Chapter 14 Chapter 12 Battalion No. 3

△Elevation 7315 meters, May 09, 1996 * I look down.Going down the mountain is so unappetizing. We have invested too much labor, too many sleepless nights, and too many dreams to get this far.There's no way we'll be back next weekend and try again.Even if we can do it, going down the mountain now will leave a big question in the future: what if we don't turn back? Hornbein's Everest: The West Rim Thomas F. Hornbein, Everest: The West Ridge □□□ I had no sleep at Camp No. 3. I woke up on Thursday, May 9th, tired and weak. I was slow to put on clothes, melt the ice water, and get out of the tent.By the time I packed my backpack and strapped on my crampons, the rest of Hall's team had probably climbed the ropes and headed for No. 4 Battalion.Surprisingly, Kasiske and Fishbeck were among them.When the two arrived at camp the night before looking so knocked out, I thought they'd decide to throw in the towel.I am deeply impressed by the perseverance and determination of my teammates, so I borrowed a phrase from the New and Australian Army and said loudly, well done, friends! (Good on ya, mates!)

I rushed to join the ranks of my teammates, looked down, and saw a long line of people from other expeditions climbing up the rope, about fifty or so, and the first group was at my feet.I didn't want to be caught in the crowded crowd (there were rockfalls intermittently falling along the mountain wall above, so that the time of exposure to the rockfall array would be prolonged, and there were other dangers), so I quickened my pace and determined to advance to the head of the team.However, there is only one rope snaking up the Lhotse face, and it is not easy to overtake slower climbers. As soon as I got off the fixed rope and passed others, the scene of Harris' encounter with the rockfall came to mind. If a projectile hit me after I unfastened the buckle, even a small object would be enough to knock me down the bottom of the steep slope.Overtaking another car while climbing is not only stressful, but also tiring.I'm like an underpowered Eastern European car trying to overtake a line of cars on a steep hill, and have to depress the accelerator for a long time before I can go around the front, leaving myself out of breath and worrying about being in an oxygen mask Spit it out.

It was the first time in my life that I climbed a mountain wearing an oxygen mask, and it took me a while to get used to it.Although there are definite benefits to using an oxygen tank at an altitude of 7315 meters, it is difficult to detect immediately.When I passed three climbers and gasped for breath, the oxygen mask was actually giving me the illusion of being breathless, so I took it off, only to find it harder to breathe. By the time I climbed the tawny, fragile limestone cliffs known as the Yellow Band, I was at the front of the line and moving at a more comfortable pace.Walking slowly at a steady pace, I zigzag up across the top of the Lhotse Face and climb a bow-like black fractured shale called the Geneva Spur.I finally got the hang of it, how to breathe with the oxygen kit, and was more than an hour ahead of my nearest mate.It is a rare opportunity to be alone on Everest, and on this day, I am very grateful to enjoy a moment of solitude against such a magnificent backdrop.

At an altitude of 7894 meters, I stopped on the ridge at the tip of the slope to drink some water and enjoy the scenery.The thin air shone slightly, with a bit of crystal quality, and the distant mountains were so close that they seemed to be within reach.The top of the Everest Tower is brightly illuminated by the noon sun, floating in front of the eyes through the intermittent cloud tulle.I squinted through the long lens of the camera to look above the southeast ridge, and was taken aback to find four ant-like figures moving gently towards the south peak, their movements almost unrecognizable.I figured they must be members of the Montenegro Expedition, and if they succeeded, they would be the first team to reach the summit this year, and that would mean that the rumors we've heard about the unfathomable snow are pure nonsense.If they make it to the summit, we may have a chance too.But now the ridge of the peak is snowing heavily, and the Montenegro team is also struggling against the wind, which may not be a good omen.

I arrived at the South Col, the starting point of the summit attack, at 1:00 pm.The South Col is a desolate plateau at an altitude of 7,925 meters. It is covered with ice that cannot be pierced by bullets and wind-eroded rocks. It is a wide mountain depression between the jagged walls of Mount Everest and Lhotse. It is about four football fields long and two football fields wide. The east edge goes straight and steeply drops more than 2,100 meters along the east wall of Mount Everest into Tibet, and the other side drops steeply to the west ice cirque by 1,200 meters. More than a hundred meters.The tent of the No. 4 Battalion is not far from the edge of this crack. It is located at the western end of the South Col. It occupies a barren land surrounded by thousands of abandoned oxygen tanks. If there is anything better than this on the earth More desolate and uninhabitable settlements, I hope never to see.

Note 1: Air tanks polluting the South Col have accumulated since the 1950s, but thanks to a waste removal program initiated by Fisher's Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition in 1994, the mountain's air tanks are now The tubes are much less.Much credit is owed to a member of the expedition named Bishop (son of the late National Geographic photographer Barry Bishop, who climbed the summit of Notre Dame in 1963), He came up with a very successful incentive method. The Nike company paid for it. Sherpas could receive a bonus every time they brought an air tank down the mountain from the South Col.Among Everest's commercial teams, Hall's Adventure Consulting Company, Fisher's Mountain Idiot Company, and Baili Sen's International Alpine Club all enthusiastically supported Bishop's plan. As a result, from 1994 to 1996 A total of more than 800 empty oxygen tanks were removed.author note

When the jet stream hits the Everest peaks and is squeezed into the V-shaped South Col, the wind speed intensifies to an unimaginable level.The winds on the South Col are often stronger than the storms that tear the mountaintops.Hurricanes almost never break in early spring. No wonder that when the nearby mountain slopes are still covered with deep snow, there are only bare rocks and things not frozen on the ice that have been blown to Tibet. I walked into Camp No. 4, where six Sherpas were struggling to pitch a tent for Hall in a windstorm of more than 90 kilometers per hour.I helped them set up my shelter, lifted the largest rock I could lift, stuffed the discarded oxygen tank under the rock, tied the tent to the discarded oxygen tank, and got into the tent, waiting for my teammates To warm my cold hands.

The weather gradually deteriorated in the afternoon.Xuebatou Jiangbu on the Fisher team appeared hunched over with a weight of 36 kilograms, of which 13 to 4 kilograms were a satellite phone and surrounding hardware facilities. Send online newsletters within a few feet.The last of my teammates didn't arrive until 4:30, and Fisher's team arrived even later, when a strong storm was already blowing.At dark, the Montenegro team returned to the South Col, saying that the summit was still inaccessible, and they turned back at the foot of Hillary's Step. The weather was bad, and the Montenegro team failed again. Our summit attack, which was scheduled to start in less than six hours, was now in dire straits.Everyone ducked into the nylon tent as soon as they arrived at the South Col and took a nap if they could, but with the crackling of the tents like a machine gun and the anxiety over what was coming, most couldn't sleep at all.

I was assigned to sleep in the same tent as the young Canadian cardiologist Hutchison, Hall, Fishback, Glenn, Tasker, and Yasuko in another, Kasiske, Withers, Harris, and Han Mori sleeps on the third top.Kasisk and his teammates were taking a nap in the tent, when they suddenly heard an unfamiliar sound in the strong wind, let him in quickly, or he will die outside!Luo opened the zipper door, and soon a bearded man fell limply on his lap.The person who came was Herold, thirty-seven years old, with an easy-going personality. He was the acting leader of the South African team and the only remaining member of the team who had real mountaineering qualifications.

Kasiske recalled that Herold's problem was really serious. He was shaking, behaving strangely, irrationally, basically unable to take care of himself, hypothermic and barely able to speak.His teammates were apparently still somewhere at the South Col or on their way to it, but he didn't know where they were or how to find his tent, so we gave him something to drink and tried to warm him up. Han Sen's situation is not good either.Withers recalled that Han Sen didn't look well, and he complained that he hadn't slept or eaten for two days.However, he decided to put on the gear and climb up at that time.I was worried, because I knew him well by then, and knew that his heart ached for a whole year because he had to turn back when he was less than 100 meters from the summit last year.I mean, it tortured him every day.He clearly didn't want to miss a second chance.As long as he still has breath, he will definitely continue to move towards the summit.

There were more than fifty people camped on the South Col that night, crammed into tight-fitting tents, but there was an odd sense of loneliness in the air.The wind was howling, and it was impossible to talk to the people in the next tent.In this lonely place, I felt emotionally, mentally, and physically isolated from the climbers around me. I had never felt such a strong sense of loneliness in any previous expedition.I sadly realized that we were only a team in name, and that in a few hours we would be leaving the camp as a group, but we would be climbing individually, not connected by ropes, and not in love with each other.Every client attends for themselves, and I am no exception.I sincerely hope that Han Sen can climb to the top, but if he turns back, I will still try my best to keep going. Under other circumstances, this realization would have been disheartening, but I was too preoccupied with the weather to give it any further thought.If the wind speed does not weaken, and if it weakens immediately, it will be impossible for everyone to attack the summit.The previous week, Hall's Sherpas had stored 165 kilograms of bottled oxygen in the South Col, a total of 55 small cylinders.That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually only enough for three guides, eight clients, and four Sherpas to summit once.The meter is running, and even if we lie in the tent, we will still use up precious oxygen.If necessary, we can turn off the oxygen and stay here safely for about 24 hours, but if we go any further, we have to go up or down the mountain. It was a miracle that the storm stopped at half past seven.Herold climbed out of Kasisker's tent and stumbled out to find his teammates.The temperature is below freezing, but there is almost no wind, which is the perfect condition for summiting.Hall's intuition was uncanny, and he seemed to have perfected the timing of our summit.He yelled from the tent next door, Strong!Hutchison!Looks like we're on our way, boys.Get ready to have a blast at 11:30! We drank tea, prepared our climbing gear, and no one said much.Everyone has suffered a lot to get to this point.I'm about the same as Han Sen. Since I left the No. 2 Camp two days ago, I seldom eat and can't sleep at all.Every time I coughed, the torn chest cartilage hurt like someone had stabbed me under my ribs, and I couldn't help crying.But if I want to reach the top, I know there is no other way but to ignore the pain and grit my teeth and climb up. Twenty-five minutes before midnight, I put on my oxygen mask, turned on my headlights, and headed up into the night.Hall's team consisted of fifteen people: three guides, all eight clients, and the Sherpas Dorje, Keshiri, Norbu, and Kami.Hall instructed the other two Sherpas, Alita and Qiudan, to stay in the tent as backup and to maneuver to cope with the temporary situation. The Mountain Moron team left the South Col half an hour after us. The members included guide Fisher, Bedleman, Pokliffe, and six Sherpas, plus clients Charlotte, Madsen, Cliff, and Sandy. , Gamegard and Adams 2.Jiang Bu originally planned to let only five Sherpas accompany him to the summit, and leave two as backup at the South Col, but he said that Fisher was very generous and told my Sherpas that all of them could go to the summit3.In the end, Jiang Bu still kept it from Fisher, and ordered his nephew Da Panba to stay behind.Jiang Bu admitted that Panba was angry with me, but I told him that you must stay, otherwise I will no longer give you a job.He had to stay in No. 4 Battalion. Note 2: Several clients are missing from Fisher's top lineup.One was Cruise, who was staying at base camp because he had just developed altitude cerebral edema.One is Peter, a famous 68-year-old mountaineering veteran. Three doctors, Hutchison, Tusk and Caroline, performed an electrocardiogram on him, which showed that his heartbeat was seriously abnormal, so he chose to stay in Camp No. 3 instead of going any further. climb up.author note Note 3: Most of the Sherpa climbers who climbed Mount Everest in 1996 hoped to have the opportunity to reach the summit.Like western climbers, they have their own motivations, but job security is at least part of the motivation. As Jiang Bu said, after Sherpa climbed Mount Everest, it is easy to find a job.Everyone wanted to hire this Sherpa.author note Gao Minghe left the camp with three Sherpas after Fisher's team, which violated Hall's understanding of the promise that the Taiwan team would not attack the summit on the same day as us.The South African team also planned to attack the summit, but their physical strength was exhausted by climbing from the No. 3 Battalion to the South Col, and they did not get out of the tent at all. All told, thirty-four climbers set out for the summit at midnight that night.Although we belong to three expedition teams, our fate has been intertwined since we left the South Col. Every meter we go up, we are more and more affected by each other's fate. There is a bleak, psychedelic beauty in the night, and that beauty intensifies the higher we climb.Never in my life have I seen so many stars dotting a frozen sky.The gibbous moon rose over the 8,481-meter shoulder of Makalu, and the slopes beneath my boots were bathed in ghostly moonlight, without the need for a headlamp.Far to the southeast, along the Nepal-India border, huge bands of thunderclouds drifted across tall grass swamps, and surreal bursts of orange and blue lightning lit up the sky. Less than three hours after leaving the South Col, Fishback felt that something was wrong with the day, so he withdrew from the team and turned back down the mountain to his tent.This concludes his fourth Everest ascent. Not long after, Han Sen also took a step to the side.Kasiske recalled: At that time, he was not far in front of me, suddenly walked out of the line, and stood there.I walked up to him and he told me he was cold and feeling bad and he was going to turn around and go down the hill.At this time, Huoer, who was escorting the team, caught up with Han Sen, and the two chatted for a while.No one heard the conversation, so there was no way to know what they said, but in the end, Han Sen returned to the team and continued to climb. The day before we left base camp, Hall sat us all down in the dining room tent and told us how important it was to obey his orders on summit day.He purposely stared at me and reprimanded me: I don't allow disputes on the board.My word is an absolute law, there is no room for defense.If you don't like a certain decision of mine, I'm happy to discuss it with you afterwards, but not when I'm on the mountain. Hall might tell us to turn back before the summit, which is the most likely point of conflict.In addition, there is one other thing that he is particularly concerned about.In the second half of the acclimatization, he let us go a little easier and let us climb at our own pace, sometimes allowing me to lead the group by two hours or more, for example.But now he emphasizes that in the first half of the summit day, he hopes that everyone will not be too far away from each other.He mentioned a cliff called Balcony with an elevation of 8,413 meters and said that until we all reached the top of the ridge on the southeast ridge, the distance from our teammates should not exceed 100 meters.This is very important.We shall climb in the dark, and I want the guide to have a good grasp of your situation. We climbed before dawn on May 10, and the few people in the lead were forced to stop repeatedly in the biting cold to wait for the slowest teammates to catch up.For a period of time, Glenn, Shebatou Dorji and I sat on a snow-covered rock shed waiting for others for more than forty-five minutes, shaking our hands and feet to prevent frostbite.But wasting time was harder to bear than the chill. At three forty-five in the morning, Glenn announced that we were too far ahead and had to stop again to wait.I leaned my body against a shale outcrop, trying to shelter myself from the icy wind from the west, and looked down the steep slope, trying to make out the moonlight of our mountain buddies moving slowly towards us.They were going on, and I could see that some of Fisher's team had caught up with ours.Now the Hall team, the Mountain Crazy team and the Taiwan team have become one broken dragon.At this time, a special phenomenon caught my attention. Twenty meters below, a tall man in a bright yellow down jacket and trousers was dragged by a much smaller Sherpa with a 90 cm long rope. The Sherpa was panting without an oxygen mask. Drag your partner uphill like a horse pulling a plow.This pair of strange partners surpassed others all the way, very fast, but this climbing technique is called short rope team (Short Roping), originally used to rescue weak or injured climbers, it is very dangerous and very uncomfortable for both parties. Comfortable.Soon I recognized the Sherpa as the Sherpa Tou Jiangbu on the Fisher team, and the climber in yellow was Sandy. Bedeman, the guide of the Mountain Idiot Team, also saw Jiang Bu and Shandi forming a short rope team. He recalled afterwards that when I climbed up from below, Jiang Bu leaned against the inclined wall, clinging to the rock like a spider, Pull Sandy.It seemed clumsy and dangerous.I really don't understand. Around 4:15 in the morning, Glenn gave the order to move forward and we continued to climb, Dorje and I starting to climb as fast as we could to warm up.By the time the first rays of dawn illuminated the eastern horizon, the terrain beneath our feet had changed from first-order rock formations to wide ravines covered with soft snow.Dorje and I took turns to open the way in the calf-deep snow powder. When we reached the top of the southeast ridge at 5:30, the sun just appeared in the sky.Three of the world's five highest peaks float in front of the pastel dawn, with jagged outlines.My altimeter reads 8413 meters above sea level. Hall had made it clear to me that I had to wait for the team to gather at this terrace-like resting place before climbing higher, so I sat on my backpack and waited.I sat there for more than ninety minutes before Hall and Withers finally arrived behind the team.During this period of waiting, the Fisher team and the Taiwan team have both kept up and moved ahead.I feel demoralized for wasting so much time, and even angrier for falling behind.But I knew why Hall did it, so I held back my anger. After climbing mountains for thirty-four years, I have found that the most beneficial aspect of mountaineering is that the sport emphasizes self-reliance, making critical decisions and dealing with consequences, and being responsible for oneself.I've found that as soon as a person signs a contract to become a client, they are forced to give it all up, and more than that.Conscientious guides always insist on calling the shots for safety's sake. Guides can't afford to let each client make their own major decisions. So during our expedition, the guides encouraged the client to be passive.The Sherpas build routes, pitch tents, cook, and haul everything, which saves our physical strength and greatly improves our chances of climbing Everest, but I find this very boring, and sometimes I don’t feel like I’m real Climbing, but someone is climbing for me.Although I was willing to accept this role in order to climb Everest with Hall, I was still not used to it, so I was overjoyed when he reached the summit of Terrace at 7:10 in the morning and allowed me to continue climbing. I moved forward again and overtook several people, including Jiang Bu who was kneeling on the snow with a pool of vomit in front of him.Even though he never uses an oxygen tank, the group usually counts him as the strongest.After the expedition, he proudly told me that every mountain I climbed, I went first and set up the rope.I went up Mount Everest with Hall in 1995. I first walked from the base camp to the summit, and I set up all the ropes.On the morning of May 10, he was almost at the end of Fisher's team, and he vomited badly, which seemed to indicate that something was really wrong. The previous afternoon, Jiang Bu walked from Camp No. 3 to Camp No. 4, carrying Sandy's satellite phone and other things on his shoulders, and he was exhausted.In the No. 3 Battalion, Beideman saw that Jiang Bu was carrying a 36-kilogram burden and could barely walk, so he told Jiang Bu that he did not need to carry the phone to the South Col, and suggested that he put it down.Jiang Bu admitted afterwards that I didn't want to carry the phone.This set of equipment didn't work very well in the third camp, and it seemed even less likely to work in the colder and harsher environment of the fourth camp. 4 But Fisher told me, if you don't carry it, I will carry it.So I picked up the phone, strapped it to the outside of my backpack, and carried it to Camp No. 4, which made me very tired. Note 4: This telephone completely failed in the 4th Battalion.author note And now, Jiang Bu had just dragged Sandy with a short rope for five or six hours above the South Col, which made it even worse. This also prevented him from taking on his usual tasks: leading the team and establishing routes.The unexpected absence of him at the front of the team also affected the ending of the day, so his decision to drag Sandy away attracted a lot of criticism and blame afterwards.Bei Deman said: I don't know why Jiang Bu used a short rope to pull Shanti.He forgot what he was supposed to do up there, and what was the priority of things. Sandy didn't ask for the slack team.When she left Camp No. 4, she was walking at the front of Fisher's team. Jiang Bu suddenly dragged her aside, tied the rope loop in front of her climbing equipment, and then without consulting her, he hooked the other end of the rope to his Put on your own equipment and start to drag forward.She insisted that Jiang Bu dragged her uphill regardless of her wishes.This raised doubts: as a New Yorker known for her determination, she was very stubborn, and some New Zealanders in the base camp even nicknamed her Sandy.Sandpit bison 5, why didn't she just untie the ninety-centimeter rope between her and Jiang Bu? Didn't she just reach out and untie a carabiner? Note 5: Sandy.The original text of Sandy Pit Bull is Sandy Pit Bull, which is similar to Sandy Pittman in pronunciation.Annotation Sandy's explanation was that she did not untie the carabiner because she respected the Sherpa's authority.She said, I don't want to hurt Jiang Bu's heart.She also said that although she didn't look at her watch, she remembered that he only dragged her for an hour to an hour and a half6 instead of the five or six hours that several other climbers said and Jiang Bu confirmed. Note 6: Six months after my return from Everest, Sandy and I conducted a seventy-minute telephone interview discussing these and other matters.She begged me not to quote anything from that conversation in this book, in addition to clarifying some of the key points of the lanyard team, and I kept my promise.author note As for Jiang Bu, he made no secret of his contempt for Shandi several times, and when someone asked him why he was dragging her forward with a short rope, he contradicted himself.He told Seattle lawyer Goldman (who climbed Broad Peak with Fisher and Jiang Bu in 1995, and is a very trusted old friend of Fisher), that in the dark he covered Sandy and the Danish client. Migard made a mistake, and at dawn, he saw that he was dragging the wrong person, so he stopped immediately.But in a long taped interview I did, Jiang Bu sternly insisted that he always knew he was dragging Sandy, and he decided to do it because Fisher wanted all the players to reach the top, and I think she would be the weakest player , I thought she would walk slowly, so I took her first. Jiang Bu is very good at observing the situation and is very loyal to Fisher. He understands that it is very important for his friend and employer to get Sandy to the top.Indeed, one of the last times Fisher had contacted Jane from base camp, he had said, if I could get Sandy to the summit, I bet she'd be on a TV talk show.Do you think she will mention me when she is promoting and showing off? Goldman explained that Jiang Bu was extremely loyal to Fisher.I don't think I can imagine him dragging anyone on a lanyard unless he's convinced that Fisher wants him to. Whatever the motivation, at the time, Jiang Bu's decision to drag a client along wasn't a particularly serious mistake.But this incident became one of many little incidents, and it was these little incidents that slowly accumulated and imperceptibly constituted a dangerous totality.