First, the farce: According to EverestNews.com,
Playboy cover girl topped out. A Japanese man, Takao Arayama, climbed the mountain at the age of 70 years, 7 months, and 13 days, stealing the geriatric record from another Japanese climber by three days. Meanwhile, an Australian lad named Christopher Harris announced plans to become the youngest Everest summiteer ever, at 15-and-a-half—managing to overlook the fact that a Sherpa girl, Ming Kipa, had climbed the mountain three years earlier at 15. In any event, the point became moot, as young Harris fell ill and abandoned his attempt on the north side.
This spring Gheorghe Dijmarescu, a Romanian-born U.S. citizen, climbed Everest for the eighth time, gloating that he'd broken American Peter Athans's record of seven ascents by a Westerner. However, Dijmarescu's tally pales beside that of Apa Sherpa, a slight, boyish fortysomething, who climbed Everest for the 16th time. "I don't like to climb for record," Apa told EverestNews. "It come together with job. If group no good condition, even a hundred meter (328 feet) from top, I go down also with them."
One Sherpa who did "climb for record" this spring was Lakpa Tharke, a 25-year-old fellow who took off his clothes and stood naked for three minutes on the summit, establishing some kind of first nude ascent, but one that scandalized more traditional Sherpas.
This spring Mark Inglis, 47, a double amputee from New Zealand, attempted Everest from the north with the Himalayan Experience (Himex) guide service. Inglis had lost both legs below the knee in a horrendous 14-day ice cave bivouac on New Zealand's Mount Cook in 1982. This year he summited on carbon fiber prosthetics, only to suffer further frostbite and require new amputations on his fingers and legs.
On the north side, where the Chinese government exercises virtually no control over who gets a permit, there was a new plague of what veteran Everest leader Eric Simonson, 51, calls freeloaders—climbers who pay minimal fees for access to the mountain, who cannot afford the luxury of guides, who use ropes fixed by more reputable and responsible teams, and who, when they get in trouble, elicit scant sympathy from others. David Sharp may have been one of these.
Five hundred feet (152 meters) higher, but ten days further into the warming spring season, Lincoln Hall was luckier than Sharp. The Australian was revived by Mazur's team, then carried down the mountain by a large contingent of Sherpas. His passive survival, however, apparently qualified Hall to become the next Aussie hero. As Hall recuperated at Base Camp, only three days after being reclaimed from the dead, his sometime agent, Max Markson, was gleefully anticipating the book contract that loomed in the offing. "It's not a million-dollar deal," announced Markson. "It's not Brokeback Mountain, but it'll be a good six-figure sum." Less than two weeks later, with his frostbitten hands still swathed in bandages, Hall was whisked to New York City to appear on the Today show.
Of all the chaotic events on Everest this spring, it was Sharp's death and Hall's rescue that caught the public eye. At first Mark Inglis's May 15 ascent won him acclaim in his native New Zealand. But it was Inglis who reported that some 40 climbers—of whom he was one of the first—had marched past the moribund Sharp in his rock hole. The reaction was quick and virulent. Sir Edmund Hillary, 87, lashed out in the press: "Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain. . . . It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say Good morning, and pass on by."
The brunt of the flak was caught by Inglis himself, as the press poisoned the messenger, and by Inglis's team leader, Russell Brice. Explaining his decision to go on, Inglis insisted that when he saw Sharp, the Brit was "so incredibly frostbitten. He was completely rigid, effectively dead."
According to an ExplorersWeb dispatch, however, several members of Brice's Himex team said that at the site of Sharp's lonely bivouac, they had radioed their team leader, who was 4,300 feet (1,311 meters) below at the North Col, to ask what they should do. Brice allegedly urged them to leave the victim and push on toward the summit.
A New Zealander based in Chamonix, France, Brice has compiled a stellar record over the past decade of helping climbers from other teams who got in trouble. Now he was caught off-guard by the venom of his critics over his apparent insensitivity.
One by one, veteran climbers, in addition to Hillary, responded with dismay, if not outrage. On seven occasions, Ed Viesturs, 47, the first American to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peaks, has gone to the rescue of climbers who probably would have died without his intervention. On four of those missions, he gave up his own summit attempts to bail out mountaineers in trouble. Of the Sharp scenario, Viesturs says, "I don't think I could have walked past him. I would have tried to round up other people capable of helping, wrapped him up, then tried to drag or sled him down.
Continue reading Part II: 2006: The Mad Season 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Next >>
Part I: Ed Viesturs: 1996: Turn Around, Guys! >>
Everest Map: The 2006 Cast of Characters >>
Everest Main Page >>
Adventure's September 2006 issue features 31 amazing adventure towns; chaos at the top of Mount Everest; an inside look at surfing California's Lost Coast; 11 fall weekend getaways near you; the best high-tech footwear, world class adventure travel; hiking the Alps, and more!
Best places to live
