Everest: 5th attempt

May 1999

THIRD POLE EXPEDITION
April - June 1999

Saturday 29th May, 1pm

Alain Hubert's fifth failure on Everest : "I chose life, that was my destiny…"

We were beginning to nurture some worries about the fate of the Hubert-Manram pair when on Saturday at noon Alain rang by satellite. He was safe and sound at base camp but had been unable to reach the coveted summit.
While waiting for him to come home - which should be towards the end of this week - here is a summary of the circumstances of his ascent.
On 25 May, towards eight o'clock, Hubert reached Camp 3, 8300m, under oxygen and in the company of Manram. "At every stage of our ascent, I searched the rock-face with binoculars to try to make out Pascal's body. I went on foot as far as first step, at 8450m, to have a look from that side. But without success. For his family I repeat that we must one day go and look for him, and for that a special expedition will have to be mounted, without which it would not be possible…"
When they arrived at Camp 3, the men had trouble finding the small tent which had been placed there for shelter before and after the summit. Once they had finally found it, they discovered to their horror that the stove and saucepan that were there had disappeared. "You should understand", explained Alain, "that being deprived of the possibility of heating up some water and having a drink before going on to the summit was pure madness."
So the two men decided to bivouac where they were. ("A frightful night", said Alain, "up there is really the zone of death…")

Joao Garcia

The next day, after further searching of the surrounds with binoculars, they decided to go back to the ABC camp which they reached on 26 May at around 20.00.
"I have asked myself a heap of questions", Alain went on, "concerning the signs which, since the very beginning of this expedition, have come to place themselves across my path…. First there was the death of Pascal with whom I had forged strong ties of friendship - as is the case in circumstances like these, we had made a lot of plans together, he was really a wonderful guy, then this horrible sore throat contracted at the beginning of the expedition because of the weather being too dry probably, then the fact that I had to transform myself into leader of the expedition after Pascal's disappearance, and finally, there came this twist of fate that the stove had been stolen by a tourist - exactly as had happened to Pascal in 1997 - which prevented our being able to drink anything at all and therefore being able to continue. It's then that I said to myself that all these signs had to be taken into account when analysing the decision to climb higher." "I chose life", Alain explained further, "that was my destiny. That said, I was fully fit and had never been so close to succeeding. Which makes me wild that I couldn't go on to the end. All the more so because this week a maximum number of people reached the summit, including tourists. The only small consolation I have is that the likes of Steve Haston, Fabrizio Zangrili or Russel Brice (Note: Hubert appears to have made peace with this expedition leader that he had so fulsomely criticised at the beginning of the adventure) were equally unable to reach the summit this year… But it's hard to stomach, all the same. I think I'll have to come back. Pitting oneself against Everest, when all is said and done, is a particularly stirring experience…"
On 27 May, Hubert and Manram climbed back up to the North Pass to dismantle all the expedition's camps. That same evening, they went down to the base camp for the last time. This Saturday, they are going to have to work like animals to pack up the tons of expedition equipment, which is represented by more than twenty plastic barrels, those blue containers that all expeditions use for storing equipment away from bad weather and humidity. Tomorrow morning, in effect, they have rented a lorry to arrive at 3.00 to pick them up them and to drive them to Kathmandu, which they should reach late on Sunday evening, if all goes well. We have not yet been advised of the date of Alain Hubert's return home, but it should be somewhere around next Friday or Saturday.

Your Feeling, Your Mood...

While awaiting the return of the Belgians, we are inviting visitors to this antarctica.org website to write to us to let us know their reactions to the events that, once again, have shaken the mountaineering world last week; the ethics of commercial expeditions, the fact that the press devoted just a paragraph to Pascal Debrouwer's victory, but front pages to his disappearance, the conduct of the Poles with regard to Pascal after abandoning him at 8500m, etc. We will arrange for the majority of these reactions to be published whole in these pages, and as quickly as possible. Write to michel.brent@skynet.be