Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (39 page)

Each individual responds to altitude differently and so far their minimal acclimatization efforts had been sufficient for everyone. No one had gotten altitude sickness up to that point. But now Zeigler was complaining of debilitating headaches. They began as small pains in his temples at the base of the step, but were now causing him to double over, hold his head in his mitts, and squint his eyes hard. Each time the mountain erupted, he moaned in pain. Pasang Dolma recommended they take Zeigler down immediately to Camp Two. Junk agreed this was the prudent thing to do. He told two of the dyspeptic Sherpa to gear up and bring Zeigler down before nightfall. They could sleep at Camp Two and then make their way up the next day. Zeigler could also come back up if his condition improved.

“
No” one of the dyspeptic Sherpa replied.

Such a response from a Sherpa was unexpected to say the least. Disobeying a direct order from a sahib – at least an order as rational as this one - was unheard of. Junk was quick-tempered in this rarefied atmosphere, and yelled with slurred phonemes “Get walgin’ you horthe’th ath!”

According to Cole’s journal from that evening, the Sherpa’s response was crystal clear, as if he had access to some personal, unseen reservoir of air. “No. All he needs to do is rest here and that will help him. We need to keep moving forward before we come across a storm. The wind is high, but the sky remains cloudless. The ‘Angry Parent’ cannot be expected to stay calm for much longer. We will stay here tonight. Zeigler will remain here after that while the rest of us continue the climb tomorrow.” This response must have put Junk into a bad situation. He could not dismiss the Sherpa. He knew they were required for him to conquer the summit, especially if he wished to do it before Hoyt (assuming Hoyt had not already beaten him). The Sherpa had also tapped into Junk’s urge not to slow the expedition down any further, even though he knew the only cure for altitude sickness was descent. Simply staying put was no elixir for Zeigler’s ills. What’s more, Junk could not cast aspersions on the Sherpa because they were essentially pulling the same stunt he himself had pulled on Tersely years earlier on the Everest expedition: Usurping the whole operation.

To everyone else’s surprise, Junk simply said “Bah!” and walked into his tent for a nap. He was too tired and the counter-proposal gelled too well with the urges lying coiled in his gut. He was compromising Zeigler’s life and his own leadership because of his aspirations of conquering Fumu before Hoyt.

River Leaf entered the tent moments later, causing some commotion among the rest of the team. These were, after all, a group of healthy men, which is to say their minds had been steeped in raunch since the arrival of body hair. The idea of a woman alone with a man in one of the tents seemed rather scandalous. But the ado did not last long. The team was tired and needed to rest. Junk wrote that night: “In the tent, River Leaf said litle [sic] to me. ‘Zeigler needs to go down’ was all. Nothing else was needed. Her words were like an incantation. I rose and began planning for Zeigler’s decent [sic].”

As it would happen, Cole
wanted
to take Zeigler down. It would give him an opportunity to look for his lost journals, papers, and sketches. The decision was therefore made: Cole would take Zeigler down to Camp Two and one of the Sherpa would join him. One accepted but only after a long pause and raucous chewing out in Nepali by Pasang Dolma. The decision was a bold one for Junk to make. With both Zeigler and Cole down the mountain, two of his strongest climbers would be unavailable to him. He would have Pasang Dolma and that was about it. He was unlikely to rely on the other remaining Sherpa for anything after what had occurred only moments earlier. No progress up the lip could be made until Cole and the Sherpa returned.

As Cole prepared to help Zeigler down, he reminded Junk this would be a perfect time to let McGee go as well. Junk refused. His friend would make it. Cole and Zeigler walked out of their tents and into the blasting wind at noon on September 9th, prepared to climb back down the two steps on their way to Camp Two, where Zeigler would have a respite from the paucity of air at the higher camps. Junk and the rest of the team would wait at Camp Two B, hoping to have Cole back by nightfall. But before the descending party could even make the step, the dyspeptic Sherpa began yelling in a rambling manner back to Pasang Dolma. Junk wished to know what the man was saying. Pasang Dolma responded “Nothing. A string of terrible excuses why he cannot go down. Fear of heights? The way down is actually the other direction? What silly things to say!” Pasang Dolma began yelling again in Nepali, undoubtedly telling the dyspeptic Sherpa to stop with his nonsensical excuses and begin climbing down.

No one had even been paying attention to McGee who was puttering about camp in a daze looking for his misplaced hat (the tired, rotund, confused Irishman was in fact wearing his hat). He had his backpack on, possibly confused about the plans and thinking he was going down along with Cole and Zeigler. According to various team members’ notes, what happened next seemed to occur at a slow pace, like a reel of film being presented one frame every second. An exceptionally powerful gust of wind blasted through the camp. Only the members who were about to climb down were tied off. Everyone else simply held their ground, bending down in order to minimize wind resistance. McGee did not. His solution was to walk into the blast, standing straight up, taking the full force of it. This solution was working for him. However, the gust died as quickly as it was born, and then McGee was in trouble. His overcompensation now had no opponent, and he went stumbling forward, half-running and half-falling. It was not long before his awkward scramble turned into a spastic descent down the side of the lip. Down into the Icy Bellows.

McGee yelled bloody murder as he went over the edge. It was then everyone turned and moved to see. They all watched in horror as McGee took multiple tumbles down the steep ice. His fall was arrested only modestly by the raised, icy trail of a deceased avalanche crossing his path. This had the result of putting McGee into a slide. Helpless to do anything “we wached [sic] as, quite alive and aware, he sarted [sic] a high-speed glissade down the Belows [sic]” wrote Cole in misspelled, beaten writing that fumbled across the page.. “Limbs flailed. Hed [sic] snapped violent with each flaw in the slope. The scene was nauseating. Ashamed as I am to write this, it would have been less nausating [sic] had he fallen and died right away. Easily ten seconds after the calamity had begun, McGee, now only a dot in the distance below us, reached the botom [sic] of the Bellows thousands of feet down, and disappeared into the Oculus. We were tramatized [sic].”

The exhausted climbers snapped out of their mental slumbers. They had the sudden capacity to yell and go into a chaos of activity. The activity was disorganized. The ailing Zeigler simply went down on one knee and buried his hands in his mitts, muffling his cries. Others like Cole started pointing to possible routes down the Bellows and yelled at the Sherpa to prepare ropes and ice screws. River Leaf did not have a plan but began climbing down the side of the lip alone in desperation. Her fellow inexperienced climber – the other person on the trip who was clearly not supposed to be there - was gone and she refused to stand still for a moment.

Amid the chaos, standing silent and motionless was Junk. He was a statue, still staring at the place where his childhood friend, his brother, his business partner, his confidante, had fallen. “The look on his face wasn’t one of horor [sic] or grief as I would’ve imagined,” Cole wrote. “It was one of calculation.”

The mad activity of the camp continued a few moments longer and then an ear-splitting eruption near the summit drowned out all sound. Everyone stopped what they were doing and held their mitts to the sides of their heads. When the noise resided, Junk took the silence as an opportunity to say “Listen to me” in a calm voice. How was their fearless leader going to respond to the loss of his old chum? What came out of him must have been a surprise to all. “We are not climbing down there to get him. Continue with what you were doing. Cole, get Zeigler down to Camp Two. Everyone else, we will sit tight until Cole gets back.” This command did not have any obvious effect. All eyes were still on him, possibly awaiting some explanation for his unexpected plan.

The surprises continued. It was not Cole who challenged Junk, nor was it Zeigler. Nor Pasang Dolma. Nor the dyspeptic Sherpa. It was River Leaf. Standing twice as tall as she ever had before, storming across the lip toward Junk as if not the faintest breeze passed by, she came within inches of him. “What’s wrong with your head? What’s wrong with your heart?” This was likely all she could muster.

Junk replied. “The assault will
not
be called off! Odds are Patrick’s dead. Would you want to climb down the Bellows and then the darkness underneath to retrieve a corpse? Would Patrick have wanted us to do that? And what if he’s alive? You have no idea what a one million dollar bet will make a man do. Especially him. If he’s alive, he’ll find a way out and meet us at Base Camp. Bet he’s planning it now. I don’t share much with William Hoyt, but like him, I have Faith. True, it’s not faith in a bearded man in space pulling the strings of Destiny. Rather, it is faith in a fat Irishman stuck in a hole.”

Denial. The only answer was denial. Junk probably could not accept a loss of such magnitude and his mind had concocted some happy ending in which this all works out with McGee in one piece and a victorious return to Boston. “No doubt abot [sic] it.” Cole wrote. “It was denali [sic].”

River Leaf said testily, “This is not the streets of Boston, Aaron Junk.”

“
That’s true” he replied. “The weather in Boston is far worse!”

She stormed off into her tent without another word.

Cole followed the orders of his team leader without question and helped Zeigler down to Camp Two with the aid of one of the dyspeptic – but now utterly surly – Sherpa. Junk, River Leaf, and the Sherpa waited in their respective tents for Cole to return. When sunset came without any sign of him, they made dinner and settled in for yet another wakeful night on the lip. Progress, it seemed, would have to wait.

Junk heard River Leaf leave her tent just before the last light had disappeared. The wind had laid down its arms with the end of day but still the air was frigid. When Junk ventured outside to investigate River Leaf’s actions, he witnessed the night commencing clear. However, clouds in the distant west looked foreboding.

River Leaf was geared up and walking to the edge of the lip. Junk asked her what she was doing, although it was probably quite obvious to him. And indeed, and certainly to Junk’s dismay, her intention was to climb down the Bellows in search of McGee. At the very least, she would make it to The Oculus and call down to him. If in the hole she saw a climbing route and maybe some sort of floor or ledge below, she would descend into it despite the frigid air inexplicably blasting forth from it at all times. If the hole was a long black void with no visible bottom, only then would she give up. Without being asked River Leaf added that she had no intention of returning to the expedition. With or without McGee, she would make her way north up and out of the Bellows, down the Rakhiot Glacier, and then leave the entire Qila Sanctuary on her own.

Such actions were unheard of on mountain expeditions. No team member disobeyed their leader and no team member simply walked away from the campaign. But those thoughts were not the ones crossing Junk’s mind. He wrote that evening:

“
Distraught. Might be the altitude, but I want to cry for the first time in my lif [sic]. So lovely. So strong. So delicate. But so short the courting. She was leaving. Oh to lose her only hours after falling for her. My pain from McGee I could hide, but not this. I begged her not to go. If McGee’s alive, he’ll make it. She wouldn’t respond to that. I think I love you. She wouldn’t respond to that. Don’t you want to make it to the top? She responded to that. And she said mor [sic] than she ever had before. I never had any interest in making it up there, she said. I was just going where you told me because I was lost and had nowhere to go ever since leaving my family. I went where I was taken. By anyone. Not any more. There’s nothing up there, she sad [sic]. Nothing but ice, fire, and wind. For you, she said, there’s also a victory. And your reasoning to not retrieve McGee seems convenent [sic] in light of that victory. You’ve turned away from your oldest friend for a win with nothing good or right about it. I’m done following you to stupidity and deth [sic], she said. i will go where I wish now. I said but you have no home. Where will you go? I’ve been called an Indian my whole life, she said. So perhaps I’ll try my luck in Calcutta.”

With this, River Leaf turned and jumped off the side of the lip. She dropped down a chute between two jagged rocks. With grace, she placed her ice axe in the snow and began a gentle glissade into the darkness. She was gone. McGee was gone. The flame of euphoria that had brightened Junk’s life over recent days was extinguished; snuffed out in perfect time with the dimming of the day.

Junk would wake up at first light to the return of Cole and the surly Sherpa, but no Zeigler. “He couldn’t do it” Cole said. “The pain of altitude sickness passed, but he’s still spent. He’s in the care of the Sherpa at Camp Two now, and he’ll likely go to Camp One tomorrow.” So this was the team. Junk, Cole, and five Sherpa. It would have to do. Junk wrote, “Looked into the Bellows to see if there was any sign of River Leaf or McGee. Nothing. Gone gone gone. Before she left, she had asked what’s wrong with my heart. Don’t know. Starting to wonder wether [sic] it has a flaw running through it, cutting through valves and dooming me to loneliness.” He was empty now. The personality that had once romanced the City of Boston was nowhere to be found. All that remained in this shell of a man was the naked instinct to go up.