Summit story of pain and loss

Icy dangers of climbing to the top are told in Patrick Conroy's book. Picture: Supplied

Icy dangers of climbing to the top are told in Patrick Conroy's book. Picture: Supplied

Published Dec 3, 2016

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In Everest Untold, journalist Patrick ConroyConroy sheds new light on the infamous climbing season in 1996. Here's an extract from the book...

The year was 1996. Journalist Patrick Conroy arrived at Base Camp, Mount Everest, to cover South Africa’s first attempt to climb the world’s highest peak. Within days, more climbers would die on Everest than at any other point in its history. The controversies of what happened endure. In Everest Untold, Conroy sheds new light on the infamous climbing season that year.

Day 15, 12 May 1996

Philip Woodall walked back into camp, a sullen look on his face. He had been over to the New Zealand tents.

“Rob Hall is not answering his radio.” There wasn’t anything more to say. Our hearts sank.

We knew what this meant. If anyone could have survived a second night above 8 700 metres it was the tough New Zealander. Now his radio was silent.

His death had been a slow and agonising one.

There is little doubt in my mind that when he spoke to his wife, Jan, about their only child he knew he would not live to see her. His only parental act was to give the unborn baby a name .

Hall had failed to get down alive. He had failed to save Doug. Now he was to fail his only child.

Today Sarah Hall is 19 years old. Perhaps she, more than anyone else, wishes he had left Doug Hansen to his fate and descended to save his own life.

Hall sacrificed himself trying to save a man who was prepared to die for the summit. It was a heroic act but Sarah and her mother Jan would be on their own now.

Everest is indifferent to pain and loss. It has no care for protoplasmic creatures that try to scale her slopes for a few weeks each year. The bodies she claims are hers for eternity.

Rob Hall and Scott Fischer remain where they died. Where Doug Hansen and Andy Harris are is a mystery. No trace of the men has been found and Everest is keeping their icy tombs to herself.

Yasuko’s body lay on the South Col for more than a year.

Her bereaved husband organised an expedition in 1997 and brought her body down. Anatoli Boukreev was haunted by her death and apologised to her husband for failing to save her life.

Anatoli wrote a book about his experiences on Everest that year entitled The Climb.

I briefly met Anatoli in Base Camp in 1996. Deshun and I were visiting the Fischer camp after the tragic storm. Boukreev entered the kitchen tent where we were eating a breakfast provided by our hosts.

He was dressed in blue and wore running shoes. He kept to himself and avoided conversation with anyone.

He struck me as being the epitome of an introvert. Mountains were his friends, humans were a distraction.

Someone asked him if he was leaving Base Camp.

“Yes,” he said.

So I asked him where he was planning to spend the night, expecting his answer to be Pheriche or Tengboche.

“Lukla,” he said, annoyed at my intrusion.

Boukreev was about to run down the entire trail that had taken me seven days to ascend in a few hours. He was a remarkable athlete.

I was amazed but sensed he was in no mood for conversation and let him be.

A short while later he handed his empty plate to a member of the cooking team, then swiftly left the tent. He had only said two words in the entire time I was in his presence, “Yes” and “Lukla”.

On Christmas Day in 1997 he was climbing in Nepal, this time on the South face of Annapurna. Above him an enormous ice cornice broke off the mountain and came crashing down on his position. Boukreev was killed and his body never found. He was 39. He was a year younger than Fischer at the time of his death, who was 40, and four years older than Rob Hall who died aged 35. No mountain for old men.

Back to 12 May 1996.

The living were now in a desperate scramble to get down the mountain. At Camp 2 and Base Camp makeshift field hospitals had been set up. Dr Ingrid Hunt made her way to the South African tents once more.

She was visibly upset but trying to stay focused on the patients due within the next 24 hours.

She told us that she and fellow doctor Caroline Mackenzie needed medical supplies. Philip hauled a barrel filled with medicines and supplies out of the storage tent.

“Take whatever you need,” he said firmly.

Hunt explained she was looking for specific drugs, needles, drips and syringes. We poured the contents onto the floor and began sorting through the supplies. Ian Woodall you could not fault on his exceptional organisational skills. Our camp was well-stocked. Ian and Philip had thought of everything.

Hunt was rapidly building up the medicines she needed. Once satisfied, she and I carried the supplies over to Fischer’s camp. The field hospital was ready but the injured were still a long way from getting here.

Exhausted, the survivors were making their way down the Lhotse face. Those who could walk had no oxygen and the risk of making a fatal error on the fixed ropes was high.

It would be another anxious day.

Celebrated author Jon Krakauer was among those descending. He came across Scott Fischer’s lead Sherpa and best friend, Lopsang Jangbu. Lopsang was dedicated to Scott and was distraught by his death.

Krakauer expressed his condolences but Lopsang blamed himself, telling Krakauer “Scott is dead; it is my fault.”

(Four months later Lopsang was killed on Everest in an avalanche. He was 24.)

At Base Camp we were monitoring the radio in shifts. The South African team was descending along with everyone else. They planned to head down the Lhotse face, pass through Camp 3 and rest in Camp 2 at the base of the Lhotse cliffs.

Philip got the generator working and I filed a series of reports through to 702.

Andrew Bolton was managing the newsroom and told me the death toll on Everest was being reported as eight climbers.

“No, it is five,” I insisted, “Hall, Fischer, Hansen, Namba and Harris.”

Yes, Chen had been killed 24 hours before, but that still did not amount to eight. Andrew Bolton must have been wrong.

“Reuters says it is eight, Lumumba! They’re reporting the same deaths you are but say three Indian climbers died on ... the North side?”

It had not even occurred to me that there were expeditions heading for the summit from the Chinese Tibetan side of the mountain - the North Face. Andrew was right. There had been deaths on the opposite side we were unaware of.

I explained we had no knowledge of events on the North side because of an impenetrable wall of rock which separated us from the North Face. I conceded his information had to be correct.

I had been in Base Camp for four days and Everest had killed nine people in this time. That was one life every 10-and-a-half hours.

More lives would be lost before the season was over.

 * This is an extract from Everest Untold, by Patrick Conroy and published by Jacana Media at a recommended retail price of R250.

** Patrick Conroy is a media executive with 20 years’ experience in broadcasting. His career began at Talk Radio 702 in 1993 before he switched to television in 2001. He is the former news editor of e.tv’s Prime Time bulletin and went on to launch South Africa’s first independent 24-hour news channel, eNCA, in 2008.

Saturday Star

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