Dead Lucky (8 page)

Because the roads were unsealed, the pure air mentioned to me years ago by the Dalai Lama was polluted by clouds of dust thrown up by our one-Landcruiser, two-minibus convoy. The badly tuned diesel fumes didn't help either. Our first acclimatization stop was at Nyalam, the first township above the Bhote Kosi gorge. Our itinerary scheduled two nights here, so that we could hike up to 13,000 feet each day, while sleeping more comfortably at 12,000 feet, the height of the town. This “climb high, sleep low” process is a proven method of triggering acclimatization responses.

Other expeditions had arrived ahead of us, and because ours was a large group, the only hotels or dormitories with sufficient bunks for us offered very basic facilities, and even then we were split between two locations. Unfortunately, basic facilities also meant minimal hygiene, and a number of our 7Summits-Club group fell ill with stomach upsets. During my years as a trekking guide, I had developed the habit of not rushing to secure the best room or tent site. In Nyalam, this habit meant that I slept with my head two feet from the squat toilet, which was directly beyond a plywood wall. I heard all sorts of ghastly noises as the local diarrhea bug notched up more victims.

The weather the next morning was excellent, so Christopher, Richard, Mike, and I set off to climb as high as we could—and still get back for lunch. Nyalam consists of one street—the road through town—so we hiked down it to cross the bridge over the river. We headed diagonally across the hillside to reach a rocky spur, which yielded steep scrambling that was easy but fun. We caught up to Noel Hanna, Lorenzo Gariano, and his brother, Giuseppe, who were deliberately climbing slowly. Henrik Olsen had a more aggressive approach. We were still heading up when he passed us, descending. He paused only long enough to comment on the ferocity of the wind above. Sure enough, when we reached the small rocky knoll that we had identified as our goal, we found prayer flags that had fluttered themselves into rags. The mass of the hillside had protected us from the worst of the wind, but here, at well above 13,000 feet, we were out in the open. I tried without success to welcome the coldness of the wind on my cheeks, because soon enough the cold would be part of everything we did.

Nyalam was in an undeniably beautiful setting, but the next morning everyone was happy to be on the road again. Before long the chain of Himalayan peaks that formed the border between Tibet and Nepal had disappeared behind us, and the valley ahead brought us onto the famous high plateau of Tibet.

The themes of the Tibetan landscape persisted day after dusty day— long flat-bottomed valleys between vast, rolling hills, which had either the softness of grass cover or the starkness of exposed rock. In the distance, there was always a mountain range or two on the horizon, but in no particular direction. Sometimes there was a white-capped peak. The journey to the Everest Base Camp was punctuated by high passes of 17,000 feet or more, where the vehicles stopped and we clambered out, battered by the freezing wind as we snapped photographs, then scrambled back into the minibus for a return to our iPods or our own private reveries.

As we drove, I was quite content to sit and stare out the window at the landscape passing by. Too many of my travels in recent years had been done in a hurry, and I was happy to take in the timelessness of the sparsely populated plateau. Of course, my thoughts did wander to the months ahead and to how I would cope with them. It had been seven years since I had worked as a cameraman on the world's fifth highest peak, but this did not concern me as there was little to forget. The challenges of the job are few but significant. Fingers numbed by extreme cold make it difficult to use some camera controls and impossible to use others. Above 24,000 feet it is very hard to hold a camera motionless while your lungs are gasping convulsively for air, yet a tripod is a burden too heavy to consider. In such a place there is no room for fancy camera angles and mood lighting, but that is okay because the mountain provides the moods. Perhaps I would find it easier when oxygen was being delivered from a tank on my back.

At least I could expect the Russians to have a good understanding of the oxygen system. The most popular system of oxygen equipment for high altitude is manufactured by Poisk in St. Petersburg. Russians and other Eastern European climbers have a reputation as being tough and fearless in the mountains. Polish mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz once said, “Each climber loses one finger or toe once in a while. This is a small but important reason for Polish climbers' success. Western climbers have not lost as many fingers or toes.”

For me, successful climbing is not a Faustian pact with the devil of cold. The two toes trimmed for me by frostbite twenty-eight years ago were badge of honor enough for me, and I had no desire to buy success with more amputations.

Toughness was not yet apparent among the Russians, but they were proving to be pragmatic. Their approach to the language barrier was to ignore it. A week passed before I realized that one of our two Sergeys spoke good English (Sergey Kofanov had excellent English; Sergey Chistyakov had none), and that Maxim Onipchenko, our Base Camp manager, was also fluent. Igor Svergun was more forthcoming. I felt a bit foolish when I realized that not all the Russians were 7Summits-Club staff—five were mountaineers who were paying clients. Alex had introduced everyone to everyone back in Kathmandu, but with several dozen people in the one place it had been impossible to remember more than a few names.

For the entire trip from Kathmandu to Base Camp, Alex and Ludmila (also known as Luda) sat in the seat in front of me, which gave us the opportunity to get to know each other.

Early in the journey Alex turned to me and said, “I heard from Harry your experiences. You climbed to twenty-seven thousand feet the North Face?”

“Yes, in 1984, as part of an Australian team. We climbed a new route without oxygen.”

“But you turned back . . .”

“I did. I wanted to stay alive. With only five hours to sunset, I was still above twenty-seven thousand feet. I calculated we would get to the summit at dark. That was just too risky for me, so I turned back.”

“Because of frostbite?”

“It's so much colder without oxygen to warm you. I had frostbite before. My fingers recovered, my toes didn't. But it was too easy for me to get frostbite again. Frostbite could kill me up there, if my hands could no longer hold my ice axe.”

“You think so?”

I nodded. Twenty-eight years ago during my first Himalayan climb, the frostbite to my hands had made me so clumsy that the 2,500-foot descent to camp in the dark had put me an extra four hours behind my partner.

“For sure,” I replied. “Two of my friends reached the summit at sunset. Andy Henderson stopped one hundred and fifty feet short, already with frostbite. All three got to the tent at half past three in the morning. Andy's hands were like claws. We had no rope. We had to send him down alone with nothing in his pack so he wouldn't overbalance.

“If I was frostbitten as well, God knows what would have happened. Greg might have died because he had pushed himself too far. We were still above twenty-six and a half thousand feet, and I had to climb with him—right next to him—to keep him moving; otherwise he would have gone to sleep in the snow. I may not have been able to help him effectively if I'd had frostbite. It took the two of us an extra day to descend.”

There was a pause as Alex constructed the scene in his mind. Then he summed up his thoughts and said, “It's an honor to have you with us.”

I laughed. “I don't know about that. It was a long time ago.”

WHEN WE ARRIVED at Tingri, there was a mood of anticipation, as the small settlement was famous for its view of both Mount Everest and Cho Oyu, the world's sixth-highest peak. However, while Cho Oyu was obvious, Everest was forty miles to the southeast, with only its summit pyramid visible behind the foreground ranges. The sun was also against us, shining into our eyes and letting us see only Everest's silhouette.

Two days later, after acclimatizing near the small regional center of Shegar, everyone was expecting a much better view of the great peak from the crest of the Pang La pass. However, as our convoy headed south toward the ranges, the weather worsened. The final 3,000 feet of height was gained by almost an hour of slowly traversing back and forth across a huge rocky hillside, every turn a switchback.

As soon as we crested the pass, our two minibuses pulled into the widening of the road which served as a parking area. The only view was of the damp grayness of the clouds enveloping the ridge-top. A canvas tent provided accommodation for a family of Tibetans, who excitedly rushed toward the minibuses as we pulled in. They were selling local fossils and cheap trinkets that had come from Lhasa or Kathmandu. There was absolutely nothing here but rocks, yet the Tibetans had identified a business opportunity and members of our team set about assuaging their disappointment with some retail therapy. Meanwhile, I hiked up the track toward the best lookout point. Nothing could be seen, of course, except the mist.

In the silence away from the others, I considered the panorama hidden by the clouds. In the course of two treks and my 1984 climb I had stood at this spot five times. On two of those occasions, the peaks had been partly obscured by clouds. Three times the mountains had been etched so sharply against the impossibly blue sky that I could still view the scene in my mind. Beginning in the east with the pyramid of Makalu, I knew the skyline took in the profile of Kangchungtse, Chomolonzo, Lhotse, Everest, Nuptse, Changtse, Gyachung Kang, and Cho Oyu. I knew that beyond the clouds, nine peaks higher than 25,000 feet spanned the horizon, and that only Everest stood perfectly balanced, slightly left of center, the only one projecting three-dimensionality.

For a roadside mountain panorama, it could not be equaled anywhere. Strangely, just knowing what magnificence lay across the valleys and beyond the clouds was enough for me to feel that we had arrived. In the vastness of Tibet, four hours more in the minibus was nothing at all.

THE FIRST SIGHTING of Rongbuk Monastery is always a surprise. On that final afternoon of driving, many miles of rough narrow road ran parallel to the river, much of it sixty to one hundred feet above a glacial torrent that is the product of snow-melt from Everest. Along that stretch of river there are no buildings at all, only the occasional ruined stone meditation hut high on a stark mountainside. Everyone who travels this route peers ahead in the hope of seeing Mount Everest, which is at its most majestic when approached from the north. But because the steep-sided valley is also narrow, even when the weather is good there are only a few glimpses of the mighty peak to be had before the final curve in the road, when the monastery buildings and the giant stupa leap into frame. Just as suddenly, the valley opens out to give the best view yet of Everest, and although center stage is taken by the world's highest monastery, the dramatic backdrop of the world's tallest mountain is overwhelming.

But on April 18, 2006, a less panoramic scene greeted us. Clouds hung heavy over the valley, so all that we could see of the mountains were the cliffs and talus slopes that form their foundations. On my most recent visit to the Rongbuk Valley I had trekked cross-country from Tingri, walking along the road at a pace that allowed me to remember the details of the route. And so, when the road curved away from the river and headed toward a small notch between ridges of moraine, I knew that we were almost there. As we crested the rise, the low, dark clouds swallowed the valley ahead. Snow blew diagonally forward in the direction of the mountain we had come to climb. The mass of the monastery was starkly obvious, but its whitewashed walls made it ghostlike in the storm.

Ghosts certainly existed in this place. One million Tibetans had died at the hands of the Chinese since the People's Liberation Army began their invasion of Tibet in 1950. In the thirty years after the Dalai Lama fled in 1959, all of Tibet's great spiritual leaders either had been killed or had escaped into exile. With the living heart and soul of Tibetan Buddhism excised from the country, the Chinese were content to leave the shell of the religion in place as a tourist attraction and to present a front of tolerance. But the truth behind the façade was very different. Photos of the Dalai Lama were prohibited possessions, and only the simplest forms of Buddhist practice were allowed. Lamas who stepped beyond the prescribed guidelines were jailed—or worse.

In 1984 Rongbuk Monastery had consisted of one small room, resurrected from the ruins left by marauding Chinese troops during the Cultural Revolution. On my several visits I had witnessed the stages of its rebuilding. By 2003 there was a two-story meditation hall with wings on each side of a courtyard. Rooms for the monks along the wings reduced the courtyard's internal dimensions but provided good shelter. What was new in 2006 was a building on the downhill side of the road, directly opposite the monastery. It was obviously basic accommodation for the increased tourist traffic. The rooms appeared to be classically Tibetan in style, just like the small rooms in the monastery's courtyard, each with a single door and no window, each opening out to the sheltered area created by the U-shaped building. No doubt a larger room served as a kitchen and eating place. The driver of our minibus was not interested in stopping for photo opportunities or verification of my architectural theories. His reticence was understandable. It was snowing heavily, and he obviously wanted to get to Base Camp, unload his human cargo, and head back down the narrow road before it became impassable. The weather worsened as we drove past an alluvial flat, white with snow and punctuated by the shapes of fifty or more yaks. Most of the animals lay sphinxlike and motionless, their black coats not yet whitened by the snow. Before I could decide if this was a camp for the yak-herders or a fenceless holding yard for the yaks, the scene was behind us.