Chapter 1
CHOMOLUNGMA
If I can count to one thousand, I can get through this.
1, 2, 3 …
I’m going for a walk. That’s it. Just a walk. A very long, very steep, potentially deadly walk up Lhotse Face, a four-thousand-foot vertical wall of blue ice rising from the Western Cwm.
The Valley of Silence.
My mind is anything but silent, and from where I stand, Lhotse is a slick, shimmering beast.
An alpine skyscraper.
Just before the wall is a bergschrund, a gaping crevasse where the glacier has cracked and pulled away from the mountain. The morning’s gluten-free oats sit heavy in my gut as I stare down into its immensity. Its wide mouth gapes, hungry.
Then a sound.
A glove falls and slips into the void. I watch it disappear and stare long after it’s gone, hoping it will magically re-emerge.
None of the other climbers says a word, and one by one we climb over a field of shaggy rocks and cross a ladder over the bergschrund.
I focus on the ropes. Two skinny lines snaking up the icy face of Lhotse. One for us, the climbers going up, the other for those descending. The ropes are no thicker than my thumb but will guide us up a vertical mile like a handrail on a flight of stairs. In my mind, they morph into velvet ropes leading us toward a mysterious, exclusive nightclub where both the dancers and the drinks are flowing. A blackout drunk experience is way less terrifying than this.
A few steps off the route, unclipped, and I would become the glove. A quick and quiet slip into a vast and endless death.
In other words, it’s all up from here.
17, 18, 19 …
Mike, the head guide, is leading us up Lhtose, followed by Danny and Brian, the fastest and strongest of the climbers, with Ang Dorjee close behind. Mark and I keep pace in the middle, our sweet spot, and bringing up the rear is Lydia Bradey, an Everest legend—the first woman to summit without oxygen. Rob, another member of our team, who had been struggling, wasn’t healthy enough to climb past Camp 2.
33, 34 …
At breakfast, Mike said it would take just under five hours to scale the Face. I extend the safety carabiner from my harness, then open the jumar and feed it with the first fixed rope on my left. Attached to the climbing harness that cradles my hips and upper thighs, the jumar is a hand brake, or a ratcheting handle, which slides up the rope one way and pulls taut when weight is applied. Slowly I begin to walk, sliding my jumar up the rope, pushing my fingers deep into the glove so I can feel what I’m gripping through the bulky material. My gloves are baggy as always. Elite mountaineering gear is still designed for men, and even the extra-small gloves gape around my hands.
I’ve learned to make do.
When I first started climbing, the jumar was a symbol. The thing that made me a “real climber.” A tool to master for entrance into the cool-kid climbers’ club. After a decade of climbing and reaching five of the Seven Summits—the tallest mountain on each continent—I’m still a nerdy kid trying to fit in, but the jumar is no longer a flashy piece of equipment. It’s an extension of me. My lifeline, my anchor, it doesn’t unclip unless I do.
I respect the jumar. I bow to the jumar.
And every time I feel its steel teeth bite down on rope, I let out a hushed yes.
55, 56, 57 …
Leveraging my ice axe like a cane, I chop it into the wall and kneel into the incline to stabilize myself. Walking in crampons—strap-on metal cleats—is a tedious art. They dig into the hardened snow and ice to provide traction. Luckily, I share the same short gait as most of the Sherpas, who have already climbed ahead to set up camp for the night. I space out my steps to hit the tiny ledges their boots have cut into the ice. Not having to chop into virgin ice saves a sliver of energy, and I’m hoarding whatever juice I can. Every step must be precise and mechanical.
Deep breath and exhale. Emotions are dangerous at this elevation. Focus. Count. 61. 62. No feelings. Count. 70. No emotions. Count. 84. 85.
We’re thirty-six hours from summit, I think. Two camps to go. I’d try to calculate the miles, but they mean nothing anymore. This high on the mountain, distance is abstract. Granular, even. Our days are measured in landmarks and elevation gain. Camp 3. 24,500 feet. Camp 4. Yellow Band. Geneva Spur. South Col. 26,300 feet. Altitude owns us. It’s hard to grasp what is near and what is far. Time expands and contracts. Perspective shifts quickly. Zoomed out, we’re ants in formation, tiny black dots pushing up the side of a colossal mountain range. But my field of vision is microscopic—all I see is the shimmer and the crumble of the wall I’m climbing at this very moment.
At this altitude, we’re higher than most birds will ever fly.
I wonder if birds do this. Get obsessed with height. Try to fly higher than each other.
93, 94, 92 …
Shit. Start again.
1, 2, 3 …
Somewhere behind this wall is the summit. Or is it above?
Why didn’t I memorize this route better?
Lhotse is the final obstacle before Camp 3 and where our oxygen tanks are waiting. Above 24,000 feet, the climb is a race against diminishing oxygen. This high, we rest, but we don’t recover. We are deteriorating. Strapped to our backs like newborns in a manta, the oxygen tanks will become our most precious cargo. Without them, we’d be done. Everyone except Lydia, maybe. The last chance for rescue is behind us, anyway. Helicopters don’t fly higher than Camp 2. Any kind of rescue now, even to bring back a dead body, has to be done step-by-step, on foot, down the ropes.
24, 25, 23 …
Shit. Again. Keep beginning again.
1, 2, 3 …
The wind is picking up.
The day’s usual banter and shit-talking have gone silent, replaced by baritone huffs and grunts. Everyone is focused on their next step.
“Rock!” Brian shouts suddenly from above. He swerves to the right as a basketball-sized rock tumbles down Lhotse.
Rock! Rock! Rock! The word echoes through us. We all swerve right. 22, 23, 24 … Another team slips quietly past on the descending rope, coming down from Camp 3. It’s unsettling to watch them descend while everyone else on the mountain is thinking up up up. It’s May 17. This is the summit window. Going down means something has gone wrong. As they pass, I realize I haven’t seen any other teams this morning. We’re the only ones on the Face.
Fifteen minutes later, the wind begins to whistle and groan.
“Ice!” hollers Ang Dorjee.
Ice.
Ice.
Ice.
Something isn’t right.
Halfway up, we hit a bulge, a dangerous rocky outgrowth covered in the ethereal sky-blue ice that forms when snow falls onto a glacier. The bulge is a beautiful icy scab we have to wriggle our bodies over while executing a complicated change of ropes.
Each fixed rope up Lhotse is about 150 feet long. At the end of a segment, we have to unclip our jumar from the climbing harness and attach it to the next rope. The moment between ropes is the most dangerous. It is a two-step process: you must always remain attached to the fixed line by at least one device to avoid slipping down the wall.
Being unclipped here is suicide.
I dig my crampons into the ice as hard as I can to keep my balance while clipping out. Just then, the wind starts to shriek, launching rocks the size of a gallon jug of water straight toward us. Shards break away from the wall and thud against my helmet. My goggles rattle. I kneel down and press my head against the Face. Up ahead, Camp 3, which I’d easily seen from this spot on our second rotation, is a blur. I squint to make it out, but the clouds are thick billows of cotton candy. A sight that would be sweet, beautiful even, anywhere else, but is not a good sign here.
We can survive the wisps of spun-sugar clouds that break away from the clump. Those are mild mini storms and pass fast. But if the whole cap descends on us, there’s nowhere to go. Up this high, scenery takes on a different meaning. Mystical cloud formations harbor avalanches, piles of whipped-cream snow are pocked underneath with icy fractures that might eat a leg or, worst case, an entire body.
Beauty and death are two sides of the same coin.
This morning, Mike predicted the sun was going to open up later. Instead, thick cloud caps descend on Lhotse, and before I can steady my feet on the wall, the wind’s shriek becomes a hollow scream. It blows divots into the marshmallow sleeves of my jacket. Thwaps against the rope. Whips the snow into icy tornadoes. Large hunks of ice and debris speed violently down the wall around us and disintegrate as they plummet hundreds of feet.
In every Everest disaster movie, this is the scene where people die.
Visibility approaches zero.
All I can see is the rope in front of me.
Praying the ground is solid, I step onto a rocky, exposed ridge where Camp 3 is supposed to be. I spot the first settlement of tents, where Ang Dorjee said our oxygen tanks would be waiting. Through frosted goggles, I see them—little silver and yellow cartridges lying in the snow like a pack of AAA batteries. Lifelines. My breath is ragged and thin. I stumble toward the tanks and fall into the group huddle. We wait for directions from the guides, but the wind swirls against us in wild icy dervishes, obliterating all sound. I strain to hear Mike, even though he looks to be shouting now. I don’t dare take off my neck gaiter and thick hood to hear him. Hypothermia hits instantly at this altitude.
“Grab your bottle and go!” Mike barks, and I hear his voice crack with panic. “Go, go, go! It’s getting worse, keep moving. We’re in a dangerous spot. Go, now!”
Over the last five weeks, we’ve been training for this moment, for our summit push. Mike has been stern, strict even, but never ever has he lost his cool. Hearing the panic in his voice launches me into a frenzy, shuttling me back to girlhood, to Lima, to home, where my father motivated us by screaming. Following orders was a nonissue in my house. There was no discussion, only repercussion. I always did as I was told.
I rush to scoop up my oxygen tank and move robotically through the steps as fast as I can.
Step One. Open backpack.
Step Two. Wedge oxygen tank into center.
Step Three. Connect regulator and mask to the tank.
Step Four. Tighten regulator so no oxygen is wasted.
My heart is pounding. I can hear my breath against the buff covering my neck and chin. Something in my mask still isn’t clicking. I fiddle around with the regulator, but my teammates are moving already, so I strap my mask on, unsure if oxygen is flowing, and follow them into the blizzard. Camp 3 is a shallow bowl perched on the edge of the mountain with a bird’s-eye view—usually. Our tents are pitched at the far end of the camp, another 500 feet up the embankment. Up ahead, I see a shadow breaking trail through the blizzard. I can’t see if it’s Danny or Brian. Flutters of snow become sheets and then, finally, a solid colorless wall.
The sky is bleached.
Fear flares through my body, hot and uncontrollable. Panic is deadly at altitude. I know this. It steals your oxygen, poisons your limbs. I’ve trained for moments just like this. But this knowledge can’t override the adrenaline shuttling through my veins.
As we pass the first settlement of tents, there’s a final traverse to cross. A thin ledge of rock we have to perch ourselves onto and then clip into a rope overhead. My mask is foggy, its airway thick and dull. When I draw a breath, I feel like I’m suffocating instead of pulling in oxygen. Maybe I didn’t start the regulator? Damn. I stop and pull my backpack off to check.
“Silvia, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lydia snaps. “You’re in a dangerous spot. Keep moving!”
From the men, brusqueness is expected, but from Lydia, it’s jarring. I’m gasping for air, so I rip off my mask and gulp down a thin breath. Hunks of debris slam down the wall fast and frantic, some exploding into deadly splinters, others thudding and blooming like tiny bomb clouds in front of my face. I grab the rope and walk toe-point, slowly—one foot in front of the other. I can’t see anything but my hands grasping the ropes immediately above me, and then, suddenly, those end too. Through brief gaps in the swirling snow, I see the next fixed line. I have to clip out.
My toes clench inside my boots like they’re trying to cling to the mountainside. Unlocking my jumar, I hold one long terrified breath. For a moment, I’m untethered and alone.
What if I just stop?
Just lean back and let go right now? Plummet into the void with the ice and scree. For the first time it clicks; I understand that not only has death always been on the table, but maybe that’s why I’m here.
More ice, endless ice it seems, falls around me at warp speed. I imagine I’m next. No one would hear or see me. I’d just be here and then I’d be gone. Easy. Maybe it would be easier to end it like this. Go out with a bang.
They say years that end in six are bad luck for climbing Everest. Both 1996 and 2006 were devastating for the climbing community when storms killed dozens of climbers and Sherpas. Some of their corpses are still black and frozen on the mountain, too cold to ever properly rot.
But it’s 2016 and here I am.
Back in Peru when my mother was battling cancer, I went to see a psychiatrist named Dr. Hugo. He determined that climbing Everest, for me, was a death wish. Isn’t it for everyone? I laughed, dismissing him as a typical Peruvian machista. Of course he’d balk at my ambition. I’d been underestimated by men like him my entire life. But maybe Dr. Hugo was right. Maybe I’m here to let the mountain do for me what I can’t do for myself.
By the time I click my jumar into the last stretch of rope, my skull is a symphony. The tat-tat-tat of my heart ricochets against its bony insides. Inside the gloves, my fingers are completely numb. My skin flashes hot, then cold, and my chest heaves like it might split down the center. Is the ground up or down? Everything is gyrating. My feet are walking on sky. Everything is white. Shiny bright white. Like the color of our national school uniform on the first day of school. White like the pristine gloves that school brigadiers wore during our annual patriotic march. Exclusive markers, those gloves were the ultimate recognition of being an exemplary student, something I ached to be.
Copyright © 2022 by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
