12

Into the Dark

Kanchenjunga is the third tallest mountain in the world at 8,586 metres above sea level, but it was also potentially the toughest expedition within Phase One. That might sound weird considering the intimidating kill rate of Annapurna, but Kanchenjunga was renowned for being brutally tough to climb; few people had the resilience, luck, or strength to reach its peak because the ascent to the summit from Camp 4 – which was pitched 7,750 metres above sea level – was a soul-breaking grind. Despite there being only around a thousand metres in altitude remaining to scale, the distance left to travel was long, while deep snow often smothered the ascent up to the shoulder that ran towards Kanchenjunga’s peak.

Having made it to the final ridge, a mountaineer was then exposed to awful winds and biting cold. The oxygen levels dropped to 33 per cent and the terrain was a head fuck – a bewildering minefield of loose rock, ice-covered boulders and blinding spindrift. Psychologically the route felt never-ending, the summit seemed forever out of reach, and many people turned back for home long before making it to the top. On average around three hundred people climbed Everest successfully every season; at Kanchenjunga that number came in at around twenty-five.

I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the challenge. We had blitzed the first two mountains in double-quick time under incredibly gnarly circumstances, so I knew we had it in us to charge up Kanchenjunga too, but there was little doubt that everyone within the team was feeling frazzled. Having spent five days on Dhaulagiri, fixing lines and digging up the rope that had been buried by a heavy snowfall, while carrying thirty kilos of gear on our backs, we were battle bruised. When we arrived at Kanchenjunga’s base camp on 14 May, the team fell into a short period of relative luxury, stuffing our faces with some fried chicken bought in a nearby village while we readied our tactics for the next twenty-four hours.

We were to move fast, pushing immediately to the top in one hit, rather than resting for a day at Camps 1, 2, 3 and 4, like normal expeditions usually did. No fucking around. Our intense work rate was born out of necessity, though: we were already acclimatised to high altitude and because of our fading energy levels, to stop and rest would have caused us to fail. I’d have fallen asleep on the spot; Gesman and Mingma were joining me for the push and were tiring as well.

We set out in high spirits, switching into a powerful gear and climbing quickly through the valley to Camp 1, spiking our heart rates and shocking our bodies into action. Beneath us, the snow-covered terrain was booby-trapped with hidden crevasses. Above, the lower slopes were notorious for dropping heavy avalanche payloads and rock fall onto unsuspecting climbers, though the weather had created further dangers.

A number of boulders around us had been frozen together, but because the sun was high during the day, any thawing ice had the potential to trigger a mini avalanche. Taking it in turns to work as sentries, one of us would scan the ridges above for potential bombardments, while the other two sprinted to the nearest point of shelter. If ever anybody shouted, ‘Rock!’ the group dived for cover.

At first, our rapid tactics worked well; our energy levels were high.

‘We’ll fucking climb this mountain as fast as we can, brothers!’ I shouted, excitedly. ‘When you’re panting, you can’t sleep!’

By 5 p.m., we were zipping up our summit suits at Camp 1. The expedition parties already on the mountain were into the thick of their respective summit pushes and at 7 p.m. a lot of them were already leaving Camp 4. (On Everest, which has the longest climb in terms of altitude from Camp 4 to peak, mountaineers generally leave at around 9 p.m.) In the fading light, I noticed their headlamps flickering high above us, which worried me a little. The distance between the high camp and the peak looked challenging.

I knew we’d have to move fast if we were to make the summit in good time, but my optimism later began to fade when I noticed Gesman lagging behind. He had long been struggling to keep up with the momentum set by Mingma and myself as we pulled ourselves along the fixed lines, and while I was feeling strong as we moved towards the peak, the thought of waiting for Gesman as he caught up with us was a little unsettling.

There was always a risk in carrying a passenger. Our chances of making it away from a mountain as deadly as Kanchenjunga in one piece would be very low if we were to be held back from making the summit window – the time in which it’s safe to scale the mountain and turn around safely for home. It’s highly likely we’d be stranded during the descent, unable to move up or down in the dark if the weather conditions deteriorated and we were stuck between camps, though we hadn’t intended on an overnight stay.

By mission planning to climb and descend the mountain in one hit, we were only carrying our essential equipment such as oxygen, emergency rope, food and a few personal items. The brief was to bomb on, fighting to stay awake whenever we paused for a breather, knowing that death might catch us if we eased our foot from the pedal.

‘Guys, whenever we’re partying in Kathmandu, we’re happy to dance until six o’clock in the morning,’ I said. ‘That’s for fun, and we manage it no problem. But climbing Kanchenjunga is for something rare, we will all get rewarded, and this might change our lives if we succeed. We don’t need to rest.’

The trick was to present a psychological reframing of what was set to be a painful encounter. The emotional switch soon helped us to eat up the metres, but physically we were suffering.

At times during my then relatively modest portfolio of high-altitude expeditions, it was possible to sense a disaster unfolding on the mountain, in much the same way that I could often sniff approaching trouble while working in war. For the most part on military tours, the work was familiar; a soldier could remain fairly alert and functional without being fully focused, just as somebody could drive their car on the motorway while engaging in a conversation at the same time. If trouble loomed on the road ahead, it was still possible to maintain enough alertness to react and slow down, or even swerve.

In much the same way, a soldier was able to understand that life was about to get ugly simply by observing the behaviour of some of the human traffic bustling around them. In some desert outposts, if the locals suddenly disappeared into the nearby doorways and alleys – it was time to switch on: a battle was coming.

As we moved up to Camp 3 and beyond on Kanchenjunga, I experienced that familiar rush of anxiety and excitement. Trouble was brewing. I first sensed it having spotted a climber directly above us as we worked our way along a steep, icy slope; it took every ounce of strength to manoeuvre up the line, but we were moving steadily, even though Gesman had long faded away in the distance.

The bloke ahead, a Chilean, was struggling. He was moving very slowly and we’d have to overtake him quickly if we wanted to reach the summit in good enough time to turn around and descend safely. I also recognised that he was in no fit shape to finish the expedition – from a distance he looked exhausted. The rational option was for him to turn around, but he was pressing ahead regardless.

I felt a lot of sympathy. Everyone has a goal when climbing an 8,000-er – a cause. Some people are experienced alpinists that enjoy bettering themselves for kicks. Others have more personal ambitions: maybe they’re raising money for charity; many people use an expedition to overcome mental health issues like PTSD, or to celebrate their recovery from a nasty condition such as cancer; others are determined to set a personal record or some wider-reaching benchmark.

I’d learned in Base Camp that the Chilean climber – a man named Rodrigo Vivanco – fell very much into the latter category. Apparently, nobody from his country had ever made it to the top of Kanchenjunga and yet there were two Chilean mountaineers attempting the feat that same day. Rodrigo was working without oxygen; his fellow countryman had gas and was now a speck above him in the clouds. The realisation he was set to be the second climber from his country must have been psychologically tricky, even though he wasn’t using bottled air.

When we finally met on the line, I noticed Rodrigo’s laboured movements and tired breathing. He was knackered; the safest option was for him to head down.

‘Brother, look, it’s very late now,’ I said. ‘The summit is quite far away, so you need to be very, very cautious about this.’

He nodded, but seemed determined to push on. ‘No, I climb. I climb!’

‘It’s your decision,’ I said. ‘But what I’m saying is your pace is very slow, and the summit is still fucking miles away.’

It wasn’t my place to force Rodrigo. Had he been a member of my expedition party, I’d have ordered him down to safety, or if he’d been a paying client I’d have forced him to Base Camp with a guide. But I could only advise him and Rodrigo had brushed off my help. I sensed a moment of looming disaster; my focus sharpened. For a split second, I assessed the smaller details around us.

Physically, Rodrigo was in a bad way. At what point would he collapse: on the way up, or the way down?

Were we strong enough to rescue Rodrigo if that happened? Probably. Gesman’s flagging, but between the three of us we can manage it.

Could we make it to the top of Kanchenjunga first and grab Rodrigo on the way back if necessary? I’m feeling strong, the summit is in reach, so . . . yeah.

I was fast learning that the biggest challenge for any climber was self-awareness; it’s impossible for anyone to run or hide from themselves, their truth, on the mountain. My primary instinct at that point was to turn Rodrigo around, but once he’d announced his decision to press ahead, I switched to my secondary instinct: to concentrate on the mission.

I have to climb fourteen mountains in seven months. This is the next one on the list.

My immediate step was to figure out how.

Luckily, I understood myself as a person and a mountain climber, my truths. I knew it wasn’t in me to wait around for Rodrigo, hoping he might revive himself and hurry up. Walking behind somebody as I worked towards my objective, in the hope they might move aside, had never been my modus operandi, and the chances that Rodrigo would briefly detach from his rope to let us pass were slim. He was burnt out. Instead, both Mingma and I unclipped from the line. We advanced past the Chilean as quickly as possible, continuing our rapid ascent in the first light of the morning; but swerving Rodrigo was only the first in what became a series of high-altitude manoeuvres.

The mountain was log-jammed with people moving up and down the rope. Those moving towards the peak seemed to vibrate with urgency, but the mountaineers descending to the lower camps carried a different energy. Many of them were exhausted; others looked stressed. Some climbers even seemed to be teetering on the tipping point between death and survival, having blown themselves out on the way to the summit. The worst of them was an Indian climber who had slumped beside a rock with his Sherpa, seemingly unable to move either up or down, while facing a terrifying reality. Their truths had been exposed by Kanchenjunga.

* * *

We summited at noon on 15 May. Hugging Mingma, I shouted into the clouds excitedly and reached into my rucksack – there were photos to take and flags to unpack. The first one carried the Project Possible logo; another had the Special Boat Service badge printed across it.

‘This is it,’ I shouted, repeating the regiment’s motto. ‘By strength and guile, the only one, SBS!’

From our position, the peaks of Everest, Makalu and Lhotse were in full view, the final three destinations of Phase One. Somewhere in the distance were the contours that separated Nepal’s border from China and India, too. This was the banner day I’d long dreamt of and bright blue skies arced overhead, but time was fading fast. When I looked at my watch there were only a few hours of daylight left, though an exhausted Gesman had finally, thankfully, joined us. But who knew about the shit show awaiting us on the lines below? It was time to begin the long walk home. I was already switched on and ready for trouble, half expecting to carry a broken Rodrigo to safety.

Drama struck us almost immediately. The Indian mountaineer we’d seen earlier, and his guide, were still stranded fifty metres below us, unable to move and locked into the type of death spiral that sometimes happened at high altitude: a familiar story featuring the incapacitated climber and his or her stronger teammate, where the sick were desperately coaxed and cajoled to safety, but having hung around for too long, the healthy then found themselves in an equally perilous state. With no energy to escape, they all died. Here it was again, and now both climber and guide were stuck to Kanchenjunga.

I tried to rouse them. ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked. Some horrible attack of altitude sickness appeared to be overwhelming the mountaineer.

The Sherpa shook his head. ‘It’s his oxygen – it’s run out. My air has run out as well. Now this guy can’t move down and obviously I can’t leave him here, so I’m trying to convince him to come with me, but he’s not even moving. He thinks the next step will be his last.’

A slow-moving car crash was unfolding in front of my eyes.

‘We met you here before we got to the summit and you haven’t made any progress?’

‘No, brother. This man cannot make one step.’

I looked down at the climber. ‘What’s your name, buddy?’

‘He’s called Biplab,’ mumbled the guide. ‘He’s stopped talking.’

When I checked him over, Biplab was thankfully conscious, but it was hard to tell whether he was suffering from HAPE or HACE. His Sherpa seemed to be in a bad way too, though he could at least stand and place one foot in front of the other, albeit very slowly.

I wasn’t going to leave either of them in such a precarious state. They were unable to save themselves, so it was on Mingma, Gesman and myself to get them both down. Operating quickly was imperative, though. Some oxygen might be enough to get Biplab on the move, though all of us knew that if he was unable to descend, at least to Camp 4, he was probably going to die. Worryingly, our biggest hurdle looked to be psychological rather than physical. Biplab was paralysed by fear.

‘We’re going to get you home,’ I shouted, helping him to his feet.

We immediately moved into a CASEVAC setting. Mingma volunteered his oxygen cylinder to Biplab. Because the air was dangerously thin, the shock to his system would prove debilitating over a number of hours, but for now Mingma was tough enough to support the slightly more stable Sherpa, who was getting to his feet.

‘Let’s use our speed,’ I suggested. ‘The only way these people get better is if they get down. Oxygen is the biggest medicine for all of us.’

I radioed down to Base Camp for assistance. ‘Guys, it’s Nims,’ I said. ‘We’ve got two stranded climbers up here and we’ve given them our gas. We’re going to conduct a rescue, but we need some more air. Can somebody from Camp 4 help us?’

My comms crackled. ‘Yes, we’ll help,’ shouted a voice. ‘Three Sherpas are coming to you with oxygen.’

I moved closer to check on Biplab, asking if he’d like to speak to anyone on the satellite phone. Although time was against us, I knew that a shot of positivity would stand him in good stead during what was bound to be a long, tough descent.

‘My wife,’ he said.

Shortly afterwards, the distanced couple were connected. By the sounds of things, his entire family had gathered around one mobile and Biplab was laughing. He’d located the inspiration and sense of positivity that was so important when making it off the mountain in one piece. There was a feeling of relief and hope. For a brief moment, I believed we were going to be OK.

But I was wrong.

Mingma and I grabbed Biplab’s arms, Gesman held his feet, and we attached him to our safety rope. Together we started the heavy, painful slog towards Camp 4, but because this was an unexpected rescue operation, and we were without our usual kit, we had to improvise. On a rescue of this kind, the casualty would normally have been moved on a stretcher with one person at the front, while the people lifting the back of the stretcher worked as brakes. Any other available bodies chipped in by balancing the casualty and guiding the carriers.

This CASEVAC was very different, though. The terrain was a challenging mix of rock, snow and ice, and the work was slow – we were having to traverse, which required us to be methodical, especially when applying different technical rope skills to our descent. We pulled and lifted, the pair of us struggling under the weight of our semi-conscious casualty.

Shortly after starting our rescue, I realised another climber was coming towards us on the line, but he was heading up rather than down. Was it help? Whoever it was seemed to be working alone and looked seriously ill-equipped for the effort – every movement was laboured and simply clinging on to the line appeared to be an incredible strain. Then I recognised the summit suit. It was Rodrigo! He was still moving towards the top and I experienced a sensation of dread. Because it was mid-afternoon, there was no way he’d be able to make it to the peak of Kanchenjunga and descend to safety all alone in the darkness.

As he moved closer, I grabbed at him again. ‘Look, brother, you need to go down now. It’s nearly two o’clock.’

But Rodrigo was still unwilling to listen. His body might have been failing, but his determination seemed unbreakable.

‘No, the summit is very important for me,’ he shouted.

‘Yeah, brother, but if you leave, you can come and summit next year. You are very, very slow, you’ll be dead soon if you don’t turn around.’

Rodrigo tried to push past me on the line. I recognised the tell-tale indicators of summit fever, a disorientating condition where an individual becomes so obsessed with making it to the top of whichever 8,000-er they’re climbing that they forget the importance of executing the second part of the mission: getting home. I reckoned Rodrigo had also been spun out by altitude. Without oxygen, his brain was probably unable to process any important information as readily as a climber working lower down the mountain.

In some instances, when the end of a project is in sight, an unflinching desire to finish the job is essential. During the London Marathon, it’s common to see runners collapsing two hundred metres short of the finishing line. Some of them give up, but the majority find a way to get their medal – they stagger, crawl, or lean on another runner for assistance. At sea level an exhausted individual can make that final push; they won’t die. But above 8,000 metres, to press for the finishing line without thinking is incredibly dangerous, because in marathon terms to reach the summit is like running 13.1 miles. There’s still another 13.1 to go. The peak is only the halfway point, and it’s very difficult to seek help if trouble arrives. Rodrigo had made that choice, either through altitude sickness, or with a clear mind – only he would have known – and Kanchenjunga’s summit was his death-or-glory moment.

I shouted out to him as he moved ahead. ‘Look, brother, I cannot force you to get down from here now. Please be very, very careful – it’s your life.’

Then I grabbed the radio and called down to Camp 4, where I knew Rodrigo’s expedition operators and camp support were waiting. This was their responsibility, not mine. I’d twice tried my best to talk him out of what was sure to be a suicide mission. Now it was their turn.