Chapter 19 Chapter Seventeen

△Elevation 8848 meters, PM3:40 on May 10, 1996 * We crashed because the weather suddenly turned cold and we were caught off guard.I don't think anyone has survived the month we've been through before if our second mate, Captain Oz, hadn't been sick1 and we were somehow short on fuel in our stockpile and we were only seventeen away from where we hoped to get the final supply There was a storm at the kilometer hour, and we could have weathered the storm.The greatest misfortune is this final blow We take risks, we know we are taking risks, but our luck is bad, we have no reason to complain, but submit to God's will and give it a go

Note 1: During the expedition, Oates (Lawrence Oates) moved slowly due to frostbite. In order not to drag his companions down, he left the camp during a certain break and left a famous saying: I just went out for a while and will be back in a while.Then disappeared.Since then, Captain Oates has become synonymous with sacrificing oneself and caring for teammates.Editor's note If we survive, I will speak of the fearlessness, stoicism and courage of our comrades, which will touch the heart of every Briton.These few crude accounts and our remains must also tell the tale. Scott <Message to the Public>

Written in Antarctica before dying on March 29, 1912 Quote from "Scott's Last Crusade" Robert Falcon Scott, in Message to the public, from Scot's Last Expedition □□□ At around 3:40 pm on May 10th, Fisher climbed to the summit and found his close friend and Xuebatou Jiangbu waiting for him.Jiang Bu took out the radio from his down jacket, contacted Ingrid at the base camp, and handed the walkie-talkie to Fisher.Fisher told Ingrid who was more than 3,400 meters below: We have done it.God, I'm so tired.The two Sherpas of the Taiwan team reached the summit shortly before that, followed by Gao Minghe.Hall was also there, anxiously waiting for Han Sen to appear, when a thick cloud came over the ridge of the peak.

According to Jiang Bu, Fisher stayed at the summit for fifteen or twenty minutes, repeatedly complaining about his physical discomfort. Being stoic by nature, he almost never complained about such things.Jiang Bu recalled: Fisher told me that I was too tired.And I'm not feeling well, I need stomach medicine.I brought him tea to drink, but he only drank a little, about half a cup.Then I said to him, Fisher, please, let's go down the mountain quickly.So we came down. Fisher went down first at about three fifty-five.Jiang Bu said that although Fisher used supplemental oxygen during the whole climb, and when he left the summit, his third tank of oxygen was still more than three-quarters, but he took off the oxygen mask for some reason and refused to use it again.

Not long after Fei Xue left the peak, Gao Ming and his Sherpas also left, and finally Jiang Bu also went down, leaving only Hall waiting for Han Sen on the peak.Not long after Jiang Bu went down the mountain, around four o'clock, Han Sen finally appeared. He persevered to the end and walked slowly through the last section of the uphill road on the ridge.As soon as Hall saw Han Sen, he rushed down to greet him. Two hours had already passed the mandatory retracement time set by Hall.Given his reserved, meticulous personality, many colleagues were puzzled by his uncharacteristic miscalculation.They couldn't figure out that Hall should have seen that Han Sen had dragged on for too long, why didn't he call Han Sen back at a lower place?

At 2:30 p.m. on the same day a year ago, Hall told Han Sen to turn around and descend from the South Peak. The disappointment that he was so close to the summit but couldn't make it to the summit crushed Han Sen.He told me many times that his return to Everest in 1996 was probably the result of Hall's advocacy. He said that Hall called him a dozen times from New Zealand, urging him to try again. Sen made up his mind to reach the top.He had told me three days ago in Camp Two that I was going to get this done and get Everest out of my mind and live a normal life.I don't want to come back.I'm too old to handle it.

Since Hall persuaded Han Sen to return to Mount Everest, it would be difficult for him to stop Han Sen again. This speculation should not be far off the mark.The New Zealand guide Curt climbed Mount Everest with Hall in 1992. He happened to be the guide on Hall's team when Hansen climbed for the first time in 1995. He reminded that at the height of the mountain It's hard to persuade people to turn back.Clients who see the summit close at hand and are determined to reach it will sneer at you and keep going.After the Everest disaster, American guide Peter Lev told Mountaineering magazine that we thought it was a wise decision to pay for us, but in fact everyone paid for the summit.

In any case, Hall didn't tell Han Sen to turn around at two o'clock in the afternoon, and he didn't even tell him to turn back when he met him at the bottom of the peak at four o'clock.On the contrary, according to Jiang Bu, Hall put Han Sen's arm around his neck and helped him walk the last twelve meters while he was weak.They only stayed at the peak for a minute or two before turning around and embarking on the long downhill road. Seeing that Han Sen's pace was unsteady, Jiang Bu didn't go down for the time being. He stopped for a while, watching that Han Sen and Hall passed the crumbling snow cornice under the peak safely.Then he wanted to catch up with Fisher who was 30 minutes ahead of him, so he left Han Sen and Hall at the top of Hillary's steps and walked down the ridge alone.

Not long after Jiang Bu disappeared along the steps of Hillary, Han Sen apparently ran out of oxygen and fell from exhaustion.He had exhausted his last bit of strength to reach the top, and he had no more energy to go down.In 1995, Westers, who served as the summit guide of the Hall team with Curt, said: A similar situation happened to Hansen back then.It's fine when going up, but when you go down, it's a physical and mental breakdown.It's like he drained everything and turned into a zombie. At 4:30 and 4:41, Hall radioed twice to say that he and Han Sen were trapped high on the summit ridge and needed oxygen.If Hall knew that Nanfeng still had two full cylinders of oxygen waiting for them, he would go down to get them as soon as possible, and bring back a new cylinder of oxygen to Han Sen.But Harris, who was still in the oxygen storage area at the time, was delirious due to lack of oxygen. When he heard the radio call, he interjected and told Holnan Peak that all the oxygen tanks were empty. It was an incorrect false alarm. He also told me and Glenn.

At that time, Glenn was accompanying Yasuko down the southeast ridge above the terrace. He heard the conversation between Harris and Hall on the radio. oxygen tank.Glenn explained: But my radio malfunctioned.I receive most of the calls, but almost no one hears the ones I send out.On two occasions Hall received my call to tell him where the oxygen tanks were, but was immediately interrupted by Harris, who said there was no oxygen on South Peak. Hall wasn't sure if he had oxygen, and thought the best way was to stay with Han Sen and try to bring this weak client down the mountain without oxygen.But when they reached the top of Hillary's Steps, Hall couldn't get Han Sen down the 12-meter vertical slope, so he had to stop.

Shortly before five o'clock, Glenn finally spoke to Hall and told him that oxygen was available at South Peak.Fifteen minutes later, Jiang Bu arrived at the South Peak on his way down from the peak, and met Harris 2.According to Jiang Bu, Harris must have finally figured out that at least two of the oxygen tanks stored there were full, and he begged Jiang Bu to help him bring life-saving oxygen to Hall and Han Sen on Hillary's Stairs.Jiang Bu recalled: Harris said he would give me five hundred dollars to bring oxygen to Hall and Hansen.But I should take care of my team.I have to take care of Fisher.So I said no to Harris and trotted down the hill. Note 2: I did not know that he met Harris on the evening of May 10 until I visited Jiang Bu in Seattle on July 25, 1996.I have had small talks with Jiang Bu a few times before, but I never thought of asking him if he met Harris on the South Peak, because at that time I still thought I was at the South Peak, more than 900 meters below the South Peak, at 6:30. Au met Harris.Moreover, Curt once asked Jiang Bu if he had seen Harris. For some unknown reason, maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Jiang Bu said no.author note At 5:30, Jiang Bu left the South Peak and continued to go down. Looking back, he saw Harris (when I saw him at the South Peak two hours ago, his condition showed that he was extremely weak) walking slowly up the summit ridge with heavy steps, wanting to go Help Hall and Han Sen.It was a heroic act, and he paid for it with his life. Tens of meters below, Fisher was struggling to walk down the southeast ridge, getting weaker and weaker.He reached the top of the rock steps at an elevation of 8,656 meters, and encountered a series of ridges that needed to be rappelled along a fixed rope, which was not long but troublesome.He was too tired to cope with the complicated rope work, so he slid down the adjacent snow slope directly on his buttocks.This is easier than climbing a fixed rope, but once you get lower than the rock steps, you have to go through knee-deep snow and climb 100 meters laterally in a zigzag shape to return to the original route, which is very strenuous. Madsen walked down with Beidleman and his party, and just looked up from the balcony at around 5:20, and saw Fisher start to zigzag.Madsen recalled: He looked really tired.Take ten steps, sit down and rest, take two more steps, and rest again.He walks really slowly.But I saw Jiang Bu above him, coming down the ridge, and I thought to myself that Fisher would be all right with Jiang Bu there to take care of him. According to Jiang Bu, he caught up with Fisher above the terrace around 6 p.m., and he said: Fisher didn't use oxygen, so I helped him put on an oxygen mask.He said, I was very uncomfortable and couldn't go down the mountain.I'm going to jump off.He said many times like crazy, so I tied him to a rope, otherwise he would jump into Tibet. Jiang Bu tied Fisher with a 23-meter-long rope, persuaded him not to jump, and then slowly dragged him towards the South Col.Jiang Bu recalled: At this time the snowstorm was very heavy.boom!boom!Twice it sounded like gunshots and thunder.Two lightning strikes near me and Fisher, loud and frightening. Later, Jiang Bu and Fisher sat down to rest, Gao Minghe and his two Sherpa Gongbu and Zelin passed by the two of them, and after a brief chat with irrelevant questions, the three continued to walk down.Soon after, Jiang Bu and Fisher went back down the mountain again, trying to follow the vague footprints left by the Taiwan team.At around eight o'clock, the two met Gao Minghe about 90 meters below the terrace, and now he is alone.Since he was too weak to walk any longer, he was left on the snow-covered ridge by his two sherpas. From here, Fisher and Jiang Bu no longer walked on gentle snow trenches, but changed to loose and steep shale outcrops.Fisher and Gao Ming were equally weak, unable to cope with the difficult terrain.Jiang Bu said: Now that Fisher can't leave, I'm in big trouble.I want to carry him, but I am also very tired.Fisher is a big guy, and I'm too small to carry him on my back.He told me, Jiang Bu, you go down, you go down.I told him, no, I will stay here with you. Jiang Bu said: I stayed with Fisher and Gao Minghe for an hour, maybe more.I am so cold and tired.Fisher said to me, go down and ask Pokrief to come up.So I said, ok, I'll go down, and I'll call the fast-footed Sherpa and Porkleaf to come up.Then I settled Fisher and went down the mountain. Jiang Bu left Fei Xue and Gao Minghe on the rock shed more than 360 meters above the South Col, and walked down through the snowstorm by himself.He couldn't see the direction, so he went far to the west. When he got to the place below the South Col, he realized that he had gone wrong. He had to climb up the north side of the Lhotse Mountain Face 3, looking for the No. 4 Battalion.He arrived safely around midnight.Jiang Bu said afterwards: I went to Pokliffe's tent and told Pokliffe, please, get up, Fisher is very sick, he can't go.Then I went back to my tent and fell asleep like a dead man. Note 3: When I was searching for Harris on the South Col early the next morning, I saw faint crampon marks on the ice and snow that led up from the edge of the Lhotse Mountain wall, and mistakenly thought it was left by Harris's fall along the mountain. That's why I thought Harris fell off the edge of the South Col.author note Curt, who had known Hall and Harris for many years, was leading an expedition to Pumori Peak. On the afternoon of May 10th, he happened to be only a few kilometers away from Everest base camp, and he could receive Hall's radio all day long.He had spoken to Hall at the summit at 2:15 p.m., and everything sounded fine.However, at 4:30, Hall called to say that Han Sen had run out of oxygen and could not move around.Panting and desperate, he begged anyone on the hill who might be listening to the radio, I need a tank of oxygen, is anyone here?Please, please! Kurt was terrified.At 4:53 he radioed, urging Hall forcefully to descend to the South Summit.Curt said: The content of the call is basically to persuade him to come down and get an oxygen tank, because we know that he cannot save Han Sen without oxygen.Hall said that he had no problem going down the mountain by himself, but he couldn't take Han Sen away. But forty minutes later, Hall was still at the top of Hillary's steps, accompanying Han Sen, without going anywhere.Hall called twice at 5:36 and 5:57, and Curt begged him to leave Han Sen and go down the mountain by himself.Curt confessed: I know it sounds stupid to ask Hall to leave the client behind, but at the time it was clear that leaving Han Sen was his only option.But Hall didn't think about leaving Han Sen to go down the mountain by himself. After that, there was no news from Hall until midnight.At 2:46 a.m., Curt awoke in his tent below Pumori Peak to a long, staccato message, possibly unintentional, of a remote microphone clipped to Hall's backpack shoulder strap. , Occasionally touch the button by mistake to send a message."This time, I guess Hall didn't even know he was sending out the message," Cotter said.I heard someone yelling, probably Hall, but there was too much wind in the background to be sure.But he said something like keep going!Continue to go!Probably urging Han Sen to move forward. If this is the case, Hall and Han Sen are still braving the strong wind to walk from the Hillary Steps to the South Peak at two or three o'clock in the morning, maybe Harris is also by their side.If this is the case, it also means that ordinary climbers can walk down the ridge in less than half an hour, but it took them more than ten hours. Of course these are pure guesses.The only certainty is that Hall had called down at 5:57 p.m.At that time, he and Han Sen were still above Hillary's steps.At 4:43 a.m. on May 11, when he called the base camp again, he had already descended to the South Peak.Neither Han Sen nor Harris was with him at the time. In a string of communications over the next two hours, Hall sounded confused and irrational.When he called at 4:43 a.m., he told our base camp doctor, Caroline, that his leg wasn't working, he couldn't move it clumsily.In a barely audible hoarse voice, Hall said hoarsely: Harris was with me last night, but he doesn't seem to be with me now.He is weak.Then, apparently confused, he asked: Is Harris with me?can you tell me 4 Note 4: I insist that I met Harris at the South Col at 6:30 pm on May 10th.Due to my false positives, when Hall said that Harris was with him on the South Peak (more than 900 meters above where I claim to have seen him), most people mistakenly assumed that Hall was just incoherent due to exhaustion, lack of oxygen Talk about it.author note Hall had two full tanks of oxygen at this point, but his oxygen mask valve was blocked by ice.He said he was trying to de-ice the oxygen equipment.Curt said: We all felt a little relieved after hearing this.This is the first positive news we hear. At five o'clock in the morning, the base camp made a satellite call to Christchurch, New Zealand, to Hall's wife Jane.She had climbed Everest with Hall in 1993 and had no hope of her husband's plight.She recalled: I heard his voice, and my heart sank.He was clearly at a loss for words.The sound is like a lorikeet, drifting farther and farther away.I've been up there and know how terrible it can be in bad weather.Hall and I discussed the impossibility of rescue on the summit ridge.He himself said that it is easier to save on the moon. At 5:31, Hall took four milligrams of dexamethasone and said he was still trying to de-ice his oxygen mask.He talked to the base camp, asking repeatedly about the status of Gao Minghe, Fisher, Withers, Kang Zi and several other clients of his.He seemed most worried about Harris and kept asking about his whereabouts.Curt thinks Harris is probably dead, and they try to divert the conversation away from Harris, because we don't want another reason for Hall to be there.One time Westers came in on the radio from Battalion 2 and said bullshit, don't worry about Harris, he's down there with us. After a while, Dr. Caroline asked Hall about Han Sen's current situation.Hall replied: Han Sen is gone.He only said this sentence, and this was the last time he mentioned Han Sen. On May 23, Brixues and Westers climbed to the summit. They didn't find Han Sen's body, but they found an ice ax inserted about fifteen meters vertically up the south peak. Uncovered ridge, where the fixed rope ends.It may be that Hall or Harris (or both) brought Han Sen here along the rope, but he lost his footing and fell more than 2,100 meters from the steep southwest mountain face, leaving behind the weapon that plunged into the ridge. ice axe.But that too is pure speculation. What happened to Harris is even harder to untangle.With Jiang Bu's testimony, Hall's radio conversation, and someone positively identifying the other ice ax found on the South Peak as belonging to Harris, we can reasonably conclude that on the night of May 10th he and Hall He and I stayed together on the South Peak, but other than that, nothing is known about how the young guide died. At six o'clock in the morning, Curt asked Hall if the sun had reached him, and Hall replied that it was almost there, which was comforting, because he had mentioned the cold temperature a few minutes ago, he was shaking non-stop, and a little Earlier, he also revealed that he could no longer walk. When the people below heard him shivering from the cold, their hearts sank.However, Hall had no oxygen and no place to shelter from the wind and snow. He endured the stormy wind and the extreme cold of minus 70 degrees all night at an altitude of 8,748 meters. During this radio conversation, Hall again asked Harris, had anyone seen Harris last night besides me?About three hours later, Hall was still brooding over Harris' whereabouts.At 8:43 he speculated on the radio: Some of Harris' equipment is still here.I think he probably went to the front all night.Listen, can you explain his situation?Helen wanted to evade this question, but Hall insisted on asking to the end: All right.I mean his ice ax is here, and his coat and stuff. Westers from Battalion Two replied: Hall, if you can wear that coat, go ahead.Keep going, just take care of yourself.Everyone is taking care of everyone else.You just go down by yourself. Hall struggled for four hours to de-ice the oxygen mask, and finally got the mask back to function. At 9 o'clock in the morning, he breathed supplemental oxygen for the first time, but at that time he had spent ten days without oxygen at an altitude of more than 8,700 meters. More than six hours.Below two to three thousand meters, his friends tried their best to persuade him to go down.Helen kept pleading: Hall, I am Helen, calling at the base camp, think about the unborn baby.In two months you will see his (her) little face, move on.Her voice sounded like she was about to cry. Hall claimed several times to be heading down, and for a while we thought he had finally left South Peak.On the side of Camp No. 4, Keshiri and I shivered in the cold wind outside the tent, looking up at a small point slowly descending along the southeast edge.Believing it was Hall, he and I patted each other on the back, rooting for Hall.But an hour later, I found that little black spot was still there, and my optimism disappeared. It was actually just a rock and an illusion caused by altitude sickness.In fact Hall never left South Peak at all. At around 9:30 in the morning, Dorje and Keshili left Camp Four with a pot of hot tea and two cylinders of extra oxygen, intending to rescue Hall.What was before the two of them was an extremely difficult task.Pokliffe's rescue of Sandy and Charlotte last night was amazing and heroic, but compared with what the two Sherpas are going to do now, it pales in comparison.Sandy and Charlotte were only 20 minutes away from the tent at that time, and the terrain was quite flat. Now Hall is more than 900 meters vertically away from the No. 4 Camp, and in the best case, it is difficult to climb 8 or 9 an hour. And this is by no means the best of times.The wind speed exceeded seventy-four kilometers per hour.Dorji and Lakpa just came back from the summit yesterday, cold and tired.Even if they could reach Hall, it would be near dusk in the afternoon, leaving only an hour or two of light for the two of them to undertake the more difficult task of bringing people down the mountain.However, the two were loyal to Hall, and even though the chance of success was extremely low, they set off towards the South Peak at the fastest speed. Not long after, the two Sherpas Zelin and Sakya of the Mountain Crazy Team (Jiang Bu’s father, small, clean and neat, with gray sideburns) and Sherpa Nuri of the Taiwan team moved to bring Fei. Xue and Gao Ming and Xiashan.When they reached 360 meters above the South Col, the three Sherpas found Fisher and Gao Minghe, who were very weak, on the rock shed where Jiang Bu had settled them.They tried to give Fisher oxygen, but he didn't respond.He was still breathing, very weakly, the eyeballs in his eye sockets did not move, and the roots of his teeth were clenched tightly. They concluded that he was hopeless, so they left him on the rock shed, and only took Gao Minghe down the mountain.After Gao Minghe drank hot tea and inhaled oxygen, and with the strong assistance of Dan Jia, he was able to tie a short rope team and walk down to the tent by his own strength. The morning was clear and cloudless, but the wind was still strong, and the mountains were covered with dense clouds later in the morning. The IMAX team reported in the No. 2 Battalion: Even though it was more than 2,000 meters below, the wind on the summit sounded like a whole squadron of 747s.At this time, on the height of the southeast ridge, Dorje and Keshiri made a determined push through the growing blizzard towards Hall.However, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the two were still more than 200 meters below the South Peak. They couldn't withstand the strong wind and the severe cold of many degrees below zero, and they could no longer go up.This is a heroic act, but it has failed. When the two turned around and went down the mountain, Hall's chance of life was completely cut off. All day on May 11, his friends and teammates kept begging him to try to go down on his own.Hall announced several times that he was going to come down, but he changed his mind and stayed at the South Peak without moving.At 3:20, Curt, who had walked from the base camp of Mount Everest to the base camp of Mount Everest, shouted on the radio: Hall, go down the ridge! Seeming annoyed, Hall retorted: Look, if I thought I could handle the knots in the fixed line with my frostbitten hands, I'd be down six hours ago, man.Send two lads up with a jug of hot drink and I'll be all right. Curt told him as lightly as possible that the rescue operation had been abandoned, my friend, the problem was that today the boy encountered a strong wind and had to turn back.We think your best bet is going down a bit. If you send two lads to bring some sherpa tea tomorrow morning, I can stay here for another night, not later than nine-thirty or ten o'clock.Hall replied. Curt quivered: You're tough, man.We'll send some lads up tomorrow morning. At 6:20 p.m., Curt called Hall and told him his wife was calling from Christchurch on a satellite phone and was waiting to be connected.Hall said: Wait for me a minute.My mouth is dry.I want to eat some snow before talking to her.After a while he was back on the line, rustling in a terribly slow and distorted voice: Hi, honey.I hope you are lying comfortably in a warm bed.how are you Jane replied: I miss you so much!Sounds like you're better than I thought. Are you warm, honey? As far as the height and environment in front of me are concerned, I am comfortable.Hall tried not to scare her. how are your feet I didn't take my boots off to check but I think I have chilblains Jane said: When you come back, I will make you completely better.I just know you will be saved.Don't feel like you're alone, I'm sending all my positive energy to you! Before ending the call, Hall told his wife: I love you.Sleep well, honey.Please don't worry too much. This was the last time the world heard him speak.Attempts to reach Hall by radio that night and the next day were unsuccessful.Twelve days later, Bridgers and Westers climbed over the South Peak on their way to the summit and found Hall lying on his right side in a shallow ice puddle, with his upper body buried under snowdrifts.