Authors: Linda Leblanc
Beth accompanied them to the icefall. Having said farewell in the tent when he left before dawn, Dorje ached to hold her in his arms again, but he could only convey love through his eyes as he promised, “I will return soon and tell you how it is for a Sherpa porter traveling in the icefall so you can write your story.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Time to go,” Marty interrupted. “Give me a hug for good luck?” Not offering her a chance to refuse, he grabbed Beth for a tight squeeze and sashayed in front of the expedition members wiping his brow. “Whew. What hot-ness.” Such arrogance. Dorje wanted to shove his face in the snow but a tiny shake of Beth’s head said to let it go.
With a long breath, he arched his back to rid the tension and took his first steps toward Everest. The icefall was a maze of enormous ice blocks resting on a ground riddled with innumerable crevasses. Staring at the towering pinnacles, Dorje remembered Marty’s defiance of the gods when he yelled
Geronimo
and strutted beneath the overhanging ice. Was it wise to trust his life and future to a self-proclaimed wacko who took risks simply to prove something to a father half way around the world? Roped to him with Paul in the lead and 30 other porters behind, Dorje vowed to be ever mindful and not fall prey to Marty’s precarious and erratic nature.
Two hours earlier, the other Americans, Mark and Sean, had gone ahead to make sure the route prepared the day before hadn’t altered due to new avalanches or toppling séracs. Constantly probing the ground in search of hidden crevasses, Paul and Marty told Dorje to warn the other porters not stray from their tracks. As they wound through a forest of séracs tilting in all directions, the blue-ice pinnacles loomed forebodingly in their cold silence. The porters walked without speaking, not wanting to disturb the spirits inhabiting the towers. Suddenly, as if the mountain had decided to stretch, the ground moved slightly, and a narrow tongue peeled off one of the séracs plunging downward in a mass of shattering ice. A sickening horror swept over Dorje. Was this a terrible mistake that would take him from the woman he loved? He clamped his jaw shut to keep from trembling and exposing his fear to Mary and Paul.
“How can we carry in a land where men are not meant to walk,” bemoaned Rinji, the weakest of the porters. Shaken by the uncertainly of each step, the Sherpas began quietly murmuring, “
Om mani padme hum.”
With sheer walls or deep crevasses surrounding some blocks, they were impossible to go around and had to be climbed. Going in advance, the Americans Mark and Sean had used ice axes to carve stairs over a two-story pinnacle. Many of the Sherpas had never worn shoes before. The cumbersome boots and crampons caused frequent misplaced steps, leaving several porters dangling helplessly until someone could haul them up. When they reached a crevasse too long to detour and too deep to descend, Paul and Marty stopped to confer. The walls had been undercut, leaving lips of unsupported snow suspended above a chasm widening into blackness. The Americans had lashed together eight-foot sections of aluminum ladder and lowered it across, but it lay at an upward pitch on the uneven sides of the fissure. Rinji kicked a block of ice over the edge and the porters listened to it explode in the depths. Muttering nervously among themselves, no one wanted to proceed. Taking a few steps and then quickly returning, Paul declared it too dangerous for them to walk across with heavy packs and slippery crampons.
Marty grimaced with his eyes stretched wide. “A little scared-ness here,” he whispered even though Dorje was the only Sherpa who could understand him anyway. “And I don’t want to go first.” Thinking how Marty had been coerced into going first in the cave, Dorje empathized with him. The American’s mouth and body were speaking simultaneously but communicating different emotions. In a voice so low it could have belonged to someone else, Marty uttered, “Remember what I said about life being like a stubborn old mule. You have to smack it across the head every once in a while to keep it in line. Well, it’s time for some head smacking.” Crouched in a half crawl with all fours in contact with the ladder and seat in the air, he kept a low center of gravity. One knee dropped to the rung for balance each time he alternated his arms and legs. Reaching the other side, Marty drove the axe shaft into the snow and anchored the rope around its head.
Dorje was next. As he stared at the ladder hovering over a bottomless abyss, an ice-cold fear gripped him, but he immediately dismissed it, unwilling to tolerate any doubts about himself. He was young and in love; he was indomitable. However, as a precaution, he opened a small pouch at his waist and sprinkled
chaane
into the crevasse before lowering himself to the ground. “Geronimo,” he whispered and started across with a stuttering heart. Moving hand over hand, he peered between the rungs at jagged blocks of green ice below threatening to shatter him if he fell. At mid point, the ladder suddenly sagged and swayed, shifting his load to the right. He felt the cold hand of a
shrindi
ghost trying to wrench him from the ladder and hurl him into oblivion. Seat still in the air and one knee to the rung, he froze afraid to let go and move forward.
“Come on, Buck buck, you’re doing great,” Marty shouted from the other side. “Just inch your hand along.”
His arms quivering under the weight of the pack, Dorje’s body that had never failed him was shaking like an old lady’s and he could not accept that. Slowly lowering his knee to take the pressure off his arms, he didn’t dare look down again as he slid his right hand forward an inch. He brought the other foot up and straddled the rung with his crampon, moved the left hand, and then the right knee, thus gradually making his way across.
“Give me a high five!” Marty shouted as Dorje threw himself onto the snow and crawled up the bank. Glancing back at the porters, he expected to hear gales of ridiculing laughter, but they were just as frightened as he. He dumped his load and calmed himself a moment.
“You just made it possible for them to cross. Seeing me do it wasn’t the same,” Marty said, bolstering Dorje’s self esteem. “Now help me with the rope. This is serious bridge-ness”
Dorje talked the other porters across in Sherpa, one inch at a time. Coming last, Rinji’s face was terror-stricken. When the ladder sagged at center point, he lurched and dropped over the side.
Dorje grabbed the rope tighter and slammed his heels into the snow, but Rinji and his load were dragging him toward the unstable lip. Dorje’s entire insides went on hold as he prepared to disappear into the void and never see Beth again.
A rope jerked him from behind as Marty ordered, “Push with your feet!”
Shocked back to his senses, Dorje dug his crampons in and quickly shoveled backwards as Marty held the rope. Working together, they got him onto solid snow again, but Rinji still dangled helplessly.
“Now let’s reel him in like a large fish,” Marty said calmly.
Getting his body operational again, Dorje gripped the rope and reached hand over hand, pulling with all his strength until Rinji was safely across. Everyone looked shaken by the experience. As the porters murmured among themselves, Dorje wondered if they would turn back. They were only here to do a job, get paid, and leave the mountain as soon as possible. Before expeditions arrived, Sherpas had no notion of climbing and saw no reason to expose themselves to unnecessary risks when life was so full of them anyway. Since they resented those who climbed to prove something or gain recognition, he kept his own desire to reach the summit a secret.
After Paul roped Rinji between the two strongest porters, everyone headed out again. Hoping they had passed through the worst of it, Dorje’s heart sank when they reached a maze of enormous crevasses threatened on all sides by crumbling séracs. Walking became almost impossible as the porters stumbled over recent avalanche debris and shattered ice. They hadn’t gone far when the mountain shrugged with a strange creak and tremor that split a pinnacle in half and swept it past them in a merciless jumble of ice that rocked the ground before shooting into a gaping crevasse. A deathly silence fell over the group. No one wanted to cross the ice-strewn slope under the tilting remains of the tower. Dorje hated being in the middle of something he couldn’t control, hated being this afraid. Suddenly doubting himself, he wondered if he had the courage to be the Tenzing of the future. The other porters chanted mantras as they scattered
chaane
across the ice and on the séracs. They too were frightened but he expected more of himself.
“We have to get through there,” Marty said, zipping his jacket. “The sun’s already setting and it’s only two o’clock. It will be freezing soon.”
Reluctantly the porters followed him, threading their way directly up a steep gully formed by great blocks stacked carelessly on top of each other. With overhanging ice perched high above on every side, they crept through the narrow passage, sometimes squeezing between the pinnacles, always listening to creaking and groaning ice. Holding his breath, Dorje tried to still the heart echoing loudly in his head, certain that any noise or movement would send the unstable masses tumbling about them.
They reached Camp I in the icefall at 19,500 feet just before four o’clock. Exhausted and cold but mostly frightened, the Sherpas huddled around communal stoves to warm themselves. Marty came to Dorje’s fire and crouched beside him. “You did well today. It took courage to go first.”
His words struck the cold air with a hollow sound because Dorje knew it wasn’t true. Hands tucked under his armpits, he pulled himself tighter and stared at the flames. “I was not brave,” he muttered, shivering. “I was scared.”
“Scared? Hell, we all were. Scared shitless,” Marty said with a laugh that ruffled through him like a dog shaking after a bath.
An involuntary snort of laughter escaped Dorje. “Scared shitless?”
“Hey. That was the most difficult piece of mountain I’ve ever been through and it was your first time. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
After dinner, Dorje crawled into his bag, too exhausted to sleep. He had seen dead bodies brought down from the mountain, how rigid and pale they were. But never had he imagined himself that way until today when he peered into the depths. It could end so quickly and without warning: a sag in the ladder, a misplaced step, loose crampon, or a frayed rope. Listening to the crack of a sérac breaking free, he felt adrift on a river of ice that was moving, crumbling, and toppling all around. And it terrified him. Tomorrow he would start back through the icefall for three more carries from Base Camp. Having promised Beth to turn around if things looked bad, how could he determine that moment when things were constantly in flux? He listened to the groan of glaciers settling for the night and the occasional rattle of falling stone. The crack of ice and snow breaking loose sounded not far away followed by the roar of an avalanche tumbling down the mountain ready to engulf their camp. Shuddering, he pulled the bag over his head and pretended not to hear.
The next morning, the climbers planned on remaining in Camp I to acclimatize and explore Camp II while the sirdar and porters returned to Base Camp for another load. There had been no singing or joking at the porters’ fire the night before. Having an accident that early on the first day was a bad omen and had shaken everyone. Most wanted to quit, turn around, and go home.
Determined not to shave until he returned from the summit, Paul scratched the black stubble on his face as he took Dorje aside. “Explain that without their help supplying the camps, the expedition can’t go on. We’ve waited four long years and traveled great distances for this opportunity.”
“But why do they come?” Rinji asked when Dorje spoke to them. “What’s the point? Mountains are for grazing.”
“It doesn’t matter why. You will earn more rupees for your wife and three children than you can in many months of farming.”
Arms folded over their chests, the porters agreed this was their greatest hope of fending off starvation through the winter. Otherwise, they’d have to leave their families for six months to work in India. But that didn’t keep them from grousing all the way down the icefall about how they faced greater risk than the lazy
mikarus
who were experienced climbers, had better equipment, weren’t burdened with awkward loads, and didn’t make repeated trips. A new fissure had opened during the night and a crumbling sérac had buried a portion of the trail, requiring a new one be cut. Realizing the mountain was alive and moving made the giant ice pinnacles, yawning crevasses, and masses of overhanging snow loom more menacingly.
While the porters fretted and complained, Dorje tried to figure out what to say to Beth. Marty wanted him to brag about his heroic exploits in saving Rinji, but Dorje wasn’t about to bolster his chances with her. If he described how dangerous it was to crawl across a crevasse heavily loaded and wearing slippery crampons, she would rightfully argue against his going back. But if he quit now, he’d forever be a boy frozen on a ladder staring into the abyss instead of the man she deserved. He must arrive in America as a respected Sherpa who had climbed Everest, not an uneducated yak herder and porter.
Beth was standing several hundred yards away with her back to them when Dorje and the porters reached the end of the icefall. He released the safety rope and began slowly walking toward her, remembering the first moment he had gazed upon her at Lukla. How his spirit had soared that day. She must have sensed his presence because Beth suddenly turned and stared as if she couldn’t believe he had really come back to her. “Dorje!” she cried with a voice as fresh as mountain air.