Chapter 15 Chapter Thirteen

△Elevation 8413 meters, May 10, 1996 * I just want to say that Mount Everest has some of the steepest ridges I have ever seen, and some of the most terrifying cliffs I have ever seen. The so-called easy-to-climb snow slopes are pure myths My love, this is a thrilling thing in general, I can't tell you how fascinated I am, what kind of scenery I see before me, and how beautiful it all is! Mallory <Letter to Wife> George Leigh Mallory, in a letter to his wife June 28, 1921 □□□ Above the South Col is already a dead zone, and survival is almost a race against the clock.When departing from Camp No. 4 on May 10, each customer carried two 3-kilogram oxygen cylinders to the South Peak and picked up another cylinder from a hidden place stored by the Sherpas.According to the conservative flow rate of two liters per minute, each canister can be used for five to six hours.By four or five, everyone's oxygen will run out.We can still move above the South Col, depending on the degree of adaptation to the height and the physiological structure of each person, but we are in poor physical condition and cannot last for a long time.We are more prone to high altitude emphysema, high altitude cerebral edema, hypothermia, impaired judgment, chilblain etc.The risk of death will rise rapidly.

Hall, who had climbed Everest four times, knew better than anyone the need to rush up and down.He saw that the basic mountaineering skills of some clients were very worrying, and he planned to use fixed ropes to protect us and Fisher's team to speed through the most dangerous areas.This year, no expedition team has climbed to the summit, indicating that there are many places in this area that have not yet been roped, and he is very worried. The Swedish solo climber Kropp climbed to a vertical height of only 107 meters from the summit on May 3, but he didn't bother with the rope at all.The Montenegro team climbed higher. They set up a bit of fixed rope, but due to inexperience, they wasted the rope on a gentle slope that does not need to be set up. Therefore, at a place more than 420 meters above the South Col, the rope was broken. used up.On the morning when we attacked the summit, there were no other ropes on the rugged and steep slope of the southeast ridge, only a few scattered old ropes left by previous expeditions peeking out from the ice.

Hall and Fisher anticipated this possibility in advance, and held a guide meeting between the two teams before leaving the base camp, agreeing that each team would send two Sherpas (including mountaineering Sherpa Tou Dorji and Jiang Bu) before the departure of the large group. Leaving Camp 4 in 90 minutes gave Sherpa time to set up the rope first on the most exposed high-altitude sections.Beidleman recalled that Hall made it very clear that this matter was very important.He does everything in his power to avoid huddling and wasting time. But for some reason, no Sherpa left the South Col before us on the night of May 9th.The strong wind didn't stop until 7:30, maybe it was because of the wind that they couldn't set out according to their original plan.After the expedition, Jiang Bu insisted that Hall and Fisher received the wrong information, thinking that the Montenegro people had already set the rope all the way to the height of the South Peak, so they canceled at the last minute. plan.

If what Jiang Bu said was true, the three guides who survived the catastrophe, Beideman, Glenn, and Pokliffe, had not heard of any change in their plans.If the plan to erect the fixed rope had been deliberately withdrawn, there would be no reason for Jiang Bu and Dorji to leave the No. 4 Battalion with their ninety-meter-long rope when they left the No. 4 Battalion to clear the way for their respective teams. In any case, no ropes were set up in advance at the place above the altitude of 8352 meters.At 5:30 in the morning, Dorje and I arrived at the top of Terrace Cliff first, more than an hour before the rest of Hall's team.At that time, we could easily set up the rope first, but Hall clearly forbade me to go first, and Jiang Bu was still dragging Sandy far below, and no one could accompany Dorje up.

Dorje was quiet and gloomy by nature, and he seemed particularly gloomy when we sat watching the sun rise together.I tried to get him to talk, but in vain.I guess his bad mood may be related to the severe pain of festering teeth in the past two weeks, or he is contemplating the ominous vision he saw four days ago: on the evening of the last day of the base camp, he and some Sherpas were drinking rice and millet. Strong liqueur, to celebrate the impending summit.The next morning he was badly hungover and very restless.Before climbing to the Khumbu Icefall, he told a friend that he saw ghosts at night.Dorje is a devout believer and will never ignore this omen.

But he might just be mad at Jiang Bu for being too ostentatious.In 1995 Hall went on an expedition to Mount Everest and hired Jiang Bu and Dorji at the same time, but the cooperation between the two was not very pleasant. Hall's team on the summit day that year did not arrive at the South Peak until 1:30 in the afternoon, and found that the last section of the summit ridge was covered with soft snow.Hall sent a New Zealand guide named Curt and Jiang Bu first to see how feasible it is to climb up, but he did not send Dorje, who was the Sherpa head of that mountaineering, and he took this It's a great shame.Not long after, Jiang Bu had climbed to the bottom of the Hillary Step, Hall decided to stop the attack and signaled Curt and Jiang Bu to turn around.Jiang Bu ignored Hall's order, untied the rope between him and Curt, and continued to climb to the summit alone.Huoerqi Jiangbu disobeyed, and Duoji was as dissatisfied as his employer.

Although the two were on different teams this year, Ri Duoji was ordered to cooperate with Jiang Bu, but Jiang Bu was still acting insane.Dorje has gone beyond his duties and worked hard for six weeks, and now he is tired of doing extra work, and sits with me on the snowy ground with a sullen face waiting for Jiang Bu, with the rope left untied. It turned out that I walked another ninety minutes across the terrace before hitting my first bottleneck at an elevation of 8,534 meters, where the motley crew happened to encounter a series of huge rock steps that required ropes to navigate safely.The client huddled anxiously at the bottom of the rock for nearly an hour before Beidleman took over the task and replaced the absent Jiang Bu with difficulty to lower the rope.

Hall's client Yasuko is too restless and inexperienced, which almost leads to disaster.She is employed by FedEx in Tokyo. She is a capable female office worker, completely inconsistent with the image of a docile and submissive middle-aged Japanese woman in the eyes of ordinary people.She once told me with a smile that her husband does all the cooking and laundry at home.Her expedition to Mount Everest is well known in Japan.During previous expeditions, she moved slowly and hesitantly, but today, with the goal of attacking the summit, her vitality is unprecedented.Tusk, who shared a tent with her in Camp 4, said: From the moment we arrived at the South Col, Koko was completely focused on the summit, like a maniac.After leaving the South Col, she has been working very hard, pushing straight to the front of the team.

At this moment, Beideman was clinging tremblingly to the rock 30 meters above the client. Koko was overly eager, and before he could fix his end of the rope, she hung her Jumar ascender on the swinging rope. superior.As she was about to ascend on the jumbos (which would have dragged Beidleman down), Glenn stepped in just in the nick of time, chiding her softly for her impatience. Every time a climber comes up, the traffic jam on the rope will increase by one point, so the team will get longer and longer.Later in the morning, Hall's three clients, Hutcheson, Tusk and Kasiscik, were worried about falling behind.In front of them is the Taiwanese team, which is particularly slow.Hutchison said: "Their climbing method is very special, sticking very close together, almost like slices of toast, sticking to each other, it is almost impossible for others to pass."We spent a lot of time waiting for them to move up the rope.

At Base Camp before the summit, Hall had considered two possible turning times: one or two in the afternoon.But he never announced which one we should obey.Given how many times he's mentioned that we should set deadlines and stick to them anyway, it's really odd that he doesn't announce a specific time.We only vaguely know that Hall will wait until summit day to assess the weather and other factors before making a final decision, and that he will then be personally responsible for urging everyone to turn back at the right moment. At about ten o'clock in the morning on May 10, Hall still hadn't announced our return time.Hutchison is conservative by nature, so he set a turning point at one point.Around eleven o'clock, Hall told Hutchison and Tusk three more hours of walking to reach the summit, and then he set off at full speed to overtake the Taiwanese team."Our chances of reaching the summit before turning back at one o'clock seemed increasingly slim," Hutchison said.Then they discussed for a while.Kasisker was reluctant to throw in the towel at first, but Tusk and Hutchison were good at lobbying.At 11:30, the three of them walked down the mountain with their backs to the summit. Hall sent Sherpas Kami and Keshili to accompany them down the mountain.

The choice to go down was difficult for the three clients, and for Fishback, who turned back hours earlier.Mountaineering has always been a magnet for indomitable men and women.In the later stages of the expedition, we often suffered from varying degrees of suffering and danger. If we were prudent people, we would have returned home long ago.To get to this point, you must have an unusually stubborn character. Unfortunately, people who are naturally inclined to put their personal pain behind them and keep pushing towards the summit are also often oblivious to the signs of great danger at hand, which constitutes the ultimate dilemma that all Everest climbers face : In order to succeed, you must have strong motivation; but too strong motivation may kill you.Furthermore, at altitudes above 7,925 meters, there is only a thin line between moderate heat and reckless summit heat.So the slopes of Everest are littered with dead bodies. Tusk, Hutchison, Kasisker, and Fishback spent $70,000 each and endured weeks of torment to get their chance at the summit.We are all ambitious people, not used to failure, let alone abstaining halfway.But faced with difficult decisions, they were the few who made the right choice that day. After passing the rock steps turned back by the three people and then going up, there is no fixed rope.From this place, the route climbs steeply along a beautiful wind-blown snow ridge to the South Peak. I arrived there at eleven o'clock, and encountered a second bottleneck, which was more serious than the previous one.A little further up is the vertical cut of the Hillary Step, which seems within stone throwing distance, and beyond that is the summit.I was so awed and tired that I couldn't speak, only took a few pictures, and then sat down with Harris, Bedman and Pokliffe and waited for the Sherpas to fix the rope along the summit ridge, The snow cornices there are magnificent. I found that Pokrief, like Jiang Bu, did not need supplemental oxygen.Although the Russian climbed twice without an oxygen mask and Jiang Bu three times, I was surprised that Fisher allowed the two men to act as summit guides without supplemental oxygen, which did not seem to be in the best interest of the client.I'm also surprised that Porkleaf isn't wearing a backpack.According to the usual practice, the guide will bring a backpack, which contains some ropes, first aid supplies, ice crevasse rescue equipment, extra clothes and necessities to rescue customers in an emergency.All the guides I have seen on the mountains before have followed this practice. It turned out that he did take a backpack and an oxygen tank with him when he left Battalion 4, and he later told me that although he didn't intend to use oxygen, he would take a spare tank in case his energy went low.But when he reached the terrace, he dropped the backpack and handed over the oxygen tank, mask and regulator to Bedman.Since Porkleaf was not breathing supplemental oxygen, it was evidently determined to minimize the burden on his body and gain the greatest advantage possible in the dreadfully thin air. A gust of thirty-seven kilometers an hour swept across the ridge, blowing a wisp of snow far across the east wall, but the sky above was blindingly bright.Wearing a heavy down jacket, I lazily basked in the sun at an altitude of 8,748 meters, overlooking the roof of the world, but I became dazed due to lack of oxygen and completely lost the sense of time.None of us noticed that Dorje and Norbu, another Sherpa on Hall's team, were sitting next to us sharing a pot of tea, seemingly in no hurry to go further up.At around 11:40, Bei Deman finally asked: Hey, Dorji, are you going to set the rope or not?Dorje quickly answered clearly that he would not go, perhaps because there were no Sherpas from the Fisher team on the scene to share the work. Beidleman saw the crowd crowded on the top of the South Peak, and became alert. He shouted to Harris and Pokliffe, and strongly suggested that the three guides should set the rope by themselves.I heard it, and quickly volunteered to help.Beidleman pulled a forty-five-meter coil of rope from his backpack, and I grabbed another coil from Dorjee, and Pokliffe and Harris set out on the road at noon, along the summit ridge. Rope, but by then another hour had been wasted. Even with the oxygen in the tank, the summit of Mount Everest will not become sea level.After passing the South Peak, the regulator sends nearly two liters of oxygen per minute. Every time I take a heavy step, I have to stop and take three or four breaths of air. Then I take another step and stop for four deep breaths. This is already the limit of my pace. The limit is reached.Because the oxygen system we use sends out a thin mixture of compressed oxygen and the surrounding air, breathing oxygen at 8,839 meters feels like breathing without an oxygen mask at 7,925 meters.There are also benefits of oxygen in cylinders that are difficult to quantify. As I climbed up the summit ridge, breathing oxygen into my clogged lungs, I felt a sense of strange and uncertain peace.The world outside the rubber mask was astonishingly vivid, yet unreal, like a slow-motion movie playing in front of my goggles.I felt dazed, relieved, completely cut off from external stimuli.I have to remind myself again and again that there are more than 2,100 meters in the air on both sides, and everything is dangerous. If you take a wrong step, you will lose your life. Walking up from the top of the South Peak for half an hour, I came to the bottom of the Hillary Steps, which is one of the most famous passes in mountaineering activities in the world. The 12-meter nearly vertical rock and ice are daunting.But I, like all serious climbers, would love to grab the dangerous end of the rope and be the first to climb the Hillary Steps.But Pokliffe, Bedman, and Harris are clearly in a similar frame of mind, and I'd be delusional in the absence of oxygen to think they'd let a client get their hands on such a coveted assignment. Pokliffe is a senior guide, and he is the only one among us who has climbed Mount Everest, so he won this honor in the end.Beidleman was in charge of the rope, and he was in the vanguard, and he performed superbly.But the climb was slow, and as he toiled toward the top of the Hillary Step, I nervously stared at my watch, wondering if my oxygen would run out.The first tube was used up on the terrace at 7:00 in the morning, and it took about seven hours.Based on this, I calculated that the second cylinder would be used up at around 2:00 p.m. on the South Peak. I foolishly thought that there must be enough time to reach the summit and then go back to the South Peak to get my third cylinder of oxygen.But now it's past one o'clock, and I'm starting to wonder. At the top of the Hillary Step, I shared my concerns with Beidleman and asked him if he would mind if I made it to the summit first without stopping to help him tie the last coil of rope down the ridge.He said kindly: "Go, I'll take care of the rope." As I slowly walked the last few steps to the summit, I always felt like I was under water, and my life moved at a quarter of the slow speed.Then I found myself on a narrow ice wedge dotted with a discarded oxygen tank and a battered aluminum prospecting rod, with no higher ground to climb.A string of wind horse flags crackled in the wind.Far below, looking down on the other side of the mountain that I have never seen before, the dry Tibetan plateau stretches as far as the eye can see, and the dark brown land stretches to the horizon. Arriving at the top of Mount Everest should be joyful and triumphant. After all, I have gone through all the hardships and achieved the goal I have longed for since I was a child.But getting to the top is actually only half the way.No matter how smug I am, when I think of the dangerous long downhill road before me, all the excitement is washed away by overwhelming fear.