by Roland Smith
"If the weather holds," Zopa said.
"I talked to them about that, but their concern is that there won't be another good weather window. Nothing we can do about it. After they get to Camp Five they're on their own."
What he meant by this is that above Camp Five there is little chance for rescue. The air is too thin for a helicopter and at that altitude everyone is too out of it to help anyone but themselves. If you die above Camp Five your corpse stays there forever.
"Oh," Josh said, "one more thing. Captain Shek has been asking around about a Sherpa boy. Says he thinks he came up on the truck with you."
"Sun-jo," Zopa said. "He left a few days ago to go back to school. He just came up for the ride."
"I'll pass that on to the captain."
This part of the conversation was obviously completely planned for Captain Shek's benefit. The only problem now was that if the captain caught sight of Sun-jo again, Zopa was going to be in trouble, too.
"Everything else okay?" Josh asked.
"Yes. We are all fine."
"I'll check in later."
Zopa signed off and JR pointed his video camera at Zopa. "Do you think those climbers will make it to the summit?"
"Perhaps," Zopa said. "But it is too early in the season. If they make it, others will try and some of them will die. There are no shortcuts to the top of Sagarmatha."
By the time we reached ABC the following afternoon we were all exhausted, especially Sun-jo, who was still feeling the effects of his recent illness. In a role reversal from our last time at ABC, I made dinner for us while he lay in his sleeping bag. I'd like to say that I felt sorry for him, but the truth is that I didn't. I was still resentful about his horning in on my climb.
After we ate I went outside and found the porters and Sherpas sorting through the gear they were going to haul up to Camp Five.
Zopa explained that the yaks could not go much past ABC. The Sherpas would carry the gear on their backs to camps Four, Five, and Six and establish camps a few days before we made our summit attempt. In the meantime a couple of them would stay at ABC to guard our stuff.
"People would steal it?" I said.
"It has happened," Zopa said. "Not all expeditions are as well equipped or funded as your father's. Some climbers come to the mountain with nothing more than what they can carry, and sometimes they borrow equipment they find along the way."
The next morning he had us lighten our packs, carrying only what we needed for a night at Camp Four, which was a good thing because, three hours above ABC, we reached the foot of the Col, which is basically a pass between two peaks.
It was clear why the Col was a dead end for the yaks. The wall leading up to the pass was enormous. And from the base it looked terrifyingly unstable. Half of the wall was smooth, rounded off by strong winds, giving it the look of soft ice cream. The other half was made out of nasty seracs (or ice towers) that looked like giant jagged teeth. If I'd had enough breath the sight would have taken it away. I looked at my altimeter watch: 7,000 meters or 22,965 feet.
Holly slogged up and rested her hands on her knees before looking up at the terrible wall.
"No ... gasp ... way," she said.
I agreed.
Yogi and Yash walked up next, frowning and shaking their heads. Zopa and Sun-jo arrived last. Zopa was carrying Sun-jo's pack. Sun-jo looked really bad. When he saw the wall his face filled with dread. I almost felt sorry for him.
"Imagine what it was like two days ago when it was thawing," Zopa said.
It was a good point. Three teams had made it up to the Col in worse conditions than this.
The first stage was the hardest. It was up a steep pitch of soft ice. Sherpas had cut steps into the ice and there were fixed ropes, but the ice was slick and the ropes were still coated with ice because we were the first up that day.
We fell into an agonizing rhythm. Slide the jumar up the rope. (A jumar is a mechanical ascender with a handle that slides up the rope and grabs on so you have something to hold on to as you pull yourself up.) Step, breathe, jumar, step ... Three hours later it was more like: jumar, think, look up, think again, step, rest, rest, rest, hug the wall, pray ... as a chunk of ice the size of a Hummer fell past, crashing below, followed by the sound of our leaders, Yogi and Yash, laughing. Real funny. They were breaking away the loose ice along our route so it wouldn't unexpectedly peel us off the wall or knock our heads out of our butts—helmet and all.
I was next in line followed by the film crew, Holly, Sun-jo, and Zopa. The climb was anything but quiet with the brothers shouting "Ice!" and Zopa shouting "Faster!"
Four hours after we started up I reached the steepest pitch. Fifty feet. It might as well have been fifty miles. My arms and legs were numb and virtually useless, but the worst part was the air. There wasn't any. Or so it seemed. Each breath seemed to yield only a thimbleful of precious oxygen. Maybe enough to keep a bird alive, but not enough for an exhausted fourteen-year-old climber. Dr. Woo had been wrong. There was something the matter with me.
Yogi and Yash were already on top. One of them was manning the ropes and I hoped the other one was boiling snow at Camp Four. We would all need a steaming cup of tea when we got there. If we got there.
Holly, Sun-jo, and Zopa had dropped farther behind, but I could still hear Zopa shouting at them to move faster.
I was about ready to give up and head back down and go home when JR came up behind me. He looked terrible. His beard and goggles were covered with ice. It was a wonder he could see where he was going.
"Thanks for waiting," he rasped. "I need to film you arriving. Give me a couple of minutes' head start to set the shot."
I didn't have enough breath to tell him that I hadn't been waiting. I looked at my watch, and by the time I figured out what time it was, JR was already several feet above me. Without actually thinking about it I started up behind him.
An hour later, when I finally reached the top, Yogi hauled me over the edge by my backpack, which I was sure was not the shot JR wanted. Yogi's assist reminded me that seven weeks ago to the day a cop had done the same thing to me on the top of the Woolworth Building. I'd come a long way and it felt like it. I spent a good ten minutes on my knees trying to catch my breath until it dawned on me (again) that at this altitude there was no breath to catch. With difficulty I got to my feet and stumbled over to where Yash was trying to boil water.
Camp Four was tiny, and to make it worse, there was a gaping crevasse running beneath the crest, which I'd read was getting wider every year. Some believed that one of these days (hopefully not today) the whole thing would collapse and climbers would have to devise a new route up the north side.
I looked toward the summit, which was shrouded in gray mist, but I could see enough to pick out the route along the north ridge and across the north face to the pyramid. It seemed like a very long way from where Yash and I were squatting.
I couldn't imagine the three climbing parties trying for the top feeling like I did. My ribs ached from trying to get enough Os into my lungs to survive. I knew that Zopa was carrying at least two tanks in case of emergency and I suspected that Yogi and Yash had a couple stashed as well. Sherpas do not climb without loads. For them that would be a waste of effort. I thought about begging Yash for a hit off the tank, but resisted the urge, knowing it would defeat the purpose of the climb. Instead, I started to put together my tent, which seemed a lot more complicated than it had at ABC the day before.
Jack and Will came over the top next. Will spent a good ten minutes on his hands and knees puking. (JR did not film this.)
Forty-five minutes later I was still working on the tent when Yogi hauled Holly over the edge, followed by Sun-jo and Zopa.
Zopa was shaking his head in disgust muttering, "Too slow, too slow, too slow..." He bent down to the two slowpokes. "If you climb like that above here you can forget the summit."
Holly and Sun-jo were out of it and didn't appear to have the slightest idea of what he was saying. I
thought he was being pretty harsh considering Holly's lack of conditioning and Sun-jo's recent sickness. He came over to where I was struggling with the tent and I thought, here it comes, but instead he patted me on the back.
"You did good," he said. "You have a chance."
That was like a whole tank of Os flowing into my bloodstream. Maybe he wasn't going to try to stop me from getting to the summit.
Suddenly, the tent made complete sense. I had it together in less than five minutes. I got everything unpacked, the pads and sleeping bags spread out, then I started in on Holly's tent as she and Sun-jo watched through dull, lifeless eyes.
The burst of energy cost me. As soon as I finished, it was all I could do to get to my feet. Zopa brought over three mugs of tea and made us drink them down.
"Get your stoves going," he said. "I know you are not hungry, but you have to eat and drink." He looked up at the sky. "It's going to snow tonight."
ARREST
ZOPA, THE WEATHER MONK, was right. Next morning: two feet of new snow.
Sun-jo and I probably didn't get three hours of sleep between us. He must have been feeling better, though, because he groggily offered to start the stove. The process sometimes takes ten or fifteen minutes because there isn't enough oxygen to keep the flame going on the gas lighter long enough to light the stove.
I crawled out with our pan to collect some snow to melt and saw Zopa, the Sherpa brothers, and the film crew were already up. And it was obvious from the steam coming off their pan of water that they had been up for quite a while. Zopa was talking on the radio. That could mean only one thing this early in the morning. Someone was in trouble. I glanced toward the summit through the swirling snow. If it was this bad down here, it was much worse up there.
"Yogi and Yash will stay here at Camp Four," Zopa was saying. "If the weather breaks they will try to get oxygen up to Camp Five."
"I'm not sure we can get them down to Camp Five," a shaky German-accented voice said.
"You must!" Zopa said forcefully. "There is no chance of rescue at Camp Five or Six. In this weather you will have to come down to Camp Four. You must leave Camp Six as soon as you can. Do you understand?"
This was followed by a long silence, then a discouraged and quiet, "Fa, verstehe ich."
He understood.
Zopa gave him a blessing in Nepalese and signed off. "Are these the same Germans you did the puja ceremony for?" I asked.
Zopa nodded. "The Italians are up there as well."
"What's going on?"
"Two cases of HAPE at Camp Six," JR answered. "Maybe another mild case at Camp Five. Two climbers headed up to the summit a little after midnight and haven't been heard from since."
In this weather that meant they were probably dead, or hypothermic and close to death.
"Maybe we can go up to Camp Five with Yogi and Yash and help," I said.
Zopa shook his head. "You and Sun-jo and Miss Angelo need to get down to ABC. Other Sherpas are coming up to help, but until the climbers get to Camp Five there is nothing anyone can do. As soon as you eat pack your things. We need to leave before the weather worsens."
Because of the snow and ice, getting down the Col was worse than going up—and it wasn't made any easier by thinking about the climbers dying farther up the mountain.
We passed the Sherpas coming up to help. They were loaded with oxygen bottles and Gamow bags. Their plan was to get to Camp Four that afternoon. If the weather didn't hold them back, they would head up the mountain the following morning to help Yogi and Yash get whoever had made it to Camp Five down to Camp Four. If the weather broke, a rescue helicopter might be able to get that high, but even on the best day an airlift was dicey. If the chopper couldn't make it, the Sherpas would have to get the climbers down to ABC as best they could.
We made it down to ABC in pretty good time in spite of the snow. I think what drove us was our eagerness to crawl into our tents and sleep for two days. The camp was nearly empty. Sun-jo was still pretty weak, but confident that he would be better by the time we came up. I was beginning to feel a little less surly toward him. This probably had a lot to do with Zopa's compliment the night before. I was pretty sure they weren't out to sabotage my climb.
The next morning the film crew members were all vomiting. It looked like they had caught the same thing Sun-jo had. Zopa cut their acclimatization short and arranged to have them go down to Base Camp with another climbing party. None of them complained.
"I'm going, too," Holly said.
Zopa shook his head. "You are fine. To complete the acclimatization you will need to stay here at least two days."
She gave him a smile. "It's over for me," she said. "I have no desire to go higher than Camp Four."
"You could make it to the summit," Zopa insisted.
She shook her head, and grinned. "Too slow. It's not in me this year. I appreciate all you've done." She shook his hand, then turned to me. "What about that interview after you get to the summit?"
"I may not make it to the summit," I hedged.
"I think you will." She looked at Sun-jo. "How about you? Will you give me an exclusive interview after you come down?"
"Yes."
I thought he was being overly optimistic, but I didn't say anything.
"It's a deal and your grandfather is our witness," Holly said. "It means you can't talk to any other print journalist until after you talk to me."
"Call you in New York City?"
"Yes." She wrote down several numbers. "Don't lose them."
Before she left she gave me a hug. I didn't mind this time. In fact, I was going to miss her, which surprised me.
"If you ever get back to NewYork, Peak, you'd better call."
"I will."
As they headed down, JR stopped and shouted back for me to remember to use the camera.
Just before dark five climbers (two Germans, three Italians) and their Sherpas stumbled into ABC looking like they had been buried alive. Most of them had frostbite someplace on their bodies—fingers, toes, ears, noses. One of them had snow blindness and had been led into camp by a rope tied around his waist.
There was no doctor in camp, so Zopa and Gulu (who had stayed behind with his yak so he could sneak Sun-jo back into Base Camp) did their best treating their injuries. When they finished it was clear that three of the climbers were not going to make it down to Base Camp on their own. The other two German climbers who had HAPE were not going to make it down at all. They had died at Camp Six two hours after Zopa talked to the distraught German climber the previous day. Four dead, assuming the two climbers headed to the summit didn't make it (which was a pretty good assumption at that point).
It's hard to think straight at that altitude, but I had enough feeling in my oxygen-starved brain to feel a little shame over the way I had been thinking about Sun-jo. Climbing Everest is not a competition. It's life and death.
The surviving climbers at Camp Six headed down to Camp Five. Yogi and Yash were helping them haul the climber with mild HAPE to Camp Four. Those who could would have to make their way to ABC the next day.
Zopa radioed Josh and told him what was going on.
"We have a chopper here with a Chinese pilot willing to take a risk," Josh said. "But the weather is going to have to get a lot better up there before he can give it a shot. Do you think it might clear before dark?"
Zopa did not have to look. Visibility was down to about twenty feet. "Negative," he answered.
"Then we'll have to wait until tomorrow. Any idea when the climbers from Camp Four will make it down to ABC?"
"No, but we will go up to meet them. Early afternoon, I hope."
"The chopper's small," Josh said. "It will hold only four people aside from the pilot and Captain Shek. You'll have to choose who gets a ride and who goes down on their own two feet."
"Captain Shek is coming up?"
"That's what I hear. He's still looking for that kid."
"Why? The boy left. He is certainly not up h
ere."
"I told Shek that, but apparently he doesn't believe it. He searched the porter camp yesterday. And today he has soldiers checking everyone coming down to Base Camp."
"I guess he can do what he wants," Zopa said, but I could see he was worried.
So was Sun-jo. I wasn't sure how they were going to get him back down to the porter camp. Gulu's yak had eaten its hay, so there was nothing for Sun-jo to hide under. Captain Shek checking climbers was not good news, nor was his search of the porter camp.
"We have a lot of injured climbers up here," Zopa continued. "We could use the room in that helicopter."
"I know," Josh said. "I'll talk to Captain Shek again. Maybe he'll realize that taking up an empty seat might be the death of a climber, and the death would be his fault."
It was true, but the conversation was entirely for Captain Shek's benefit, who was no doubt eavesdropping.
"I hope so," Zopa said, then changed the subject. "Did Miss Angelo and the film crew get down?"
"They just arrived. Holly's packing her gear. There's a truck leaving tomorrow. To tell you the truth, she made it farther up the mountain than I expected. Doc's taking a look at the film crew right now. They barely made it into camp. Almost everybody has the virus down here. Leah's going crazy treating everyone. The chopper brought in more antibiotics. Five more climbing parties pulled up stakes this morning and left the mountain, sick as dogs. I think I'm getting it, too. If it keeps up no one is going to get to the summit from this side."
I hoped that what I'd gotten over was the same virus everyone else was getting now and that I wouldn't get it again. I'd have to be careful when I got back down. I wasn't about to have a virus wreck my chances of getting to the summit.
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Zopa sent everyone down to Base Camp except for the climber with snow blindness and the man with frostbitten feet. Sun-jo and Gulu went with them. Sun-jo couldn't very well stay at ABC with Captain Shek coming up. I didn't ask how they were going to get him to the porter camp, but I guessed they would keep him at one of the camps between ABC and Base Camp until Captain Shek gave up.
