Bear Grylls (15 page)

The tent looked like some scene out of a holocaust movie, with pots of ketchup and sacks of rice covered in a layer of snow, resembling the fall-out dust from a nuclear explosion. Snow had blown
in through every hole and tear in the structure, and the driving wind had whipped in loud claps against the tarpaulin.

As dawn came we assessed the damage. In the few days beforehand, Mick and I had ensured that our tents were tightly secured; we had done this almost out of boredom, rather than anything else.
There had not been much else to do, except secure tents and prepare equipment. We were lucky, it had paid off.

The Singaporean camp had been hit on higher ground; tents had literally been torn apart. Out of a total of twelve tents, only two now stood. The others were scattered in shreds – poles and
canvas having been blown across the glacier at the mercy of Mother Nature. Bernardo’s supply tent lay limp and in tatters. The magnificent blue structure of the day before was now a sorry
combination of bent poles and ripped canvas.

The Sherpas seemed frightened, and nervously declared that this was the worst storm that any of them could remember at Base Camp for at least fifteen years. We looked on in silence at the
carnage that the wind had left.

Like battle-weary troops, the Singapore team were now forced to leave Base Camp. Their tents were ruined; they needed a re-supply, and that would take time. They would wait for this in Lobuche,
and train in the meantime in the surrounding valleys.

All of us, in some way, I guess, had arrived with swollen ambitions; we expected to control the way everything would go; we all assumed our equipment or our own strength would be enough; we
thought we had a fool-proof system. Disaster is never far away when man assumes to have control over anything – never more so than with nature. As is the way with mountains, our puny systems
have this funny habit of breaking down.

These thoughts dominated my mind as Mick and I found ourselves virtually alone again at Base Camp. I was viewing the mountain in a new light now. I felt as if we were trespassing by even being
here. It was as if we were being given warnings. Maybe we weren’t meant to ever ‘climb the Great Mountain’, as the Indian General had said.

We were still here though, and were still alive. I almost didn’t dare look up in the direction of the summit. It seemed too far, too ambitious. But as is the nature of the human spirit,
the flame somewhere still dimly glowed. I allowed myself a sneaking look up and quietly dreamt.

CHAPTER NINE

The solemn chanting of the Buddhist priest echoed round the glacier. The Lama, as he is referred to, scattered sacred flour and rice into the air at sporadic intervals, then
watched as it pattered down like rain across the ice.

The Lama was buried in his fervent prayers, oblivious to his surroundings. He sat cross-legged on a tattered old mat laid across the rocks. He was dressed in an old crimson monastery cloak that
wrapped round him several times over, and his old leather shoes seemed to have been repaired with twine more times than one would deem possible. His physique was small and wiry, and his face,
withered and wind-beaten by a lifetime in the hills. He smiled eagerly at us as a large branch of juniper crackled into flame.

The only indication of which century we were in was his woollen hat. Bright yellow with a huge bobble on the end; it dwarfed his face. The look of pride in his eyes suggested that he loved this
hat. It had a certain ‘something’ that other priests we had seen were lacking. Perhaps this eccentricity was the reason why he had been sent up to us by the monastery. He had travelled
twenty miles into the snows to administer what appeared to us at Base Camp to be our ‘last rites’.

Neil and Geoffrey had arrived with Henry the day before. Henry had completely failed to recognize Mick because of the thick beard he had sprouted in only three weeks, and because of my grime he
only recognized me by my chef’s trousers. Base Camp had come alive and the Lama’s ceremony marked the formal start of the climb. This was the Sherpas’ big day.

In preparation, they had built a stone altar upon which the Lama would raise the Buddhist prayer flag at the end of the ceremony. But at the moment it looked naked, standing alone, towering
above the rocks. The wind gently blew across the ice and the sun was already getting hot. The Lama continued his chanting, and we all sat serenely round about, watching the bobble hat move as his
head shook in prayer.

The ceremony is called the ‘Puja’, and the Lama spends an entire day chanting and offering food and alcoholic sacrifices to the mountain goddess. It is the most important part of the
climb for the Sherpas: without the mountain’s blessing, none of them would venture any further. Such is the strength of their conviction. On the other hand, once the Puja is over, the Sherpas
gain this great courage. They are now clear to climb; whatever happens afterwards is their destiny. Much of their courage comes as a result of a successful Puja.

Even Nima and Pasang had undertaken their own, slightly less elaborate Puja ten days earlier, for just the two of them. It was essential. Their work had started earlier than the other Sherpas,
and like all work in the Icefall – they needed their share of luck.

It was now 11.00 a.m. and the ceremony at Base Camp was in full flow. The Lama invited us to bring our ice-axes and crampons to him for a blessing. Everyone scrambled to their tents, rummaging
equipment together for the Lama. We all placed it at his feet, and as the metal of the axes and crampons clinked together, the Lama tossed more juniper onto the fire, chanting ever louder.

Suddenly the chanting stopped; the noise of the fire was all that remained. The Lama raised his arms aloft, and signalled for the Puja pole to be brought forward. With great solemnity –
faces displaying intense concentration, the Sherpas slowly raised the prayer pole into position. From the top of the pole, four lengths of prayer flags, each thirty yards long, were stretched
across the glacier and secured under large stones. The protection of Sagarmatha had begun.

The tone then changed abruptly. We were each given sacred flour and rice to throw in ‘prayer’, and food and drink to consume. An old gasoline container, brimming with clear liquid,
was produced from under wraps. It was the dreaded chang.

I grimmaced at the first sip. The smell brought back memories of drinking cheap vodka in the bushes at school, where I had ended up unconscious after drinking what felt like straight turps. I
had vowed that I would never touch it neat and in such vast measures again. The Sherpas were insistent, though, that I drank more to appease their mountain goddess. Too much more and I would not
need any protection, as I would be flat out on my back for the rest of the expedition, unable to climb. Still, keen to keep them happy I took another swig and winced. I swore that this was worse
than the cheap vodka. Surely they wouldn’t mind, I thought to myself, if I put a bit of orange juice in it and pretended I was drinking a cool vodka and orange in the garden at home.

A combination of altitude, and not having drunk more than a couple of sips of alcohol since the flight over, ensured that the ceremony rapidly deteriorated into chaos. The Sherpas’
tolerance to alcohol seemed even less than mine, and soon the chanting of the Lama was drowned in the drunken banter of the Sherpas, as they threw sacred flour wildly around like confetti.

The scene was soon like the final throes of a children’s tea party, with all of us covered in food and drink – food and drink that even the Lama was unable to avoid getting covered
in. I am sure the monastery would have disapproved but – oh well – the Lama seemed to be loving it. If Sagarmatha’s protection relied on the joviality and chaos of the Puja, then
by all accounts we had nothing to fear on her slopes.

The day slipped by and the tension of the weeks fell away. The Lama still sat cross-legged, grinning and chanting away songs and prayers that I am sure were slowly becoming gobbledegook. He
reached over, and swigged at the petrol container of booze. Sitting there, his face covered in sacred flour, he was the picture of religious delight. The only thing that now looked sober was his
bobble hat – and even that was tilting at an extraordinary angle.

Evening came, the Lama staggered to his feet and left, and a stillness swept over the camp. I sat on a rock and surveyed the carnage of where the Puja had taken place. It was a mess of rice and
biscuits strewn across the ground, and the last bits of juniper were still smouldering in the ashes. The prayer pole towered above Base Camp like a vigilant sentry and the prayer flags fluttered in
the gentle breeze. They are designed simply to carry the prayers up to the mountain as the wind caresses over them. As they swayed in the breeze, I hoped they would work.

Two days from now we would return to the Icefall, this time as a complete team – the aim being to reach Camp One. The departure of the Lama and the stillness of dusk beckoned in the next
stage of this adventure. The festivities were over and from now on things would become much more serious. Everything we had worked so hard for over the last year, everything the Puja had been about
– all the prayers for protection – now lay menacingly in front of us. My head was beginning to hurt from the chang, and as I sat on a rock with Mick, Neil and Geoffrey zipped inside
their tents either side of me, I found myself looking out at the Icefall. The ice shimmered in the glow of dusk and my mind wandered in a semi-drunken haze.

The other teams were also beginning to arrive at Everest Base Camp. The Singapore team had returned, newly equipped, along with three American teams and an Iranian team who were
hoping to put the first Iranian on top of the world. Base Camp was now more like a small village, with huddles of tents scattered randomly across the glacier.

The other climbers, under the logistical umbrella of Henry Todd, had also arrived. Inclusive of our four-man team, the total number in Henry’s group was twelve. We would all climb together
for the majority of the route, then at Camp Three we would separate in different directions. The eight Everest climbers would traverse north to the South Col, while the other four would make their
attempt for the summit of Lhotse – the fourth highest mountain in the world.

Outside our immediate team of Neil, Mick and Geoffrey, I had never met most of these other climbers. Apart from Henry, the only other person I knew was a very experienced climber from Colorado
called Andy Lapkas. We had climbed Ama Dablam together six months earlier, where I had gained a huge respect for this man. Tall, lean, and quietly spoken, but with a cheeky smile and sense of
humour, Andy was a thoroughbred climber. He had climbed Everest in the early 1990s. After two months’ preparation he had reached the summit in a staggering final climb – without the use
of supplementary oxygen.

The two of us had laughed together on Ama Dablam about the appalling state of our cars back home, and how they both had broken down before leaving. Silence would then fall, as we both wondered
how on earth our girlfriends put up with driving around in our clapped-out old bangers – then we would laugh again. I was pleased to have Andy climbing with us now, even though higher up he
would head for Lhotse.

Also climbing Lhotse were Nasu, a Turk who had previously climbed Everest from the north side, and Ilgvar, a Latvian who had climbed it from the south. Sitting in the mess tent I felt dwarfed by
the strength and achievements of these great men; we were in honoured company amongst such experience. I tried not to be daunted, but secretly felt a little small.