At dawn we began the morning ritual of firing up the gas cookers and preparing tea. By 8 a.m. we were out in the full glare of the early morning sunshine, interviewing Brian as he prepared for the long day’s climb up the North Ridge. He was looking fit and rested, even though, as usual, he had eaten very little for breakfast.
‘It’s going to be a hard day, but if we can do it, we’ll be on oxygen from camp five onwards. Then it’s follow the yellow brick road to the top!’
We all looked over the dip in the Col to the vast flank of the Ridge which awaited us. A fixed rope was visible on the lower reaches, but it was too far away to be seen on the higher slopes. One of the other teams had left at dawn, two hours before. Now they were just a line of tiny dots, about a quarter of the way up the snow-laden part of the Ridge. It was Brian who pointed them out.
‘Look at that team! They’ve stopped. They’re hardly moving.’
Kees framed up a shot on the end of the zoom lens and filmed them, ominously motionless, against the enormous reflected light of the ice. Whatever kind of personal hell they were going through we would find out soon enough.
To their left, we could clearly see the fast-blowing spume of ice crystals shooting off horizontally over the edge of the Ridge.
‘There could be a lot of wind today,’ said Al. ‘Best be off.’
That was the nearest we got to a tactical discussion about the day ahead. Barney had not been on the North Ridge before, and Al was preoccupied with sorting out the camera. On the first time up the Col, and even the first time up the Rongbuk glacier, we had always talked the problems through in advance. This time, we didn’t even think about a discussion, perhaps because the Ridge looked so simple that we didn’t anticipate any problems.
We packed our climbing gear and sleeping bags into the rucksacks, put the filming gear into safe, padded parts of the packs, and filed out of the camp. Al took over from Kees for the day’s filming.
The route dropped down into a dip in the Col and then crossed the crevasse marking the divide between the solid rock of the Ridge and the compacted ice of the hanging glacier. The dip looks insignificant from the North Col camp, but the rise on the other side was steep enough to make me draw hard for breath. Despite the freezing wind, I found myself sweating inside my many levels of clothing, and after half an hour I was already stripping off an outer layer to let my skin breathe.
‘There’s the Catalan rope coming up from the western side!’ Al pointed out the fixed line dropping down on the opposite side of the Col. Alone amongst the teams, the Catalans had chosen to attempt the Col from the western, more avalanche-prone side. It was a bold gesture but they had found it hard going and had only just made it to the Col as we were coming up for the second time.
Well over 7,000 metres now, we were climbing at the upper limits of what most acclimatised climbers can handle without supplementary oxygen. The Ridge is not particularly steep compared to the ice wall leading to the North Col, but at this rarefied altitude it is relentless and continuously demanding.
Every abrupt movement was punished with a wave of dizziness, and the only way to continue moving forward and up was to move smoothly and slowly, raising each boot just a few inches at a time into the sharp-edged steps which had been cut into the ice by the cramponed boots of our fellow climbers.
The fixed ropes and their anchors became waymarkers: targets to make within a certain number of steps. I began on a system of fifteen continuous steps, followed by about a minute of deep breathing to recover. After an hour it fell to ten steps and about three minutes of recovery. Brian was also moving slowly, planting each cramponed foot in slow motion into the ice step above and pausing to look out over the views to Nepal, which were now opening up and becoming more spectacular with every rope length we passed.
Back to the North, the elegant South Ridge of Changtse was also gradually revealing more of itself, leading the eye up to the pyramidal summit, with its complicated cornices of ice.
Al and Barney seemed less affected by the altitude, Barney patiently shepherding Brian up, and Al moving out away from the fixed ropes to film when the wind allowed him to do so. Once again, I was thankful that we had Al with us to cope with the camera; I was not at all sure that Kees and I could have found the extra reserves of energy to devote to the filming.
After a while, I lost all track of time, locked into the simple physical battle to gain height and tick off the fixed ropes one after the other. I began to play another mental game, rationing sips of drink and bites of food against the passing waymarkers of the fixed ropes. One rope’s length earns a rest for five minutes, two rope lengths a sip of juice, three a chunk of chocolate and so on. I even rationed my right to enjoy the view; that was a luxury which could only be earned every four ropes.
Al broke the spell, snapping me back to the moment.
‘There’s the body of a Spanish climber just up ahead to the right of the Ridge. Do you want to film it?’
His words took me by surprise, I hadn’t known about the body.
‘How long has it been there?’
‘Years.’
‘How did he die?’
‘No idea. Could have been anything. Storm, a fall.’ Al’s voice did not betray the slightest flicker of emotion. And for that matter, nor did mine, despite the fact that I had never seen a dead body up close before. I caught my breath and decided that we should at least have a look.
We found the remains of the climber amongst the rocks about fifty metres away from the main route up the Ridge. All that remained was a sad, tattered bundle of ripped clothes, and the bare bones which had once been a living human being. The wind was blowing at the shreds of fabric, still trying to tear them away from the body. A few rocks had been placed on the remains as a makeshift grave.
Looking back down to the camp on the Col, which was less than an hour away to a descending climber, I wondered how it was that he could have died so close to safety. Did he descend in a storm and lose his way? Or did he pause to rest in this spot and then lose the strength to continue?
‘Do you want to film it?’ Al was unpacking the camera.
Ethically I was resistant to the idea, but I knew the shot could be a powerful addition to the film; the corpses which lie on Everest’s higher slopes are a part of the reality of the mountain regardless of whether I thought it was acceptable to film them. To ignore them in the film would be missing one of Everest’s most potent messages: if you die here, this will be your resting place for eternity.
‘Yes. Try and get it in a wide shot.’
Al filmed a variety of different shots, panning down the North Face, and trying hard to keep the camera stable in the fiercely gusting wind. Then we picked our way back through the rocks and rejoined the others back on the Ridge where they had been resting.
By late morning we were ready for a longer break. We stopped at a small rocky ledge where the five of us could sit together. I wasn’t at all hungry but I forced down a tin of tuna salad, some crackers and a mouthful of cheese. Apart from the occasional comment on the view there was little conversation between us, for every part of our faces were covered by balaclavas and the hoods of our down suits. Where the wind found a scrap of skin to torment, it lost no time in freezing it.
There was no doubt the westerly wind was rising as the day, and the climb, went on. As we started out once more up the fixed ropes, I noticed that pea-sized stones were skittering across the ice and blowing off towards the east. Ice debris kicked out by climbers above no longer fell towards the climber below, but flew off the same way as the stones, horizontally over the drop to the East Rongbuk. The loose straps on Brian’s pack were flapping wildly, and the top strap on my own pack was doing the same, flicking into my face with some force at every gust. I stopped and took off the pack to tie it up.
Back into the routine: clip on to the rope, ten steps, then rest. The hours passed, and we became spread out over two rope lengths or more. Brian seemed to be getting slower but I was happy w
ith the progress we were making. The camp at the North Col was now far beneath us, and the top of the snow ridge seemed to be just a couple of hours away. Just above there, hidden somewhere in the rocks, I knew, was the safety of camp five, where we would rest before the further challenge of the climb to camp six and beyond.
Getting Brian on to the oxygen at camp five was one of the last major hurdles, I thought. If he kept his promise to use it, and we got the weather window, then there seemed little reason why a summit attempt should not go ahead. He seemed to me to be still going strongly, and showing no signs of altitude sickness even on this, the highest of day climbs so far. For the first time since the storm struck, I was allowing a chink of optimism to creep in.
At 2.30 p.m. we began one of the steeper stages of the Ridge, a rope’s length of glass-hard ice into which shallow steps had been chipped. The change of gradient slowed us down even more, until we were gasping for air after virtually every step. Kees was falling further behind the group, and I waited at the top of the steep section for him to catch up.
We continued together towards the other three, who had stopped above where the gradient eased off. I assumed this was a stop like the numerous others we had taken during the day, and took off my pack for a drink.
Brian was the first to speak, his voice raised against the wind.
‘We’re just having a bit of a discussion here, Matt, which you ought to be a part of.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I think we’ve got a problem.’ It was Barney who took over. ‘We should be almost at camp five by now, but we’re still only two-thirds of the way up the Ridge.’
‘If that.’ Al came into the conversation. ‘You could argue that we’re only halfway up, and we’ve been on the go for five or six hours.’
‘Then we’d better pick up some speed. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.’ I took a swig of juice, still unaware of the true implications of what they were saying.
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ Al continued. ‘If you look up the Ridge you can see a couple of the tents of camp five.’
He was right. The red and yellow dots were just visible amongst the jumble of rocks.
‘And now take a look down to the Col.’
I did as he asked but couldn’t see what he was getting at.
‘So?’
‘So the tents are roughly the same size. I don’t think we are nearly there at all. I think we’re only just halfway.’
Barney came in again. His voice as casual as ever, conveyed none of the seriousness of his words:
‘If we keep going at this rate, and we’re bound to get slower, we’ll be in after dark. The wind could get up and then we’ll have fingers and toes going. Could turn into a bit of an epic.’
He turned his face away, unable to meet my eyes.
I looked up at the remaining stretch of Ridge above us, scarcely able to believe what I was hearing. In my judgement, we had cracked the majority of the climb. The rock section was just an hour away, wasn’t it? Brian was tired, agreed, but no more so than he had been on the Col. There had not been the slightest hint from Barney or Al that we were heading for a problem.
‘So what are you proposing?’
There was a long, awkward pause before Barney spoke.
‘We’re thinking about heading back down.’
‘Heading back? But we’re almost there! What’s the point of that?’ The wave of anger swept over me in an uncontrollable wave. ‘We’re here to climb, aren’t we?’
The rushing of the wind was the only reply.
‘And if we do go back, what’s going to happen then?’
‘Well.’ An even longer pause. ‘That’ll be it.’ Barney delivered the killer line, the death sentence on the film and all I had hoped it would be.
‘That’s it? After all this work? That’s it? You can’t be serious, Barney! We have to make a summit attempt. This is pathetic!’ I was ranting. ‘Brian. What about you? You can’t let it end like this, can you?’
Brian was putting a brave face on it. ‘We’ll go back down, have a good night’s sleep and some food and try again tomorrow.’
Barney looked away and I knew why. Even I, as a novice at altitude, knew that there was no way Brian would be up for another attempt at the Ridge, no matter how much food and sleep he got.
‘We’ve just been too slow. And if we’re too slow here then we’ll be in trouble up high.’ Al was backing Barney.
I gestured up towards camp five and the tents which could so clearly be seen. ‘But this is fucking bullshit! There’s the camp. All we have to do is keep going and we’ll be there. We’re nearer to camp five than we are to the Col, for Christ’s sake!’
I was almost in tears with the frustration.
‘I know that’s how it looks, but the distance is foreshortened.’ Al was as calm as ever. ‘If we take Brian up there we might not get him back down. He’s too slow. And Kees is looking knackered as well.’
‘So why didn’t either of you say anything this morning? If we had to move fast, then why not tell us? Why didn’t you point it out when we stopped for lunch? You must both have known it then, didn’t you?’
No one replied.
‘And what about the film? How is the viewer supposed to understand a copout like this after all the gung-ho talk? Every piece of material we’ve shot is leading towards a summit attempt. Everyone knows that attempt can fail but the least everyone is expecting is for Brian to have a try. At the moment we haven’t even made as much ground as Brian made in 1990. If we shoot you turning back now, all the viewer is going to see is you jacking it in on a beautiful blue sky day three days beneath the summit! And at that point they’re going to think “what the fuck was the point of all that?” just like I’m thinking now.’
I have never been angrier. The only reason I had taken on the film was that I had believed it would go further – much further – and harder than ‘Galahad of Everest’. Brian had convinced me, Himalayan Kingdoms had convinced me, and, in turn, I had convinced the commissioning editors of Channel 4 and ITN that we would be filming where no one had ever filmed before. What was I going to tell them now?
The one thing I didn’t want to do was make a remake of someone else’s film. That was why the summit attempt was so important; to film Brian in the Death Zone and making an all-out attempt on the summit was the very essence of the production and all my hopes.
Now I was left with a flop. In those moments I truly doubted that I had a film at all. Who in their right mind would want to watch an Everest film which ended in a casual conversation before the real climbing began? The way the three of them were talking, it was sounding like a decision to pack up a summer’s picnic after a few spots of rain.
‘There’s no point in getting nasty about it.’ Barney was on the defensive. ‘We’re not going to get Brian into a situation where his life is in danger.’
‘I know. And I agree about that. The last thing I want is Brian, or anyone, to be out of their depth. But Brian’s been much higher than this before and he’s in good condition. There’s no technical ground here, and things could look better once we reach five and the oxygen. Let’s try. That’s the least the viewer has to expect. We still have time.’
But Barney was not to be moved, and neither was Al. My protests went against their combined years of experience which told them we were heading for a problem.
As our argument continued, an extraordinary thing happened. Al spoke some words which would come to haunt us over the following days. From the late morning onwards we had been followed, and occasionally overtaken, by two climbers who were also beating a path up the Ridge to camp five. Now they trudged past us, looking very tired. One was a young guy with Slavic features, a Hungarian who looked in his late twenties. The other was an older, bearded man who we recognised as an Austrian, Reinhard Wlasich, a climber several of our team had spoken to at advance base camp.
‘Those two are moving too slowly as well,’ Al commented after they had p
assed. ‘Chances are they’re going to die.’
Seen in the context of the prevailing conditions there was not the slightest reason to think he might be right. I dismissed his chilling comment as a throw-away line. For the moment my attention was focused on our own situation and the devastating news that Brian’s third Everest attempt was effectively over before it had begun.
‘So that decision is final, then? This is it?’
Barney looked to Al for confirmation. ‘Yeah. We’d best go back.’
‘In that case we’ll have to film a conversation between you where you give us the reasons for the decision.’
Kees brought out the camera and filmed as I interviewed Brian, Barney and Al. Brian was still talking about trying again the next day but I don’t think even he really believed it, because in the same breath he proposed another plan:
‘Let Al take over. I’ll give him my prayer scarf to put on the summit, keep my promise to the Dalai Lama.’
We packed the camera away and prepared in silence for the climb down. The atmosphere was extremely tense, it was only by a narrow margin that the confrontation hadn’t become an all-out row.
Before we started the descent, I took one last look up the slope towards the two ascending climbers who would be the only people left on the Ridge once we were gone. They were stationary, bent over their ice-axes against the force of the wind, about two hundred metres above us. Far beyond them, the tents of camp five were beckoning; they would be there within a couple of hours I thought, envying their luck.
Then we turned away from the North Face above us and began the retreat to the Col. Al and I moved in front with Kees moving a little slower and Barney assisting Brian at the back.
My mind was in shock, numbed with a combination of anger and frustration. In thirty minutes flat, five months of training, planning and climbing had been brought to an ignominious end which had come out of nowhere. All the momentum had resulted in nothing; phenomenal levels of motivation and belief in the project were what had fuelled us this far … and now they were revealed as a complete waste of time.
Death Zone Page 18
