Into The Death Zone - Everest: The Deaths, The Danger, The Controversy
Everest is the world’s most murderous and threatening mountain, and yet every year hundreds of people risk their lives to stand on the roof of the world. What drives men and women to this deadly pursuit? By Mark Bailey
To straddle the summit of Mount Everest, one foot in Nepal and one foot in Tibet, is to stand at the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Swirling around the upper troposphere of the Earth’s atmosphere, the hurricane-force winds that rake the peak are caused by the same jetstream that rocks 400-tonne planes with turbulence. This is a world so cold that climbers have been known to cough up chunks of their own frozen larynx, yet so scorched by ultraviolet rays that to unwittingly climb open-mouthed would char the flesh at the back of your throat. Here, in this oxygen-starved realm christened the ‘Death Zone’, the human body is so incapacitated that the only function it can perform is to digest its own tissue in a desperate search for fuel. In short, the human body begins to eat itself.
Everest, the formidable 29,035ft peak that erupts out of the jagged spine of the Himalaya in southcentral Asia, is the world’s most feared mountain. Dubbed “the highest graveyard in the world”, this monochrome pyramid of rock and ice is the tombstone to more than 200 people who have perished on its slopes. Many of their bodies remain frozen on the upper reaches of the mountain, a macabre warning to today’s climbers who are forced to shuffle past the eerily preserved corpses on their way to the top.
THE WORLD’S HIGHEST GRAVEYARD
It perhaps sums up the feat required to climb Everest that mankind completed the mission only 16 years before standing on the Moon. But every year, hundreds of people willingly risk death to summit this terrifying peak. Moreover, many pay up to $75,000 for the privilege. It’s a place where humans were never meant to go, so why do they? “I really can’t answer, I don’t know,” admits Russell Brice, leader of the Himalayan Experience guiding company. “Why would you run around a 400m track four times to stake a four-minute mile? People have ambitions, they have drive, they want to prove things to themselves. Most of these things are very personal. I think Mallory’s old, classic quote – ‘because it’s there’ – is as good an answer as any.”
Brice features in a forthcoming documentary, Everest: Beyond The Limit, which is to be screened on the Discovery Channel next month and which set out specifically to discover what drives people to the summit of Everest. Adventure, self-discovery, ambition, prestige, national pride and man’s perennial need to conquer nature have all been ingredients in the hypnotic appeal Everest has cast over adventurers for the best part of a century. But today, thanks to commercial expeditions, anybody with the money, fitness and desire can attempt to summit the world’s largest mountain.
MOUNTAINS OF THE MIND
The six-part series, filmed between April and May last year, follows an 11-man expedition every step of their way in what proved to be one of the most deadly and controversial years in Everest’s history. It profiles the entire spectrum of people who are seduced by the deadly charms of Everest. There’s an expert mountaineer – Max Chaya from Lebanon – who aims to complete his mission to climb the seven highest peaks on Earth. Alongside him there’s Brett Merrell, an American firefighter who intended to erect a flag on the summit to salute the comrades who died in 9/11, and New Zealander Mark Inglis, a double amputee engaged in a deeply personal mission to complete his lifelong ambition of climbing Everest. The only common ground these men share is that they are all utterly entranced by the mountain.
IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Desire, however, is no guarantee of success. “Just because people sign up for an expedition doesn’t mean that they’re going to succeed,” warns Brice. “There are very few people in the world who, both physically and mentally, can climb Mount Everest. In recent years, we’ve been getting about 67 per cent of our people to the summit. There are still going to be failures. You know, some people just aren’t cut out to do this.”
High-altitude videography and helmet-mounted cameras were used to capture the dramas of the expedition. There’s a death before the team has even left base camp and then, on their first foray uphill, a climber from another team collapses with cerebral edema, his eyes bulging from the swelling of his brain in the high altitude – a sight providing a grizzly reminder that the human body is not built for this environment. More traumatic still is footage of double amputee Inglis struggling downhill on his prosthetic limbs, with droplets of blood from his red-raw, frostbitten leg stumps staining the white snow. Even in the later reaches, a mutiny on the mountain threatens to plunge everybody into danger – as does the lethal bottleneck that starts to form on the ominously overcrowded peak.
DANGEROUS GAME
The documentary illustrates, in microcosm, the wider debate that continues to rage around Mount Everest. It is hard to know whether to condemn climbers for their apparent stupidity, or marvel at the incredible feats of human endurance. But then, attempting to climb Everest is in itself an inherently irrational decision. It requires a deep, longing urge that will never be understood by the vast majority of people, but which almost everybody finds captivating. Brice himself describes it as “a stupid game”. But don’t we all play at those? “People still drive cars down the road, and that’s probably the biggest game of Russian roulette we ever play,” observes Brice. “People try to pass each other at 100mph just one metre apart, but they don’t know anything about each other. I’m not sure that dangers affect the people who have the desire to climb Everest.”
The statistics confirm this notion. The most deadly year on record was 1996, when 15 people died in a violent storm on Everest. That year, 97 people made it to the top. By 2000, only four years later, the number of successful ascents had risen to 145. Dicing with death on the world’s largest mountain remains a dangerous game, but it’s one that more and more people are willing to play.
HELL IN THE HEAVENS
Nobody conquers Everest. Instead, for two weeks in early spring, a window of opportunity opens up during which the world’s most forbidding mountain will, perhaps, grant a select few access to its summit. Even then, the window can come crashing down with catastrophic consequences.
The mood of the mountain is critical to the success on any Everest expedition. During an ascent of Everest, climbers can be paralysed by temperatures of -60°C and whipped by 120mph, hurricane-force winds. Weather can change in an instant, with a single driving storm capable of burying expeditions in seven feet of fresh snow.
To complete their mission, however, climbers must also pass through a labyrinth of natural obstacles that guard the seemingly impregnable fortress of Everest. Several routes up the mountain have been explored over the years, with the southeast ridge from Nepal and the northeast ridge via Tibet becoming the most well-established paths. The most popular and well-known highway to the top, though, remains the southeast ridge – a classic route that follows in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s successful expedition of 1953. After flying into the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu and then on to the hilltown of Lukla, expeditions trek towards Everest’s base camp, which at 17,500 feet acts as the logistical headquarters from which assaults begin.
ICEFALLS AND CREVASSES
The most feared section of the southeast ascent is the Khumbu Icefall, a giant’s playground of icy building blocks, some towering up to 80 feet tall. The Khumbu Glacier, a tongue of frozen snow that reaches down the southeast slope, fractures into pointed blocks of ice, known as seracs, just above base camp. In this constantly shifting environment, a cacophony of creaks, groans and trickling meltwater resonate around the icy alleyways as the crumbling white columns are pushed downhill by the movement of the glacier at a rate of up to 300 metres a year. With seracs threatening to come thundering down at any moment, this section is usually tackled during the early morning, when the freezing cold of the night has temporarily cemented the seracs in place.
Climbers then move up on to the Western Cwm (20,200ft), a glacial valley of ice severed by huge, gaping crevasses. These gashes in the ice need to be bridged using a series of ropes and ladders, a nervy manoeuvre intensified by the fact that climbers must totter across the slippery, metal ladders wearing bulky crampons. An unusually sheltered section, the valley is baked by the intense solar rays that reflect off the turquoise walls of ice, smothering the climbers in a nauseating heat as they trudge upwards. Expeditions normally spend the night frantically rehydrating to alleviate the intense headaches brought about by the sun.
At 23,000 metres, the treacherous Lhotse Face – a steep, shiny wall of rock and ice – now beckons. Lhotse is the hulking mountain that borders Everest and which must be traversed on the way to the summit. It is a dangerously exposed section across barren, windswept rock with sheer drops of up to 4,000 feet plunging down into the Western Cwm below. Climbers are clipped into a rope system as they scramble up the icy ramparts using an ‘ascender’ – a device that will slide upwards and grip the rope, but not allow climbers to slip back down. Expedition members have to unhook in order to change between rope sections, however, which leaves them teetering on the smooth, glassy surface, just one careless step or gust of wind away from a near-vertical plummet.
THE DEATH ZONE
Here, as they move towards 26,000 feet, climbers enter the Death Zone. This high-altitude, oxygen-starved environment is so hostile to life that even climbers breathing bottled oxygen cannot survive beyond three days. For this reason, summit pushes have to be quick and clinical. The final camp is established at the precariously positioned South Col, an exposed saddle between the summit pyramids of Everest and Lhotse. At 26,000 feet, the South Col is a barren plateau under constant siege from the fierce winds that shriek across the upper reaches of the mountain and threaten to drag climbers from their lofty encampment.
Assaults on the summit normally begin in the dead of night. Expeditions manoeuvre uphill under torchlight from midnight, and aim to reach the peak by midday, leaving enough daylight hours and bottled oxygen to make it back down. As the sun comes up and climbers approach the final 300 vertical feet, the few who have managed to make it this far catch sight of a perilous knife-edge ridge, with vertiginous drops on either side, that still needs to be crossed. Just inches from your left foot, an 8,000ft chasm yawns down into Nepal – and, on your right, a 10,000ft sheer cliff face crumbles into Tibet.
Only 100 feet from the summit, the famous Hillary Step stubbornly blocks the path upwards. This 40ft vertical chimney of rock plunders climbers’ final reserves of energy as they employ fixed ropes to clamber up its smooth, holdless face. It’s indicative of the nature of Everest that the most technically challenging mountaineering task is reserved for when climbers are in their most nervous and exhausted state.
ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
The final few feet up to the summit is a slow, laborious procession as climbers are buffeted by the jetstream winds that tear across the peak. At this dramatic late stage, people can take up to 13 breaths for a single step. Then, after weeks of peering up at the summit, a gently rounded snowcone finally creeps into view, every horizon falls below eyesight and climbers find themselves standing on the roof of the world.
Those fortunate few climbers who make it this far are rewarded with a spellbinding view across the Himalaya, with snow-capped peaks and vast glaciers stretching all around in a mesmerising 360-degree panorama. It’s a magical moment for any mountaineer, but climbers normally spend no more than 10 minutes on the summit before exhaustion kicks in and a nagging fear returns. They still have to get back down.
SAFELY HOME?
Emotional, climbers might now feel that they have completed their mission. But the statistics suggest otherwise – remarkably, 80 per cent of fatalities on Everest occur during the descent. All the dangers faced on the way up still loom large, only now the climbers have to lurch downhill, physically exhausted from their ordeal, emotionally drained by the experience and mentally incapacitated by the lack of oxygen. As all climbers openly admit, though, the most important factor in surviving Everest is whether or not the mountain itself will sleep long enough to let you get back down. As Sir Edmund Hillary noted after his historic 1953 expedition: “We didn’t feel that we had conquered Everest. We felt that Everest had relented.”