The Girl Who Climbed Everest

by Sue Williams

  The next day she looks pale and exhausted, and everyone’s heart goes out to her. But Alyssa puts on a mask of cheery indifference and just gets on with the job at hand, saying blithely that what doesn’t kill her will simply make her stronger.

  CHAPTER 18

  Everest’s Hero: Dan Mazur

  To be successful on a climb of Everest, you need to know how to suffer. You need to be willing to suffer, embrace the suffering, and make the suffering work for you. Otherwise, you shouldn’t even get out of that plane at Lukla.

  So says Dan Mazur, one of the world’s most successful Himalayan mountaineers and the man best known for abandoning his own attempt on the summit to save the life of Australian Lincoln Hall.

  ‘A lot of high-altitude climbers talk about Everest as a sufferfest,’ he explains. ‘Because you really suffer up there. There’s the cold, the snow, the wind, the ropes that aren’t fixed, the accidents, the tragedies, the deaths, even that time a bunch of foreigners got into a fight with the Sherpas. There are so many different things that can go wrong, and you really have to be prepared to suffer, to know how to suffer and to keep going despite everything.’

  American-born Mazur has been visiting Nepal for twenty-five years, and for over eighteen has been organising and leading trekking and mountaineering expeditions. He had his first experience of altitude at Alyssa’s age – seventeen – when he climbed peaks in Montana’s Glacier National Park, on the Canadian border. From that time, he was hooked.

  ‘I love the beauty of climbing, the scenery up there, the thrill, the excitement of it and sharing it with other people,’ he says. ‘Then there’s the part where you get to deal with the local people, and meet them and learn about their culture.’

  Many people know of Mazur from May 2006 when he was leading an expedition of three climbers up Everest. They were only a couple of hours from the summit when, at 8600 metres, they came across Lincoln Hall, who’d finally reached the top twelve years after his first attempt as part of the 1984 expedition with Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer. He was on the way down the previous day and had fallen sick and been left for dead. His team was convinced he’d already died and had wanted to cover him with stones in the makeshift burial that’s customary on Everest, but it wasn’t possible where he lay, on a spine of rock covered by a 2 metre-wide snowbank.

  But as Mazur and Jangbu Sherpa came up the crest of a ridge, they were startled to see Hall very much alive, sitting cross-legged on the top. The pair looked at him, dumbstruck. Hall was the first to speak. ‘I imagine you are surprised to see me here,’ he said levelly. Mazur asked him if he knew how he’d got there. ‘No,’ replied Hall. ‘Do you know how I got here?’ ‘No, I don’t,’ replied Mazur. ‘Do you know your name?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My name is Lincoln Hall.’

  Thus began one of the most daring rescues in the history of mountain climbing. The four gave him oxygen, liquids and food, and tried to keep him warm in temperatures 20 to 30° C below zero. They remained at his side until reinforcements arrived to help bring him back down the mountain, abandoning their own hopes of reaching the summit. Mazur saved his life yet again when Hall, hallucinating, went too close to the edge of the ridge, thinking he was on a boat or an aircraft. Mazur pulled him back from the drop each time, and then roped him to the precipice for safety. It took ten to twelve Sherpas and thirty-six bottles of precious oxygen to help Hall out of the Death Zone and back to Base Camp.

  The heroism of Mazur’s actions was particularly celebrated in the light of the death just over a week earlier of British climber David Sharp, who got into difficulty lower down the mountain, but who was ignored by around forty people who continued to tramp past him on their way towards the summit. But Mazur always tried to shrug off the hero tag. ‘The summit will always be there,’ he says. ‘There is always another chance to go for the summit, but Lincoln only has one life – this is for sure. You just can’t leave a guy like that. You’d think about it for the rest of your life.’

  Hall has always been a hero to Alyssa, not just for his extensive experience in climbing mountains but his gift of then writing about them in such compelling terms in his books. ‘He was always one of my great favourites,’ says Alyssa. ‘I love his books and you feel you get to know him through them.

  ‘It was an extraordinary rescue by Dan Mazur, too. That would have been so hard, when someone can’t really contribute to getting down the mountain, and Lincoln was delirious some of that time, and had been fighting the Sherpas who’d been trying to help. It shows how, when things go wrong at that height, everything is different, and you never know what’s going to happen.’

  Mazur counts himself the lucky one for having been able to play a role in Hall’s rescue, also revering the man. ‘Oh my God, he’s my hero,’ he says. ‘What an amazing man! I was so lucky to have got to meet him, and then to get to know him later.’

  Hall died six years later in 2012, but far from the mountainside. At the age of fifty-six he finally succumbed to mesothelioma in hospital in Sydney.

  Mazur says he doesn’t deserve any plaudits for deciding to help Hall, who has seven acclaimed books about expeditions, mountaineers and explorers to his credit. ‘People talk about the rescue but just because you go to Everest, it doesn’t mean you’d be a different person to the one you’d be in your hometown,’ says Mazur. ‘I suppose some people might drive right past someone in trouble by the side of the road with the bonnet of their car up, waving for help. Others would always stop to help. The same thing goes for Everest.

  ‘Some people go up there but are still keen to help others while others are very focused on their goals and won’t stop. Everyone’s different. No two snowflakes are alike; that’s what makes the world interesting.’

  Mazur ended up reaching the summit the next year, and went on to climb seven of the world’s 8000-metre peaks. Since then, he’s taken on a role in the support team as the man waiting in the last camp before the top, to try to help get climbers to the summit. He also spends a lot of time raising funds for the Mount Everest Foundation for sustainable development in Nepal and Tibet, building hospitals, schools, and environmental projects. One day, if everything’s going well, he’ll attempt the summit again, he’s sure. But until then, he’s just happy helping make others’ dreams come true.

  Besides, most people need all the help they can get. ‘I do love it up there, but it’s really, really dangerous,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen many people die, which really takes the heart out of you. The worst thing you ever have to do as an expedition leader is to phone the family of one of your members to tell them that something’s happened to their loved one.

  ‘I’ve heard some people say that since more people attempt Everest now, it must be easy. Well, it isn’t. No one can ever say that. There have been advances – for instance, we have much more sophisticated weather forecasting tools now, but you still have to interpret the results. And the kit is so much better than it was in the 1920s and 1930s of those first expeditions, and so you don’t see so much frostbite any more. It’s among the older generation of climbers that you see so many missing fingers and toes.

  ‘But there are so many elements that are still unpredictable. The weather is really powerful up there, it’s huge. While you’re there, too, you have to give it 100 per cent focus. As soon as you let down your guard and relax a bit, that’s when something happens, like a storm comes in or an avalanche occurs. You have to be watching all the time.’

  Success on Everest comes in three equal parts, he believes. One is the weather, the second is mental toughness – feeling you should be there – and the third is physical fitness. On top of all those is patience, being ready to wait out bad weather and problems, and not be affected by them.

  ‘You have to do a lot of waiting on Everest for the weather to improve or ropes to be fixed and you have to be able to keep your spirits up until it’s time to go again. You need to have patience as well as the ability to rest and relax when you can, and keep your mind of
f what’s coming and not worry about it, as that can sap your energy.

  ‘Then when you get going, you have to be steady, methodical and plodding, and make sure you don’t get nervous as that will rob you of your concentration. You also need to be able to handle altitude sickness, and know when it’s serious or when it may pass. One in ten people need extra time to acclimatise, one in twenty seem to be almost allergic to altitude and can’t handle it at all, and for the rest of us, it can change on different climbs. You just never know. It’s different each time.’

  Mazur remembers when he was seventeen and going on a long hike in the mountains with a heavy pack, accompanied by people he didn’t know well. That was difficult, he says, but Everest is much, much worse. ‘The suffering you go through on Everest is on another scale altogether,’ he says. ‘It’s a very tricky mountain, and so, so dangerous. Everest has to be respected. Everest rules. It’s still in charge.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Pushing Your Body to the Limits

  ‘To be the best, you have to work overtime.’

  – US WORLD CHAMPION BOXER FLOYD MAYWEATHER

  January 2013 arrived in a flurry of activity for Alyssa Azar. It was only fifteen months before she’d start on her Everest climb, and she was determined not to waste a day she could be using to get fitter, faster and stronger.

  She sat and wrote down everything she was going to be doing over the next year, and ranked each activity from one to ten; ten for when she was good at something, and one for when she wasn’t. She then resolved to work extra hard on everything she perceived to be a weakness in her armour. For example, she wasn’t good at pull-ups, so she planned to put in extra practice every day. She skipped well, so she could continue at that without too much hassle. And burpees – a drop into a plank and then jumping back upright – well, they were no one’s favourite exercise. She vowed to do them more often, and repeat them over and over, usually with a push-up in between.

  Every time she ran or rowed on the rowing machine, from now on she’d also wear a 10-kg vest to improve her endurance, while the altitude mask had already become a regular companion.

  ‘The aim is to improve myself step by step,’ she says. ‘It’s exciting how you can turn a weakness into a strength with a lot of work – no matter how much it sucks! I am determined, but I think I get that from both my parents; they have a pretty amazing work ethic. I think the motivation has to come from within, and it’s great to have an aim. It doesn’t have to be climbing Everest! It can be as simple as doing a run, taking a yoga class, going for a bike ride, anything.’

  She was asked to give some talks to local groups about her extraordinary life, and how she kept so motivated, and was then invited to address a few company seminars as a paid speaker. Ironically, considering all she’d been through, she classed those as among the most nerve-racking moments of her life. The first talk was to the financial group OBT Financial, about goal-setting – a subject on which she was, by now, an expert. They loved hearing her story, and immediately came on board as sponsors, by signing up as official members of her summit club. She received a couple more invitations from others, and slowly but surely, her confidence began to build, and along with it, the funds for her next trips.

  The first trip of the year came in January: a weekend rock-climbing course near Brisbane, and the chance to practise some of the roping techniques she’d learnt in New Zealand. The Saturday started with tuition about different knots and devices to tie them on to, and how to set up anchors properly. It continued with a trek to the summit of the old volcanic plug Mount Ngungun in the Glasshouse Mountains, and rock climbing up the side, abseiling and belaying others. That day finished with an abseil of 40 metres off the side of the summit with all her bags and gear. Then there was the trek down and out, the drive back to Toowoomba, and some schoolwork she’d left to the last minute to complete, before bed, finally, at 4.30 a.m.

  Despite only a couple of hours’ sleep, it was then an early start and a drive straight out to the cliffs at Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point for some abseiling from anchors they’d set up on the cliff tops, followed by several hours of theory, talking over the concepts and going through exam questions. She was then able to abseil for another three hours, as she was assessed on her ability to use different techniques and belay devices. It was an exhausting two days. ‘But it felt good to be taking another step of action towards Everest,’ she says. ‘I was feeling so excited for what the year would bring.’

  It was set to be an extremely busy one. Already, she’d scheduled in another Aussie 10, this time with the added challenge of completing it in twenty-four hours. The rest of her wish list had changed after the route up Cho Oyu was closed by the Chinese authorities for a while. Instead, it became a trip back to Nepal to climb Island Peak at 6170 metres, then over to Argentina to climb another of the world’s Seven Summits, the 6960-metre Aconcagua, and then back to Nepal for an attempt on Manaslu, the world’s eighth highest peak at 8165 metres.

  In the meantime, she started on a program of long trail runs and pack walks with plenty of hills through Toowoomba’s bushland, including up and around the undulating MacKenzie Trail. She started off wearing the 10-kg weight vest and carrying a pack weighing 5 kg. Gradually more sandbags were put into the pack and the weight increased to 15, 20, 25, then 30 kg. One day, Glenn went to watch her train and helped her take off her pack, then struggled as he tried to put it into the car. ‘How much does that weigh?’ he asked his daughter. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He weighed it when they got home. It was now 42 kg, and rising.

  It gave him pause for thought. The main reason there’d never been a woman admitted into the elite SAS unit in the army was that everyone had to routinely carry 50 kg of equipment with them, and women generally weren’t able to. But for Alyssa, that could well be another career option at some point in the future.

  She also switched on her iPod and ran up and down the escarpment along horse trails and bike tracks, around Prince Henry Heights and on the four-hour round trip over Tabletop, dragging a 20-kg 4WD tyre behind her from a harness she strapped around her torso. That was a training idea she and Glenn got from a documentary about Rex Pemberton, who prepared for Everest by dragging tyres up and down sand dunes. It was a good endurance exercise and was never easy, but when the weather was dry, it was a great deal more manageable than when it was wet in the middle of winter and the mud came up to her ankles and coated the tyre. She always timed herself, or asked Glenn to time her, to make sure she was getting faster every week.

  ‘She has to find the right balance between strength work and cardio,’ Glenn says. ‘But she can’t afford to be too lean when she tackles Everest as it’s so cold, and people do lose a lot of weight up there.’

  She cut a lonely figure in the hills on her own. Some locals would feel for her, and kids would ask to hang out with her. But they didn’t understand that she liked being on her own. ‘I don’t really hang out with other people,’ she says. ‘When I’m not busy, I like to chill out alone and just think. I am a bit of a loner, really. To a lot of people that’s negative, but to me, it’s who I am. It actually helps when you’re out in the mountains for months at a time, and you have to be on your own and in your own headspace.’

  One person she was building a relationship with, however, was Keith Fennell, the writer of her much-admired Warrior Training. Glenn had asked him if he’d like to run a couple of challenges for his adventure business, and Keith said he’d be happy to, setting up a series of Special Forces challenges to develop participants’ teamwork skills, mental toughness and self-belief. Alyssa had emailed him a few times about her quest, and he’d replied with tips and suggestions of exercises she could do to improve her psychological strength. One day, they planned to get together for a training session so he could assess how she was doing, and perhaps pinpoint any weaknesses he saw.

  Alyssa had so much going on, sometimes she couldn’t sleep at night, too busy going over everything that bubbled to the surface
of her mind in the dark. When that happened, she’d go to the gym or off for a run, even if it was past midnight. Doing that, she found she went into a zone in her own head where all her worries disappeared. Usually by the time she was finished, she could then, finally, sleep, even if she just curled up on the floor of the gym. At least it meant she was there, ready to start a fresh workout at 4 a.m.

  Often she trained so hard, she had to stop and vomit into bushes by the side of tracks. Then she just carried on. Her program at the gym also continued at an ever-increasing intensity, so she’d often have a bucket close by in case she had to stop there too.

  ‘I don’t mind it at all,’ she says. ‘It’s good practice for when you’re on Everest. There, you might throw up because you’re affected by the altitude, and might have no energy left and feel terrible, but you just have to carry on. There’s no alternative. So while I’m training, if I throw up and have nothing left, I’ll get more used to carrying on training and keeping going. Yes, I know it seems weird, but it all has a purpose . . .’

  Nepal’s Island Peak was set to be Alyssa’s next big climbing trip, but finances were tight, and she and her dad decided to drop it in favour of bringing the Manaslu climb forward instead. It was set for October 2013, and Alyssa continued with her brutal training regime.

  In between, Alyssa gave an increasing number of talks to business groups, to companies, to the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce and to various conferences in Brisbane. There were some lunches to raise money for her quest, with Alyssa speaking at those too. Naturally quiet, she found it hard, but her audiences responded well to this young girl pouring out her heart about her dearest ambition.

  Often she was asked what she’d be taking with her to the top of Everest. Her answer would always be the same: as well as an Australian flag, she’d be taking a photograph of her little brother, Christian. Because of his autism, she’d say, it was unlikely he’d ever have the opportunity to go himself, and she didn’t want him to miss out. He seemed to understand the idea of Everest, as he’d seen the flag fluttering on Toowoomba’s Picnic Point hill. ‘And although it’s not something he’d ever want to do, there are lots of other things he can’t do, which is hard for him,’ says Alyssa. ‘So I think putting the photo of him up there is something that’ll mean a lot to me. And I’ll take a photo of the flag there, and his picture, and show it to him. It’ll hopefully be a great surprise for him.’