Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face through the Killer Storm - Matt Dickinson

Feeling more dead than alive, I staggered the final few steps into Advance Base Camp just as darkness swept across the Tibetan Plateau and chased the last glimmer of light out of the Himalayas. It was 6:35 p.m. on May 20, 1996. I stood alone, swaying unsteadily on my feet, trying to work out what I should do next. For a few moments I was dimly aware of the snow-covered tents around me. There was a shout from the darkness. A glowing headlamp bobbed up and down as a shadowy figure emerged from somewhere and picked its way toward me across the rocks of the glacier. Then, with all the suddenness of a power cut, both my knees collapsed. I found myself lying on my back, staring at a sky full of stars, with a jumbo-jet pilot named Roger kissing me on both cheeks and calling me a bastard. We held each other in a bear hug for what seemed like ages as Roger's words of congratulation worked their way through the fog that shrouded my brain. For the first time in many weeks, a half-forgotten sensation overwhelmed me to the edge of tears. The feeling of being safe. It was over. The summit of Everest was behind me. I opened my mouth to reply to Roger but all that came out was a gabble of unintelligible words. Confused by a mixture of euphoria and shock, my brain scrambled by the effect that extreme altitude and dehydration had wrought, I was unable to string two words together. It didn't even occur to me to wonder where my fellow climber Al Hinkes had disappeared, even though we had descended from the North Col together. As far as I was concerned, he had simply vanished. (In fact, as Roger later told me, he had gone to his tent to sort himself out before searching for food and drink.) Roger pulled me to my feet, helped me out of my rucksack, and unstrapped my climbing harness. Then he supported me into the unbelievable warmth of the mess tent where our Sherpa team was sitting around two steaming pots of food in a haze of kerosene fumes and cigarette smoke. Excited faces crowded round in a babble of conversation. I was guided onto a seat while Dhorze the cook prepared some sugared tea. My three layers of gloves were pulled off by eager hands, revealing the frozen fingers within. There was a whistle as my right hand emerged to reveal two frostbitten middle fingers. The end of each was consumed by a growing gooseberry-sized blister of fluid, the skin marbled and cheeselike in texture. Kippa Sherpa mimed the motion of a saw, cutting across the fingers. "Like this!" he laughed. "No. No." Ang Chuldim, long experienced in judging the severity of frostbite, turned my hand in his and spoke reassuringly. "First degree. But fingers probably survive OK. No cut!" As I sipped the drink, the sweetness of the tea mingling with the bitter taste of blood oozing from the blisters on my lips, I felt the tent begin to spin. As the kerosene fumes seemed to engulf me, the familiar rise of nausea in my throat warned me I was about to vomit. I managed to stagger into the cleaner air of our own mess tent where I put my head between my knees and tried to ward off the fainting fit that threatened to black me out. The cool air and the tea revived me, and it suddenly struck me as strange that Roger was here alone. "Where is everyone?" "They've gone down to Base Camp." "Oh." Roger's generosity in staying was now all the more apparent. Advance Base was no place to linger and he had waited here for several days even though the rest of the team had evacuated down to the warmer and more hospitable climes of the Rongbuk Valley base sixteen kilometers (ten miles) away. His gesture moved me greatly. "Thanks for being here." "Well, I thought there had to be someone to welcome you back to the land of the living." I finished the tea and walked like a drunk back outside with Roger to the tents. I knew one of theDickinson, Matt is the author of 'Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face through the Killer Storm - Matt Dickinson' with ISBN 9780812931594 and ISBN 0812931599.