Dave Hahn

As I lay semi-dying at Camp V in what passed for turning in for the night, I found myself churning over the day past and the prospects for the day to come. Pinzo Sherpa and I had actually erected a fairly good sized tent for 25,700' that afternoon and so my "suffering" was not as profound as it might have been.

Jim Findley and I had room to stretch out and room for our Oxygen bottles as well. I'd figured a way of keeping a thin neck-gaitor over my nose and mouth with the Oxygen mask fitting snugly over the arrangement. In this manner, I could keep a little moisture for my already trashed throat while still getting a liter a minute of brain lubricant. Oxygen. Ahhhh. Most people understand easily that supplemental Oxygen helps you to perform tough physical moves at altitude. What is probably under-appreciated is how a light flow during an attempt at sleep can make all the difference on a climb.

"Nights are often when your body takes the big beating..."

When you sleep at extreme altitude, you can't kick up your respiratory rate to match the new need of the thinner air the way you may do when conscious. So nights are often when your body takes the big beating that could send you down in defeat (or worse) in the morning. Not for us. I lay in my down suit with a light "overbag" draped to keep the cold from the nooks and crannies. I strained to look one more time at the stove I'd just snuffed out in the entrance of the tent. It had been on for hours as Jim and I had finally finished the tedious process of eating, drinking and filling water bottles with melted, boiled snow.

Beyond the stove, I could see, just six feet away, the tent where Heather and Pinzo seemed to be done for the night also. A fine backdrop was formed by the spine of the Himalaya with a few giants sticking out between the slowly deflating thunderheads of the evening. Most sun was gone by then from the North Face, just a little left for emphasis on the summit pyramid of Everest, not so far away now. I figured I should grab out my camera, maybe even some video for such beauty... or perhaps not...just look at it all, maybe remember it.

I found it hard to believe that just a few days before, we'd all been down at ABC, scratching our heads and wondering why we'd caught so many colds on one trip. Sure enough, when we'd gotten to figuring the summit teams, concessions had had to made to when this or that person might conceivably be near healthy. I guess we all figured we'd lost a fair bit of strength to infections and downtime for recoveries. So it was with some surprise that I lay back onto my pile of gear at Camp V and considered our progress. We were doing pretty darn good. Three summit teams were proceeding without an apparent hitch up Mount Everest's North Ridge.

Up at high camp that night, Alex, Craig, Danuru, and Lhakpa were in place for a try on the top that very night. I knew they'd been working hard to get there, as the "first" team, they'd had to build a few tents, endure a few glitches, and carry more than is healthy at such height. But they were making it! There they were at 27,200' ready to go to the top if the weather held. And the forecast was for three more days of good weather. That would do for them, for us, and for the final team now parked at Camp IV.

— Dave Hahn, International Mountain Guides' Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES

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