No Way Down, Life and Death On K2 (2010) (11 page)

Little Pasang stood quietly beside Dorje. “Thank you,” the younger man said.

Dorje nodded and called on the radio to Eric Meyer and Fred Strang. He told them where he was.

“We are down through the Bottleneck,” he said. “Everyone is okay. We are in a safe place.”

He and little Pasang remained clipped together by their harnesses. As they approached Camp Four, Dorje saw the strobe light flashing from near the Americans' tent. He turned back to look at the summit.

The mountain was big and dark. He saw little groups of headlamps sparkling high up and still descending from the summit. Some
were in the Traverse, others in the diagonal on the western edge of the serac, and others were still up on the summit snowfield. He thought about the exhausted climbers who had been making their way down laboriously behind him. By now those in the Traverse were probably reaching the place where the ropes were cut.

Dorje hoped they too would have good fortune in finding a way down.

Then he saw Fredrik Strang come out of the tent and Strang rushed to embrace him. “Chhiring, you are back safely!”

 

When Dorje stepped into the light of Meyer and Strang's tent at 1:30 a.m., Meyer was talking on his satellite phone to his mother, Joyce, in Billings, Montana. He was telling her that she would probably be hearing some bad stuff on the news about the ropes being cut and people still stuck above 26,000 feet. But just so she was reassured, he said, he and his team were all safe now.

He cut short the call to greet Dorje. The Sherpa's face was almost hidden inside the hood of his red jacket. Meyer and Strang helped him unzip his suit and gave him some of the hot tea they had brewed for him. The tea would help rehydrate and warm him. Meyer examined him for injuries. After a few moments to collect himself, he told them what had happened. They were surprised by how coherent he sounded and the fact that he had no frostbite. They helped him into Meyer's sleeping bag beside Meyer. He told them how glad he was to be alive and said that in the morning he would call his brother in Nepal. A few minutes later, he took out his video camera and began to study the images of his successful summit of K2.

 

Chhiring Bhote and Big Pasang Bhote left their tent in Camp Four at midnight. They were carrying food, water, sleeping bags, and six oxygen cylinders.

The Sherpas for the Flying Jump team had planned to set off for a summit bid with the second group of South Korean climbers that night. But after 9 p.m., when the seven climbers from the first group still hadn't come in, the second summit attempt was postponed.

The Koreans' tents were just a few dozen feet away from the Americans' on the Shoulder. The alarm among the eight mountaineers waiting inside the tents had grown steadily until the two Sherpas were sent out to search for the missing Koreans and Chhiring's brother, and Pasang's cousin, Jumik.

Chhiring was anxious about his brother. Before Jumik had left Kathmandu, he had admitted he was nervous about coming to K2. They had grown up in a family of ten children in a poor village called Hatiya, in Sankhuwasabha district, which was east of Everest, just under Makalu. Their father was a farmer who had grown mostly potatoes and millet. Jumik had more experience as a climber. Chhiring had won his school leaving certificate at Pashupati Multiple Campus, and then studied education for a year before joining Jumik, who was already climbing regularly with the South Koreans. He remembered how Jumik had reassured and helped him on his first big climb on Lhotse.

As the two Sherpas walked out onto the Shoulder, three figures emerged from the darkness. It was Chhiring Dorje, Little Pasang, and Pemba Gyalje.

Greetings!

Why are you late? What went wrong?

“We pushed for the summit too late,” said Dorje.

The three climbers were shaken and tired and they told the two Sherpas about the missing ropes and their difficult experience climbing down the Bottleneck.

The two Sherpas were pleased to see them. They handed the three men flasks of water, and waited for them to get their breath back before asking about the location of the other expeditions. Pointing, the three men said they were somewhere behind them but it was un
clear where. There were a number of climbers following them down. Chhiring Dorje looked concerned and said it was going to be hard for some of the others to make their way in the darkness.

Where is Jumik
?

Jumik had stayed with the slower Koreans. They were somewhere behind.

There were no ropes. Will you go up to rescue them?

We will search for them
.

The other three were not strong enough to go back up with Chhiring and Big Pasang. They said they had to climb down to Camp Four as quickly as possible to get some rest.

The figures of the three climbers disappeared into the darkness. Chhiring Bhote and Big Pasang Bhote turned back toward the Bottleneck.

Chhiring Bhote and his brother had first started out in the Sherpa business in Hatiya when their older brother had gone out to trade for cooking oil and kerosene and instead had gotten caught up in the portering trade at Namche, a town near Everest. He had fallen into a crevasse and promised the gods he would never disturb them again if he got out. When he returned, he took Jumik with him to Kathmandu, bringing along their sister Bhutik to cook, swearing he was done with the mountains. A few years later, however, Jumik had joined the Korean team.

Half an hour after leaving the other Sherpas, the two men were still on the Shoulder when they saw another headlamp. They called out and Kim Jae-soo, the Korean leader, limped down toward them. He was alone.

Greeting him, they told him he was not far from the camp. Kim was tired and he knelt down in the snow. He asked for water and juice.

What happened?
Big Pasang was polite.
Why are you so late?

Kim wiped the frozen ice from around his eyes.
Everybody went crazy.

Kim climbed because he loved the potential for danger in nature and possessing the ability to thwart it. The exhilaration of forcing himself to the limit and surviving. When people complained that mountaineering was dangerous, he waved them away.
You could have an accident driving a car
,
couldn't you?

For a year he had prepared and trained his team for K2. When the Americans first met him at Base Camp, he was sitting outside the South Koreans' tents, his legs crossed, and he refused to meet their eyes or discuss strategy, claiming he spoke no English. A few weeks later, however, he had opened up, especially after Eric Meyer treated a Korean climber who was suffering from heartburn, and he joined in the cooperation meetings. It turned out Kim spoke English pretty well after all.

Everyone was so tired, Kim told the two Sherpas, as he drank deeply. The other teams had taken much time descending from the summit.

In addition, on the way up to the summit, the ropes fixed in the Bottleneck had swerved too far to the right, Kim thought—someone in the lead group had tried to lay them out of the direct line of the serac, which had added extra distance, delaying everyone. Yet still, despite everything, his team had beaten the Dutch expedition to the top. Then, on the way down, some climbers from the other teams had used the rope that Kim had told Jumik Bhote to lay at the top of the summit snowfields, again delaying his own climbers.

When they had reached the Traverse, he and Go Mi-sun had left the three slower Korean climbers behind with Jumik Bhote. Afraid his feet were getting frostbitten, Kim had climbed down more quickly and had lost Go somewhere along the way.

“Didi is not here,” he said, meaning “sister,” which was what the Sherpas called Go.

Mr. Kim
,
we look for her?
The two Sherpas watched him restlessly.

Kim looked back up the great swerving track of the Shoulder. She couldn't be far behind, he said.

“She is following,” he said, turning back to them. “You must meet her.”

Chhiring Bhote and Big Pasang left Kim and climbed for a few more minutes, peering into the gloom of the rocks and snow around them with the light of their headlamps and up at the steep chute of the Bottleneck, when at last they caught a glimpse of something. It wasn't what they had expected. They saw an object plunging down in the darkness on the left-hand side of the route.

The two men scrambled forward.

You see?

Then they saw a second object dropping down the same area and heard the rustling scratching of a body falling.

Was it Jumik?

Bhote's stomach turned at the sight of the falling bodies.

The objects had disappeared so quickly. Maybe they were mistaken. Was it only ice falling from the serac?

But he knew inside that they were climbers, for sure.

They climbed up toward the Bottleneck until they saw a light, and slowly a climber approached them, a tall, thin man in an orange suit.

Saturday, August 2, 1 a.m.

O
ne moment everyone had been together in a line coming down from the summit, Cas van de Gevel remembered; then darkness had fallen like a blanket on the snowfields. Each climber was focused inwardly on his or her own breathing and exhaustion and aches. Then there were the difficult thoughts of just how many miles remained in the cold. They had drifted apart.

When he had arrived at the descent into the Traverse, Cas van de Gevel felt relief when his boots hit the ledge before the serac.

He was surprised to see the glare of a headlamp not far ahead of him. When he climbed along the ice face, he recognized a hunched figure in a dark yellow suit clipped onto the rope.

“Hugues!”

Van de Gevel wondered how d'Aubarède was feeling. The old guy had made good time since the summit. From the way he was resting against the slope, he looked tired. He was no longer with his HAP, Karim Meherban.

The two men put their faces close together so they could talk. D'Aubarède spoke first and motioned with his hand. “You go first, Cas,” he said.

“Aren't you coming?” said Van de Gevel.

“Yes, yes,” said d'Aubarède. “But you are faster than me. I will follow.”

The rope stretched away down the rocky ice wall. Van de Gevel thought it was a good idea not to have too much weight on the rope. There had been too much of that today already.

Below the Traverse, several hundred yards away, down past the Bottleneck on the Shoulder, he could see a signal light flashing from Camp Four.

“No more talking,” said d'Aubarède, prompting him.

Van de Gevel nodded and climbed out along the Traverse, leaving the Frenchman behind.

When he reached the point where the rope was severed, he saw that a new length of rope was dangling down loosely across the rocks. The Dutch climber had no clue of what had happened to Rolf Bae and Cecilie Skog and Lars Nessa, or to Chhiring Dorje or any of the Flying Jump team. He could only imagine that the other end of the rope had worked loose from the screw at the far side of the Traverse and the rope had simply fallen down. Or that it was some climber's idea for a new route. That had to be it.

The prospect of a new route didn't worry Van de Gevel. He had climbed many times in the dark in the Alps, though a person had to be ultra-careful. Sometimes you came upon frayed ropes left over from earlier expeditions, and they led only into the void.

Seeing no alternative, Van de Gevel grabbed the line, jumped over onto the rocks, and dropped backward, rappelling. He glanced below him as far as a turn of the head would allow, and concentrated on the grip of his strong fingers on the rope. When he felt a knot and the second length of line played through his gloves, he noticed that it was thinner than normal rope, and white. It was the rope that Gerard McDonnell had bought in Alaska for the Dutch team. The rush of familiarity buoyed him.

The Bottleneck fell away somewhere below him toward the Shoulder. After a few more feet, he saw the end of the line was approaching.
Steady!
He slowed and then let the rope fall back. It would be picked
up by d'Aubarède behind him. The Frenchman had to be following by now.

He felt good to have reached the Bottleneck but felt trepidation to be without the protection of the fixed rope. The slope was still steep. Van de Gevel turned back to face the ice. He stuck his axe in and began the tough climb down.

A few feet to the right of the narrow channel something caught his eye. When he reached it, he discovered Wilco van Rooijen's backpack, which his colleague had dropped on the way up in the heat and crowds of the morning, a time that now seemed an age ago. It was about at this point that the American Chris Klinke had turned back.

The backpack offered Van de Gevel an indication of where he was on the Bottleneck. It was also a sign that Van Rooijen had not come this way yet. Cas left it for his friend to collect on his way down.

As he turned back toward the lower part of the Bottleneck, Van de Gevel's legs felt heavy. He told himself it was not far back to Camp Four.

Just then he heard a noise above him in the darkness, a scratching sound of something sliding down fast over the ice. Van de Gevel looked up and saw, twenty to thirty feet to his left, a body plunging headfirst down the Bottleneck.

There was no scream or shout. The climber still had his headlamp switched on. The body fell too fast for Cas to see his face in the light from his own headlamp, but Van de Gevel saw clearly that the climber was dressed in a dark yellow suit. The body disappeared into the night.

 

Lack of oxygen may trigger a complex physiological reaction inside the human body, one whose severity varies considerably from person to person. As oxygen levels decrease, the tiny arteries that feed the
brain dilate. High-pressure blood floods the network of fragile cerebral capillaries, which begin to leak fluid.

The fluid causes swelling in the surrounding tissue. The brain swells, displacing the cushion of cerebrospinal fluid inside the head until the brain starts to squash up against the inside of the skull. When the compression begins to affect the area of the brain responsible for balance and coordination—the cerebellum—it causes ataxia, or stumbling and severe lack of coordination. As the compression progresses, the optic disk swells, causing blurring of vision.

As well as affecting the brain, lack of oxygen can lead to a surge in blood pressure in the arteries in the lungs, and cause more leakage. Fluid floods into the alveoli, the tiny thin-walled air sacs deep within the lungs where oxygen diffuses into the blood. An X ray of a climber suffering from this sort of high-altitude condition reveals a patchy image of fluid in areas of the lung normally filled with air. Among the first ominous signs are shortness of breath and fatigue, a persistent cough, then a gurgle and a coughing up of pink-tinged fluid. Eventually the climber drowns.

The effects of these fluid shifts can set in rapidly before a climber realizes anything is seriously wrong. Much like a drunk, judgment is impaired well before it is apparent to the climber. To help acclimatization or relieve the symptoms, some high-altitude mountaineers use drugs. For example, Viagra is sometimes used to drain fluid from the lungs. Many climbers circumvent the risk by carrying oxygen with them in tanks, but the effects can be disastrous if the supplementary oxygen runs out. When that happens, the climber abruptly enters a new, colder, and suffocating world of oxygen deprivation. There is no time to adjust. It is a massive, startling shock to the system.

Hugues d'Aubarède's oxygen had run out before the summit. When Cas van de Gevel had passed him on the Traverse, d'Aubarède wasn't sure he could go on. He was exhausted and his mind was filled with questions. Could he climb down? Should he stay where he was until daylight?

He remembered how he had almost missed the summit attempt. The bad weather had swept across K2 in the middle of July, forcing every expedition to push back their expected summit dates. But the contract of d'Aubarède's chief high-altitude porter, Qudrat Ali, expired at the end of the month. Qudrat had worked with d'Aubarède since they climbed Nanga Parbat together in 2005. He had been the Frenchman's guide on K2 in 2006, although he hadn't come to the mountain with him in 2007. Ali was tough and experienced. The second guide, Karim Meherban, twenty-nine, was Qudrat's cousin and a student from the same small town. They were both indispensable to d'Aubarède.

D'Aubarède's flight from Islamabad back to France left on August 8 and the journey to the Pakistani capital could take eight days. Eventually he concluded there was going to be no weather window opening up. He telephoned and brought the date of his flight forward and ordered up five porters from Concordia to fetch his belongings from Base Camp.

Gerard McDonnell and Wilco van Rooijen tried to persuade him to stay. They said their forecast showed the storms relenting around July 29. D'Aubarède called his friend Yan Giezendanner, who worked for the French government's meteorological service in Chamonix, who confirmed the better forecast.

“Is it possible for me, Qudrat?” he said when he found his HAP. “I want to get to the summit with Karim.”

“You must try,” Ali said. The guide knew how much getting to the top of K2 meant to d'Aubarède. “I hope you reach the top.”

D'Aubarède called Mine in Lyon. “I have good news,” he said.

“Do what you want,” Mine said.

D'Aubarède called the airline to change his ticket back. Qudrat insisted he still had to leave—he had other clients waiting on another peak—so d'Aubarède hired a new high-altitude guide to replace Ali—Jahan Baig—whom Ali knew from Shimshal.

But once d'Aubarède believed he was going for the top, a creeping
doubt had set in. He feared the lack of sleep that would come at the higher altitudes, the difficulty in breathing, the cold.

His friend Philippe Vernay in Lyon had tried to make d'Aubarède believe in God: If K2 was so beautiful it was because of God. But that was not the reason he was crazy about climbing. Yes, d'Aubarède fully appreciated the wonders of nature. But he didn't believe in God. Sorry, Philippe. He did, however, believe in something absolute, and that was probably what he was searching for.

But this year the climbing had been more difficult than ever. It was hard for a sixty-one-year-old. How his back hurt on the slopes, especially the steep slopes below Camp Two. At the end of the day it was hard just to bend to get inside the tent. He found sleeping increasingly tough, even at Base Camp, where he had an inch-thick mattress between his body and the glacier, but especially at the higher camps. He gulped aspirin to ease the blaring altitude headaches that squeezed at his temples.

He knew about the dangers. He knew all about death. In July 2005, he had shared a tent with his friend Bernard Constantine on Nanga Parbat. Three months later, on the slopes of Nepal's Kang Guru, Constantine had disappeared under an avalanche with six other Frenchmen and five Sherpas. Last year on K2, his friend Stefano Zavka, exhausted and alone, walked off the side of the Shoulder on the way down and was never seen again. This year, when d'Aubarède made the pilgrimage to the Gilkey Memorial, he studied the plaques stamped with the names of the dead. He said out loud that he hoped he would not be there one day.

He missed his family. He kept in touch with them almost every day. He had a friend back in Lyon, Raphaele Vernay, Philippe's wife, who kept a blog for him. And he took comfort reading in his sleeping bag the text messages his friends and family sent him on his satellite phone.

Back in July, his younger daughter, Constance, had sent him a
bottle of Chartreuse and a note. She told him the latest plans for her wedding. The wine and champagne were purchased, the church at Houches reserved.

She warned her father not to be late. She said she didn't want to walk to the altar alone.

Now, on the Traverse, as d'Aubarède watched Cas van de Gevel disappear into the distance, he reminded himself that he had to descend from the clouds to share his success with his friends and his family. He had to get back for Constance's wedding.

D'Aubarède turned on his Thuraya and tried his family in France but he could not get through. A moment later, he stood up and followed the Dutchman along the rope.

 

In the Bottleneck, Cas van de Gevel climbed several yards down the steep slope in the direction he had seen the body falling. He knew it was Hugues d'Aubarède.

He gazed ahead with his headlamp but he could see no trace of d'Aubarède.

When he looked back up, two lights were quivering among the rocks a few hundred yards above him. He thought they probably belonged to the Korean climbers who were following behind. He braced himself with his ice axe and cupped his hand to his mouth.

“Someone fell!” he shouted, hoping they would help. “Hugues has fallen!”

Whoever it was that was following him down, there was no answer. They were too far away to hear him.

He couldn't waste any more time searching. A few minutes later, the slope lessened and he could turn around to face down the mountain as he climbed.

Near the bottom of the Bottleneck, he saw two headlamps approaching slowly up the gully. They turned out to belong to two
Sherpas or HAPs, who had come out from Camp Four; they were so bundled up behind balaclavas and goggles that he couldn't tell who they were for sure.

He told them what he had seen and pointed to where the body had fallen.

“You look over there,” he said. “Can you help?”

The two men walked away in the direction he had pointed but they seemed to be in no rush.

As he approached Camp Four, Van de Gevel radioed Base Camp and spoke to Roeland van Oss. He told Van Oss he was okay.

Van Oss had been waiting all night for the climbers from the Dutch team to call in. He was pleased to hear from Van de Gevel.

“I am below the Bottleneck,” Van de Gevel said. “I am safe.”

“Okay, Cas,” he said. “Good to hear from you.”

Van de Gevel said he had no idea where the others in his team were. Van Rooijen. McDonnell. “We got dispersed,” he said. He had seen something troubling, he added. “I think I saw someone falling down,” he said. “You need to send someone up to find out what happened.”

“You should get down to Camp Four as quickly as you can,” Van Oss told him.

As Van de Gevel descended the Shoulder, the big light from Camp Four grew brighter.

He thought about Hugues d'Aubarède. He didn't know why d'Aubarède had fallen. Perhaps he had been concentrating so hard on climbing down the rope that he didn't notice when the line had ended. Or he had come off the rope successfully but then tripped on one of the ice blocks littering the slope.

When Van de Gevel reached Camp Four, it was some time around 2 a.m. He was so exhausted that he went straight to his tent. Van Rooijen had not come in yet, he saw.