Saturday, 19 April 2014 – Everest Base Camp, Nepal
Life at 5,270m has many disadvantages, but hangovers aren’t among them. I don’t know how many Sherpa rums they gave me yesterday, but after more than a week at high altitude we have many more red blood cells than when we arrived. Physically, this morning feels like any other.
Emotionally, things feel very different. There is a sombre mood in camp this morning. The Sherpas need a period of time to pay their respects to those who have died, and so do we. No one is in any hurry to make the next move, and this is likely to remain the case for a day or two.
I spend the first two hours of this morning writing a blog post on my iPhone. I describe the sad events we witnessed, paying my respects to those who died and Sherpas in general. Without them none of this would be possible, and they spend much more time exposed to the dangers of the Icefall than we do.
At eleven o’clock I leave camp and head in the direction of Gorak Shep. I hope to find 3G connectivity somewhere along the route so that I can send my post. The trail is full of trekkers moving like caterpillars. Many are too exhausted to notice someone coming the other way, and I have to divert across boulders to get around them. Every few hundred metres I check my phone, but at no point is there even a sniff of 3G.
As I approach Gorak Shep I meet many of my teammates coming the other way and heading back to Base Camp for lunch. First I see Ian and Kevin, then Jay and Caroline, then finally Robert.
I reach the small community of teahouses shortly after midday. I stand in the courtyard of each one in turn searching for connectivity, but there is nothing.
I get increasingly frustrated. I’ve come all this way just to press the send button, and soon I’m going to have to go all the way back again, all for no purpose. Can you imagine walking for an hour just to buy a pint of milk, but the store is closed, so you have to walk all the way back again? You’ve wasted two hours, and now you have nothing to pour on your breakfast cereal.
It’s hard to feel any sympathy. These are what they call first-world problems. I queue at the salad bar for ten minutes, only to find they have no kumquat slices. I have a splinter on my thumb, and it’s painful to tweet from my phone. My wallet is too small. I can’t believe how hard it is to buy 100% organic wild boar sausage.
Yesterday sixteen people died in an avalanche. I watched their bodies being carried down to Base Camp. Sixteen families in the Khumbu will be poorer this year. Their children may have to quit school to find work. All of them will be overwhelmed with grief this morning, and here I am worrying about 3G connectivity. Two hours of my time, in this easy-paced expedition life, is nothing at all. I should be happy for the trouble.
Lots of other trekkers are hanging around fiddling with their phones. Most of them only arrived this morning, and they didn’t see what I saw yesterday. I’m ashamed of myself.
I’m running out of time if I want to get back to Base Camp in time for a one o’clock lunch. I bomb it back at a pace I would never have believed possible a week ago – a speed otherwise known as ‘Kevin’s Pace’.
The first part of the trail back to Base Camp weaves up and down on stony ground. Scores of trekkers bar my way. I have no choice but to race past them, boulder-hopping on rocks beside the trail. Often they are so unaware of my presence that their trekking poles flip out in front of me, tripping me up. I sidestep them and skip past, and still they don’t notice me.
These overtaking manoeuvres are exhausting on the uphill sections. I keep reaching the brow of a rise gasping for breath, but I soldier on at the same pace – a pace that would have been dangerous when we first came to Base Camp. Overexertion like this would have brought on altitude sickness for sure. But now I’m so well acclimatised that I feel like I’m just having a good workout.
The ridge of moraine approaching Base Camp is easier going. I catch up with Robert just beyond the end of it, and we complete the walk together, arriving for dinner with five minutes to spare.
The things I do for my dinner. I’m tired and dripping with sweat. They all laugh at my ragged appearance when I enter the dining tent, but I’m pleased I made it.
I’m frustrated I haven’t been able to send my blog post. I know the media will be having a field day about the avalanche. They will be printing lies and half-truths without trying to understand the many nuances. I wanted to put forward a true picture of what happened before too many inaccuracies get propagated as fact. Once these myths circulate in one publication, they get picked up by another, and before long everyone takes the myths as truth. Once that happens it’s difficult to reel the falsehoods back in again.
Our lack of internet access means that, happily, we are protected from the media storm that I’m sure has accompanied this tragedy. I’ve seen enough in the past to be able to predict the headlines, though. Rich western tourists send Sherpas to their deaths to satisfy their egos and tick off their bucket list by climbing Everest.
While there is an element of truth in this it’s only a tiny fraction of the full story. Journalists who write these headlines have not been here and looked up into the Icefall with their boots on, ready to go up. They don’t understand the motivations of mountaineers (both Sherpa and westerner) and the calculated risks we all take to do what we enjoy.
Nor do they have an appreciation of the historical background that has led to Sherpas becoming the tigers of Himalayan mountaineering. Many Sherpas moved to Darjeeling in the early 20th century to gain work with mountaineering expeditions. They quickly became indispensable, and there have been few Himalayan expeditions since in which they haven’t played an integral part. On Everest a team of Sherpas known as the Icefall Doctors fixes the route through the Khumbu Icefall every year. Sherpas take great pride in fixing the route up the Lhotse Face. Far from being forced to do it by westerners, they will not allow others to trespass on what they see as their territory.
After this tragedy some teams will remain on the mountain and others will pack up and leave. These decisions will be based on the wishes of the Sherpas, as we all know we cannot climb the mountain without them. Chomolungma belongs to the Sherpas – it’s only right they have an increasing say in what happens here. But the history of Everest has involved Sherpas and westerners working hand in hand, and the future of Everest will be better if this remains the case. This is the way Friday’s sad events should be treated: not by apportioning blame, but by trying our best to share the loss some of us feel more keenly than others.
It’s atrocious weather in the afternoon, snowing and cold, and all we can do is huddle in our tents. At happy hour I’m quiet for a different reason. Robert plays music on his iPod of an era and style that only Kevin and Louis are familiar with – but boy are they familiar with it. The rest of us listen in silence.
There are rumours that some of the teams who lost Sherpas will be giving up their expeditions and leaving the mountain. Alpine Ascents, Adventure Consultants and Jagged Globe all lost team members, but nothing is confirmed yet. We learn that the ringleader of the Sherpa protesters is a guide called Pasang Tenzing, Jagged Globe’s sirdar. Some of our Sherpas tell us that IMG’s Sherpas were prominent in the protest yesterday. But with a mob like that, it’s difficult to know who is a troublemaker, and who is just being carried along in the flow.
Phil looks stressed and downcast, but Dorje is being very supportive. Our own Sherpas are not getting involved, as far as I can tell. Those I spoke to today are all prepared to continue once the trouble has passed. Ian is upbeat at dinner tonight and being his usual positive self, helping to lighten the mood. He is confident that everything will be OK.