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"Mike instantly looked up and caught his brother's falling crampon in mid-air, all while he was rapelling the 10-meter rockband..." |
On October 6th, Chris and Mike O'Brien, Jon Otto, and myself left Camp 2 for Camp 3 late in the afternoon. Camp 3 is at 7500m, and we didn't feel the need to spend too much time at that altitude. The little time we did spend there was quite unbearable, with Jon and I sharing a very small single-wall tent which, every time we moved, dumped so much interior frost on us it seemed we didn't even have a shelter over us.
The O'Brien brothers were in pretty good health, but the two of us had picked up some small illness that left us at less than 100%. This might've been due to the fact that Jon was using the cookpot as a pee bottle. This was an improvement over his earlier actions, where he kept spilling the contents all over the tent floor, where it froze in place. I had also developed a mild case of frostbite on three of my toes on my left foot on the ascent from Camp 2 to Camp 3.
The brothers left Camp 3 at 5am for the summit, leaving Jon and I to follow a few minutes later. We both racked our brains deciding what to do as the temperature on our thermometer read -35 degrees. After careful consideration, I decided to abstain from the current summit attempt in favor of another one a few days later. My toes being my main concern, I had always told my wife that I wouldn't lose any fingers or toes for a summit.
Jon left, but returned an hour later as the illness we had both picked up had taken its toll and left him void of energy. We both waited in Camp 3 in support of the O'Briens, whom we watched heading toward the summit, with only their headlamps giving us indication of their progress.
We were in radio contact, but the cold temperature at the apex of Cho Oyu killed their radio as I desperately tried to inform them that they were heading left to the false summit instead of right to the true one. Luckily enough, after reaching the false one, they proceeded to head to the correct one.
The O'Briens' descent was something of classic mountaineering literature. Both climbers lost crampons and one took a horrendous slide of 50 meters before self arresting. All this after a total day's climbing of 13 hours. An amazing thing happened when Mike, in lead on the descent, heard a yell of "crampon!" from his brother Chris above him. Mike instantly looked up and caught his brother's falling crampon in mid-air, all while he was rapelling the 10-meter rockband above Camp 3. It was truly an act that enabled both climbers to descend safely. All this was but a preview of the dramatic events that awaited them three days hence at the foot of the scree slope with the stricken Serbian climber...
