![]() If the picket popped, the rope or carabiner would instantly snap from the weight of two dozen falling climbers, and they would all cartwheel down the face to their death. In one rocky section at least 20 people were attached to a single ratty rope anchored by a single badly bent picket pounded into the ice. Above me were more than a hundred slow-moving climbers. In the swirling darkness before midnight, I gazed up at the string of lights, climbers’ headlamps, rising into the black sky. Now, bumper to bumper at 8,230 meters (27,000 feet), we were forced to move at exactly the same speed as everyone else, regardless of strength or ability. ![]() But when we woke up this morning, we were stunned to see an endless line of climbers passing near our tents. The day before, at Camp III, our team had been part of a small group. Trudging nose to butt up the ropes that had been fixed to the steep slope, Panuru and I were wedged between strangers above us and below us. ![]() Ten minutes later we stepped around another body, her torso shrouded in a Canadian flag, an abandoned oxygen bottle holding down the flapping fabric. The dead climber was on his side, as if napping in the snow, his head half covered by the hood of his parka, goose down blowing from holes torn in his insulated pants. An hour above high camp on the Southeast Ridge of Everest, Panuru Sherpa and I passed the first body. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |