A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (8 page)

I explained, ‘I think you might have put the negatives the wrong way up in your machine.’

A rather embarrassed owner asked if I could come back in a couple of hours, by which time he would have rectified the problem.

My next task was to call Alastair Leithead, primarily to let him know I’d summited. I also had to inform him that some photographs were being sent by courier that afternoon. Catherine and my family had been sworn to secrecy; he had not yet been told. We wanted the news to come out properly, once everything was ready, in order to promote the Muscular Dystrophy Group we were supporting. I telephoned him from the reception desk of the Gauri Shankar.

‘Hi, Alastair, it’s Graham. I’m back in Kathmandu,’ was my opening remark.

‘How did you get on?’ he asked.

‘I topped out,’ I replied.

‘What, you’ve dropped out?’ was his muffled query.

I realised I needed to choose my words more carefully on this far from perfect phone line. ‘No, I topped out. I reached the summit at 8.30 a.m. on 17 May. I’m sending a few summit shots by courier this afternoon. You should hold the story until you get them.’

A few pleasantries and Alastair was gone.

I now learnt a valuable lesson about journalists. Asking them to hold back a story until they got the corresponding photographs when they already had enough information to go to print was a waste of time, especially if they thought that another publication might beat them to the story.

Alastair wrote the article probably as soon as I’d put the phone down. However, he did us proud. The story occupied the full front cover of our regional broadsheet newspaper; inset was a picture of Everest, but not mine. We’d even reached the heady heights of the newspaper billboards. More importantly he’d not forgotten to make a sizeable reference to the Muscular Dystrophy Group.

It turned out, in the intervening time, that Catherine’s week had been almost as eventful as mine.

After my satellite telephone call, she’d been granted time off work, not by requesting it but by informing her employer that, unbeknown to her, I’d booked flights for her to join me in Nepal. Consequently she was forced into taking unpaid leave, a supposed reluctant traveller.

Her next stop had been the local travel agent. However, during my phone call from the Tibetan Plateau to north-east England she’d misheard my instructions. She told the lady sitting behind the desk that she wished to book flights to Nepal on Demon Airlines rather than Biman Airlines as I’d indicated. I can picture the look of bewilderment that must have appeared on the travel agent’s face. With a great deal of laughter, the confusion was overcome.

Catherine had arrived at Heathrow Airport at the allotted time only to be told there would be a short unscheduled detour via Paris. It would just cause a slight delay. What had surprised Catherine was how few people actually boarded the plane at Heathrow: barely 50 or so. She assumed the flight to Paris was to pick up more travellers for the onward journey.

As they sat on the tarmac at Charles de Gaulle Airport, she could hear the cargo hold being loaded. However, what perplexed her was that only two or three extra people joined the aircraft. The pilot’s voice came across the public-address system requesting all passengers move to the seats in the rear of the plane. He explained that Biman’s other aircraft, which flew out of Heathrow, was stranded in Bangladesh. They had been instructed to fly out a spare engine. This had now been loaded. Having all the passengers seated at the rear of the aircraft would assist greatly with take off.

Catherine arrived at Kathmandu airport on time. We met with a huge embrace. A sometimes-fiery redhead, 5 ft ¼ in. tall – she was proud of the extra quarter inch – she was a foot shorter in height than me. We’d been married for more than eighteen years and had two teenage daughters, Angela and Amy, aged seventeen and fourteen respectively. Apart from running the family home, professionally Catherine cared for the elderly: demanding work that she found rewarding. She often regaled the family with stories of incredible journeys that some of these older men and women had undertaken in their youth. The adventures of our generation paled in comparison.

We both relished the outdoor life and often went walking in the hills together at home. For Catherine, the higher mountains held no attraction. The effort to reach these lofty summits seemed to require all too much energy and misery for her liking. She was quite happy for me to undergo that by myself.

For more than two months, since we’d last seen each other, we’d led completely different lives – each responsible for everything that happened within them. Although excited about seeing each other, we were aware that there would be a period of adjustment. Each would have to relinquish some of the recently acquired responsibilities. Nearly every person who goes away on long expeditions finds it difficult to settle back into normal everyday life. This takes quite some time and the process can often remain incomplete. Simmering away in the background is usually the urge to seek further adventure.

As our taxi drove through the dusty streets, Catherine couldn’t stop laughing. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she recounted the epic saga from our satellite phone call to her eventual arrival in Kathmandu. Her smile was what I had missed.

Catherine and I left Kathmandu and flew down to the Terai, the lowland area of southern Nepal where the Royal Chitwan National Park is located. For five days, we swapped the dust and fumes of the capital for the unbearable humidity of the period leading up to the monsoon.

By the time we returned, most climbers were back from Everest. The party atmosphere was accentuated by the mounds of expedition equipment that now occupied every square inch of available space in the Gauri Shankar.

We received a rapturous welcome from Lizzy, but her mood contrasted with that of her father, Tom Whittaker. He had come back bitterly disappointed. Russell Brice, who’d been climbing with him, had turned him around on their summit attempt. Although they’d reached the Second Step, at over 28,000 feet Russell had decided if they didn’t turn around there might not be enough time to make a safe descent before nightfall. Tom had initially been against retreating. Only after Russell stood his ground in the ensuing argument did Tom concede. Such difficult decisions always leave ‘what ifs’ hanging in the air. In the final analysis, the right choice in these situations has to be the safe one. For those with determination, the mountain will be there another year.

Now, several days later, Tom was back in Kathmandu. The disappointment hadn’t subsided. His talk was of organising his own expedition from Nepal to attempt the South East Ridge in a year or two. He’d started to make enquiries.

Anatoli and Nikolai had also returned. As Anatoli was working for Henry, he had needed to wait until the last of our team’s summit attempts had taken place. Only then could he leave Tibet.

Both Russians had checked into the Gauri Shankar. Anatoli subsequently moved to a different hotel after one night. Not because he wanted to be away from us but because the alternative was less than half the price. Ours was $10 per night and his new accommodation $4. Even though Anatoli had earned good money from the last two months’ work, he’d no indication of the next employment he would find. His Soviet background had taught him that the US dollar was a valuable asset that was hard to come by. He was not about to spend the money he’d earned on something that cost more than twice as much but ultimately provided the same facility: a bed.

The recent break-up of the USSR worried Anatoli. The rush in certain quarters to earn personal wealth without any regard for others was of particular concern. He openly said he preferred the order that had been abandoned, where at least the elderly had been looked after rather than being cast aside by others’ greed. It was not that he had objections to a free-market economy – one that he’d recently entered into. Rather, he disliked the avarice and criminality the former Soviet Union was now witnessing, with the accompanying rise in Mafia-style businesses.

Anatoli had been honoured as one of the USSR’s Masters of Sport, for which he’d been presented with a bright-red cloak bearing the insignia of the hammer and sickle with star above. He’d brought this garment with him on our expedition, one that might shelter him from the icy Tibetan wind. Inner strength, humility and principles were an important part of who he was.

Catherine and I joined Anatoli and Nikolai each morning for breakfast in a restaurant only five minutes’ walk from our respective hotels. This new venue had a garden area overlooked by a balustraded veranda that caught the warmth of the morning sun. Here, over a leisurely meal, taking an hour or more, we’d sit and discuss all manner of topics. Every now and again Anatoli halted the conversation to explain, in Russian, to Nikolai those parts he’d been unable to follow.

Anatoli spoke with passion about his home city of Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. He asked if we might come to visit him there, with a view to going climbing. He was aware that I had visited his country before. As is often the case, having recently finished one expedition we were immediately starting to plan the next adventure. Such is the addictive nature of the sport.

One morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Catherine and I returned to find a light-blue VW Beetle parked near the hotel entrance. Sitting in the reception area talking to Henry was American expatriate Elizabeth Hawley.

Liz had arrived in Nepal in September 1960 at the age of 36, as a reporter for
Time
. Initially here to send back political dispatches from the Kingdom, she had never left, once describing herself as ‘a refugee from the Manhattan rat race’. Realising the potential of Himalayan climbing, which was in a golden era, Liz began reporting for Reuters. It wasn’t long before she became recognised as the unofficial chronicler of Himalayan expeditions. Although she has never climbed a single mountain herself, Liz has meticulously recorded the details of every expedition ever since. She rapidly earned a reputation for rigorous interviewing, mercilessly weeding out those who made false claims. Standing about 5 ft tall, wearing dark-rimmed glasses and with permed hair, she was a lady who could make mountaineers more than twice her size and less than half her age squirm uncomfortably if they weren’t telling the truth. For those who were, Elizabeth Hawley was an absolute delight.

‘Graham, could you join us for a moment?’ asked Henry.

Sitting down beside them, I was introduced to Elizabeth Hawley for the first time. I’d not met her when I’d been here in 1993.

Henry had been discussing with Liz the climbers from his team that had summited from the north side that spring. They’d been about to start on the day Anatoli, Nikolai and I had made our attempt when I’d walked through the door.

‘On 17 May, Graham, Anatoli and Nikolai reached the top,’ Henry continued.

Liz at this point was writing the details down. Well aware of Anatoli’s reputation as a strong and fast climber, she replied, ‘Anatoli got there first. Who was second?’

‘Graham got to the top first, Anatoli was second, then Nikolai,’ was Henry’s correction.

Liz lifted her head slightly and looked over the top of her glasses at Henry. Then she turned and focused on me for my reaction.

‘I got to the summit about an hour before Anatoli’ – her stare had required a response.

Feeling almost embarrassed about this fact, I blurted out what felt like an excuse, ‘I was using oxygen, Anatoli was not.’

Liz continued to look at me for a moment, made a slight noise that indicated her surprise and then continued to make her notes.

‘Graham was first, then Anatoli, followed by Nikolai,’ she repeated back.

Once Liz had collected the remaining information she needed with regard to the other ascents from our team, she stood up and thanked us for our time.

This was the busiest period for her as teams began to arrive back in Kathmandu. Her difficulty was she had to catch them all before they departed the country; otherwise, her undertaking became far more problematic.

Within a matter of days, the time came for Catherine and me to fly home. Leaving the Gauri Shankar at 5.30 a.m., we were driven in the hotel minibus along deserted streets. Numerous dogs slept by the roadside. Cows grazed on piles of rubbish that steamed in the cool morning air. It was a stark contrast to the daytime chaos.

Once through airport security and check-in, we made our way via passport control to the departure lounge. It was while seated here that we heard a scream of delight from across the expanse of the seating area. Lizzy had spotted us. About 30 feet behind her was Tom. On witnessing her joy, his face mellowed with a smile. From that moment on, we became good friends. He was starting to recover from his recent disappointment. Tom would go on to organise his own expedition in 1998, achieving his goal, to great international acclaim, of making the first disabled ascent of Everest.

Of the other climbers on our expedition in 1995, there was a notable ascent by Crag Jones and Michael Jörgensen. On reaching the summit, they made the first Welsh and Danish ascents of Everest respectively. What made their achievement all the more remarkable was that they had done this after being pinned down by very strong winds for three days at the top camp, 27,200 feet. The two Brazilians, Mozart Catao and Waldemar Niclevicz, also summited, as did Polish climber Ryszard Pawlowski.

Eight out of our eleven-strong team reached the summit and there were no injuries. Prior to 1995, little more than 50 climbers had reached the summit of Everest via the North Ridge route in its entire history. This made our expedition one of the most successful to date.

I flew out of Nepal with Catherine in 1995 delighted and very grateful for both my success and safe return. My mind was focused on scuba diving, a beach and a cold beer. I’d finished my Everest adventure (or so I thought) – one that would stay with me for the rest of my life.