by Bear Grylls
Sergei and Francys Arsentiev were recently married. They loved to climb. Everest was the culmination of a dream; a dream that had gone horribly wrong. Francys had been coming down from the summit when she collapsed. Nobody knew why. Maybe cerebral oedema, or a heart attack, or maybe just exhaustion. She didn’t have the energy to carry on. She died slowly where she sat. Sergei, her husband, went off in search of help; drunkenly he staggered in a stupor of fatigue and desperation. He fell to his death and was never seen again.
The Russian I sat with asked me feebly if I had seen anyone fall whilst we had been up there, or had we seen a body, or just . . . anything. His voice was weak, he knew that it was unlikely, but he had to try. His eyes seemed dead. I felt a sickness well up inside as I thought of Sergei and his wife both dead on the mountain. ‘What the hell am I doing celebrating?’ Emptiness swept over me. I pushed the beer slowly aside without even looking at it.
That afternoon, lying on my bed, I struggled to understand why we had survived. Why had we even been there? I thought of Sergei and Francys Arsentiev; they hadn’t been the only ones who had died in the last few weeks. Roger Buick, a New Zealand climber, had also collapsed whilst still quite low on the hill. He had died there from a heart attack. Life seemed tragically volatile, almost cheap. Mark Jennings was a British climber who had reached the top but had died on the descent. That killer symptom of collapsing to the ground from fatigue had claimed his life as well. These were all experienced, fit climbers. I wrestled to understand why we had survived when others had been robbed of precious life. What a waste, what an unnecessary waste. As I lay there I found no real answers. A year later, I still find myself bereft of any.
The Russians’ faces had been buried in deep despair; they weren’t interested in answers; they had lost their comrades. I closed my eyes. I remembered the words of an old corporal of mine when he had lost his best friend; they were all I could find. Said in his broad Welsh accent he had put it down to the ‘Shape of life, Bear. Shape of life.’ The words didn’t seem to answer anything, but they were all I had.
Human nature hungers for adventure, and true adventure has its risks. Everyone knows those risks on Everest, yet the reality of seeing it first hand makes such words seem hollow. These are real lives, with real families and it still confuses me today.
I remain loyal, though, to the belief that those brave men and women who died during those months on Everest are the true heroes. To them goes the real glory. This must be their families’ only relief.
Neil had lived with death on Everest, twice now. It was twice too much. We wandered the streets of Kathmandu and tried to put it all behind us. As we walked I felt a liberation. The rickshaws honked, the street sellers scurried by clutching their wares, and the fumes lingered sordidly around the tiny, muddy backstreets. The rush of everyday life seemed to dull the memories of the mountain, and all those emotions began to lift off me.
I remembered when I had returned from Ama Dablam almost eight months earlier; the excitement, the determination – it was gone now. I had spent it all on the mountain. The photos of Everest for sale in the stalls no longer held the same magic. I looked at them out of habit more than anything.
We were due to be flying out early the next morning, to get Neil home to some proper medical attention. His feet were now really beginning to swell and blister, as the dead tissue in his toes began to decompose. He hobbled around with me like an old man. It was good to try and move them, despite the strange looks we received from passers-by. We ignored them, they didn’t need to know.
Mick and Geoffrey would arrive in Kathmandu by plane from Lukla in a day or so. It would be a shame not to be together for a while in Kathmandu, but we had no idea how long they would be. We needed to get Neil back.
That last night, ‘out on the tiles’ in Kathmandu, Neil ‘got lucky’ with a beautiful Scottish girl. It hasn’t taken him long, I thought, smiling. I left them kissing outside the down-market Casino. I felt strangely happy for him, almost jealous. I reassured myself by thinking that I was far too exhausted to possibly attempt that. I grinned. That would do. I went back to the hotel and fell fast asleep as if drugged by the intoxicating rich air of Kathmandu – at only 3,000 feet.
If a man was taken straight from sea-level to the summit of Everest, he would be unconscious in minutes, and dead soon after. The hostility of that place of dreams had allowed us through her fickle net for a few brief moments on the top. We had returned alive. But why had we done it? Or as one paper, rather too accurately, put it: ‘What makes a scruffy, twenty-three-year-old want to risk it all for a view of Tibet?’ Before I left, I am sure that I would have had a far more slick reply than I do now. The answer seems somehow less obvious, or maybe just less important. I don’t know; I don’t really think about it much. It is just good to be home.
Without any doubt, though, the draw of the mountains is their simplicity. That fierce force of nature, where the wind howls around you and you struggle for breath and life itself; it is strangely irresistible to man. The simple sound of ice beneath your crampons, crunching as the teeth bite into the frozen surface. The raw beauty of being so high and so remote, being like, as Hillary said, ‘ants in a land made for giants’, seeing the greatest mountain range in the world sprawled beneath you. All of it inexplicably draws us to them. I feel those emotions and see those views as I write.
I am not sure if I would return to climb other great peaks, the ones above 26,000 feet – I suspect not. I feel that I undoubtedly used up at least four of my nine lives during those months, and it is always good to keep a few in the bank for emergencies. In truth, though, it is the mountains that I love, the air, the freedom, the heather, the streams. I will always be amongst those, but maybe now in a way that I can just ‘be’; free to enjoy them, with nothing any longer to prove. That, to me, is the real spirit of the mountains.
My experiences on Everest are now just memories; they may fade, but they will never leave me. It is something that maybe only those who have been there will understand.
Since our return, though, people have congratulated me on ‘conquering Everest’, but this feels so wrong. We never conquered any mountain. Everest allowed us to reach her summit by the skin of our teeth, and let us go with our lives where others died. We certainly never conquered her. If I have learnt a deep understanding of anything, it is this. Everest never has been nor ever will be conquered. It is what makes the mountain so special.
One of the questions I repeatedly get asked since returning is, ‘Did you find God on the mountain?’ The answer is no. You don’t have to climb a big mountain to find a faith. I actually began my faith whilst sitting up a tree as a sixteen-year-old. It is the wonderful thing about God; He is always there, wherever you are. That’s what best friends are for. If you asked me did He help me up there, then the answer would be yes. In the words of the great John Wesley when asked by some cynic whether God was his crutch, he gently replied, ‘No, my God is my backbone.’ He was right.
The return to the rich air of sea level brought with it an abundance of blessings. The wind was moist and warm, the grass grew and the air was thick with oxygen. The rush, though, from the extreme altitudes we had been to, back to virtually sea level, brought with it its dangers as well. Several of us experienced recurring nose-bleeds and Mick and Jokey had both passed out several times. These were all purely reactions, for the first time in a while, to too much oxygen. But our bodies soon adapted and within several weeks our precious acclimatization was lost.
When we were next to fly in a plane, gone would be the time when we could quietly announce to our neighbour during the safety brief that in the case of a loss in cabin pressure feel free to use our oxygen masks – we won’t need them.
As for the rest of the team, well, Neil returned to his own company, Office Projects Ltd, in London. His feet healed remarkably well and now only cause him a minimum of pain. He still doesn’t have much feeling in them but he managed to keep all his toes.
In 1996, whilst he was away, to his horror, his business did a record high quarterly turnover in his absence. Now, though, when he returned, his new-found confidence ensured that his business set an even higher record. He had only been back a month and he found himself winning contracts wherever he looked. He bought a huge BMW and whopping big speedboat on the proceeds.
I smile as I meet him in London and hear of all his latest ‘acquisitions’. If anyone deserves them, it is him.4
Funnily enough, in the same week that he bought his speedboat, I also bought a boat. Mine, unfortunately, wasn’t quite as grand as his, being only a nine-foot-long, rotting old fishing boat. Still, I felt certain that our time on the mountain had maybe created a secret yearning for the sea. Maybe it was the freedom and peace that it offers, I don’t know. I am currently writing this book on a small uninhabited island off the South Coast,5 and my fishing boat has broken down. So I am cursing the day I bought it as I go hungry, awaiting the island’s owner at the end of the week. Still . . .
Geoffrey left the Army, and found himself a job in the City. It had been a shame that for so much of the expedition we had been apart, but it just turned out like that. The main part of the climb, though, we had done together, and my respect for his decision to turn around above Camp Four remains immense. It showed a certain wisdom to be able to make rational decisions like that, well into the Death Zone. He remains a close friend.
Mick seemed profoundly changed by his time on Everest. He became gentler than I had ever known him to be and his gratitude for life seems to shine from him. He came all too close to losing it. He sums his thoughts up like this:
As for ‘Mick on Everest – the sequel’, it seems unlikely. I feel that the money, time and exposure to danger, involved in trying to achieve those extra 300 feet, is not worth it. In my three months that I was away, I was happier than ever before, more scared than I hope ever to be again, and more stressed than any bond dealer with £10 million in the wrong place, could ever imagine. I came home alive and for that I’ll always be grateful.
He has since launched a network marketing arm of Tiscali. I know he will be successful.
Henry Todd, our expedition manager, returns to the great Himalayan peaks twice a year – organizing expeditions. Almost half of his time is spent in these hills. They are his home. He still swears and shouts ferociously, grinning away from behind his matted beard, but the bottom line is that his expertise keeps people alive up there. We all couldn’t help but like him; and the faith and trust he placed in me made all the difference.
Graham returned to his family and the good Brown Ale of Newcastle. A month later he was awarded an MBE by the Queen, for services to mountaineering and charity. It had been given to the nicest of men. Having been forced to abandon his summit attempt with us because of the illness he had, he has subsequently agreed to return to Everest in the spring of 1999 – to try again. It would be his fourth time on the mountain.6
The other climbers with us returned to their homes. As is the nature of adventure, you return home having trodden some fine lines, and nothing ever seems to have changed. Buses smell, newspaper men blurt out the headlines and people get in a panic if the milk is a day old – but it is this continuity of life that makes it so good to return to.
As for the Sherpas – they continue their extraordinary work. Pasang and Ang-Sering still climb together as best friends, under the direction of their ‘sirdar’ – Kami. The two Icefall doctors, Nima and Pasang, still carry out their brave task in the glacier; they remain a law unto themselves, playing poker in their tents by candlelight until the early hours and laughing out loud across Base Camp. They both still smoke incessantly. I did get the dog that I said I would buy, and called her Nima; though my dog is rather less brave than him – as she lies on her back, asleep by the fire.
Thengba, my friend with whom I spent so much time alone at Camp Two, has been given a hearing-aid by Henry. Now, for the first time, he can hear properly. I never believed that his grin could get any wider – but Henry assures me it has. Thengba’s days are now spent laughing along with his Sherpa friends’ banter. I am returning to Nepal next year to see him.
Despite our different worlds, we share a common bond with these wonderful men; a bond of friendship that was forged by an extraordinary mountain.
Once, when the climber Julius Kugy was asked what sort of person a mountaineer should be, he replied: ‘Truthful, distinguished and modest.’
All these men epitomize this. I made the top with them, and because of them. I owe them more than I can say.
The great Everest writer, Walt Unsworth, writes a vivid description of the characters of the men and women who pit their all on the mountain. I think it is accurate.
But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad . . . Three things these men have in common: faith in themselves, great determination and endurance.
8 JUNE 1998. DORSET, ENGLAND. The day after my twenty-fourth birthday.
I looked at my watch sleepily, it was 3.20 p.m. Damn, I thought, – the pigs. I had dozed off in my bedroom, fully clothed on my bed, and time had floated by in a blissful, summery haze. The animals would be going berserk with hunger. ‘I’ve got to stop these afternoon naps – they’ll become a habit,’ I mumbled to myself, as I sat upright.
Since returning, my body had slowly begun to unwind from the exhaustion of our time on the mountain. The months had drained me more than I could have imagined. I think that it was the constant worry and strain of not knowing what lay ahead that had plagued my waking hours the most. I had found that even on rest days at Base Camp where, on the face of it there was nothing to do but wait and sleep, the gentle nagging fear never really left the recesses of my mind. The fear of what the next day would bring, that intolerable waiting for the unknown, and the fear, I guess, of possibly not seeing my family again.
The relief that I now felt was immense; for the first time the pressure had fallen away, and rest came easily. Nothing but feeding the animals at home disturbed my rest those first few weeks after getting back, and oh . . . how I now loved my duvet.
My back had held up amazingly well. During the build-up to the climb I had experienced only the mildest of twinges – on the climb itself, it had never failed me. Despite the constant strain and hard discomfort of lying on the ground, I never felt any recurring pain. It had amazed me.
Now lying at home in bed, my back mildly ached for the first time. I smiled. So much had happened. It’s this flipping soft-living, I’m sure, I thought.
I slowly clambered off my bed and sat wearily looking around my room. My eyes rested on a bag in the corner. On our return, all my kit had been piled into a mass of different hold-alls and I was only now beginning to sort them out. This was one of the last ones that remained untouched, since my return four days ago.
I knelt down and began rummaging lazily through the kitbag. It was full of stinking clothes and equipment, which I had hurriedly packed that last night at Base Camp, before getting the chopper out the next morning. Socks that I had worn for months were festering in the bottom. They must have smelt like I had, when I stood proudly before the beautiful receptionist in the hotel in Kathmandu – they stank. I threw them in my pile for ‘immediate’ washing, and carried on sifting through the bag. Books, Walkman, tapes, medicines. They were all just as they were when I had stuffed them excitedly in at Base Camp.
As I pulled a pair of thermal long johns out, I noticed my sea-shell fall out with them. It clinked to the floor and lay on its side. I reached over and picked it up carefully. It had been my most treasured item in my tent for all that time on the mountain. I had found it with Shara on the beach in the Isle of Wight. I rolled it over in my hand and my mind wandered.
I remembered the
number of times I had read the inscription on the inside of it. That lonely time, when all the others left Base Camp without me because I was ill; that fearful moment of leaving Camp Two for the final time, when I didn’t know what the future held. The words in the shell were as true now as they had been then. I read them slowly. They meant the world to me.
‘Be sure of this, that I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth.’ Matthew 28:20.
I gripped the shell tight in the palm of my hand and remembered. It had come a long way with me.
Suddenly the voice of my mother broke the silence, as she warbled from downstairs in her high-pitched tone. I turned towards the sound.
‘Bear, Beeeeaaarr. You may have climbed Everest, but whilst you are at home you jolly well pull your weight. Now hurry up and go and feed those pigs. That’s your job. Beeeaarr, did you hear me?’
I smiled, got slowly to my feet, and put the shell in my pocket. I scuttled down the stairs two at a time, muttering under my breath, ‘Blasted porkies.’
POSTSCRIPT
In the year following Bear’s ascent, Michael Matthews, a twenty-two-year-old British climber, reached the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the youngest Briton to climb the mountain. Tragically, he died of exhaustion during a storm on his descent.
Before Bear’s climb, the youngest British climber to have reached the summit was Peter Boardman. In 1975 he reached the summit aged twenty-four; sadly, he later died on Everest whilst climbing with Joe Tasker in 1982. The only other British climber under the age of twenty-five to have possibly reached the summit was Andrew Irvine. Irvine died with George Mallory on their famous 1924 expedition and the mystery surrounding their ascent of Everest has still not been solved. This book is a tribute to those brave men who never came home.