(click picture to enlarge)
Mt. Everest:
north face
Expedition
Route
Brian McCullough
Journal
8: Sliding Down the Crevasse
by
Brian McCullough
August
27, 2001
Rongbuk Glacier
Yesterday the camp was awake at first light. After a quick breakfast of sweet tea and soup, we needed to deal with the crevasse. The oldest Tibetan, who could have been 40 —or 60 — years old, chose the most likely ice bridge and climbed down, calling his three yaks to follow behind him. They just followed him into the hole like puppy dogs, slipping and sliding down the ice on one side and scraping and clawing up the other side.
The fourth yak got one look at the crevasse and said "no way." It did a turn around and started to fall into the deep hole. Our Sherpa friend, Pemba, saved the day by holding onto the animal, saving it from falling into the deep crack.
Finally, with some key ropes to make the yaks stay on the ice bridge — and almost starting a stampede — all the yaks crossed safely. The next crack in the glacier was deeper but not as steep. At the bottom was a fast-flowing creek. Three yaks lost their loads in the water. It was a big hassle to retie everything. One yak could not continue and its load was split up among the Tibetans. From that point the glacier was clear all the way to our goal at 21,000 ft.
For six miles, we traveled a medial moraine covered with stones. We passed through 100 ft. tall ice pillars on each side of the path. The summit of Everest hung over this yak train, which was spread out over a mile long. These native people are not immune to the extreme high altitude and several had to turn back because they felt ill. One Tibetan boy, about ten years old, was always at the front of the yak train. He did not seem to mind climbing to over 20,000 ft.
By about 4 PM, we had reached our goal. Loads were dropped, and we all turned around and headed back down the glacier. We spent that second night at the 'crevasse camp' and then walked back to the basecamp today.
--Brian
