Into Thin Air (34 page)

The day had started out sunny and clear, but the wind remained fierce, and by late morning the upper mountain was wrapped in thick clouds. Down at Camp Two the IMAX team reported that the wind over the summit sounded like a squadron of 747s, even from 7,000 feet below. Meanwhile, high on the Southeast Ridge, Ang Dorje and Lhakpa Chhiri pressed on resolutely through the intensifying storm toward Hall. At 3:00 P.M., however, still 700 feet below the South Summit, the wind and subzero cold proved to be too much for them, and the Sherpas could go no higher. It was a valiant effort, but it had failed—and as they turned around to descend, Hall’s chances for survival all but vanished.

Throughout the day on May 11, his friends and teammates incessantly begged him to make an effort to come down under his own power. Several times Hall announced that he was preparing to descend, only to change his mind and remain immobile at the South Summit. At 3:20 P.M., Cotter—who by now had walked over from his own camp beneath Pumori to the Everest Base Camp—scolded over the radio, “Rob, get moving down the ridge.”

Sounding annoyed, Hall fired back, “Look, if I thought I could manage the knots on the fixed ropes with me frostbitten hands, I would have gone down six hours ago, pal. Just send a couple of the boys up with a big thermos of something hot—then I’ll be fine.”

“Thing is, mate, the lads who went up today encountered some high winds and had to turn around,” Cotter replied, trying to convey as delicately as possible that the rescue attempt had been abandoned, “so we think your best shot is to move lower.”

“I can last another night here if you send up a couple of boys with some Sherpa tea, first thing in the morning, no later than nine-thirty or ten,” Rob answered.

“You’re a tough man, Big Guy,” said Cotter, his voice quavering. “We’ll send some boys up to you in the morning.”

At 6:20 P.M., Cotter contacted Hall to tell him that Jan Arnold was on the satellite phone from Christchurch and was waiting to be patched through. “Give me a minute,” Rob said. “Me mouth’s dry. I want to eat a bit of snow before I talk to her.” A little later he came back on and rasped in a slow, horribly distorted voice, “Hi, my sweetheart. I hope you’re tucked up in a nice warm bed. How are you doing?”

“I can’t tell you how much I’m thinking about you!” Arnold replied. “You sound so much better than I expected.… Are you warm, my darling?”

“In the context of the altitude, the setting, I’m reasonably comfortable,” Hall answered, doing his best not to alarm her.

“How are your feet?”

“I haven’t taken me boots off to check, but I think I may have a bit of frostbite.… ”

“I’m looking forward to making you completely better when you come home,” said Arnold. “I just know you’re going to be rescued. Don’t feel that you’re alone. I’m sending all my positive energy your way!”

Before signing off, Hall told his wife, “I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don’t worry too much.”

These would be the last words anyone would hear him speak. Attempts to make radio contact with Hall later that night and the next day went unanswered. Twelve days later, when Breashears and Viesturs climbed over the South Summit on their way to the top, they found Hall lying on his right side in a shallow ice hollow, his upper body buried beneath a drift of snow.

* It wasn’t until I interviewed Lopsang in Seattle on July 25, 1996, that I learned he had seen Harris on the evening of May 10. Although I’d spoken briefly with Lopsang several times previously, I’d never thought to ask whether he’d encountered Harris on the South Summit, because at that point I was still certain I’d seen Harris at the South Col, 3,000 feet below the South Summit, at 6:30 P.M. Moreover, Guy Cotter
had
asked Lopsang if he’d seen Harris, and for some reason—perhaps a simple misunderstanding of the question—on that occasion Lopsang said no.

* Early the next morning while searching the Col for Andy Harris, I came across Lopsang’s faint crampon tracks in the ice leading up from the lip of the Lhotse Face, and mistakenly believed they were Harris’s tracks headed
down
the face—which is why I thought Harris had walked off the edge of the Col.

* I’d already reported with absolute certainty that I’d seen Harris on the South Col at 6:30 P.M., May 10. When Hall said that Harris was with him up on the South Summit—3,000 feet higher than where I said I’d seen him—most people, thanks to my error, wrongly assumed that Hall’s statements were merely the incoherent ramblings of an exhausted, severely hypoxic man.

MAY 10, 1996 • 28,550 FEET

Everest was the embodiment of the physical forces of the world. Against it he had to pit the spirit of man. He could see the joy in the faces of his comrades if he succeeded. He could imagine the thrill his success would cause among all fellow-mountaineers; the credit it would bring to England; the interest all over the world; the name it would bring him; the enduring satisfaction to himself that he had made his life worthwhile.… Perhaps he never exactly formulated it, yet in his mind must have been present the idea of “all or nothing.” Of the two alternatives, to turn back a third time, or to die, the latter was for Mallory probably the easier. The agony of the first would be more than he as a man, as a mountaineer, and as an artist, could endure
.

Sir Francis Younghusband

The Epic of Mount Everest
,

1926

At 4:00 P.M. on May 10, around the same time a hurting Doug Hansen arrived on the summit supported by Rob Hall’s shoulder, three climbers from the northern Indian province of Ladakh radioed down to their expedition leader that they, too, were on top of Everest. Members of a thirty-nine-person expedition organized by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Tsewang Smanla, Tsewang Paljor, and Dorje Morup had ascended from the Tibetan side of the peak via the Northeast Ridge—the route on which George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine had so famously disappeared in 1924.

Leaving their high camp at 27,230 feet as a party of six, the Ladakhis did not get away from their tents until 5:45 A.M.
^*
By midafternoon, still more than a thousand vertical feet below the top, they were engulfed by the same storm clouds that we encountered on the other side of the mountain. Three members of the team threw in the towel and went down at around 2:00 P.M., but Smanla, Paljor, and Morup pushed onward despite the deteriorating weather. “They were overcome by summit fever,” explained Harbhajan Singh, one of the three who turned around.

The other three reached what they believed to be the summit at 4:00 P.M., by which time the clouds had become so thick that visibility was reduced to no more than 100 feet. They radioed their Base Camp on the Rongbuk Glacier to say they were on top, whereupon the leader of the expedition, Mohindor Singh, placed a satellite-telephone call to New Delhi and proudly reported the triumph to Prime Minister Narashima Rao. Celebrating their success, the summit team left an offering of prayer flags, katas, and climbing pitons on what appeared to be the highest point, and then descended into the fast-rising blizzard.

In truth, the Ladakhis were at 28,550 feet when they turned around, about two hours below the actual summit, which at that time still jutted above the highest clouds. The fact that they unwittingly stopped some 500 feet short of their goal explains why they didn’t see Hansen, Hall, or Lopsang on top, and vice versa.

Later, shortly after dark, climbers lower on the Northeast Ridge reported seeing two headlamps in the vicinity of 28,300 feet, just above a notoriously problematic cliff known as the Second Step, but none of the three Ladakhis made it back to their tents that night, nor did they make further radio contact.

At 1:45 the next morning, May 11—around the same time Anatoli Boukreev was frantically searching the South Col for Sandy Pittman, Charlotte Fox, and Tim Madsen—two Japanese climbers, accompanied by three Sherpas, set out for the summit from the same high camp on the Northeast Ridge that the Ladakhis had used, despite the very high winds buffeting the peak. At 6:00 A.M., as they skirted a steep rock promontory called the First Step, twenty-one-year-old Eisuke Shigekawa and thirty-six-year-old Hiroshi Hanada were taken aback to see one of the Ladakhi climbers, probably Paljor, lying in the snow, horribly frostbitten but still alive after a night without shelter or oxygen, moaning unintelligibly. Not wanting to jeopardize their ascent by stopping to assist him, the Japanese team continued climbing toward the summit.

At 7:15 A.M. they arrived at the base of the Second Step, a dead-vertical prow of crumbling schist that is usually ascended by means of an aluminum ladder that had been lashed to the cliff by a Chinese team in 1975. To the dismay of the Japanese climbers, however, the ladder was falling apart and had become partially detached from the rock, so ninety minutes of strenuous climbing were required to surmount this 20-foot cliff.

Just beyond the top of the Second Step they came upon the other two Ladakhis, Smanla and Morup. According to an article in the
Financial Times
written by the British journalist Richard Cowper, who interviewed Hanada and Shigekawa at 21,000 feet immediately after their ascent, one of the Ladakhis was “apparently close to death, the other crouching in the snow. No words were passed. No water, food or oxygen exchanged hands. The Japanese moved on and 160 feet farther along they rested and changed oxygen cylinders.”

Hanada told Cowper, “We didn’t know them. No, we didn’t give them any water. We didn’t talk to them. They had severe high-altitude sickness. They looked as if they were dangerous.”

Shigekawa explained, “We were too tired to help. Above 8,000 meters is not a place where people can afford morality.”

Turning their backs on Smanla and Morup, the Japanese team resumed their ascent, passed the prayer flags and pitons left by the Ladakhis at 28,550 feet, and—in an astonishing display of tenacity—reached the summit at 11:45 A.M. in a screaming gale. Rob Hall was at the moment huddled on the South Summit, fighting for his life, a half hour’s climb below them along the Southeast Ridge.

During their return down the Northeast Ridge to their high camp, the Japanese again came across Smanla and Morup above the Second Step. At this time Morup appeared to be dead; Smanla, though still alive, was hopelessly tangled in a fixed line. Pasang Kami, a Sherpa on the Japanese team, freed Smanla from the rope, then continued down the ridge. As they descended past the First Step—where on the way up they had climbed past Paljor, crumpled and raving in the snow—the Japanese party now saw no sign of the third Ladakhi.

Seven days later the Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition launched another summit attempt. Departing their high camp at 1:15 on the morning of May 17, two Ladakhis and three Sherpas soon came upon the frozen bodies of their teammates. They reported that one of the men, in his death throes, had torn off most of his clothing before finally succumbing to the elements. Smanla, Morup, and Paljor were left on the mountain where they had fallen, and the five climbers continued to the top of Everest, which they reached at 7:40 A.M.

* To avoid confusion, all times quoted in this chapter have been converted to Nepal time, even though the events I describe occurred in Tibet. Clocks in Tibet are set to reflect the Beijing time zone, which is two hours and fifteen minutes ahead of the Nepal time zone—e.g., 6:00 A.M. in Nepal is 8:15 in Tibet.

7:30 A.M., MAY 11, 1996 • 26,000 FEET

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
,