Blind Descent Page 19

  My desire was to live life to the fullest and have no regrets. If the doctor gave me bad news one day, I wanted to be able to say I’d lived a full life and would do it all over again if I could. I hoped to live each day knowing that I was making the most of it and being faithful to the calling God had given me. Even now, I knew that whatever the outcome on this mountain, life doesn’t end on earth. This is just the beginning.

  •

  I prepared for the next leg of the descent, which involved more than a mile of down-climbing and 20-plus pitches of rappelling. My pack was heavier now, with the extra bottle of oxygen, but I put on my pack with renewed determination.

  The last section down to the South Col was pretty steep, so I decided to use my figure-eight to rappel straight down. I had to be careful to hold my figure-eight securely as I pulled excess rope through the belaying device. It would be easy to drop it, and if I did, it was likely I’d never see it again. Another challenge was connecting the small loop into my locking carabiner on my harness—all without the luxury of being able to see what I was doing. Fortunately I’d had a couple of decades of experience using belaying devices, so I was attuned to the sound and feel of the carabiner when it snapped in. Beyond that, I simply had to trust my gear without being able to check it over visually. It was all about trust without seeing . . . kind of like faith.

  As I made my way down the remaining 1,500 sheer vertical feet, something went very wrong. About 20 yards below the Balcony, I began to suffocate as my mask collapsed around my face. I couldn’t breathe, and within seconds I became light headed. Don’t pass out! I willed myself.

  I ripped the mask from my face and gasped for air. Then I pulled my oxygen regulator close to my face. I was completely out of supplemental oxygen. And I still had a long way to go.

  I anchored myself to an ice screw, dropped to my knees, and wept. I knelt there in the death zone, more desperate than I’d ever been, and surrendered my heart to God. “Please help me,” I whispered. “I can’t do this alone.”

  It was then that I experienced a true miracle.

  At that moment, 2,000 feet below, Bill and Lakpa were near the Geneva Spur. They were getting increasingly worried about me, as six hours had passed with no word from Pasang or me. I found out later that Pasang was in his tent at the South Col without a radio, watching diligently for any signs of life from higher on the mountain. No one else had made a summit attempt that day on either side of Everest, so any movement above 26,000 feet would have to be me.

  Bill and Lakpa ran through every possible scenario about what might have happened to me as they made their way toward the South Col. Bill wondered if he should try to contact JoAnna—and what he might say to her.

  They climbed over the Geneva Spur and looked up at the summit of Mount Everest, scanning from one side to the other for any indications of life. They saw a form near the Balcony but couldn’t tell if it was a climber or a rock. The only way to tell the difference at high altitudes is to watch the object for a while. If it doesn’t move, it’s pretty safe to classify it as a rock. They weren’t sure, but they thought there had been small movements over time. They pressed on, climbing the last quarter mile into the death zone.

  Thousands of miles around the earth, another miracle was happening. I didn’t hear about it until weeks after my return, but after I pieced the stories together, it was undeniable that God was at work.

  At her scrapbooking convention in Redmond, Washington, JoAnna felt high anxiety knowing that I was attempting my summit that day. She went back to her hotel room and pleaded with God on my behalf. “God, I lift Brian up to you, wherever he is,” she cried. “I’m so worried about him, but I believe you can protect him.”

  At that precise moment I was kneeling down too—without oxygen and near the end of my rope. After my return, I heard countless stories from people who were jolted from sleep or whatever else they were doing and felt compelled to pray for me. Some people who didn’t even know me told me they weren’t sure why, but they’d felt a sudden urge to lift me up right at my moment of need.

  It’s true, I realized later. I really wasn’t alone on that mountain. Through the miracle of prayer, all these people were virtually assisting me in my descent.

  These are just a couple of the notes I received from people after my return:

  On Saturday morning, I went for a solo bike ride. I felt like God was really pressing me to pray for you. I’d been praying for you the whole trip, but that was the first time that I felt God telling me that I needed to stop and pray for you. My prayer was that you would receive the power and strength you needed from God to move when you needed to. I prayed that you would encounter a point on your summit push where you would need a boost to power through something.

  God is good, and I’m glad you take him with you when you go climbing. He is an okay partner to have around!

  David Heyting (family friend)

  I had followed your expedition from the beginning, and I was amazed that someone I knew would attempt something so difficult. I followed your blogs and got updates through JoAnna and on Facebook. In some very small way, I felt like I was there with you. On Thursday of the week you summited, I was asked to give a devotional on “radical faith” for our women’s Bible study. I was sure I was supposed to mention you.

  One night while you were on your expedition, I awoke from a dead sleep at 1:30 a.m. (PST). I don’t know how to explain it other than to say I just knew I was supposed to pray for you. I grabbed my phone and checked Facebook to see if there were any new updates. The last post from JoAnna said that you were going to attempt the summit, but there hadn’t been anything new for many hours.

  I prayed that God would give you the strength to continue wherever you were and that you would know you weren’t alone. I was never afraid for you, but I didn’t realize until later how close you would come to not making it home. To see you come back changed—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—has been simply amazing.

  I didn’t know the timing of my prayers and your experience until I heard you share at church the week you returned. Your journey is an inspiration to me—not just what you were able to do, but also the love and support your wife has for you (and her ultimate dependence on God). Your story is confirmation that there is nowhere we can go where God isn’t with us. It’s also a reminder to me that he really does answer our prayers!

  Michelle Mumford (friend from church)

  After uttering that desperate cry for help, I experienced something unlike anything I’d ever even seen before. I’m not sure I can entirely explain what happened, but all at once I felt a surge of energy and life come over me, and it felt like someone was helping me to my feet. While remaining anchored to the mountain, I removed my pack, my oxygen mask still half hanging from my face. I detached the hose from the depleted bottle, removed the canister Pasang had left for me, and attached the regulator. I don’t even know why I attempted it again after it had been useless the last time I’d tried, but the moment I held it up, I felt air blowing against my face!

  I reattached my mask and closed my eyes, sucking in several deep, slow breaths. I felt warmth course through my body and spread down to my fingers and toes. Life was reentering my limbs, burning through my body in a painful—but good—way. I stood up straight again, not even realizing I’d been hunched over until that moment. And then I noticed something else astonishing: when I looked up from the oxygen canister, I could tell that my vision had improved slightly. Everything around me was still a massive whiteout, but I was able to focus a little better on close-range objects. I’d heard about climbers who didn’t have snow blindness but whose vision had been affected by altitude alone, so it was possible the oxygen was helping my eyes.

  Without giving myself time to overthink it, I secured my figure-eight to the fixed line and rappelled down multiple pitches. It was so surreal that part of me wondered if I was hallucinating. I tried to study my watch to see what time it was, but the numbers were a blur. It wa
s hard to know how much time had passed, but I knew I needed to maximize my renewed life and get down to safety. I had no way of knowing if this burst of energy would be temporary, like an adrenaline rush, or if it would stick with me, so I wanted to take advantage of it.

  I continued to rappel down the massive face of Everest. I became more efficient about coming in and out of the anchors by feel, but I made sure to check them carefully each time before releasing my safety. My body was starting to feel heavy on my legs, and some of the slopes were turning slushy. I couldn’t afford to get sloppy under these conditions.

  At one point I stopped to try to get my bearings. I thought I was about 500 feet from the edge of the South Col. I squinted out into the vast, white terrain, looking for landmarks and wondering if anyone could see me.

  Nothing seemed familiar, and I felt panic creeping in again. Where am I? I wondered. Did I rappel down the wrong mountain face?

  I took some deep breaths, trying to stay calm.

  I looked up and contemplated climbing up again to see if I’d gone the wrong way. That should have been my first indication that all the exposure to the thin air was starting to affect my mind.

  I checked the altimeter on my watch, but it was too blurry for me to read. Down in the distance, I thought I saw pockets of orange, which I assumed were tents. And it seemed like the silhouette of Lhotse Face was in front of me. But without being able to see the outline of Everest behind me, I couldn’t be sure. I decided it was futile to try to question where I was any longer, so I rappelled down toward the bottom. I’d head toward what I assumed was high camp. If I made it, I’d just ask to sleep in someone’s tent and sort things out later.

  I was relieved to reach the ice bulge, the area entering the South Col. I must be going the right way! I thought. I came off the rappelling gear and switched back to my safety line. I was now on the last quarter mile from the edge of Everest to where our tents were located, on the far side of the South Col. As I walked across the ice field, I staggered, trying to put one foot in front of the other. I was so close to safety, but it still felt like I had so far to go. Will I actually survive this?

  As I walked the quarter mile through camp, I started hallucinating, thinking the blurry rocks in the distance were people waving at me. As I neared them, I would stop and squint my eyes, trying to focus on the people. What are they doing so far out on the South Col? I wondered. As I got closer, I realized they weren’t people at all. Then I’d look down at them and say, “Stupid rock!” I was so exhausted I was getting delirious.

  Did I die up here? I asked myself. Surely this can’t be heaven. If this is heaven, then heaven stinks!

  Then, out of nowhere, someone appeared and grabbed me in a huge hug.

  “Brian, you’re alive!” It was Pasang’s voice. “I’m sorry for leaving you there.”

  I assured him that he hadn’t abandoned me—that it had been a mutual decision, and it had made sense to both of us at the time. Nobody could have predicted what would happen over the course of the day.

  “Don’t sweat it, dude,” I said.

  I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face. I made it! I told myself over and over. I’m alive! I really made it!

  Pasang later sent me a Facebook message with his memory of that day:

  That morning I saw Brian up high, slowly coming down from the South Summit. When I saw him, I thought he had a problem because he was walking with great difficulty. I wondered if he was having trouble with his eyes, so I went to meet him with my extra sunglasses, plus hot juice and biscuits. When I met him near the South Col, I see his eyes cannot work. Snow blind.

  •

  “You don’t look good,” Pasang told me. “I’m glad you made it. Let’s get you to the tent.”

  I gave Pasang an abbreviated version of what had happened and updated him about the current condition of my eyes. Then we headed back across the ice field toward camp.

  Pasang moved quickly across the South Col, and I struggled to keep up. All of a sudden he was gone—presumably into one of the tents—but they all blended together in my foggy vision. After tripping over a bunch of rocks in search of my tent, I decided I needed help.

  “Pasang,” I called. “Where are you?”

  “Over here,” he called. His voice was coming from behind me. I spun around and fell backward into the open doorway of our tent. He helped me remove my climbing gear—my crampons, my harness, and my pack. It felt good to be relieved of the load I’d been carrying for so long.

  “What time did you reach summit?” he asked.

  “Around six o’clock in the morning.”

  “I knew it,” Pasang replied. “That’s what I said we would do.”

  After watching the mountain from his tent since early sunrise, Pasang had decided I must be in trouble up there. He was planning to go up and find me as soon as he gained his energy back and felt well enough to make the climb.

  I handed him my camera so he could flip through the digital pictures I’d taken at 29,035 feet. It had been just hours earlier, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

  It was warm in the tent, so I dropped my suit halfway, put on my sunglasses, and leaned back on my sleeping bag. That’s when it really started to hit me. I almost died up there, I thought. Thank you, God, for keeping me alive.

  I don’t think Pasang noticed that I was weeping behind my sunglasses—or maybe he did, but he wanted to give me some privacy. I don’t think my body had ever been so fatigued in my entire life.

  Somewhere in the background, I heard the welcome sound of Pasang boiling water to make some tea and soup.

  I thought about JoAnna back home and hoped she wasn’t worried. Our communications were relayed from our radios on the mountain down to base camp and then back to Kathmandu, where Sagar, our Nepalese contact, would contact Bill’s wife. The only thing people back home knew at this point was that I’d summited and that I was safe at high camp. Sagar didn’t know about my blind descent, which meant JoAnna didn’t know about it either. But she might wonder why it was taking so long for her to hear anything.

  I later read her journal entry reflecting back on what she was going through while I was descending solo.

  Before Brian left, he arranged for me to go to a scrapbooking retreat. We had no idea at the time that it would end up being the same dates as his summit attempt. I got there on Friday, May 13, and Brian had called a few days earlier to let me know he’d be making the attempt on May 14. Bill’s wife called that morning at nine o’clock, letting me know they’d try to summit that night.

  I had told a couple of friends at the retreat about Brian’s expedition, and word spread quickly. That afternoon people started asking how the trip was going, but I hadn’t heard anything. Others around me were starting to grow anxious and impatient, but I felt peace about the whole thing, so I stayed pretty calm.

  On all the other climbs Brian had done in the past, he’d rented a satellite phone so we could stay in touch. He always called from the summit so I could share the moment with him. No matter the circumstances, he always managed to find a way to contact me. This time, though, I knew Brian’s phone didn’t work past base camp, so I didn’t expect to hear from him unless he managed to borrow someone else’s phone to call from the summit.

  I explained the situation to the women and said it was unlikely I’d hear anything even if he’d summited. It wasn’t until dinnertime that I started to get worried. All at once, this overwhelming sense of doom came over me. I was checking my phone constantly, and I couldn’t focus on scrapbooking any longer.

  After dinner, I decided to go to my room to think and pray, but I mostly ended up crying. I just had this gut feeling that something was very wrong. I talked to Bill’s wife again, but she didn’t know anything.

  I didn’t sleep much that night—I kept waking up to check my phone and pray. But incredibly, the next morning I felt an overwhelming peace even though I still hadn’t heard anything. Somehow I knew that things would be okay.


  On Sunday I left the retreat and headed home. I picked Emily up, and we went to a Girl Scouts horseback riding event. I still hadn’t heard anything at this point, so I e-mailed and texted everyone I could think of to pray for Brian.

  At 9:30 p.m. Bill’s wife called to tell me that Brian had successfully summited and was at Camp IV. That was all we knew at that point.

  As I lay in my tent taking in oxygen, my eyes started to swell shut. After hours of having to fight the urge to close my eyes, I was finally able to give in and get some much-needed rest.

  Before I had a chance to drift off to sleep, Bill unzipped the vestibule and dove through the open doorway to give me a hug.

  “Congratulations!” he said. “Lakpa and I were so worried about you. Brian, only you could survive something like that.” He shook his head in amazement and disbelief. “Only you.”

  I later got Bill’s perspective on my summit day when I read his blog entry.

  May 22, 2011

  Around noon, I really was starting to worry. Most strong climbers can descend from the summit in three or four hours, and Brian was clearly in that category. It was now going on seven hours from his summit call, and there was still no word from him or Pasang.

  All kinds of scenarios started to play out in my head. What would I tell JoAnna, Brian’s wife?

  Every time someone descended from the Geneva Spur in a down suit, I held my breath, hoping it was Brian or Pasang.

  As Lakpa and I approached the Geneva Spur, we saw a small black dot near the Balcony. Is that Brian? Or maybe Pasang? I wondered. Perhaps it’s just a rock. I couldn’t tell. It may have been moving, but if so, it was going very slowly.