet stream winds that pound the upper slopes of Everest make the mountain completely unclimbable – their strength would literally blow a man off the face. But twice a year, for a matter of only a few days, the winds abate.
The warm, moist air of the monsoon, after crossing the Bay of Bengal, then carries on further north. As it meets with the mountains of the Himalaya, it is forced upwards. This wave of warmer air creates a small bulge in the jet stream, raising the height of the winds by a few thousand feet – leaving Everest strangely silent. At Base Camp, lying in your tent, you can hear the deep rumble of the jet stream far above you, as it licks across Everest’s summit. It is a constant roar that serves to set the boundary that man can reach. When the winds lift for those precious few days as the monsoon passes over, the mountain is climbable. When, and for how long this period lasts, is the gamble you take.
This break may only be a matter of days, maybe two, maybe three. If you are not in position high up at the right time you miss it, and all has been in vain. After the period of calm, when the winds have been lifted, come the storms. The mountain is then smothered in these monsoon snows.
The whole art of high-altitude climbing is as scientific as it is artistic and passionate. All going to plan, we reckoned on the chance of a summit bid in early May. All that was ahead was unknown. If we could be sure of one thing, though, as we prepared ourselves those last few days before starting, it was that the mountain would never act as we hoped or expected. We never assumed it would.
Various journalists and sponsors had come out with Neil to cover the start of the expedition. Most of them made it all the way to Base Camp, but a few were hampered from making the last few miles because of illness or altitude sickness. Those that made it arrived laden with rucksacks, blue in the face and grinning ferociously. They were trying hard not to look too tired; after all this was only Base Camp! I tried to reassure them that there was no disgrace in being tired, and that when we had first arrived we looked like ageing cart-horses on our final delivery round. I’m not sure quite how much this helped them but still . . . it was good to see them.
Patrick was a journalist from a London financial magazine who was out here scribbling profiles on the team, but I couldn’t help feeling he was in the wrong place for a big financial story. He had kindly remembered that when we were having our sponsors’ send-off party in London, I had expressed a certain regret at not being able to have the odd smoke for three months whilst away. I smiled when, over a cup of tea, he tossed me a packet of cigarettes, saying that he thought they could be handy – post-climb. He was right and I hurriedly put them on the stone ledge of the mess tent, along with various other ‘sacred’ items we had, that provided us with some light at the end of this Everest tunnel.
At the end of these long months, we would have sat for countless hours in the tent drooling over the contents of this ‘shelf’: a bottle of Moët et Chandon large enough to sink the Bismarck, a box of Belgian chocs, and the now infamous pack of Benson and Hedges. Hope keeps spirits alive higher up, and every little bit, I reckoned, would help.
One of the other journalists’ questions to me was again on the issue of my age, and the disadvantages of being so young and hoping to climb so high. Again I had no real answer. It annoyed me that he had raised the issue; it was okay in London, but not out here, not now. It was all too close. The answer to his question was something that time alone would tell.
Those few days with the ‘journos’ and sponsors at Base Camp were a relief. Many of these guys had become good friends, and seeing them was a welcome break from the tension that was already beginning to emerge. Their departure, though, came all too soon. The Camp, which had been brimming with people for two days, was suddenly reduced to just the team; it was still busy but was now noticeably quieter. The focus returned to the mountain.
The ‘journos’ had looked in horror at the Icefall in front of us, and we had laughed at the time. Now they had left, we looked differently at the ice 200 metres away looming up into the mist. It had that dangerous beckoning look that it is infamous for. I ignored it and busied myself in our final preparations.
I wandered round to have a chat with Bernardo, the Bolivian, and carefully stepped over the ice and rocks in my moon boots towards his tent. He was sitting on a large stone chatting with someone else – both facing out towards the Icefall.
‘Hola Oso!’ Bernardo grinned. ‘Come and have tea, and meet my friend Iñaki.’
Iñaki was a Spanish Basque climber, who was hoping to climb Lhotse this season. He smiled from behind his sun glasses. His Spanish was harder to understand than Bernardo’s clear South American accent, but we got by – more or less.
‘Qué? Once more, Iñaki. Sorry?’ I said, apologizing my way through the conversation.
Iñaki was a friendly and experienced climber who had just got married to a beautiful Spanish girl. He missed her already. It was hard not to like Inaki. He told Mick and I later that day of what happened when he had tried several years earlier to climb Everest. We listened eagerly.
‘I was strong lower down on the mountain, and was excited. After six weeks of carrying equipment up to Camp One and Two, and then twice up to the penultimate Camp, Camp Three, I was acclimatized. All I needed then was the weather. Ten days later we got the forecast we needed, and I reached Camp Four three days later.
‘In the Death Zone at that height, it was cold, bitterly cold. As I set off into the darkness, starting the sixteen hour climb to the summit, three thousand feet higher, I was finding it hard to see through my goggles. It was so dark as there was no moon and my torch was getting dimmer and dimmer. The wind had dropped, and I made the decision to take my goggles off. When your mind is numbed by the asphyxiation of the thin air, you act irrationally. I should never have removed my goggles in those temperatures.
‘By the time I reached the South Summit, only two hours from the top, I could no longer see. My eyes had frozen to my eyelids; I was effectively blind. My partner helped me down the route to safety, but it took four days to see properly again.
‘It’s a risk up there guys. Don’t ever take your goggles off, promise? Heh – you’ll be okay. More tea?’
I knew that golden rule, but I reminded myself of it once again. Mick looked uneasily at me and smiled. I didn’t want to be sitting around endlessly discussing any longer – I wanted to be doing it.
Charles, one of the American climbers who had tried to climb Everest four times, also came and joined us. He was English but now lived in the States. He seemed polished and smooth, and seemed to have got Base-Camp living down to a fine art. I felt jealous of all his gadgetry; he even had a mini dustpan and brush to clean out all the rock sand that got blown into his tent during the day. I could use one of those, I thought. My tent is like lying on the beach in Bournemouth it’s so dusty and sandy.
Charles was friendly enough, despite reminding us of all the risks, and the likelihood of failure – none of which exactly helped my waning confidence.
‘Don’t even bother coming to this mountain unless you’re prepared to come back, again, and again. It’s almost unheard of to achieve it first time. I mean, I’ve been here on this hill f
our times now; Edmund Hillary took, I think, three attempts to climb it before he reached the top in 1953.’
I didn’t have the resources, though, to try it three or four times. For me it was now or never. If the mountain didn’t allow it, if it was out of condition and the weather never broke, then so be it, but if it gave me the chance I swore that I would be there. It made me boil inside. Neil felt the same. When I told him of Charles’ views, he had a twinkle in his eyes.
‘Don’t listen to it, Bear, okay? It’s just talk,’ he insisted.
After his experiences on the mountain in 1996, Neil had now shown the courage to come back and try again – but openly he said that it was now or never; he never wanted to be scared by this mountain again. His face showed his determination to do it; it is what made him Neil. Although we were so different in temperament on the surface, we both shared a hidden something underneath. I understood him.
Tomorrow at 5.00 a.m. we would be together as a team at the foot of the Icefall. We needed a good sleep, so the four of us left the mess tent early.
DIARY, 6 APRIL:
We will be climbing tomorrow for the first time as a team. The four of us will go with Andy, Ilgvar and Nasu – all of whom have climbed Everest before. I feel under pressure to climb well and live up to their standards; it frightens me. All these guys are the top climbers in their countries, and in the top group in the world. I feel rather like a seven-year-old who has been substituted, due to a flu epidemic, to play in the under 13’s rugby team.
I suppose that I’ve got to forget about what they’ve done, and concentrate on what I’m doing. This is also the first time back in the Icefall since my fall. I find it really hard to talk to anyone and say that I’m frightened of it. Luckily Jokey has been sweet and we sat and talked about it in my tent. I can say things to her without feeling I’m being weak.
She’s just gone back to her tent and left me a note to say everything will be fine. I hope she’s right. She also left me Byron’s Don Juan, a tiny miniature book to read, which is kind of her – if I can’t get to sleep I can read myself into a slumber.
I want to talk some more but she’ll probably be snoozing by now, and anyway I must get some good rest; tomorrow I need all my strength.
Henry has managed to wangle the use of a satellite phone for us, as ours was fused on the way out. Someone plugged it in at Namche Bazaar and the place almost exploded like a firework. The phone was a jumble of burnt out fuses. Emotionally, it was one of the more expensive firework displays.
Everyone else has called home today. Part of me held back though – I don’t know how helpful it would be to speak to my family. My feelings for them are going berserk and I just want to get up to Camp One and down safely before I call. I hope I don’t regret that decision.
As ever I pray for your protection Jesus. Night, night.
Adrenalin surged round our bodies those hours that we climbed together before dawn. It was our first time as a team in the Icefall and the synergy of this made me feel strong. I was loving the dawn chill and focus of energy that I was experiencing, as we cautiously made our way through the jumble of ice above us. The moon reflected off the ice in strange silhouettes. Our lungs heaved continuously in the thinner air; our earlier acclimatization trip didn’t seem to have made it any easier.
Clip off one rope and on to the next, check the lock of the karabiner, then move on. It was routine now. We passed the spot where Mick and I had been forced to turn back last time. Nima and Pasang had found another route through that area of collapsed ice. It was 7.30 a.m., the sun would be getting strong soon. I thought that I could see the lip of the Icefall that would eventually bring us to Camp One, but I wasn’t sure; it was probably another false horizon.
The long, slow, worrying hours in the Icefall were relieved somewhat by the hope of Camp One – somewhere above us. On the lip of the Icefall, where the first slabs of the glacier begin to peel off into the tumbling frozen river below, we would be safe. From there we would have our first sight of the vast Western Cwm Glacier that leads to the approach walls of Everest in the distance. I longed to see this hidden valley, and to be safely out of the Icefall. It can’t be far now, I thought.
Only 100 feet below Camp One, the route through the ice had crumbled. The ground had opened up during the night and swallowed the ropes; the remains of these hung like threads above the gaping chasms that seemed to disappear into the darkness below. There was no way we could cross these crevasses. We would have to find a new route through, but that would take time; precious time that at this height in the Icefall we didn’t have. If we could not reach the relative security of Camp One soon, we would have to retreat. The Icefall was no place to be trapped in the full strength of the sun. We had experienced that before.
A decision had to be made quickly. We all squatted and considered the options. To construct a lengthy three-ladder bridge over the chasms was the only one available. Finding another route round the crevasses always tended just to reveal more obstacles and lengthen the time spent in the Icefall; the bridge was agreed, but it could not be done today in the heat. Depressingly, we were being forced again to return to Base Camp.
The journey back was tiring; we were drained by the climb. We had channelled all our strength into reaching the lip, in the hope of staying at Camp One a night to acclimatize. Now, though, we had been forced to retreat, doubling the time spent amongst the ice; we hungered for relief from the heaving of our lungs and the burning heat of the sun.
Mick was slowing down as the descent dragged on, and was wobbling between sections of rope. He didn’t look at us or speak.
‘Come on, Mick, the Icefall gets more and more dangerous from now on, we’ve got to keep going. Remember let “fear be your guide”,’ Andy hollered. These words would become a catchphrase for us throughout the rest of the expedition: ‘Just let fear be your guide.’
Mick pushed on down, treading carelessly now over the ladders. Tiredness at altitude does this; you become dangerously nonchalant about your actions. Things that would terrify you when you were thinking normally are treated with wistful disregard as exhaustion sweeps through your body. The temptation to ignore a rope and not clip into it was strong. It was easier just to loop it through your gloves and shift lazily across the ladders. I tried to resist this temptation; after all, last time it had saved my life. Still, our minds got tired, and haste often took precedence over safety. This is why accidents happen up high, we all knew the routine yet often still ignored it – such is the desire for relief from the fatigue. The prospect of Base Camp took on a meaning that is almost impossible to explain.
During the next few days that we spent at Base Camp resting and recovering, Geoffrey began to look ill. The colour faded from his cheeks, and his guardsman banter waned. As he sipped tentatively at his noodle soup, we knew that something was wrong. He hardly emerged from his tent, and would only appear for one meal each day. He was getting weaker, yet stubbornly tried to hide it. By the third day it was obvious that this wasn’t just a passing bout of food poisoning; he was weak and ill.
Scott, our team doctor, soon diagnosed it. Giardia. Immune to all but the strongest dosage of antibiotics, this Asian illness is carried by the spreading of germs found in faeces. Resulting in severe vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and dehydration, a bout of giardia is curable but is deeply debilitating; and what is more – it was spreading.
Maintaining peak health is crucial for exerting this sort of energy. The height we were at, even at Base Camp, meant that the body was already significantly weaker and less resilient. Getting giardia weakened the body drastically. Geoffrey took the medication and began the frustrating road to recovery at 17,450 feet.
Those early weeks of April, the conditions were perfect for climbing. We had to try and reach the height of Camp Three as soon as possible – if we were to have even a chance of the summit later. We couldn’t wait for Geoffrey to get better, and had to carry on. We all knew the situation, yet when it happens to you it is
hard to stomach. Geoffrey never baulked, and like the gentleman he is, he encouraged us to continue without him. We had no choice.
The next trip through the Icefall we were a depleted team. An early start ensured we had time to spare if we encountered another major collapse in the ice; but this time the route was okay. The bridge-ladder at the lip of the Icefall was now in place, as a few of the other teams had passed through. As the three of us started across the last ladders that we knew led to Camp One, our excitement grew. It had taken so long just to reach here; we longed to be out of the Icefall like never before.
The ladders creaked and groaned as Neil shuffled across in front of me. They swayed with each step he took. I followed on, and in the middle, as the ladders sagged, I noticed the knots that leashed the ladders together beneath me. I hoped that not too many crampons had stood on these, and tried not to look down.
Soon the three of us were squatting, tucked into an ice ledge under a twenty-foot overhang that led to Camp One, now only a stone’s throw away. We were panting heavily, and spent two minutes getting our breath back. We looked at each other excitedly, we knew that once over this lip, a whole new world would open up. We would be able, for the first time, to see the great Western Cwm, hidden from Base Camp, and only visible to those who have survived the Icefall. I yearned to see, in the flesh, the sight that I had only seen in photographs. It was only feet away. Neil cleared the lip swiftly, leaving a lingering silence behind him. He stared at a land that held tragic memories for him; two years on, he was again at the foot of the mountain.