Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day (26 page)

29
Chogori
Correspondence with Sacherer.
Chogo
means “great” and
ri
means “peak” in both Balti and Tibetan. Sacherer proposed another interpretation of
chogo
. In Tibetan,
cho
means “god” and
go
means “door.” Balti is a form of archaic Tibetan once written in Tibetan script. Persian script was imposed during the Islamic conversion of Baltistan in the sixteenth century.

31
averaged 0.7 for the previous decade
The Himalayan Database calculates the rate based on all those who attempt the peak, not just those who succeed. Although it is common practice, calculating the death rate based on the number of summiters is misleading: “This is sort of like calculating auto death rates by using only the number of drivers and ignoring all the passengers,” explains Richard Salisbury of the Himalayan Database. “Death Analysis” in
The Himalaya by the Numbers
.

33
“most bizarre tragedy”
See Galen Rowell,
In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods
(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977). See also Jennifer Jordan,
The Last Man on the Mountain
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

33
heard a rustle
According to
lamas
who interpret this incident from a Buddhist perspective. Wiessner did not report seeing or hearing a goddess.

33
“No, sahib”
This is what Wiessner heard Pasang say. Correspondence with David Roberts, who got the quote from his interview with Fritz Wiessner in 1984. The quote also appears in Roberts’s
Moments of Doubt and Other Mountaineering Writings
(Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1986).

34
sunbathed nude
Wiessner was sunbathing in the threshold of his tent. It’s likely he became sunburned, which would have severely sapped his strength, making the climb the next day all the more grueling. See Jordan,
The Last Man on the Mountain
, pp. 190–91.

34
“fear of the evil spirits”
Fritz Wiessner, “The K2 Expedition of 1939,”
Appalachia
(June 1956).

34
They turned around
Wiessner left his sleeping bag in camp, intending to use one he thought had been left for him lower down the mountain.

34
“a funny little noise”
Fritz Wiessner, interview with David Roberts, 1984.

34
“dug in”
Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

34
“how stupid”
Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

35
“sabotaged”
Ed Webster, “A Man for All Mountains: The Life and Climbs of Fritz Wiessner,”
Climbing
(December 1988), quoting Wiessner interview.

35
three rescuers
The fourth member of the rescue team, Tensing Norbu, stayed behind in a lower camp. When the rest of the team never returned, he went down to Base Camp and told others what had happened.

35
nearly full moon
Wiessner interview with Roberts, 1984.

35
lunar charts
“Planet Notes for July and August, 1939,”
Popular Astronomy
47 (July 1939), pp. 314–15. (Data courtesy of Maria Mitchell Observatory, Harvard; provided online by NASA Astrophysics Data System.)

35
bigger problem than a turquoise dragon
Headlamps were invented in 1972 by Petzl. The handheld bulbs that Wiessner and Pasang would have used to light their high camps were too dim for effective night climbing.

37
“This is it!”
See Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver,
Fallen Giants
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 313.

38
“wiggled himself loose”
Charles Houston interview with Bill Moyers, 2004.

39
fifty years of polemic
See Lino Lacedelli and Giovanni Cenacchi.
K2: Il prezzo della conquista
(Milan: Mondadori, 2004).

39
Amir Mehdi
He is also sometimes referred to as Amir Mahdi or Mehdi Khan.

39
join their summit bid
This is the account Amir Mehdi gave his family when he returned to Hassanabad, Hunza. Interview by the authors, 2009, in Hassanabad, Hunza, with Mehdi’s son, Sultan Ali, and grandsons Liaquat Ali and Zulfiqar Ali, and the recollections of Mehdi’s friend and fellow porter on Nanga Parbat in 1953, Haji Baig, in Gilgit (interview with Zuckerman, 2009). Bonatti acknowledged that he offered Mehdi a shot at the summit but says this was a trick to motivate him to carry the oxygen bottles.

39
“
yelling crazily”
Bonatti interview with David Roberts, 2003. Bonatti declined the authors’ request for an interview. “I’m 80 years old,” he replied, “and tired of talking about the bivouac!” He died in 2011.

39
two sizes too small
The Italians had provided army boots for their high-altitude porters, but Mehdi’s feet were too big for any of them. The Italians wanted to stretch and cut the boots to fit, but Mehdi objected, fearing this would slash their resale value.

39
sipping chamomile
Compagnoni said that he wanted to pitch the tent out of the fall-line of the seracs. Although this sounds plausible, he chose an inconvenient location that was exposed to rockfall.

40
oxygen allegedly ran out
See Robert Marshall,
K2: Lies and Treachery
(Herefordshire, UK: Carreg Ltd., 2009). The summit photo shows that the oxygen systems had been carried to the summit. If the bottles had been empty, they would have been discarded as unnecessary weight. The frost on Lacedelli’s beard corresponds to the shape of an oxygen mask.

40
“Like an elephant”
Erich Abram interview with Paolo Padoan, November 2009.

41
a single summer
See Jim Curran,
K2: Triumph and Tragedy
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989). For a survivor’s account, see Kurt Diemberger,
The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny
(Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1991).

41
“Conquistadors of the Useless”
Lionel Terray used this term for his autobiography,
Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna
(Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 2008, reprint).

42
“more resort than wilderness”
See Ed Douglas, “Mount Everest: a not so novel feat,”
The Guardian
, May 19, 2010.

43
forty summit-hungry climbers
Estimates of the number of summiters who passed Sharp vary.

45
“treat me like a sherpa”
Chhiring is using the term
sherpa
(with a lowercase
S
) to mean any high-altitude mountain worker.

3: THE PRINCE AND THE PORTER

The description of the massacre is from the official reports issued by the government of Nepal during the summer of 2001. The initial June 14 report, by a two-member panel of Supreme Court Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya and House Speaker Taranth Ranabha, compiles the testimony of crime-scene investigators and all surviving witnesses. We supplemented our account with a visit to the palace and the massacre memorial site, photos of the crime scene, discussions with Kunda Dixit of the
Nepali Times
, and interviews with Dr. Raghunath Aryal, the royal astrologer who knew many of the victims and was familiar with the locations. We also corroborated these accounts with the BBC Panorama documentary about the massacre,
Murder Most Royal
, and Jonathan Gregson’s book,
Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal
(Talk Miramax, 2002). The quotes are what witnesses heard, and Ketaki Chester’s interviews with Kunda Dixit and the BBC were a major source for these quotes. The descriptions of Pasang’s childhood are based on interviews with him during Zuckerman’s trek to Hungung and the Upper Arun Valley in 2009, and from interviews with his friends, family, and neighbors. The interactions with Ms. Go are based on Pasang’s recollections. The description of the Hotel de l’Annapurna is from the authors’ observations of the hotel and Pasang’s recollection. The authors interviewed Pasang, Ngawang Bhote, and Tsering Bhote about this meeting at the hotel.

48
bloodbath
See Jonathan Gregson,
Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal
(Talk Miramax, 2002). See also
Murder Most Royal
, a BBC Panorama documentary (2002).

49
probably opium
According to official investigation reports, Dippy was smoking “a special kind of cigarette prepared with a mixture of hashish and another unnamed black substance.” The description and effects match those for “black hash,” an opium-and-hashish mixture that the prince liked to smoke. No one tested the exact composition of the joint.

49
lower social standing
Not by much. Devyani’s mother is a member of the royal family of Gwalior state in India. Queen Aishwarya nevertheless considered the maharajahs of Gwalior to be beneath the royalty of Nepal.

49
stripped of royal status
Despite the laws of succession set forth in the constitution, Queen Aishwarya could have “excommunicated” Crown Prince Dipendra just as his uncle, Prince Dhirendra, once had been.

49
high cholesterol
King Birendra’s last conversation with his wife, Queen Aishwarya, concerned his family’s predisposition to high cholesterol.

50
an aunt
Princess Ketaki Chester interview with the BBC in 2002. Information from the official report is supplemented by Ketaki Chester’s June 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit of the
Nepali Times
.

50
last words
“
Ke gareko?
” in Nepali. This is according to official reports and subsequent interviews with witnesses, including Ketaki Chester’s 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit.

50
Two relatives
Gorakh Rana, the husband of Dipendra’s sister, Princess Shruti, and Dr. Rajiv Raj Shahi, the king’s nephew, sprang forward to help.

50
“That’s enough”
“
Pugyo Babu
” in Nepali.
Babu
is a term of endearment for younger brothers, sons, and grandsons in Nepal.

50
from the landing
This comes from Ketaki Chester’s interview with Kunda Dixit, 2011. It is also possible that Dipendra shot his brother from a position in the garden beside the stairs, according to the official investigation report.

51
surrendered
From Ketaki Chester’s 2011 interview with Kunda Dixit.

51
shot her in the face
Queen Aishwarya’s face was so mutilated that a porcelain mask, painted to resemble her, was used during her funeral.

51
released a statement
The statement may have been mistranslated or misreported at the time. See Gregson,
Massacre at the Palace
, p. 214.

51
clumsy cover-up
See Ketaki Chester’s interview with Kunda Dixit. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala consulted with Queen Mother Ratna, who asked that he provide full disclosure to the public. Her instructions were not followed, and the ensuing media blackout allowed conspiracy theories to flourish.

52
“how do you tell your boss”
Dr. Raghunath Aryal interview with Padoan in Kathmandu, 2009.

53
“grave human rights crisis”
See
Report of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights,
U.N. GAOR, 60th Sess., UN Doc. A/60/359 (2005), available at www.nepal.ohchr.org. See also
Nepal: Heads of Three Human Rights Organizations Call for Targeted Sanctions
, The International Commission of Jurists (April 18, 2006).

53
forced to flee
The estimated number of refugees varies from 100,000 to 150,000, according to UNHCR, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

55
sneak in
Interviews in Hungung were conducted by Zuckerman in 2009. As a journalist, he was not permitted in the region, so he snuck in.

56
250 people
This estimate is based on Zuckerman’s observation during the height of the tourist season in 2009. Others have given different estimates, ranging from fifty to several hundred. The discrepancies may be a result of migration during the tourist season as well as the various meanings of
Hungung
, which, depending on context, can refer to an individual village, a collection of villages, or a region of the Upper Arun Valley.

58
“wasn’t safe to stay”
This is based on interviews with Pasang’s parents in Kathmandu and his relatives and friends in Hungung. The village is now peaceful.

61
publicity stunt
Most pundits were other climbers, interviewed by the authors in Kathmandu. Ms. Go was not overtly criticized in mainstream climbing blogs, such as
ExplorersWeb
and
Everest News
. Pasang had a vague understanding of the controversy surrounding Go, based on his online research and conversations with others, but it’s unlikely he knew the level of detail as described here.