Everest & Conquest in the Himalaya by Richard Sale

Author:Richard Sale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SPORTS & RECREATION / Mountaineering
ISBN: 9781844683192
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2011-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Spirits on the Wind: Hallucinations at High Altitude

Note: The authors are grateful for the assistance of Dr J.S. Windsor in the preparation of this box.

While climbing alone at well above 8000m during the 1933 Everest expedition, Frank Smythe recalled in his book Camp 6:

After leaving Eric a strange feeling possessed me that I was accompanied by another … The ‘presence’ was strong and friendly. In its company I could not feel lonely, neither could I come to any harm, it was always there to sustain me on my solitary climb up the snow-covered slabs. Now as I halted and extracted some mint cake from my pocket, it was so near and so strong that instinctively I divided the mint into two halves and turned round with one half in my hand to offer it to my ‘companion’.

Over the course of many decades of climbing on Everest, a number of climbers have reported experiences – seeing figures or hearing voices – that could be described as hallucinations. For some mountaineers, these so-called companions have taken a clear visual form, such as that described by Nick Estcourt during a climb to Camp 5 on the first successful ascent of the South-West Face in 1975: ‘I turned round and saw this figure behind me. He looked like an ordinary climber, far enough behind, so that I could not feel him moving up the fixed rope, but not all thatfar below. I could see his arms and legs and assumed that it was someone trying to catch me up.’ For others, such hallucinations have tended to be almost invisible, ranging from faint noises or ‘voices in the air’ to familiar characters capable of holding lengthy conversations. During a night spent in a snow hole close to the summit, Dougal Haston later recalled: ‘I was locked in suffering silence except for the occasional quiet conversation with Dave Clarke. Hallucination or dream? It seemed comforting and occasionally directed my mind away from the cold.’

At times these companions have offered practical help, as well. In 1988 Stephen Venables completed an extraordinary ascent of the Kangshung Face without supplementary oxygen and was forced to sit out the night on a small ledge just below the summit. Venables sensed that a crowd had formed around him:

Sometimes they offered to look after parts of my body … Perhaps it was then that Eric Shipton, the distinguished explorer so closely involved with the historyof the mountain, took over warming my hands. At the end of the ledge my feet kept nearly falling off where I had failed to dig a thorough hollow in the snow. I was aware of several people crowding out the feet, but also trying to look after them.

Our rational side may well find it reasonable to believe these occurrences are linked to physical and psychological stresses that are experienced in extreme situations. Herbert Tichy, the first to climb Cho Oyu (8201m) in 1954, suggested that, ‘Things like this arise because the spirithas somehow broken free from the

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