by Bear Grylls
The entire land of Tibet lay sprawled below us. I wondered if any binoculars would be strong enough to see us from down there. I didn’t feel at all remote; instead I felt strangely at home. The summit was only about six square feet. I stood on it and couldn’t stop smiling.
For twenty minutes we sat and just gazed. The horizon seemed to bend at the edges. It was the curvature of our earth. I stared in utter amazement. I wanted the moment to last for ever. I wondered, with a small grin, what Shara or my family would be doing at this precise moment. They would be asleep. They have more sense than me, I thought, and smiled. How I wished they could be here; I wanted everyone to be able to see what the horizon had laid before us. There truly was a magic to this place. It was sacred ground.
I had often gazed at pictures of the summit, taken by famous Everest climbers of past years – pictures showing the greatest mountain range in the world – the Himalaya, sprawled like a table cloth below and all around. The amazement of now standing on this precariously small summit myself and seeing the vast peaks of the world, poking like contorted limbs through the blanket cloud across the horizon, held me captive. I had always feared that I would be too tired to care – too nervous of where I was. But I was wrong. For the first time in three months I wasn’t tired. Instead adrenalin and energy pounded through my veins. I hardly dared blink.
The wind gently caressed the summit under me – the roof of the world was silent. It was as if the mountain was somehow allowing us to be here.
Technology is now so advanced, so precise – yet crouching here, it amazed me to think that no amount of science could put a man on the summit of Everest. Only the dangerously slow process of actually climbing the mountain could do that. We can put a man on the moon but not up here. It made me feel a little proud.
My mask now hung beneath me – I had turned my regulator off in a bid to conserve oxygen. I lifted my head and breathed deeply. The air at 29,035 feet felt scarce and cool as it filled my lungs. I smiled.
The radio crackled suddenly to my left. Neil spoke into it excitedly.
‘Base Camp, we need advice . . . We’ve run out of earth.’
The voice on the other end exploded with jubilation. It was uncontainable joy.
Neil passed the radio to me. For weeks I had planned what I would say if I reached the top, the message that I would want to give. All that just fell apart. I strained into the radio and spoke without thinking. ‘I just want to get home now,’ was all that came out. Not quite the speech that I had hoped for. The words wouldn’t exactly change mankind, but they were all I could manage.
The two Sherpas soon arrived. Pasang and Ang-Sering appeared like spacemen on the moon. Entirely hidden by down suit, goggles and mask, they staggered together to the top of the world. They had grown up in the same village as kids and had dreamt of becoming climbing Sherpas. Today, some four years on, as they reached the summit of Sagarmatha, their lives would change for ever. They would return to their village not only now as men, but also as true Sherpas. They would join the ranks of their Sherpa heroes, the Everest summiteers, revered throughout their land. We took a picture of them arm in arm and then hugged like children astride the roof of the world. I had never seen such joy in anyone’s eyes before.
The memory of what went on then begins to fade. Neil still assures me that for my reputation’s sake it would be best not to say too much about my delirious state of being up there. I don’t believe him, but I do remember having some vague conversation on the radio. Funnily enough it was with my family, some three thousand miles away – the people who had given me the inspiration to climb.
At Base Camp they had managed to set up a ‘patch through’ via our satellite phone. By them holding the radio next to the receiver I suddenly found that, from the pinnacle of the world, my mother’s voice was booming loud. I couldn’t believe it. I quickly lost the reception.
My mother still maintains that I cut her off, as she was ruining the moment; I still profess that I don’t know what she is on about. ‘Cut my own mother off? Please.’
Up there, the time flew by and quickly passed. Like all moments of magic – nothing can last for ever. We had to get down. It was 7.48 a.m.
Neil checked my oxygen; I knew it would be dangerously low.
‘Bear, you’re right down. It’s on 4 out of 25. You better get going fast,’ he mumbled frantically.
I had just under a fifth of a tank to get me back to the Balcony. I doubted that I could make it; I had to leave now if I was to have any chance. I heaved the pack and tank onto my shoulders, fitted my mask and turned round. I never looked back. The summit was gone. I knew that I would never see it again.
I had only spent twenty-five minutes there in total, a lot of which had been taken up with trying frantically to take a few pictures for my sponsors. I knew if I failed in this, then my life would be in grave danger on my return. In all, I had only spent a few of those minutes on top just looking, just being. But the views I saw and the magic I felt during those precious few minutes will remain embedded in me for ever. They had surpassed my wildest imagination. I knew that I could never forget.
Within minutes of leaving the summit, the exhaustion set in. The adrenalin of before, that had driven me to the top, was now replaced by this deep fatigue. I could never have believed how hard it could be or how much energy was required just to go down. My two steps of before that I had struggled to keep count to were now completely lost in drowsiness. I tried desperately to concentrate, but my mind seemed to drift in and out of awareness.
One of the last people I had spoken to before leaving England, now three months earlier, had offered me just one solitary piece of advice; the words now rang in my ear. Mike Town, an experienced climber with whom I had spent many a blustery New Year in Cumbria, charging round the fells with his two woolly Bernese mountain dogs, had said one thing before I left – ‘Be careful, above everything on the descent, because that’s the danger time.’ Strangely I now remembered those words. ‘That’s the danger time.’
Statistically, the vast majority of accidents happen on the descent. The concentration and adrenalin of going up seem to disappear. In its place comes a weary nonchalance. Nothing matters apart from one’s longing for warmth and comfort. Lost in these thoughts you become careless. The focus gone and the mind weary, it is all too easy to lose one’s footing or clip carelessly into a rope. Along the route were the remnants of brave men who had been caught by these emotions. Mick was one of the few lucky ones who had lived. I had to be careful now, I had to be alert; but still the drowsiness tried to pull me away, tried to deaden my senses. It was one of the hardest times as I tried desperately to fight the fatigue. I sensed that I was losing.
I struggled to find the right rope at the top of the Hillary Step. Sifting the frozen ropes apart with my mitts on, I tried to feed it through my figure-of-eight abseil device. It wouldn’t go. In frustration I just looped it twice through my karabiner in an Italian hitch (a knot that sounds very dicey, but in actual fact is a quick and effective method of descending a rope), and then just let my body-weight force the rope through my gloves. I left the summit slope irrevocably behind me. I was alone again.
I moved across the ridge and, out of fear, I scaled those ten feet that had eluded Rob Hall before, all in one go. Those vital few feet lead back up to the South Summit; it would be the turning point for me. From then on, as Rob would have known, it was all downhill.
Somewhere beneath the South Summit the two Sherpas caught me up. We had been faster than them on the ascent but now, as weariness swept over me, I found them close behind. My tiny rate of oxygen I was now using, in my effort to make it last until the Balcony, was causing my dangerously slow pace. Pasang and Ang-Sering now climbed alongside me. We had come a long way together and now for the first time I really needed their presence. It made me feel secure.
Slowly we battled against the fatigue, down through the broken snow that our floundering bodies had caused on the way up. I suddenl
y just felt this longing to get home, yet I knew that was still weeks away. Between us and Base camp lay three treacherous days of avalanche-prone descent. I pushed the longing from my mind.
I somehow just knew when my oxygen ran out. It was nothing sudden but, instead, was this slow realization that the meagre flow of air that I could occasionally feel against my damp cheeks was no longer running. I removed my mask; it was now of no use and would only hamper my breathing. It hung limp and redundant from my rucksack. I was too tired to stow it away.
I could see the Balcony below, it wasn’t far. I just had to make it there. I knew our half-used tanks that we had cached on the ascent awaited us. I let my legs wearily drag through the deep snow. I couldn’t keep going much longer. I lost sight of the Balcony as my head slumped and my goggles misted over again for the umpteenth time. I continued to collapse down the slope. Eventually too tired to even feel any relief, I slumped to the ground next to the tanks at the Balcony.
I feasted on the fresh tank, after now almost fifteen minutes without oxygen. I breathed it in gulps. Warmth flooded back into my body; we were almost down. Camp Four was somewhere below us, only 1,700 feet of descent divided us. It was the section though that had almost claimed Mick’s life. No ropes would protect us on the blue ice there. The urge to hurry, as Camp Four becomes visible, would have to be resisted; the last hurdle is always the most dangerous. We were weak and vulnerable after spending nearly sixteen hours climbing in the Death Zone above the South Col. Reaching the sanctuary of Camp Four was our sole desire as we sat and stared for one last time at the Himalaya below us. We began to descend and leave the land of magic behind us.
We were all now together as a group. The Sherpas and I led the way and Allen and Neil followed behind. As the tents came into sight far below us, the excitement came again. The tents, despite looking like uninvited visitors on the exposed Col, vulnerable to everything the mountain could offer, still seemed to symbolize the finishing post of our ordeal. Oxygen, water and rest awaited us. The tents grew in size as we came slowly and carefully down the ice.
I concentrated harder than ever before as I waded down through the deep snow. We soon came out of it and onto the blue ice again. In the light of day we could see clearly where we had climbed on the ascent. I tried to contain my excitement with each step that we came down. My crampons had lasted well. They bit firmly into the blue ice beneath the deep snow gully. I knew now that I was getting near ‘home’. Very near.
I wondered what had happened to Geoffrey and Michael, and prayed that they would be there safely. We hadn’t heard a word. There had been nothing we could do up there. We had been struggling to survive ourselves. I knew they must have turned back and I hoped they would be in the tents. I had no idea that they were watching us long before we ever saw them.
At the Col, I moved like a drunk across the slabs of rock and granite. It felt so strange not to feel ice beneath me any longer. The teeth of the crampons scraped and groaned as they slid over the stones. I leant on my axe to steady myself. The tents were only yards away; Michael grinned out at me from within, sheltered from the wind. I am not sure whether I even managed to smile back, I was too drained.
For sixteen hours we had neither drunk nor eaten anything. As predicted our water-bottles had frozen within twenty minutes of leaving the Col. We hadn’t slept for over forty hours now. Our bodies felt strangely distant from our minds. Both just ached for some relief. In the porch of Neil’s and my tiny, one-skinned tent, still fully clothed and looking like a somewhat deflated Michelin man, I very unceremoniously just collapsed. Everything went black.
‘Bear, come on, you’ve got to get in the tent. Come on. Bear, can you hear me?’ Michael’s voice woke me. My goggles were still on, albeit a little lop-sided. I grinned and nodded, and shuffled into the tent. My head was pounding. I was severely dehydrated. I needed to drink. I hadn’t even peed for over eighteen hours. My body was in turmoil.
Neil was hovering around with Allen, shedding their crampons and harnesses. Michael and Geoffrey now squatted and talked with me. I think they found the sight of me lying like a second-century mummy somewhat amusing, or maybe it was their relief that we were down. They had waited unknowingly back here for a long time. The suspense of not knowing was now over. The evidence of what had happened was lying sprawled beside them as they made me a warm drink from the stove. I felt so happy to see them.
As the afternoon turned to evening for the second time since being above 26,000 feet, we talked. We hadn’t known why Michael and Geoffrey had retreated. They told their story. The lightning, the problems with their oxygen – also the fear. Geoffrey felt some regret at turning round, but you make decisions up there that feel right and that is never a bad way to operate. After all he was alive and safe. The lesson that I had learnt in the last twenty-four hours is that staying alive is all that really matters. The corpses had shown me that.
Michael turned to me later in the evening, as we were getting ready to try to get comfortable for one last night of tossing and turning in the Death Zone. There was a twinkle in his eye. We had come through a lot together in the past few months and had shared those same frustrations at Base Camp when we were ill and all the others were preparing to leave. We had shared a tent together that last night before leaving Camp Two for our summit bid. We had started on the same journey above Camp Four that had eventually beaten him. We knew each other pretty well by now. He said quietly to me something that I have never forgotten. It was the voice of twenty years’ climbing experience in the wild Rockies in Canada. He said: ‘Bear, I don’t think that you have any idea of the risks you guys were taking up there. In the same situation I would turn round again, you know.’ I smiled at him and he hugged me.
At 9.00 a.m., a little later than we had hoped, we moved out from the South Col. The wind still blew and snow whipped over the rocks; nothing seemed any different from when we had arrived forty-eight hours earlier. Yet so much had happened. I clipped into the rope and began to abseil off the lip, down the Geneva Spur. The Col was hidden once more.
Neil and I climbed together. He was moving faster than me, but I no longer cared. I had nothing to keep up for any more. We had done it, I could be slow now if I wanted. The tiredness had started before we had even left the Col. My body had been unable to recover at all up at Camp Four that last night. Instead I had just lain there awake – surviving.
The fatigue of almost sixty hours without sleep showed. On the Lhotse Face as I rested and swigged from my bottle, I lost my grip and it slipped through my fingers. I didn’t know how I had done this, but one moment I was drinking, and the next it was scuttling down the Face to the glacier, some 4,000 feet below. I winced; it was Ed Brandt’s favourite waterbottle that I had borrowed. It had gone to the summit with me and I knew he would treasure it even more now. I just sat and watched it hurtling away like a speck below me. Sorry, Ed, I thought. He’ll murder me. I grinned. At least it had gone out in glory.
Coming down the Lhotse Face seemed to take as long as going up it. Camp Two awaited us at the bottom, across the glacier, and Neil swore at me for being so slow, but he waited patiently. We were still a team. It showed. Three hours later, staggering slowly side by side, we shuffled those last few metres into the camp. Thengba was jumping on the spot with happiness. We were alive, that was all that he cared about. We embraced, and for the first time I relished his smell of diesel oil and yak meat. It was good to be with him. We had spent a lot of time together beforehand at Camp Two.
Andy and Ilgvar were also now at Camp Two. They looked tired. Andy could hardly speak from his sore throat caused by the dry air. But they had succeeded. Together they had reached the summit of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on our earth. The strain of the climb was written all over them. Andy smiled at me. It was as if since our climb on Ama Dablam together he had suspected that I would reach the top of Everest. I had never shared his suspicions; for me they had been only hopes. Maybe that is what makes him a friend. We shook
hands like two gentlemen in a London club, then started to laugh. We had both seen that special place.
That night I slept like the dead. I drank a final litre of water, squeezed into my sleeping-bag and forgot everything. I didn’t move an inch for twelve deep hours until just before dawn the next day.
My eyelids seemed sealed shut as I tried to prise them open. It was 5.30 a.m.
‘Bear, let’s just get going, eh? It’s the last leg, come on, I can’t sleep when we’re this close,’ Neil announced in the chilly air with condensation pouring from his mouth. I shuffled sleepily.
‘Two minutes, okay? Just two minutes,’ I replied.
‘We’ll leave at six,’ he announced.
‘Yeah, yeah, just belt up now, okay?’ I mumbled tiredly. ‘Blooming maniac.’ I had been dreaming of hot chocolate back in England, and resented his interruption. I fumbled to pack my rucksack. It seemed to weigh a ton now that I was bringing everything off the mountain. It brimmed with kit. I swore quietly.
We didn’t eat before leaving, in anticipation of that elusive fresh omelette at Base Camp. Instead we slowly began to get ready to leave. We were all slow putting on our crampons, and ended up leaving some five minutes late, at 6.05 a.m. ‘So what? It doesn’t matter, we are homeward bound,’ I mumbled. Our guards were beginning to drop.
An hour along the glacier we were stopped suddenly in our tracks. The mountain around us roared violently, then the sound of an echoing crack shook the place. We crouched and waited.
To the side of us, almost exactly five minutes ahead on the exact route we were going, the side of the Nuptse Face collapsed. White thunder pounded down the slope as we stood and stared in horror. It rolled like an all-enveloping cloud across the glacier. The Cwm became obscured in this wave of snow, the spray of which rose high into the air. Slowly the sound began to fade away. We stood in disbelief, some 500 metres back. It had clean missed us. If we had left on time, five minutes earlier, it would have covered us. We stood motionless and silent. For once being late had paid off.