 Mt. Everest journal entry:
May 18, 2009
Man’s Best Friend
“Wake up time 2:30 a.m., breakfast at 3,
departure at 4 a.m. We head out early, before the ice begins to
melt and the avalanche danger escalates.
Time to climb the Icefall again. It is
still hard to believe the danger factor
involved in crossing the falls. We jump
large gaps with a skip and a hop of several
feet from one edge of a crevasse to
another. We scale sheer vertical walls of
blue ice, with steps kicked into the ice at
such a leg stretch that I must rely on my
upper body strength to hoist my legs into
the notches formed by men with long legs.
We use our arms to wrap the rope and rappel
our body down cliffs and drop offs. Then,
there’s the ever present roar of avalanches,
as your brain wonders where to hide.
Ladders, did I mention the ladders? Some
are lashed together with 2, 3, or 4 lengths
of ladders wrapped at the joint sections.
Horizontal or vertical, we climb across
them, up or down, spanning bottomless
crevasses. We proceed like an acrobat on a
tightrope, with only a rope clipped on with
a carabiner, as our safety net. As we walk
gingerly through the crevasse filled Khumbu,
we are followed by a creature we have
affectionately named “Wonder Dog”. He
follows us for seven hours, crossing strings
of ladders lashed together, with an ease I
do not possess. He stops, peers into the
crevasse, then traverses the ladders, some
as many as 40 rungs long. I fear he will
fall in, but he seems motivated by the
presence of our group. We do not feed him
for fear he will follow us forever. After
seven hours, we stop to rest. “WD” lays
beside us for a well deserved nap. Out of
danger, we cave against our better judgment,
and give him a few pieces of beef jerky as a
reward for a gallant effort. My mind
wonders how he will ever get back down?" |
