Death Zone

by Matt Dickinson

  What now? How to salvage a film from the wreckage? My mind was busy running through the options as we continued down to the Col. By rights we should now all descend, leaving the way clear for the second team to come up behind us for their attempt. If any of us chose to continue the climb we would be overlapping with Simon and Co., and thereby reducing their chances. At least that was what my oxygen-depleted brain was telling me.

  In fact, as I realised after reaching the Col, that logic was adrift. The ‘B’ team weren’t coming up to the Col tonight; they were due up the next day, leaving the possibility that some members of our team could still make a dash for the summit and – as long as we could clear out of camp six quickly on the way back – have no adverse affect on the others.

  The possibility of turning my anger into something more useful was beginning to evolve. If I could channel this frustration, convert it into a positive rather than a negative force, then perhaps the situation would improve.

  Twenty minutes of ‘anger control’ later I had a question for Al.

  ‘How do you feel about the two of us going for the summit?’

  Al took his time taking off his snow gaiters while he considered it. If a flicker of doubt crossed his mind, he was kind enough not to reveal it.

  ‘All right. But what about the film?’

  ‘We can shift the focus of the film on to you. We’ve already got quite a lot of good interview and diary stuff with you and Brian can give you his Dalai Lama scarf to put on the summit pole like he said.’

  ‘We’ll have to check it out with Simon. How do you feel about going back up the Ridge after today?’

  I knew what Al was questioning. Effectively we had blown an entire day’s energy on our abortive journey up the Ridge, energy that might be needed further down the line.

  ‘I reckon we’ll be all right if we get an early start.’

  By the time Barney and Brian got back down to the Col, Brian was completely drained. His energy reserves were depleted to the point where he could barely make it back up the small rise into the camp. I realised with a sense of shame that Barney and Al had been right about Brian’s condition; he had looked strong on the Ridge but was actually weakening faster than he seemed. Looking at him now, as we filmed him collapsing on to the ground beside the tents, I was filled with remorse; nothing – not even my precious film – was worth pushing Brian into danger for. Barney and Al were perfectly right to pull Brian out of the climb when they did.

  When Barney handed Brian a drink bottle, he barely had the strength to lift it to his lips. But he did have the ability to utter a few words once the camera was running.

  ‘I haven’t got the strength to go back up. Al, you take over for me.’ Then he collapsed in a coughing fit by the tent, looking dazed and shattered.

  Later, we radioed down to base camp and reported the day’s events to Simon. He was as laid-back as ever and didn’t sound at all surprised to hear that Brian’s attempt was off. Barney gave me the radio to put my proposal.

  ‘Al and I want to carry on and try and film as high as we can. Is that OK?’

  I could feel my pulse thudding in my temple during the slight pause.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got no problem with that. What about Kees?’

  ‘He’s going down to shoot at base camp with Brian.’

  ‘All right. Good luck. Give us a radio call from five tomorrow night.’

  Still stunned by the speed at which events had developed, I went back to the tent where Kees was brewing tea. The entire shape of the expedition had changed in just a few hours. Al – not Brian – was now the motivating personality we would follow in the film to the highest slopes of Everest. I was extremely thankful that we had taken the opportunity of filming with Al at earlier points in the previous weeks. If we had no material featuring him, then his late entrance into the film would be extremely confusing for the viewer. Luckily too, Al’s blunt, practical personality came over strongly on camera.

  But there were still important questions about the extra shots and sequences we would need to cover Al’s ascent properly. Not least of these was how Al would be filmed on the summit. I filed that question away under ‘to be resolved’ in my mind, and took the earliest opportunity to sleep.

  9

  We crammed into Brian’s tent the next morning and filmed him handing his scarf to Al. The symbolism of the handover was more than just a token gesture. Brian had made a promise to the Dalai Lama at an audience he had had with the great man in his Daramsala headquarters that he would endeavour to place the scarf on the summit pole. He had failed twice to carry out the pledge. Perhaps the scarf would reach the top on this third try.

  ‘Say a prayer for world peace,’ Brian told Al, grandly ‘Om mane padme hum, hail the jewel in the lotus!’

  One hour later we said our goodbyes. Kees took one of the cameras down with him to film Brian’s descent, and to shoot any radio conversations at base camp. Al and I packed our rucksacks and clipped on to the fixed ropes to set out again up the North Ridge.

  The wind was stronger than the previous day, gusting more powerfully across the Face. Nevertheless, we moved consistently, plodding up the incline without the long, dangerously slow pauses which had characterised the previous day’s climb. Mentally I was far better prepared for the Ridge; the need for speed was now firmly planted in my mind, and I concentrated on finding a rhythm which could be sustained without exhausting my legs.

  Al forged ahead in silence, moving as strongly as ever, and pausing only to make tiny adjustments to his headgear and wind suit to keep the worst of the wind off his face.

  This time I abandoned the technique of counting out the steps between each breath, it was too demoralising when the numbers began to fall. Instead, I fixed my eyes on landmarks on the Ridge – prominent rocks, or the bright orange splash of oxygen cylinders, and set myself time limits to reach them.

  All the complacency of the previous day was gone, I was hypersensitive to the fact that my performance today and tomorrow would be watched like a hawk by Al. Just as Brian had been, effectively, turned back, so could I be, if Al saw any weakness on my part. He knew how little high-altitude experience I had, and it was not in his interest or mine to pretend I was up for a summit attempt if it was going to lead me into trouble. His instincts as a guide would never let that happen.

  Surprisingly, my mind felt a lot sharper that the day before. Perhaps the height gain we had made was not a waste after all. Although we had expended a significant sum of energy on what was apparently a wasted day, the extra acclimatisation we had forced on our bodies now felt like a bonus as we rose towards 7,500 metres without oxygen for the second time.

  ‘Climb high, sleep low’ is the often quoted maxim, and that was what we had done.

  It took us just three hours of almost continuous climbing to reach the high point where Brian turned back; less than half the time it had taken us the day before.

  Then the wind really began to pick up force, pelting us with pebbles of dark rock and chunks of ice. It was fortunate it came at us from the western side, for if it had been a headwind it could have stopped us in our tracks. During the stronger blasts it was completely impossible to continue moving; the force was strong enough to blow us off our feet. We bent down low against the Ridge, all crampon points firmly entrenched into the ice for stability.

  I noticed that Al had clipped himself on to the fixed rope, something he had done only rarely during the past weeks of the expedition. He realised, like I did, that the wind was vicious enough to blow us off the Ridge without the security of the lifeline.

  Our speed diminished dramatically and it took us another one-and-a-half hours to make it to the top of the snow section. We could have done with some shelter for a rest but there was none. The North Face does not offer natural sanctuaries from the wind. Instead, we sat in the full thrust of the jet stream as we rested, barely able to shout at each other above the noise.

  Five minutes was all we could stand, and at that
point our feet and hands were already turning numb. We started up through the rocks, following the wind-worn ropes which from the look of them had been there for years.

  Mentally, I was expecting camp five to loom up pretty quickly but the foreshortening effect of looking directly up the line of the Ridge had made the tents seem significantly nearer than they actually were. Barney and Al had been right again, camp five was definitely not an easy walk from the top of the snow.

  In fact the terrain was tiring; with frequent big steps up, and loose rocks underfoot. Finding any regular rhythm was out of the question. The fixed ropes were a liability, snagging our crampon spikes and often complicating the route-finding. Many of them had been laid when the Ridge was still under snow, and now it was gone, the ropes were flapping loosely in the wind, with their snow anchors banging uselessly on the rocks.

  During one of our frequent stops, I watched a jet-black bird, a chuff, using the updraft of the wind current to gain height. These carrion eaters are attracted to the higher slopes for just one reason: the rich pickings left behind by climbers at abandoned campsites. As winter comes to an end, left over food supplies, and human bodies, are exposed as their snow cover melts.

  Spring is a good time in the Himalayas if you are a scavenger with wings.

  I found it amazing that such a tiny creature could fight an upward track through winds which had threatened to blow us off our feet; and even more amazing that its lungs could draw enough oxygen to survive at an altitude above 7,500 metres. I wondered what their altitude limit was, and if one had ever flown at the summit.

  With its wings shifting and realigning to adjust to every new gust of wind, the acrobatic bird was gaining height incredibly rapidly. It had probably matched our seven-hour climb in as many minutes. Full of admiration, I watched it continue for some moments until it passed out of view amongst the rocks above.

  Intent on keeping upright amid the jumble of rocks, I had failed to notice the bank of cloud which had swept up behind us. Now it enveloped us completely, reducing visibility to less than ten metres. The figure of Al periodically disappeared in and out of the gloom, but I preferred the cloud to the wind which had now thankfully died down a little.

  Inside the cloud, sound took on a completely different quality. The harsh, metallic clinks of metal against rock became muffled and deadened and, for the first time since leaving the North Col, I realised I could hear myself breathing. The sense of location, of elevation high in the Himalayas, was also completely lost now we were deprived of any visual reference beyond our immediate surroundings. Apart from the incredible thinness of the air and the discarded oxygen cylinders which were scattered along the route, we could have been on a high ridge in the Alps.

  ‘First tents!’ Al’s voice yelled at me out of the gloom.

  Camp five was not what I had expected. In my mind I had imagined it as a flat area on the Ridge with space for ten or fifteen tents. In fact it is not a ‘camp’ at all in the way that ABC and the North Col are, but is best described as a string of cleared platforms stretching for a quarter of a mile or more up the North Ridge. The more palatial platforms can take four or five tents at most; the majority offer very marginal space for one or two. There is virtually no shelter against the wind.

  Since we had no idea exactly where the three Himalayan Kingdoms tents were positioned, the only way to find them was to continue climbing up the Ridge until we stumbled upon them.

  I was unprepared for how long this took, and soon found my body was simply not responding. Mentally I had assumed that ‘reaching’ camp five would mean we would be able to rest. Now, like the squaddie who finds his ‘checkpoint’ cruelly moving away from him at the end of a forced training march, my mind was bubbling with irrational anger at all this extra work we were having to do. I told myself it could only be another five minutes. Then another half an hour. But an hour later we were still beating a painfully slow path up the Ridge.

  Each time we saw tents above, my legs found new strength: surely this is our camp? Isn’t it? And each time we realised it wasn’t, my morale took a further dive. I began taking frequent stops, slumped on my side and staring out into the gloom. All motivation soaked away as I began to doubt we would ever find our tents. Forcing myself to stand up and keep climbing was getting to be a problem.

  Al – who was in better condition – waited for me, passing the time with his favourite hobby, sifting through the debris of old tent sites.

  ‘Looks like the Japs were here,’ he muttered, showing me some noodle sauce packaged in a foil sachet.

  I grunted a monosyllabic reply but my attention was wandering. An altitude weevil in my head was whispering again, what’s the point in finding camp five? Who cares about it? Why are you putting yourself through all this pain? There’s plenty of tents around – sleep in one of them instead.

  The cloud was clearing, giving us dramatic glimpses of the glacier below. Then Changtse was revealed, and beneath it, the North Col. I could just make out the miniscule specks of our camp, where team ‘B’ would now be resting, just one day behind us.

  When we climbed up the next small rise, we found the three tents. Unknowingly, we had rested for ten or fifteen minutes just a few metres away. Hearing the noise, Mingma’s head popped out.

  ‘Here!’

  We sat in front of the Sherpas’ tent and drank some hot tea from Lhakpa’s thermos. They had spent the last two days waiting for us here, and were as relieved as we were that we had arrived. They had been sleeping on oxygen, which had helped, but they were nevertheless bored, and obviously keen to escape from five.

  ‘Bhaje go back?’ Lhakpa used the Sherpa nickname for Brian.

  ‘Yeah. Bhaje knackered,’ Al replied.

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Simon’s coming up tomorrow with Roger, Tore and Sundeep.’

  ‘OK. We go to six tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah. What do you think of the weather?’

  With the professional eye of someone who has spent his life amongst fickle Himalayan weather, Lhakpa looked out of the tent towards the summit. ‘Maybe too much wind.’

  I was gradually recovering as the tea worked its magic. While Al and the Sherpas talked through details for the following day’s climb, I began to notice the squalor our tents were pitched amongst.

  The platform was littered with the shredded remains of abandoned tents, with strips of fabric blowing in the wind. Pieces of rope, half buried foil sachets of food and remnants of clothing were embedded in almost every inch of ice. Sharp metal snow stakes were sticking out at crazy angles, attached to lines which went nowhere. Large areas of ice were stained yellow from urine, and frozen faeces were abundantly scattered around.

  This mess had obviously been accumulating year after year, as expeditions abandoned their gear, or had it destroyed in storms. It was a depressing location, soiled and spiritless; I was already looking forward to getting out of camp five and we had only just arrived.

  A more welcome sight was the pile of oxygen cylinders next to the Sherpa tent, stacked up on a platform which had been cut into the ice. Their presence here represented a huge amount of load-carrying, and was another sign of the utter professionalism of our Sherpa team.

  In the tent, we arranged the Karrimats and sleeping bags, and then dragged in a couple of oxygen cylinders. I screwed on my regulator, set the valve to one-and-a-half litres and put on the mask. It was the first time I had ever used supplementary oxygen, other than one or two puffs down at base camp to test the valve.

  Here at 7,600 metres, the effect of the trickle of pure oxygen was immediately noticeable. Within three or four minutes my head was clearing of the throbbing headache which had been nagging all day. Within ten minutes, the ever-present feeling of slight nausea was also gone, and within fifteen minutes I was laughing out loud with the sheer joy of breathing oxygen-rich air. Whatever a medic might say, I could swear I could actually feel the oxygen coursing through my blood supply, bringing warmth to frozen fingers an
d toes.

  ‘Al, you will not believe what happens when you put this on!’

  Al was busy sorting out his pack and had not yet rigged his cylinder.

  ‘Yeah?’

  I knew Al was in two minds about using the oxygen. He had climbed K2 and all his other 8,000-metre peaks without it. I think in the back of his mind he felt that using it could compromise his reputation as Britain’s most successful high-altitude mountaineer.

  But he strapped the mask on nevertheless and within a short while he was smiling just as I had done.

  ‘I see what you mean. Not bad stuff this, is it?’

  We both experimented with the valve settings, getting used to the different levels of flow. It was difficult to tell much difference between one and one-and-a-half litres per minute, but knocking it down to half a litre was noticeably thin. Pumping it up above two litres a minute was a real treat – delivering an O2 ‘high’ which was sheer delight for our oxygen-starved bodies.

  Al pointed out the useful fact that there would be three extra cylinders here for Brian, Barney and Kees. That meant we could use two bottles rather than one each for sleeping at night. The same would be true up at camp six. Simon had promised from the beginning that there would be sufficient supplies of oxygen for everyone to have an attempt, and the extra margin we now had might prove extremely useful if we were pinned down at camp six by a storm.

  The oxygen had done more than eliminate my headache and depression. I suddenly realised that I was hungry and so was Al. We ate two Wayfarer meals each and some pistachio nuts I had brought up from advance base. Then we got the camera out and filmed a short sequence of cooking and eating in the tent. I filmed Al putting on the oxygen mask and bedding down in his sleeping bag. He filmed me eating from one of the ready-meal packs, complaining about the lack of calories whilst stuffing my face with beef and dumpling stew.