Dead Lucky (31 page)

Dan told me to stop fiddling with my oxygen bottle because I might waste the oxygen. Andrew and Myles were sitting nearby, talking about the summit and the fact that there was no time to climb it now. They wondered whether I would be well enough to get down the mountain alive.

“I hope so,” said Andrew.

“So do I,” I immediately volunteered.

Myles and Andrew kept saying that they were struggling to stay awake. More in tune with reality than I was, they noticed two figures climbing up toward us, so they picked up their backpacks and walked slowly around the rock pillar and out of my sight. Maybe climbing down was the only way they could stay alert.

“You will have to wait,” said Dan.

“Where have they gone?” I asked him.

I did not catch his answer properly, but I somehow understood that Myles and Andrew were again boarding the boat, which was moored nearby, and would be heading up the fjord. When they got close enough to Mount Everest, they would climb it.

I could not see the boat or the fjord because the rock pillar was blocking my view. In any case, the sun was reflecting so brightly off the snow that I had to keep my eyes more than half-closed.

I sat with Dan and Jangbu for a while. I asked how long it would be before the others returned from their climb.

Dan said, “You won't be seeing them again today.”

“When will we go?” I asked.

“Not too long now,” he replied.

He was right. Two Sherpas appeared. One of them spoke good enough English, but the younger one said nothing at first. What I did understand was that they were not happy because they had carried oxygen for me from eight-three. By eight-three they meant 8,300 meters, or 27,000 feet. They were speaking about the altitude of our High Camp. I could remember this much information about Mount Everest.

“Matthi tsokcha tapailai,”
the younger Sherpa said, with irritation in his voice. “You have finished the summit.”

That was right. I had climbed Mount Everest. But why the anger? There was a conversation between Jangbu and the Sherpas who had just arrived. They were speaking too fast for me to pick up a word, but they continually mentioned “eight-three.” I decided that they were angry because my need for the oxygen was put ahead of theirs. I assumed they had planned to use it to climb to the summit, whereas I needed it because I was very weak and tired. It was the end of the season so it was only now that they had a day's spare time to climb Mount Everest. But instead of the climb they had been told to take me and the two oxygen cylinders back down to eight-three. I could understand why they were unhappy.

I thanked them for bringing the oxygen to me and told them both that I was sorry but that I was very tired after my climb and I would not be able to climb down without the oxygen. The tension between us seemed to lessen. We began to walk down around the mushroom-shaped rock, but I was very unstable at first, balancing myself against the steep rock wall.

I could not say good-bye to Dan or Jangbu because I was now below the pedestal. Loud radio traffic, with both transmission and reception in English and Nepali, was keeping them fully occupied.

THE EMOTION IN the voices of the two Sherpas lifted my consciousness out of its airplane- and boat-filled reverie. I had furnished my reality with the first thoughts that settled in my mind because I did not have the mental energy to look any further. But now the two Sherpas were talking about climbing down with me, which meant I could no longer lie daydreaming in the snow. Without registering the transition—as it was merely a lessening of my hallucinatory state—I had grasped the dangerous reality of the present moment. I was high on Mount Everest with a long way to descend. Now I was definitely aware of where I was, but irregular waves of hallucination were still passing through my mind and fogging it.

For the whole four or five hours that I had waited with Dan, Jangbu, Myles, and Andrew, I had been in a hallucinatory world. I had recognized Changtse and Cho Oyu and the sweeping white curves of the Central Rongbuk Glacier, but my mind had made me see them from a boat or a plane rather than from high on a ridge-top.

Whatever had happened to me on Everest, it had been powerful enough to push the events of the recent past into the inaccessible recesses of my brain. My mind could bring forth only a limited number of memories for me to use as reference against my current situation. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing someone else's face—my mind went into emergency mode, accepting the first match presented to it rather than the most likely one.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED that morning had been relatively simple. Dan, Jangbu, Myles, and Andrew had found me close to death. The bare facts were that they had provided me with sufficient oxygen and fluid to enable me to stay alive long enough to enjoy the warming, restorative power of the sun, amplified by its reflection off the snow. They had alerted the leader of my expedition to the fact that I was alive. Whether or not I had been dead the day before was immaterial because I was definitely not dead now.

The revelation sparked a rescue mission, the first expression of which was the arrival of the two tired and unhappy Sherpas, one of whom was carrying my pack, now empty except for an ice axe, a full oxygen cylinder, regulator, and mask.

Of course, there were no fjords. The only waterways here had been frozen rivers of ice for millennia. Andrew and Myles had not set off to climb to the summit but had begun the long descent of the mountain as soon as they saw the two Sherpas climbing up to us. The Sherpas had never intended to climb to Everest's summit that day. Instead, there was the grueling task of bringing me down the mountain. The baton had been passed.

PART THREE

THE DEVIL'S SPADE

A
S SOON AS I BEGAN to descend with the Sherpas I was pulled sharply back into the reality of climbing at 28,000 feet. Because I had been on the crest of the ridge all night and had climbed this section in virtual darkness on the way up, I was unaware of the narrowness of the route across the sloping North Face. Immediately, I understood why my Sherpa companions of the summit day had been unable to bring me any farther down.

At this point of the climb, the Northeast Ridge forms a rocky spine, and where that backbone meets the top of the North Face, there is a system of narrow ledges that requires careful negotiation, especially when a climber is in a weakened state. I was able to walk and to clip my carabiner past the anchors, but it was difficult with my frostbitten fingers. During my time at Mushroom Rock I had become aware of my frostbite, but treating it was a task for another time. What I really needed to do was descend as quickly as possible so that my fingers could be thawed out properly. The cold was the cause, of course, but the mechanism of damage was the fluid in my tissue expanding as it froze. That expansion caused the cells to explode, and if that tissue was thawed and then became refrozen, the damage would be much worse. I had now descended less than 1,000 feet from the summit, although the horizontal distance had been twice that far. With another 7,000 feet of altitude descent to Advance Base Camp, I needed to manage my frostbite carefully; if I didn't, I could lose all my fingers.

And while I could clip my carabiner past the anchor points, it was a slow process, so the young Sherpa in front of me began doing it for me most of the time. Although we were cutting across the top of the face, we were losing height as well, which was good news. What did disturb me was how far we had to descend, and I was already exhausted. At least my mind was processing this information properly, rather than feeding me some crazy hallucination instead. I knew now it was going to be a very long day.

Suddenly, the network of narrow ledges that we had been following came to an abrupt end. Ahead of us was a vertical drop.

“First step,” said the older Sherpa, who was behind me.

I did not understand what he meant, but he gestured at the drop-off and repeated the words.

“First Step.”

This time I got it. We had arrived at the top of the cliff called the First Step. As we were descending, for us it was the last of the three famous steps. On the way up, I had found the First Step to be encouragingly easy. In normal circumstances this would be a simple rappel, but in my weakened condition, the prospect frightened me. Boats and airplanes were long gone. I was completely aware of where I was and what I had to do. But because I was exhausted, it was not only in my physical movements that I had to summon strength; I could not let my mind waste any energy either. Any memories I had of what had happened over the last few days were not accessible to me, but that was not important because my only concern was the descent. When resting at Mushroom Rock, my mind had the time and space to wonder about what the view would have been like on the other side of the “aircraft.” But here I focused on rappeling over the First Step.

Immediate action was called for—I was alert enough to recognize that. I was not going to get any stronger, so the sooner I completed the rappel the better. The young Sherpa attached his descender to the rope and then dropped over the edge. The kind of descender we were using was standard for almost everyone on the mountain. It was known as a figure-8 because the alloy device was shaped like the numeral. There were two ways to attach the descender to my harness. If I wanted to travel fast, I threaded the rope through the larger metal circle, and if I wanted to go slowly, I threaded it through the smaller circle. Once the descender was clipped to my harness, I could not swap from fast mode to slow mode without unclipping the descender and the rope from my harness. This would be a dangerous maneuver because during the swap-over I would not be attached to the rope at all. On this expedition to Everest, every time I had used my descender to rappel, I had used the fast option, mainly because my thick Black Diamond gauntlets provided extra braking power if I needed it. Using the larger circle, I attached my descender, leaned out over the edge, and began to rappel.

The Sherpa had stopped six feet below me, but when I saw the steepness of the drop below him, I knew I was in trouble. I pulled up immediately, just above him, with my head now just below the level of the lip. The older Sherpa squatted above, watching and waiting for his turn.

The problem I now faced was my frostbitten fingers. The cliff beneath me was steep, so all my body weight would be on the rope. Frostbitten flesh has none of the resilience of healthy flesh. If I continued the rappel, with the minimal protection of the thin gloves, the rope running through my fingers would destroy the frozen flesh, giving them no hope of recovery. The damage to my hands would also make it much harder and more dangerous for me to complete a descent that we had barely begun.

I needed to swap my descender from the fast option to the slow one, and the sensible way to do this was to haul myself up the ledge, which I could easily reach. It would be a huge effort.

As I started to move up, both Sherpas asked me what I was doing. I briefly explained my problem.

“No. You must go down,” said the older Sherpa.

“I can't go down until I change my descender.
Mero haat hiung-le kao. Tolu janne ani egdam kartara.
My hands have been eaten by the snow. It is too dangerous for me to go down.”

They dismissed my explanation.

I tried again. “I come up only to fix my descender. Then I go down.”

“No, you must go down now.”

“Not until I can fix my descender.”

“We must hurry. You must go down.”

It was a stalemate. They would not let me climb up and I refused to go down. Without the argument, I would have been past the obstacle in five minutes, maybe ten, given my weakened condition and damaged hands.

I explained that I had been climbing for thirty-five years, since before either of them had been born. I had taught hundreds of people to climb and to rappel. I had climbed mountains that no one else had climbed. I knew what I was doing. I needed to move up just for a few minutes, then I would go down.

That speech only made them angry.

The elder Sherpa mocked me and laughed. The younger one started to shout at me. His English was poor and he was in a rage because he obviously felt I had belittled him. But desperate situations require desperate measures. Unfortunately, my desperate measures had only made things worse.

The young Sherpa held my rope tight so that I could not move up at all. His mate laughed at the scene.

I was getting worse than nowhere. I had to remain calm and look for the way out. Then I saw it—to my right was a second rope, a white one, which I could clip my harness to while I swapped my descender. That way I would not have to go up at all.

The Sherpa above saw me reach for the rope. He instantly whipped out a knife and with one savage slice he cut it clean in two. The piece I was holding dropped down onto my hand. He smiled at me triumphantly.

I was absolutely astounded.

At that moment Roby, the Italian, appeared, and he was stunned to encounter the roadblock on the ropes.

“Go down!” he shouted.

“I have to change my descender,” I replied vehemently, but my voice was so hoarse that he may not have heard me. “And this Sherpa has just cut the rope!”

Roby glared at the three of us.

“I have climbed Everest without oxygen! I must get down or I will die!” And with that remark, he grabbed a bunch of old ropes and swung down past us, hand over hand.

The young Sherpa was holding the blue rope so tight that there was no way I was going to be able to remove the descender from it and make the vital adjustment. What was so frustrating was that the procedure was normally so simple.

I was not going to give in and sacrifice my hands. I realized there was another way to protect myself.