"On Everest nowadays, all too often the guy in trouble
Jamie McGuinness, leader of the Project Himalaya team, was on the north side of the mountain when Sharp died. In his view: "There's more to this than meets the eye. When the others passed Sharp, was he a vegetable or was his mind OK? Dawa Sherpa, from the Arun Treks team, gave Sharp oxygen. But he couldn't get him to stand up, even when he tried to pull him up and drape Sharp's arms over his shoulders.
"You'd think, That's it, he's gone. But a guy can come back to his senses from near death, the way [Texas climber] Beck Weathers did in '96"—and which Lincoln Hall did ten years later. "On top of all this, it's really hard to make decisions at altitude. If you're in a car crash in the UK and your blood-oxygen saturation level goes below 90 percent, the doctor is legally allowed to make decisions for you. At Advance Base Camp on Everest, at only 21,200 feet (6,462 meters), the best we've ever consistently tested is 82 percent."
Eric Simonson, whose International Mountain Guides outfit has led many high-end and responsible expeditions on both flanks of Everest, believes the Sharp dilemma is rooted in mountaineering politics and economics. "I used to think the bureaucracy on the Nepal [south] side was BS," he says. "We have to pay a $10,000-per-person permit fee, a $4,000 garbage deposit, and we have to have a liaison officer. But now I see that as a kind of filter. It's led to accountability. And this year things were pretty reasonable on the south side.
"But the Tibet [north] side is a frickin' zoo. There's a huge conflict between the big, well-supported teams and the little ones that are basically drafting off the big ones [such as Sharp's Asian Trekking]. They don't help put in the fixed ropes, they don't have Sherpas, the guides don't stay with their clients, they don't have enough oxygen."
Guide Dan Mazur describes the tragicomic scene that unfolded on the morning of May 26 at 28,000 feet (8,534 meters) on the Northeast Ridge:
"I came around the corner and I saw, just a foot (0.3 meters) away from me, some yellow fabric. At first I thought it was a tent. Then I realized, Oh, it's a person.
"The guy looked really distressed. He was twitching and shivering. He stared at me, trying to focus. But that's when he said, 'I imagine you're surprised to see me here.'
"I must have had a really shocked look on my face. I answered, 'Yeah, I am surprised. Can you tell me how you got here?'
"'No.'
"'Can you tell me your name?'
"'Yes! I can tell you my name,' he answered. He seemed really happy that he could do that. 'My name is Lincoln Hall.' I'd never met the guy or heard of him. A second later he asked, 'Can you tell me how I got here?'"
As soon as Hall had started to descend from the summit on the morning of May 25, he apparently had been stricken with cerebral edema. A normally easygoing man, Hall became violent and obstructive, kicking his crampons wildly in the air, threatening to cut the fixed ropes, and insisting that he needed to return to the top. It took a monumental struggle by his four Sherpa companions to get him down to the Mushroom Rock. There, by late afternoon, Hall collapsed, and they became convinced that he was dead. One of the Sherpas allegedly poked Hall in the eyes to try to get a response—to no avail.
After the unconscious Hall managed to survive through the night, there were some who criticized the Sherpas for abandoning him. But according to Viesturs, "You can't blame the Sherpas for judging that Hall was dead. They don't have medical expertise. And they're squeamish around Westerners who get gravely ill—it spooks them."
Upon finding Hall on the ridge, Mazur's team gave him hot water, juice, and snacks, and hooked him up to a spare oxygen set they were carrying. "He started responding," Mazur recalls. "He stopped shivering. He became more mobile. But when we put his gloves on his hands, he kept taking them off. I said, 'It's really cold up here. You should keep your gloves on.' He was like a three-year-old.
"The day before, he must have just passed out from exhaustion. He kind of slept through part of the night. You can actually rest that way—it was the same deal with Beck Weathers. Exhausted, he passed out, got some rest, and when he woke up, he was feeling better. The human body is amazing."
Mazur quickly radioed Hall's 7 Summits Russian team leader Alexander Abramov at Base Camp. The night before, after the Sherpas had told Abramov that Hall was dead, the team had posted an announcement of the climber's demise in a dispatch to ExplorersWeb. Within the first hour after Hall's apparent death, a friend broke the news to Hall's wife, Barbara Scanlan—who then told her two teenage sons.
"When I called down to Base Camp," says Mazur, "it took them awhile to believe what we were telling them. They kept repeating, 'Are you saying he's still alive?'"
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!
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