May 1999

THIRD POLE EXPEDITION
April - June 1999

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Monday 10th May 1999

First fatality: from the North side

"The news isn't very good, I don't know whether you already know down there, but someone has been killed at 8 300 metres. In fact, three Ukrainians made it to the summit last week, without oxygen. But as they were coming down again, a terrible storm took them unawares: one climber managed to make it back to base camp, the other two are still up at altitude, at 8 300 metres. One has just died and his companion is in a coma… They're trying to resuscitate him…"
Alain Hubert has just sent us this news. For the time being, he is with Pascal Debrouwer, Joao Garcia and Manram Tamang at the small village of Passu, a delightful farming ("where it's no doubt good to live," explains the Belgian), located at 4 200 metres and some 60 km from the base camp.
But their period of rest is over now; tomorrow, the Belgians will hitch a ride on a Chinese jeep and go back up to set up their tents again.
Once they get there, they will have to think about what decisions to take, and of course these will once again be dictated by the whims of the weather; an exercise that will be even harder to undertake, because you are unlikely to reason in the same way when you have just learnt that one of your colleagues has lost his life in a spot that you will have to climb past in a few days' time. And even if there is a good break in the weather, as there was for the Ukrainians last week, the climb can so easily turn into a drama, as we have seen.
Another element that does not augur well in terms of optimism is that time itself is running out (on the whole, attempts on the summit can be made between the 5th and 15th-20th May, not really any later) and that up until now, only a very few attempts have been made (that is from the North side, of course). And the day when the weather improves, we'll witness a real rush of climbers and tourists out on the ridge. Which is hardly a prospect to look forward to.