by Sharon Wood
I return to the tent, stunned by how I’ve just upturned our world. I go over each conversation I’ve had with the boys with Jane because it seems an event has not completely happened until I tell her.
* * *
After waiting out another storm at Camp Two, Albi, Dave, James and I set out to carry to Camp Four. I’m last in line, trailing behind Albi to the bottom of the ropes. He clips his ascender onto the rope and looks at me. “Come on, Woody, quit sulking. It’s time to get back to work. It’s the mountain, not our little plans, that will run this show.”
When I arrive at Camp Four, James waves me over to the tent and says, “Albi and Dave are in the cave. You’re bunking with me for the night.” I crawl in and flop down on the sleeping bag James has fluffed out for me. As he hands me a cup of tea, James says, “Having fun yet? Just think, I could be handing you a cold beer about now in Yosemite Valley. Yep, we’d be in our shorts and t-shirts settling back into our lawn chairs.”
“Dreaming about being in just that place is my favourite pastime these days, James.”
“But you know what we’d be dreaming about if we were in those lawn chairs?” James pauses while the wind gives our tent a good shake. “Our next Himalayan expedition, that’s what!” He laughs. “Dreaming is more than half the fun.”
“You’re not kidding.”
We all carry to Camp Five the next day where Dave and Albi will stay to work in lead. But Albi falls ill the next night with a stomach ailment and descends to Basecamp to recover. With no one else rested enough to take Albi’s place, I remain at Camp Five to work with Dave.
I remember what Albi said to me two days ago and am relieved when the mountain takes charge. It is easier when all there is to do is work and not give up.
Dave and I work two days fixing six hundred metres of rope through the remaining distance of the Diagonal Ditch, across down-sloping shale and cross-loaded gullies, and all the way to the beginning of the traverse across the North Face. The cost of our effort becomes apparent by the end of that second day when Dave notices a black spot in his left eye’s line of vision. He reports his symptoms over the radio that night, and Dr. Bob, suspecting Dave has suffered a retinal hemorrhage, tells him to get down as soon as possible before any further damage is done. Dave tosses the radio aside and drops his face into his hands. The next day, Dr. Bob confirms the diagnosis and Dave is confined to Camp Two and below for the rest of the expedition. With no one in position to replace Dave, I descend with him.
It will take ten days instead of the four we had hoped to prepare the mountain for a summit bid. Over that time the Spanish team quits when their high camp on the North Ridge is decimated in a storm. In addition, a few members of the American team, worn down from the altitude, leave for home. Every time a team quits or a member gives up, they take with them a part of our resolve. I am afraid that most of my teammates, having lost their personal chances for the summit by now, will want to follow. But perhaps the Spaniards know what a toll deserting at this time can take on those who remain, because they choose to wait out the rest of the time on their permit at Basecamp to cheer the remaining Americans and us on.
The Spaniards’ sportsmanship, and news that Annie and Todd are planning to start their summit bid any day now, spurs our team. Our loyalty to the vision is still stronger than the pull homeward, which surprises me given how beaten up we feel by the altitude and weather. Despite the pain Chris suffers with every breath, he makes three carries between Camp Four and Camp Five. Against Dr. Bob’s advice, Dan makes several more carries to Camp Two. And the chronic laryngitis that hobbles Jim focuses his fierce determination to lead from behind. But poor weather and a shortage of supplies and manpower at Camp Five postpone the next shift above Camp Five and the American’s attempt on the summit is delayed as well.
Just days before, I had thought I’d lost my place on the first summit bid team when I had to go back up for another high shift. But with the storm forcing everyone off the mountain, I descend to Basecamp. While the delay is disappointing, I will get a rest and perhaps be ready if the mountain gives us a chance.
Chapter 15
Glory or Death
A month has passed since I was last at Basecamp. As Dave, Jane and I step onto the floodplain, we breathe in a pungent earthy scent. The brown grass we camped on now looks like a golf green.
The courier arrives after dinner that night. Dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, and green with nausea, he nearly falls out of the jeep when we open the door to greet him. We help him with the mailbags and steer him into the mess tent, where we give him a cup of tea and a couple of Tylenol. Soon after, we are slouched in our favourite boxes with our feet up, tearing into the packages, magazines, newspapers and letters he’s brought, and savouring the luxury of news from the outside world.
I open my Mom’s letter first. Tears well in my eyes at the sight of her impeccable cursive script. I can feel her fingers stroking my head, hear her melodic voice reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales and smell her homemade apple pies fresh from the oven.
“How’s my girl?” she writes. “It seems like yesterday when you climbed your first mountain with your dad. I remember how he suited you out at the army surplus store. I had no idea it would lead to this!”
I was eighteen and long gone by the time my parents finalized their divorce. I believed my mom got the short end of the stick. At the age of fifty, she faced starting a career with a resumé filled with chores and children, while my dad enjoyed a full and liberated life. So in an act of sisterhood, I moved into her little place in West Vancouver for a winter, camping on her hide-a-bed sofa. It was not that she had invited me but I knew I had to be there for her and for me. And in that short time we spent together, I came to know her as a woman of pluck and class. She never uttered a negative word about Dad. She rose from the wreckage and up the ranks of her new job to executive assistant in a national firm. It has been long since I thought she was the queen, but she will always be my queen. And although she can’t fathom what I’m up to, she always made me believe I could do anything I put my mind to.
Next is Dad’s card, which makes me smile. On the front is a picture of mice, each one dressed in a little jacket and top hat, or dress and apron, in a tree with houses on every limb. “Dear Mouse,” he begins, “I thought you would get a kick out of this card…” He writes that he and his partner Peggy are travelling and checking Reuters newsfeeds every day for updates on our progress. “Who thought my mouse would climb Everest one day. I did! We’re both so proud of you.”
Albi shatters my reverie when he says, “Uh-oh, Woody. This isn’t going to make you happy.” He is perusing the latest pile of newspaper clippings.
“What’s that?”
He holds up the newsprint page, which reads in bold letters: 2 Women in Everest Foot Race. There, side by side, are head-and-shoulders pictures of Annie and me. The caption under Annie’s photo reads, Annie Whitehouse: Buhler’s partner and under mine, Sharon Wood: no grudges. I snatch up the article and read it:
The siege of Everest is a race between two nations, two women and two ex-lovers. Carlos Buhler, former boyfriend of Burnaby native Sharon Wood, is helping a U.S. woman, Annie Whitehouse, race Wood to the top.
The winner will be the first woman in the western hemisphere to stand atop the world’s highest peak…
“This can’t be happening,” I croak. Jim has been careful to keep tight control over what information is released to the media, but obviously someone has leaked our pathetic soap opera to the press. I bolt out of the mess tent and up to the memorial cairns, where I slump down and drop my face into my hands.
Albi arrives a few minutes later and sits down beside me. I feel his arm slide around my shoulders, and we sit together and listen to the shouts and laughter from below where the Spaniards are playing soccer. We watch as they steal the ball with deft swipes, kick it, chase it and dodge around one another. They cheer and raise their fi
sts in victory as someone scores a goal.
“Oh, Albi, am I being a drama queen?”
“Not really. I’d be right pissed off if someone did that to me, but I’d probably hit him or smash something.”
“Remember the last time when we sat like this on top of a moraine?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah,” he says as his voice softens, “I sure do. We were at Advance Basecamp on Makalu.”
On that day, Carlos was exhausted and shaken from his and Dwayne’s near miss in joining the dead Czech on the summit ridge. He blamed Charlie and me for his failure because we stayed at Camp Four after carrying a load instead of descending that same day. I couldn’t understand how we had impacted his summit bid, but then I rarely understood Carlos. He moved out of our tent and wouldn’t talk to me for days afterward. I was beside myself with guilt and grief, and Albi comforted me.
“I regret that patch job I did,” Albi says. “It worked so well that it got you two back together again.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, “I regret that too.” I brighten for an instant. “Remember what we did right after that, when we trundled those giant boulders?” Albi and I pried and pushed refrigerator-sized rocks off the edge of a steep sidewall of the moraine and watched with glee as they barrelled down three hundred metres to crash into the boulders on the valley bottom. “God, that felt good!” I laugh, then instantly sink back into despair.
“Let it go,” he says. “This is the price of fame, my dear. And you better get used to it, because this is just a little warmup for worse to come.” He nods at Everest. “Once, and if, you reach the top of that, people will be looking under your skirts for whatever dirt they can find on you. It’s not that bad, really. You think it is because the news is about you. But news is like scenery and readers are like passengers on a sightseeing bus. You catch their eye as their bus rolls by and then they drop you for something new that comes into view.”
I snatch the article out of my pocket and read a line aloud: “The winner will be the first woman in the western hemisphere to stand atop the world’s highest peak.” I growl, “This makes me mad enough to want to be the winner. If for no one but myself.”
“Atta girl.” He peers at the clipping. “No grudges,” he reads. “The best revenge is to be classy about this sordid business.”
What he says ignites a fire in me. The article is already written, and I don’t have to take it so personally. What is the point of worrying about it when it takes so much from me? And Carlos is merely an obstacle—an obstacle that I alone have the power to transform.
* * *
Albi and Kevin leave for a high shift the next morning, and I spend the following three days eating and sleeping as much as I can. The day before I leave to go back up the mountain, I’m rifling through my pile of stuff sacks, examining each item I plan to take, and rereading my letters and journal entries one last time. Packing feels different this time—now I wonder who will pack up my personal belongings if I don’t come back.
I put that thought aside for the moment and smile when I discover an unworn pair of birthday undies and imagine them giving me superpowers. As my dad often said, “It’s what’s underneath that determines strength and beauty.” I throw the Tuesday undies in my pack, planning to slip them on before I leave Camp Two for the summit. When I finish packing, I wonder if I should talk with Jane in case I don’t make it down, or write her a note and leave it in my journal under my sleeping mat. Talking to her seems too melodramatic, and in the end I do nothing.
I choose to walk alone on the final trip back up, going the long way to pass through the Spanish camp to say goodbye to the caballeros. The Spaniards assure me they will stay for a few more days yet and come to our victory party. From their camp, a straight line to the trailhead leads past the American camp. I usually skirt wide around it, but the Spaniards tell me that Carlos is on the mountain, so there is no need to avoid it. On my way through, I find Todd Bibler sunbathing on a rock in just a pair of iridescent tights and mirrored glasses. He lolls his head as I stroll by and says, “So, you’re off to the summit?”
“Yep.”
“Glory or death,” he drawls and then rolls his face skyward again.
“Thanks.”
Camp gossip has it that Carlos caused a rift between himself and his teammates when he pressed them to designate a new leader—him. Apparently, Annie has moved out of Carlos’s tent and into Todd’s—and she and Todd are due to start their summit attempt any day now. That possibility, and Todd’s cavalier blessing, spurs me on.
My walk back up to Camp One becomes a ritual. I am acutely aware today of this ground I have passed over so many times. I know its features as intimately as I might a lover’s: the patch of silt where I leave the imprint of my boot sole every time; the sound of my shoes on bedrock, on gravel, on ice; the slot between two boulders that echoes back my passage; the halfway rock I rest on or, at the very least, run my hand over as I go by. Will I see all this again, and if so, will I experience it differently? What will this mountain make of me or take from me?
I am nearing the final rise to Camp One when I see Carlos standing atop the moraine, watching me. I feel a momentary catch in my step, my breath—a bracing—and then a release. An unthinking, unplanned sense of calm guides me through the time it takes to reach him. I glance at the pack at his feet, which is loaded with his sleeping bag and a sleeping pad strapped on the outside. Is he leaving? When I raise my eyes to meet his, he says, “I just thought I’d tell you that I believe that you and Dwayne have the best chance of anyone I know of pulling this off.”
I have forgotten how Carlos can be my champion. I drop my shoulders and shrug my pack off, letting it drop to the ground. “I don’t think we’ve got a chance, Carlos. There’s no high camp in place. We’re all so tired.”
He looks at me with the most intense gaze, listening to me as if what I am saying is the most important thing in the world. He understands me in a way no one else ever has. I have forgotten this until now. “You’ve got to believe in yourself, Sharon. You’ve worked really hard for this. I’ve seen you on so many climbs. And from everything I’ve heard, you’re going strong. I know you can do this! I’m going to stick around as long as I can to cheer you on. Good luck up there.”
“Thanks. We’ll need all the luck we can get and then some.”
“Be careful.” He opens his arms and I step in.
* * *
That night at Camp One, Albi reports that he and Kevin have fixed eight hundred metres of rope in a single-day effort to reach the base of the Hornbein Couloir. It is the biggest push yet on our expedition, and the last of our rope and our efforts to prepare the route.
Jane tells us that Colleen, Dwayne’s partner, has arrived at Basecamp. Jim banned all visitors over the last few weeks to protect us from illness or disruption, and he asked her to wait until Dwayne had left for the summit bid before she came. It is a comfort to know she is with us, as she was on Makalu. As much as I’ve missed her on this expedition, I have long since seen the wisdom in Jim’s decision to bring Jane instead. He is right that there is no room amidst a team and an objective like this one for the exclusive intimacy that couples share.
The next day, Jim, Dan, Dwayne and I walk to Camp Two together. Another system blows in, bringing with it a few squalls. My thoughts are as mixed as the weather. When it grows dark and daunting, I retreat into my hood and think, We haven’t a chance of pulling this off. When it brightens, my thoughts turn. I can’t believe my luck; I’ve made it onto a summit team!
Chapter 16
Commitment
May 17 to 19, 1986
Three days of storms take us to the edge of the window we have to make our summit bid. The constant drone of the jet stream pounding against Everest grows stronger each day, and we grow weaker waiting for a break in the weather. The delay scrambles our small plans once again.
Kevin has recovered enou
gh from his last big push with Albi to join James in climbing in support of Dwayne and me. Even though Kevin and James have lost their own chances for the summit by now, their commitment at this time in our long siege when everyone must be thinking of home astonishes me. Barry steps forward too, despite knowing he has his own summit bid to rest up for in four days’ time.
May 17: Day 1
A lenticular cloud hovers over the summit pyramid. With no time left to wait, we choose to begin, hoping that the weather will improve by the time we are in place at Camp Six in three days’ time. In four days, successful or not, we will have played out all our time and strength and will descend in order for Albi and Barry to move into place.
In early afternoon we shoulder our packs. Jim comes out of his tent to see the five of us off. As we lean in for a huddle to hear him, he rasps, “I’ve got one piece of advice for you that might help keep you alive. Treat this like any other mountain. It’s not worth dying for.”
We all know that climbers have made irrational decisions to stand atop the world’s highest mountain—and died because of it. I know he is warning us to not allow this mountain of mountains to skew our judgement, though he himself has put aside his family, his job and four years of his life for this expedition. No one would do that for any other mountain, nor would any one of us have pursued a summit for so long. I sink under the burden of our teammates’ hopes.
We step into the wind at the top of the headwall. Barry insists that he take the lead to preserve Dwayne’s and my strength for the summit. The rope is buried beneath drifts of wind-hammered snow that have set like cement, and Barry stops every few steps to wrench it free. Then, for the rest of the way to Camp Four, he’ll fall to his knees to recover and repeatedly rise again to fight his way a few steps higher.
Halfway up, we stop at our abandoned Camp Three to check in with one another. Barry, James, Dwayne and I hunker down on the lee side of the snow wall to wait for Kevin, who is coming up last. We don’t speak, to spare our breath and raw throats. I fish for the string of the watch around my neck and pull it out to look at the time. We have been going for five hours already—twice as long as our best time to this point.