The Everest Files by Matt Dickinson

Author:Matt Dickinson [Dickinson, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Action & Adventure, Science & Math, Earth Sciences, Geography, Sports & Outdoors, Mountaineering, Teen & Young Adult
Amazon: B00IHH2MIG
Publisher: Vertebrate Digital
Published: 2014-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Kami got a day’s ‘rest’ after that first round trip through the icefall. He spent it running from one chore to another as Tenzing kept him on the go. In the morning he sharpened crampon spikes with a whetstone and sewed up some damaged wind suits. In the afternoon he peeled forty kilos of potatoes and helped rescue a yak that had fallen into a glacial stream half an hour down the glacier.

He did the work with good grace but his mind was distracted with the delicious prospect of going back on the mountain. Back up high. The taste had been intoxicating. He was waiting for someone to tell him if he was needed for more porter duties.

Alex Brennan and the other Westerners had come back down after their acclimatisation stay in Camp One and the next push would go up higher.

‘Will you take me back up?’ Kami asked Jamling eagerly that evening, when nothing had been said all day.

Jamling laughed. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be going up and down like an idiot before long.’

He was right. Brennan called the whole team into the yurt at eight the next morning.

‘We’re going to film in the icefall today,’ he said. ‘Going to get a killer sequence for the news outlets. I’ll need at least eight porters for all the equipment. We’re taking the mini crane, the whole shebang.’

Much to his delight, Kami was picked as one of the carrying team. He was paired up with Nima and instructed to follow the film crew, lugging the extendable crane arm up into the icefall. The metal structure weighed a hefty thirty kilos and was a cumbersome body length long.

Nima was in a grouchy mood.

‘We’ll be hanging around all day up there,’ he complained to Kami, ‘waiting for lumps of ice to fall on our heads while they mess about with the cameras.’

‘Maybe they’ll get it done fast,’ Kami suggested, at which Nima gave a sarcastic snort.

The morning dragged by, bitterly cold and windy, as shot after shot got ticked off the sequence list. George and his sound recordist set up a whole bunch of positions in and around the spectacular ice formations, shooting Alex as he made his way through the seracs.

‘They’re making it look like he’s on his own,’ Kami remarked.

‘Pah!’ Nima was contemptuous. ‘That’s typical. It’s us guys that do all the donkey work but you watch that film in the end and there’ll hardly be a Sherpa in it.’

A huge ladder crossing came next, Kami and Nima performing a sort of high-wire double act as they shouldered the crane arm across. They got a round of applause from the waiting team and Brennan told them, ‘You guys are going to get a bonus for this. This is service beyond the call of duty.’

Kami was pleased to hear it. Every dollar he could earn was a dollar closer to paying off his marriage contract.

Lunchtime passed with no food; the afternoon was drifting on and there were still shots to do. The temperature

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