A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (9 page)

It was late summer 1995, a few months after my return from Everest. The location was my home on Tyneside in north-east England.

I could hear a faint ringing in my head. A few seconds passed before my eyes sprang open. It was not in my dreams. The sound was coming from the telephone downstairs. I glanced at the clock. The display read five in the morning.

‘Who the hell would be calling at this time?’ was my first thought.

I leapt out of bed. Unsure as to how long the phone had been ringing, I held on to the banister and bounded down the stairs five steps at a time. My fear was that something terrible had befallen a family member. Catching my breath, I picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ I said in a quizzical, wary voice.

‘Hi, Graham,’ came the reply, ‘it’s Torgeir here. Two of my friends and I are going to Argentina in late December to climb Aconcagua via the Polish Glacier. I was wondering if you would like to join us?’

Up to this point, all I had uttered was the word ‘hello’. My eyes were open, but the brain was lagging behind. It struggled to formulate thoughts as to what I had just heard. However, my sense of relief was palpable as I heard Torgeir spout forth his invitation. The fear of receiving some devastating news disappeared as quickly as it had come. To this day, this has to be the most unusual early-morning phone call I have ever received. It is undeniably the one with the best opening gambit.

Torgeir, aged 30, was a sports officer in the Norwegian Air Force. I’d spent a month with him in the Tien Shan Mountains on the Kazakhstan–China border back in 1992. A year later, I’d visited him in northern Norway to go climbing. We got on extremely well. Even at five o’clock in the morning, this was an easy decision to make.

‘Yes, I’d love to go,’ I replied with hardly a thought.

The commitment I was making was based on the fact I would like to go rather than a considered decision. Often choices were made on the spur of the moment; only later did I work out how to make them happen.

There I was sitting in my pyjama bottoms answering an unexpected phone call at an unearthly hour. The next thing I knew I had agreed to go to Argentina over Christmas and New year. The whole event had taken me by surprise.

We spoke for a while about the dates, agreeing to meet up in Santiago, the capital of Chile. From there we would travel by bus into the Andes and over the border into Argentina. The arrangements were being made so quickly that it was more akin to two young boys planning a harebrained adventure in their secret den.

We concluded our conversation by me telling Torgeir I’d phone him back at a later date, once I’d booked my flights. On that note, I went back to bed.

As I slipped back under the covers, Catherine asked in a sleepy voice, ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘It was Torgeir,’ I replied. ‘I won’t be here for Christmas or New year. I’m going to Argentina.’

My tone could not have been more matter-of-fact. I was hoping to avoid her justifiable wrath. There was a stony silence – a very long one. Oops! Maybe I should have at least checked with Catherine first before making such a promise. Having made the commitment, I didn’t want to go back on my word. In fairness, Catherine was very good about it. She didn’t give me a hard time for my selfishness and total lack of thought – one that I deserved.

Autumn came and went. Time slipped by, easing past our 19th wedding anniversary in late November. The days on the calendar moved ever closer to my next adventure. I busied myself by laying out my expedition equipment in the front room of our house. Decisions had to be made on what I should take with me and what should be left behind. Weight was the deciding factor. In Argentina, we would not enjoy the luxury of having Sherpas. This time, we’d have to carry everything on our own.

I began thumbing through photographs of the route we intended to climb. The plan was to approach Aconcagua via the Vacas Valley. This more picturesque and quieter side of the mountain was away from the ‘normal’ route. The earth-brown landscapes reminded me of Tibet. The thought of visiting a country I had not been to before added to my anticipation. The sense was of the unknown lying ahead. I could hardly wait to get there.

Meanwhile, Catherine had begun to gather together the required ingredients for the family Christmas. The sight of her starting to wrap the children’s presents made me feel uncomfortable. I’d never missed Christmas before. The pangs of guilt had me doubting that I’d made the right decision in saying that I would go. However, by this time flights were already booked, climbing insurance sorted and arrangements made. It was with some regret that I waved goodbye to Catherine and my two daughters when I left for South America.

Late December 1995, some 40 hours after I’d left the UK, the plane touched down in Santiago. Here, as arranged, Torgeir and his two Norwegian friends met me.

From Santiago, the four-hour bus journey took us via the spectacularly wild Trans-Andean Highway over the border into Argentina. Our destination was Puente del Inca, a small settlement that consisted of a few buildings sparsely spread out along the barren roadside. Our simple timber-framed accommodation was clean but basic. Nearby stood the office from where we would obtain our climbing permits the next day. Adjacent was the Parque Provincial Aconcagua.

We spent two days acclimatising, scrambling up the lower peaks that rise on either side of this strip of black tarmac: a road that tortuously winds its way through what is an otherwise rugged and occasionally snow-capped landscape. It is a safe passage through this hostile environment that in Argentina is referred to as Ruta Nacional No. 7.

It was while I was alone during one of these acclimatisation days that my mind began to wander. Clear of normal everyday trivia, the mental images I had were of summit day on Everest several months earlier. As though wafted in by the fresh mountain breeze or inspired by the warm Andean rock, my next thought came out of the blue. No British climber had reached the summit of Everest from both Nepal and Tibet. In fact, no British climber had reached the summit twice. I could, if I went to Nepal this coming spring, be the first.

This was just too tempting. I couldn’t ask Catherine because she wasn’t with me, therefore I couldn’t be blamed. The plan was near perfect in every respect, except for a few small details. First, such an expedition would leave from the UK in about ten weeks and I wasn’t on one. Second, I was in Argentina and wasn’t due to return home for another four weeks. Third, I had to think of some way of getting the money together to go on such an adventure. The permit fee alone, charged by the Nepalese Government, was $10,000 for each climber. In all, this was really just a list of minor points. It was decided. I had to go.

I said nothing about my plans to my Norwegian friends. Although I knew I intended to return to Everest in a matter of weeks, I needed to make it happen. Speaking too soon was tempting fate.

On Aconcagua, we reached a little over 19,700 feet before atrocious weather descended onto the upper part of the mountain. We had no option but to retreat. Other expeditions on the mountain in January of that year suffered a similar fate. The weather closed in solidly for a three-week period. Thwarted by these continuing unsettled conditions, our climb was unsuccessful. Our planned time there had run its course. We packed up and headed out.

Leaving Base Camp at midday, I strode out ahead of my friends. I was a man on a mission. My thoughts were of Everest and the preciously short time I had left to make arrangements. I just kept on walking, following the well-established but sometimes precarious path that traces the river along the valley floor. From Base Camp I walked clean out of the Vacas Valley that afternoon.

At the valley’s northern entrance to the park, I managed to hitch a lift. When asked where I was going, my reply was simple: ‘The nearest hotel.’ The local driver obliged by dropping me off at the first reasonable-looking place we came across. This six-storey modern concrete building was in a different league from the accommodation we had first occupied on our arrival at Puente del Inca. By nine o’clock that evening, I was showered and sipping a cold beer at the virtually deserted but quite luxurious hotel bar. I remember sitting there thinking my calf muscles felt as though they’d done some work, so I rewarded myself with another beer. On reflection, I suppose I’d walked around 30 miles out of the valley in little more than an afternoon. Probably best described as ‘driving ambition’.

I arrived back on Tyneside on 23 January 1996. The overriding feeling was that the clock was ticking. There was no time to waste.

The enthusiasm with which I explained my plan to Catherine demonstrated the passion, the commitment, I was giving to this endeavour. She knew only too well that trying to talk me out of this would have been tantamount to cruelty. As she put it, ‘It would be like caging a wild animal, asking you not to go.’

Her agreement came with the understanding that I made sure there was enough money in the bank to keep the family afloat while I was away. Our fragile family income was made up of several sources. Catherine had her part-time job working in care for the elderly and we had a modest rental income from two floors of a commercial property we owned. I was in the process of converting other parts of this building to try to increase the return we saw for our investment. We always seemed to have a plan for other ventures that might boost our income in the coming year, one that would lift us out of the typical financial rut in which the family seemed to scrape along. In truth, I could afford the time to go climbing, but to any sane person with a growing family to maintain it was unaffordable. Only determination and a huge dose of over-optimism made it happen. With Catherine’s agreement came her dark sense of humour, one that manifested itself more as an instruction than a request: ‘Mind, I don’t want bits of you coming back. It’s all or nothing!’

I knew Henry was planning an expedition on the Nepalese side of Everest that spring. He was my best, if not only, chance of making this happen at such short notice. Fortunately, Henry lived not much more than a hundred miles north of me. So within two days of getting home I found myself driving the short distance between Newcastle and Edinburgh in the knowledge that the next few hours would decide if my hurried departure from Argentina/Chile, all the plans I’d made, would mean anything. The difference between dreams and reality hung in the balance. I tried not to think about possible disappointment as I drove north. The final decision was out of my hands.

Sitting with Henry over a coffee, I explained my plans, hopeful but not sure whether he could, or more importantly would, make this happen. There was precious little time left before his own departure to Nepal. A more positive, accommodating and helpful response I could not have asked for. We hadn’t even finished our coffee and the deal was done. I was going back to Everest.

In the six weeks before I needed to be in Nepal, there was a considerable amount to be organised: flights to be booked, insurances to be arranged, my equipment to be sorted. Pieces that were worn out or missing had to be replaced. Then there was the mammoth task of washing and cleaning all the equipment that had just been halfway around the world. This left one last small detail. How would my place on the expedition be paid for?

There was no cash left in the bank. My recent trips to Everest and Aconcagua had put paid to that. Looking around, the only obvious way to raise sufficient money quickly enough was to sell our one-year-old family car. I placed a ‘for sale’ advert in the local newspaper. A week later, a rundown replacement vehicle worthy of being owned by an impoverished college student stood in our driveway.

Arrangements needed to be made for me being away for ‘yet another three months’. Mundane matters took on a much greater significance. I had to make sure everything was in place, that bills would be paid. Very generously, my younger brother Adrian and his wife Carolyn stepped in to fill the financial void. They lent me their entire, and not inconsiderable, family savings. It was a vote of confidence that said I would be coming back. The alternative was to return from an expedition to find an unholy state of affairs that would take months to put right.

When preparing for a longer expedition, I usually find this the most hectic and stressful time. This is probably true for Catherine as well. Relief can be found when I’m on the aeroplane and there is no more that I can do; for Catherine, it’s when I’ve finally gone and she can find some peace.

While I’d been making my last-minute and rather hurried arrangements to return to Everest, other expeditions which would also be making an attempt from Nepal that spring had already been in the planning for a considerable time.

Three were to be crucial. One was the MacGillivray Freeman Imax/Iwerks expedition, there to shoot an ambitious movie using their ‘Image MAXimum’ technology to film the most dramatic vistas on offer. The other two were guided expeditions run by the highly respected mountaineers Rob Hall (New Zealand) and Scott Fischer (United States). Their companies were called Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness respectively.

I was already aware that Rob Hall would be bringing a team to the mountain that spring, and Henry had told me Anatoli was going to be working for a company run by Scott Fischer. But as far as the Imax team was concerned, I would only find out about their attempt once I got to Base Camp.

The MacGillivray Freeman Imax/Iwerks expedition, or the Imax expedition as those on the mountain would refer it to that spring, was there to make a large-format documentary film. This was to be about the placing of a global positioning system and weather station on the South Col of Mount Everest by an international team of climbers. If conditions allowed, they would then try to summit and bring back footage from the roof of the world using the same sizeable IMAX camera. They’d originally hoped to carry out the filming in the spring season of 1995 but had delayed this by one year until 1996 in order to finish pulling together the $7 million budget.