Mountaineering in Nepal - He Ain't Your Sherpa (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine April 2001

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True EVEREST
He Ain't Your Sherpa (Cont.)


	Khumbu commute: Almost every item used at Base Camp—food, fuel, aluminum ladders, cases of beer—is hauled in by yak or on the backs of porters such as this one. (Teru Kuwayama)

CLIMBING EVEREST IS formidable enough, but in January 1999, Babu set in motion an even more daunting plan.

"It was hilarious," says Martin Zemitis, the Mountain Hardwear tent designer. "This five-foot-something guy comes in, hardly speaking any English, and says it's his dream to spend the night on Everest. I go, OK, we get nuts all the time—we were based in Berkeley then—but this was off the scale. Above 26,000 feet, technically, you're dying, right? Here's this guy wanting to stay up there, and nobody really knew if it was possible."

Once Zemitis learned that Babu had been up Everest eight times without supplemental oxygen, he started taking him seriously. Four days later, Zemitis says, he handed Babu a 2.5-pound shelter the size of a doghouse that was "stronger than snot."

He also informed the marketing department that Mountain Hardwear was sponsoring Babu Chiri Sherpa. "I was a little miffed at first," says Jennifer Slaboda, the company's marketing director. "I thought, Wait, this is going to be a liability issue—what if he dies up there? But now that I know Babu, he's great to work with."

"The gods who inhabit mountains tend to be irritable. They will protect you if you treat them right, and give you bad trouble if you don’t."

Nearly two years later, Babu, Teru, and I arrive at Everest Base Camp, elevation 17,500 feet. Standing amid the December silence—nobody's here but us—it's almost impossible to picture the transformation that occurs every April. Last season there were more than 500 people here, milling about among huge dome tents, webs of billowing prayer flags, and stone shelters that crumbled after the season with the heaving of the glacier.

This is Babu's home away from home. He points to where the Khumbu Icefall peters out into the moraine, the very best site at Base Camp because it offers the cleanest water and up-to-date information on route conditions from descending climbers. Babu snagged the spot last year by dispatching a friend to stake it out two months before the season even started. "The last camp before the icefall is a critical spot if you want people to know what you're doing," says Jim Litch, an American climber and physician who has provided medical care on a few of Babu's expeditions. "Babu sets the stage, which is what any good performer does."

It is difficult to get Babu to offer reasons beyond the mundane to explain why he decided to do the phenomenal things he did in 1999 and 2000. For example: "Just climbing the mountain isn't good enough. I want to give something back." He also cites the need to educate his six daughters. He acknowledges the influence of Batard. But the most succinct reason he offers for his feats is this: "It gives me power."

In 1999 Babu planned to summit with two Swedish clients. The winds at the South Col were so ferocious, however, that his clients couldn't get beyond the Balcony at 28,700 feet. On May 5, Babu pushed on to the top with his older brother, Dawa, and another Sherpa, Nima Dorje, who helped him dig out a platform for the tent and anchor it to the mountain. Babu crawled inside his 20-below down sleeping bag wearing a 20-below down suit, and commenced waiting.

Doctors had warned him that if he fell asleep he would never wake up. He was supposed to report in via radio every two hours or so, but "nobody could reach him on the radio that night for seven or eight hours," says Heidi Howkins, an American climber who was at Camp II at the time. "His teammates were panicked about it, crying. They were doing frantic updates on their Web site, absolutely convinced that something had happened to him. It turned out that Babu had been talking all night long with some guys on the Tibet side, making crank calls on his radio. He was calling other base camps and waking them up." After his 21-hour slumber party, he was greeted by a tsunami of publicity and a parade in Kathmandu.

For an encore, Babu decided he'd climb Everest faster than anyone else. The record was held by Kaji Sherpa, who made the trip in 20 hours in 1998. (Starting from Base Camp, an acclimatized mountaineer usually takes four days to summit.)

On May 20, 2000, Babu left Base Camp at 5 p.m. wearing light hiking boots. He took 40 minutes to eat and change clothes at Camp II and 35 minutes to do the same at Camp IV, which he reached at 2:35 a.m. The wind was blowing at more than 58 miles per hour at the South Summit. Babu proceeded to dash upslope when the wind died down, hitting the deck when it picked back up. He made it in under 17 hours.

With nothing to do and no one to talk to, we spend less than an hour at Base Camp. Up here, I've been lurching along like a wooden marionette whose master hasn't yet mastered his art. As we prepare to go, I turn around and discover the undisputed champion of Everest standing on his head.

"Babu!" I blurt. "What the hell?"

The upside-down climber chuckles. "This is my Base Camp yoga."

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