The Mother's Necklace

by Matthew Horan

  “Don’t do it mate,” I urge. “This is supposed to suck. You go down now you’ll regret it. Get to Camp 3 and it’s just a snow slope from there.”

  He’s probably right about it not being as safe as it could be, given the speed of some of the climbers, and it’s likely he’s making a very good decision. It’s often harder to make a decision to turn around than it is to keep going, despite the turnaround decision being the easier one physically speaking. I cheerfully ignore that thought. Laurent considers, and eventually clips back in and starts up again once more.

  We’re all still stuck behind the German girls. One of them, in a full yellow Everest down suit is trying to get up the final ice wall at the end of the ridge. It’s maybe four or five metres high, almost overhanging. There’s a fixed rope down it, which makes things a lot easier, but she doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing. She’s flailing away with an ice axe and madly kicking her crampons into the wall and making precisely zero progress. I can easily see what the problem is – she’s useless. Her Sherpa is doing absolutely nothing to help her. It’s a problem on some of these ‘cheaper” expeditions, which are really just a single climber buying a permit and hiring a Sherpa/porter. Emily’s doing the same thing and she’s got a class act Sherpa who knows his trade. The German didn’t get so lucky. She’s clearly affected by the altitude and her Sherpa, who should be there at the very least for safety, is struggling just as much. It’s doing a couple of things. It’s putting her in danger, because she’s going to be late to the summit. It’s putting me in danger because I’ll be even later. And more importantly right now, I can see her kicking away just about every foothold in the ice.

  Another view looking back down the ice wall. (Photo: Emily Hendrick)

  It takes ages for her to crest the ridge. Maybe 20 minutes or more. Jon, Laurent and Roland cruise up in minutes. My turn. And I can see why the German was struggling. It takes every bit of strength and determination I have not to stop. The rope is buried in the ice here and it’s a real effort to get the jumar over the top of the ridge. There’s also none of the useful footholds left in the ice and I have to frontpoint my way up, the front-facing teeth of my crampons slamming into the ice and providing tiny leverage for me, calves screaming in protest, instead of having helpful little steps.

  And then I’m smashed by the wind. It’s absolutely brutal and cold, so very, very cold. Visibility is still ok – clearly the wind has already whipped off most of the loose snow crystals. I’m at the Camp 3 platform, the size of a couple of tennis courts at the base of the steep slope of the 500m high summit spire. It’s completely open to the wind, which is coming straight down the Khumbu at gale-force speeds. The sky is clear, no threatening clouds, just an icy blue in the thin air, six kilometres higher than sea level.

  There’s a group stuck in front of me of about four or five people. I shuffle forward. Jon is there, around a body.

  “Fuck,” I think. “Hope it’s not one of ours”.

  But knowing it probably is, given Jon’s there and not simply allowing another team to deal with it. Whatever the case, whoever’s on the ground, alive or dead, is going to have to go down.

  “Jon,” I scream into the wind. “There are people still on the rope below – do you need them off?”

  “Yes,” he yells back. “Keep it clear.”

  I go back to the edge, where the Marine and Jabu are getting ready to come up.

  “Hey,” I yell through the wind.

  He looks up. “There’s a casualty – Jon is evacing them. We need to keep this rope clear. Stay off the rope!”

  The Marine looks confused. I repeat it. I think he gets it – I get an “OK”, and a thumbs up from 10m away. Keeping people off the rope fro below is essential if this rescue is to get down the hill quickly. You don’t want to be waiting 10 minutes for someone to get off the rope.

  I slide back along the rope, get myself a spot in the snow and sit down for a rest. The group ahead are all on the rope, and to pass them I’d need to unclip entirely from the system and walk around. It’d be fairly, but not completely safe, especially in this wind and Jon has enough to deal with without watching me do some stupid shit. I need a rest anyway after those vertical sections. So I find a place, move away from the rope as far as my cowstail rope connection will let me so they can pass, and wait. I have another drink. I’m down at least a litre-and-a-half at this point. Pretty soon the group starts to move.

  I see who it is - Adam. The strongest member of our team, the superfit firefighter with probably more alpine experience than the rest of us. He’d been climbing strongly and when he got to Camp 3, pushed himself towards the summit slopes and promptly collapsed face first into the snow. He’d got High Altitude Cerebral Oedema, or HACE, a serious and potentially lethal ailment caused by the lack of air pressure, which swells the brain and brings on unconsciousness, then death if you don't get more oxygen. Acclimatisation means your blood thickens with more red cells and helps prevent this. But sometimes it just doesn’t work. In Adam's case it hit him fast and hard. It’s a real shock – I'd seen him moving very swiftly and confidently when he passed me at 2.9.

  Jon and Laurent, with his mountain rescue experience, start to move him along the ropes to go down. Laurent’s help means Adam gets down a lot faster than he may have without it, and the faster he gets down the better chance of survival he has. Because unless he gets low, fast, or gets supplemental oxygen he could die. And the sudden onset of HACE means there is no way he is getting down on his own. Two more down.

  I turn around, down the mountain. And see a helmet coming over the ridge.

  “What the fuck?” I say.

  It’s the Marine. The rescue slows to a halt for five or so minutes as he, then Jabu, come over the ridge.

  “Why didn’t you stay off the rope?” I ask.

  “Jabu told me to go,” he says. “He didn’t want to stand around.”

  The Marine, it seems, had understood the situation but Jabu, who has limited English, either didn’t understand, or if he did, thought they could get up before any rescue happened and told the Marine to go. It’s pretty irresponsible, I think in the moment, but emblematic of the communication issues high on the mountain – hypoxic, tired, windy and with people who have limited English.

  Jon and I have a brief conversation as he pauses.

  “Massive wind,” I say.

  “Yeah – you going to put goggles on?” he says.

  I’m wearing my prescription Oakley sunglasses. In the past I’ve put in contacts, but for some reason last night – tiredness, the dark and the general unhygienic nature of Camp 2 – I decided I’d climb in my glasses, and swap to the prescription sunnies when it got light. I don’t like climbing in goggles and left them with the rest of the gear at Camp 2. The wind blasting my eyes is showing me the folly of that small choice.

  “You better hope that doesn’t cost you a summit,” Jon admonishes me. He’s right, but there’s nothing I can do about it now except second-guess a bad decision.

  Eventually the rescue resumes, with Jon and Laurent and a couple of Sherpas moving Adam down. Adam gives a thumbs up as he passes, which is a massive relief, and we trudge off along the Camp 3 platform towards the slope. It’s fairly flat for about 40 to 50m here, a brief respite from the vertical. There’s a small bergschrund – the hanging edge of a glacier – that we have to negotiate before we start on the slope up. It’s only a metre or so high – just a step up.

  Then it’s up. And up. The summit slope extends from Camp3 for almost 500 vertical metres, on a roughly 60 degree angle. There’s bits which are closer to 80 or even 90 degrees for a few metres, steps kicked in and frozen solid by the dozens of climbers who have already summited this season.

  A still from a video taken by Tim Mosedale in 2017 of a helicopter rescue from Camp 3, showing the sheer immensity of the dablam. The helicopter can just be seen at the bottom, two thirds of the way across the picture. The air is so thin, helicopter can’t land, just hov
er above the snow.

  It’s maybe 10am now. I’m not looking at my watch – it’s buried beneath about three layers of clothing and three sets of gloves. I’ve got my big high-altitude mitts on now. They’d spent most of the morning tucked into my down jacket, keeping me a bit warmer. Despite the cold, my fleece-lined leather ice-climbing gloves and merino inners have been enough. Now, with the windchill, I really need the extra layer. I quickly discover an issue though. Now with three layers of gloves on it’s almost impossible to put my mitt through the jumar loop. Shit. I’m kicking myself for not checking this before. It’d been too hot to practise properly with the mitts on in Australia – I’d done it in the leather gloves – but that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have just assumed. I’m a Nazi when it comes to rehearsals and it’s something I drill into my business clients. And now I’ve let myself down again by not checking one of the simplest little things.

  There’s nothing for it but to push on. I wedge the mitts through the jumar and pull it through with my teeth, which sort of works, and keep going. About an hour later – and some 100 or so vertical metres higher – I give up, strip off the right mitt and just use the glove. It’s colder, but easier and I’m gambling that I’ll move faster and that will stave off any risk of frostbite.

  The summit slopes, with the dablam looming on the left. (Photo: Emily Hendrick)

  The summit slopes go on forever. It’s maybe 450m or so from the start at the ‘schrund, but in this wind it’s taking the better part of an hour to climb 100m. I’m pushing harder than I remember doing at altitude, knowing that the conditions and time are against us. Trying to take six steps at a time rather than four. There’s still a pause in between each step, sucking in oxygen. The ground is steep – at least 50 or 60 degrees, with short 80 degree sections. Ray and Steve cruise by, moving with the confident determination of age and experience.

  We wind our way past some rocks – roughly halfway. The dablam is massive to our left, four or five storeys of towering ice cliff looming over us. We’re off slightly to one side, but if any of it lets go we’ll certainly know about it. Halfway up and my last small Nalgene is empty. One litre of water left. Down low, as Jon says, it’s not a race. Now, it is. A race against time – we’re approaching noon and the summit is hours away. Jon and Steve summited at 11am a few days ago and we’re well past that. The accepted wisdom is a 2pm turnaround time, immortalised as the time that everyone ignored on the Into Thin Air disaster on Everest in 1996. That was in May, of course, with its unpredictable monsoon storms, not the start of the more stable winter, and on a much higher mountain. Still, it’s a useful shorthand.

  I’m also racing against my water supply. I’m massively dehydrated. My throat is raw from the thin, cold air and the exertion. But I know I have to ration what I’ve got left, otherwise I’ll go down hard on the descent. I’m remembering the cramps on Mt Barney. A lot more serious up here.

  THWACK!

  A massive chunk of ice – it felt cricket ball-sized - bounces off my helmet. The wind has picked up again, even fiercer, and there’s spindrift everywhere, ice down my collar. My straggly three-week-old beard is frozen. My nose has gently dripped through the exertion of the day and there’s a solid chunk of ice above my top lip.

  THWACK!

  Another piece of ice. Fuck, this is next-level epic shit, I think. The wind is insane, blowing ice everywhere. There’s some respite huddling against the near-vertical slope – little humps of ice and snow stand beside our path up, which is worn in about a foot or so from a month of summit bids. Every six steps or so I look for one of these humps and try to shelter beside it. Otherwise it’s head down, maybe resting my helmet against the ice near my face, sheltering from the icy fusillade from above.

  The Marine is behind me, quietly determined and plodding in step with me. Jabu is behind him, sheepdogging the rear again. Roland is somewhere ahead and Pete has streaked off into the wind.

  No he’s not. He’s coming down the rope. I think maybe he’s tagged the summit.

  “How’d you go?” I yell above the wind.

  “I’m going down,” he says. “We’re still 150m from the summit and it’s 1pm. There’s no way I make that and get down before dark in these conditions.”

  Wow. It’s a massive decision and an incredibly brave one. Go down now and there’s no way you get to come back and have another go. You’ll be too tired, with no support available.

  Nevertheless, I hear only one thing. 150m. 150m! I can make that. I can make that!

  “I’m going up,” I say.

  “Good luck,” says Pete, shaking my hand. “Don’t fuck around too long up there.”

  The Marine shakes his head. “I’m going down too,” he says. “I don’t think I’ll make it in time.”

  I nod. If Pete, possibly our strongest all-rounder on this expedition, doesn’t think he’ll make it, then there’ll be no convincing the Marine. He’s done an awesome job. He’s pushing 60 and got higher than almost everyone else on our summit push – including two of our fittest guys. Now it’s five down out of seven clients. Jabu stays – his responsibility is with the last man on the mountain, and right now that’s me. There’s no-one else below us, at least no one else going the same way.

  “Jabu – let me know if you think I can’t make it,” I say.

  I want to give him an out. I know I’ll probably ignore him anyway. It’s not summit fever, I tell myself - I’m confident in my speed, my abilities, and I have a plan. Ray and Steve, the Geordies, are above me – maybe 70 or 80m. I know I’ll at least pass them on their way down. And they have a tent at 2.9. So there’s a back-up, a refuge if I do take too long.

  Mountaineering, more than many other pursuits, is about decision making. And about the ability to keep making decisions constantly, under stress. Where is your next step? Is it safe, is the snow corniced? Is the anchor safe, do I clip this rope, or that one? Do I drink water now or wait? What’s the time, what’s the equation of time vs distance vs physical condition vs weather? Once you stop making decisions, once your decision making tunnels on you, that’s summit fever. Mind you, you could still be making the wrong decisions, but stopping your decision making is definitely a wrong one. Right now, I’m still making decisions. I’m in control, and I still have options.

  Jabu’s confident though. “You go!” he says.

  I push on. Now that I know the summit is so close, time stretches out. It seems to be taking ages. I’m holding the same internal conversation: “You can’t turn round now, you have too much time and emotion invested. Too many people expect you to do this. Don’t go home a failure.” It’s silly, of course, and I know it. It’s not a “failure” to fail to summit. As Pete has just shown, the only “failure” is the failure to make a good decision. But I’m also remembering my coach Chase’s disappointment when he returned from Ama last year without a summit, despite making a similarly good decision to retreat. I’m less than 100m away now and I’m putting rationality to one side, telling myself it’s tucked away in case I need it. I’m still making decisions. Every single step is a decision, a statement that I won’t give up, even as I question that time/distance/weather/exhaustion equation.

  A video still of climbers approaching the summit in good weather in 2017. The small patch of rocks is roughly where Pete turned back.

  Roland passes me. He’s tagged the top and is heading down, grinning. I shake his hand and he says “Not far now”. I ask “How far?” but he’s rappelling past me now. One of the Germans stumbles past in her yellow down suit. I think she too has tagged the summit against all odds.

  I peel back the layers of gloves above my watch. The altimeter on it reads 6800m. And it’s 2.10pm. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Surely Jabu is going to try to turn me back here. He’ll call Tim. And Tim will take one look at the time and order me off the hill. I glance down.

  “Ok?” I yell.

  “Matt good, Matt strong, Matt go for summit,” he calls back. Well, ok then.

  Twenty more minu
tes of agony. Throat raw, nose dripping, calves screaming. Cold hands, cold face. Quadriceps burning as I count steps, over and over. One, two, three, four, five, six. Stop. One, two, three, four, five, six. Stop. Each step is 10 or so seconds. The stops are at least 30 seconds to a minute. Imagine a marathon. Now imagine you’re running it with mask over your nose and mouth. Now imagine small children are standing beside the road and pelting you with ice cubes. I’m beyond physical at this point. It’s all completely mental, alone with my thoughts. And those thoughts are saying “don’t quit, won’t quit”.

  And then, just like that, the terrain flattens. I’m pulling over the top. 6850m up. I see Ray and Steve standing on the summit. It’s a flat, almost bowl-shaped area, about tennis court-sized. It seems strange that for such a sharply pointed peak like Ama, the actual summit area is so large. I shake their hands, then Jabu’s hand as he comes up behind me. I take my pack off, have a drink. I’ve done it. Well, probably. There’s a section of the ridge on the right that may – may - just be half a metre higher. Steve told me about it – he walked out there to make sure he’d hit the top.

  “Fuck it,” I think, exhausted. I’m close enough.

  Coming over the final summit ridge with Jabu. (Photo: Steve Berry)

  The wind’s dropped off up here, or maybe there’s just less ice to whip up. Jabu takes some pictures of me with my iPhone, which actually did survive the cold, in a pocket pressed up against the warmth of my thigh. His thumb ends up covering a bit of the lens and the mountains behind me. And what mountains they are. Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu. Kangchenjunga, Makalu. Storied peaks. I grab Chase’s Base Camp Training flag out of the top of my pack, pose for a pic with it. I turn Jabu around and we grab a few selfies. I get Jabu’s phone and take a couple of pics of him with his scarf from Lama Geshe. Jabu’s an experienced Everest summiteer, but he’s also visibly tired and proud as well. I sit down to put the phone away and eat the rest of the Cliff Bar I nibbled for breakfast. It’s about 2.30pm and it’s all I’ve eaten since a midnight snack of a Snickers bar in my tent. And I’m down to about 750ml of water.