Dead Lucky (5 page)

This was the boys' first encounter with a big Himalayan glacier. They were fascinated by the giant ice-mushrooms. They dropped rocks into the black depths of crevasses and skated on the frozen ponds. As we drew close to Base Camp and the upper reaches of the glacier, the ice flattened out and we navigated by moving from cairn to cairn. A highlight for the boys was a crashed helicopter, most of it in one badly damaged piece, its victims long since removed and laid to rest. Few choppers are designed to land at 17,500 feet, where the air is so thin. Dylan souvenired a small piece of the machine, then we headed on to the camp itself. There was no one in residence, but random rubbish—available in a dozen different languages—distinguished the site from the rest of the glacier.

I pointed up to the Lho La, a gap in the high ridge between the West Ridge of Everest and the peak of Khumbutse. From the Lho La a sheer cliff dropped 2,000 feet to a steep right-angled bend in the glacier at the base of the dangerously unstable Khumbu Icefall. I explained to the boys that in 1984 we had traveled to the North Face of Everest via Hong Kong, China, and Tibet, and that in the first weeks of our expedition we had skied from our Camp One at 19,000 feet up to the Lho La. For me, it had been an amazing experience to view from a dramatically different perspective the familiar territory of the Nepalese side of the mountain. I had been surprised by how insignificant Kala Patar appeared from the Lho La—its small grassy ridge lost against the backdrop of steep icy peaks.

Now I was looking in the reverse direction—from the Khumbu Glacier up to the Lho La. The pass appeared higher than I remembered, no doubt because the minimizing effect of Everest was not in play. Everest was largely hidden by the clouds, but the boys felt no great disappointment. They were fascinated by the glacier and by the strangeness of the frozen river of twisted ice and regarded every piece of rubbish as an archaeological find.

I pointed out that the Khumbu Icefall, a vertical tumble of shattered glacier, could have been the work of a giant who dropped a thousand building-sized ice blocks from his land in the sky, creating a stack of ice that reached up to the clouds. The dangers of climbing up the treacherous icefall were as great as any faced by Jack as he scaled his beanstalk. My teenage sons grimaced at the fairy-tale reference, so I added the glaciological truth. The glacier begins at the head of the narrow five-mile-long valley known as the Western Cwm, which runs westward from the mountain face that joins Lhotse to Everest. Lhotse is the south peak of the Everest massif and the fourth-highest mountain in the world. The snowshed on the southern and eastern faces of these mountains accumulates in the Western Cwm and compacts to form a hanging glacier, which—as it plunges down 2,000 feet to the broad, gently sloping Khumbu Glacier—creates the icefall.

Not surprisingly, the boys were more taken by the physical reality of the glacier and by the adventure of exploring the place than they were by an understanding of the mechanics of it. The afternoon was drawing on, so Beeba headed off with Dylan and Dorje. I stayed back to enjoy some quiet, contemplative time alone.

I pulled my camera out of its case and composed some moody photographs of the gigantic mess of the icefall. The light was bad, but I pressed the shutter anyway. The scariest aspect of the Khumbu Icefall is that you must pass through it to reach Everest's summit from Nepal. I considered the shattered rocks around me, the tortured ice of the glacier, and the dark storm clouds hanging over the scene. Revisiting these drove home to me the immense forces that had shaped this landscape. Above the clouds the sun would be shining brightly on the summit, creating extraordinary beauty, but with no one there as witness. I knew how quickly the benign beauty displayed by clouds high on a mountain could transform into a deadly blizzard. Even soft, harmless mist engulfing the peak is enough for climbers to lose their way, never to be seen again.

I wondered whether I wanted to play that dangerous game again. Doubts had loomed large in Singapore, but now that I was here at the foot of Everest—with the air already thin enough to be sensed only as coldness being drawn into my nostrils—I knew that Base Camp was not yet the finish line for my relationship with Everest.

BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL

W
HEN WE RETURNED to Australia, our feet barely touched the ground. Along with the chaos of unpacking from storage our furniture and household goods, we had to enroll Dylan and Dorje in school and generally reestablish our life in the Blue Mountains. I also had to find time to finish the book I was writing.
Fear No Boundary
was the life story of my mountaineering friend Sue Fear, and a large part of it dealt with her ascent of Everest. Although we had just returned from Base Camp, I did not have room in my mind to think about my own ambitions for the mountain.

On top of everything else that was happening, I became distracted by a phone call from Lucas Trihey, a longtime friend and onetime business partner. He had called to offer me my old Sydney-based job back as the editor of
Outdoor Australia
magazine. I had resigned only because the opportunity arose to live in Singapore, and I was now happy to return to my post. My acceptance meant that those initial months back in Australia were extraordinarily hectic, with a crazy combination of working on the book and the magazine simultaneously.

Once I had signed off on the book, there was time for Mike Dillon to introduce me to Christopher Harris, the teenager who wanted to climb Everest. Christopher had done all of his mountain climbing with his father, Richard. Both were tall and lean, and while Richard talked nonstop and with great enthusiasm, Christopher was happy to sit back and listen in the fashion typical of a teenager in the presence of an adult he had only just met. I remained caught up in the hustle and bustle of magazine life, but occasionally I managed to escape for a meeting about fund-raising and other strategies with Mike and the Harrises.

The months slipped past almost unnoticed, accelerated by the constant busyness of work on the magazine. There was also much to do at home. Our small cottage was no bigger than our apartment in Singapore, but it had a spectacular view out over our thirty-seven acres to the rugged hills and cliff-lined plateaus of the Blue Mountains National Park. We had bought the property on the park's border only weeks before leaving for Singapore. We felt privileged to live in such a special place, but with collapsed fences to be pulled down, erosion, and all kinds of weeds to be exterminated, there was no shortage of chores.

Although I was perpetually busy, it was impossible not to think of rock climbing. Every time I came home and stepped through the gates, I faced the huge orange cliffs of Mount Solitary across the valley. Much closer were the six-hundred-foot-high sandstone cliffs that dropped away from our western boundary. My attitude to rock climbing had changed when I found myself with a wife, two kids, and a mortgage. Although I still found time to hit the cliffs, it was no longer with the obsessive regularity and intensity of my youth. During our Singapore years, my climbing was limited to holidays back in Australia and a few days on the granite domes of California's Tuolumne Meadows during a business trip. These days climbing provided time-out in the “here and now,” usually with my closest friend, Greg Mortimer. Sometimes we would talk about our climbs in Antarctica, the Himalaya, or New Zealand, but usually we just climbed, Greg without a word, me constantly sending down comments, both of us focused on where we were and what we were doing in the different dimension of the vertical world.

On the morning of Friday, February 17, 2006, I arrived at my office just after eight o'clock. Climbing was on my mind because I hoped to spend one day of the weekend on the cliffs with Dylan. I made myself my usual plunger coffee, sat down at my computer, and switched it on. Rather than checking my e-mails, I got straight to work completing some notes for a presentation later that morning. After the meeting, and with the rest of
Outdoor
magazine's staff now at their desks, I opened my e-mail. Two messages in particular caught my eye—one from Mike Dillon, sent the preceding night, and the other from Richard Harris.

Mike's message was startling—the Everest expedition was under way, thanks to major sponsorship from Dick Smith Foods. There was enough money to fund Christopher, Richard, and Mike on a packaged expedition that left Kathmandu for Tibet on April 10, only seven weeks away. The implication was that more funds would have to be raised for me to join the team. Richard's celebratory e-mail was an invitation to a barbecue at his home the following day, which I happily accepted.

Not all of this was news to me. I was aware that Richard had been researching Everest expedition operators on the Internet and had decided that the best value was 7Summits, an Amsterdam-based operation run by Harry Kikstra. Richard was very keen for Christopher to tackle Everest in pre-monsoon 2006, as success would make him the youngest person to climb the world's highest mountain, and suddenly their dreams would be realized. However, I was completely unprepared for the breakthrough when it happened because there had been little progress on the sponsorship front during the preceding six months.

Those two e-mails on that Friday in February turned my life upside down. My first response was complete surprise, then sudden despair because it seemed impossible that I could join the trip. I felt that there was not enough time for me to ready myself, my family, and my employers for such a major undertaking. For the rest of the day I silently debated the issue while trying to do my work.

I called Mike to hear the news in person and to confirm my role if we hit our sponsorship target. I mentioned my dilemma to Sam Gibbs, the equipment editor for
Outdoor Australia.
Sam was one of the few people at Emap publishing who knew that an Everest expedition was in the offing. I told her about my misgivings, all the reasons why I had to say no, particularly those that related to the magazine. But she wouldn't have any of it. The publishers would have to let me go, she said, for the pragmatic reason that it would be good publicity for the country's leading adventure magazine.

That night I talked to Barbara. The decision had huge implications for her as well. She worked three days a week at a girls' school in Sydney, a significant distance from our Blue Mountains home. She had not changed her mind about supporting me, even though it would be a very hard two months for her. As well as her work and the commuting involved, Barbara would have to run the household, drive Dorje to his ice hockey matches and training, and keep Dylan on track with his studies in his final year of school. She offered me every encouragement, and I loved her even more.

When we turned up at the Harris family home the next afternoon, Richard was already busy at the barbecue, alternately chatting about Argentine wines and the Everest expedition. He was obviously delighted by the course of events. The hot tub was soon full of teenagers and children—among them were our two boys, Christopher and his brothers Nick and Ben, and his sister Katherine.

Two climbing friends invited by Richard had no doubt that I would be joining the team. I pointed out the difficulties created by the ridiculously short time-frame.

Neither of these two very experienced climbers would accept that argument.

“You're almost there,” said Adam Darragh, a professional climbing guide who knew the challenges of getting Himalayan expeditions under way. Adam had guided the Harrises on New Zealand's Mount Cook, when Christopher became the youngest person to have climbed the formidable peak. “It will all come together by the time you have to go.”

“Even if that's true,” I said, “I need seven months to get fit for Everest, not seven weeks.”

Harry Luxford chipped in with his take on the issue.

“I know your plan,” he said. “You'll get fit hiking to the mountain, and by carrying loads up those glaciers.”

“Doesn't work in Tibet,” I answered. “At least, it doesn't with Everest. It's not like Nepal, where you trek in for a week. You drive to Base Camp on the Tibetan side of the mountain and spend all your days in a Landcruiser.”

Harry just smiled. He had the “where there's a will there's a way” approach to life. I certainly couldn't play the age card with Harry—he was in his sixties and still climbing regularly.

These climbers whom I had known for years seemed to believe in me, which made me think that perhaps I should as well. It seemed that the reputation I had gained in the 1980s for making expeditions happen was still current. But this was a different kind of expedition—one that was already organized, with all permits, provisions, land transport, ropes, and tents taken care of. All that we needed was our personal gear—and an extra boost of sponsorship funds.

As we drove home after the party, excitement pulsed through my veins. Psychologically, the tide had turned for me. I had given up long ago the lifestyle of my twenties, where expeditions had been the theme of my life. These days there would never be an empty few months where I could just slot in an expedition. After the positive opinions expressed to me at the party, my mind no longer generated its usual excuses—the fullness of my life as it was now, the unfairness to my family.

Later that night Barbara and I talked through the issues at stake—the security of my job, the strain on our family, but also the opportunity for me to shrug off the burden of incompleteness that had been with me, to one degree or another, since I had turned back below Everest's summit two decades ago. For years I had told myself not to be lured by such a dangerous ambition, but now was a turning point, a moment to “speak now or forever hold my peace.” If I failed to reach the summit, I would accept that it was beyond me. The burden of doubt would no longer weigh me down, and that in itself would be a kind of release.