The Call of Everest Read online

  MEETING MALLORY

  Frozen to the slope, arms outstretched and legs crossed, Mallory died doing what he loved. His family paid the price for his ambition and obsession. The proximity to death, the slow dance one has with mortality at high altitudes, is painfully familiar to mountaineers. I was humbled by the moment and felt deep respect for the man on whose shoulders the current generation of climbers stood. But we still did not know if Mallory had summited Everest, for we did not find the camera.

  In the 1963 American expedition led by Norman Dyhrenfurth, precarious logs served for the mountain’s death-defying chasm crossings; in 2012, National Geographic’s climbing team employed lightweight aluminum ladders, allowing for easy transport and safer passage. The ladders also served during tricky vertical ascents.

  Continuing the quest, on May 17, 1999, I set out to climb the Second Step without the aid of an aluminum ladder that had been installed by the 1975 Chinese expedition. The Second Step, a formidable 90-foot cliff at 28,230 feet on the Northeast Ridge, was the most challenging barrier to the summit. As far as we knew, no one had climbed it without using the ladder. Had Mallory and Irvine been able to reach the top in 1924, they would have had to overcome this challenge. If we could climb it under the same conditions that Mallory and Irvine had encountered, we hoped to unlock the mystery. I led the pitch and gave it a fair shot, but at the last moment I stepped on the ladder despite my effort not to.

  HIGHS AND LOWS

  I reached the summit in the late afternoon with my partner, Dave Hahn. A patch of snow forms the top of the world, and barely a thousand people had ever been there. Our celebration was brief. The weather was worsening, Dave was ill, and there were no other climbers on the route. We began our descent, feeling alone and desperately close to getting cut by the edge I had set out to find.

  In October of the same year, I survived an avalanche on another peak in the Himalaya, the Tibetan giant Shisha Pangma. But it took the lives of my two climbing partners, Alex Lowe and David Bridges. Alex had been my closest friend, and once again I saw the edge of existence. This time I felt the suffering that death brought to family and friends, and my own life changed dramatically. In the spring of 2001, I married Alex’s widow, Jennifer, and adopted his three young children, Max, Sam, and Isaac. I continued to climb but with a renewed sense of caution, and the welfare of others took a greater role in my own sense of purpose. With Jenni and the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation that she created, I was able to give back to the mountain culture to which I felt indebted. In 2003, we launched the Khumbu Climbing Center to teach technical climbing skills and mountain safety to the Sherpas and indigenous people of the Himalaya. As I traveled to Nepal, winter after winter, to share my skills and love for climbing, the people of the Himalaya began to feel like my family.

  AS THE NUMBER of people attempting to summit Everest continues to increase, so does the number of rescues. After dropping off injured climbers at Base Camp, a helicopter turns around to retrieve more climbers farther up the mountain. The year 1996 was the deadliest on the mountain to date: Eight people died in a two-day period when a storm struck, causing whiteout conditions and plummeting temperatures.

  In 2007, I returned to the north side of Everest to film a biographical documentary on Mallory and his life. I had a second go at the Second Step. We removed the ladder, returning the cliff to the state that Mallory and Irvine would have encountered in 1924. With great effort, I was able to free-climb the overhanging crack without using the ladder, in conditions similar to Mallory’s attempt. It was difficult and challenging in the rarefied air, yet aided by the benefit of modern equipment and technique, the feat was still far easier than what Mallory would have faced. Our team reached the summit on June 14, giving me a second chance to stand at the apex of our planet.

  CHANGING MEANING

  When I was born in 1962, the world population was 3.1 billion people. The population of Nepal was 10 million and a grand total of 9 people had stood on the summit of Everest. By the time I reached the summit in 2012 on my third expedition, the world population had crested 7 billion and the population of Nepal had swelled to more than 26 million. A total of 106 people summited on that same day—May 26, 2012—bringing the total number of summits to more than 6,000 in 50 years’ time. Popular sentiment, prodded by the press and inevitable deaths that still occur on the mountain, held that with so many climbers, Everest was no longer relevant. It had gone from an epic, daring adventure to an easily attainable trophy.

  Everest will always be a focal point of human attention because it is the highest point on our planet, and as such it retains tremendous drawing power. While the cognoscenti in climbing circles no longer respect its ascent, it still has an amazing allure for the nonclimber. Knowing the intrigue and allure that Everest still has with citizens of our planet, I set out to create a Legacy Expedition to honor the first American Mount Everest expedition of 1963.

  THE LEGACY CLIMB

  Our 2012 team brought together several educational components. The earth sciences of Everest, the composition of the rocks and the forces that drove them to the apex of the planet, became the focus of Dave Lageson and the team from Montana State University. By collecting a rock profile that ranged from the summit to the base, he sought a fuller understanding of the rock and how it got to its position. Sharing this information with the National Science Foundation and creating a curriculum for fourth- and fifth-grade students provided an exciting way to engage in science.

  TRAILS OF HEADLAMPS coursing through tents at night show how bustling Base Camp can be. While seen by many as the jump-off point for their long ascent to the peak, many people take the trek to 17,598 feet to see the Khumbu Icefall, in between Everest’s West Shoulder and Mount Nuptse.

  Bruce Johnson and the Mayo Clinic team studied the effects of high altitude on human physiology, especially how the cardiopulmonary system reacts to such duress. Studying how the healthy body reacts to altitude allows researchers to better predict and monitor disease. Our team included rock climbers with no previous altitude experience. Would they be able to withstand the stark demands? The tests done on the climbers tracked the same adaptations and reactions that people with heart disease face. Testing medical devices in the demanding environment of Everest would make them about as durable as it gets.

  Combining high-altitude physiology, earth sciences, and the adventure of climbing in the real-time world of the Internet provided the team with the chance to reach millions of people. Fifty years ago the story was told via newspapers, magazines, and books. Communication in 2012, for better or worse, was immediate. A nearby cell tower now allows Sherpas and climbers to keep in touch with their families on a daily basis. Satellite phones, about the size of a stick of butter, provide instant communication from the upper reaches of the mountain. We shared the Base Camp experience with thousands of people via a real-time Google chat. And on May 26, 2012, I met up with my friend Dave Hahn on the summit. It was his 14th ascent of the mountain and my 3rd. Under blue skies, we were able to spend a bit more summit time together than we had 13 years earlier.

  After this, I realized that my connection with Everest had come to a turning point. I was as old as the 1963 Everest expedition. I had reached the summit without supplemental oxygen, an accomplishment that required more effort and personal sacrifice than my first two climbs. In my mind, I had treated the mountain with greater respect, climbing the peak by fair means.

  My connection to the Khumbu region of Nepal, my bonds to the Sherpas who inhabit it, and the friendships stemming from two decades of climbing there have left me with meaningful and lasting impressions. While I have traveled to the Himalaya to climb ice, rock, and mountains, it is the interactions with indigenous populations that I have valued most. In 2012 I joined the advanced Sherpa team to ascend the Lhotse Face. We climbed together, fixing rope for all of the subsequent climbers. I experienced firsthand the work these climbers do to prepare the route each season. From Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953 to P
anuru Sherpa, our sirdar (or expedition leader) in 2012, Sherpa climbers have been integral to Everest history. Their hard work and dedication provide the foundation for all successful ascents. Every climber owes a debt to these unsung heroes of Everest.

  FOREVER EVEREST

  Despite the naysayers, Everest still offers challenges for the aspiring alpinist. Fantasy Ridge, originating from the Kangshung Glacier in Tibet and connecting to the Northeast Ridge, is perhaps the largest unclimbed challenge in the Himalaya. Repeating routes in better style—without the use of fixed ropes, high-altitude support, and supplemental oxygen—still offers climbers unlimited opportunities to test their mettle.

  Everest remains a symbol of exploration and discovery. Its increase in popularity has reflected the growth of humanity on our planet. The challenges of resource use and overcrowding on Everest mirror what civilization below is facing. The Himalaya, a low-latitude, high-altitude mountain range, is at the forefront of anthropogenic climate change. The glaciers are subject to global warming and a changing atmosphere. These challenges are the next “Everest” for human discovery and exploration. The same drive that brought humans to the summit will motivate future generations on to further unknowns. If our expedition to Everest has helped to keep the flame of inquisitiveness and motivation alive, we will have contributed to the collective human drive for a better life here on Earth.

  Please join us as we explore Everest in the coming pages.

  Ancient Persian geographers called the mountains of central Asia Bam-i Dunya—the roof of the world. Extending for nearly 1,800 miles, the Karakoram-Himalayan-Tibetan belt is a dynamic geological laboratory, formed by the closure of two ancient ocean basins and the collision of numerous blocks of Earth’s crust. It holds an irresistible attraction for a structural geologist like me. I wanted to see the peak and walk the trails myself, and so I joined the Legacy Expedition led by Conrad Anker.

  It’s hard to describe the strong emotions I felt seeing Mount Everest for the first time. As the clouds briefly parted in the Khumbu Valley, Everest held her head high above the massive peaks in the foreground. Her summit pyramid was dark and rocky against the impossibly blue sky and, as from no other peak around, a massive plume of snow streamed easterly from her summit, a banner proclaiming to the world, “I’m the tallest, I’m the goddess mother of all that lies below.” Then the clouds closed in again. My Sherpa guide (a kind and spiritual gentleman who has stood on the summit of Everest many times) smiled generously at me with empathy, or amusement, or perhaps both.

  For me, the magic Mount Everest holds is the story written in her rocks. A geologist has to piece this story together from the fragmented manuscript that forms the landscape. The chapter that most interests me is recorded in the layers of gray marine limestone that make up the summit pyramid. That’s why I am drawn to the top.

  LIFE ON THE TETHYS SEAFLOOR

  Standing at 21,300 feet (6,500 meters) and gazing up at Everest’s southwest face in the brilliant afternoon sun, I watched the gray limestone of the summit pyramid turn a silvery gold. The Yellow Band, right below, also turned toward orange. The jet stream howled, sounding like the roar of a giant waterfall, but the only flow of water was beneath my boots—the slowly moving, frozen tongue of ice called the Khumbu Glacier.

  Stumbling among the rocks near Camp II, out of breath and cold, I looked for lithic treasure. Sometimes one can find a small piece of gray limestone that has tumbled down some 7,700 feet from the summit to the glacier. These rocks tell a magnificent story of mountain building, from seafloor to summit, that spans nearly 500 million years of Earth’s history—the story of how an ancient seafloor became the crown of the highest mountain on Earth.

  Our journey begins some 480 to 470 million years ago, on the seafloor along the northern coast of the great supercontinent Gondwana, to which present-day India was attached. Major rivers, as big as today’s Amazon, empty into the sea in broad deltas. Cumulus clouds build on a hazy afternoon horizon. No birds exist yet, but beneath the ocean’s surface there are primitive, jawless fish that browse for food alongside clusters of tiny, slithering, wormlike creatures. The seafloor is rather flat, with a few shallow banks and canyons that funnel shifting sediment into a deep abyss far to the north. Elsewhere, fine-grained sediment drifts in among the fragmented remains of invertebrate animals, resulting in carbonate sediments that will form the limestone and dolomite of today.

  ORDOVICIAN INVERTEBRATES

  This seafloor is part of the Tethys Ocean, an ancient body of water named for a Greek sea goddess. The patch of it in question we will call the Chomolungma shelf (or simply CS), after the centuries-old Tibetan name for Mount Everest. The seafloor at CS hosted a marine ecosystem teeming with life. If we followed a shaft of sunlight as it penetrated the upper marine layer, the sea shelf would have been revealed in dim, ever diminishing light. The water was somewhat cooler at these depths, but certainly not cold. Based on microscopic studies of rocks brought back from the summit of Mount Everest, we can infer that the seafloor at CS consisted not of clay mud but rather small pellets of carbonate mud excreted by a wide array of marine invertebrate animals. When these creatures eventually died, their exoskeletons contributed to the accumulation of carbonate sediment.

  A large variety of trilobites scurried across this seafloor. Some spiny trilobites preferred to move about on the surface to scavenge food, whereas more robust varieties burrowed into the soft sediment to find their food. Ostracoda is a class of the Crustacea, sometimes known as “seed shrimp.” Their tiny bivalve shells resembled a small clam, and most ostracods lived on the seafloor or within the first layer of sediment. Brachiopods, with their distinctive symmetrical shells, diversified markedly during this geologic period to form an important part of the bottom-dwelling community. Crinoids were also extremely abundant on the seafloor, forming vast communities of “sea lilies” attached to the seafloor by a flexible stem or stalk. Crinoids were filter feeders that used delicate, featherlike “arms” to capture their food from the warm oceanic currents that flowed along the bottom. Crinoids became so common that their skeletal parts formed incredible thicknesses of limestone. In addition, corals were found on the seafloor, since the period saw the ascendancy of massive coral reef communities in tropical oceans around the world. Stromatoporoids, a group of extinct sponges, also flourished in these reef communities. With all these species, it was a healthy, thriving, unpolluted marine ecosystem—a prolific biogenic factory of marine carbonate rocks that, someday in the far distant geologic future, would be uplifted to the highest realms on Earth.

  THE GREAT BIODIVERSITY EVENT

  These rocks were deposited during the Ordovician period, 488 to 444 million years ago, when life-forms diversified and became more complex—the most dramatic increase in marine biodiversity in Earth’s history. Known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event (GOBE for short), marine biodiversity tripled at the order, family, genus, and species level. The few seafloor-dwelling invertebrates that dominated were replaced by a diverse array of more complex marine animals during the GOBE.

  Several geologic factors may have contributed. Four major continents existed during the Ordovician: Gondwana (to which India was attached), Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia. The broad dispersal of these continental plates resulted in more surface area for tropical shelves around their margins. In addition, rising sea level across the globe contributed to flooding of inland seas, which resulted in more shallow marine habitats and increased carbonate deposits. Added to this, Earth climates warmed during the early to mid-Ordovician, encouraging an increase in micro-phytoplankton, which may have provided a major nutrient source at the base of the food chain for marine invertebrate animals.

  During the GOBE, a vast diversity of suspension-feeding and other organisms came to dominate the oceans and continued to do so throughout the remainder of the Paleozoic era. We see evidence of this atop Mount Everest, and it is somehow fitting that such a great evolutionary event is recorded by the highest
outcrop on the highest mountain on Earth today.

  THE DISCOVERY OF EVEREST

  One of the most ambitious scientific undertakings of all time occurred during the first half of the 19th century on the hot and humid plains of India. British explorers began the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1808 with the ambitious task of determining the precise shape of the Earth, in addition to surveying the vast Indian subcontinent. Although the shape of the Earth had been determined in the mid-1700s by two French surveying expeditions, the precise degree of equatorial bulging and polar flattening remained a question. The British India Survey consumed the greater part of the century and employed some of the best mathematicians in the empire. The surveyor and mathematician in charge of this enterprise was William Lambton, a British Army officer who gained much of his early surveying experience in North America. Surveying equipment of the time was heavy and enormous, consisting of calibrated chains, measuring rods, and massive theodolites. Malaria, torrential monsoon rains, and tiger attacks tormented the British surveyors and their Indian staff, but they diligently carried on.