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To Camp II - in the middle of the Khumbu Ice Fall
The Khumbu Icefall is vast and unstable, and has claimed more lives than any other part of the South-East ridge approach to Everest. At first a route has to be found up the dangerous and difficult icefall. Maybe like Sir Edmund Hillary, you will be chosen for this challenge; finding and making a safe route for others to follow. It will be a great responsibility that weighs on you, and saps considerable energy, but like Hillary you will tackle it with enthusiasm and determination, each night carefully thinking through your next steps and plans, before you drift off to sleep in your tent. Even before your small team reaches the foot of the icefall there are shaky ice bridges to cross, narrow cracks in the ice that you must wriggle through, and lines of steps to cut with your ice axe up steep ice walls. A steep icy corner is named 'Mike's Horror' after your team-mate who leads you successfully up it. You are relieved to cross a great crevasse by a slender ice bridge and then cut steps and handholds up the remaining twenty feet of vertical crevasse wall. Holding on like grim death, you finally stretch one arm over the icy lip of the crevasse, drive your ice axe into good snow and wriggle your way over the edge. Your team names this part 'Hillary's Horror' after your efforts. Later this dangerous part of the route will be changed and some of the crevasses will be spanned with aluminium ladders, even then it is still awkward to crawl across with spiked boots and a loaded pack on your back. You wouldn't want to slip off and fall into the deep dark depths of the icy crevasse below. Shortly a little snowy saddle provides you with a place to rest and eat a little food. Next is 'Hellfire Alley', another difficult area of shattered ice, where you wriggle and jam your way between ice blocks in the steep gully. You plug on as hard as your straining lungs will let you, panting for breath. You all want to get out of the danger area as quickly as possible. Finally you call it a day and tired, and a little scared and discouraged you make your way back to the comforts and safety of Base Camp. The next day there is an unpleasant shock waiting for your team as you retrace your new route - twenty feet of your track in 'Hellfire Alley' has been wiped out by blocks of tumbling ice that had fallen from up above during the night! Has one of the towering seracs fallen? Will you get a creepy feeling down the back of your neck like Hillary did as you hurry on up to the top of the alley? You hack another line of steps with your ice axe and climb out of 'Hellfire Alley' into a shaky part known as the 'Atom Bomb'. It is a gully criss-crossed with horizontal and vertical crevasses. You check you are securely roped to your team-mate and drop down to the edge of the gully. Each time you dislodge a block of ice there is an intense low rumble that seems to echo from the depths of the earth. With a real feeling of satisfaction you all finally cross the gully and arrive on a flat shelf that is the best site for Camp II you can find in the middle of an icefall. You've got through, but it is not yet safe enough for loaded porters to climb up and back again carrying supplies. Once again you return to Base Camp improving the track as you go. You all feel very happy that a route has been found and marked with flags to a campsite high on the icefall. In the middle of the night one of your team is violently ill with altitude sickness. He is too weak to climb with your team in the morning. The next day with the help of three laden Sherpas, three members of your team head back up the now established and flagged route, pitch your tents at Camp II and settle in for the night. You drift off to sleep to the eerie sounds of the creaking and cracking deep within the ice as it continually shifts and moves.
Written from the descriptions in the books: |
