29 April 2006. Return from Camp 2
Here in the Khumbu the last ten days have seen snow storms, tragedy and dogged progress. Above Base Camp, our route the so-called the 1953 route (all but the last 200m of which had been climbed in 1952) takes the alarming Khumbu Ice Fall directly, which is the gate way to the fabulous Western Cwm.
This part of the route was discovered in 1951 by Eric Shipton’s reconnaissance party.
Camp One is at the top of the Ice Fall at around 6000m. Camp Two, situated magnificently under the West Face of Everest, is at around 6400m
To visualize the Ice Fall imagine a bin full of skyscraper size sugar cubes poured down a giant stairwell. Every so often one of the building size cubes moves or collapses. Now imagine threading a line through this maze of towers and crevasses. In fact this important job has been done for the last few years by a team of Sherpas from the SPCC (Sagarmartha Polution Control Committee; don’t ask, long story, nother time). These guys refer to themselves as the “Ice Fall Doctors”. The Doctors are paid to fix a line of rope through the Ice Fall, bridging crevasses with wobbly ladders. Because the Khumbu Ice Fall is the glacial equivalent of the Niagra Falls, the line of ropes and ladders need constant maintenance. The whole thing is slowly grinding its way downhill till it can flow to the Bay of Bengal.
Our team had planned to climb through the Ice Fall to Camp One on 18 April but by early morning the dainty patter of snow on our tents signaled the change in weather. By morning a silencing blanket of snow covered the base camp village.
It was an obvious decision to postpone our climb for the day. Up at Camp One my friend Kenton was having difficulty descending his group to Base Camp; it had snowed so much he could not find the top of the fixed ropes above the Ice Fall, this in spite of wandering around the lower edge of the Western Cwm in a white out for two hours in the snow storm. He kept finding himself teetering on the edge of gaping holes in the snow. The next day he still could not find the way down and radioed down to borrow food from our Camp One tents. Meanwhile Ang Dorjee, our climbing Sirdar, had been marooned in Camp Two with several Sherpas. On the third day the weather cleared sufficiently for the Sherpas to break trail down to Camp One, up to waist deep at times.
Another group of Sherpas cleared the ropes to Camp One re-opening the route home for those stuck there. We decided to let the snow settle and avalanches pass (Kenton had seen huge billowing clouds flowing down the North Face of Nuptse and across the Western Cwm). Some of our group trekked for the day to Kala Patar and the others towards Gorak Shep.
Though our group is Anglophone (except for Anna the Brazilian Plastic Surgeon) not all English is easily assimilated; Darrel (from LA) was a accosted on the trek by a group of Cockneys, who asked “Mai’? Yer nao ther wai ter bais cam’?”
“I am sorry” he replied “I don’t speak your language.”
It was the 20th.
The next morning radio traffic woke us up at 7:30. Urgent Sherpa voices alerted the Base Camp village to the unfolding events in the Ice Fall. A serac had collapsed near the top.
The news trickled in through the air waves. The big teams began to identify available rescue equipment already at Camp One. We (AC) had one stretcher and oxygen. So did IMG. AAI was in the process of moving a stretcher up the Ice Fall. By 8:30 the news was that at least three Sherpas were either in a crevasse or buried under ice and three others were injured. Our team had six Sherpas above the Serac Fall and several below; none of our guys were involved. The news continued to dribble in. By late morning it was clear that the buried Sherpas were beyond help, they were too deeply buried to be recovered. Ang Dorjee returned to Base Camp. He had been just below the collapse, his description was chilling. After the first big collapse he heard voices from a hole in the jumble of ice blocks, and jumped in, but when the ice began to move again he leapt out and retreated to safety.
The injured men were ambulant, and would arrive in Base Camp under their own steam. No rescue was possible, but in case the injured men needed a helicopter evacuation, the entire climbing population of the Base Camp cooperated to turn a moraine wave into a broad heli pad. It was quite an emotional occasion, everyone trying to do something useful; almost internet like, with common purpose but no overt leadership; from an icy gravel hill a flat landing platform emerged. I calculated that 200 people worked for three hours on that project. The dead Sherpas were from Thame and Phortse where the Shetu (the wake) which will have continued on for several days, should be over by now. This is a Buddhist country and the men will be reborn, possibly into a better life. Meanwhile most of the climbers agree to withhold the tragic news till the families had been informed; unfortunately the sleazier Everest websites published the news immediately.
The Ice Fall Doctors re-fixed a safer line after the tragedy, and our team ascended without incident to Camp One on 24 April, en route to the Western Cwm and Camp Two where most spent three nights. (I descended to Base Camp for one night before climbing up to Two, to help down one of our team who was not feeling well.)
It is an unavoidable fact of life here that there is in any climbing day just ten minutes of heavenly pleasure. Ten minutes when the sun breaks across the face of Nuptse and floods the Western Cwm and brings respite from the invading cold. Just ten minutes before the Cwm turns into an oven of reflected heat waves that will cook you from the inside out.
It is either too damned freezing or too damned roasting. We all arrived in Camp Two some what wilted.
This is our second cycle of acclimatization, our next cycle will take us to Camp Three after which we will be ready for a summit attempt.
