Dead Lucky by Lincoln Hall

Author:Lincoln Hall
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

TIME TO KILL

FOURTEEN MILES FROM Base Camp, near the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier, Alex Abramov was up early at Advance Base Camp. He was monitoring as best he could the progress of those few of us still high on the mountain. During the night I had forgotten about the radio nestled in an internal pocket of my down suit. At first light, Lakcha, Dorje, Dawa Tenzing, and I had drawn well ahead of Harry, Thomas, Pemba, and Passang, but it had not occurred to me to make a progress report to ABC until we stood on the summit at 9:00 A.M.

A snail’s pace is the norm for those lucky enough to be approaching the highest point on Earth. Although Thomas had been feeling strong, his seriously impaired vision forced him to trudge even more slowly. Suddenly, other factors came into play. The summit was in sight for Harry, Pemba, and Passang, but Thomas’s already compromised vision now worsened to almost total blindness. He stopped responding to the directions given to him by Harry and Pemba, and he almost stepped over the huge drop of the Kangshung Face. Harry knew there were no second chances this close to the summit. Shortly after my call to Advance Base Camp, Harry radioed to say that he and his team had no choice but to retreat. So, 150 feet below the summit, the four of them turned for home—which in every sense was a very long way away.

By the time Harry began his call to ABC, I had tucked my radio back into the pocket of my down suit. I continued to descend without realizing that Harry and his team were not far in front of me and my Sherpa mates. I was never to see Thomas again. In fact, I came close to never seeing anyone again. Cerebral edema, one of the great evils of climbing at extreme altitude, had struck me suddenly. At ten o’clock in the morning, on the easy-angled slopes of the summit pyramid’s snow triangle, I had become a casualty. Less than a hundred vertical feet below the summit, I had posed a huge problem for Lakcha, Dorje, and Dawa Tenzing.

A sea of lethargy had overwhelmed my mind’s ability to think of what I should be doing. The thinnest air on the planet seemed to weigh more than rocks at the bottom of the ocean. Occasionally, I had managed to shrug the weight away long enough to experience what was happening—a dangerous mix of hallucinations amid rare moments of wide-eyed lucidity.

At Advance Base Camp, Alex moved between the radio and the telescope, anxious to know what was happening up high. Base Camp was listening in. Also at ABC, Mingma heard from Lakcha that I was having serious difficulty, and that he, Dawa Tenzing, and Dorje could only move me very slowly down the slope toward the Second Step. There were times that I would descend of my own accord, but very slowly. Most of the time I just lay in the snow, refusing to move.

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