Chapter 11 Chapter 9 Battalion No. 2

△Elevation 6492 meters, April 28, 1996 * We tell stories to live. We look to suicides for inspiration, and five murders for social or moral lessons.We interpret what we see and choose the most feasible one among alternatives.We force ourselves to understand people, forcefully use words to narrate all kinds of disparate images, and learn to freeze the impermanent illusions we actually experience with concepts. We live by these, especially if we are writers. Didion's "White Album" Joan Didion, The White Album □□□ I woke up when the alarm on my watch went off at four in the morning.I didn't get much sleep, and was struggling to breathe in thin air most of the time.Now it's time to get out of the warm down cocoon and walk into the bitter cold at an altitude of 6,492 meters.Two days ago, on Friday, April 26th, we left early and returned late. We rushed from the base camp to the second camp in one day, and started the third and last altitude acclimatization, preparing for the summit.According to Hall's grand plan, this morning we will go up from Camp No. 2 to Camp No. 3 and spend the night at an altitude of 7315 meters.

Hall wanted us to leave exactly at four forty-five, with forty-five minutes to go, just enough to change clothes, swallow a bar of candy and a cup of tea, and strap on our crampons.A cheap thermometer was clipped to the snowsuit I used as a pillow. I illuminated it with my headlamp and found that the temperature in the narrow double tent was only minus 21 degrees Celsius.seven degrees.I yelled at the figure huddled in the sleeping bag beside me: Han Sen, it's time to wake up, old ghost.Are you awake? He said in a tired tone: wake up?How do you think I fell asleep?I am sad to death.I think something is wrong with my throat.Dude, I'm old and I can't bear it.

The stench of our nighttime breath had condensed on the tent cloth, forming a crisp hoarfrost.I sat up, groping for clothes in the dark, struggling not to rub against the low nylon walls, and every time I hit a wall, a snowstorm blew up inside the tent, coating everything in white crystals.Shaking so badly, I pulled on three layers of plush polypropylene underwear with a wind-blocking nylon outer layer, zipped them up, and put on my bulky plastic boots.For the past two weeks my index fingertips have been chapped and bleeding, exacerbated by exposure to the cold, and convulsed with pain just by tightening my shoelaces.

I followed Hall and Fishbeck out of the camp with headlamps on, weaving between seracs and piles of gravel to the main body of the glacier.In the next two hours, we climbed a slope as gentle as a primary ski slope, and finally came to the back crevasse at the upper end of the Khumbu Glacier. Gloomy, like dirty chrome steel.As if hanging from heaven, a nine-millimeter-diameter rope snaked across the frozen ice, beckoning us like Jack's bean vine.I grabbed the end of the rope, hooked my Jumar 1 to the slightly frayed rope, and started climbing. Note 1: Jumar (a mechanical ascender) is a wallet-sized device that relies on metal cams to grasp the rope firmly.The cam makes the ascender slide up without any hindrance, but it can firmly clamp the rope to prevent falling when there are heavy objects hanging on it.Climbers climb up the rope by pushing their body up step by step with ratchet wheels.author note

I expected the solar oven effect of the previous mornings to occur after the sun shone on the West Cirque, so I walked out of camp with too little clothing and was terribly cold.The temperature this morning was lowered by the biting cold wind pouring down from the mountains, down to about minus forty degrees.I have a bunch of sweaters in my backpack, but to put them on you have to hang them on a lanyard while taking off your gloves, backpack, and windbreaker.I was worried that I might drop something, so I decided to go to a place where the mountain wall was less steep, and after standing firmly, I untied the rope and added clothes.So I continued to climb up, and the more I climbed, the colder it became.

The cold wind whipped up swirling waves of snow powder, which washed down like waves crashing on the shore, and covered my clothes with frost.My goggles were covered with cracked ice, which made it difficult to see clearly. I also gradually lost feeling in my feet, and my fingers were completely numb.It seemed unsafe to continue walking under these conditions.I was at the front of the line at 7,010 meters, 15 minutes ahead of Glenn.I decided to wait for him and discuss my situation with him.But before he could get to me, Hall's voice came from the radio in his jacket, and he had to stop to answer, then shouted to everyone over the wind: Hall wants everyone down!Let's get out of here!

It was noon when we returned to No. 2 Battalion to estimate the damage.I'm tired, but otherwise I'm fine.Australian doctor Tusk developed small chilblains on his fingertips.On the contrary, Han Sen was seriously injured.He took off his boots and found several toes with mild frostbite.In 1995 he suffered severe frostbite on his foot on Mount Everest and had to have part of his big toe amputated, permanently damaging his circulation and making him especially sensitive to the cold.This time he was frostbitten again, and it must be even more difficult for him to survive the harsh environment of the mountain.

However, Han Sen's more serious condition is in the respiratory tract.He underwent minor throat surgery less than two weeks before leaving for Nepal, and his trachea is still very sensitive.This morning he gulped in the bitter, snowy air, apparently froze his throat.Han Sen seemed to be dumb, and said in a hoarse voice that was almost inaudible: I am miserable, I can't even speak.I can't climb it. Hall persuaded: Han Sen, don't underestimate yourself like this.Check back in a day or two to see how you feel.You are tough.I think you stand a good chance of reaching the summit once you recover.Han Sen didn't believe it, so he returned to our tent, pulled up the sleeping bag and covered it over his head.It was hard to see him so deflated.He has become a good friend of mine, sharing openly the wisdom he discovered when he failed to reach the summit in 1995.Around my neck I still have a string of rosary beads, an amulet he gave me early in the expedition, blessed by the lamas of Panpoche.I very much hope that he can successfully climb to the summit. The eagerness of this anticipation is no less than the mood of wishing that I can personally climb Mount Everest.

A sense of panic and mild depression prevailed throughout the camp during the second half of the day.Before the mountain could issue the most severe threat, we were scared and fled.Our team wasn't the only one who was admonished and uncertain.Many teams in the 2nd Battalion were demoralized. Hall quarreled with the team leaders from Taiwan and South Africa in order to set up a nearly two-kilometer-long rope to ensure the safety of the route on the Lhotse Mountain Face, and the quarrel became very angry.In late April, a row of ropes had been erected on the wall of Lhotse Mountain from the source of the West Cirque to the No. 3 Camp.In order to complete the finale, Hall, Fisher, Woodall, Gao Minghe and Bai Lisen (the American team leader of the Alpine Mountaineering Club) have already agreed that on April 26th each team will send one or two more members to work together on the The remaining section of the Lhotse mountain face, that is, between No. 3 Battalion and No. 4 Battalion at an altitude of 7,925 meters, was roped.But things didn't go as planned.

On the morning of April 26, Dorji and Keshili, the Sherpas from Hall's team, Pokrief, the guide on Fisher's team, and a Sherpa from Peresen's team left the No. 2 Battalion. The South African team and the Taiwanese team, Sherpa, who set off together, still stayed in their sleeping bags and refused to cooperate.Hall arrived at Camp Two that afternoon, and when he heard about it, he made several radio calls to find out why the plan had fallen through.Mountaineering snowman Ba ​​Douji of the Taiwan team apologized repeatedly and promised compensation.But when Hall called the South African leader Leddar, the other party showed no remorse and only spit out a bunch of swear words and curses.

Hall pleads: Dude, let's be civilized.I think we've already talked about it.Woodall said his Sherpas stayed in the tent because no one came to wake them up and tell them they needed help.Hall counters that Dorjee made repeated efforts to wake them up, but they ignored his pleas. At this time, Wu Daal declared: one of you and your Sherpa is a goddamn liar.Then he threatened to send one or two Sherpas on the team to deal with Dorjee with his fists. Two days after this unpleasant encounter, the hostility between the two teams still runs deep.In the No. 2 Battalion, we received intermittent news that Topchi's condition had deteriorated, and our mood was even worse.His condition continued to deteriorate even at lower altitudes. Doctors speculated that he might not simply have alpine pulmonary edema, but alpine pulmonary edema complicated by tuberculosis or other pre-existing lung diseases.However, the Sherpas have a different diagnosis. They believe that a climber on Fisher's team offended the Virgin (that is, the sky goddess Sagarmatha), which provoked the goddess' revenge. The aforementioned climber had an unusual relationship with a member of the Lhotse expedition.Since the base camp is as cramped as a rental apartment and there is no privacy at all, the expedition knew that the female climber was having affairs inside the tent, especially the Sherpas, who sat outside during their trysts Pointing and snickering.Making the sauce, making the sauce.They giggled and jammed one finger into the open fist of the other, imitating the act of sex. The Sherpas laugh it off (not to mention their own notoriously profligate habits), and basically disapprove of unmarried men and women having sex on the flanks of the sacred Sagarmatha.Whenever the weather turns bad, some Sherpas will point to the churning clouds in the sky and announce earnestly: Someone is making sauce, which brings bad luck.Now the blizzard is coming. Sandy mentioned this superstition in her expedition diary in 1994, which she circulated via the computer network in 1996: April 29, 1994 Base Camp on the East Wall of Mount Everest in Tibet (elevation 5425 meters) That afternoon, a scud mail arrived, bringing everyone’s letters from home and girls’ magazines from the mountaineering brothers in their hometown as a joke. Half of the Sherpas took them to their tents to read them carefully. , getting restless about it.They stated that Goddess Everest tolerated nothing impure on her holy mountain. The Buddhism practiced in the Khumbu Mountains has an obvious animistic atmosphere, and the Sherpa people believe in many gods or spirits who live in the canyons, rivers, and peaks of the area.They believe that worshiping these gods is very important in order to safely pass through the treacherous land. In order to appease the goddess Sagarmatha, the Sherpa people built more than a dozen beautiful stupas in the base camp as usual this year, one for each expedition team.The stupa in our camp is a cube of one and a half meters high, with three carefully selected sharp stones placed on it, a three-meter wooden pole stands on the top of the tower, and there are graceful juniper branches above it.There are five long strings of brightly colored wind horse flags 2 fluttering radially on the poles on the tent to ward off evil spirits in the camp.Every morning before dawn, Zelin, who is in our base camp, is about forty years old and looks like an elder. He will light incense made of juniper and chant scriptures and pray beside the stupa.Both Westerners and Sherpas must walk through the stupa from the right, and through the sweet scented mist, to receive Zelin's blessing before entering the Khumbu Icefall. Note 2: There are Tibetan Buddhist holy mantras printed on the Fengma flag, the most common one is the six-character Da Ming mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, and the holy mantra is passed on to God by the fluttering of the flag.In addition to the prayers, the prayer flags usually have a Pegasus image.Horses are sacred in Sherpa cosmology, and are believed to carry prayers to heaven at lightning speed.In the Sherpa language, the prayer flag is called the Dragon Tower, and the literal translation is the wind horse.author note Despite the devout observance of religious ceremonies, the Sherpas practice Buddhism as a flexible, fresh and non-dogmatic religion.For example, in order to obtain the protection of the goddess Sagarmatha, all teams must hold a complicated worship ceremony before entering the Khumbu Icefall.But the lama who was recommended to preside over the worship ceremony was thin and weak, and could not come from a distant village as scheduled, so Zelin announced that Goddess Sagarmatha knew that we planned to perform the worship immediately, and it would be okay to go through the icefall first. The people on the slopes of Everest seem to be similarly sloppy about adultery, and while the taboo is paid lip service, many Sherpas themselves break the rules.One Sherpa even had an affair with an American woman from the IMAX expedition in 1996, so it seems odd that a Sherpa should blame Topchi's illness on an extramarital affair in the Mountain Idiots' tent.I pointed out the inconsistency to the twenty-three-year-old mountaineer Batou Jiangbu on Team Fisher, who insisted that the real problem wasn't that the climber on Team Fisher was making sauce at base camp, but that she was high up on the mountain Still continue to sleep with the adulterer. Ten weeks after the expedition, Jiang Bu solemnly said: Mount Everest is a god, to me and to everyone.Only couples sleep together, which is fine.But she slept with him, it was not good for our team, so I said to Fisher: Please, Fisher, you are the team leader, please tell her not to sleep with your boyfriend in the second camp, please.But Fisher just laughed.She and he slept in the same tent the first day, and it wasn't long before Topchi fell ill in Camp Two.Now he is dead. Topqi was Jiang Bu's uncle, and the two were very close. Jiang Bu also joined the rescue team that carried Topqi down the mountain on the night of April 22.Later, Topchi stopped breathing in Perize and had to retreat to Kathmandu. Jiang Bu (encouraged by Fisher) rushed down from the base camp in time and accompanied his uncle on the helicopter.His haste to Kathmandu and back to base camp was exhausted and altitude maladaptive, which did not bode well for Fisher's team, who relied on him at least as much as Hall relied on our team's Sherpa. Tou Dorje. In 1996, Mount Everest had many experienced Himalayan climbers on the side of Nepal. Hall, Fisher, Brixes, Peter, Dorjee, Glenn, and the Austrian Shaw of the IMAX team were all veterans.But there are four dazzling figures who stand out even among these masters. These famous mountaineers have displayed amazing courage and skill at altitudes above 7,900 meters, so they form a league of their own. One is in IMAX. Among the American Westers who play the leading role in the film, one is the Kazakh guide Pokrief who works for Fisher, the other is the Sherpa Babu who is employed by the South African expedition team, and the fourth is Jiang Bu. Jiang Bu has an outstanding appearance, extroverted too much, very conceited but extremely charming.He grew up in the Lovalin region, an only child, who never smoked or drank alcohol, a rarity among the Sherpas.He had gold teeth and a good smile.Although he is small in frame and not tall in stature, his unassuming demeanor, hardworking spirit and extraordinary athletic talent earned him the title of Sanders 3 in the Khumbu region.Fisher told me that he believes that Jiang Bu has the potential to become a new generation of Messner, a famous Italian mountaineer and the greatest Himalayan climber of all time. Note 3: Sanders (Deion Sanders, 1967︱), who is also an American football running back and a major league baseball outfielder, is the only star player who has crossed two professional sports and participated in the championship finals.Annotation In 1993, at the age of 20, Jiang Bu was hired to carry luggage for the Nepal-India expedition to Mount Everest, and made his debut for the first time.The team is led by Bachendri Pal, an Indian woman, and most of the players are women. He is the youngest member of the team and initially only served as a backup.However, his physical strength was amazing, and he was assigned to take part in the summit attack at the last minute. He reached the summit on May 16 without supplementary oxygen. Five months after Jiang Bu climbed Mount Everest, he climbed Cho Oyu with a Japanese team.In the spring of 1994, working for Fisher's Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition, he climbed Everest for the second time, still without an oxygen tank.In September, he climbed the west ridge of Everest with a Norwegian team. He encountered an avalanche. After he fell 60 meters down the mountain, he managed to block the fall with an ice ax and saved himself and two others tied to the same rope. Teammates, but Uncle Nobu, who was not tied to others, died in Huangquan.The pain of losing his uncle hit Jiang Bu hard, but it didn't dampen his enthusiasm for mountaineering. In May 1995, he was employed by Hall's expedition team and climbed to the summit of Mount Everest without an oxygen tank for the third time.Three months later, he was hired by Fisher to climb the 8,047-meter-high Broad Peak in Pakistan.When Jiang Bu followed Fisher up Mount Everest in 1996, he only had three years of mountaineering experience, but he had already participated in ten Himalayan expeditions. In 1994, Fisher and Jiang Bu climbed Mount Everest together and cherished each other.Both had boundless energy, irresistible charisma, and a knack for wowing women.Jiang Bu regards Fei Xue as a master and a model, and even learns from Fei Xue to tie his hair into a ponytail.He explained in his characteristically arrogant tone: Fisher is strong, and so am I.We make a good team.Fisher paid me less than Hall or the Japanese, but I was not short of money. I was looking at the future, and Fisher was my future.He told me: Jiang Bu, my strong Sherpa!I want to make you famous!I think Fisher had a lot of big plans for me at Mountain Crazy.