In the aftermath of the turbulent 2006 climbing
season, "That seems to be the default switch," says guide Eric Simonson sardonically. "The members themselves are incapable of rescuing one of their own, so they say, Well, we'll send the Sherpas up."
Thanks to climber Jamie McGuinness, however, one first-person story of the extraordinary events leading up to Lincoln Hall's rescue has been preserved. In Kathmandu in early June, McGuinness, the leader of the Project Himalaya team, interviewed Pemba Tenzing Sherpa, half in English and half in Nepali (in which McGuinness is fluent). Pemba's quiet telling forms a moving account of just what it means, high on Everest, to carry out a rescue operation that no Westerners seem willing or able to undertake themselves.
Pemba is a slight, round-faced, genial-looking man hailing from the Solu-Khumbu region. Only 29 years old, he has been on six Everest expeditions, always in the service of clients, and has summited three times. On May 25 he was teamed with Harry Kikstra, a Dutch co-leader of Abramov's huge 7 Summits team; his fellow Sherpa Pasang; and Thomas Weber, 41, a German climber whose eyesight deteriorated at altitude, leading to temporary blindness. Pemba was roped to Weber. "Ten minutes below the summit," Pemba later told McGuinness, "Thomas said, 'Pemba, I got problem. I can't see and my head is spinning badly.' So Harry and me, we say quick down, we go down." Pemba took off his own oxygen mask, regulator, and tank, and put them on the stricken German, whose supply was depleted. He also gave Weber all of his food and water.
Pemba got Weber down the notorious Second Step, at 28,300 feet (8,626 meters). "Then below the Second Step, Thomas said, 'Pemba, I will die, sorry,'" recalls the Sherpa. "He died quickly. It takes only five or ten minutes to die up there."
Without bottled oxygen Pemba felt extremely vulnerable himself. "Thomas had already died now," he told McGuinness. "I was very afraid, so I run down quickly." By this point Pemba was at risk of becoming snowblind, having forgotten to keep on his sunglasses during the complicated ascent. On his way down, still well above Camp III, he received a radio call from Abramov, reporting that another climber, Lincoln Hall, was in trouble just below the summit. In Pemba's telling, "Alex said, 'Oh, another problem up there. Please, Pemba, go up quickly.'"
The Sherpa had no oxygen and was nearly snow-blind, but he obeyed Abramov's plea. "I went up to below the summit," Pemba said, colossally understating a tremendous effort. "Below the snow part [the Snow Triangle, the last feature below the final summit ridge], I meet Lincoln. He is laying down up there. He is talking to himself, whatever he like. 'I want to go [back] up.'"
Hall was also trying to jump off the Kangshung Face. "I said, 'Lincoln, please, I don't want you to be like Thomas,'" Pemba recalled. "'Please, I beg you.'
"So I took him slowly, slowly down. I took about seven hours to get him down [to 28,000 feet (8,534 meters), where he was found the next day.]" Hall was not a cooperative victim, constantly removing his oxygen apparatus while threatening to jump off the ridge. Three other Sherpas—Lakcha Sherpa, Dorje Sherpa, and Dawa Tenzing Sherpa—met up with Pemba to help wrestle Hall down the precipitous ridge. The Second Step—a short vertical cliff at 28,300 feet (8,626 meters), to which a Chinese expedition had fixed a ladder in 1975—proved an almost insurmountable obstacle. As McGuinness translated Pemba's explanation in Nepali: "They belayed [Hall] down. First Pemba went down, then his friend lowered [Hall] down. Lincoln just leaned back and enjoyed the ride. Pemba was standing below and essentially caught him." But in this act, one of Hall's crampons punctured Pemba's down suit and gashed his leg, causing a severe wound.
At the Mushroom Rock, Hall collapsed completely. Pemba says Hall uttered the same phrase Weber did: "I am dying." The Sherpas stayed on, administering to the possibly comatose Hall, until they were convinced he was dead. At last, around 7:30 p.m., just as darkness was falling, the four Sherpas obeyed Abramov's radio injunction to push on down and save themselves.
By the next morning, utterly exhausted, Pemba had descended all the way to the North Col, at 23,180 feet (7,065 meters). There he was greeted by Abramov with the news that Hall had been discovered still alive. Unbelievably, the Russian leader ordered Pemba back up the mountain. In McGuinness's paraphrase, Abramov told Pemba, "You are strong, you are experienced, you're the best we've got. Go up and bring him down." It was only when Pemba showed Abramov his leg wound that the Russian relented, "Alex said, 'Oh, you must go down immediately to Base Camp and get that dressed.'"
Looking back on his ordeal—22 hours above Camp III without oxygen, almost snow-blind ("like chilies in my eyes"), trying to save two Western climbers on the verge of death—Pemba told McGuinness, "[Up there] I think I might die. I remembered my family and where I live. If I die, get the money [I am owed] and give it to my wife."
And yet a few days later, with classic self-effacement and magnanimity, Pemba spoke for his fellow Sherpas involved in the rescue. In Nepali he told McGuinness, "Once we got to Base Camp, after Lincoln had arrived, we forgot all the problems he had caused us."
During the disastrous and farcical spring climbing season of 2006, at least a few good things happened on Everest.
Continue reading Part II: 2006: The Mad Season: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Part I: Ed Viesturs: 1996: Turn Around, Guys! >>
Everest Map: The 2006 Cast of Characters >>
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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