Icefall or camp? I'll take ladder

By DR. JASON FOUGHT
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
Two weeks ago, Paul Giorgio, the leader of our Everest expedition, asked me if I would be willing to climb through the Khumbu Icefall. Because I wasn't thinking right, probably because my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen at this high altitude, I somehow agreed.
Thinking he'd forgotten about it, I did minimal climbing in the icefall, in what Paul termed "the kiddie zone."
Now, with one of our climbers being at risk for serious problems, I was asked to climb through the icefall with him.
My personal goals during the climb were to not die in a crevasse, not get mangled beyond recognition in a crevasse, to avoid stabbing myself with the crampons I was wearing on my feet, and not to soil myself.
I awoke in the cold morning smelling French, but unlike the French, I applied a generous amount of deodorant before venturing into the 5 a.m. cold.
With a backpack loaded with two liters of mountain water (plus the added yak and human feces that runs through the stream, of course), five GU energy gels, a scarf blessed by but not sneezed upon by the lama, and a medicine called dexamethasone in case Bob, one of the climbers, went into high altitude cerebral edema (HACE) and tried to die on me, I wandered to the breakfast tent to eat a couple of hard-boiled eggs.
After breakfast, Bob, Ming Ma, a Sherpa who has summited Everest eight times, and I took off for the icefall.
Different goals
The purported goal of the climb was to allow Bob an opportunity to get to Camp I before going home.
The real goal was for Ming Ma and I to see if Bob could handle a good climbing pace without symptoms.
I suspected that we would beat him into the ground and convince him that he didn't have the right stuff this year, so he would return to America sooner rather than later.
Bob, who calls himself an "experienced mountaineer," doesn't appear to be the strongest or wisest of climbers.
I'm not certain whether this is because he was recently stricken with HACE or whether he's just that way. Either way, I needed to be there to help if Bob went downhill.
So a little after 5 a.m. we set out for the icefall.
I strapped some ill-fitting strap-on crampons (sharp, pointy spikes) onto my hiking boots and had my harness set and tested by Ming Ma, mainly because I have no idea how to safely assemble my gear.
Ming Ma was recently getting over mild bronchitis and needed an easy day to ease back into the climbing scene because he was going to Camp II the next day.
His easy day was my and Bob's Bataan Death March. Three Sherpas had already fallen into crevasses in the icefall, with two being seriously hurt, so I was glad that Ming Ma was around to show the way.
The former and the ladder
After about 45 minutes, we reached the first ladder, which spanned a crevasse of about 6 feet. The sensation of approaching a ladder is similar to being in the waiting room for your first colonoscopy, and the only thing I was told was to not look down.
Not being a good listener, I looked. Not too bad ... just a 20-foot plummet before wedging between a crevasse. I could survive that and probably not lose any limbs.
I tentatively walked across the ladder, taking about 45 seconds. As I was doing this, a Sherpa jumped across the crevasse, avoiding the ladder altogether.
Soon, I got the hang of the ladders and didn't see my life flash before my eyes with every crossing.
Suddenly the ladders became longer, with two and three ladders bound together, spanning large crevasses. As I placed my ill-fitting crampons onto the ladder rungs, I looked down and couldn't see the bottom. Death crevasse ... shouldn't have looked down.
Many more ladders crossed similar crevasses, and I focused only on getting across them as fast as I could, regretting that I agreed to walk through the icefall. I stopped and looked around. Bob was nowhere to be found. Ming Ma and I waited on 40-ton blocks of ice for five, then 10 and finally 20 minutes.
Lagging behind
Believing Bob had fallen to his death, Ming Ma backtracked and found him five minutes behind, climbing like lead weights were attached to his legs.
No headache or signs of mountain sickness, but we'd broken him. After a 10-minute rest, we persuaded him to climb for 30 more minutes, just to make sure the message was clear.
Since I hear avalanches in Base Camp every hour, I asked Ming Ma what we would do if an avalanche fell on us. He looked at me and acted if he were praying. That's reassuring.
After 20 minutes, the end of the icefall was within sight. Only five more rickety, dented ladders to go, although most of them were three wobbly ladders fastened together.
Bob dropped his pack, and 15 minutes later, the three of us had climbed through the Khumbu Icefall.
Unfortunately, we had to return through the same icefall. Most people who die do so during the return trip, when the sun has melted the ice and fatigue has set in.
I assume that any crampon-wearing idiot with no climbing experience is especially susceptible to this, since they would be most likely to trip over their own feet.
So the entire way down I focused on every step. Balls of snow clumped to my crampons, making walking even more difficult. I was wiped out.
Near the end, after six hours of climbing, I became overconfident at the next to last ladder, clipping my calf with my heel. I stumbled, almost falling 40 feet into a jagged crevasse.
At long last, I reached Base Camp.
Throwing my crampons at my tent, I sat in a chair, staring at a tent wall.
Would I climb through the icefall again? Maybe with more training. Or a gun to my head.