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The Everest Decade: 1996
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Ed Viesturs on 1996: Turn Around, Guys!
America's preeminent high-altitude mountaineer dissects the decisions made during 1996—the deadliest season in Everest's history.
Adapted from No Shortcuts to the Top, by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts; to be published in October 2006 by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
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On May 23 our IMAX team climbed to the top on a perfect day. David got footage all the way to the summit, and the film he made, called simply Everest, became the highest grossing IMAX movie of all time. After having spent eight solid months on the project, both the film and the climb were important to us. But we also wanted to send a message that you can climb Everest and still live to talk about it.
I reached the summit at 10 a.m. Without bottled oxygen, I was too cold to linger and wait for the others, so I started the descent alone.
On the way down, just short of the South Summit, I stopped to spend some time with Rob. Before that day, May 23, nobody had been by the spot where Rob had died on May 12. Now he was lying on his side. His upper body was drifted over with snow, covering his head. One arm and a leg were visible. His glove was off, and his hand looked like a big blue swollen claw. There were oxygen bottles piled around him, as if he'd tried to improvise some kind of wind shelter.
Strangely enough, there were three or four ice axes planted in the snow near Rob. I took a photo of them, and later we determined that one of them had belonged to Andy Harris. What happened to him remains as much of a mystery as what happened to Doug Hansen. Neither man's body has been found. Perhaps they both simply stepped off the ridge and fell down the gigantic Kangshung Face. But then why were the axes there? You don't let go of your ax, no matter what.
During the ten days since the disaster, word had trickled up the mountain that Rob's wife, Jan, in New Zealand, and Scott's wife, Jean, in Seattle, wanted us to try to retrieve a single keepsake from each of the bodies. Jan wanted Rob's old Rolex watch, which he wore everywhere. And Jean knew that Scott always wore his wedding ring on a leather cord around his neck, tucked inside his shirt.
But when I got to Rob's body, I couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself roll him over, dig for the watch, and take it off his wrist. I just didn't want to disturb him.
Instead, I simply sat next to Rob, taking in the scene, trying to figure out how things had played out during the storm. This wasn't just a dead body next to me—it was someone I had known really well, with whom I had shared many expeditions. Those moments sitting there were like a funeral, with me the sole mourner. I told myself, OK, this is the last time I'll ever see Rob. This was not a place where I could hang out very long—I needed to keep moving. So I said goodbye to Rob and headed on down.
Over the previous ten days, I'd thought a lot about how composed Rob had remained throughout his ordeal. It was hard for me to imagine what it must have been like to sit stranded at the South Summit and face your last hours alive. Rob was smart enough and experienced enough to know that during his second night there, he would fall asleep and not wake up. Yet over the radio, he assured Jan that all would be well. That was not denial; it was, instead, I think, an act that sprang from a magnificent strength of character.
Two hours later, I sat down again, this time next to Scott's body. He was lying mostly on his back, with one leg flexed, the knee sticking up. His upper torso and head were covered by the backpack, encircled with rope that Anatoli had strung to fix it there.
Once again, I couldn't bring myself to disturb the body of a friend, to rummage through his clothing to retrieve the wedding ring on the cord around his neck. If it had been someone I didn't know, perhaps I could have done it. As I sat there it struck me forcibly that while Rob had been in communication till his last hours, talking to Jan and others, who could in turn talk to him, Scott had died the loneliest of deaths. His last hours had been full of nothingness.
I glanced around, then looked again at the body of my friend, frozen into the slope. I spoke aloud. "Hey, Scott," I said, "how you doing?" Only the sound of the wind answered me.
"What happened, man?"
Continue Part I: 1996: Turn Around, Guys!: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Part II: 2006: The Mad Season >>
Everest Map: The 2006 Cast of Characters >>
Everest Main Page >>
More on Ed Viesturs:
Podcast interview with Ed Viesturs: Download it now >>
Best of Adventure 2006: Ed Viesturs was named the magazine's first Adventurer of the Year >>
There+Back: Ed Viesturs became the first American to climb all the world's 8,000-meter (26,248-foot) peaks when he summited Annapurna >>
Q+A: 8,000-Meter Man: Contributing Editor Michael Shnayerson profiles Ed Viesturs >>
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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