A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (4 page)

Directly in front of us, the ground dropped away for 10,000 feet. The North Face is steep, but on the other side of this knife-edged ridge the Kangshung Face of Everest is near vertical. Beyond stretched the view of two Himalayan giants, Makalu and in the far distance Kangchenjunga, the fifth- and third-highest summits in the world, respectively. Ten thousand feet below, at the bottom of the Kangshung Face, lay a thick blanket of cloud. Holding my camera over the edge, I took a photograph. It looks as though it has been taken from a cruising jetliner.

As I glanced left down the ridge, its jagged edge appeared as a row of sharks’ fins, each one set at a slightly different angle from the vertical. Looking right, in the direction we needed to move, an upward traverse of half a mile or more stood between us and our goal. On the ground ahead, two sections of rock barred the way: the First and Second Steps. Both would have to be negotiated before we could gain access to the final snowfield. We still seemed a long way off.

The angle eased significantly towards the First Step. This section gave me the first real opportunity to survey our surroundings. I had the sensation we were leaving one world and entering another.

As we navigated along the ridge, Anatoli and I soon caught and passed two of the climbers whose head torches, only a matter of a few hours earlier, had seemed so far above us. We were now at a height of about 27,800 feet.

Anatoli, climbing without oxygen, was beginning to feel the increase in altitude. His pace slowed. Each step I took increased the distance between us. Within what seemed like a few minutes, we moved from climbing as a pair to climbing alone. We were both comfortable with that.

The snow-covered First Step posed no real problem. By comparison, the onward traverse towards the Second Step was far more precarious. Lying at an angle of 50 degrees, the slope consisted mostly of small pieces of rock little bigger than sugar lumps. When weight was placed on either foot, the ground began to gently slip away. On my left, a jagged rock face jutted upward 30 or 40 feet. Made up of thousands of smaller pieces that were held together like a three-dimensional jigsaw, it had been shattered by the snow and ice continually melting and refreezing over countless years. To my right, the North Face plummeted away steeply. A short distance away, the Second Step loomed menacingly. Glancing back, I could see Anatoli as a small lone figure on the vastness of the North East Ridge.

Hanging down to the base of the Second Step were ropes left by previous expeditions. Directly in front of me towered 20 feet of vertical rock that I needed to climb. Although this would not have been difficult at sea level, I needed to consider that I was at 28,200 feet, the height of K2; I was carrying a 44 lb rucksack and wearing huge down mittens. The task ahead was somewhat like trying to tune a piano while wearing a pair of boxing gloves: difficult but not impossible.

Removing my rucksack, I jammed it securely between the rock face and myself. The instructions Henry had given me two days earlier rang through my mind.

Henry Todd, aged 50, was a tall, burly and bearded Scottish gentleman who lived in Edinburgh, and leader of our expedition. He came across as an imposing character with a high level of self-confidence and a well-spoken English vocabulary to match. For some time, he’d been organising commercial expeditions that were a mixture of invited friends and climbers who paid for their place; 1995 was the first of these ventures on Everest. Henry considered the small details often overlooked by other expeditions. He went to great lengths to give his climbers a realistic chance of reaching the summit, provided they were up to the task.

‘Graham,’ Henry had said, ‘when you get to the base of the Second Step, I want you to turn your oxygen flow to maximum. Climb the Second Step, but you must not forget to then turn your oxygen back down to the slower rate once this has been done.’

We both knew that it would be all too easy to increase the flow and then forget to adjust it back down once the Second Step had been climbed, with potentially deadly consequences. If the flow rate were left turned up, my oxygen supply would run out.

When we got back down, I would have to admit to Henry that we’d forgotten to bring up the spanner to open the lighter-weight Poisk bottles. I didn’t expect much sympathy.

With the rate duly turned up, I heaved the rucksack back over my shoulders. Then I clipped my jumar and karabiner onto the rope that looked in the best condition. As insurance, I took hold of a couple of the others in my left hand, in case the first rope had been frayed by rubbing on the edge of the rock above. Pushing the front points of my crampon into a fracture line in the rock to gain purchase, I hauled myself upwards. The sharp steel tips scratched against the limestone’s hard surface as my feet sought the subsequent footholds.

Within minutes, I had pulled myself up onto the small patch of angled snow that defines the mid-point of this obstacle. I had seen photographs of this place. A short distance away, an aluminium ladder was fastened into the corner. Leaning onto a rock face, it reached to all but the last few feet of the Second Step’s upper section. Placed there many years ago by a Chinese expedition, it had become a permanent fixture on the mountain. As I had just dragged myself up a rope, this looked quite a luxury.

With each step, my crampons clashed against the aluminium rungs. Several old ropes, which dangled over from the top of the Second Step, were wrapped around the upper end of the ladder. As there was virtually no wind, I slid the down mitten and woollen inner glove off my right hand to unravel them. This in itself wouldn’t have been a problem had I then not rested my hand on one of the rungs. My palm froze instantly to the metal. To release it as quickly as possible I pulled my hand away briskly. Left behind was a thin layer of skin as evidence of my mistake. Smiling at my avoidable blunder, I put my glove and mitten back on. Grabbing several of the ropes – about five, I think – I pulled myself off the ladder and up over the edge.

Standing upright, it took a moment for both my glasses and eyes to adjust to the light reflected off the snow. I had, without realising, been climbing in the shadow of the North East Ridge. I was now bathed in dazzling sunlight.

For me, this was the most magical point of the whole climb. Maybe it was because I’d been concentrating so intently on each step that the thought of reaching the summit of Everest hadn’t properly entered my mind. At the exact moment I pulled myself up over the top of the Second Step, to be welcomed by the brightness and warmth of a new day, I knew beyond any doubt I was going to reach the summit – even though there was another 700 feet in altitude for me to climb.

I vividly recall looking up towards the remaining ground with what seemed to be tunnel vision, through my glasses and past the oxygen mask that bridged the top of my nose. The hood of my down suit blinkered my view on either side. It felt as though I was looking through a large pair of binoculars that gave no extra magnification.

Although the feeling of excitement was electric, I had an equally powerful understanding of my own insignificance on this huge mountain. I felt no bigger than a speck of dust.

Not wanting to have my thoughts swamped by the euphoric anticipation of what lay ahead, I calmly focused on the task in hand. Reaching for my regulator, I turned the dial back down to its previous rate: two and a half litres of supplementary oxygen per minute.

Next to the fixing point for the ropes that hung down over the Second Step I saw a single set of fresh footprints in the snow. They led off towards another rock mass about 300 feet away. This is often referred to as the Third Step, but it’s merely a steep scramble when compared with the rock face I had just scaled. A climber from another expedition was hidden from view somewhere on this outcrop. Not higher, as there were no telltale tracks in the steep snowfield that lay above.

As I climbed up through the Third Step, my pace suddenly slowed even though the effort I was making remained constant. This was a sure sign my first bottle had run out. I stopped to make the changeover, and I plead guilty to removing the empty cylinder from my rucksack and wedging it under a rock. The temptation to lose 13 lb from my overweight rucksack was too much to resist.

Once above this section, I shadowed the deep tracks of the unknown climber up the slope. My legs sank to midway up my thighs in the soft snow. Each step required me to lift my knee to chest height, employing both arms and legs in each movement. Progress was slow and required a concerted effort. This short snowfield of less than a hundred yards took half an hour to wade through.

During my last Everest expedition, post-monsoon in 1993, I’d sat at Advanced Base Camp watching two of our team through a pair of high-powered binoculars on the limit of the available magnification. The climbers could be picked out as distant specks of colour moving agonisingly slowly on their upward traverse of this final snowfield, eventually disappearing out of view as they began the last undulating ridge that led towards the summit. Their final tortuous steps, and moment of joyous relief, were hidden from view. The line of sight, rising ever upwards and along the North East Ridge towards the summit of Everest, was approximately three miles from Advanced Base Camp. So remote were these ghostly figures set against the snow-encrusted background that I’d felt as though I was watching climbers on the moon. Now, nearly two years on, the thought that I’d swapped roles was difficult to comprehend.

Ahead of me lay that gently undulating ridge. The summit was still out of sight. Maybe from overconfidence or through having my thoughts distracted by being so close, I stumbled on the ridge. Only with the aid of some quick foot shuffling did I regain my balance. The moment I relaxed, felt safe and had become complacent, fate had tested me out.

As I approached the final stretch of the ridge, the summit came into view. I could pick out the other climber wearing a red down suit crouching at the top. With each step, I appeared to get no nearer. Although in sight, it seemed to take an eternity to reach. It was like a dream when the person being chased can never be caught, each step ponderous, heavy and almost futile. I could see my observer watching my slow progress, no doubt understanding exactly what I was going through, having just suffered the same anguish.

Through my struggle, I could hear the radio conversation ahead. Raising my head, I pulled my mask to one side and gave an exhausted smile. The waiting climber shouted into his radio, ‘It’s Graham.’

Before me sat George Kotov, a Russian from St Petersburg with whom I’d climbed two years earlier while attempting this same route. A slight man with thinning hair and a moustache, he was blessed with the enviable sure-footed agility of a mountain goat. George was on a different team this year.

I’d reached the summit of the world and found a friend sitting there. Life really doesn’t get much better than that.

The time was 8.30 a.m. on 17 May – some six and a half hours after we’d left the top camp. I had had no sense of time or of how long the climb had taken me. My only reference points were a glance at my watch when I reached the summit and the earlier appearance of daylight.

It was with great relief that I took off my rucksack and oxygen mask. I sat in the snow next to George. He was on the radio to Jon Tinker, another acquaintance from that same climb two years ago. George handed me the radio, and I heard Jon’s voice crackle through the silence: ‘Congratulations, Graham. Now get down safely.’

His words brought home a reality. Getting to the top was less than half the job. Going back down did not have the overwhelming draw of the summit. In simple terms, this was an easy time to make a mistake – especially for those who’d overstretched themselves in reaching the summit without giving thought to their descent. If exhaustion started to set in, oxygen supplies could easily run out if a close eye was not kept on the time.

George and I sat savouring the moment. Much to my surprise, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one up. He revelled at the look of horror on my face. With a wry smile, he explained that on every summit he enjoyed a cigarette. Everest was going to be no exception.

I pulled a thin cotton banner from my pocket. Printed on it were the words ‘Muscular Dystrophy Group’ and a stylised logo of one person comforting another. Holding it taut, I asked George if he would take my picture.

My cousin, Dr John Muse, a specialist in laser technology, had died from this hereditary muscle disease six years earlier at the age of thirty-four. We had been the same age. At the time, a charitable organisation called the Muscular Dystrophy Group had given tremendous support to his parents in coping with the loss of their only child. This was our way of acknowledging their kindness.

It also transpired that George and I had each climbed with a lucky mascot. Both were in the form of a soft toy about 12 inches tall that we’d placed in our rucksacks. George’s was a small teddy bear that belonged to his daughter. Mine was modelled on Barnaby, the canine cartoon character. I’d bought him from the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) as a way of contributing to their funds. With refreshing humour, George and I took each other’s photograph. I would later send a copy of the picture of Barnaby and myself to the PDSA, to show what adventures he’d been on. They were astounded.

After 20 minutes, George packed up his equipment and headed down. I stood up and slowly turned full circle to take in my surroundings. The view of the Himalaya reflecting the morning sunlight was breathtaking. Jagged snow-capped summits rose for two vertical miles above the valley floors. The clear, windless sky bathed everything in an ethereal blue light. Chilled early-morning clouds, lying as a thick blanket many thousands of feet below, gave the impression that they bore these mountains upwards.

With my feet still firmly on the ground, I was, out of the whole of humanity, the highest on the planet. For a brief few minutes of my life, this is exactly how it felt. The warmth of the natural world lay far below me. From where I stood, the Earth’s curvature was visible. The horizon was nearly 200 miles away. The snow-laden summits of the Himalayan Range that separated the Indo-Gangetic Plain from the Tibetan Plateau stretched as far as the eye could see, both east and west. My mind struggled to grasp the enormous scale of my observations.