Above the Clouds

by Anatoli Boukreev

  The morning of the eighth, I made coffee and hot chocolate and life returned. Lower down, I met Thor Kieser, his partner Katerina, and Ed Viesturs. Thor joked with me, asking if I was sure that I had been on top of the mountain. For me it was the top.

  I rested, enjoying Thor’s hospitality until the twelfth. That day, after some discussion with my liaison officer, Major Baig, we decided to move up to the location of the supply camps for Gasherbrum I and II. On the thirteenth I crossed the glacier to Gary Neptune’s Base Camp located at 5,800 meters at the beginning of the route up GII. Beginning my assault the morning of July 14, I arrived at the 8,068-meter-high summit of GII in nine and one-half hours. The round trip from Base Camp and back took thirteen hours.

  No one keeps track of records on these mountains. Each climb is different because the conditions are different. You might say the competition is held and each person achieves a personal result. Mountaineering is a struggle with yourself, a struggle to face a natural situation and take what comes.

  Borrowing a satellite telephone, Anatoli called from Gasherbrum Base Camp to let me know that he was alive, not to worry, and that he expected to see me at the airport in Almaty in two weeks. He had summitted four 8,000-meter peaks in eighty days—never before had anyone achieved those results in such a short time.

  10

  LETTERS FROM ANNAPURNA

  In July and August of 1997, leading an expedition from New Mexico, Anatoli traversed Myramornya Stena and climbed Khan-Tengri. That trip inaugurated our new business, Hi-Altitude. The opportunity that he provided was his way of repaying a debt of gratitude to several friends, Jack Robbins and Martin Adams among them. Though visibly tired, Anatoli was relaxed and obviously pleased to be sharing his beloved Tien Shan Mountains. Serendipitously, Reinhold Messner arrived at Khan-Tengri Base Camp while we were camped there, and Anatoli passed most of a day talking with him. During September, Tolya rested, taking time to travel home to Korkino to visit his sister. On September 25 he returned to Santa Fe.

  While he enjoyed a respite harvesting the apple trees in my yard and jogging a bit, storms racked up record snowfalls in the Himalayas. We did not know that. The Climb was recently published, and Anatoli was scheduled for a two-week publicity tour to begin on November 1. A speaking engagement took him to the Banff Festival of Mountain Culture. Attending that event was a great pleasure for us. The book tour was a trial. He came home tired but feeling liberated from the Mountain Madness expedition. The final sad explanation had been made at an emotional appearance in Seattle. Jim Wickwire, representing the American Alpine Club, had met him there and advised Anatoli that he had been awarded the AAC’s prestigious David Sowles Award, an honor bestowed in recognition of the courage he had demonstrated while selflessly attempting to rescue Scott Fischer in 1996. Anatoli returned to Santa Fe the next morning. Sandy Hill, her partner Steve, and Martin Adams, another Mountain Madness client, joined us for dinner.

  Events were compressed and accelerated. Tolya railed at having so little time to say good-bye. But there seemed to be no way to slow things down.

  Planning for the Annapurna Expedition began in September 1996. As an objective, Anatoli found the majesty of the peaks that create the great bowl of the Annapurna Sanctuary compelling. Before his death Vladimir Bashkirov had described an unclimbed route on the South Face that was intriguing. After Volodia’s death on Lhotse in May 1997, attempting this route became more important. Based on his 1995 Manaslu experience, Anatoli expected that the steep avalanche-prone slopes on the South Face of Annapurna would be more stable in early winter. Normally the season’s falling temperatures reduce the avalanche potential. Earnings from the Indonesian Expedition had provided Tolya with the first real financial cushion in his life. The constraints and danger that he associated with guiding 8,000-meter peaks were very frustrating for him. He hoped to liberate himself from the need to earn his living that way by finding commercial sponsorship for more interesting alpine objectives.

  Over the course of their association, Simone Moro had become a friend as well as a trusted climbing partner. The thirty-year-old Italian climber was personable and strong, and both he and Anatoli worked long and hard to find financing for the Annapurna expedition. The original proposal included a list of seven international climbers; however, circumstances forced the other members to cancel one by one. In September when old friend Kevin Cooney told us that he and his wife, Annie, were expecting their first child, Anatoli took him off the expedition roster. “Kevin is no longer invited,” he said. Kevin’s growing family responsibility was more important than the opportunity to climb an 8,000-meter peak. By December 1, 1997, a Polartec Grant and contributions from Italian and Kazakh sponsors amounted to about one third of the expedition cost. Anatoli was very pleased that his efforts to find funding for an original idea had been at least partially successful and he wanted to live up to the commitment that accepting the sponsorship implied. Interviews, telephone calls, and letters written during that time tell his part of the Annapurna story.

  Excerpt from Anatoli’s letter to Jim Wickwire dated November 15:

  I very much appreciate your coming to see me in Seattle. I am sorry I was so disturbed; I was so tired after the publicity tour that I may have seemed crazy to you. I could never have imagined how difficult it would be; reviewing that sad story was more difficult than climbing Everest.

  It is very important for me to tell you how much I am honored by the idea of this award from the American Alpine Club. I have many friends in America who are climbers and their friendship and respect means a great deal to me—Scott Fischer was one of them. With respect I recall what spirit let Scott try to work with and understand a climber from another culture. I understand this award is extended in that same spirit. I feel very fortunate to be recognized this way.

  I will be in Nepal preparing for an attempt on the South Face of Annapurna when you have your meeting. Again I apologize that I could not be more attentive to you at the end of the book tour. Now, I am a little rested and must express my gratitude to you and to all the members who thought of me.

  Interview with Alex Severnuk, November 18, Almaty, Kazakhstan:

  Applying to conquer as a verb for a mountain was an invention of the propagandists of the Soviet Union—who thought of conquering a country, conquering people, conquering a summit. To me conquer means something like rape—to take by force. I don’t think anyone should aim at conquering anything, and it is the wrong word to apply to our climbing achievements. At best a person is able to rise to the same level as a mountain for a short time.

  I have climbed eleven different 8,000-meter-high peaks in nineteen or twenty-one successful attempts, depending on how you count the summits of Kanchenjunga. Of the fourteen highest peaks in the world, only Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, and Annapurna remain unclimbed by me. Messner was the first person to summit them all, and four other men—Jerzy Kukuczka, Christof Wielicki, Erhard Loretan, and Carlos Carsolio—have repeated his work. For me this goal is interesting, and though it has been done before, it will complete a certain stage of my life.

  Speaking honestly, I do not feel fear climbing high; rather, my shoulders straighten, square like a bird stretching its wings. I enjoy the freedom and the height. Down below, when I become immersed in the problems of ordinary life, there is fear sometimes, or the pettiness of human behavior can weigh heavily on my shoulders.

  After spending time with Anatoli in Kathmandu, mountaineer Charlie Fowler, on his return to America, delivered this letter to me:

  NOVEMBER 26, 1997

  It’s difficult for me to make contact with you; we did not give much money to the trekking agency for their help and they don’t pay much attention to us. I just received your fax, thank you. I will be working on Annapurna until January 15. Don’t worry if there is no telephone call before then. We need to think about the summer; hopefully I will be on a Kazakh permit to climb Gasherbrum I. Try to find a place for me on a permit for Nanga Parbat. I will be available to
climb Gasherbrum II with clients in June, but remember we cannot find high-altitude porters in Pakistan. For $10,000 per person we can organize just a nonguided expedition; that is, permit, base camp support with food, and fixed line up a secure broken trail to the summit. If no one likes that, then maybe we will have enough money and we can go alone.

  The title of the slide show at Gary Neptune’s is “Challenge 8,000 in 1997.” Make plans with Monty Sorongan for us to climb Karstenz and go to Bali from March 25 until April 25.

  During the evening of November 30 my phone rang. It was morning in Pokhara. That charming lakeside town blessed by Annapurna’s watershed was one of Tolya’s favorite places. He was in good spirits. Kazakh mountaineer Dima Soubelev and Almaty artist Andre Starkov were going to join Anatoli and Simone during the early stages of the expedition. Later that morning, all of them were flying to Base Camp in an Asian Airlines helicopter piloted by Anatoli’s old friend Serge Danilov. Snow was deep on the mountains, he said, and few expeditions had been successful that fall.

  After talking about schedules and business, my children and animals, we said good-bye, but both of us held the line. There was a long silence and he asked again, “Linda, how are you?”

  “Think about Annapurna, Anatoli, I am afraid of this mountain. Have you had dreams?”

  “No, no dreams,” he said, then wistfully adding, “I have been so much in the mountains this year, Inshallah, we will rest in the spring.”

  On December 18, Andre Starkov bid Anatoli, Simone Moro, and Dima Soubelev good-bye at the hot springs lodge below the Gurung village of Chomrong. Andre returned to Almaty with exposed rolls of film and letters to mail.

  Today is the eighteenth of December; we came down to 1,760 meters to the settlement of Tatopani to rest near the hot springs. Tried to call but the phone doesn’t work in Gandruk. For the last two weeks the weather here has been unusual for Nepal. We have three and one-half meters of new snow and have had to break trail from the last teahouses at 4,100 meters up to our Base Camp at 5,000 meters. We lost two tents to the snowfall. Tomorrow we are going back up. My expectation is to finish the expedition about January 16, be back in Almaty by the twentieth, and in America before February 20.

  First I must survive this. If possible we will summit, but it is more important to come back with my sticks.1 This expedition has cost a lot of money so I will be fighting until the last drop of strength is spent.

  When the phone rang at midnight on December 26, Simone was on the line and the news was bad. While he and Anatoli were fixing a route up the lowest section of slope along the ridge between Annapurna South and the summit of Annapurna I, a cornice had collapsed. Simone was waiting on the fixed line in the lead position. Anatoli was bringing up the fifty meters of rope needed to secure the last section of the route. Car-sized blocks of ice fell, missing Simone, but they pulled out the fixed line below and jerked him off the route and down the slope in a wake of debris. Before being swept down, he shouted an alert to Anatoli and Dima. Simone recalled his last view of Tolya, face up, his eyes judging the trajectory of snow and stone as he began moving to the side below the path of the rushing avalanche.

  EPILOGUE: SMALL PIECES OF PIE WITH BITTER GRAVY

  Written in the summer of 1996, this piece recalled the morning on the Mountain Madness expedition when Anatoli and Neal Beidleman had set out to fix rope on the route between Camp II and Camp III.

  Three hundred meters from the beginning of the fixed ropes on the Lhotse Face, I deviated a little to the left of the usual path through that place, selecting a lower-angled slope and cutting a zigzag trail up. After climbing about thirty meters, I noticed something unusual in the snow. The early-morning rays of the sun illuminated a dark form. It did not resemble a stone. At first I thought that I was looking at an empty equipment case that had fallen from the upper camps. But approaching, I could make out boots with crampons attached. Moving closer, I discovered the form was half of a human body.

  Where was the upper part of the body?

  Probably the person had broken loose from the upper reaches of the mountain, falling a considerable distance along the rock faces and ice; as a result, I was looking at a maimed body.

  What caused this tragedy and who was this person?

  The magnitude of the mountains’ enduring power penetrated deep inside me. These mountains do not forgive mistakes, and human ambition means nothing on this part of the earth’s territory. I dropped my pack not far from the body, trying to compose myself while I waited for the members of our group who were spaced out climbing up the slopes below me. Reflecting on the short duration of human life and what remains after life on earth, I recalled an ancient custom. I don’t remember exactly if it was a Greek or a Roman habit, but at the height of the victory banquet after a battle, the music stopped and into the hall were carried the troops who had perished. In the mountains I often encounter bodies. It makes me think about the significance and the desire to ascend into the zone of danger—to an altitude that is unnatural for a human body, where the price of mistake, failure, or even triumph can be measured in a human life.

  The incommensurable value of mountaineering experience, it would seem, exists alongside the danger. Why? For me, though I have devoted myself to climbing mountains as objects of passion for twenty years, this has always been a straightforward question. What is it that pushes a person to climb? Clients on our expeditions pay great sums of money to endure the hardships of camp life, a life that in no way resembles the ordinary civilized life to which we have grown accustomed. Of course, inside each one of us is the ambition to reach the summit, to realize that you are stronger than obstacles, that it is within your power to do something uncommon and indeed impossible for most people. But one must be prepared to face those obstacles.

  It would be far better if ambition compelled people to train, to commit to preparation that went from simple to complex, hardening the spirit. The individual should derive pleasure from the process of physical and mental development. The payment for ambition should be made in preparation, in training and improving oneself, not in the loss of a life. The greatest significance of our efforts—and it is after all only of importance to the individual—is to have a way to evaluate our actions in life. Climbing gives you a way to define the significance of events and your surroundings. I wondered if the people coming behind me were really evaluating the upcoming ascent and their preparation for it. Paying a large sum of money is much easier than gaining altitude.

  During the Makalu expedition two years before, at about 7,500 meters, team climbers had a similar encounter with the remains of a deceased person. Weather conditions were worse and our team was climbing without the help of Sherpas. A strong wind blew, and Makalu’s steep slopes wore out our people. For many of them the encounter with the mountaineer’s remains was a significant warning. It created a psychological barrier that compelled the majority of them to turn around and head back down. Subconsciously they were pushed to avoid a critical situation. At the time, it seemed to me that this incident had played a positive role. That day on the slopes of Everest, I hoped that the vision of the broken person would provoke each person behind me to ask, “Am I prepared for this ascent, can I realize my ambitions without becoming a victim of them?”

  This excerpt is from the unedited text for an article titled “Oxygen Illusion” that Anatoli completed in February 1997. The article was selected by American Alpine Journal editor Christian Beckwith for publication in the 1997 edition.

  Nowadays the popularity of ascents up Everest is increasing despite the fact that permit prices have gone up dramatically. People go there to test themselves with hardship and altitude. Utilizing the best technical advances in equipment and extensive outside support, they climb a mountain that is much more approachable than the one Hillary and Tenzing summited in 1953. Success today cannot be compared with the milestone those men set or the achievement represented by Messner’s solo ascent. Easier and more approachable does not mean that the m
ountain is lower.

  Everest is no less dangerous, especially for those who have insufficiently trained their bodies and spirits. Many of today’s ascenders have nothing to test because they have devoted so little to preparing for the challenge. It’s worth thinking about—both for the individual who climbs with a guide, for the guides themselves, and for anyone who makes money from what we do. Commerce has stepped up to the big heights; now vertical meters are calculated in dollars. The use of oxygen canisters has become one part of a profitable business. Supplemental oxygen makes the industry profitable for the canisters’ manufacturers, guiding companies, and publications that reap the benefit of advertising. But is it profitable for the individual who pays big money and knows nothing about high-altitude reality? Money and oxygen make it possible to ascend into a zone where it is easy to die, to a place where no one can rescue you if suddenly your own strength is insufficient. The myth of safety is a delusion for dilettantes. It is better to shatter that myth than perpetuate it with the notion that supplemental oxygen or a top guide can save you.

  It is impossible to stop the growth of business around Everest. Now commercial expeditions have a firm hold. But can any of these ascents claim to be “guided” as Americans want to define this term? Anyone going to Everest should understand that no guide can give a 100 percent guarantee that the client’s life is safe. If such a guarantee is made, then it is a deception. The last word will always belong to the mountain.