Keeper Of The Mountains (18 page)

Although Elizabeth was impressed with Tabei's determination to climb the mountain, she was somewhat cynical about the “first woman to climb Everest” objective. To her mother, she confided that she didn't consider it the most exciting event she could think of, but conceded that it did sell newspapers. Her Reuters report opened with: “The first woman to conquer Mount Everest has come down from the clouds around the summit and talked of her love of adventure, science and music – and of her dislike of public life.”

A
s Elizabeth grew to know Tabei better over the years, her respect grew, and some of that respect came from what Tabei did after Everest. She continued climbing, including two more 8000-metre peaks – Shishapangma and Cho Oyu – and in other mountain ranges all over the world. Tabei stays in touch with Elizabeth by sending her an annual Christmas card filled with lists of the climbing she has done in the previous year. Elizabeth Hawley, master keeper of lists, views Tabei's annual climbing list with approval. She also approves of Tabei's efforts to help fight pollution in the Everest region with her donation of an incinerator at the Lukla airfield. Her assessment of this diminutive, record-breaking woman was surprisingly measured: “Quite modest … not a great climber in terms of expedition climbing abilities, but a good climber and a determined one.”

The great climbing accomplishment of the year, though, was the British Everest Southwest Face Expedition led by Chris Bonington. The team was a hand-picked group that functioned well throughout most of the expedition, advancing the lines up increasingly difficult pitches on or ahead of schedule. By September 24, Doug Scott and Dougal Haston were on the summit. They arrived at the top in the twilight, noting the strange metal structure the Chinese had brought to the summit earlier that year. Now began their ordeal – the reality of a high-altitude bivouac. They reached the South Summit and dug a hole for some shelter, boiled up some tea and spent most of the rest of the night rubbing each other's feet to avoid frostbite. They survived the night at an astonishing 8748 metres.

Two days later, still ahead of schedule, Bonington okayed a sec­ond summit attempt, by Martin Boysen, Mick Burke, Pete Boardman and Pertemba Sherpa. Boardman and Pertemba made the summit and on the way down met Mick Burke resting a bit before continuing on. Boysen had already turned back. Within an hour, weather conditions had deteriorated dramatically and it was the last anyone saw of Mick Burke. What had seemed an uncontested success was now marred by tragedy.

Despite the death of Burke, Bonington took an enormous amount of pleasure – and pride – in this effort, proud of his team and of his own logistical and climbing performance on the mountain. He credited a lot of the success to the team of Sherpas, whom he had never
seen carry such heavy loads and bring with them such an excitement and positive spirit.

Elizabeth gave a lot of credit to Bonington, who was, in her opinion, the most outstanding climber of the 1970s. Even though he did not summit on either of his signature climbs, the South Face of Annapurna or the Southwest Face of Everest, she believes he was the force behind their success. “He showed the way to great face climbs on 8000-metre mountains, instead of just going up ridges in accordance with the history of mountaineering development.” She laughs at her memory of Bonington after the Annapurna climb, when he said to her, “Never again a high mountain, never again a big expedition.” Of course, he was back two years later. She learned never to believe a mountaineer when he says never! The 1970s and '80s were not kind to these pioneers, though. As Elizabeth points out, “A whole generation of British climbing has been decimated … Bonington is alive, but most of his friends are gone.”

Their relationship has had its ups and downs. Bonington remembers her being “a bit of a battle-axe” in the early '70s but says she has definitely softened and has contributed a great service to the mountaineering community in sharing information and going the extra mile to help. He recalls their interviews as “very intense” because she knew the terrain and was precise in her questioning. One of the star climbers on the Everest expedition, according to Bonington, was Pertemba Sherpa. A frequent partner of Bonington's, Pertemba told Elizabeth some years later that he had since been forbidden to climb by his wife, who was afraid he would be killed. But, says Elizabeth, “He's snuck in an expedition or two since then!”

As excited as she was about the British Everest Southwest Face Expedition, Elizabeth wasn't allowed to report on it, because she was still being punished for her earlier indiscretions. She was learning the fine art of patience – and diplomacy. It would take her a while. The reporting ban was not the last time Elizabeth would run into trouble with the authorities. The next would be much more serious.

Two mountaineers from Austria and Italy have conquered Mount Everest without oxygen for the first time....

— Elizabeth Hawley

T
he political face of Nepal changed again when the king accepted his prime minister's resignation in September 1977. Later in the year, B.P. Koirala, the former prime minister who had assumed power shortly after Elizabeth's arrival in Nepal and who had been imprisoned or in exile for much of the time since then, returned to Asia from the United States, where he had been receiving medical attention. His arrival in India elicited a warm reception from his old supporters, who were now in power in India. This irritated the Nepalese authorities. When Koirala arrived in Nepal he was promptly arrested. He was later acquitted on five of the seven charges brought against him, and the two remaining ones were postponed indefinitely because the prosecution's evidence was incomplete.

Elizabeth was shocked at Koirala's physical state. He appeared thin and weary. She hoped he and the king would get together and find a way to solve what she saw as a process fraught with endemic problems – the endeavour to combine democracy with a hierarchical system of family relationships. She recalled how diplomats and other foreigners would send invitations to Nepalese notables and then be insulted when they never received a reply. But the invitees couldn't answer, because they never knew whether their father, uncle or someone else would suddenly demand that they be somewhere else. She realized it was unrealistic to think the road to democracy would be smooth.

In fact, there was greater unrest in Nepal now than at any time in the last 50 years. Even when the Rana family had been relieved of power, Kathmandu had remained peaceful. The cause of the current unrest was hard to pinpoint, but seemed to be a combination
of general discontent with inflation and corruption; unfulfilled – and rising – expectations; and the restlessness of youth. By the spring of 1979, student demonstrations had taken a violent turn. In the southern town of Hetauda, three people died when police opened fire on them. Following that violence, many leading politicians were arrested and Koirala was again placed under house arrest.

The king swiftly defused the unrest by announcing a referendum to determine whether to keep the present panchayat system under which political parties were forbidden, or to establish a multiparty system similar to what existed before his father ended it in 1960. This was considered an amazing announcement, since, from the very moment he ascended the throne in 1972, this very king had insisted that the panchayat system was permanent. Political manoeuvring began immediately, with leaders campaigning for or against a new system. Political activity that had been dormant or clandestine for two decades now burst into the open. Sporadic violence occurred. A group of men and women tried to assassinate Koirala by rolling boulders down a steep hillside toward his car. Uninjured in the incident, Koirala was nevertheless shaken by it, citing the dangers of the upcoming referendum. Some of those dangers, he believed, were coming from outside the country, as there was foreign interest in sabotaging the referendum and creating instability in a country that lay strategically between China and India. The king was undoubtedly aware of this too, and he made official visits to both India and China, emphasizing his country's good relations with both.

The referendum was held in 1980. Elizabeth was convinced that many voters would not understand what they were voting for or against, confusing the issues of multiparty vs. panchayat with problems of corruption, inflation, bureaucracy and monarchy. Reporters flocked to Nepal to see what would happen. Despite the violence of the previous year, the referendum was peaceful. Long lines of voters had formed by 7:00 a.m., more than two hours before the polls opened. Seeing the huge voter turnout, Elizabeth was sure it signalled a switch to a multiparty system. But when all the results were in, the panchayat system had won – narrowly – with 55 per cent of the votes. With such a narrow margin of victory, it was clear that some kind of constitutional change was needed, so the king announced he would consult with various leaders on the nature and timing of reform.

T
he process of consultation produced many additional layers of administrative structure. The grander the machine became, the greater number of resources were required to maintain it. In a country as poor as Nepal, Elizabeth thought it preposterous that this self-perpetuating bureaucratic organ could occupy so much money, time, ink and effort when it appeared to be largely insensitive to what was going on in the rest of the country. With rapid and frequent changes in the top political positions, actually making a decision was one of the most dangerous things a senior politician could do. Commissions and councils resorted to delegating decision-making up, and up – ultimately to the king, where the sheer volume of decisions often resulted in stagnation. The paternal nature of this kind of rule flew in the face of genuine democratic reform, but it was a fact of life in Nepal – deeply rooted in the national character of patriarchal dependency.

The government's preoccupation with reform may have contributed to its reluctance to decide the fate of Elizabeth's journalist accreditation. Although the ban hadn't stopped her from doing the annual mountaineering reports, she was cut off from the excitement of a potential journalistic scoop. She heard rumblings from her Nepali journalist friends that the decision would be reversed, giving her the freedom to work again, but the decision was slow in coming and the waiting was frustrating. After more than a year, the prime minister and the king finally came to an agreement to renew her licence, just in time for the 1976 spring climbing season.

Elizabeth's work with mountaineering expeditions was growing and looked likely to continue to do so in the future, as the Nepalese government announced it would grant a total of 26 permits for the 1978 season. This would be by far the greatest number of permits issued for one season. The most interesting of the spring expeditions was that of two men attempting to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen. The two were Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.

The climbers reached the summit without incident – or bottled oxygen – and with a small movie camera to record the historic event. Some people expressed doubts that they had not succumbed to dipping into the oxygen supplies at the South Col, but other team members later checked the supplies and found them to tally perfectly with the amount recorded prior to their ascent. Others were concerned over the anticipated “brain damage” the two would experience, but
a physician who examined them after their descent found them to be tired but in excellent physical and mental condition, except for Messner's painful eye condition caused by removing his sunglasses while filming on the summit ridge.

Elizabeth's Reuters account announced: “Two mountaineers from Austria and Italy have conquered Mount Everest without oxygen for the first time.…” She went on to add that this climb should settle once and for all the debate over whether humans could survive without oxygen at such rarified heights. But it didn't – as she soon found out.

After Messner and Habeler's ascent of Everest, a strange situation arose in Kathmandu. Some Sherpas called a press conference to denounce Messner as a liar. They didn't believe his claim to have climbed without bottled oxygen, asserting he had hidden tiny bottles of oxygen under his down jacket and had breathed it all the way to the top. It became clear to Elizabeth that the Sherpas believed that if they couldn't do it, nobody could. At the press conference she noticed it was “Messner this and Messner that.” She challenged the Sherpas with “what about Peter Habeler?” No answer. She realized they didn't like Messner – at all. He was perceived as condescending and demanding – “get my food, get my sleeping bag” – and they were determined to give him a hard time in return.

The fall season brought an all-women's team to Annapurna led by American climber Arlene Blum. Elizabeth had met Arlene before and was intrigued by her. This time Arlene was taking on a much more onerous role as leader, and Elizabeth expressed to her mother that she was glad she wasn't going with them. After making the first American ascent of Annapurna
I
, the expedition came to a tragic end when two members of the second ascent team fell to their deaths on October 17, 1978. There was speculation in various publications about whether their deaths could have been prevented if other (male, it was implied) climbers had been with them, but Elizabeth thought that the two who died were experienced and knew what they were doing, and that the nature of their fall would not have been prevented by having more people around. She responded to criticism of Arlene Blum not going high on the mountain with the logical observation that expedition leaders often do not go high on the mountain, due to their logistical responsibilities down low. All of this was captured in
a long piece about the expedition that Elizabeth submitted to
People
magazine.

This era in climbing, which began in the late '70s, saw an increasing number of experienced and often smaller expeditions attempting, and sometimes succeeding on, significantly difficult objectives – new routes on previously climbed peaks as well as unclimbed peaks. This was a marked shift away from the large, siege-style expeditions that had produced notable successes on routes such as the Southwest Face of Everest. Now climbers began to bring a new, lightweight aesthetic to the Himalaya. They came from Britain, the United States, Yugoslavia and Japan. Some of the most experienced climbers almost lived in Nepal now, going from one mountain to the next, seemingly having abandoned their lives back home in favour of the forbidding Himalayan faces. Many were familiar to Elizabeth and a few she counted as her friends.