Seven Summits (24 page)

“There's the top of Lhotse,” Nielson continued. “See it?”

“Yeah, perfect.”

Breashears completed a panoramic shot, and turned the camera off. Nielson said they had to keep moving, and would call next stop. Down at camp 2 we waited patiently, watching the growing clouds obscure the South Col and the lower flanks of Everest. We estimated it would take them another three hours to reach the top. Would the weather hold? In a half hour the first snow flakes dusted our tents; soon they were falling thickly. We only hoped that the bad weather was local, that at higher elevations the sky was still clear. Another half hour and Breashears called.

“What's the weather at camp two?” he asked.

“Socked in,” I said, “and snowing. What's it like up there?”

“Snowing. Not blowing hard, but we're concerned about visibility. We're going to sit here and think about it. We've got about three hours left on the route. Wouldn't want to be up here if things get real bad.”

“We've got our fingers crossed. Camp two standing by.”

In five minutes Breashears came back on. “Due to a downgrading of conditions, I’m turning back. The other four are continuing up. They're not taking the camera. I’ve got to go. Over and out.”

The morning's elation suddenly drained, replaced by doubt and concern. We knew it was a tough decision for all of them: Breashears turning his back on a chance to reach the top, to make his microwave transmission, but deciding the weather wasn't worth the risk; the others deciding to take the risk, knowing there was a chance visibility would drop, possibly trapping them near the summit, where their chances of surviving a storm would be close to zero.

I knew why the summit climbers hadn't taken the camera with them. In questionable conditions, they didn't want to be slowed by any extra weight. To all of us on the film crew, it was a bitter disappointment. Without the summit footage, the show would be emasculated. I thought too of the ABC producer, John Wilcox, sitting in Katmandu. He had $750,000 squeezed from his annual budget riding on that summit shot, and if he returned home without it he might as well go straight to the unemployment office.

Ershler had other things on his mind. He paced in the snow next to the mess tent. “Larry's really sticking his neck out,” he said. “Without oxygen, he'll be much more susceptible to cold.”

The snow continued at camp 2, sticking to the tent flies, sticking to our hair and jackets, seeming to weight us with a growing depression. Then the radio crackled.

“Breashears calling. Do you read?” His voice was excited.

“Yes, Dave. What's happening?”

“I was … going down when … weather improved.” He was out of breath. “So I turned around … I’m going back up … heavy pack, all camera equipment … going fast to catch up.”

Everyone cheered. It was now 11:30, still early in the day. Another half hour and Breashears was on again. “We've reached the South Summit. The weather is still okay. Larry is a little behind, without oxygen. So is the Sherpa Ang Rita, also without oxygen. We have maybe one hour more to the summit. Call you from there.”

At camp 2 the clouds began to break, and we could see the upper mountain. Although the climbers had been hidden from our view all morning behind the bulk of Everest, I knew that just beyond the South Summit was a short section where we might glimpse them, so we trained our camera with a 1,000-mm lens on the spot.

“I’ve got one! Just below the Hillary Step. There's another, and a third … and the fourth.”

Even through the telescope they were small figures, shimmering as they slowly climbed through the field of the lens. A minute later they disappeared, and we knew we wouldn't see them again until they were descending. But where was the fifth? Perhaps Nielson was still behind, going slowly without oxygen.

Ten minutes passed, fifteen. We took turns on the telescope.

“I’ve got him. A blue parka—that's Nielson. Moving very, very slowly.”

In a few minutes he too disappeared. A half hour passed, then forty-five minutes. We knew they should be close.

“Calling camp two. Breashears here.”

“Got you loud and clear, Dave.”

“We've got a problem. Better put Ershler on.”

All of us stared at one another. What could be wrong? We all knew that near the summit of Everest there is little margin for error, little chance to survive a mistake.

“Ershler here. What's the problem?”

“Phil, this is Gerry. The problem is we don't have anywhere else to climb. We're on top of this mother!”

We exploded in backslapping cheer. Frank's face beamed. “They did it,” he said. “Those guys did it.”

We went silent as Roach's voice came back on. “And by the way, Phil. Happy thirty-second birthday.”

“Gerry, I couldn't have asked for a better present. Now where's Nielson?”

“Maybe twenty minutes below us. Moving slow, but he'll make it.”

Now we waited for Breashears to unpack the camera, connect the microwave, and try for the first electronic broadcast from the top of the world.

“Breashears calling the engineers at Everest View. You guys got a picture down there?”

“Move the microwave,” one of the engineers said excitedly. “There, coming in, better, better. Unbelievable. Great pictures. I can see all you guys standing there on the summit!”

With the ability to run continuously for several hours, the camera remained on while Breashears made pans, zooms, static shots. The engineers, all the while preserving the pictures on their large broadcast quality video cassette recorders, confirmed over the radio a close-up of Roach's ice-encrusted beard and broad smile. Then to Jamieson with an equally wide grin: even though there was no sound the engineers watching the screen could see clearly as he looked at the camera and said, “Hi Mom.” Roach and Jamieson unfurled the American flag, then Frank and Dick's Seven Summits banner. Finally Breashears pointed the camera downhill to a lone figure making one slow step at a time. Nielson had maybe thirty such steps to go, thirty steps to become the first American to climb Everest without oxygen.

In a few minutes Roach's voice came on. “Nielson has five more steps.” We waited. “Three steps … two … one … he's on the summit.”

More cheers at camp 2, more bear hugs. Ershler took the radio, “Summit, this is Ershler. Put Larry on.”

“Ersh, Nielson here.” His voice was strained, his breathing fast. “I made it.”

“Congratulations buddy.”

Frank took the radio and said, “Congratulations from Bass and Wells, Larry. We've never had such a great moment. Hold on. Bass wants to say something.”

“Nielson, you're an animal!” Dick shouted, the same kudos Marty Hoey had given him after he'd climbed McKinley.

“Thanks everyone … now I’ve just got … to get down. ”

After the summit transmission camp 2 didn't hear anything until 10:00 that night when Breashears made a very brief one-way radio call. “Everyone's down. Call in the morning.”

It was terse, but sounded as though they were okay. Next morning Breashears called early.

“Larry and I dragged in about two hours after dark on the last energy we had. The others made it a few hours later in a storm. I had a flashlight, the others didn't, they just made it somehow. Kind of incredible. Over.”

Breashears sounded fatigued, as though he had barely enough strength to talk.

“Is everybody okay?” we asked.

“Larry's had a hard night. He's frostbitten and throwing up blood. His tongue is swollen, cracked, and bleeding. Coughing badly, too. We really had a tough time descending last night. He had to hold to the back of my pack coming down. He's partially blind.”

Our team doctor Ed Hixson was alarmed and wanted Nielson to get down as quick as possible, on oxygen if necessary. We watched that morning as the figures left the South Col and slowly descended the rope that laced down and across the Lhotse Face. They reached camp 3—mid-point on the face—and then we saw only four of them continue; one was still behind, perhaps resting in one of the tents. By mid-afternoon Breashears reached camp 2. (Roach and Ang Rita were still fifteen minutes from camp, and Jamieson was another fifteen minutes behind them.)

“Where's Nielson?” Ershler immediately asked Breashears.

“Apparently he's staying in camp three.”

“Why did they let him stay there?”

“I don't know. I thought he was coming down with Jamieson, but for some reason he decided to stay in camp three.”

“Somebody should have stayed with him.”

Without hesitation Ershler said he was going up to camp 3, and Hixson said he would go too. Ershler appointed two Sherpas to accompany them, and in a few minutes they were off. Roach and Ang Rita were just getting into camp, but they too had no idea why Nielson was staying in camp 3. Then minutes later Ershler passed Jamieson, who said Nielson had told him just below the South Col he wanted to stay in camp 3 because he was moving too slowly and was too weak to get down in one push.

“I couldn't talk him out of it, and there was no way I could stay up there myself in my condition. I’m sure relieved you're going up. There's no lighter at camp three, no way for Larry to start a stove and make drinks. Plus he has no sleeping bag.”

As darkness fell we at camp 2 watched the figures of Ershler, Hixson, and the Sherpas, no more than specks against the shining ice, ascend the ropes. The weather was deteriorating fast; sweeps of snowy spindrift scudded across the figures. With last daylight gone Ershler radioed he had reached camp 3 and was making soup for Nielson, who appeared stable. Ershler said he was now worried about Hixson, who was still several hundred feet below, moving slowly up the ropes in the dark.

“I told the Sherpas to stay with Hixson,” Ershler said, “or I would kill them. I think they got the message.”

Hixson finally reached camp at 11:00
P.M
. The group crowded in the tent and, without sleeping bags, huddled through the night. With the hot soup Nielson was regaining a little strength, and in the morning was able to descend most of the way under his own power. Near camp 2, though, Ershler and Hixson had to support him, one under each arm; as an interlocked trio they made the last distance to the tents and to a warm homecoming.

Nielson was laid in his tent, and Hixson, completing an exam, reported he had probably suffered a pulmonary embolism and was lucky to be alive. In addition, his extreme coughing had broken several ribs. His partial blindness was related to dehydration and hypoxia, and on that count at least he was already feeling better.

After hot soup and rest Nielson felt up to joining us that evening in the mess tent, where he related his story.

“I was sick when I came back up to camp two for the summit attempt,” he explained, his voice hoarse and weak. “Nauseous, throwing up, some kind of bug. I couldn't hold anything down, including water.”

Some of us glanced at one another in astonishment; this meant that he was sick at least three days before the summit attempt, but didn't tell anyone.

“I think it was the dehydration that really got me on the summit day,” he continued. “I had an awful night at the South Col. I had a bad cough, bad enough that I broke a couple of my ribs. I remember looking over and seeing Roach in his oxygen mask sawing logs, and if I had had a mask with me I would have chucked my no oxygen commitment right then.

“In the morning I still couldn't hold anything down, but I decided to go through with it: I had put too much effort in at that point not to give it my all. For a while we were roped together, then we got to this deep snow, and I couldn't keep up. We unroped, and I fell behind. I kept plodding as well as I could, and got to the South Summit in time to see the others get over the Hillary Step, then disappear above. When I got to the Step I started up a fixed rope and got about ten moves when suddenly I got dizzy. I threw up, and it was blood. I was worried, but decided that if whatever I had was going to kill me, it would kill me whether I made the last distance to the top or not. The wind was now blowing, and I couldn't see any tracks or signs of the others. I got up one pinnacle and looked beyond to the next. No sign. Your mind starts to play games. I thought, Did I go the wrong way? Did those guys fall through a cornice? On top of the next pinnacle I still couldn't see anyone. I climbed the next one, then I saw them, on the summit.

“I don't remember much of the last part except I kept thinking of my wife and kids, and how they would be proud of me, and that kept me pushing. Then I was on top. What a relief it was to know everything from there was downhill. But the descent turned into an ordeal. The dehydration hit me hard and my tongue swelled so much it split in several places and was bleeding badly. So were my lips. Then I started seeing double, and as it got dark I had to hold on to Dave's pack. Dave would say, ‘Here's a crevasse. Step.’ A couple of times I started to fall in and he said, ‘Bigger step.’ And so on until we reached camp four, and then next day camp three. It was a godsend to have Ershler come up there and make soup for me. It was one of those things you never forget.”

Although never openly discussed, there was a strong feeling of criticism in camp over the fact that Nielson had been left behind in camp 3. Ershler and Hixson were sharply critical of the others for what they thought was abandonment of a fellow climber in distress, while Roach and the others on the first team countered that they thought all the time Nielson was planning on coming down. Only Jamieson knew differently, and he wasn't in condition to help anybody. Furthermore, Roach and the others let it be known around camp they felt Nielson had used bad judgment both in pushing, despite his illness, with no oxygen, and in not telling anyone he was sick. They felt that by increasing the chance he would need rescue he had placed everyone in jeopardy, and consequently had mitigated their own responsibility to risk their lives for him. Fortunately with everyone down safe there had been a happy ending, and what otherwise might have developed into bitter controversy was overshadowed by the success as well as by the need to concentrate on the next summit bids.

Frank and Dick felt they were ready. Frank had been successful in his effort to create his own summit team separate from Dick's. Dick's team, now consisting of Ed Hixson, Yogendra Thapa (the Nepalese police officer whom Dick and Frank had invited to join the expedition), three Sherpas, and himself, would follow the second team, and then Frank's group would go fourth.