A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (50 page)

As far as I am aware, Jon has made no attempt to contact any of us to determine whether we were some of those whom Anatoli had managed to locate, and, if so, why we had not helped.

I contacted Jon’s publisher and asked for his contact details. They responded saying they were unable to give these out but that if I forwarded a letter to them they would ensure that he received it.

I wrote to Jon Krakauer to ask why he’d gone public before at least asking us what had happened from our perspective. In writing to Jon I afforded him the courtesy that I considered he’d not shown our team members: the right of reply.

I sent the letter via registered post. I still have the postage slip. I received no reply.

As we were realistically the only team who could have put together a coordinated rescue on the night of 10 May, and when Krakauer’s further research revealed each of our names, would it not have been wise to contact us to find out what happened from our point of view and give us an opportunity to set the record straight?

Although we are not named during this episode in the original edition of Jon’s book, his further research for the 1998/9 version revealed details of who was where as the disaster unfolded. Yet it appears he was still unable to discover that two weather forecasts were being received at Base Camp each day from the very beginning of May.

There was one particularly important episode I wanted to consider, to see how Jon had described it in his account. It took place on 8 May: the Imax team got up in the morning at Camp 3 and decided to head back down because they didn’t like the look of the weather higher up. By doing so they had to forego their planned summit attempt on 9 May.

Rob and Scott, along with their teams, which included Jon Krakauer, passed the Imax team coming down. The route from Camp 2, once it reaches the bottom of the Lhotse Face, is a single fixed rope. So climbers coming down must pass those going up at very close proximity.

Why does Jon make no reference to this event in his book? This is a highly significant episode given what subsequently happened.
Into Thin Air
covers the entire climb Jon made that day from Camp 2 to Camp 3 in four sentences, on page 156. The details of this event were brought to light later by G. Weston DeWalt and Anatoli Boukreev in
The Climb
, and after this in David Breashears’
High Exposure
and later still in Ed Viesturs’
No Shortcuts to the Top
.

Rob Hall’s Sirdar, Ang Tshering, whom I’d met by chance in Iswari’s office in the spring of 2004, had openly told me, ‘Rob and Scott always watching, watching Imax. Imax have the weather!’ If I could find this out eight years after the event, and within five minutes of meeting this gentleman for the first time, why did Krakauer not uncover the same information? After all, Ang Tshering was Rob Hall’s and therefore Jon Krakauer’s Sirdar.

Krakauer wrote: ‘Nova, the PBS television show, produced an elaborate and very informative website featuring daily updates from Liesl Clark and the eminent historian Audrey Salkeld, who were members of the MacGillivray Freeman Imax expedition.’

Now given Krakauer’s determination to get his facts right first time, one might reasonably assume he would have read through Audrey Salkeld’s daily updates from Base Camp as part of his exhaustive research. He does after all refer to the website as ‘very informative’. If this is the case, one wonders which part of the report written by Audrey Salkeld, posted on 5 May that read: ‘David has reported that the forecast is good at least until the 8th. We are getting regular weather reports from Danish Meteorologists via Mal Duff’s camp’ did not strike him as important. It had, after all, said they were getting regular weather reports. If Jon Krakauer had investigated properly, surely he would have found that weather reports came in every day in May, covering the whole period from the 1st right through until well after the tragic events of the 10th? Even his teammate, Frank Fischbeck, was aware Rob was getting forecasts from somewhere.

Jon Krakauer was, however, far from alone in not mentioning the topic of weather forecasting for Everest. MacGillivray Freeman Films, a company that went on to produce the IMAX film
Everest
, which grossed $100 million in the first two years alone, was unable to either confirm the existence of, or tell me who might have provided, weather forecasts to the Imax team during filming,

David Breashears’
High Exposure
(foreword by Jon Krakauer), Broughton Coburn’s (National Geographic)
Everest: Mountain Without
Mercy (afterword by David Breashears), Audrey Salkeld’s (National Geographic)
Climbing Everest
, Jon Krakauer’s
Into Thin Air
, Michael Groom’s
Sheer Will
, Lene Gammelgaard’s
Climbing High
, Ed Viesturs’
No Shortcuts to the Top
– none mention the two, accurate, daily weather forecasts being received prior to 10 May.

The mere mention of weather forecasts being received in Base Camp prior to 10 May dropped off the radar in every single account I have read, although not all authors will necessarily have been aware of these forecasts.

There have been many discussions about turnaround times, and that it was the lack of enforcement of these that had led to the catastrophic outcome. Now, I have to agree, if these had been strictly adhered to it is quite possible no deaths, at least on the south side of the mountain, would have occurred. However, once you are aware of the forecasts, with their increasing wind speeds that within a matter of hours, by 11 May, would reach 80 mph, you begin to realise these two teams were running a lethal gauntlet on the world’s highest mountain. An enforced turnaround time would have been little more than a lucky escape.

At least one person had told me that not much credence was put in the forecasts, although this opinion seemed far from universal considering the answers I had received. It could be argued that this lack of credence was proven by the fact Rob and Scott continued with their summit attempt despite what the forecasts had predicted. But the Imax team coming back down on 8 May and the Danes descending from Camp 3 on the morning of 10 May does not necessarily support this argument; in fact, Henrik went as far as to tell me the forecasts were actually pretty good. This last statement is supported by the Met Office autopsy immediately after the disaster and by the ECMWF archives.

If Rob and Scott gave such little credence to the forecasts, why go to the extent of having their Base Camp managers look at the latest forecasts and radio up this information?

Regardless of which theory one wishes to put forward, it is impossible to have a meaningful debate on the subject unless the full facts are placed into the public domain. The suggestion by some that little credence was given to this detailed weather information does not explain why the existence of the earlier forecasts was not made abundantly clear in any of the accounts, written or otherwise, that followed.

I have no problem with someone making a film or writing a book about such events, and in doing so making a profit. That is not only the way of the world but also how the wider public becomes aware of what happened. However, in doing so, all the important facts necessary to understanding what caused the disaster should, in my view, appear in the account.

On Scott’s team, Anatoli had guided without the use of supplementary oxygen, a decision that, afterwards, would raise serious questions from some mountaineers and professional guides. I’m not for one moment suggesting that the topic is unworthy of debate. However, regardless of opinions one way or the other after the event, one has to look at Scott Fischer’s thoughts on the matter. It was, after all, his right as leader to make the final decision.

I quote from an interview that Scott Fischer gave to
Outside Online
, dated 31 March 1996: ‘Anatoli, I know, will not be using oxygen.’

Yet, despite this unambiguous statement, the criticisms in the months and years that followed the tragedy were largely directed at Anatoli, rather than at Scott Fischer for allowing this to happen. Of those involved in this barrage of judgement, either spoken or in the written word, there were some who either knew or should have known about the existence of the earlier weather forecasts. Their denigration of Anatoli’s character in a language that was secondary to him, his first being Russian, beggars belief when one considers it was such people who weren’t presenting the full facts with regard to the background to the disaster.

I fully understand and accept that there has been an ongoing heated debate as to whether Anatoli had been instructed by Scott to descend ahead of the clients, and this I acknowledge. However, as there is nothing I can constructively add to this discussion it is not one I will enter into.

Anatoli was the one who raised concerns with both Rob and Scott about the weather conditions they encountered on the South Col and their planned summit bid the next day. Unfortunately, little credit appears to have been given to Anatoli in the accounts that followed the tragedy for at least trying to get Rob and Scott to reconsider their plans and to descend and wait for more settled conditions.

The following statement was made by Anatoli, translated from an interview that he gave at Everest Base Camp the following year, in May 1997: ‘And people forget about everything when they speak about money – you can rewrite history as you like.’

Arguably, with the weather being explained away as ‘a rogue storm that blew in without warning’, a disproportionate burden of blame was unfairly placed on Anatoli’s shoulders. It weighed heavy on this very private man. His reputation, the respect he had earned over many years of climbing, was left in tatters.

He set about trying to rebuild his life and regain the reputation that he had once enjoyed. He did this the only way he knew how – by climbing. He hoped he might be able to gradually move away from guiding and earn his living by being sponsored on more interesting climbs. Now more than ever before he needed success; failure would only raise questions about his ability. It was not an option. I recalled his postcard to me dated 22 October 1996:

By his own admission Anatoli was making ascents when his considerable experience told him the conditions were far too dangerous. To raise his profile, he wanted to finish the three outstanding peaks over 26,000 feet he had yet to climb. This he wanted to complete as soon as possible. Annapurna was going to be first, in December of 1997. The following year he hoped to climb Gasherbrum I and finally Nanga Parbat. Such an achievement would further distance him from the tragic events of May 1996. It would place him with the elite of high-altitude climbing; only a handful had achieved this feat.

As with Alison Hargreaves, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, he was under pressure and this was forcing him into decisions against his better judgement. His reasons were different from theirs, but the outcome would be the same.

He came down from his preparatory climbs on Annapurna for a rest. It was a mountain that he knew was precariously laden with snow that winter season. By 18 December 1997, he reported that at lower elevations they had 11 feet of new snow. The need for continued success must have been preying on his mind because he went back up onto a mountain that he knew was far too dangerous to attempt in such conditions. One week later, on Christmas Day of 1997, Anatoli was swept to his death by an avalanche while making his attempt on Annapurna.

Had the full facts behind the 1996 disaster been placed in the public domain would Anatoli have faced such fierce criticism? Would he still be alive today? Was Anatoli Boukreev the final fatality of the 1996 disaster?

It was early spring 2009. Peering out through the window I could see nothing on this moonless night. I switched off the light that hung from the oak-beamed ceiling and opened the front door. A sudden draught of cold air rushed past. Using my fingertips to guide me through the doorway, I stepped outside into the inky black. My feet crunched against the large gravel stones as I ventured blindly further on. I counted out 15 paces and then stopped. The large pond with its resident carp and murky waters lay just ahead. Holding my right hand up in front of my face, I was unable to see any sign of it.

After several minutes passed, my eyes began to adjust to the dark. Spread right across the heavens were distant specks of shimmering light. The still air held a sub-zero temperature. As I turned around, the manor house, my next great adventure, stood as a towering featureless shape set against a sky filled with countless stars. It was reminiscent of a night from my past. The night that Anatoli, Nikolai and I had emerged from our tents at two o’clock in the morning to stare up at the challenge that lay ahead: the upper section of Everest’s North East Ridge. It all seemed so long ago: 14 years to be precise. I had left the mountain that year under the assumption that my Everest journey was complete. I was wrong. So many lives had been needlessly lost in the intervening time.

With the uncovering of the facts behind 10 May 1996 came my first glimmers of comprehension as to what had driven me in my search: an emotional roller coaster of a ride that in an instant could launch me from the depths of depression to euphoric excitement, only to have my hopes dashed once more. I knew I’d had an overwhelming desire to know the truth, but I had not understood the reason why I had needed to embark on what would appear to have become a self-imposed, soul-destroying journey. It was because if I didn’t, I could never release the burden of guilt I carried with me. In truth, I’d borne this from the moment I’d lifted my head to look into the raging storm seconds before I’d clambered into the safety of our tent on the South Col. That was at 6.30 p.m. on 10 May 1996. The image of the two head torches glinting feebly on the far side of the Col through the ferociously wind-driven snow remain as vivid as the moment I saw them. To my eternal regret, I had not comprehended at the time the significance of what I was witnessing.