Weather presents like moods on this mountain—powerful and pervasive. The bluster that met us on the day we arrived had me wondering whether I could bear this place. Now, just a few days later, it is as calm as a benign smile. I feel the warmth of the sun on my back as we stand outside our tents at Basecamp sorting supplies into loads to carry up to the higher camps. But any sense of peace I feel this morning vaporizes when someone shouts, “Incoming!”
I sink in despair as I see the string of vehicles rolling up the valley. It has to be the American team. They opted to stay a few extra days in Shigatse to acclimatize while we pushed on to get to Basecamp first and claim the best site. Part of me had begun to believe they might never come—it would be a miracle—but hope has served me better than dread in the short term. Another part of me bristles, ready to defend my territory. The road leads right past our camp, so of course they will stop and say hello. As the whining of engines grows nearer, I move farther away and keep my head down and on my work.
Gravel crunches under tires, doors creak open and slam shut, and shouts of greetings and laughter between our teams ring out. Diesel fumes cut through the pure air. Instinct forces my head up when I hear his voice. My eye finds the curve of his broad swimmer’s shoulders amidst the group of ball-capped Americans. Just then, Carlos raises his gaze as if he’s caught my scent. I drop my head. But, still, I steal glances. Annie Whitehouse, the only woman on their team, stands among them.
I had met Annie the week before at the crowded arrivals baggage carousel in the Chengdu airport. The Chinese Mountaineering Association arranged for our teams to arrive at the same time—eleven of them and thirteen of us. I was behind Annie when I overheard her ask a teammate about the Canadian woman climber. I was tempted to shrink back, but why delay the inevitable?
I had stepped forward and introduced myself. When I offered my hand, I noticed that I was much taller than her. I’d felt like a cat with its tail standing straight up and all fluffed out, sizing up its opponent.
My small-minded smugness was short-lived as Carlos burst in. “Hey, Sharon! So I guess you two have already met, huh?” Before I could withdraw, he hugged me. Then he stepped back and draped his arm across Annie’s shoulders.
I’d looked on, paralyzed, until Jane’s voice broke the spell. “Come on,” she’d said. “They’re loading our bags.”
I can’t stop myself from looking at them now as they chat idly by the jeeps. I snatch up a bag and carry it into the mess tent. I cover my ears to shut out their voices and pace out the minutes until they leave. Jim comes over when I step outside, and we stand together watching their vehicles crawl up the valley, straining and bumping over braided streambeds and rock piles.
Jim puts voice to our thoughts. “So what do you want me to do here?”
“Carlos is my problem,” I say.
“No, you’re wrong there. Carlos is our problem if he is going to affect your performance.”
I pull my elbows in tight and drop my face into my hands. Carlos and I had been lovers, and a strong climbing team on mountains all over the world for years. But personal ambitions grew to eclipse devotion to our relationship. We had both been responsible for embarrassing displays of volatility: jealousies, betrayals, holes kicked through doors, shame and in the end, a broken heart—mine.
Everyone on the team knows about us but respects my privacy. My reaction to Carlos’s arrival exposes me. Humiliates me. And it opens a door. Jim reaches through and puts his arm around me. “They’re not going to go away, Woody. I suggest you harness some of that rage to get yourself to the top—first.”
There is an ongoing, highly publicized race to be the first American woman to reach the top of Everest. Annie is among the few who have already tried once. This time she is with a much smaller team that includes Carlos, who summited Everest in 1983, and another well-known and accomplished climber, Todd Bibler.
The Americans stop about four hundred metres up the valley and get out to inspect their campsite. With my eyes still fixed on them, I say, “This isn’t going to be a race, Jim.”
“Don’t worry. Once we’re on the mountain, you won’t see them anymore.”
“Well then,” I say, “get me climbing, but no race—of any kind. And not a word to the media about my personal life. They’ll turn this climb into a circus.”
“You have my word on the press, but—” Jim points up the valley, where wisps of cloud stream like silk prayer scarves from the summit of Everest. He puts his other hand on my shoulder and looks at me. “Becoming the first North American woman to reach the top of that mountain is another matter.”
The Americans start unloading their truck and Jim moves to block my view of them. He grips my shoulders. “Are you listening? Carlos is history and this is the present! Don’t let him get to you. Remember what you’ve come for. You’re with the boys and we’re going climbing. You’re more than ready for this, but I can’t do it for you. What I can do is let Carlos know he isn’t welcome in our camp.”
We stand quietly for a while, Jim’s arm draped over my shoulder and mine around his waist. I hadn’t expected him to care about my private and embarrassing little drama. And he doesn’t. But it heartens me to discover that he does care about something much larger—and about inspiring me to want that goal. I have a friend and a definite leader in this titan of a man.
I feel myself rising to Jim’s resolve. Our team is among the 3 per cent of expeditions that will attempt one of the more technical of a dozen other routes on the mountain. Our objective is the West Ridge Direct. The Americans’ approach is as bold as ours: a lean team and budget, no Sherpa and a difficult route—the Great Couloir on the North Face of Everest. Our strategies are similar but for two exceptions: we have an on-site leader, and our route has never been climbed from the Tibetan side. Having Jim, by far, is our most significant difference.
Within the same week, a Spanish team attempting the Northeast Ridge arrives to complete the neighbourhood. This time I line up with Jane and Jim to welcome the caballeros. Some ride in on the back bumpers of their one-ton pickup trucks; the rest sit atop the loads, all of them laughing and shouting back and forth. They roll to a stop and doff their hats as we exchange introductions while their Chinese Mountaineering Association liaison officer and their translator remain in the vehicle looking straight ahead, seemingly resigned to their sentence in this godforsaken place.
One of the Spaniards flashes a smile, nodding at Jane and me as he speaks in rapid-fire Spanish to his friends. The group laughs and elbows one another before Mariano, their team physician, translates. “Jerónimo says”—he looks skyward for the English words—“it is a delightful surprise to discover a sparkle of women among dull and uncivilized men. I think he speaks for all of us, as we are all delighted to see, ah, I mean, meet you.” I eye this Jerónimo, and he smiles back.
“Bueno!” one of them shouts, eager to get going, and drums his hands against the side of the truck. Chickens startle and squawk in their crate as the vintage trucks cough and roar to a start. The Spaniards shout, “Vámonos, vámonos!” and resume their cavorting as they roll away.
Hardly dull and uncivilized, I think. I lean into Jane and say, “I think we’ve just received an invitation.”
“We should at least go and check out how those chickens fare,” she replies.
Jim adds, “Well, well, isn’t the presence of such lively and charming Europeans a contrast to us cretins. A pleasant surprise for you girls, eh?”
“Indeed,” says Jane.
With climbers, Chinese Mountaineering Association liaison officers, translators and helpers included, all told about forty of us occupy the Rongbuk Valley in the spring and pre-monsoon season of 1986. Over the next two and a half months, our three teams will share resources. We’ll exchange food for rope with the Americans, and share the cost of the Spaniards’ telex machine, which will become one of our two forms of communication with the outside world. Once a week, Jim will exchange telex messages with our media and expedition liaison, Jane Sharpe, who works for our major sponsor, the Continental Bank, in its Toronto head office. She will relay our progress to our friends and loved ones, the media and bank employees, who are on their own climb in the finance world.
Loomis Express has donated four deliveries of mail from Canada, which will arrive by way of an employee who bags the letters and packages from a central depot in Vancouver and hops a jet to Nepal. After three days of travel overland to Tibet, he will stagger into Basecamp with a splitting headache from gaining altitude too rapidly. We will pounce on the poor guy for the care packages, letters and news he bears—our lifeline. Our team will count on the shared support from the American and Spanish teams, as Jane and I will on the charms of those Spaniards.