A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (41 page)

As the afternoon wore on, the intensity of the wind grew. Seriously concerned about the unstable weather, Anatoli decided to speak with Rob to find out what he was planning to do. Rob told him: ‘My experience is that often it is calm after a squall like this, and if it clears in the night, we will make our bid tomorrow.’

Anatoli was far from being alone in his concerns over a summit bid the next day. According to his account in
The Climb
, there were similar feelings of doubt amongst Scott’s clients. This was also true amongst the members of Rob’s expedition; of these, four were sharing a tent: Lou Kasischke, Doug Hansen, Beck Weathers and Andy Harris. All but Andy Harris, a guide for their expedition, thought a summit bid the next day was a bad idea.

In addition to the weather, Anatoli was also concerned about the oxygen supply for Scott’s team. He was well aware that they had little more than was needed for one summit attempt. There would not be a second. Scott’s clients had been told as much. The safety margin of the oxygen was minimal, hardly even enough for the team to spend a second night on the South Col should the planned attempt not go ahead.

They had enough oxygen for one attempt. The weather had not been stable for days. Anatoli had told Scott that he thought they should consider descending to wait for more settled conditions (a sentiment apparently shared by the majority of the clients). Despite all of this, Rob and Scott went on to put both their businesses and the safety of their clients at stake by making a summit attempt on 10 May. One wonders what on earth possessed them to risk an ascent that day when it looked doomed to failure before they started.

The subject of the weather was not one Anatoli shied away from. He wrote of his intuitions and feelings based on more than two decades of climbing. I struggled to think of a single reason why Anatoli would not have mentioned a weather forecast had he known of one.

SOUTH COL, AROUND 5 P.M., 10 MAY (AFTER ANATOLI HAD SUMMITED EVEREST)

It is my strong belief that this moment was pivotal in the disaster that was beginning to unfold. It clarified so much that had puzzled me since 1996.

Normally, teams depart from Camp 3 between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., arriving at the South Col shortly after midday, in readiness to commence their summit attempts that night. However, our team (Henry Todd’s) had delayed the expected departure because of the unsettled weather we could see high on the South East Ridge. At midday, when we made our scheduled radio call to Henry, we were still there.

Leaving camp between midday and 1 p.m., the first of our team began to arrive on the South Col around 5.30 p.m., much later than Anatoli, or anyone else, would normally have expected. Anatoli, having seen none of our climbing team at 5 p.m., will have naturally assumed that Lhakpa was there to erect the tent in advance of us coming up the next day. His assumption would have been that once Lhakpa had finished the task he would either stay with Rob’s or Scott’s Sherpas or quickly head back down. What Anatoli would not have expected is that we’d be arriving a short while later. It appeared that Scott may not have kept Anatoli, his head guide, informed of what would turn out to be crucial facts.

SOUTH COL, NIGHT OF 10 MAY

Anatoli tried his utmost to gather climbers and Sherpas together to put out a rescue party for the missing climbers. He went round the tents of Rob’s clients and Sherpas, also Scott Fischer’s and the Taiwanese. Those he located, he would later say, were ‘either asleep, unable or unwilling to help’. It was an impossible task for him to undertake by himself. Outside, the storm was raging harder than ever, the intensifying blizzard reducing visibility to a few feet.

Anatoli did not know we were there, probably little more than 15 yards away from him.

Early the following morning, 11 May, Mark Pfetzer, Jabion and I departed from the South Col. Some time after, Anatoli emerged to see our two tents with the large letters HG spray-painted on the side. Only this time he will have noticed the activity of our climbers and Sherpas who’d remained behind. At this exact moment, he will have realised we’d in fact been on the South Col all night. This sight must have devastated him, and he would have been haunted afterwards by the thought that, had he known, had he alerted us, more lives could almost certainly have been saved.

I’d seen Anatoli at the ‘cocktail party’ in Kathmandu several days after these events but not during the intervening period. He hadn’t walked out with Scott’s clients but had remained in Base Camp for several days. Casting my mind back, I’m not sure why I didn’t ask the question of him then. It was possibly because of the bizarre nature of the gathering at the Yak and Yeti Hotel, or the fact I understood that if he’d known we were on the South Col he’d have come for help. Most likely I thought the painful wounds were too recent, that a better time would come where such discussions might sound less like recriminations on my behalf. I had no way of knowing I would not see him again. In the end, the question was never asked.

None of the books or magazines I’d read had made reference to an accurate weather forecast being received at Base Camp prior to 10 May. After two years of research, I was left with nothing but hearsay and clues. I had no proof that such a report had been received and acted upon. In research, as in life, sometimes a chance comment brings the unexpected.

I was at the home of our friends Robert and Amanda Newton, talking about the frustrations of my research, explaining how my enquiries at the Met Office had come to an abrupt halt as records were only held for six years to satisfy legal requirements. Amanda, bursting with family pride, announced the fortunate words: ‘My brother Mike’s a meteorologist. He works in the Met Office. Maybe he can help.’

Within a matter of days, I was in touch with her brother, Mike Harrison, an internationally respected expert in meteorology and climatology, particularly in climate variability. He was still at the UK Met Office when I first contacted him in 2006 but retired the following year from his position in order to consult. Having worked previously for the World Meteorological Organisation, a specialised agency of the United Nations, and earlier for many years in Africa, his interests are in predictability (understanding the extent to which prediction is possible) and in advancing approaches to maximise the benefits provided by climate information (particularly with regard to development in Africa).

Mike looked up my original enquiry to the Met Office from the year before to ascertain at what point, and why, the enquiry had faltered. He came back to me with more or less the same dead end:

I asked Mike if he would circulate an email around the London branch of the Met Office to see if anyone recalled dealing with the Everest weather forecasts in 1996. Mike’s reply only went to show what an uphill struggle lay ahead:

He explained that the role of the London branch, and other such regional centres, was to support businesses and the public; that although they may have negotiated directly with the customer with regard to the product (forecasts), the predictions were always supplied by the main Met Office through the International Forecasting Unit (IFU) at either Bracknell or more recently Exeter.

Although many of those Mike could recall in the IFU around 1996 had either retired or departed, he offered to see what he could do, while cautioning me that records might no longer exist.

It would be a further three months before Mike would write again:

The response from the former IFU Manager read as follows:

Another response from his enquiries read:

Mike went on to speculate:

Following up this lead for me, Mike approached a friend, Julian Hunt, now Lord Hunt:

No payment, no receipt, no official record. But that does not mean the service wasn’t provided.

With the trail at the Met Office going cold, yet with anomalies revealed by my other enquiries, I decided it was time to turn my attention to those in positions of authority on each team.

On Rob’s team, the surviving guide was Michael Groom, whom I’d already contacted. From Scott’s, Neal Beidleman was the remaining guide and a person I needed to speak to. With regard to the Imax team, I had yet to contact Ed Viesturs, their lead climber and ‘film talent’.

The view from our apartment window of fishing boats heading out to sea hopeful of landing a good catch and of some of the same vessels returning days later with a mass of white seagulls circling overhead signalling their success may have inspired my next move. As I’d precious little to confirm what I believed had happened back in 1996, I decided to go fishing.

I emailed Ed, telling him I had been in contact with David Breashears concerning the l996 Imax expedition, and that David had informed me the team had received weather forecasts from the London-based Met Office.

I asked him if the original decision for the Imax team to go the day before Rob Hall and Scott Fischer was so that these three teams could take advantage of the brief weather window suggested by the forecasts.

Ed replied:

To me this was a glimmer of hope shining like a sliver of light at the bottom of a firmly closed door. Ed hadn’t confirmed that Rob was receiving his own forecast, as he’d only used the word ‘believe’. The more telling word was ‘also’, which means ‘as well as’. If this were the case, then it put the Imax weather forecast prior to 10 May and Rob’s demise. Of equal importance was the fact that Ed had made no attempt to correct me with regard to the suggested use of the forecasts for the period around 10 May.

I remember bursting into the kitchen full of excitement to tell Catherine of my breakthrough, going over and over what Ed had written. Catherine, more than anyone, had witnessed the lengths I’d gone to, the work I’d put into this. She could see by my reaction how important I felt this was. Her support had been unwavering, although at times she must have wondered when our apartment would return to being a home rather than an ongoing place of work. Having told Catherine first, I was straight on the telephone to Geoff. I couldn’t possibly have waited until Friday evening to tell him the news.