The Everest Politics Show

by Mark Horrell

  It’s easy to sit there like those officials and do nothing, yet pretend that by being there you are doing something positive. In this sense I have a degree of respect for the protesters, much as I disagree with their actions. At least they did something, however misguided it was, and succeeded in their aims.

  Dorje and Pasang Ongchu join us in the dining tent. I feel so sorry for them. They have worked like Trojans. They have stood up to those in their community who sought to drive a wedge between us. They have remained loyal, honest and unbelievably cheerful. But to some people they will be tarred with the same brush as the militants, a brush that will be painted across the whole Sherpa community. It is likely they will all find it harder to get work next year.

  Meanwhile Edita comes back from the meeting with a shocking story that sheds light on a possible reason why IMG cancelled their expedition without waiting for today’s meeting. She spoke to one of their clients at the meeting. With great emotion they spoke of how one of their Sherpas had told them to leave within seven days, or they would break their legs.

  One of their own Sherpas! If this proves to be true then it was nothing to do with protecting the Sherpas, but protecting the clients. At this stage it is still no more than a rumour; we don’t know who the client is, or whether they were telling the truth. But in these circumstances it can’t be easy for an operator, and they behaved appropriately. It would have left their leader with no choice. How could they stay on the mountain? It’s doubtful even army personnel stationed at Base Camp could have resolved such differences.9

  Not that the army were ever going to be stationed at Base Camp, any more than flying yaks would bring them here. I can’t help thinking that the government is the real villain. They have taken our permit fees, liaison officer fees, and Icefall Doctor fees, and where did that money go? We were not permitted to climb; our liaison officer was nowhere to be seen; and now the Icefall Doctors are going home too. We won’t get any of this money back, of course. We would love to climb with Dorje and Pasang Ongchu again, and help them to support their families. But to do so we have to pay more fees to the government first.

  ‘The government all talk, no do,’ Pasang says apologetically.

  They won’t blame us if we do not return, any more than we blame them for what’s happened here. Will we climb together again after this expedition is over? I hope so, but I just don’t know.

  Day 23 – Bewilderment

  Friday, 25 April 2014 – Everest Base Camp, Nepal

  We had a long night drowning our sorrows and going through several boxes of wine that we no longer need. As usual, I feel hangover-free, but I’m in a state of shock about how this expedition has turned out. It’s hard to believe it’s all over, and we haven’t even set foot above Base Camp.

  Did I dream that farcical ceremony with the Ministry of Tourism that finally put us out of our misery?

  The surreal situation is reinforced by the conditions this morning. There is a light dusting of snow on the ground, and the Base Camp amphitheatre is absolutely beautiful. How can such terrible things have happened here in the last week?

  Over breakfast we agree to walk down to Pheriche tomorrow to catch helicopters back to Kathmandu. I am in no hurry to leave Nepal. My flight back to the UK is not until the end of May, and I vaguely remember having agreed, after a few glasses of wine last night, to trek up to the Annapurna Sanctuary with Margaret and Edita.

  I spend the morning packing my things and preparing a blog post to send when I’m back in Kathmandu. Phil has agreed for two people from the Discovery Channel to come over to camp this morning and interview some of us about the season. They had intended to film a documentary about a man in a wingsuit flying off the summit, but they’ve ended up with a very different story to tell.

  Several of the team agree to talk, but I prefer to steer clear. I’m still unsure of the story, and I don’t want to go on camera to be misrepresented. In the end only Phil and Ricardo are interviewed.

  Despite the depression in camp, we maintain our sense of humour. Phil tells his Sherpas that Trish is insisting they stay for another four weeks to complete the season and earn the rest of their pay.

  Sangye ends this attempt at humour with a simple argument. ‘I eat two meal of dal bhat a day. It cost 300 rupees a kilo to carry my shit down from Base Camp. We leave early, I save you money, boss.’

  On a more sobering note, over dinner Phil talks for the first time in detail about what he saw at the avalanche site. Most of the victims died not from being buried alive, but from shards of ice exploding from the serac like shrapnel.

  ‘There were decapitations up there,’ he says.

  I don’t think I’m the only person at the table who feels sick. The event could have happened at any time. Had it been an hour later or an hour earlier, the outcome could have been different. Perhaps nobody would have died at all. But it happened at precisely the wrong moment and caused destruction in the most hideous way imaginable.

  Nobody is in the mood for staying up late tonight and finishing the rest of Phil’s wine. I leave the tent at 7.30 to head for bed. Only Jay and Ricardo remain there, arguing about religion. I still hear their voices murmuring a few metres away as I drift off to sleep.

  Day 24 – Escape from Base Camp

  Saturday, 26 April 2014 – Kathmandu, Nepal

  The end is near. It’s our earliest breakfast since we arrived at Base Camp, apart from that fateful day when we intended to climb into the Icefall. Our helicopters are booked to leave Pheriche at 2.30, and Phil says it will take three hours to walk there. Using the simple formula that any journey on foot takes twice as long as Phil says it will, I calculate that it will take us six hours to get there. We therefore need to leave early.

  We take breakfast at seven o’clock. Afterwards I pack away my sleeping bag and all the other things I won’t be needing for a while. Our kit bags have to be carried down by porters, and they won’t arrive in Kathmandu until Wednesday. I’m the last to finish packing. I miss a group photo with our Sherpas, and my teammates have all left camp by the time I carry my kit bag to the storage tent. But Tarke, who is coming to Lukla with us to make sure everything is OK, is still waiting for me.

  I soon catch up with the stragglers in the boulder fields on the fringes of camp. By the time I reach the moraine ridge I have overtaken them, and find myself walking alone for the next hour. It’s an opportunity to contemplate our expedition and consider all the things that have happened in the last week and a day. Nothing seems to make sense.

  I catch up with the remainder of the team – Robert, Jay, Kevin, Ian, Ricardo and Mel – a short distance beyond Gorak Shep. They are waiting for herds of yaks and trekkers coming the other way. Most of the trekkers look tired, but at least they won’t be weighed down by the sense of dejection that we are. I wonder how many are even aware of the momentous events that have just taken place at their destination.

  As for us, we move quickly, as though fleeing, which isn’t far from the truth. I take consolation from the landscape. Whatever happens to humans here over the next few years, the scenery will remain peerless and majestic.

  I stop for a rest and a drink at Lobuche, where our group divides. The speedsters – Kevin, Ian and Jay – disappear off in a puff of whatever it is that powers them. Ricardo and I leapfrog one another for the rest of the way. We stop for more photographs at the memorials above the Thok La. Ama Dablam forms a pinnacled backdrop, and I wonder how long it will be before there are sixteen more cairns here.

  Memorial cairns at the Thok La, with Kangtega rising up behind

  We need to check Ricardo’s map to find the trail down to Pheriche, as we took a different route on the way up. An obvious trail leads down a gully to a broad valley. We are now some distance beneath the high plateau we crossed after leaving Dingboche seventeen days ago. I see Pheriche in the distance ahead, but Ricardo is even more anxious than me to reach it. He overtakes me at a run; I don’t bother trying to keep up.

  I c
ross streams and yak pastures, and reach the village some way behind him. I walk into a likely looking teahouse that advertises free Wi-Fi. There’s nobody there that I know, but a little further along Jay emerges from another one wearing his cowboy hat. They have chosen this particular teahouse because it is right next to the helipad. Ian, Kevin, Ricardo and Mel are sitting inside drinking San Miguel beer.

  It’s barely 11.30, and for once Phil was right about the time. We have raced down here, keen to get away from this dream world of high mountains that offered so much, but left us disappointed, sad and bewildered.

  It toys with us one last time. By 2.30 a grey mist has enveloped the valley and there is little chance of a helicopter landing. It seems that there is nothing we can do but drink more beer and accept that we must spend the night in Pheriche. But at four o’clock, when the mist seems as thick as ever and there is still no hope of getting out of here tonight, we hear the sound of helicopter blades somewhere overhead.

  We couldn’t have reacted more quickly had a yak charged into the teahouse, aimed its horns at our table, and started pawing the ground. We leave our beers unfinished and rush outside with our packs.

  Two helicopters have landed on the scrubby field behind the teahouse. How many of us will be able to pile in? I’d heard that at this altitude they will only fly with a maximum of four passengers. More in hope than expectation, I try to squeeze in as a fifth passenger, resting my pack on my knees. The pilot doesn’t try to stop me. I’m even more surprised when Tarke gestures for me to move up, and he jumps in beside.

  The doors are closed and we feel the chopper rising off the ground. Everything seems to happen so fast. The cloud has evaporated, and within an instant we are flying down a forested valley, with Tengboche Monastery on a ridge below us.

  There is a repeat performance after we land at the helipad in Lukla a few minutes later. It’s only 4.30, and here in the Dudh Khosi Valley, 2,000m lower down, it’s a beautiful afternoon. The rest of our team managed to squeeze on to the second chopper, and we are all here. It seems like there’s a good chance we’ll be back in Kathmandu tonight after all.

  But there are only two choppers, and another team is already boarding one of them. A representative of the helicopter company approaches me.

  ‘Only six on first helicopter,’ he says.

  ‘But it will fly to Kathmandu and come back for the others tonight?’ I ask him.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says, but he doesn’t look hopeful.

  ‘Women and children first,’ I hear someone say.

  That means Margaret, Edita and Caroline. We give Mel a seat because his wife is arriving in Kathmandu tonight. I’m a little surprised, and more than a little pleased, when Ian and I are given the other two seats. I can only assume this is because they regard us as children.

  I can hardly believe my luck. I don’t think any of us can. Within seconds we are inside again. The chopper rises from the ground and we are flying over forested ridges and miles of rice terraces. We are all grinning like children now. Edita sits in the passenger seat in front of me. She turns her head, and her smile is as wide as the South Col.

  What an expedition. Was it a holiday or an ordeal? A dream or a nightmare? I think it will be a long time before we know.

  Expedition Dispatch: The double Everest tragedy

  Footsteps on the Mountain blog – Sunday, 27 April 2014

  I’m back in Kathmandu again at the end of what has effectively been a very expensive Everest Base Camp trek. All expeditions have now been cancelled, and there will not be a single summit from Everest’s south side this season.

  This has been without a doubt one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, and I’m still in a state of shock trying to make sense of it all. I wanted to climb Lhotse this year because I climbed Everest from the north side two years ago, and I wanted to sample the south-side experience without having to climb the mountain for a second time. Lhotse shares its route with Everest for much of the way up. Where Everest climbers continue across the Lhotse Face to the South Col which divides the two mountains, we were intending to divert up the face to Lhotse’s summit.

  I wanted to sleep in the grand amphitheatre of Everest Base Camp, surrounded by impossibly precipitous peaks – Pumori, Lingtren, Khumbutse, Nuptse and Everest’s West Shoulder, which appears as an imposing peak in its own right from there. I wanted to climb through the ice towers and seracs of the Khumbu Icefall, and stand in the Western Cwm, named by George Mallory after the hills of Snowdonia and christened the Valley of Silence by the Swiss team who first stood there in 1952. I wanted to climb up the Lhotse Face and look across the South Col to Everest. These are places I have read so much about, and I would love to have seen them for myself, but it didn’t happen.

  But I also wanted to sample the south-side Everest experience because it receives so much negative attention in the media, and I wanted to find out for myself whether it’s as much of a circus as people make out. I found the answer to that. Boy, did I find the answer. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine it would be like this. One thing I didn’t expect was a circus built by Nepalis rather than western climbers.

  I am posting this having not read a single sentence of what has been written in the media about this year’s Everest season. I will read all that soon enough I’m sure, but for now these are my thoughts alone. My phone has been switched off, and only once did I wander down to Gorak Shep to send a blog post and check messages. I have been scribbling furiously in my diary about the events I have witnessed, but at times it’s been difficult to find the words. It’s certainly too early to make sense of it all. I have plenty to say, but for now I will keep it brief.

  A small number of militant agitators have chosen to exploit a terrible tragedy to pursue their own agenda, and a corrupt and ineffectual government has stood by and watched. This has magnified the tragedy and made it more likely those Sherpas caught in the avalanche of 18 April died in vain. It has also ensured we are all losers here: Sherpas, government, western climbers and mountaineering operators.

  I expect a lot of people are coming in for criticism at the moment, so I would just like to stick up for a few people.

  Since the very hour of the tragedy our own thirty-strong Sherpa team from Altitude Junkies have been solid as a rock. They have stood squarely beside us, remained friendly, loyal and cheerful, stayed out of the politics and waited patiently for the opportunity to climb. They are honest, humble folk who are here to support their families and continue the rich tradition of Himalayan mountaineering that has made the Sherpas prosperous and world famous. We know many of them from previous expeditions and they remain our friends. Our sirdar Dorje Sherpa is a legend in the Khumbu region, and a hero in the eyes of us all in the Altitude Junkies team. Wizened and wise, we all look up to him, Sherpas and westerners alike. If only there were more like him the militants would never have been able to get their way. It’s likely Everest will be quiet next season, but all our guys deserve to find work.

  Our expedition leader Phil Crampton is also an unsung hero. He has invested a great deal in Nepal over the years and taken great financial risk. He does not make millions out of mountaineering here. It’s no coincidence that eight of our team are repeat Junkies clients. We know he runs one of the best expeditions on the mountain, but also one of the cheapest. Events have proven that he also has the most loyal Sherpas.

  Phil flew to Kathmandu at his own expense last week to negotiate with the government and try to save the season. They let him down. He was promised much, but given nothing. Like all operators he has hundreds of kilos of equipment stuck up in the Western Cwm. Yesterday eight teams each sent a Sherpa up there by helicopter to gather it together. It will stay up there, frozen in and moving with the glacier. Perhaps it will be retrievable next year, if any of them decide to come back here.

  But Phil doesn’t seem to be worrying about his own losses. He worries about his Sherpas, some of whom may not be able find work if he has to pull out of Nepal.
And he worries about us – his clients, who have paid him a great deal of money and haven’t even left Base Camp. We feel like we’ve been stitched up, but not by him.

  It started as a terrible, random tragedy, with no blame and no villains, but it has become something else. From what I have seen westerners have behaved appropriately. I don’t know what has been said to the media, but around camp we have been silent, patient and sensitive. These are people, many of whom have saved up and trained for years to be here, mortgaged their houses, quit jobs, made career and relationship sacrifices, all for nothing. A few operators who have accepted their money and employed militants have actions to take in the coming months.

  I believe the biggest share of the responsibility lies with the government. The militants are mostly kids who haven’t considered the consequences of their actions. They will harm themselves and their community in the long run. The government talk endlessly about what they intend to do here, and end up doing nothing. Long before the season began they promised police and army at Base Camp to avoid a repeat of the fight that occurred here last year. Had that happened the intimidation that has prevented people climbing could have been avoided. To great fanfare they announced we would each have to carry eight kilograms of trash down from the higher camps, but now there are several tons of additional equipment lying on Chomolungma’s slopes.

  I’m going to stop ranting now. It’s still too early and emotions are raw. The last week has felt like a year. So much has happened that it’s easy for me to forget that I watched sixteen people lose their lives in a hideous, unparalleled tragedy that but for a few hours, or a few more metres of climbing, might have taken me as well.