My mental state improved in proportion to my body’s recuperation, and after six weeks I began to train again. My head began to fill with ideas: Annapurna in winter, a spring traverse of Everest and Lhotse in alpine style, a summer return to K2 on Messner’s Magic Line. Everything would depend on my finances and on my technical and physical readiness. I confess that I was afraid of guiding work. Responsibility for another person is far harder than the most demanding sports ascent on any route. One must accept responsibility for so many contingencies over which there is no personal control. The most dangerous variable is the lack of proper preparation in those you are bound to assist. Assuming responsibility in that case slowly but surely eats away at your physical and psychological energy. Perhaps even the strongest personalities—men such as Scott Fischer and Rob Hall—did not have enough of this kind of energy. No one can guarantee success to people who are only ready to pay money to climb to the top of the planet. Anyone with that ambition should begin by ascending a number of 7,000-meter peaks and then easier 8,000-meter peaks. With adequate background experience and luck with the weather, it is possible for a climber to summit Mount Everest without particular risk to his life or the life of the guide.
Why do trials such as the one we endured on Everest fascinate people? Do people go to the mountains to be tested? Indeed, for someone who did not end up in a storm but enjoyed good weather, who followed a well-established trail and climbed fixed ropes, slept in comfortable camps and relied on a steady supply of oxygen carried by Sherpas, ascending Everest would pose no particular difficulty. During this same season, along the very same route, a number of climbers who were not in any physical shape comparable to mine achieved my basic results: they reached the summit of Everest and survived. To this fact you can only throw up your hands and say, “C’est la vie.” Always, some are more lucky in life. When you climb a mountain at high altitude, if you are counting on luck, you are playing hussar—Russian roulette as you call it in the West. Mercenaries employed by the czar, who in their boredom engaged in all manner of strange amusements, invented that game. One out of every ten people who has tried to climb Everest has died.
You must always be prepared for the worst variant during an ascent at high altitude, and this is especially true of Everest. Sometimes situations develop that cannot be predicted or controlled, despite the best experience and preparation. The variabilities of weather and individual responses increase proportionally with elevation. The likelihood of survival decreases in bad weather or if a climber has underlying health problems. I am incredulous when I hear guides say they have never lost a client climbing Everest, as if expertise alone could prevent this. Unfortunately there is no guarantee against loss of life at high elevation, neither for an experienced guide nor for a novice who pays exorbitant sums of money and climbs with the support of guides and a number of Sherpas. The probability of dying in a storm at eight thousand meters is about the same for both these individuals. A sad example of this is the outcome of the cold night Scott Fischer and Makalu Gau endured on May 10.
Scott’s high-altitude experience far surpassed that of Makalu Gau, but Gau survived the night though both of them had climbed the same route using supplemental oxygen. You can only guess why one was luckier than the other. Yet one marked difference between these two men was that as expedition leader and guide, Scott carried an incomparably higher burden of responsibility. Makalu was nurturing his own ambition. I will say with certainty, a guide who carries the psychological responsibility for clients has about two times the risk of dying as an ordinary mountaineer on the same undertaking. My observation is confirmed by the tortured experience of professionals struggling to the last minute for the life of a fatally weakened client. I do not believe that if a client is dying at high altitude, then a guide should also die. Before anyone goes to the mountain, both clients and guides must squarely face the grim risk inherent in their undertaking and the well-documented limits to effective “assistance” at high altitude.
Yes, I feel lucky that I did not die working three days and three nights on or above the South Col in extreme conditions with my fate tied to that of inexperienced climbers. There was no time for me to analyze the situation, no energy for clear thinking; decisions were made hastily, fatal exhaustion always accumulating in the background. Some moments, I felt like a robot with many programs in my head. Relying on experience, I picked the most acceptable program. In such circumstances a mistake could have cost my life or the lives of people for whom I was taking responsibility. I was aware of this reality most keenly the night I returned from Scott’s body in the blizzard. I had enough strength to descend and wander blindly for four hours on the Col before locating our tents, but how would the next guided expedition turn out?
All through that summer, members of the popular American press and professional mountaineers analyzed the events on Everest. Unfortunately, my opinions about the reasons for our loss were not correctly understood. Perhaps this is because these reasons are found in each of us. They are the roots of our civilization. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer were the best examples of high-altitude guides on Everest, and they did not break any existing rules. Civilization with its values came to the high mountains. Commerce and business reached the highest point on the planet. Sadly, none of us could escape this. The realm above eight thousand meters is a world unto itself with rules inherent only to itself. The right to go there is not available for a price. You can pay for a guide’s experience, experience he has accumulated during decades of work, but to use it correctly and to survive when the situation becomes critical at eight thousand meters depends on the strength of the individual. In the worst case a guide is only able to die, having assumed impossible responsibility for a client’s survival.
Neither the writers or publishers, who had no understanding of reality at high altitude, nor professional mountaineers who had dedicated their lives to climbing, wanted to acknowledge that simple truth. I do not know how a person climbing above eight thousand meters for the first time can hope to assimilate the experience a guide has acquired over decades. The lack of experience will be acutely telling if that person is caught in deteriorating weather. Only by luck, randomly wandering in zero visibility, did I not fall off an 8,000-meter-high cliff or into a crevasse. My clients’ luck was that I had enough strength in reserve to help them survive. Rob Hall and his clients were not so lucky.
In America my actions were misinterpreted and my descent from the summit was condemned, though regarding that action I had first consulted with Rob Hall and then with Scott Fischer. Neither of them disagreed with my decision to descend quickly to be ready to resupply our flagging clients. At that moment and throughout the expedition no one could have suspected me of being a coward or weak or choosing the easiest job for myself. I can look in anyone’s eyes and say I did the best I knew how to do for our team.
Basically I spent the summer engaged in stormy discussions and arguments stirred up by the slant put on events by the publicity in America. My critics were either people who did not have a professional understanding of the situation or those professionals who had not endured such circumstances. They thought I should have used supplemental oxygen during the ascent. For most people that issue became the trump card in evaluating my work. Although I felt no guilt, I wanted to defend my professional honor. I agreed to write my recollections for a book about our expedition. I have nothing derogatory to say about Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. They are men I truly respect, whose courage and valor I will always admire. Neither did I have any desire to impugn the opinions of my opponents: each had his own point of view of the events based on his level of experience. However, I was disappointed in the people whom I knew who kept silent. I had counted on their support.
By the middle of August the pressure of these arguments became an intolerable weight. I felt defenseless and was psychologically exhausted by the accusations. I knew the best medicine for me would be hard physical labor. I needed to breathe the oxygen-depleted air surroun
ding the giants that prop up the Tibetan sky.
Cho Oyu
I was able to put the situation in America behind me at the beginning of the autumn climbing season in the Himalayas. By mid-September I was back in Nepal, with my name included on a joint Kazakh-Japanese permit for Cho Oyu. I also paid to join a group of strong Russians led by Vladimir Bashkirov who were going to climb Shisha Pangma. Their plans were the same as mine: to do back-to-back ascents of the two 8,000-meter peaks in Tibet. The experienced Russians had been working on the first mountain since the end of August. Jeeps were scheduled to arrive at the Cho Oyu trailhead on September 30 to transport them to Shisha Pangma. I knew there was not much time for me to catch up with the Russians, who, I surmised as I was leaving Kathmandu, were probably well-acclimatized and close to making a summit bid.
I had spent most of the summer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, living at 2,500 meters. To maintain a degree of acclimatization, my weekly training program included a long speed ascent to 3,200 meters. Obviously, that did not prepare me for the elevation gain that was ahead of me. In the past when I had had breaks from high altitude of more than two months, my body had required gradual acclimatization for more than ten days. To catch up with the Russian team, I would have to push myself to acclimatize in a more condensed time frame. I wondered if that was physically possible.
Although I’d paid my portions of the permit cost and yak transportation on both expeditions, to save money I was not going to use the facilities of either team at Base Camp. Climbing alone without the help of Sherpas or other teammates would make my work several times harder. I could not actually call what I intended to do a “solo ascent” because other expeditions would be working simultaneously on the common route, but I was committed to relying on my own resources to accomplish my goal. As a sportsman, it would have been much more interesting for me to attempt a new route. But those kinds of expeditions are difficult to join, and they are always more expensive. Without partners who will share expedition costs, an individual must have $30,000 to finance a first ascent. Commerce is a creation of civilization, and the high mountains are now commercial concerns with high prices. Fed up with those constraints, I was interested in spending as little money as possible and climbing the mountains independent of outside help.
At 5 P.M. on September 17, I pulled my gear out of the Land Cruiser parked below Tingri Mountain at the end of the dirt track where climbers begin the trek to Cho Oyu. The elevation was 5,100 meters. My personal gear—down suit, plastic boots, tent, stove, food, kerosene, and my sleeping bag—went into my pack, a thirty-kilogram load for my shoulders. The physical stress of my adventure was increasing in inverse proportion to the amount of money that I spent, but here no weak clients or partners were tying my hands. I understood the facts perfectly well, and it gave me a sense of freedom that I had never known before when climbing a high mountain. My ambition, readiness, and desire would determine all my actions.
With that psychological momentum, I shouldered my pack and began the trek to Base Camp in the early-morning twilight on September 18. The mountain looked amicable; all day the sun illuminated the summit in a cloudless sky. Nightfall found me climbing an upgrade of rocky scree. Though the route was unfamiliar, it felt as if I were home. Seven hours of climbing brought me to the foot of the northwest crest of the eighth-highest mountain in the world.
Somewhere on the rubble at 5,700 meters among the tents belonging to different expeditions were the Russians. In the past, as members of the Combined Team of the USSR, we had climbed many mountains together. Among the group was a countryman from the Urals: Evgeny Vinogradski, a veteran of the traverse of Kanchenjunga. Locating them was easy. Only they were not sleeping at that hour; the men enjoyed playing cards late into the night. The whole team was in camp resting for their imminent summit bid. Our reunion was emotional. We had endured a long separation. Oblivious of time, we talked long into the night. I did not get to bed until the early hours of the morning.
My friends had prepared their high camps and acclimatized in spite of unstable weather. The eighteenth was only the second day since their arrival that it had not snowed. The nineteenth was a magnificent day. Feeling good, I loaded my pack and at 3 P.M. was on my way up a well-beaten trail. My intention was to continue up to the altitude where my body and mind gave the signs that I was not ready for a further increase in elevation. Four hours later I stopped for the night at 6,500 meters. I was sleepy after the eight-hundred-meter height gain, but I did not feel nauseated nor did I have a headache. Skipping supper, I drank hot tea from my thermos and fell asleep quickly. The next morning I took my waking pulse. It was a little faster than my normal forty-five beats per minute. Other than a loss of appetite, I had no symptoms of altitude sickness. Three hours later I arrived at Camp II at 7,000 meters. Apathy and muscle fatigue were new sensations, but I still felt no nausea or headache. My muscles were somewhat cottonlike because of the rapid ascent. I decided against pushing my luck, though there was enough light in the day for me to climb higher.
I stashed my equipment for the summit bid in a waterproof bag. In one hour I was back at Camp I, changing into my leather trekking boots. There I deposited my crampons and heavy plastic boots. Two hours later back in Base Camp, I continued to have no appetite, but that I took as a normal sensation during my body’s adjustment. For supper I drank tea and ate a little dried fruit. I went to bed early, too fatigued to enjoy the interesting stories my friends were sharing about the events in their lives since we had last been together. Our reality had changed 180 degrees since 1989. It was especially difficult for professional mountaineers and other sportsmen to adjust to the abrupt process of commercialization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Despite the pressure of rapid ascent, the two days of hard labor had improved my samochuvstvie. That validated a personal theory I have that it is better to acclimatize by working hard and stressing the body. I had spent three and one-half months recovering from Lhotse, my last 8,000-meter success in the spring. Before that rest, in the period between May 17, 1995 and May 17, 1996, I had climbed Everest twice, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, and Lhotse—five peaks higher than eight thousand meters. (I know of only one other climber, Carlos Carsolio, who has summited four 8,000-meter peaks in twelve months.) My body felt ready for the hard work, and I had no doubts it would tolerate the rapid acclimatization. Still, I had to pay attention because I did not want to fall prey to some infection that would compromise my respiratory system or, worse, my gastrointestinal track. Dramatic environmental change, dry mountain air, and physical stress leaves no one immune to these illnesses when climbing.
I slept that night without any problems, a good indicator for me that my body was functioning properly. The next day I enjoyed a rest, only allowing myself a walk around Base Camp. Stable weather continued; the sky was cloudless, the air calm. It was pleasant hiding from the strong mountain sun, lying with my muscles relaxed in the luxurious warmth of my tent. I could hear the Russians busy with preparations for the next day’s summit bid. Should I begin the assault tomorrow as well, I wondered, or should I give my body another day of rest?
Part of the team left camp early on September 24; others waited to begin after the benefit of a good lunch. When questioned about my plans, I answered vaguely. I was enjoying my freedom and independence. I could follow my impulses. I was consciously trying to keep my actions in line with my body’s feelings of readiness. Camp was empty when about three in the afternoon I decided to begin. Packing took an hour and I was on my way.
Russell Brice, the experienced English guide, took advantage of that day of good weather and led his climbers to the summit. At 7,800 meters a huge snow pack rolled off the slope, thundered down the mountain, and ran out only two hundred meters before Camp II. Russell’s team was barely above the avalanche’s point of origin. The famous Japanese alpinist Yuko Tabey was in that lucky group. (Some years ago, she became the first woman to summit Everest; she has not given up her hobby, continuing to c
limb 8,000-meter peaks in her old age using bottled oxygen.)
Traveling light, I arrived at Camp I in time to admire the incredible colors of the sunset reflected in the sky above the mountains. After supper I quickly fell asleep inside my small one-man tent. At 9 A.M. the next day, I began climbing along the easy crest to the next camp, on the way encountering some familiar faces. Henry Todd and his team were going down to rest after two nights of acclimatization at Camp II. The combination of brilliant sunlight and heat robbed me of enthusiasm and energy—the disadvantage of perfectly calm weather at high elevation. By the time I arrived at 7,000 meters the Russians were finishing tea and preparing to leave for Camp III. With the weather in the afternoon showing signs of impending change, they hoped to reach the summit the next day and descend before it started snowing again. Headed for their high camp at 7,300 meters, they crossed the fresh pattern of snow left by the huge avalanche.
The brother of the famous Polish climber Maciej Berbeka joined me. From our conversation, I learned that he, like me, had arrived on the eighteenth and was making his first trip to 7,000 meters. He had come directly from Pakistan after an unsuccessful attempt to climb Nanga Parbat. In response to his suggestion that we try for the summit together, I shrugged my shoulders, answering that I would see tomorrow. My actions had to depend on how I felt. The situation for him was less complex because of his good acclimatization on Nanga. We agreed it would be a shame to ignore that the gods had favored us with good weather, but I would only go as high as my body told me was permissible. Berbeka went to bed early.
Above the Clouds Page 21
