The Climb by Gordon Korman

Author:Gordon Korman [Korman, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

Base Camp was at full capacity, a bustling town of five hundred inhabitants, not including the porters and yak trains that arrived several times each day. Expeditions were constantly heading in and out of the Icefall. Teams pushed to higher and higher camps to complete their final acclimatization trips. SummitQuest bounced back and forth between base and ABC, venturing as far as the bergschrund, the deep crevasse that separated the Western Cwm from the Lhotse Face. It was late April, and soon the weather windows would start opening. When that happened — when conditions on the upper mountain cleared for a brief period — everyone had to be ready. Most of the time, the Everest summit was battered by jet-stream winds so strong that they could be heard in Base Camp, more than two vertical miles below. The sound was like the roar of a freight train.

Dominic had been banned from carrying loads through the Icefall, but he still spent a lot of his spare time with his newfound Sherpa friends. Pasang was even introducing him to the language. In return, Dominic was trying to teach him the words to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” the only English recording in Pasang’s tiny home village.

The young man found the vocabulary very difficult. “What it means — fiddly-eye-oh?”

Dominic’s Sherpa connections also provided him with every single piece of gossip in Base Camp. The Sherpas had the lowdown on everybody. Dominic knew who had the best summit chances (This Way Up) and the worst (the Guamanian brothers). Adventure Consultants had the best food, the Israelis had the best computer games, and the Canadians were the most polite. The strongest climber on the mountain that year was Babu Pemba, who turned out to be a kind of local hero. They also had a lot of respect for Cap Cicero and Ethan Zaph.

Sammi Moon turned out to be quite famous among the Sherpas because she was involved in every softball game, every Frisbee catch, and every arm-wrestling match at Base Camp. By contrast, no one had noticed Perry at all. If the reluctant climber hadn’t had such striking red hair, he might have been totally invisible.

Tilt, however, had a reputation all his own. He had discovered that the yak drivers were so poor that they would do practically anything to earn a few extra rupees — mere pennies in U.S. money. So he kept a staff of personal servants to perform such tasks as rewinding his videotapes, tying his bootlaces, and recharging his laptop computer. The climbing Sherpas hated him for it.

“Sherpas poor, yes,” said Pasang angrily, “but no slaves.”

For his own part, Dominic was disgusted and embarrassed to be part of the same team as Tilt Crowley.

“Why can’t he rewind his own videotapes?” he muttered to Pasang. “He spends all day cooped up in that tent. What else does he have to do?”

E-mail Message

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Dominic’s return

Cap has brought that poor sick kid back to Base Camp. They don’t care about Dominic. They just want the glory of putting a thirteen-year-old on the summit.

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