The Climb

  In a hospital.

  SummitQuest’s next foray onto the shanks of Everest was a climb to Camp One for a two-day acclimatization stay.

  If boredom had been an annoyance at Base Camp, here at 19,500 feet it was a full-fledged epidemic. There was absolutely nothing to do except read and melt snow into drinking water.

  Perry looked into the pot. “The fire’s broken,” he complained, stirring a mound of slush that seemed determined to stay slush forever.

  Sneezy laughed. “Fire burns cooler at altitude. Wait till Camp Four. You can spend a whole night trying to make a cup of soup.”

  Tilt headed for the tent flap. “I’m not thirsty.”

  The cameraman grabbed him by the arm. “If you get dehydrated on Everest, you’re dead. Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here a long time.”

  In contrast to the chill of the Icefall, the Western Cwm was like a giant solar oven. They were sandwiched between the Nuptse wall and the west shoulder of Everest. The sun’s rays baked the snow valley, raising the temperature well into the nineties.

  “This is bizarre,” complained Sammi. “I’m going to fry on a sheet of ice.”

  Stripping off layers of clothing was the only way to stay comfortable. But this far up into the atmosphere, there was practically zero protection from the sun’s rays. Unprotected skin burned in minutes. They slathered on sunscreen, but in less than an hour they were forced to flee to the unmoving hot air of the tents.

  “It beats being broiled,” said Perry.

  “So much nicer to be slow-roasted,” growled Tilt.

  At that moment, Cicero burst in, brandishing his walkie-talkie like a club. “Base Camp just patched me through to the satellite phone so I could take a call from Summit headquarters back in the States. They’re getting flak because maybe Dominic isn’t up to this climb.”

  “But how could they know anything’s wrong with Dominic?” asked Sammi.

  “Because they read it in the National Daily, that’s how!” roared Cicero.

  There was silence as the meaning of his words sank in. During training camp in Colorado, there had been a tell-all story in the National Daily, but everyone assumed that the source was a disgruntled climber who had been cut from the team. This latest leak could only have come from someone at Mount Everest.

  Tilt held his breath and did his best not to panic. There’s no way Cap could know it’s me, he kept repeating to himself. There’s no way Cap could know it’s me….

  Sammi spoke up. “What about Ethan Zaph? He knows Dominic had HAPE.”

  “But Ethan wasn’t in boot camp,” Perry pointed out.

  Tilt came alive. “Maybe not in person,” he argued, “but he had a lot of friends in that group. We were the top young climbers in the country. If he wanted info, he just had to pick up the phone.”

  “He could have said, ‘Hi, it’s Z-man. What’s new at boot camp?’” Sammi agreed. “No one would suspect he was fishing.”

  Cicero was skeptical. “Why should Zaph care if Dominic gets a shot at Everest?”

  “It’s his record we’re out to break,” Tilt explained, thrilled to have a theory that deflected suspicion from himself. “Any trouble he can make for SummitQuest could affect our chances of getting to the top.”

  Cicero thought it over. “Maybe,” he said finally. “But whoever it is, the walls have ears, so keep your mouths shut, especially around Zaph. Got it?”

  Tilt cleared his throat. “Have you heard anything from Dominic? Is he getting better? You know, better enough to climb with us?”

  “I decide whether Dominic climbs or not!” Cicero snapped testily. “Not the National Daily and whatever bigmouth is feeding them their information. And if I find out that it’s one of you, I don’t care if you’re three steps from the summit — so help me, I’ll yank you down to Base Camp myself and put you on the next yak to Kathmandu. Is that clear?”

  Tilt nodded along with the others, his stomach tight.

  Sammi wasn’t the only one who lived on the edge.

  * * *

  By the time Dr. Oberman and Dominic made it to Base Camp, the SummitQuest team had returned from Camp One, rested, and set out again.

  “How do you feel, kid?” asked Cicero over the walkie-talkie from Camp Two, nearly a mile above.

  “Fantastic,” Dominic told him. Tackling the trek at a snail’s pace had been frustrating, but his strength had returned in full force. “We can come up and meet you guys if you want.”

  “Cool your jets,” laughed Cicero. “Get used to the altitude at Base Camp. We’ll be back in a few days.”

  But even Base Camp — a place Dominic had been dreaming about for half his life — couldn’t hold his interest for very long.

  “Andrea,” he suggested the next morning, “why don’t we suit up and go into the Icefall?”

  “You heard Cap,” she told him. “We wait here for the rest of the group.”

  “We don’t even have to make it to Camp One,” he wheedled. “Come on, let’s get our feet wet. I haven’t strapped on crampons in six weeks.”

  “Dominic, you know better than anybody the dangers of going too high too fast. Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Not only are you alive, but you’re probably going to get your chance at the mountain. Be grateful.”

  Dominic was nervous. The others were on their third acclimatization trip, and he hadn’t even started yet. There were still weeks to go before they could try for the peak, but a lot could go wrong on Mount Everest. A few days of bad weather could put him so far behind schedule that he’d never be ready for a summit bid.

  Stuck in a tent at Base Camp while the rest of them push for the top. Nothing, he thought, not even HAPE, could be worse than that!

  * * *

  The next morning, there was an accident on the Lhotse Face. One of the Japanese climbers was struck in the head by a falling rock.

  A group of Sherpas were attempting a rescue. They had the man strapped to a ladder and were slowly carrying him down through the Icefall. This was nothing short of heroism — the Icefall was difficult and dangerous enough without having to maneuver a 180-pound climber attached to an eight-foot length of aluminum. As the only doctor presently in Base Camp, Andrea Oberman rushed the quarter mile to the mouth of the Icefall to await the patient. Dominic went with her.

  Half an hour later, the party appeared. The rescuers were led by none other than Babu, supporting the front of the ladder/stretcher on his shoulders.

  “What can I do to help?” Dominic asked Dr. Oberman.

  The doctor had no time for him. “Stand clear, Dominic. This man may have a fractured skull.” She turned to Babu. “Get on the radio and set up a helicopter evacuation!” The barked orders continued to the group in general. “Let’s move him back to camp! Bring extra blankets! Where’s the best place to land a chopper around here?”

  The Japanese mountaineer was carried off. Dominic made a move to follow, but hesitated. There were plenty of volunteers for this rescue. He’d only get in the way.

  He peered up into the shattered glacier.

  So dangerous. Why was he drawn to it?

  The answer came immediately: I’m a climber.

  “You’re all crazy,” his mother had said years before, when Mr. Alexis had decided to spend Thanksgiving scaling Half Dome in Yosemite. Chris had been only twelve for that trip — one of the youngest ever to take on the famous wall. Nine-and-a-half-year-old Dominic had burned with jealousy. It had always been that way — Chris was older; Chris was bigger; Chris was better. Even at training camp for SummitQuest, Chris had been considered a sure thing; Dominic had been expected to disappear in the first cut.

  Yet Dominic, not Chris, was the Alexis brother standing at the entrance to the Khumbu Icefall. Dominic was at the base of mighty Everest.

  And what was he doing?

  Waiting.

  That was when his eyes fell on the assortment of equipment lying on the moraine ten yards away. Since it was so difficult to wal
k in crampons over the Base Camp rocks, most Everesters left their footgear by the entrance to the Icefall. Camp, after all, was still a quarter mile away. For an exhausted, dehydrated climber returning from the upper mountain, it was a way to save precious energy.

  Dominic’s crampons were easy to find — they were the smallest ones there by at least three sizes. His ice ax, also smaller, lay beside them. He hefted it experimentally.

  You promised Cap you’d stay put, he reminded himself.

  But every time he turned the thought over in his head, it lost a little more shine, fading next to a new notion, growing in intensity.

  I’ll only go in for an hour or so. Just to get the feel of it.

  To Dominic, the Khumbu Icefall was the most beautiful place on Earth.

  Of course he knew his surroundings could be lethal. Climbers in the Icefall were like ants on a bowling ball — the slightest movement could crush you with a force millions of times your own weight. Even the greatest alpinists in history — Cap Cicero included — had a healthy fear of the Icefall. Dominic climbed cautiously, with a humble respect for the hazards all around. But he could not bring himself to be afraid. Instead, he was filled with wonderment at this vertical labyrinth of deep blue crystal. Every ray of sunlight that managed to squeeze down between Everest and Nuptse was multiplied to infinity by a wonderland of irregular prisms.

  When he came to the first ladder, disappointment washed over him. That was the deal he’d made with himself. He would ascend only as far as the Icefall’s first crevasse. Then it would be time to turn around. He was not dressed properly — sweats and a jacket instead of the standard one-piece wind suit. He had found light gloves in the pockets, but not the Gore-Tex mitts for high-altitude mountaineering.

  He frowned. On the other hand, the Icefall was rarely windy, and the day was just beginning to warm. He’d only been climbing for forty minutes. It didn’t make sense to come this far without crossing one of the Khumbu’s notorious ladders.

  Over and back — that’s all. Just so I’ll know what to expect.

  His crampons scraped at the rungs of the ladder. Awkward steps. His eyes began to fill with tears. Not tears of terror, but the emotion of feeling eighty years of mountaineering history under his feet. This wasn’t a drill, or a practice climb designed to simulate Everest. This was the real thing.

  A sudden voice behind him interrupted his reverie.

  “Just walk, sahib. No look down hole. Pretend not there.”

  Startled, Dominic craned his neck to glance over his shoulder. At the foot of the ladder stood three Sherpas carrying enormous loads.

  The leader stared at him. “A child?”

  “I’m with SummitQuest,” Dominic called back a little defensively. “Cap Cicero’s team.” He hurried across the ladder.

  One by one, the Sherpas followed, joining him on the other side of the crevasse. They were barely breathing hard despite the huge packs each man carried. Sherpas were employed to ferry gear and supplies to the high camps on the mountain. They received little credit for their efforts, but without them, no expedition would have a chance at the summit.

  The Sirdar looked him up and down. “You very young.” Unlike Babu, who had lived in the West, most Sherpas spoke broken English with thick accents.

  Dominic nodded. “We’re all kids on SummitQuest,” he admitted, “but I’m the youngest.”

  “You stay with us,” the Sirdar decided. “No climb alone. Icefall dangerous.”

  But I was just about to go back down —

  Dominic opened his mouth to say it, but bit his lip instead. How could he pass up a chance to climb with Sherpas, the legendary unsung heroes of Everest? Just a little farther, he decided. Then I’ll turn around. After all, the descent would be much quicker. Andrea had her hands full with the injured Japanese climber. Dominic would be back in Base Camp before she even missed him.

  He climbed a while longer, marveling at the porters’ ease despite their backbreaking burdens.

  Then it happened. On a steep, tricky scramble, there was a sudden snap. A crampon tumbled down the rime, its broken strap trailing behind it. The climbers stood frozen as it skittered out of reach and disappeared into the space between two blocks of ice.

  The tallest Sherpa dropped his pack and one-footed it down the slope in search of his gear. Negotiating the Icefall was difficult enough under the best of circumstances. Without crampons, it was practically suicidal.

  The man peered into the gap, then looked up with a gesture of helplessness that was clear in any language. The crampon was gone for good.

  For Dominic, it was a sobering reminder: Yes, Everest was climbable. But let the slightest thing go wrong — something as simple as a broken strap — and all bets were off.

  The Sherpas held a worried conference. Pasang could not continue his carry to Camp One. He would be able to make it back to Base Camp on one crampon, but that meant his load would have to sit in the Icefall until one of the others could come back for it.

  As they debated all of their options, Dominic shrugged into the heavy shoulder harness and lifted Pasang’s pack. “I’ll take it.”

  The Sirdar stared at him. “Too heavy for boy.”

  “I can manage,” Dominic assured them.

  But the Sherpas insisted on transferring some of Dominic’s load to their own. By the time Pasang left them and the climb resumed, Dominic guessed that his pack held twenty-five or thirty pounds of equipment.

  It occurred to him that this might be unwise — to carry a load to nearly twenty thousand feet so soon after his bout with HAPE. But the truth was he felt remarkably strong. Most climbers wound up gasping for breath on their first trip through the Icefall. And sure, he found the air thin, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down.

  Maybe Dr. Oberman was right. His extra week along the trekking route had trained his blood to carry more oxygen to the brain. He was acclimatized!

  The gear turned out to be headed for the This Way Up expedition. Awaiting it at Camp One was none other than Ethan Zaph.

  The youngest summiteer in Everest history did a double take when he saw Dominic unloading his pack. “What are you doing here? You went home! You had HAPE!”

  Dominic shrugged. “I got better.”

  And he turned to follow his Sherpa team back into the Icefall for the descent, leaving Ethan standing there with his jaw dropped.

  They were down in a little over two hours. Pasang met them on the moraine, carrying steaming cups of Sherpa tea. There was one for Dominic as well. In all his life, nothing had ever tasted sweeter.

  There was other good news besides Pasang’s safe return on only one crampon. The injured Japanese climber had been safely evacuated by helicopter and was expected to recover.

  “Congratulations,” Dominic told Dr. Oberman when he joined her at the SummitQuest camp. “I hear the guy’s going to be okay.”

  “Thanks.” She looked him up and down. “You’re all sweaty. What have you been up to?”

  Oh, about 19,500 feet, he thought with a grin. Aloud, he said, “I helped out some Sherpas.”

  He didn’t mention that this had been the greatest day of his life. Or that his mind was now occupied with a single thought: I’ve got to get back up there!

  http://www.summathletic.com/everest/cwm

  The Western Cwm, the highest canyon on the planet, is located between the Nuptse wall and the West Shoulder of Everest. It has been nicknamed the “Crevasse Highway.” Here, the Khumbu glacier splits into hundreds of pieces, separated by crevasses measuring as much as eighty feet across.

  Camp Two, at 21,300 feet, is also known as Advance Base Camp, or ABC. Unlike the tiny Camp One, it is a bustling community of more than one hundred tents and the main destination for acclimatization. Climbers can and do spend as long as a week at a time here, adjusting their bodies to the thin air they’ll encounter higher on the mountain. At ABC, the biggest enemy is not the altitude, the extreme heat of day or cold of night, or even the yawning crev
asses.

  CLICK HERE to see members of SummitQuest grappling with the mind-numbing boredom of Camp Two, where nothing ever happens.

  Perry was chipping ice to melt for drinking water when he saw the creature. It was about nine feet tall and walked upright, its light brown fur standing out against the terraced ice of the West Shoulder — seventy yards away and closing fast!

  He was about to yell for Cicero when there was a terrific commotion in the This Way Up camp. The half-demented voice of Nestor Ali rang out, “Get your camera! It’s a yeti! A real one!”

  He burst out of his tent lens first, shooting pictures at the speed of light.

  That was when Perry noticed that the “yeti” was wearing crampons. The mythical abominable snowman beat its chest and came running toward Nestor. The climber/journalist dropped his camera in the snow and took off running, with no crampons, wearing only his soft-soled boot liners. He was soon flat on his back on the hard-packed snow.

  The yeti advanced menacingly on him. Then, only a few feet away from the kill, the giant creature split in half. The top hit the rime and rolled away, giggling. The bottom was Ethan Zaph.

  By this time, a large crowd of climbers had gathered to watch as Nestor scrambled to his feet.

  “Very funny, guys! Very funny!” he ranted, his boot liners slipping. “I bet you’d be laughing your heads off if I’d run straight into a crevasse!”

  Ethan was in hysterics. “We got you, Nestor! We’ve been carrying this fur coat for weeks! Weeks! Ever since Namche!” He picked up the coat to reveal the top half of the Yeti, the Sherpa Pasang.

  For a group of bored-stiff climbers at Camp Two, these events were the equivalent of Academy Award entertainment. Raucous laughter and wild cheering rocked the Cwm. Even seasoned veterans like Cicero guffawed their approval at this distraction from the serious business of climbing a behemoth.

  At last, even Nestor good-naturedly joined the party. “Okay,” he said, “but if my camera’s broken — ”

  A low rumbling in the Cwm rose above the merriment.

  Babu was the first to stop chuckling, followed by Cicero, who called for silence. There was an explosion like a kiloton of dynamite, and the snow pack on the West Shoulder disintegrated and began to roar down at them.