Keeper Of The Mountains (27 page)

Hargreaves succeeded – at least on Everest. She died a few months later on K2 when she was blown off the mountain by a horrific storm after reaching the summit. Italian climber Marco Bianchi described her as “a star of the Himalaya and a remarkable climber.” But Elizabeth added, “Unfortunately the star of the Himalaya shone a very short time.” She saw Alison as an ambitious, talented climber whose aspirations more or less matched her abilities and who climbed to support her children. She liked and admired her and was genuinely saddened by her death on K2.

The 8000-metre-peak bagging continued, and one climber whose face was becoming familiar was the friendly, efficient and talented American Ed Viesturs. Viesturs, together with New Zealander Rob Hall and Finn Veikka Gustafsson, achieved the fastest ascent to date on Makalu in the spring of 1995. They accomplished it without oxygen or Sherpa support. They could do it because of their high degree of acclimatization, having helicoptered over from the Everest region, where they had been high on Everest and Lhotse. Viesturs was clearly headed for all 14 of the 8000-metre peaks, which he completed in the spring of 2005.

Elizabeth knew him well enough to keep him honest about his claims. He remembered being chastised for not having gone to the top of Shishapangma: “You know, Ed, if you want to do all fourteen, you have to go back to Shishapangma.” So he did. He was always honest with her about his summits, but was convinced she would have known even if he hadn't been. He described her as a kind of taskmaster – but a caring one. In her parting comments to Ed before each expedition, she always urged him to “be as careful as you've always been, I want to see you come back.”

And the soft-spoken Mexican climber Carlos Carsolio was back with two more 8000-metre summits to add to his list: Annapurna 
I
, followed swiftly by Dhaulagiri
I
. His superb acclimatization achieved on Annapurna allowed him to climb Dhaulagiri during the night,
alone, and to reach the summit at 10:00 a.m. on May 15. She interviewed him in Kathmandu and heard the seemingly easygoing Carsolio say, “I am not in a hurry … but I would like to climb them all.”

Elizabeth had little patience with climbers who she thought made false claims. If she sensed exaggeration, she was like a bloodhound on a fresh trail, hunting down the truth. One of these cases was the French climber Benoît Chamoux, who died on Kangchenjunga in the fall of 1995. She had met him many times in Kathmandu, as he was the leader of a professional team of climbers called
l'Esprit d'équipe
, fully sponsored by the French computer company Bull. Chamoux's publicists claimed Kangchenjunga would be his 14th 8000-metre peak. Before he headed off, Elizabeth interviewed him and challenged his claim, since he had previously told her he had not reached the highest of the summits on Shishapangma, another 8000-metre peak. He agreed his earlier statement was correct, but that he had gone to
a
summit of Shishapangma that was over 8000 metres. Elizabeth's response offered no compromise: “That's fine, but it's
a
summit, not
the
summit. People who reach the South Summit of Everest don't claim that they reached the top of Everest, even though the South Summit is well over 8000 metres too.” Chamoux conceded that perhaps he would have to go back to Shishapangma sometime and climb
the
summit.

But it wasn't just Shishapangma that bothered Elizabeth about Chamoux. His claims on Dhaulagiri were also in question, according to her. Normally, proof of a summit climb was a description or, better yet, photographs of the flags, prayer flags and
katas
that are the normal summit decorations on Himalayan peaks. But Dhaulagiri was a trick summit and she had caught a number of false claimants due to her knowledge of the peak. She explained that on Dhaulagiri there are flagpoles, prayer flags and
katas
 – but not at the highest point. To get to the highest point from these flags, one must go down a bit and then traverse. She was impressed with the integrity of the Basque climber Juanito Oiarzabal when he learned he hadn't gone to the true summit. He went back later in the same season and climbed it again, this time going the entire distance.

In fact, Elizabeth thought Chamoux was a man of multiple false claims. Although she didn't challenge him at the time, she later
disbelieved his claim of Cho Oyu because several years later someone from his team told her that Chamoux and British climber Alan Hinkes didn't go to the summit; they'd stopped on the summit plateau because of deteriorating weather. She mentioned the discrepancy to Hinkes and he denied it: “I thought we did, although we couldn't see very well, but I'm sure we got it.” Many people stop at the lower summit, she said – some claim it as the summit and others do not. Elizabeth did not consider the summit plateau to be the summit of Cho Oyu, as it was not the highest point.

She posed detailed questions to those who supposedly reached their summits in bad visibility. She would ask for details of the terrain and whether there were any particular landmarks, and then wait to see if they volunteered those details. If possible, she would check with other expeditions on the mountain.

In the end, Elizabeth credited Benoît Chamoux with only 10 of his 13 claims. False claims included Shishapangma, Cho Oyu and Makalu. In her archival mountaineering database, she adjusted her notes to say claims were unsubstantiated if she wasn't sure. In Chamoux's case, she thought she understood the problem. He was under pressure from Bull, the computer company, to succeed. To keep the sponsorship, he needed to succeed and succeed and succeed again. She thought the pressure to produce results was too much for him and so he lied.

She was convinced Chamoux's death on Kangchenjunga was linked to the 8000-metre race. On the mountain at the same time were the Swiss Erhard Loretan, who was going for his 14th 8000-metre peak, and Sergio Martini, an Italian who was going for his 11th. Loretan climbed Kangchenjunga, efficiently as always, with his frequent climbing partner Jean Troillet. Elizabeth pressed Loretan for details of the climb and tried to learn more about the Chamoux situation. He replied that when he and Troillet reached the bottom of the West Ridge at 4:00 p.m. on their descent, they encountered Chamoux and his partner Bernard Royer moving up. About 30 minutes later, Royer radioed that he was abandoning his summit bid because of fatigue. About an hour after that, at 5:30 p.m., Chamoux also radioed that he was too tired to continue and that he was unable to find his way down the ridge. He stayed that night a few metres above the col and got back on the radio at 8:10 a.m. on October 6. He was seen reaching the col, but then went out of sight on the north side of the mountain.
Neither Chamoux nor Royer was seen again. As a footnote, their Sherpas did not try to mount a rescue or even search for the French climbers, because earlier in the expedition the two had done nothing to help one of them when he fell. A few days later, Sergio Martini summited, making it 11 8000ers for him.

There was much discussion in the mountaineering press about the presence of three world-class mountaineers – all racing for the 8000-metre prize – climbing on Kangchenjunga at the same time. Did they create a dangerously competitive situation on the mountain? An American climber put it bluntly: “It was a fatal challenge for Chamoux. The Swiss were much faster. Loretan is the best.… The French were not well acclimatized. They tried to keep up with the Swiss and they killed themselves.” From her observations, Elizabeth was inclined to agree.

When Loretan returned to Kathmandu, she asked him how he felt about the accomplishment. He said only, “It is something done.” He told her the 8000-metre goal had not been a burden to him, and therefore, having achieved it, he didn't feel any great sense of relief. She pressed him more on his dreams for the future, wondering if he would continue to climb in the Himalaya. He responded with other mountaineering projects: ambitious steep climbs, such as the unclimbed West Face of Makalu. She was certain she would see more of Erhard Loretan.

Although she wasn't fond of the 8000-metre obsession in general, Elizabeth hesitated to lump all of the aspirants into the same pot. Messner had been the first, and for that reason she thought he stood alone. For him it was an idea – an original idea – and she was convinced he did it for the fulfillment of that idea, not for the glory. She felt Kukuczka took it to another level by doing so many of the climbs in winter. He was a true mountaineer. Loretan she saw as an incredibly talented and efficient climber and a real mountaineer as well. Krzysztof Wielicki was a serious climber and not afraid of winter. But on the topic of Alan Hinkes, she became critical. She was convinced that he was opportunistic, that he timed his climbs so that the other teams on the mountain had already set up the fixed ropes. He would then show up with one Sherpa and off he would go. And Chamoux – she saw him as a tragic figure.

Elizabeth had a welcome respite from all the peak bagging when
she was invited to Tokyo by the first woman to climb Everest, Junko Tabei. It was the 20th anniversary of Tabei's ascent and she had invited 10 of the 26 living women Everest summiteers to Tokyo for an international symposium and a celebratory climb of Mount Fuji. Among the 10 invitees was the Chinese climber who summited just 11 days after Tabei's historic climb. Elizabeth declined the Fuji climb, but she joined them in a nearby mountain hut. She was initially confused about why she was invited, and speculated she had been “tacked on as an observer.” In fact, she was invited because of her knowledge of the history of women climbers in Nepal, and so was asked to give a speech after the Everest summiteers had been honoured.

In her speech, Elizabeth was typically blunt, expressing a certain amount of disappointment. With few exceptions, she felt that women were following in footsteps that had been made by men before them. She pointed out that 31 years had elapsed between the time that the first men came to climb in the Nepalese Himalaya and time that the first woman, Hettie Dyhrenfurth, came and climbed on Kangchenjunga in 1930. Women tended to use standard routes in standard seasons. Not many had been leaders and not many had done all-women expeditions. “They just haven't progressed a whole lot in terms of coming to the forefront of mountaineering in Nepal,” she said.

Using example after example, she pointed out that women were not opening new routes or advancing the standards set by men. “Women have yet to prove their ability to lead the way in change and innovation.”

She wondered if it was because female alpinists were a smaller group from which to draw. She was sure it was not a physical disadvantage, because, as she pointed out, some of the best Himalayan climbers were very small men. Finally, she challenged them to attempt some of the last big Himalayan prizes, such as the Horseshoe Traverse. “Are there women who can find the financing, calculate the logistics and enlist the highly talented climbers needed to accomplish such a feat?” Her standards were high for men – and for women.

I've got to go back – Elizabeth says I didn't really climb it.

— Anatoli Boukreev

H
aving observed the mountaineering scene in Nepal for almost 40 years, Elizabeth was beginning to see developments that disturbed her. First was the increasing number of sloppy (and sometimes incorrect) reports coming out of Nepal regarding expedition successes, failures and, most seriously, fatal accidents. Much of the misinformation emanated from the Internet. One report indicated that five Kazakhs died in a storm when they were actually three Russians. Another report suggested that seven New Zealanders died – yet there weren't seven New Zealanders among all the climbers on the mountain at the time, and
none
of them had been involved in an accident. She thought this “instant kind of reporting” was unreliable and sometimes irresponsible. It wasn't subjected to the rigorous cross-checking for accuracy that she practised. There were apologies and retractions about the errors, but she knew the families of these climbers must have been distressed, and for no reason other than sloppiness.

She also wondered what kind of impact satellite phones and other forms of instant communication would have on an expedition's ability to focus. She cautioned a Polish team attempting a difficult winter ascent of Makalu to consider leaving their phones behind. She believed they needed to concentrate on the task at hand, not their families, their kids' school problems and so on. But ever the journalist, she added, “But don't forget to call me when you get back to Kathmandu.”

She saw another disturbing trend with commercial expeditions. As this business became more profitable, it was inevitable that some questionable players would enter the arena. In 1996 the peak fees alone earned the Nepalese government around $1.8-million. Elizabeth was painfully aware of guiding inconsistencies because she heard the
stories first-hand. Some commercial guiding companies were highly reputable, providing excellent services, experienced guides, plenty of oxygen and other important equipment. Others did not. Some were outright illegal. One German company accepted payments from 30 to 40 clients for expeditions to Everest, Cho Oyu and Shishapangma, but failed to forward any of that money to Kathmandu agents for their transport to base camp, or to Kathmandu staff to prepare the food and arrange logistics. When the unsuspecting clients arrived in Kathmandu, they were shocked to learn that the agent wouldn't do anything for them unless they paid him directly – and immediately. The German company was already so indebted to him that he refused to grant any more credit to the company's clients. Some went home disappointed, while others stayed and paid – a second time.

But Elizabeth's most fundamental disappointment was with the climbers themselves. She categorized them as three major types: pioneers who attempted unclimbed mountains or routes, peak baggers who attempted as many 8000-metre peaks as possible, and fee-paying clients and their guides.