Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine April 2001

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True EVEREST
Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

In 1993 the new record for people on top hit 129. Now the whole world really was watching. But as the successes skyrocketed, so did the tension—and the death. The loss of 15 climbers in the spring of 1996 brought the Everest overcrowding debate to fever pitch and led to a lot of soul-searching among Base Camp veterans. But it hasn't stopped them from coming back.

NGIMA KALE SHERPA, cook who worked several years for the late expedition leader Scott Fischer: When we arrive at Base Camp, before the climbing begins, we have to make a puja ceremony to please the gods. People think that Mount Everest is a big rock, but it's not just a rock. We believe that Mount Everest is a god. If you're lot of shitty job doing there, lot of things happen, you know? If a girl and boy stay together in tent, then something bad will happen. Sometimes people will break their legs. Sometimes Sherpas get killed. So what do? We make a little, short tent, which has a flat rock for burning juniper. We bring out all our expedition gear, like crampons and ice axes, and then we bring a couple bottles of chang, and then beer, and then we put all this stuff together with the Sherpa stuff, with the rice and juniper. And then we each other making little celebrating for blessing from the gods, make sure we can have permission to go on the mountain.

NEAL BEIDLEMAN: As people start to go higher, tension in the camps goes from lighthearted to dead serious. People down in Base Camp start wandering around to the other camps that have radios, they start tuning in, and the rumors are flying. And then when people start coming off the mountain, either there's just complete euphoria and joy and happiness shared by the team, or there's complete meltdowns. It really brings out some very, very deep emotions.

AL BURGESS: I don't know why anybody wants to particularly hike there. It's still a physical wasteland. It's ironic, because if you look at Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites, usually they're places where water, air, fire, earth all come together. There's some significance. But the Western shrine is Everest Base Camp. The pilgrimage is like rusted tin cans and strung-out egos.

DAVID BREASHEARS, American climber and filmmaker whose work includes the IMAX film: One night in 1996, several weeks before the tragedy, I went outside my tent around 4 a.m. I just stood there, with the prayer flags flapping in the gentle breeze. There was a pretty good moon, and I could see ice glistening thousands of feet above on the West Shoulder. I could hear the pops, the creaks, the rumbling of the ice underfoot and all around. It reminded me that the place was alive, that it was dangerous, unpredictable. Above the silhouette of the surrounding peaks was the comet Hayakutake. I asked myself, When will this comet come around again, and when did it last come around? I could feel the timelessness of this patch of rock that's Base Camp, the ephemeral nature of our existence. Yes, we're driven by all sorts of different things. We're goal-oriented, we're trophy hunters, we're Walter Mitty types. But when you're on Everest, the basic rhythms of night take over: You eat and you rest. All is quiet. In the morning the sun will come, and all of this ambition and all of this drive and all of the different forces that work on the mountain these days will come to life.

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