A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (7 page)

In the dining room, my hosts had already gathered. Long tables had been formally laid out on three sides. Drinks were being served at a nearby bar. I gazed admiringly at the high ceilings, with their ornate cornices. These, along with the dark panelling and generous dimensions of the room, gave clues to its regal past.

Soup and main course came and went as the evening progressed. The whole place buzzed with conversations of our recent endeavours. The drinks that flowed further cemented the sense of camaraderie.

One by one my American friends stood up to give a short speech. Each thanked their colleagues for their hard-fought success, commending the virtues that individuals had brought to the team. The audience revelled in descriptions of all the planning and struggles they’d gone through to bring their expedition from an idea into reality. During these orations, there was much laughter but many ended in the speaker becoming emotional. This whole experience had, understandably, become a huge personal achievement in their lives. They were not embarrassed to shed a few tears in front of the friends with whom they’d endured so much.

One gentleman gave a heartfelt speech about a team member who’d been tragically killed only a matter of months before their departure from the US. He described how out of respect for their friend they’d brought some of his ashes, which they’d carried to the summit of Everest. Once the speaker reached this point, most of his audience were either standing next to him consoling his open grief or were crying themselves.

When the tears were in full flow, one of my American friends sitting next to me said, ‘Go on, Graham, stand up and do a “John Cleese”.’

If I could have carried this off without causing offence, I would have loved to oblige. The moment passed.

The grief subsided and laughter once again returned to the celebrations. I know it’s not seen as ‘British’ to display feelings so openly, but I couldn’t help but admire their genuine concern for one another while retaining their sense of humour. Paul and the rest of his team showed me genuine friendship. I felt privileged to share in their private celebration.

It was at breakfast the next day in the Gauri Shankar that I met Alison again. Sitting with her were Cindy Whittaker and Cindy’s four-year-old daughter Lizzy, a wonderfully gregarious little blonde girl who had a sparkling personality and intelligence to match. She was the sort of child who decided almost instantly whether she liked you or not. We got on like a house on fire.

Cindy had been in Nepal for several weeks. She was waiting for her husband Tom, who was attempting the North Ridge of Everest with Russell Brice’s expedition.

As I eagerly awaited Catherine’s arrival in the next few days, the company of Alison, Cindy and Lizzy came as a refreshing change from the all-male expedition with which I’d spent the last two months. Each morning we met up for breakfast, although we soon discovered that Lizzy was not content with merely having this at the same table. Much to the amusement of the hotel staff, Alison and Cindy, she was insistent on sitting next to me.

Socialising gathered pace as more climbers began to arrive back in Kathmandu from their respective expeditions. Apart from two Brazilians, Waldemar Niclevicz and Mozart Catao, I was the only one from our team to have returned. Aware of this, Alison invited me to join her and a few friends for an evening meal at Rum Doodles, an establishment that was a favoured gathering spot for climbers. We made arrangements to meet in the lobby of the Gauri Shankar that evening.

In the meantime, I had things to do. A regional broadsheet newspaper back in the UK, the
Newcastle Evening Chronicle
, had covered my place on the expedition. The reporter assigned to the story was Alastair Leithead. In future years, he would become a reporter for the regional BBC, then a fully fledged BBC foreign correspondent. In time, he’d cover world news such as the destructive floods in New Orleans, Robert Mugabe’s exploits in Zimbabwe, the war in Iraq, and report live while accompanying British troops in Afghanistan’s dangerous Helmand Province. Early in 2009, Alastair would take on the position as the BBC’s correspondent for South-East Asia.

With Catherine due soon, I was planning to stay in Nepal for the next two weeks. Alastair would want to go to print well before my return home. He would need photographs. To overcome this last problem, I decided to have my summit photographs developed in Kathmandu, copies of which I’d have couriered back to him.

I nervously entrusted the films to the most respectable-looking establishment I could find. These were the only shots I had. If lost or damaged, they couldn’t be replaced. I pleaded with the shop owner to take extra care, exaggerating their importance. I was assured they would be perfectly safe and ready for collection the next day.

At the appointed time of 7.30 p.m., I was standing with a small group in the hotel lobby. Alison came skipping down the stairs. Wearing a white-buttoned top and flouncy white skirt, she looked as though she was dressed suitably for a birthday party: probably a rebellion from the unfashionable climbing equipment that she’d worn over the last two months. This was an opportunity for her to dress up and display her femininity. She looked happy and relaxed.

Rum Doodles, a short walk from the hotel, was where 15 of us gathered. Once the barman realised we were recently back from Everest, all summiteers were requested to sign one of the large boards displayed behind the bar. They bore the names of legends; those of Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner were easily spotted. Hundreds of signatures of climbers both alive and deceased adorned this Everest archive. Half the fun was to try to pick out who else had stood in the same place over decades of climbing. Alison, given the magnitude of her recent ascent, was asked to go first: a signing that was accompanied by rapturous applause.

I sat next to Alison during the meal. Our conversation covered many topics but quite naturally moved to her planned climb of K2 in Pakistan, where she would be heading in a few weeks’ time. She informed me that she was going back to the UK for 12 days before flying out to Karachi. Curious as to why she was not flying directly from Nepal, I asked her why she was returning home first. Alison looked at me, not quite sure what to say. Her eyes filled with tears. With great decorum she got up and quietly left the table. She did not want me to see her upset.

While she was away, someone nearby explained to me that Alison was trying to find a way to leave her husband. He was at home looking after their two children. She was going back to the UK principally to move out of the family’s temporary accommodation. Alison had found herself and the children a new home; matters were complicated.

Her tears brought with them a stark reminder that those on expeditions to these remote locations had private lives that had been momentarily interrupted. Alas, such personal matters as Alison now faced had only been delayed from their inevitable conclusion. The escape from them had at best been temporary.

I felt terrible for causing her distress, but I’d had no idea of the circumstances. When Alison returned a short while later, we resumed our conversation but on a different subject. The redness of her eyes soon disappeared into laughter as the evening wore on.

The next morning, I met Alison in the hotel lobby. Her climbing equipment was piled up in the reception area in readiness for her departure. She looked uneasy. Whether it was her trip back to the UK or the onward journey to K2 that was the cause, I couldn’t tell. Saying my farewell to Alison, I wished her luck on K2 and told her to keep herself safe.

Alison was to reach the summit of K2 on 13 August 1995 and die the same day. It was three months exactly from her ascent of Everest on 13 May. She was blown off the mountain by hurricane-force winds while making her descent. This I would hear of over the radio as my family and I were driving home from a visit to the south of England. I remember being shocked into disbelief by this tragic news.

I would, in time, discover the sequence of events that had led to her death. She had joined an American expedition, led by Rob Slater, for her attempt on K2. After several weeks of bad weather, which had thwarted them getting to the top of the mountain, half the team packed up and went home. Alison too was coming to the same conclusion and had arranged porters for her imminent departure. She had gathered up her equipment in readiness to leave. However, some 15 minutes before she was due to depart she changed her mind. There seemed to be a glimmer of hope that the weather might be improving. Teaming up with two New Zealand and two Canadian climbers, Alison and Rob Slater decided to give it one last-ditch attempt. Amongst the group was Peter Hillary, son of the late Sir Edmund Hillary.

On 13 August, they left the top camp for the 12-hour climb to the summit. It was mid morning that they approached a steep chute known as the Bottleneck: considered to be something of a point of no return, it involves an exposed ice traverse. Here they met a team of Spanish climbers who were also heading up. According to Peter Hillary, in an article entitled ‘The Last Ascent of Alison Hargreaves’ by Greg Child for
Outside
magazine, it was at this juncture that the weather, which had been reasonable for the past four days, started to change: ‘Big altostratus clouds were moving in, and a strong wind was blowing snow. I saw everyone crossing the traverse. Then they disappeared in clouds.’

Concerned that a storm was approaching, Hillary and another climber Kim Logan turned back. Both survived unscathed. Alison and the other climbers continued up.

Her ascent of K2 was part of a well-publicised project to climb the world’s three highest mountains, Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga, all without the use of supplementary oxygen. Alison had started to make her living as a climber. Such an achievement would catapult her into the higher echelons of the sport and secure her position as the world’s best female mountaineer; it would give her the recognition from the wider climbing community that she felt had been a long time coming. This in turn would bring her valuable sponsorship and hopefully a degree of financial security that might help resolve more personal issues.

The problem was that mixed up with this was her marriage to a man who was emotionally and physically abusive. She appeared to struggle with his stronger personality; he sought to control her career. Alison seemed to lack self-esteem and kept talking to others about trying to break free from the bondage of this unhappy union; although closer, she was yet to take that last determined step. The problem deepened as she tried to work out how she could bring up her two children and continue with a climbing career without her husband. In climbing, she found the control she did not have in her personal life. She was under both professional and emotional pressure.

On K2, Alison was losing that control. In desperation, she was letting outside worries influence her crucial decisions. The correct choice would have been to turn back, but this brought other pressures. She must have known from her experience she was taking an incredible risk; in light of K2’s savage reputation, no significant deterioration in the weather could be ignored. But Alison was trying to climb free of the personal problems she faced.

As the sun began to set on 13 August 1995, Alison reached the summit of K2 at 6.45 p.m. The conditions at the top were reported to be good during the radio calls that were made. Within an hour, winds well in excess of 100 mph struck the upper reaches of the mountain. The descending climbers did not stand a chance. Six people, including Alison, died on K2 that night. A seventh, Canadian Jeff Lakes, was to die of exhaustion the following night after an epic descent. He had turned around before the top. It would be described as the worst season in K2’s history.

Several miles away, on the neighbouring 26,000-ft Broad Peak, Seattle-based climber Scott Fischer had watched the events unfold. In an article that appeared in
Outside Online
, he said: ‘When we were coming off of Broad Peak, the winds were brutal, and the difference between Broad Peak and K2 is about 3,000 feet. That was the difference between life and death.’

Although K2 is actually only 1,837 feet higher than Broad Peak, the figure Scott gave is the exact differential that separates the summit of Everest and the South Col on the southern route of the world’s highest mountain. His words would hold significance for the following year.

Ultimately, the dangers of climbing are controlled very much by the vagaries of the sport: the overwhelming consequences of nature extracting the ultimate price from an unwary participant caught out in the open. Even for those acting with circumspection, there are no guarantees of safety. There is a fine line separating what we perceive as failure and success, between which life and death is sometimes decided. Failure to reach one’s goal does not lead to death, or the success in doing so to life; the two are often reversed by the unwise forging ahead.

The last sight I had of Alison was of her waving from the hotel minibus as she departed for Kathmandu airport that morning. Her smile was full of hope.

Catherine was scheduled to arrive at 5 p.m. the following afternoon. I hadn’t seen her for over two months. I wanted to get as much of my work out of the way as I could before she landed; my summit photographs were top of the list.

On my arrival at his shop, the proprietor presented the package to me with due reverence to indicate the care with which he’d handled my precious images. With great anticipation, I opened the small folder. The pictures had good definition and colour but were not quite what I’d expected. Yet I couldn’t actually say why. The gentleman looked at me to observe my satisfaction but soon picked up that I wasn’t, for some reason, showing the appropriate positive and grateful response. Much to his dismay, I informed him there was something wrong with his work. Affronted by this slur, he quickly defended his position, telling me he’d done exactly as instructed. At that moment, while holding one of my summit photographs, I glanced up at the wall behind him. Like many shops in the tourist area of Kathmandu, he sold panoramic posters with views from the summit of Everest. I held up my photograph so I could observe it and the poster at the same time. A smile of understanding spread across my face. I asked the shopkeeper if he could explain to me why, according to his poster, Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world was to the right of Everest, while in my photograph, taken from the same position, it appeared on the left. There was a perplexed silence from the gentleman.