Where is Rob Hall's body on Everest now? Selling a ticket to hell. At the foot of Everest, four weeks earlier

The tragedy, taken as the basis for the plot of the Hollywood film “Everest,” unfolded before the eyes of Krasnoyarsk residents. Famous climber Main coach of the mountaineering team of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Nikolai Zakharov climbed to the summit at the time when Scott Fischer, Rob Hall and members of their teams died there. He and his wife told Prospekt Mira about irresponsibility extreme tourism, the fallen noses of those saved and why climbers all over the world learn Russian.

“This was the year when commercial mountaineering began to develop on the highest peak in the world,” says Nikolai Zakharov.— I won’t say that this is bad: if you have money, why not relax in the mountains? But not on an eight-thousander like Everest. I myself have climbed twice and I know how difficult it is: at the very top a person receives three times less oxygen than needed, there is an icy wind, the temperature drops to minus 60 degrees. You hesitated a little, didn’t get your bearings in time - and that’s it, you either froze, or the valves in the cylinders froze, and you’re without air. In principle, all this became the cause of the tragedy that took place on the slope in May 1996.

Still from the film

Two groups with paying tourists got into bad weather right at the very top. Some people had already reached the peak and were descending when an avalanche covered them. Rob Hall, the leader of one of the teams, gave in and agreed to drag one of the tourists (he had very little time left, but he could hardly walk himself), although it was clear that there was practically no time left for the descent. Both died.

“I had a case that practically repeated the story with Rob’s client,” recalls Zakharov. “During the first ascent, some of my comrades had already reached the top and turned back, and I only had about 200 meters left. Imagine: 200 meters - and for the first time in my life I’m on Everest! But if I went, they would have to wait for me, and the weather was changing. And I decided to turn back.

1996, photo from Zakharov’s personal archive

There are two routes to Everest: from Nepal, through the south col (the classic one, about which the film was made) and through the northern ridge, from Tibet. When Scott, Rob and their people died, Zakharov and a group of Krasnoyarsk tourists were climbing the northeastern wall for the first time: no one had climbed there before them.

— We missed each other in just a few days: on May 10 we went down to the camp to rest, so that we could then climb to the top. And on the 15th we moved up and found ourselves in exactly the same bad weather. We had a very bad time. The oxygen ran out, we spent three nights at an altitude of 8300 meters - this is a lot, the energy literally left us. Last night we didn’t sleep at all: everything was freezing even in our sleeping bag. But we were prepared; for us it was not an extreme situation, but a working moment. It was necessary to correctly assess everything, react and simply survive. About what happened to American teams, we found out after returning.

Still from the film

At this time, friends of Krasnoyarsk climbers were trekking under Everest. Among them was Nikolai’s wife - Lyubov Zakharova. They stopped for the night in the village of Felice (4200 meters above sea level), when wounded climbers began to be lowered from above.

“By this time we had already heard what happened; on the eve of the tragedy we saw a huge black cloud hanging over Everest,” says Lyubov Zakharova.— N But then we saw this horror with our own eyes: sad, lost people with bandaged hands, black, someone with a fallen nose - were sitting in a cafe. There was a feeling that they did not know what to do next. Someone mindlessly goes through things, takes something out and puts it back in the backpack. The strangest thing is that they don't talk to each other. Not at all, they just sit on their own. There is no euphoria that they survived, that they were going home (a plane was about to fly for them), that it was all over.

Photo from personal archive

“Now there are no such big tragedies on Everest,” continues Nikolai Nikolaevich. — the recovery industry has been worked out. But people still die every year. Because even 40 days of preparation for climbing to such a height is not enough. Personally, I would undertake to prepare a person for Everest at least three years in advance. Even physically strong man in an extreme situation, he may become confused and not know what to do. The only thing the climbers had to do in 1996 was to go down as quickly as possible. But they hesitated and could no longer control the situation.

Still from the film

In the film, the only one who goes to the aid of those in trouble is Russian climber Anatoly Boukreev. This man is a legend in mountaineering. He worked as a guide for Scott Fisher.

“I knew Tolya well,” recalls Zakharov. — He is from Chelyabinsk, but lived in Alma-Ata. A very strong high altitude climber. He and I climbed two eight-thousanders in the Himalayas. He walked without an oxygen apparatus. Then it was he who pulled out three (otherwise there could have been more victims) due to bad weather. I climbed to the top and came down three times. Afterwards he told me in great detail how everything happened. Tolya himself died in 1997 in an avalanche.

Photo from personal archive

By the way, the film does not at all focus on the fact that the climbers were saved by a Russian. It sounds: “Tolya, you can go out.” And at the end, in the credits: “Anatoly Boukreev pulled out...”.

“It is well known in the world that only Russian climbers are ready to go to the rescue no matter what,” Nikolai Zakharov is sure. “That’s just how we were taught.” Foreigners may well pass by if someone is freezing nearby. Therefore, many experienced and knowledgeable climbers from abroad learn our language and go on difficult routes only with Russians.

Still from the film

According to Zakharov, the film was shot in the Alps, but there was also a lot of natural filming. On Everest itself, the south col and tents were removed. Of course, all this adds to its realism.

“Young guys often come to me and ask me to sign them up as climbers,” finishes Nikolai Nikolaevich. “Now I started telling them: watch the film, and then come back.” Almost half don’t come later. There are many eight-thousanders in the Himalayas, but for some reason it is on Everest that people die very often. Everyone strives to climb to the highest peak in the world. And I personally don’t like Everest on classic routes. I saw enough of the dead there - This is a natural cemetery.

Photo from personal archive

The tragedy on Qomolungma in May 1996 refers to the events that occurred on May 11, 1996 and led to the mass death of climbers on the southern slope of Qomolungma.

During the entire 1996 season, 15 people died while climbing the mountain, which forever inscribed this year as one of the most tragic in the history of the conquest of Chomolungma. The May tragedy received wide publicity in the press and the mountaineering community, calling into question the feasibility and moral aspects of the commercialization of Chomolungma.

The surviving participants in the events each offered their own versions of what happened.

In particular, journalist Jon Krakauer described the tragedy in his book.

Jon Krakauer, a journalist, mountaineer, and participant in an expedition in the Himalayas, chronicled a tragedy involving frivolity and vanity, fatal arrogance, courage and big money.

One of my feet is in China, the other is in the kingdom of Nepal; I'm standing on the highest point on the planet. I scrape the ice off my oxygen mask, turn my shoulder to the wind and absentmindedly look down at the vastness of Tibet. I had long dreamed of this moment, expecting unprecedented sensual delight. But now that I am actually standing on the top of Everest, I no longer have enough strength for emotions.

I haven't slept for fifty-seven hours. Over the past three days, I have only managed to swallow a little soup and a handful of chocolate-covered nuts. I have been tormented by a severe cough for several weeks now; During one of the attacks, two ribs were even cracked, and now every breath is real torture for me. In addition, here, at an altitude of over eight thousand meters, the brain receives so little oxygen that in terms of mental abilities I am now unlikely to give a head start to a not very developed child. Apart from the insane cold and fantastic fatigue, I feel almost nothing.

Next to me are instructors Anatoly Boukreev from Russia and New Zealander Andy Harris. I click four frames. Then I turn around and begin the descent. I spent less than five minutes on the greatest peak on the planet. I soon notice that in the south, where just recently the sky was completely clear, several lower peaks were hidden in the advancing clouds.

After fifteen minutes of careful descent along the edge of a two-kilometer abyss, I come across a twelve-meter cornice on the crest of the main ridge. This is a difficult place. As I fasten myself to the hanging railing, I notice—and this worries me greatly—that ten meters below, at the foot of the rock, about a dozen climbers are crowded together, still on their way to the top. All I have to do is unhook from the rope and give way to them.

Down there are members of three expeditions: a New Zealand team led by the legendary Rob Hall (I belong to it too), a team from the American Scott Fischer, and a group of climbers from Taiwan. As they slowly climb up the rock, I eagerly wait for it to be my turn to descend.

Andy Harris was stuck with me. I ask him to get into my backpack and turn off the valve of the oxygen cylinder - this way I want to save the remaining oxygen. Over the next ten minutes I feel surprisingly good and my head clears. Suddenly, out of the blue, it becomes difficult to breathe. Everything is swimming before my eyes, I feel like I might lose consciousness. Instead of turning off the oxygen supply, Harris mistakenly opened the valve all the way, and now my tank is empty. There are still seventy difficult meters down to the spare oxygen cylinders. But first you have to wait for the queue below to clear. I take off the now useless oxygen mask, throw my helmet onto the ice and squat down. Every now and then you have to exchange smiles and polite greetings with climbers passing up. In fact, I'm desperate.

Finally, Doug Hansen, one of my teammates, crawls up. "We did it!" - I shout to him the usual greeting in such cases, trying to make my voice sound more cheerful. Tired Doug mutters something unintelligible from under his oxygen mask, shakes my hand and trudges further upstairs.

Scott Fisher appears at the very end of the group. The obsession and endurance of this American climber have long been legendary, and now I am surprised by his completely exhausted appearance. But the descent is finally free. I'm strapped to a bright orange rope sudden movement I go around Fischer, who, with his head down, leans on his ice axe, and, falling over the edge of the rock, I slide down.

I reach the southern peak (one of the two peaks of Everest) at four o'clock. I grab a full oxygen tank and hurry further down, to where the clouds are getting denser. A few moments later, snow begins to fall and nothing is visible. And four hundred meters above, where the summit of Everest still glows against the azure sky, my teammates continue to cheer loudly. They celebrate the conquest of the highest point on the planet: they wave flags, hug, take photographs - and waste precious time. It doesn’t even occur to any of them that in the evening of this long day every minute will count. Later, after six corpses were found, and the search for those two whose bodies could not be found was stopped, I was asked many times how my comrades could have missed such a sharp deterioration in the weather. Why did experienced instructors continue to climb, not paying attention to the signs of an approaching storm, and leading their less than well-prepared clients to certain death? I am forced to answer that in those afternoon hours of May 10, I myself did not notice anything that could indicate the approach of a hurricane. The veil of clouds that appeared below seemed thin, completely harmless and hardly worthy of attention to my oxygen-deprived brain.

A place on the death squad cost clients sixty-five thousand dollars

At the foot of Everest, four weeks earlier.

Thirty teams - more than four hundred people - were at that time on the Nepalese and Tibetan slopes of Everest. These were climbers from two dozen countries, high-altitude Sherpa porters from local residents, and quite a lot of doctors and assistants. Many groups were purely commercial: two or three instructors guided a few clients to the top who paid generously for their professional services. New Zealander Rob Hall is particularly lucky in this regard. In five years he has taken 39 people to the peak, and his firm is now advertised as "a leading organizer of Everest tours." Hall is about ninety meters tall, and he is as thin as a pole. There is something childish about his face, but he looks older than his thirty-five years, either because of the wrinkles around his eyes or because of his enormous authority among his fellow climbers. Unruly strands of brown hair fall over his forehead.

For organizing the climb, he demands 65 thousand dollars from each client - and this amount does not include either the cost of the flight to Nepal or the price of mountain equipment. Some of Hall's competitors charge only a third of that amount. But thanks to his phenomenally high top percentage this spring, Rob Hall has no problems with wealthy clients: he now has eight of them.

One of his clients is me, although the money does not come from my pocket. An American magazine sent me on an expedition to get a report on the ascent. For Hall, this is a way to once again express himself. Because of me, his desire to reach the top is noticeably intensified, although it is clear that the report will appear in the magazine even if the goal is not achieved.

Scott Fisher's team is climbing Everest at the same time as us. Fischer, 40 years old, is a quite sociable, stocky athlete with a tail of blond hair at the back of his head, driven forward by inexhaustible internal energy. If the name of Hall's company, Adventure Consultants, fully reflects the New Zealander's methodical, meticulous approach to organizing climbs, then Mountain Madness, the name of Scott Fisher's enterprise, defines the latter's style even more precisely. At the age of twenty, he was already famous in professional circles for his more than risky technique.

Team "Adventure Consultants Everest". 1996

Many people are attracted by Fischer's inexhaustible energy, the breadth of his nature and his capacity for childlike admiration. He is charming, has the muscles of a bodybuilder and the physiognomy of a movie star. Fischer smokes marijuana (though not while working) and drinks somewhat more than his health allows. This is the first commercial expedition to Everest he organized.

Hall and Fischer each have eight clients, a diverse group of mountain-obsessed people who are united only by their willingness to spend significant sums and even risk their own lives to stand on the world's highest peak. But if we remember that even in the center of Europe, on Mount Mont Blanc, which is half as low, dozens of amateur climbers sometimes die, then the commercial groups of Hall and Fischer, consisting mainly of rich but not very experienced climbers, even with favorable conditions resemble suicide squads.

Take one client, Doug Hansen, a 46-year-old father of two grown children and a postal worker from Renton, near Seattle.

To fulfill his life's dream, he worked day and night, saving the necessary amount. Or doctor Seaborn Beck Withers from Dallas. He gave himself a ticket to this far from cheap expedition for his fiftieth birthday. Yasuko Namba, a frail Japanese woman from Tokyo with very limited climbing abilities, at forty-seven years old, dreams of becoming the oldest woman to conquer Everest.

Many of these future conquerors send messages daily to almost every country in the world via satellite communications or the Internet. And yet the main correspondent is in Fischer's group. This is Sandy Hall Pittman, forty-one years old, a member of the prestigious New Yorker Society and married to one of the founders of the MTV music channel. Athletic woman She is 1.8 meters tall and even brought the spirit of New York to the Himalayas: she drinks aromatic coffee bought at her favorite store, and the latest issues of fashion magazines are sent to the base camp especially for her. With her characteristic egocentrism, Pittman managed to interest all the major New York newspapers in her expedition to Everest. This is her third attempt and this time she is determined to get to the top. This exposes Scott Fischer to the greatest temptation: if this VIP client gets to the top with his help, he will receive the most stunning publicity he could ever dream of.

Our expedition began at the end of March in Northern India, from where we went to Nepal. On April 9th ​​we reached the base camp, located at an altitude of 5364 meters on the western side of Everest. In the following days, while the Sherpas slowly made their way up, we gradually got used to the cold and thin high-mountain air. Some even then felt unwell: there was not enough oxygen, their bloody legs ached, they suffered from headaches or, as in my case, a constant cough. One of the Sherpas accompanying us was seriously injured when he fell into a crack.

At an altitude of 6400 meters, we came face to face with death for the first time - it was the corpse of an unlucky climber, wrapped in a blue plastic bag. Then one of the best and most experienced porters of the Fisher team suffered from pulmonary edema. He had to be evacuated by helicopter to a hospital, but Sherpa died a few weeks later. Fischer's client with the same symptoms was, fortunately, brought to a safe height in time, and thanks to this his life was saved.

Scott Fischer quarrels with his deputy, Russian instructor Anatoly Boukreev: he does not want to help clients climb up the rocks, and Fischer has to do the grueling work of a guide alone.

At Camp III, our penultimate mountain shelter before the summit, we prepare for the final stage of the ascent. Nearby were climbers from Taiwan with their leader, photographer Min Ho Gau. Ever since the hapless Taiwanese needed rescuers to conquer Mount McKinley in Alaska in 1995, the team has become notorious for its lack of experience. The climbers from the Republic of South Africa are equally incompetent: their group is followed by a whole trail of scandalous rumors, and several experienced athletes separated from them at the base camp.

We begin the attack on the summit on May 6th. And although there is an agreement between the groups not to attempt the assault on Everest all at the same time - otherwise there will be queues and jostling on the approach to the very top - this, unfortunately, does not stop either the South Africans or the team from Taiwan.

The first victims of unpreparedness appeared on the way to the top of Everest...

On the morning of May 9 one of the Taiwanese climbs out of the tent to recover and wash himself. He only has soft chuni on his legs. Squatting down, he slips, flies, somersaulting, down the slope and after about twenty meters falls into a deep crack. The Sherpas pull him out and help him to the tent. He is in a state of shock, although at first glance there appears to be no serious physical damage.

Soon after, Ming Ho Gau leads the remnants of the Taiwanese group towards Camp IV, which is located on the south col, leaving his unlucky comrade to rest in a tent all alone. A few hours later, the poor man’s condition deteriorates sharply, he loses consciousness and soon dies. American climbers radioed about this tragedy to group leader Min Ho Gau.

“Okay,” he replies, “thank you very much.” And, as if nothing had happened, he informs his partners that the death of a comrade will in no way affect the schedule of their ascension.

On the southern col (height 7925 meters) there is a camp, which becomes our base for the duration of the assault on the summit. The South Col is a vast ice plateau between the wind-whipped cliffs of the upper Lhotse Mountain and Everest. On the eastern side it hangs over an abyss two kilometers deep, at the edge of which our tents stand. There are more than a thousand empty oxygen cylinders lying around, left behind by previous expeditions. If there is a more bleak and polluted place anywhere else on earth, I hope I don't have to see it.

On the evening of May 9, the teams of Hall, Fischer, the Taiwanese and the South Africans reach the South Col. We made this multi-hour journey in difficult conditions - there was a strong wind and it was very slippery; some arrived at the place already in the dark, completely exhausted.

Here comes Lopsang Yangbu, senior Sherpa from Scott Fisher's team. He carries a 35-kilogram backpack on his back. Among other things, there are satellite communication devices - Sandy Pittman wants to send electronic messages around the world from an altitude of 7900 meters (later it turned out that this is technically impossible). It does not occur to Fisher to stop such dangerous whims of clients. On the contrary, he promised to personally carry Pittman’s electronic toys upstairs if the porter refused to carry them. By nightfall, more than fifty people had gathered here, small tents standing almost close together. At the same time, a strange atmosphere of isolation hovers over the camp. The gusty wind on the plateau howls so loudly that it is impossible to communicate even if you are in neighboring tents. As a team we exist only on paper. In a few hours the group will leave the camp, but each will move forward on his own, not connected to the others by any rope or special sympathy.

In the evening, at half past eight, everything calms down. It’s still terribly cold, but there’s almost no wind anymore; The weather is favorable for the summit attempt. Rob Hall shouts loudly to us from his tent: “Guys, today looks like today is the day. At half past eleven we begin the assault!

Twenty-five minutes before midnight, I pull on my oxygen mask, turn on the lamp, and step out into the darkness. Hall's group consists of fifteen people: three instructors, four Sherpas and eight clients. Fischer and his team - three instructors, six Sherpas and clients - follow us at intervals of half an hour. Next come the Taiwanese with two Sherpas. But the South African team, which found the grueling climb too difficult, remained in the tents. That night, thirty-three people left the camp in the direction of the summit.

At three forty-five in the morning, twenty meters below me, I notice a large figure in a poisonous yellow puff. In conjunction with her is Sherpa, who is much shorter in stature. Breathing noisily (he is not wearing an oxygen mask), the Sherpa literally drags his partner up the slope like a horse drags a plow. This is Lopsang Yangbu and Sandy Pittman.

We stop every now and then. The night before, the guides from the teams of Fischer and Hall had to hang the fixed ropes. But it turned out that the two main Sherpas couldn't stand each other. And neither Scott Fisher nor Rob Hall - the most authoritative people on the plateau - were able or willing to force the Sherpas to do the necessary work. Because of this, we are now losing precious time and energy. Hall's four clients are getting worse and worse.

But Fischer's clients are in good shape, and this, of course, puts pressure on the New Zealander. Doug Hansen wants to turn down, but Hall persuades him to go further. Beck Withers almost completely lost his sight - due to low blood pressure, the consequences of his eye surgery appeared. Soon after sunrise he had to be left helpless on the ridge. Hall promises to pick up Withers on his way back.

According to the rules, the leader is obliged to set a time when all members of the group, regardless of where they are, must turn back in order to return safely to the camp. However, none of us knew this hour.

After a while I see Lopsang in the snow: he is on his knees, throwing up. Sherpa is the strongest climber in the group, but yesterday he spent the whole day carrying Sandy Pittman’s useless satellite phone, and today for five or even six hours in a row he pulled her up. The right of the guide to go first in the group and determine the route is for Lopsang now additional load. Due to unsatisfactory preparation of the route by the warring Sherpas, poor physical fitness Lopsang and Fischer himself, and mainly due to the endless delays caused by the limitations of such participants as Sandy Pittman, Yasuko Namba and Doug Hansen, we moved forward slowly and even the optimal weather conditions for Everest could not help us. Between one and two, when it was time to turn back, three-quarters of the climbers had not even reached the summit. Scott Fisher and Rob Hall were supposed to signal their groups to return, but they weren't even in sight.

Anatoly Boukreev, Mike Groom, Jon Krakauer, Andy Harris, and a long line of climbers on Everest on the Southeast Ridge, with Makalu behind, May 10, 1996. Photo from the book "Into Thin Air"

At the top of Everest, 13 hours 25 minutes.
Scott Fisher's team instructor Neil Beidleman, in conjunction with one of his clients, finally reaches the top. Two other instructors are already there: Andy Harris and Anatoly Boukreev. Beidleman concludes that the rest of his group will appear soon. He takes a few winning shots and then starts a playful tussle with Boukreev.

Scott Fisher's team on the summit ridge of Everest at 13:00 on May 10, 1996. Photo from Jon Krakauer's book "Into Thin Air"

At 14 o'clock Still no word from Fischer, Beidleman's boss. Right now – and not later! - Everyone should have started to descend, but this is not happening. Beidleman has no way to contact other team members. The porters carried a computer and a satellite communication device upstairs, but neither Beidleman nor Boukreev had with them a simple intercom device that weighs practically nothing. This blunder subsequently cost clients and instructors dearly.

At the top of Everest, 14 hours 10 minutes.
Sandy Pittman makes it to the ridge, slightly ahead of Lopsang Yangbu and three other members of the group. She can barely drag herself - she is, after all, forty-one years old - and before the summit she falls down as if knocked down. Lopsang sees that her oxygen tank is empty. Luckily, he has a spare one in his backpack. They slowly walk the last meters and join in the general rejoicing.

By this time, Rob Hall and Yasuko Namba had already reached the summit. Hall talks to base camp via radio. Then one of the employees recalled that Rob was in a great mood. He said, “We're already seeing Doug Hansen. As soon as it reaches us, we will move down."

The employee transmitted the message to Hall's New Zealand office and a whole bunch of faxes scattered from there to the friends and families of the expedition members, informing them of complete triumph. In reality, Hansen, like Fischer, had not a few minutes to go to the top, as Hall thought, but almost two hours.

Probably, even in the camp, Fischer’s strength was running out - he was seriously ill. In 1984, in Nepal, he picked up some mysterious local infection, which developed into a chronic illness with frequent attacks of fever, like malaria. It happened that the climber was shaking all day with severe chills.

Rob Hall, Scott Fisher, Anatoly Boukreev, and Jon Krakauer - photo from Jon Krarauer's book "Into Thin Air"

A full oxygen tank is the price of human life in the “death zone.”

At the top of Everest, 15 hours 10 minutes.

Neil Beidleman has been lounging on the highest point of the planet for almost two hours by this point and finally decides that it is time to leave, although the group leader, Fisher, is still not in sight. By this time I had already reached the southern peak. I will have to continue the descent in a snow storm and only by 19.40 will I be able to reach camp IV, where, having climbed into the tent, I will fall into a semi-conscious state due to severe hypothermia, lack of oxygen and complete exhaustion of strength.

The only one who returned to base camp that day without any problems was the Russian, Anatoly Boukreev. At 17 o'clock he was already sitting in his tent and warming himself with hot tea. Later, experienced climbers would doubt the correctness of his decision to leave his clients so far behind - more than a strange act for an instructor. One of the clients would later say about him with contempt: “When the situation became threatening, the Russian ran out of there as fast as he could.

Neil Beidleman, 36, a former aeronautical engineer, on the other hand, has a reputation as a calm, conscientious instructor and is loved by everyone. In addition, this is one of the strongest climbers. At the summit, he gathers Sandy Pittman and three other clients together and begins the descent with them, heading to Camp IV.

Twenty minutes later they come across Scott Fisher. He, completely exhausted, silently greets them with a gesture. But the strength and abilities of the American climber have long been legendary, and it doesn’t occur to Beidleman that the commander might have problems. Much more disturbing to Beidleman is Sandy Pittman, who can barely move. She is staggering, her consciousness has become so dark that the client has to be secured so that she does not fall into the abyss.

Just below the southern peak, the American woman becomes so weak that she asks to be given cortisone, which should neutralize the effects of rarefied air for some time. In Fischer's team, every climber has this drug with him in case of emergency, in a case under his down jacket, so as not to freeze.

Sandy Pittman is looking more and more like an inanimate object. Beidleman orders another climber on his team to replace the journalist's almost empty oxygen tank with his full one. He ties ropes around Sandy and drags her down the hard, snow-covered ridge. To everyone's relief, the injection and additional dose of oxygen quickly have a life-giving effect, and Pittman comes to his senses enough to continue his descent without assistance.

At the top of Everest, 15 hours 40 minutes

When Fischer eventually reaches the top, Lopsang Yangbu is already there waiting for him. He gives Fischer the radio transmitter. “We were all at the top,” Fisher reports to base camp, “God, I’m so tired.” A couple of minutes later, Min Ho Gau and his two Sherpas join them. Rob Hall is also still up there, eagerly awaiting Doug Hansen. A veil of clouds slowly closes around the peak. Fischer again complains that he doesn’t feel well - such behavior is more than unusual for a famous stoic. At approximately 15.55 he begins his return journey. And although Scott Fischer made the entire route to the top wearing an oxygen mask, and in his backpack there is a third, almost full cylinder, the American suddenly, for no apparent reason, takes off his oxygen mask.

Soon the Taiwanese Ming Ho Gau and his Sherpas, as well as Lopsang Yangbu, leave the summit. Rob Hall is left all alone, still waiting for Doug Hansen, who finally appears around four o'clock in the afternoon. Very pale, Doug s with great effort overcomes the last dome before the summit. The delighted Hall hurries to meet him.

The deadline for everyone to turn back had expired at least two hours ago. Later, Hall’s colleagues, who were well aware of the New Zealand climber’s caution and methodical nature, were genuinely surprised by the strange clouding of his mind. Why didn't he order Hansen to turn around before reaching the top? After all, it was absolutely clear that the American did not meet any reasonable time frame to ensure a safe return.

However, there is one explanation. A year ago in the Himalayas, at about the same time, Hall had already told him to turn back: Hansen had returned from the southern peak, and for him it was a terrible disappointment. Judging by his stories, he went to Everest again largely because Rob Hall himself persistently persuaded him to try his luck one more time. This time, Doug Hansen is determined to get to the top no matter what. And since Hall himself had persuaded Hansen to return to Everest, it must now have been especially difficult for him to prevent the slow client from continuing to climb. But time was lost. Rob Hall supports the exhausted Hansen and helps him climb the last fifteen meters up. For one or two minutes they stand on the summit, which Doug Hansen finally conquered, and slowly begin their descent. Noticing that Hansen is barely able to stand, Lopsang stops to watch as the two negotiate the dangerous ledge just below the top. After making sure everything is fine, Sherpa quickly continues his descent to join Fischer. Hall and his client were left alone far behind.

Soon after Lopsang is out of sight, Hansen's oxygen tank runs out and he is completely exhausted. Rob Hall tries to bring him down, almost motionless, without supplemental oxygen. But the twelve-meter cornice stood before them as an insurmountable barrier. Conquering the peak required the exertion of all forces, and there are no reserves left for the descent. At an altitude of 8,780 meters, Hall and Hansen get stuck and contact Harris by radio.

Located on the southern summit, Andy Harris, the second New Zealand instructor, decides to take the full oxygen cylinders left there to Hall and Hansen for the return trip. He asks for help from Lopsang, who is descending, but the Sherpa prefers to take care of his boss Fischer. Then Harris slowly gets up and goes to help alone. This decision cost him his life.

Already late at night, Hall and Hansen, perhaps already together with Harris, who had risen to them, under an ice hurricane, everyone tried to break through down to the southern peak. A section of the path that under normal conditions climbers cover in half an hour, they walk for more than ten hours.

Southeast ridge, height 8650 meters, 17 hours 20 minutes

A couple of hundred meters from Lopsang, which has already reached the southern peak, Scott Fisher slowly descends along the southeastern ridge. His strength decreases with every meter. Too exhausted to perform tedious manipulations with the railing ropes in front of a series of cornices over the abyss, he simply descends along another - sheer one. It’s easier than walking along hanging railings, but then, to get back on the route, you have to walk a hundred meters knee-deep in the snow, losing precious strength.

At about 6 p.m. Lopsang catches up with Fischer. He complains: “I feel very bad, too bad to go down the rope. I will jump." The Sherpa insures the American and persuades him to slowly move along. But Fischer is already so weak that he is simply unable to overcome this part of the path. The Sherpa, also very exhausted, does not have enough strength to help the commander overcome the dangerous area. They're stuck. The weather gets worse and worse, they squat on a snow-covered rock.

At about 20 o'clock Min Ho Gau and two Sherpas emerge from the snowstorm. The Sherpas leave the completely exhausted Taiwanese next to Lopsang and Fischer, while they themselves continue their descent lightly. An hour later, Lopsang decides to leave Scott Fisher with Gau on a rocky ridge and makes his way down through a snowstorm. Around midnight, he staggers to Camp IV: “Please, go upstairs,” he begs Anatoly Boukreev. “Scott is really bad, he can’t walk.” Sherpa's strength leaves him and he falls into oblivion.

A blind client waited twelve hours for help.
And I didn’t wait...

South-eastern ridge, 70 meters above camp IV, 18 hours 45 minutes

But it's not just Rob Hall, Scott Fischer and those who walked with them who are fighting for their lives this night. Seventy meters above rescue camp IV, no less dramatic events unfold during a suddenly violent snow storm. Neil Beidleman, the second instructor of Fisher's team, who waited for almost two hours in vain at the top for his boss, moves very slowly with his group. The instructor from Hall's team is the same: he is exhausted with two absolutely helpless clients. This is Japanese Yasuko Namba and Texan Beck Withers. The Japanese woman ran out of oxygen long ago and cannot walk on her own. The situation is even worse with Withers. It was during the ascent that Hall left him at an altitude of 8400 meters due to almost complete loss of vision. And in the icy wind, the blinded climber had to wait in vain for help for almost twelve hours.

Both instructors, their charges and two Sherpas from Fischer’s team, who emerge from the darkness a little later, now form a group of eleven people. Meanwhile, the strong wind turns into a real hurricane, visibility is reduced to six to seven meters.

To get around the dangerous ice dome, Beidleman and his group make a detour to the east, where the descent is less steep. At half past eight in the evening they reach the gentle southern col, a very large plateau on which the tents of Camp IV stand just a few hundred meters away. Meanwhile, only three or four of them have much-needed flashlight batteries. In addition, they all literally collapse from exhaustion.

Beidleman knows they are somewhere on the east side of the saddle and the tents are located to the west of them. Exhausted climbers need to step towards the icy wind, which with terrible force throws large crystals of ice and snow into their faces, scratching their faces. The gradually intensifying hurricane forces the group to deviate to the side: instead of walking directly into the wind, the exhausted people move at an angle towards it.

For the next two hours, both instructors, two Sherpas and seven clients wander blindly across the plateau in the hope of accidentally reaching the rescue camp. Once they came across a couple of discarded empty oxygen cylinders, which meant the tents were somewhere nearby. They are disorientated and cannot determine where the camp is. Beidleman, who is also walking staggeringly, at about ten o'clock in the evening suddenly feels a slight rise under his feet, and suddenly it seems to him that he is standing at the end of the world. He sees nothing, but feels the abyss beneath him. His instinct saves the group from certain death: they have reached the eastern edge of the saddle and are standing on the very edge of a steep two-kilometer cliff. The poor fellows have long been at the same height as the camp - only three hundred meters separate them from relative safety. Beidleman and one of his clients are looking for some kind of shelter where they could escape the wind, but in vain.

Oxygen supplies have long since dried up, and now people are even more vulnerable to frost, with temperatures dropping to minus 45 degrees Celsius. In the end, eleven climbers squat on hurricane-polished ice under the precarious protection of a rock ledge barely larger than a washing machine. Some curl up and close their eyes, waiting for death. Others beat their comrades in misfortune with their senseless hands in order to warm themselves and stir them up. No one has the strength to speak. Only Sandy Pittman repeats without stopping: “I don’t want to die!” Beidleman tries his best to stay awake; he is looking for some sign that would foretell the imminent end of the hurricane, and shortly before midnight he notices several stars. The snowstorm continues below, but the sky is gradually clearing. Beidleman tries to get everyone up, but Pittman, Withers, Namba and another climber are too weak. The instructor understands: if he fails to find the tents and bring help in the very near future, they will all die.

Gathering those few who are still able to walk on their own, he goes out with them into the wind. He leaves four exhausted comrades under the care of the fifth, who can still move on his own. About twenty minutes later, Beidleman and his companions stumbled toward Camp IV. There they were met by Anatoly Boukreev. The unfortunate people explained to him as best they could where their five freezing comrades were waiting for help, and, having climbed into the tents, passed out.

Boukreev, who returned to the camp almost seven hours ago, became worried as darkness fell and went in search of the missing, but to no avail. He eventually returned to camp and waited for Neil Beidleman.

Now the Russian goes out in search of the unfortunates. Indeed, after a little over an hour he sees the faint light of a lantern in the snowstorm. The strongest of the five is still conscious and appears to be able to walk to the camp on his own. The rest lie motionless on the ice - they do not even have the strength to speak. Yasuko Namba seems dead - snow is stuck in her hood, her right shoe is missing, her hand is as cold as ice. Realizing that he can only drag one of these poor fellows to the camp, Boukreev connects the brought oxygen cylinder to Sandy Pittman’s mask and makes it clear to the elder that he will try to return as soon as possible. Then he and one of the climbers wander towards the tents.

A terrible scene is playing out behind him. Yasuko Namba's right arm is extended upward and completely frozen. Half-dead Sandy Pittman squirms on the ice. Beck Withers, who was still lying in the fetal position, suddenly whispers: “Hey, I got it!”, rolls to the side, sits on a rock ledge and, spreading his arms, exposes his body to the maddened wind. After a few seconds, a strong gust blows him away into the darkness.

Boukreev returns. This time he is dragging Sandy Pittman towards camp, with a fifth man lumbering behind him. The little Japanese girl and the blind, delirious Withers are considered hopeless - they are left to die. It's 4:30 a.m., it'll be dawn soon. Upon learning that Yasuko Namba was doomed, Neil Beidleman burst into tears in his tent.

Before his death, Rob Hall said goodbye to his pregnant wife via satellite phone.

Base camp, altitude 5364 meters, 4 hours 43 minutes

The tragedy of the eleven lost is not the only one on this frosty, hurricane night. At 5:57 p.m., when Rob Hall last made contact, he and Hansen were near the summit. Eleven hours later, the New Zealander contacts the camp again, this time from the southern summit. There is no one with him anymore: neither Doug Hansen nor Andy Harris. Hall's remarks sound so confused that it is alarming.
At 4.43 he tells one of the doctors that he cannot feel his legs and every movement is given to him with such colossal difficulty that he is unable to move from his place. In a barely audible, hoarse voice, Hall croaks, “Harris was with me last night, but now it’s like he’s not here. He was very weak." And then, apparently unconscious: “Is it true that Harris was with me? Can you tell me? As it turned out, Hall had two oxygen tanks at his disposal, but the oxygen mask valve was frozen and he could not connect them.

At five in the morning, base camp establishes a telephone connection via satellite between Hall and his wife Jan Arnold, who is in New Zealand. She is seven months pregnant. In 1993, Jan Arnold climbed Everest with Hall. Hearing her husband's voice, she immediately understands the seriousness of the situation. “It seemed like Rob was hovering somewhere,” she later recalled. “Once we discussed with him that it was almost impossible to save a person stuck on the ridge below the very top. He then said that it would be better to be stuck on the Moon - there are more chances.”

At 5:31, Hall injects himself with four milligrams of cortisone and reports that he is still trying to clear the ice from his oxygen mask. Every time he contacts the camp, he asks what happened to Fischer, Gau, Withers, Yasuko Namba and other participants in the ascent. But what worries him most is the fate of Andy Harris. Over and over, Hall asks where his assistant is. A little later, the base camp doctor asks what’s wrong with Dut Hansen. “Doug is gone,” Hall replies. This was his last mention of Hansen.

Twelve days later, on May 23, two American climbers followed the same route to the summit. But they didn't find Andy Harris' body. True, about fifteen meters above the southern peak, where the hanging railings end, the Americans picked up an ice ax. Perhaps Hall, with the help of Harris, managed to lower Doug Hansen to this point, where he lost his balance and, having flown two kilometers down the vertical wall of the southwestern slope, crashed.

What fate befell Andy Harris is also unknown. An ice ax found on the south summit, which belonged to Harris, indirectly indicates that he most likely remained at night with Hall on the south summit. The circumstances of Harris' death remain a mystery.

At six o'clock in the morning, base camp asks Hall if the first rays of the sun have touched him. “Almost,” he replies, and this awakens hope; Some time ago he reported that he was constantly shivering due to the terrible cold. And this time Rob Hall inquires about Andy Harris: “Did anyone but me see him last night? I think he went down during the night. Here is his ice axe, jacket and something else.” After four hours of effort, Hall finally manages to clear the ice from his oxygen mask and has been able to inhale oxygen from a cylinder since nine in the morning. True, he had already spent more than sixteen hours without oxygen. Two thousand meters below, the New Zealander's friends are making desperate attempts to force him to continue his descent. The voice of the head of the base camp is trembling. “Think about your baby,” she says on the radio. - In two months you will see his face. Now go downstairs." Several times Rob announces that he is preparing to continue his descent, but remains in the same place.

Around 9:30, two Sherpas, the same ones who had returned exhausted from the summit the previous night with a thermos of hot tea and two oxygen tanks, climb up to help Hall. Even under optimal conditions, they would face many hours of grueling climbing. But the conditions are not at all favorable. The wind blows at a speed of over 80 kilometers per hour. The day before, both porters were severely hypothermic. In the best case, they will reach the commander in the late afternoon and only an hour or two of daylight will remain for the difficult descent together with the sedentary Hall.

Soon, three more Sherpas go up to remove Fischer and Gau from the mountain. Rescuers find them four hundred meters above the south col. Both are still alive, but almost without strength. The Sherpas connect oxygen to Fischer's mask, but the American does not react: he is barely breathing, his eyes are rolled back, his teeth are clenched tightly.

Deciding that Fischer's situation was hopeless, the Sherpas left him on the ridge and descended with Gau, on whom the hot tea and oxygen had some effect. Tied to the Sherpas with a short rope, he is still able to walk on his own. Lonely death on a rocky ridge is Scott Fisher's lot. In the evening, Boukreev finds his frozen corpse.

Meanwhile, the two Sherpas continue to climb towards the Hall. The wind is getting stronger. At 3 p.m., rescuers were still two hundred meters below the southern summit. Due to frost and wind, it is impossible to continue the journey. They give up.

Hall's friends and teammates have been pleading with the New Zealander all day to go down on his own. At 18.20 his friend Guy Cotter contacts Hall: Ian Arnold in New Zealand wants to talk to his husband on a satellite phone. “Just a minute,” Hall replies. - My mouth is dry. Now I’ll eat some snow and answer her.”

Soon he is back at the machine and wheezes in a weak, distorted voice: “Hello, my treasure. I hope you are in a warm bed now. How are you doing?".

“I can’t express how worried I am about you,” the wife replies. -Your voice is much firmer than I expected. Aren’t you very cold, my love?”

“Considering the altitude and everything, I feel relatively good,” Hall replies, trying to reassure his wife as much as possible.

"How are your legs?"

“I haven’t taken off my boot yet, I don’t know for sure, but I think I’ve earned myself a couple of frostbites.”

“I don’t expect you to get out of there completely unscathed,” shouts Ian Arnold. - I only know that you will be saved. Please don't think about how lonely and abandoned you are. Mentally I send you all my strength!” As Hall ended the conversation, he told his wife, “I love you. Good night, my precious. Don’t worry too much about me.” These were his last words. Twelve days later, two Americans, whose path passed through the southern peak, found a frozen body on the glacier. Hall was lying on his right side, half covered with snow.

The bodies of living and dead climbers were covered with a crust of ice.

On the morning of May 11, As several groups made desperate attempts to rescue Hall and Fischer, at the eastern edge of the south col, one of the climbers found two bodies covered with a centimeter layer of ice: these were Yasuko Namba and Beck Withers, who had been thrown into the darkness by a strong gust of wind the previous night. Both were barely breathing.
Rescuers considered them hopeless and left them to die. But a few hours later, Withers woke up, shook off the ice and wandered back to camp. He was put into a tent, which was torn down the next night by a strong hurricane.

Withers again spent the night in the cold - and no one bothered about the unfortunate man: his situation was again considered hopeless. Only the next morning the client was noticed. Finally, the climbers helped their comrade, whom they themselves had already sentenced to death three times. To quickly evacuate him, a Nepalese Air Force helicopter rose to a dangerous height. Due to severe frostbite, Beck Withers had his right hand and fingers on his left amputated. The nose also had to be removed - its likeness was formed from the skin folds of the face.

Epilogue
Over the course of two days in May, the following members of our teams died: instructors Rob Hall, Andy Harris and Scott Fisher, clients Doug Hansen and Japanese Yasuko Namba. Min Ho Gau and Beck Withers suffered severe frostbite. Sandy Pittman did not suffer any serious damage in the Himalayas. She returned to New York and was terribly surprised and confused when her report on the expedition generated a flurry of indignant and contemptuous responses.

0b author:
Jon Krakauer lives in Seattle (USA) and works for Outside magazine. His diary of the fateful expedition to Everest in May 1996, Into Thin Air, sold seven hundred thousand copies in the United States and became a bestseller.

Rob Hall - this 35-year-old New Zealander was considered a star among the organizers of paid climbs. A calm, methodical climber and brilliant administrator, he had already stood on the planet's highest peak four times. At the same time, he managed to safely bring 39 people to the top. With his summit in May 1996, he became the only Westerner to climb Everest five times.

Many people not associated with mountaineering cannot understand what can be so good in the mountains that they need to risk their lives for it. After all, the mountains constantly collect their terrible tribute. But climbers believe that “the only thing better than mountains can be mountains that no one has been to” and take mortal risks to set new records and test their body’s strength. So, a post about those who died in the mountains, but went down in history.

George Mallory was a mountaineer who was part of three British expeditions to Everest in 1921, 1922, 1924. It is believed that it was he who first attempted to climb to the top of the mountain.

On June 8, 1924, he and his partner, Andrew Irwin, went missing. Last time they were seen through a gap in the clouds rising towards the summit of Everest, and then they disappeared. The height they reached was 8570 meters.

Only 75 years after the ascent, the body of George Mallory was discovered. On May 1, 1999, an American search expedition found it at an altitude of 8155 meters. It was located 300 meters below the north-eastern ridge, approximately opposite the place where Irwin’s ice ax was found in 1933 by the British expedition led by Wyn-Harris, and was tangled with a broken safety rope, which indicated a possible failure of the climbers.

Also found next to him were an altimeter, sunglasses tucked into his jacket pocket, a mask from an oxygen machine, letters, and most importantly, a photograph of his wife and a British flag, which he wanted to leave on the top of the mountain. Andrew Irvine's body has still not been found.

Maurice Wilson is an Englishman famous for his flight from England to India, and for his belief that fasting and prayer would help him reach the top of Everest.

Wilson described his ascent to the mountain in his diary. He knew nothing about the intricacies of mountaineering; he had no climbing experience. Wilson decided to go his own way, and not the ready-made route of the British expedition. He himself said that he would rather die than return to Great Britain. On May 29, he set out to climb alone. In 1935, his body was discovered at an altitude of about 7400 m. The remains of a tent and a backpack with a travel diary were also found.

There is a version that Morris Wilson nevertheless visited the summit, and died on the descent, since the Tibetan climber Gombu allegedly saw an old tent at an altitude of 8500 m, which no one except Wilson could install there at that time. But this version not confirmed.

On the northern slope of Everest there is a corpse marking the 8500 meter mark. They call it "Green Shoes". It is not known exactly who it belongs to, but there are assumptions that it is Tsewang Paljor or Dorje Morup, both members of the Indian expedition who died during the tragic events of 1996 on Chomolungma. During the ascent, a group of six people got caught in a snowstorm, after which three of them decided to return, and the rest - to continue moving to the top. They later radioed to announce that they had reached the summit, but then disappeared.

English mathematics teacher and mountaineer, David Sharp, who tried to conquer Everest alone, died from hypothermia and oxygen starvation.

He was sitting in a cave right next to the “Green Shoes” and was dying when climbers passed by, not paying any attention to him, focused on their goal. Only a few of them, including the Discovery Channel crew who filmed him and even tried to interview him, stayed with him briefly, giving him oxygen.

American mountaineer and guide, the first American to conquer Lhotse Peak, the fourth highest peak in the world. Fischer died in the May 1996 Everest tragedy, which claimed the lives of seven other people.

Having reached the top, Fischer encountered numerous problems already on the descent. Lopsang Sherpa walked with him. At an altitude of approximately 8350 m, Fischer realized that he did not have the strength to descend and he sent Lopsang to descend alone. Lopsang hoped to return for Fischer with an additional oxygen tank and rescue him. But the weather conditions did not allow it. On May 11, 1996, Fischer's body was discovered.

In 2010, a special expedition was organized on Everest, the purpose of which was to remove debris from the slopes and lower the bodies of dead climbers. Organizers hoped to lower Scott Fischer's body as well. His widow, Ginny Price, hoped that Scott's body could be lowered and cremated at the foot of Everest.

Soviet-Russian climber, master of sports of the USSR, two-time winner of the highest international mountaineering award “Golden Ice Axe”. He climbed 11 of the 14 peaks of the planet, more than eight thousand meters high.

Died on May 15, 2013 due to a broken rope that rubbed against the rocks, falling from a height of 300 meters. Alexey Bolotov claimed to become the first Russian climber to win the “Crown of the Himalayas”.

Wanda is considered one of the most outstanding female climbers in history. On October 16, 1978, she became the third woman, the first Polish and the first European to summit Everest, and on June 23, 1986, the first woman to conquer the world's second eight-thousander, K2.

She was the main contender for conquering all 14 eight-thousanders, but managed to climb 8 peaks.

Wanda Rutkevich disappeared in 1992 while attempting to climb the northwest face of the world's third peak, Kanchenjunga. Her body was discovered in 1995 by Italian climbers.

Soviet and Kazakh high-altitude climber, mountain guide, photographer, writer. Winner of the title “Snow Leopard” (1985), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1989). He conquered eleven eight-thousanders on the planet, and made a total of 18 ascents on them.

He died while climbing the Annapurna peak (8078 m). Upon returning to the base camp for the rest of the climbers, Boukreev, Moreau and Sobolev were covered by a snow cornice, which caused a sudden avalanche. Moreau managed to survive and call for help, but by that time, Boukreev and Sobolev were already dead. Their bodies were never found.

Honored Master of Sports (2000), Master of Sports of International Class (1999), captain of the Ukrainian mountaineering team in the high-altitude class (2000-2004). During his career he made more than 50 ascents of 5-6 difficulty categories. In 2001, he was the first to summit Manaslu along the southeastern ridge.

Here is an excerpt from his interview: “... Mountaineering is a part of me. It would become boring to live without moving upward, without setting difficult goals for yourself. Any achievement forces you to sacrifice something, to overcome something. Sometimes this can be excruciatingly difficult. But, in the end, this is what gives color to life. If there were no mountains and ascents, it would become gray and dull for me.”

Robert Edwin (Rob) Hall (14 January 1961 – 11 May 1996) was a New Zealand mountaineer, guide, and co-owner of Adventure Consultants, best known for the tragic death of himself and several members of his team on Everest in 1996.

Childhood and youth

Born in the New Zealand city of Christchurch into a middle-class Catholic family. The youngest of nine children. Because the family lived close to the mountains, Rob developed an early interest in rock climbing. At the age of 14, leaving school, he offered the Alp Sports company a line of clothing, tents and backpacks for climbers that he had developed. The company hired him as a designer, and by the age of 17 he was already heading the sewing department. Hall then went to work for Macpac Wilderness Ltd. (New Zealand's main manufacturer of outdoor and sports equipment), and by the age of 21 he founded his own company, Outside, in Christchurch, which allowed him to devote more time to mountaineering.

Climber career

In 1980, at the age of 19, Rob conquered his first Himalayan peak, Ama Dablam (6856 m) in the Khumbu region (the second ever ascent of the North Ridge). In 1981, he (also the second in history) conquered another Himalayan peak, Numbur (6954 m), after which, in conjunction with Steve Lassher, he made the first winter ascent of Mount Cook (3754 m) in his homeland. Carolina wall, setting a speed record (8.5 hours). Over the next three years, Hall combined his day job with activities as a guide and rescuer for the New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme, making several first ascents of remote and inaccessible peaks. In 1987, together with his senior partner Gary Ball, he again went to the Himalayas, where he made several attempts to conquer Annapurna and Everest.

In 1990, Hall climbed to the top of Everest as the leader of an expedition that included Edmund Hillary's son Peter, who conducted a radio communication session with New Zealand from the summit. Taking advantage of their success, Ball and Hall found sponsors and conquered the seven highest peaks on seven continents in seven months. For this achievement, Hall was awarded a medal, and his and Ball's names became nationally famous.

Commercial guide career

With profits from the 1990 world tour, Ball and Hall founded their own firm, Hall and Ball Adventure Consultants, in early 1991, providing mountain guiding services around the world. The first Everest expedition organized by the company was a brilliant success: three guides (Ball, Hall and New Zealand military mountaineering instructor Guy Cotter), six clients and four Sherpas reached the summit. In the same year, the company organized ascents to the city of Aconcagua and the Vinson Massif. In 1993, the company organized a new successful expedition to Everest: seven people, including Hall himself and his wife Jen Arnold, reached the summit.
Also in 1993, during a non-commercial climb to Dhaulagiri (8167 m), Gary Ball died of pulmonary edema. This dealt a serious blow to the thriving business, the firm was renamed Adventure Consultants, and Rob Hall continued to organize annual commercial expeditions to the Vinson Massif.
In 1994, Rob Hall, in partnership with American Ed Viesturs, organized an expedition to Everest. Six clients reached the summit, including Norwegian Erling Kagge, the first person in the world to reach the summit of Everest and both poles on foot, and Hall himself became the first Westerner in history to summit Everest four times. A few days after returning to base camp, Hall and Visturs climbed Lhotse (8516 m). That same year, Hall made a successful ascent of Chogori and also organized successful commercial expeditions to Cho Oyu and Puncak Jaya, after which expeditions along the latter two routes became annual. Hall was awarded an OBE for his achievements in mountaineering.
In 1995, Hall, in partnership with Viesturs and Cotter, organized an expedition to Everest, but deep snow and delays caused by the slowness of other teams forced the ascent to the South Summit to be abandoned. Sherpa Lobsang Yangbu continued his climb and reached the summit alone. During the descent, Hall and Cotter rescued French climber Chantal Mauduit, who attempted to summit without oxygen but lost consciousness on the South Summit. In the same year, Hall, together with Visturs and Finn Veikka Gustafsson, climbed Makalu (8463 m).

Rob Hall, leader of the Adventure Consultants, fell behind his group on the descent from the summit and was freezing at 8,500 meters. He radioed base camp and was connected via satellite phone to his pregnant wife in New Zealand.

"I love you. Good night, my dear. Don’t worry too much about me,” these were his last words. Twelve days later, two Americans from the IMAX expedition, whose path passed through the South Summit of Everest, found an icy body. Hall was lying on his side, half covered in snow.

May 10, 1996. The highest point on Earth (8848 meters) is Mount Qomolungma or Everest, as the Sahibs call it (“white people” is a polite name for a European in colonial India). One day, one snow storm and five dead climbers.

Two commercial groups - "Mountain Madness" and "Adventure Consultants" consisting of 30 people, including 6 high-quality guides, 8 Sherpas and 16 commercial clients, led by their leaders - American Scott Fisher and New Zealander Rob Hall - went on the assault Everest summit before dawn on May 10th. By the evening of May 11, five of them were already dead, including Fischer and Hall.
Almost immediately after the start of the assault on the summit, unplanned delays began due to the fact that the Sherpas did not have time to attach rope railings along the groups’ route. Before the Hillary Step - the most important and difficult part of the climb - the climbers lost almost an hour due to lack of insurance and a queue of climbers. By 5:30 am, when the first climbers reached the Balcony (8350 m), there was a new delay for the same reason.
This height is already part of the “death zone”, dooming a person to death. At altitudes above 8000 meters, the human body completely loses its ability to recover and, in fact, enters a stage of slow dying.

By 10:00 the first member of the Adventure Consultants expedition, 53-year-old Frank Fischbeck, decides to turn back. At 11:45 a.m., before the South Summit, another of Hall's clients, Lou Kazischke, decides to abandon his attempt. Stuart Hutchinson and John Taske also decide to turn back. And just 100 meters from the summit of Everest in wonderful weather - a difficult decision to make, but in the end it may have saved the lives of all four.

“I took off my glove and saw that all my fingers were frostbitten. Then he took off another one - the same thing. I suddenly felt how tired I was. Besides this, unlike most of my comrades, I did not need to climb at any cost. Of course, I wanted to reach the top. But... I live in Detroit. I would go back to Detroit and say, “I climbed Everest.” They would answer me: “Everest, right? Great. By the way, did you hear how our team played with the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday?”

Lou Kazischke

Anatoly Bukreev was the first to reach the top of Everest at about one o'clock in the afternoon, having climbed without the use of additional oxygen. Hall's client Jon Krakauer followed him to the summit, followed by Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris. At twenty-five minutes past one, Mountain Madness guide Neil Beidleman and Fisher's client Martin Adams showed up. But all subsequent climbers were greatly delayed. By 14:00, when the descent had to begin in any case, not all clients had reached the top, and having reached it, they spent an unacceptably long time taking photographs and rejoicing.
At 15:45, Fischer reported to base camp that all clients had summited the mountain. “God, I’m so tired,” he added, and indeed, according to eyewitnesses, he was in an extremely exhausted physical condition. The time to return was critically missed.

Boukreev, who was the first to reach the summit, could not stay there for long without a supply of oxygen and began the descent first in order to return to Camp IV, take a break and go back up again to help the descending clients with additional oxygen and hot tea. He reached camp by 17:00, when the weather had already deteriorated greatly. Krakauer later in his book “In Thin Air” would baselessly accuse Boukreev of fleeing and leaving his clients in danger. In reality this was not the case at all.

After some time, following Boukreev, some of the clients begin to descend and at this moment the weather begins to deteriorate greatly.

“Before descending to the Hillary Steps, I noticed that below, from the valleys, some kind of whitish haze was rising, and the wind was getting stronger at the top.”

Lyn Gammelgard

Fischer began his descent together with Sherpa Lopsang and the leader of the Taiwanese expedition that was ascending the same day, Ming Ho Gau, but they experienced great difficulties due to their poor physical condition and slowed down at the Balcony (8230 m). Closer to night, Fischer forced Lopsang to go down alone and bring help. By this point, Scott began to develop severe cerebral swelling.

Lopsang successfully reached Camp IV and tried to find someone to help Fisher, but everyone in the camp was not ready to go out to the mountain again and carry out rescue work (Bukreev at that time was rescuing Sandy Pittman, Charlotte Fox and Tim Madsen). Only by lunchtime next day The Sherpas who went to help Fischer considered his condition hopeless and began to rescue Gau. At the camp, they told Boukreev that they had done everything possible to save Fischer, but he did not believe them and made another attempt to save his friend from the fourth camp after saving three other members of Mountain Madness in difficult conditions. By 19:00 on May 11, when Boukreev got to Fischer, he was already dead. IN next year While climbing Everest with an Indonesian expedition, Boukreev paid his last respects to his friend - he covered his body with stones and stuck an ice ax over his grave.

Meanwhile, the Mountain Madness group, led by guide Neil Beidleman (Cleve Schoening, Charlotte Fox, Timothy Madsen, Sandy Pittman and Lyn Gammelgard), along with members of the Adventure Consultants guide Mike Groom, Bec Withers and Japanese Yasuko Namba - in total 9 people - got lost in the area of ​​the South Summit and could not find the way to the camp in a snowstorm, which limited visibility literally by distance arm's length. They wandered in the white snowy mess until midnight, until they collapsed exhausted at the very edge of the cliff of the Kanshung wall. All of them suffered from altitude sickness, oxygen had long since run out, and in such conditions, inevitable death awaited them in the very near future. But fortunately for them, the storm soon subsided a little, and they were able to see the tents of Camp IV just some two hundred meters away. The most experienced Beidleman, along with three other climbers, went for help. Then Bukreev, waiting for them in the camp, learned about the scale of the unfolding tragedy and rushed to help.
Boukreev began to take turns going around the tents of Camp IV and, with threats and persuasion, tried to force the guides, Sherpas and clients to go up in search of the missing. None of them responded to his persistent calls and Boukreev walked alone towards the snow storm and the gathering darkness.

In this chaos, he managed to discover the freezing climbers and, in turn, lead Pittman, Fox and Madsen to the fourth camp, actually dragging them on his shoulders for these ill-fated 200 meters. The Japanese Namba was already dying, and it was impossible to help her; Boukreev did not notice Withers.

“He did a heroic thing. He did something that an ordinary person could not do.”

Neil Beidleman

On the morning of May 11, Stuart Hutchinson, who went in search of his comrades, found Withers and Nambu, severely frostbitten, already unconscious and decided that it would not be possible to save them. No matter how hard it was to make such a decision, he went back to camp. But a few hours later Withers reached the camp on his own. It was a pure miracle - they gave him oxygen and put him in a tent, not even hoping that he would survive. But even here his misadventures did not end - the next night, when some of the climbers had already left the camp and went lower, a strong gust of wind destroyed his tent, and he spent another night in the cold, trying to shout to the rest.
Only on May 14, in critical condition after a difficult descent to Camp II, he was sent by helicopter to Kathmandu, where doctors managed to save his life. Withers lost right hand and all the fingers on his left, lost his nose, but remained alive.

The last to descend from the summit were Rob Hall and his old client Doug Hansen. During the descent, Hall radioed his camp and asked for help, reporting that Hansen had lost consciousness at 8,780 meters but was still alive. Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris comes out to meet them from the South Summit to deliver oxygen and help them on the descent.

On the morning of May 11, a tenacious Rob Hall was still fighting for his life. At 4:43 a.m. he contacted base camp and reported that he was near the South Summit. He said Harris managed to get to them, but Hansen was very unwell, and Hall himself had ice on his oxygen tank regulator and couldn't connect it to his mask.

At 5:31 Hall comes back on the line and says that "Doug is gone" and Harris is missing and still unable to control his mask. Rob Hall constantly wonders where his clients Withers and Namba are and why they aren't at camp yet.
By 9:00 a.m., Hall had been able to get his oxygen supply back up, but was already suffering from extreme frostbite. He got in touch again and asked to speak to his wife Jan Arnold in New Zealand. This was the last person he spoke to; Hall never contacted him again.

His body was found twelve days later by members of the IMAX expedition. But the bodies of Harris and Hansen could not be found. Their fate remained unknown. In Scott Fisher’s “Mountain Madness” expedition, everyone survived except Fisher himself, who lost his health due to the heavy workload during the expedition and died during the descent from the peak. Six clients, two instructors - Beidleman and Boukreev - and four Sherpas summited and returned alive.

Rob Hall's "Adventure Consultants" expedition suffered heavy losses: Hall himself and his old client Doug Hansen, who froze during the descent, died, instructor Andy Harris, who came to their aid from below, and Japanese Yasuko Namba, who got lost along with other climbers on the approach to the mountain. fourth camp. A year later, Boukreev found her body and apologized to her husband for failing to save her.
Stories like these make us remember that not everything can be bought, and in order to do things that are truly worthwhile, you need to prepare diligently and carefully think through all the little things. But even in this case, Mother Nature can easily disrupt your plans and in five minutes throw you from the top of the world into the abyss of oblivion.

Conquering eight-thousanders is an incredibly difficult task, which certainly involves a certain degree of risk to life. It can be minimized by proper preparation and planning, but at such a height, even small mistakes and accidents, forming an orderly chain, growing like a snowball, lead to a big tragedy. Failure to comply with a strict ascent-descent schedule. “If you have not reached height Y at hour X, then you must immediately turn back.”

Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants began their ascent at midnight on May 10th. According to the ascent plan, both groups should have reached the ridge by dawn, reached the South Summit by 10:00 or earlier, and reached the peak of Everest around noon. But the return time was never strictly agreed upon.

Even by one o'clock in the afternoon on May 10, not a single climber managed to reach the top. It was not until 16:00 that the last two people, including Rob Hall, the leader of the Adventure Consultants, who himself had set the maximum return time, reached their peak. The climbers violated their own plans, and this set off a chain of fatal events that ultimately led to tragedy.

It was planned that the two senior Sherpas (sirdars) Lapsang and Roba would go out for the assault two hours earlier than everyone else and hang rope railings at the base of the South Summit. But Lapsang showed signs of altitude sickness and could not recover. The guides Beidleman and Boukreev had to do the work. This caused a significant delay.

But even if the entire route had been properly prepared, this would not have saved the climbers from inevitable delays: that day, 34 climbers were rushing to the top of Everest at once, which caused real traffic jams on the climb. Climbing three large groups of climbers in one day is another mistake. You definitely wouldn't want to wait your turn to climb at an altitude of 8,500 meters, shivering from fatigue and the biting wind. But the group leaders decided that a large crowd of guides and Sherpas would make it easier for them to cope with the deep snow and difficult route

Impact of altitude

At high altitudes, the human body experiences a powerful negative impact. Low atmospheric pressure, lack of oxygen, low temperatures, aggravated by incredible fatigue from a long climb - all this adversely affects the physical condition of climbers. The pulse and breathing quicken, hypothermia and hypoxia set in - the body is tested for strength by the mountain.

Common causes of death at such altitudes:

Brain swelling (paralysis, coma, death) due to lack of oxygen,
pulmonary edema (inflammation, bronchitis, rib fractures) due to lack of oxygen and low temperatures,
heart attacks due to lack of oxygen and high stress,
snow blindness,
frostbite. The temperature at such altitudes drops to -75,
physical exhaustion from excessive stress with the body’s complete inability to recover.

But not only the body suffers, the thinking abilities also suffer. Short-term and long-term memory, the ability to correctly assess the situation, maintain clarity of mind and, as a result, make the right decisions - all this deteriorates at such high altitudes.

The only way to minimize the negative effects of altitude is proper acclimatization. But even in the case of the Hall and Fisher groups, the acclimatization schedule for clients could not be maintained due to delays in the installation of high-altitude camps and poor preparation of some clients who either saved their strength for the final assault or, on the contrary, thoughtlessly wasted it (for example, Sandy Pittman Instead of resting at the base camp on the eve of the ascent, I went to meet my friends in a village in the foothills of Everest).

Sudden weather change

When you climb to the planet's highest altitude, even if you have carefully prepared yourself and your equipment and thought out your ascent plan in great detail, you must bring on your side your most important ally: good weather. Everything should be in your favor - high temperatures, low winds, clear skies. Otherwise, you can forget about a successful ascent. But the problem is that the weather on Everest changes with amazing speed - a cloudless sky can be replaced by a real hurricane within an hour. This happened on May 10, 1996. Worse weather complicated the descent; due to a snowstorm on the southwestern slope of Everest, visibility dropped significantly; the snow hid the markers installed during the ascent and indicating the path to Camp IV.

Wind gusts of up to 130 km/h raged on the mountain, the temperature dropped to -40 °C, but in addition to the freezing cold and hurricane winds that threatened to sweep climbers into the abyss, the storm brought with it another important aspect that influenced the survival of people. During such a powerful storm, the atmospheric pressure dropped significantly, and, consequently, the partial oxygen content in the air (up to 14%), which further aggravated the situation. Such a low content is practically a critical point for people without oxygen reserves (and they have come to an end at this point), suffering from fatigue and hypoxia. All this leads to loss of consciousness, pulmonary edema and inevitable death after a very short period of time.

Lack of oxygen cylinders

Some clients in both groups did not tolerate altitude well and had to sleep with oxygen during acclimatization trips. The lion's share of oxygen was also consumed by the rescue of "Mountain Madness" Sherpa Ngawang Topshe, who urgently had to be evacuated from a height using a Gamow bag*. All this reduced oxygen reserves for the ascent to a critical minimum, which was not enough for clients and guides to descend from the summit as soon as things went wrong.

*Gamow's bag is a special chamber in which the victim is placed. The bag is then inflated, thereby increasing pressure and oxygen concentration, which creates the effect of lowering altitude.

Insufficient level of client training

In the early 1990s, the first commercial expeditions began to appear, focused solely on making a profit, and everyone could take part in them. Professional guides took on all the responsibilities: delivering clients to the base camp, organizing accommodation and meals, providing equipment, and accompanying them to the very top with insurance. Capitalism is a cruel thing, so in an effort to line their pockets, most organizers of such expeditions are not inclined to pay close attention to the physical condition and high-altitude experience of their clients. If you are willing to pay 65 thousand US dollars for a non-guaranteed attempt at climbing, then you automatically become broad-shouldered like Schwarzenegger, resilient like an Ethiopian marathon runner, and experienced like Edmund Hillary himself (First conquered Everest in 1953), at least in the eyes of the one to whom you pay money. Because of this approach, commercial expeditions often include people who are obviously incapable of reaching the summit.
Neil Beidleman, a guide for the Mountain Madness group, admitted to Anatoly Boukreev even before the ascent began that “...half of the clients have no chance of reaching the top; for most of them the ascent will end at the South Col (7,900 m).” This approach jeopardizes not only the lives of the clients themselves, but also the success of the entire expedition - at altitude there is no room for error, and the entire team will pay for it. This is partly what happened with Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness, when some of their clients used exorbitant amounts of oxygen, delayed others along the route, distracted guides from serious work, and ultimately were unable to organize their own rescue.

Harvest of Death

In addition to the tragedy with the Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants groups, Everest gathered another harvest of death on May 10th. On the same day, an expedition of the Indo-Tibetan Border Service of 6 people under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Mohinder Sinha climbed the northern slope of the mountain. This group was the first to climb the Northern Slope of the season, so the climbers themselves had to attach rope railings to the top and trample the road in deep snow. The rather tired participants got caught in a snowstorm on May 10, being just above Camp IV (the last camp before the assault on the summit). Three of them decided to turn back, and Sergeant Tsewang Samanla, Corporal Dorje Morup and Senior Constable Tsewang Paljor decided to continue the climb. At about 15:45, three climbers radioed the expedition leader and reported that they had succeeded in conquering Everest (most likely this was a mistake). At the summit, the climbers set up prayer flags and Sergeant Samanla began religious rituals, sending two of his comrades down. He never made contact again.

The Indians who were in the fourth camp saw the lights of lanterns slowly descending down in the darkness (most likely, these were Morup and Paljor) - approximately at an altitude of 8570 m. But none of the three climbers descended to the intermediate camp at an altitude of 8320 m. Found later Tsewang Paljor's corpse was never removed from Everest and still marks the 8500 m altitude on the north slope of Everest. Climbers call him "Green Boots."

But these victims were not enough for May 1996 on Everest.

On the morning of May 9, one of the members of the Taiwanese expedition, which climbed with Fischer and Hall, climbed out of the tent to go to the toilet. A cool sunny morning, incredibly beautiful landscapes around, a slight jitters before the upcoming ascent - it’s not surprising that Chey Yunan forgot to put on boots with crampons. As soon as he squatted a little away from the tent, he immediately slipped and, tumbling, flew down the slope straight into a glacier crack. The Sherpas managed to save him and bring him to the tent. He experienced a deep shock, but his comrades did not notice any critical damage and left him alone in the tent, while they themselves went upstairs, following their schedule. When, a few hours later, the head of the Taiwanese expedition, Ming Ho Gau, was informed by radio that Chei Yunan had suddenly died, he only replies: “Thank you for the information” and, as if nothing had happened, continues to climb.

On September 24, the film “Everest” was released on Russian screens, telling the story of the 1996 tragedy. Now it will be easy for you to figure out where the truth is and where the fiction is in this story.

“And in the West, after last year’s tragedy, I don’t like a lot of things, because people make big, crazy money on this, presenting events the way America wants, and not the way it really happened. Now Hollywood is making a film, I don’t know what they will make of me - with some kind of red star, with a flag in my hands - and how they will present it to American society. It is clear that it will be completely different..."

Anatoly Bukreev, died in 1997 in an avalanche during the conquest of Annapurna

A few weeks before Boukreev’s tragic death, the American Alpine Club awarded him the prestigious David Souls Award, given to climbers who save people in the mountains at risk to their own lives, and the US Senate invited him to accept American citizenship. Despite Jon Krakauer's attempts to cast him in a bad light in his articles and book, Anatoly Boukreev remained in people's memory as a true hero, a great climber, a man capable of sacrificing himself for the sake of others.