Rising Read online

  Jane’s braids stream like windsocks as she directs the kitchen set-up. James and Chris struggle to align the mess tent according to her instructions, their hoods slapping at their faces as they fight to peg down the billowing canvas. When the tent is ripped from their grip, Chris leaps after it and splays himself over top of it to keep it anchored. Dave is retrieving supplies from a fifty-gallon plastic barrel and shouts at Jane to remind him what she has asked for. Dan wrestles to hold a tent in place while Albi aims tent poles at the sleeves. Jim helps where he can, darting between one fray and another as if entering and exiting double-dutch skipping ropes.

  A white suit sails past like a disembodied ghost. I look up to see Laurie, dressed in a one-piece painter’s suit, trying to hand out the disposable garments so we can protect our clothing from the airborne silt. In these one-size-fits-all suits ballooning with wind, we look like astronauts—robotic and slow moving. And Everest may as well be the moon as I strain to imagine doing anything more difficult than this simple task of setting up camp. This seems more like a place where people might briefly step out of their vehicle, take a picture to prove they have been here and then drive off—not like a place that will be our home for the next two and a half months.

  Our frenzied activity winds down as twilight approaches. Exhausted, we sit folded over our knees on the floor of the mess tent with our heads in our hands. I’m thinking we might just curl up right where we are for the night and go to sleep hungry. But Jane bustles. We follow her movements like dogs on the kitchen floor as she forages for food, pots, pans and utensils in the chaos of boxes and barrels and conjures a chowder from canned clams, milk, sweetened condensed milk, spices and potatoes. It seems a miracle. This is one strong woman.

  After dinner I lead Jane to the tent staked out for us. She turns to me at the door and says, “God, that was hard. Everyone was done for the day. And then it was time for me to pull the rabbit out of the hat. So there I am, scrambling to throw something together for thirteen starving people, and I can’t find the ovens I packed. I looked in every single box and barrel! How am I going to cook without them? This is what I’ve come to do, all I know how to do. What if I can’t?”

  “I’m sorry, Jane,” I say, feeling like a block of wood for not noticing, not helping. “I think we’re all asking ourselves that same question about now. We’ve all come to do what we know how to do here. What if we can’t? You’re not alone.” I put my hand on her shoulder and tell her I’ll help her look again in the morning. Then I hand her one of the water bottles I have filled with boiling water to keep us warm into the night. The hard lines on her face melt as Jane wraps her hands around the warmth. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and sighs—allowing a pause to absorb the single moment of luxury in that long day. This woman has more feelings than I do, and shows them. Will it be a strength or a weakness here?

  * * *

  The next morning I stand beside the piles of boxes and duffle bags, watching the trucks drive away. As the sound of engines fades, the whistle of wind amplifies the emptiness of this barren land. The only hint of life here is a few sprigs of dead grass poking up through rubble and patches of snow. Seven two-person dome tents now stand on this lonely patch of ground, surrounding the larger white canvas mess tent and the smaller addition attached to it that will be used to cook in. Another small group of tents, belonging to our Chinese officials, sits about a hundred metres away from ours. And a short walk leads to a latrine that looks like a sentry box set among boulders.

  We pick at the piles through the day, but mostly we lie around listless. And it’s no wonder; it will take us days more to adapt. And even then, we can’t hope to ever function at full capacity at this altitude or higher.

  By the third day in this new world, our appetites and our sleep have improved and our headaches abated. Another team is due to arrive any day now, and Jim asks for volunteers to hike up the valley and stake our claim for Camp One. This camp will be the first of six on the mountain. We will have to share our Basecamp and Camp One with one other team, and Jim is eager to get first dibs on the best spot. My hand shoots up along with Dave’s.

  The two of us set off late that morning to hike about nine kilometres up the valley and three hundred metres higher. We lose sight of Everest as we gain the lateral moraines running parallel to the Rongbuk Glacier. We won’t see the mountain again until we round the bend of Changtse, the peak immediately north of Everest. Dave is ahead at first as we pick our way along faint trails, and the way his lanky frame flows in a languid dip and bob as he walks is familiar. Including Dave, I have worked and climbed with five of the eleven men on our team. I know them all well enough to recognize their stride from afar. To amuse ourselves on the endless stretches homeward bound, my friend and co-instructor Marni and I used to imitate each of them walking and bust our guts laughing. James splays his hands and feet, and positions his palms face down as if he is pressing on air. Except on the steepest ground, Albi turns one foot or the other sideways, in an ever-switching side step, to always get one foot flat on terra firma. Laurie walks with a jaunty swagger, and Dwayne, as if he’s stalking prey. Their gaits are as indelible as a signature, and my knowing them is an intimacy I feel grateful for but don’t dare utter aloud. It is a private comfort.

  Although I worked with Dave for years, I had never climbed with him until a year ago when we agreed, as one of the conditions of getting on this expedition, to climb with every Everest team member in advance of the Everest climb. We met up in the Peruvian Andes and spent a week on steep ground learning whether we would wait, retreat or lean in under threat, which are all the right calls at particular times.

  Dave is no stranger to difficult decisions. On an expedition to the south side of Everest four years ago, he along with Jim, James, Dwayne and Laurie and the rest of their team had to make a hard choice, and a shadow crosses him when I ask about it now.

  “The decisions we had to make then still haunt me,” he says. “And, well, let’s just say I’ve come back to try doing it right this time and put that trip behind me.”

  I know “doing it right this time” is what drives the five of them, especially Jim. Where some consider Canada’s first ascent of Everest a success, Jim considers it a debacle. The twenty-six-member team was rife with politics and conflict. Three Sherpa and one Canadian died in two separate accidents in the notoriously crevassed and avalanche-prone Khumbu Icefall. Each man struggled to come to terms with the deaths and with the decision of whether to leave the mountain or stay on. They had to choose between their loyalty to fellow teammates, the pull of the summit and their principles. Regardless of who remained and who left, I admired their integrity and couldn’t help but wonder how I would respond if I were in their position.

  Dave, Jim, James, Dwayne and Laurie are the nucleus of our new team and have picked their teammates, strategy and the route carefully this time. I feel the weight of their hopes and losses. And I reel with thoughts of how we have all arrived with our own histories, motives and expectations. “Well,” I say to Dave, “it feels like a privilege to be with you guys here, now.”

  The beauty of talking while walking on uneven ground is how we must keep our eyes on our feet and sometimes reveal more than we would when looking one another in the eye. Our conversation drifts between what may happen here in the next two months and what we have left behind. Dave has left a new career as a teacher and his wife and their young son. Most of the men have put their lives on hold for this trip. For some, who have spent years training and preparing for expeditions at the expense of loved ones and careers, their future is uncertain. I have left a single duffle bag of possessions, stunned parents and a budding romance with a new man. What will change in our time away, and who will wait for us?

  The afternoon sun penetrates the cold mid-March air and begins to thaw the surface of the moraine. A patch of glacial silt, wet clay-like sand, sucks at my boot soles. The sight of the perfect impressions
left behind by my footsteps brings to mind a child pressing her hand into freshly poured cement and imagining someone discovering the record of her existence years later. I think about those who have trod over this hallowed ground before me. Did they brim with wonder as I do? What will this place make of us, or take from us? Will we all come home?

  Five hours of slow walking brings us to the bend of Changtse and the location for our Camp One. Everest, hidden by the ridge of Changtse since we began this morning, is now visible, rearing up at the head of the valley, about six kilometres away. We catch glimpses of its North Face through scudding clouds: chrome shields of ice, ribbons of snow woven through striated black rock, and horizontal slices of yellow sandstone. A distant roar, the sound of the jet stream colliding with the summit pyramid, is constant—and so powerful it reverberates in my bones.

  We shuck our packs and sit atop them to graze on nuts and chocolate bars and guzzle water. From our viewpoint on the moraine above the valley floor, we see the full extent of the glacier stretching from Everest to Basecamp. The section between here and Basecamp is mostly concealed by rubble, but here the glacier transitions to a kilometre-wide swath of ice pinnacles that lies between us and the 6,700-metre-high Lingtren on the other side of the valley. These strange formations jut upward like shark teeth, some as high as ten-storey buildings. We puzzle over how we will navigate through that seemingly impenetrable maze of ice to reach Everest in the days to come.

  Our pack animals are due to arrive any day now, and we picture shuttling loads of gear on their backs and ours so there will be enough supplies to support our advance another day up the valley to the base of Everest. But right now, my head aches and I gasp for air just sitting still. Somewhere below, ice blocks crack, topple and grumble to rest. Their impact should be imperceptible but I feel the earth tremble. Or is it me?

  Chapter 2

  Neighbours

  Weather presents like moods on this mountain—powerful and pervasive. The bluster that met us on the day we arrived had me wondering whether I could bear this place. Now, just a few days later, it is as calm as a benign smile. I feel the warmth of the sun on my back as we stand outside our tents at Basecamp sorting supplies into loads to carry up to the higher camps. But any sense of peace I feel this morning vaporizes when someone shouts, “Incoming!”

  I sink in despair as I see the string of vehicles rolling up the valley. It has to be the American team. They opted to stay a few extra days in Shigatse to acclimatize while we pushed on to get to Basecamp first and claim the best site. Part of me had begun to believe they might never come—it would be a miracle—but hope has served me better than dread in the short term. Another part of me bristles, ready to defend my territory. The road leads right past our camp, so of course they will stop and say hello. As the whining of engines grows nearer, I move farther away and keep my head down and on my work.

  Gravel crunches under tires, doors creak open and slam shut, and shouts of greetings and laughter between our teams ring out. Diesel fumes cut through the pure air. Instinct forces my head up when I hear his voice. My eye finds the curve of his broad swimmer’s shoulders amidst the group of ball-capped Americans. Just then, Carlos raises his gaze as if he’s caught my scent. I drop my head. But, still, I steal glances. Annie Whitehouse, the only woman on their team, stands among them.

  I had met Annie the week before at the crowded arrivals baggage carousel in the Chengdu airport. The Chinese Mountaineering Association arranged for our teams to arrive at the same time—eleven of them and thirteen of us. I was behind Annie when I overheard her ask a teammate about the Canadian woman climber. I was tempted to shrink back, but why delay the inevitable?

  I had stepped forward and introduced myself. When I offered my hand, I noticed that I was much taller than her. I’d felt like a cat with its tail standing straight up and all fluffed out, sizing up its opponent.

  My small-minded smugness was short-lived as Carlos burst in. “Hey, Sharon! So I guess you two have already met, huh?” Before I could withdraw, he hugged me. Then he stepped back and draped his arm across Annie’s shoulders.

  I’d looked on, paralyzed, until Jane’s voice broke the spell. “Come on,” she’d said. “They’re loading our bags.”

  I can’t stop myself from looking at them now as they chat idly by the jeeps. I snatch up a bag and carry it into the mess tent. I cover my ears to shut out their voices and pace out the minutes until they leave. Jim comes over when I step outside, and we stand together watching their vehicles crawl up the valley, straining and bumping over braided streambeds and rock piles.

  Jim puts voice to our thoughts. “So what do you want me to do here?”

  “Carlos is my problem,” I say.

  “No, you’re wrong there. Carlos is our problem if he is going to affect your performance.”

  I pull my elbows in tight and drop my face into my hands. Carlos and I had been lovers, and a strong climbing team on mountains all over the world for years. But personal ambitions grew to eclipse devotion to our relationship. We had both been responsible for embarrassing displays of volatility: jealousies, betrayals, holes kicked through doors, shame and in the end, a broken heart—mine.

  Everyone on the team knows about us but respects my privacy. My reaction to Carlos’s arrival exposes me. Humiliates me. And it opens a door. Jim reaches through and puts his arm around me. “They’re not going to go away, Woody. I suggest you harness some of that rage to get yourself to the top—first.”

  There is an ongoing, highly publicized race to be the first American woman to reach the top of Everest. Annie is among the few who have already tried once. This time she is with a much smaller team that includes Carlos, who summited Everest in 1983, and another well-known and accomplished climber, Todd Bibler.

  The Americans stop about four hundred metres up the valley and get out to inspect their campsite. With my eyes still fixed on them, I say, “This isn’t going to be a race, Jim.”

  “Don’t worry. Once we’re on the mountain, you won’t see them anymore.”

  “Well then,” I say, “get me climbing, but no race—of any kind. And not a word to the media about my personal life. They’ll turn this climb into a circus.”

  “You have my word on the press, but—” Jim points up the valley, where wisps of cloud stream like silk prayer scarves from the summit of Everest. He puts his other hand on my shoulder and looks at me. “Becoming the first North American woman to reach the top of that mountain is another matter.”

  The Americans start unloading their truck and Jim moves to block my view of them. He grips my shoulders. “Are you listening? Carlos is history and this is the present! Don’t let him get to you. Remember what you’ve come for. You’re with the boys and we’re going climbing. You’re more than ready for this, but I can’t do it for you. What I can do is let Carlos know he isn’t welcome in our camp.”

  We stand quietly for a while, Jim’s arm draped over my shoulder and mine around his waist. I hadn’t expected him to care about my private and embarrassing little drama. And he doesn’t. But it heartens me to discover that he does care about something much larger—and about inspiring me to want that goal. I have a friend and a definite leader in this titan of a man.

  I feel myself rising to Jim’s resolve. Our team is among the 3 per cent of expeditions that will attempt one of the more technical of a dozen other routes on the mountain. Our objective is the West Ridge Direct. The Americans’ approach is as bold as ours: a lean team and budget, no Sherpa and a difficult route—the Great Couloir on the North Face of Everest. Our strategies are similar but for two exceptions: we have an on-site leader, and our route has never been climbed from the Tibetan side. Having Jim, by far, is our most significant difference.

  * * *

  Within the same week, a Spanish team attempting the Northeast Ridge arrives to complete the neighbourhood. This time I line up with Jane and Jim to welcome
the caballeros. Some ride in on the back bumpers of their one-ton pickup trucks; the rest sit atop the loads, all of them laughing and shouting back and forth. They roll to a stop and doff their hats as we exchange introductions while their Chinese Mountaineering Association liaison officer and their translator remain in the vehicle looking straight ahead, seemingly resigned to their sentence in this godforsaken place.

  One of the Spaniards flashes a smile, nodding at Jane and me as he speaks in rapid-fire Spanish to his friends. The group laughs and elbows one another before Mariano, their team physician, translates. “Jerónimo says”—he looks skyward for the English words—“it is a delightful surprise to discover a sparkle of women among dull and uncivilized men. I think he speaks for all of us, as we are all delighted to see, ah, I mean, meet you.” I eye this Jerónimo, and he smiles back.

  “Bueno!” one of them shouts, eager to get going, and drums his hands against the side of the truck. Chickens startle and squawk in their crate as the vintage trucks cough and roar to a start. The Spaniards shout, “Vámonos, vámonos!” and resume their cavorting as they roll away.

  Hardly dull and uncivilized, I think. I lean into Jane and say, “I think we’ve just received an invitation.”

  “We should at least go and check out how those chickens fare,” she replies.

  Jim adds, “Well, well, isn’t the presence of such lively and charming Europeans a contrast to us cretins. A pleasant surprise for you girls, eh?”

  “Indeed,” says Jane.

  * * *

  With climbers, Chinese Mountaineering Association liaison officers, translators and helpers included, all told about forty of us occupy the Rongbuk Valley in the spring and pre-monsoon season of 1986. Over the next two and a half months, our three teams will share resources. We’ll exchange food for rope with the Americans, and share the cost of the Spaniards’ telex machine, which will become one of our two forms of communication with the outside world. Once a week, Jim will exchange telex messages with our media and expedition liaison, Jane Sharpe, who works for our major sponsor, the Continental Bank, in its Toronto head office. She will relay our progress to our friends and loved ones, the media and bank employees, who are on their own climb in the finance world.