It snowed very heavily that night, which I thought was not the best omen for the climb ahead. It would have been nice to stay in my sleeping bag, given how warm it was inside my tent and how bloody miserable I knew it would be outside. But staying there was not going to get me up the mountain. I got up at 4 a.m., an hour or so earlier than I normally did for a climb through the Icefall, but I wanted very much to start the journey into the Icefall from Base Camp.
Walking through Base Camp is always difficult in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly after a heavy snowfall. The normal paths had disappeared and, much to the annoyance of climbers who were trying to sleep, I kept tripping over tent guy ropes. The snow had also settled on the prayer flags which were strung all over Base Camp, weighing them down, so I had to continually lift them over my head in order to pass by, getting an extremely wet and cold handful of snow down the back of my neck in the process.
Not only was it difficult to navigate through Base Camp, but the Icefall was also covered in deep snow and, although I love being on my own in such an awe-inspiring environment, I was regretting that I had left before the Sherpas, who had opened the trail and were far more familiar with the route than I was. The trail in parts was only marked by wands and I guessed where the route between each wand ran, frequently getting it wrong and ending up putting my feet into pools of freezing water which were hidden under the snow and a thin layer of ice. At least the occasional section of fixed rope kept me going in the right direction.
Just before the first long jumar, Sherpas appeared out of the dark from behind me and with good nature they berated me for breaking trail on my own as they zoomed off into the darkness ahead. Nick Kekus also caught up with me and slowed down to climb with me as the sun rose and we moved on to the top of the Icefall.
Nick is an exceptional mountaineer and good friend and it was a pleasure to climb with him. After Jon Tinker’s departure following his stroke, Nick had taken over leadership of the OTT team who were also making their way back up the mountain.
It may have been my early efforts in the Icefall before the sun rose which made me feel unusually tired when we reached Camp 1, or it may have been due to the blow to my morale caused by the unexpected heavy snowfall overnight. Whatever the cause of the tiredness, I needed to rest for a while before continuing up through the Western Cwm to Camp 2.
The cold, miserable weather had been bad enough, but the weather then completely changed and it became unbearably hot – in all the times I had climbed through the cwm this was the least enjoyable, and it didn’t bode well for my summit attempt.
There was no point in continuing up to Camp 3 the following day. I needed to get my strength back. Fortunately, because it was just Pasang Dawa and me going together to the summit, we were very flexible, and adding another day into our programme was not a problem. I managed to spend the day relaxing at camp and I recovered quickly from the exertions of the previous day. Nick came over from the OTT camp to see how I was and it now looked as if we would all be going for the summit at the same time on 13 May.
Henry Todd was also running a Lhotse team in 1999, whom I had had nothing to do with until we ended up at Camp 2 together on 9 May. On the morning of 11 May, Henry sent them a very bizarre message telling them to go immediately to Camp 3, which was shared by both Everest and Lhotse teams, and for them to then go to their Camp 4 which should have been on the Lhotse Face at a point directly down from the summit of Lhotse. But this Camp 4 didn’t exist and, as I moved off from Camp 2 at 10 a.m., I left behind a very irritated and increasingly uncooperative Lhotse team, who were having a very angry discussion with Henry on the radio. It was with a great deal of relief that I moved upwards.
The plan was for me to move up to Camp 3 where I would spend the night. In the meantime, Pasang Dawa would move to Camp 2. We would both then climb to Camp 4 the following day, together with a support Sherpa who would cook for us and wait for us at the South Col while we made our summit attempt.
I had my strength back and it was a very relaxing climb up the Lhotse Face to Camp 3, where I occupied a tent and afterwards continued to brew hot drinks and relax throughout the day. I used half a bottle of oxygen on a low flow-rate to help me rest – the system worked well and there was as yet no sign that oxygen was as big a problem as we thought it would be almost two weeks before.
On the radio that evening I heard the discussions between Henry Todd and his Lhotse team, who had refused to follow his directions, and were firmly staying put at Camp 2.
It is another example of how much fitter Sherpas are than the other climbers on Everest that on their way to the summit they climb directly from Camp 2 to the South Col, missing out the need to sleep at Camp 3. I was woken early on the morning of 12 May by Sherpas passing my tent. I put my head out of the tent to say hello, only to receive good-natured abuse for still being in my sleeping bag.
It had been a cold night and I wasn’t in any particular hurry to start the climb to the col, but I eventually forced my way upwards at 9 a.m. It is an easy, steady climb up the face and across to the Yellow Band, but this was the first time during this expedition that I had been to that altitude and I was certainly feeling the lack of oxygen in the air.
The Yellow Band is a relatively low cliff, which is easily climbed with the aid of fixed ropes. While I was taking a short rest there I met three Mexican friends, Luis, Carlos and Hugo who were descending after an unsuccessful summit attempt. They had gone for the summit on 11 May and had been forced to turn around close to the Balcony, about one third of the way up the south-east ridge from the South Col. These were three strong climbers, but they were also sensible, and they would be back for another attempt at the summit.
From the Yellow Band the route climbed gradually up to the Geneva Spur, from where the route steepens until the top of the spur, from where it is an easy walk into the South Col.
It wouldn’t be unfair to describe the South Col as the most miserable campsite in the world. It is barren and very cold, with almost a constant wind as the air is forced through the gap caused by Everest on one side and Lhotse on the other.
The idea is to arrive at Camp 4 and to then rest up during the remainder of that day before leaving for the summit around midnight. The Balcony is normally reached at about 4 a.m. as the sun starts to appear over the horizon, then it is a steep climb up the south-east ridge to reach the South Summit at about 7 a.m. Then the route takes the knife-edge leading up to the Hillary Step, after which it is a relatively easy walk to the summit, which is normally reached at about 9.30 a.m. This then allows for a significant amount of daylight during which climbers can safely return to the South Col. If climbers are late for any reason and fail to reach the summit by noon, there is an unwritten rule that they should turn round and start to descend. What had happened almost three years earlier to the day, when some climbers were still going for the summit late into the afternoon, was still very fresh in my memory.
I arrived at the South Col at 2.30 p.m. feeling very dehydrated, but there was no sign of Pasang Dawa or our support Sherpa, Pemba. Fortunately OTT’s Martin Doyle and Mike Matthews very kindly asked me to join them in their tent to shelter and to share a brew. Martin was a very experienced guide who exuded competence. Mike was simply a charming young man of whom any parent would have been proud. They both seemed in very good form and we idled away the time while I waited for Pasang Dawa and Pemba to arrive, which they did not long afterwards.
I was still feeling desperately dehydrated, but after joining Pasang Dawa and Pemba it took a very long time to produce a drink and by this time we only had about three and a half hours before we had to leave for the summit. I was continuing to feel very thirsty and increasingly tired.
Even if climbers manage to sleep at Camp 2 on their way to the summit and back, there is very little opportunity for sleep at camps 3 and 4, and any climber who reaches the summit of Everest has probably gone without useful sleep for some sixty hours at some stage during the process.
I lay in my sleeping bag until at about 10 p.m. from the various tents across the col came the sounds of climbers stirring and preparing to start the climb to the summit. We did the same and Pasang Dawa and I started our climb at 11 p.m.
Climbing at that altitude is not comfortable. The large down jackets and trousers make each movement feel clumsy. The oxygen mask, goggles and all-over face covering significantly limit the climber’s vision, which is in any case restricted to the small area illuminated by the head torch. It is vitally important to ensure that there is no exposed skin which could be affected by frostbite during the night or by the intense ultraviolet rays which exist in the atmosphere at that altitude during the day time.
Another complication is the need to wear large gloves, which are generally not needed lower down the mountain. These gloves make it very difficult to hold the ice axe and to open and close karabiners at the cross-over points on the fixed ropes. I was very grateful when Pasang Dawa worked with me at the cross-over points – there was no room for pride, we were in this together.
In the pitch-blackness between the South Col and the Balcony there was little point in trying to overtake or manoeuvre for position in what was then becoming a group of some twenty-five climbers going for the summit that night. There were frequent rests while whoever was at the front of the line sorted the route out, and I had no idea of time or distance, simply that we were gradually moving upwards. I longed to reach the Balcony and the onset of daybreak so that I could start to have an appreciation of the progress we were making.
About 3 a.m. we passed the Balcony, but I was still not sure of our exact progress until suddenly the sky lightened with the onset of a magnificent sunrise. In normal circumstances, and at another point of the earth’s surface, I would have stopped and bathed in its awesome beauty, but I was attempting to reach the highest point in the world and I just moved on and on.
Some way up the steepening south-east ridge above the Balcony, Pasang Dawa and I tried to change my oxygen bottle which I didn’t think was working well or at all. We had previously tested the regulator, which was attached to a British oxygen bottle, but it clearly wasn’t working. Pasang Dawa then suggested we turned round, which in my oxygen-starved state I at first agreed with, followed very quickly by me bluntly stating that there was no way this was going to cause me to turn around. Pasang Dawa then gave me a Poisk bottle to try and I started to move on upwards again.
For some reason, perhaps because there was a problem with his oxygen, a little further up the ridge Dave Rodney from the OTT group was wandering off the route and had to be strongly told to get back on the climbing path, given that a slight slip would see him plummet down into Tibet.
The south-east ridge never loses its steepness – on and on we climbed. It is difficult to have a clear idea of what was happening to the other climbers, given that the line was now spread out and Pasang Dawa and I were moving nearer to the front of the group.
The oxygen leaking up from my face mask continually fogged up my glasses and having to frequently stop to clear them was becoming irritating. At least this was becoming a little easier because I was able to take off my outer gloves as the temperature had gradually increased since sunrise. There was a point at about 6 a.m., when I was still an hour below the South Summit, when I became confident that I was going to reach the top – it had taken a significant effort to get that far which I wasn’t prepared to waste.
Climbing just in front of me as we approached the South Summit was the very strong Dutch woman, Katja Staartjes, who was part of the OTT team. Ahead of us we could see two snow features which later turned out to be false summits on the south-east ridge but, from where we were, Katja thought it might be the summit and she asked me how far we had to go. I held up two fingers to indicate two hours, but Katja kept asking the same question until I realised that my two fingers were covered by my inner mitten and Katja had no idea what I was trying to indicate. I then held up my two thumbs which seemed to satisfactorily answer Katja’s question.
This is just one example of the impact of altitude and how difficult it is to think clearly the higher a climber gets on the mountain. Unlike divers in the sea, who rely completely on their breathing apparatus, climbers only use supplementary oxygen – in effect, a normal breath is taken through the front of the mask while at the same time a whiff of oxygen is added to that breath from the cylinder through the mask. This means that climbers can use far smaller cylinders and for far longer than divers under the sea.
We reached the South Summit at 7 a.m. and I clearly remembered that this was where Rob Hall had been when he made his last radio messages in 1996. This was also the point which was reached by John Hunt’s first summit pair in 1953, the British climbers Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon. They got there late in the day with no idea whether or not the ridge or cliff ahead of them was climbable. Three days later, on 29 May 1953, Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit and, since then, by 1999, over 900 individual climbers had followed them to the summit from both Tibet and Nepal.
Those first climbers on the mountain had been very courageous, with equipment far inferior to that which we were to use in later years. They didn’t even know if it was possible to reach the summit and to return safely. How much easier it was for the rest of us who were merely following in their footsteps.
The ridge from the South Summit is steep and narrow as it snakes upwards to the Hillary Step. Although not technically difficult, it can be very dangerous and Lauri’s fall through the cornice only a few days before was certainly on my mind.
Ahead of me on the ridge I counted twelve climbers, which surprised me given that this meant we were in the middle of the group that had left the South Col last night. It later transpired that nine of the twelve were Sherpas, who for some reason had gone ahead of their teams, most of whom were still behind us and below the south summit.
It didn’t take long to climb the knife-edge ridge or to climb the Hillary Step, which simply turned out to be a quick heave up some fixed ropes – how very different it must have been when Ed Hillary first forced his way up this cliff.
Some days later, when I wrote in my diary, I couldn’t remember how long it took me to walk over the snow slope above the Hillary Step to reach the summit. I wrote that I thought it took twenty minutes before, at last, there in front of me was the highest point in the world. As well as a group of Sherpas, ahead of me on the summit were Cos Niarchos and his guide Augusto Ortega, and the Japanese climber Ken Noguchi.
The summit of Everest is formed by a small, snow-covered crest which runs at right angles to the route from the Nepalese side. At last, after three expeditions to Everest, I had reached this point. I felt the greatest excitement when I was only twenty metres from the summit and I knew that nothing was going to stop me getting there. I was also aware that most climbers die on the descent and I was conscious that the climb was still far from complete.