Chapter Forty-Two
The two times I’d climbed Everest without oxygen had been no less than excruciating. For seventy-two hours straight, my lungs had been on fire. Even resting in my sleeping bag was no relief once we were higher than twenty-five-thousand feet. With every step—every single one—it was a fight not to give up. Not to collapse into the cusp of suffocation.
Though I had plenty of oxygen flowing through my mask as A-Team baby-stepped from Camp Three to Camp Four, I was suffocating just as I had on my climbs without oxygen. A mental suffocation as I worried about Luke and second-guessed my Tanzania decision.
I walked in a trance, my mind locked on Luke. With one step it was doubt. The next, doom. Then grief, denial, love. Then back to doubt.
There was no talk about Luke’s condition over the radio. Jim would be working directly with the Everest ER doctors at this point and communicating on a different channel. I hadn’t been able to figure out which one, and it wasn’t for lack of effort.
All I knew was that, as of this morning, Luke was sleeping and was not in the hyperbaric chamber. But had he been in one last night? Which camp was he in now? Was he going all the way down to Base Camp today? Was he truly strong enough to walk out on his own?
I kept a careful eye on Johnsmith and Phil as we reached the Yellow Band, a steep limestone section that was bare rock even in high-snow years. As we ascended, our crampons screeched against the rock and ice like fingernails on a chalkboard.
We moved out of the band and went off the fixed lines to slowly crunch across the long, wide plateau toward Camp Four. Phil was steady today, and for once he wasn’t the last one in the whole company: Juan was, because of his blisters.
Ahead of me, Phil, Glissading Glen, and Johnsmith were stopped, looking up. Without looking myself, I knew we’d reached the Geneva Spur, which is a large stretch of patchy black rock that looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is.
It wasn’t long after reaching the top of the Geneva Spur that my altimeter beeped, marking our arrival at twenty-five-thousand feet. We’d officially crossed into the Death Zone. Without supplemental oxygen in the Death Zone, most of us would be dead in twenty-four hours, assuming we didn’t succumb to hypothermia first. By thirty-six hours, all of us would be.
As we reached the slight downslope that led to the South Col—and location of Camp Four—the guys stopped again. This time in awe. It was the first view of the summit of Everest they’d had since the trek in, unless they’d hiked Kala Pattar. I didn’t spoil the moment by telling them that it wasn’t the true summit they were seeing but rather the South Summit, which, at these guys’ pace, was two hours of climbing away from the true summit.
As soon as we entered Camp Four, I sat with Phil while he waited for the Sherpas to finish pitching the A-Team tents. Because of the high winds, the Camp Four tents aren’t pitched until we arrive.
“I know the hardest is yet to come, but I can feel it,” Phil said, his eyes fixed on the South Summit. “We are so close. I know I have it in me.”
“You’ve just got to keep it steady. As long as you stay ahead of that cutoff you’ll be fine.”
Phil took off a glove and pulled a tiny action figure out of his pocket. He handed it to me.
“Is this Sir Edmund Hillary?”
“Yes. It was my brother’s. We’ve been armchair mountaineers since we were boys. Read every book out there on Mount Everest. My brother’s not alive anymore, but I’m going to leave this on the summit for him.”
I examined the toy. “That’s a really nice gesture,” I said. “We’ll make sure to get a picture of that for your family.”
He shook his head. “There is no family. I’m the last one left.”
I had no idea. “I’m sorry.”
“It was cancer. From a closed-down aluminum plant near the house where I grew up. My parents and two sisters went first. When my brother and I were diagnosed, we said that if we got through it, we’d climb Mount Everest.”
Phil paused to catch his breath.
“Don’t exert yourself,” I said.
“My brother didn’t make it, but I pulled through somehow. Took me fifteen years to be strong enough to come on this trip, and I could have never paid for it if not for the victims’ compensation monies from the aluminum company.”
What he must have gone through! I held the well-loved antique toy in my mitten for another minute before handing it back.
“That plant took everything away,” he said. “But I have this.”
Phil had always been our weak link. Even on his best day, it was a question of whether he’d be going fast enough to make the cutoff time on the final day. He’d worked so hard, and now I understood why. It wasn’t just his profession and quietness that had set him apart from the others. It was his focus and determination. He needed this badly. I would help him however I could tomorrow.
The Sherpas called up to us; Phil’s tent was done. He tried to stand but was too tired and fell back to his bottom. I gave him a hand.
Once Phil was in his tent, I went to the twins’ tent for our final guides’ meeting before the summit push. “Turnaround time is noon,” Jim reminded us on the radio. “No matter the circumstance, even if you’re two hundred yards short of the summit, you’re going to turn your client around.”
We reviewed the conditions at each of the trouble spots between here and the summit, as well as the latest weather report, which looked good. Tyler assigned me to be with Glissading Glen and Phurba to be with Phil.
“Do you mind if I pair with Phil?” I asked Tyler.
Phurba looked relieved when Tyler said yes. Despite working on Everest for three previous seasons, he’d yet to have the opportunity to summit, and not being paired with the weak link meant his chances were much better. I was happy for him. I no longer cared about my own personal chances of summiting. It wouldn’t matter in Tanzania.
After the meeting, I went to the ladies’ tent where I found Doc and Claudia haggard, to put it nicely. No one was interested in talking. They were barely functioning, even with the oxygen flowing. The three of us forced down energy gels and split the last two Loftycakes Luke had brought me in Tengboche that I’d saved especially for this day. Sadly, at this altitude, the cakes tasted no different than eating a piece of crumpled notebook paper. I got the stove going to make us some warm broth and tea. That was more palatable.
It was still light outside, but it was time to attempt to get a few hours of sleep before nine p.m., when my watch alarm would go off for our ten p.m. departure. I took some painkiller for my shoulder that throbbed from the extra weight of the oxygen tanks in my pack. I called Dad on the radio, and over channel ninety-nine asked him to track down Luke and make sure he was getting the medical care he needed.
Falling asleep was going to be next to impossible with all the adrenaline in my body. I tried breathing exercises. I tried mantras. I tried meditation. But nothing was stopping the twenty-minute time blocks that were slipping through my fingers each time I gave in to the urge to check my watch. Giving up, I fished my knife out of my pack. I ran my thumb over the ridges of the bracelet like a rosary, saying a silent prayer for Luke.
It was such a cruel twist of fate, me being up here without him. We’d been able to break through so much to find our way to each other, only to have me let it disintegrate right in front of us.
“I love you, Luke,” I whispered aloud.