Part II
THE MOUNTAIN
Everest is still 40 miles away but already it dominates not only the skyline of white-shrouded Himalayan high peaks but the sky itself. I suspect that the Deacon has brought a British flag to plant at the summit, but I see now that the mountain already bears its own pennant—a mist of white cloud and spindrift roiling in the west-to-east wind for 20 miles or more, from right to left, a white plume swirling above all the lesser summits to the east of Everest’s snow massif.
The five of us, counting Pasang, have trekked ahead of the porter-Sherpas and yaks and climbed a low hill to the east of the pass, and while Pasang stands a few yards behind us and below the high point of the pass, holding the reins of J.C.’s little white pony, which is spooked by the winds here on Pang La—the last pass before Rongbuk and Everest—the four of us have to lie on the boulder-strewn ground or be blown away.
We lie unceremoniously on our right sides, like Romans on their couches at a feast, the Deacon furthest from me, propping himself on his right elbow as he attempts to hold his military binoculars steady with his left hand; then there is Reggie, who is lying prone, her boot soles looking like inverted exclamation marks, using both hands to prop a naval-type telescope against a low boulder in front of her; then Jean-Claude, sitting more upright than the rest of us and squinting southward through his snow goggles; finally me, reclining on my right elbow and somewhat behind the other three.
We’re all wearing wide-brimmed hats against the Tibetan sunlight, ferocious at this altitude—burning and peeling has been my bane the last weeks, as evidently it had been Sandy Irvine’s—and while the three of us men have simply jammed the hats as far down on our heads as we can in order to outwit the wind, Reggie is wearing a strange fedora—broad-brimmed on the left, front, and back, buttoned up on the right, which has an adjustable strap that goes under her chin and holds the hat tight. She said she had picked it up during a visit to Australia years ago.
We call out the names of mountains to one another like children exclaiming over Christmas presents: “Moving to the west, that tall one is Cho Oyu, twenty-six thousand nine hundred and six feet…” “Gyachung Kang, twenty-five thousand nine hundred ninety feet…” “That peak throwing its shadow on Everest is Lhotse, twenty- seven thousand and…I forget…” “Twenty-seven thousand eight hundred ninety feet.” “To the east there, Chomo Lonzo, twenty-five thousand six hundred and four feet…”
“And Makalu,” says the Deacon. “Twenty-seven thousand seven hundred sixty-five feet.”
“My God,” I whisper. One could take the highest peaks of America’s Rocky Mountains and they would be lost in the foothills of these white-fanged giants. The cols—the saddles—that were the low points connecting Everest and the other peaks started above 25,000 feet—3,000 feet higher than any mountain in North America.
Usually, according to Reggie and the Deacon, members of previous expeditions had been able to catch glimpses of Everest at other times during the trek west toward Shekar Dzong—especially if one was willing to detour up the Yaru Valley west of Tinki Dzong and do a little climbing—but we’ve spent the last five weeks trekking under thick, low clouds, often against freezing rain and blowing snow, so this sunny day atop Pang La is our first view of the mountain.
Reggie beckons me forward, and I lie prone next to her on the reddish soil and hard rocks—a strangely intimate moment—and she steadies the barrel of the telescope as I peer through it.
“My God.” These seem to be the only syllables I’m capable of this day.
Even at my young age—I’d turned 23 somewhere in Sikkim on April 2—I’ve had enough mountaineering experience to know that a mountain that seems unclimbable from a distance can reveal routes, perhaps even easy routes, once one gets close enough to it or actually on it. But the summit of Everest looks…just too large, too tall, too white, too windy, too infinitely far away.
Jean-Claude has crawled up to use the Deacon’s binoculars.
“You can’t see the North Col or the high point on the East Rongbuk Glacier from here because of the intervening hills,” says the Deacon. “But look along the North East Ridge. Can you see the First Step and Second Step nearing the summit?”
“All I can see is an endless plume of spindrift,” says J.C. “What must those winds be like
Instead of answering that, the Deacon says, “You can clearly see the Great Couloir—or what they’re calling Norton’s Couloir now—stretching down to the left from beneath the Summit Pyramid.”
“Ah, yes…,” breathes J.C.
It’s impossible for me to tell through Reggie’s slightly jiggling telescope whether or not that couloir is deep in snow and a pure avalanche deathtrap or not.
“The strong spring winds are good,” Reggie says, her voice almost lost beneath the Pang La wind hooting and whistling between boulders. “They clear away the monsoon and winter snows. They will give us a better chance of finding Percy.”
Pasang’s powerful voice comes up to us. “The lead porters are approaching the summit of the pass behind us.”
Reluctantly, eyes watering from both the wind and the fatigue of squinting so hard at the distant peak in the unrelenting light, all four of us stand, brush dust and pebbles from our heavy layers of goose down and wool, turn our backs to the wind from the west, and walk—half-staggering in the gusts now at our backs—toward the narrow trail leading across the saddle of this pass.
Sikkim had been all hothouse flowers, jungles of rhododendrons, air almost too thick and humid to breathe, steaming overgrown valleys, camping in clearings that weren’t really clearings, salting leeches off our bodies at the end of long days hiking through wet vegetation and avoiding the
“British expeditions stay in the
“So do hundreds of other Englishmen,” said Reggie. “Trade representatives going north to Gyantse. Officials of the Raj. Naturalists. Cartographers. Diplomats.”
“But we’re none of those things,” said the Deacon. “One look at our climbing gear and miles of rope and the servants will send the word about us forward into Tibet.”
“How?” asked Jean-Claude.
The Deacon removed his pipe and smiled thinly. “We’re not quite as far off all maps as we feel, gentlemen. Even here in Sikkim. The Raj has run telephone and telegraph wires all the way north to Gyantse, across even the high passes.”
“It’s true,” said Reggie. “We won’t be off the main north-south trade route until we turn west toward Kampa
