A very close call….

Posted by on May 5, 2009. Uncategorized - 7 Comments

Karen Lundgren the phenom

Karen Lundgren the phenom

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Some bad situations…we always reserve the right to say…”ah…I’ve been in worse”.  Perhaps ” ….that was nothing compared to what we had in Philippines in ’99″.
Then there are situations that set the new bench mark for close calls.
We had one such situation while coming down from our 19 hour day of attempting Nupste East.
After descending to the the base of the climb, gathering our gear, roping up for the glacier travel back to camp 2. It’s about a 1-2 hour downhill, across the western cwn (glacier). Nobody is traveling this section, but us. More than a hundred sherpas and other climbers are going along the edge of the glacier, up the Lhotse Face. So, our route has no maintenance nor other company. The days have been hot. Ice/crevasses grow, move, open, close…you name it. It’s 9pm, getting dang cold and we’ve homesick for our micro 2 man tent and all the Jet Boil stove can crank up for something hot to drink and eat.
We found ourselves up to our ears in alligators, as in new crevasses everywhere. We are 30 meters apart, roped up, in full ready position in the event one of us break through, the other will drop and bury the axe, set an achor and make some routine rescue. It’s how it’s done in the books and the movies. We walk slowly, inspecting every inch we walk, snaking around some obvious giant crevasses. No worries.  Besides, it can’t happen to us. We just had a 5 star day of climbing, we’ve done everything right…high 5′s, heading back for some dinner/tea. Life is good.
Paul is leading, just schlepping downhill….stepping over some very obvious 2-3′ wide crevasses. No biggie, just like stepping over a pothole in the street or sidewalk.
Suddenly, I’m stopped and my waist is yanked…just a gentle yank. As if to just tug and let me know something was not right. Indeed not all was right.
I look back. Blackness. No light, no Karen. I track the rope back, it’s limp…lying on the snow almost 90 feet/30m straight back from me…leading into a giant crevasse of which I distinctly remember was big and black, as in…can not see the bottom.
I hear a faint scream…it sounds as if it’s from 1/2 mile away. And it’s for real. It’s Karen. She’s fallen into the crevasse. I approach slowly, as if to brace my self for a secondary fall or something. As I approach the edge, I see the glow of her headlamp and hear her yell to me…” achor yourself, anchor yourself!!!” Well, this had crossed my mind some time ago, at least some seconds ago…but I was quickly reminded all the snow stakes and anchor has been exhausted, all used up on the decent down our route. I had nothing by my ice axe. I tried to use it, burry it in the ground. No such luck, the snow had firmed up. I was not going to be able to use my axe…any time soon.
Now, what had happened is this…thankfully Karen had an ice ax on each hip….in her harness gear loop…as one would have a gun in a holster so to say. By an amazing stroke of luck….both axes…sorta jackknifed, wedging Karen, suspending her in the middle of the crevasse. Legs dangling, two axes precariously coming perpendicular from her hips wedging her body in the middle. There was no using either of these axes to get herself out, or it would mean immediate drop, result not being very good.
With no other options, I did a few butt wraps with the rope….I stir up the rage and strength of and elephant on pcp and lean/run backwards…pulling up Karen inch by inch. She crawls to the edge with hands and head just over the edge. No time for celebration yet, we look at each other, take just a few deep breaths….and make another all our effort to get her and her 50 lb back over the edge. We’ve done it. Karen rolls to her side in complete exhaustion, and I look her over briefly and have the same reaction. Total exhaustion. This type of effort at 22,000′+ is giant. Some 5 minutes later, we make our way back to our feet, wishing it was all a dream, and wishing it was all over with. It’s not, we’re not 25% through this hell hole known as the head of the Western Cwm/Glacier. We spend about 1 hour, tap dancing our way around the remaining crevasses, and making our way to our camp. Our good friends Rohan (fellow American on his second attempt on Everest) and his sherpas had hot tea waiting for us. We melt some ice, and have some hot soup and crawl into our -29degree sleeping bags.

Waking up, it felt like a dream. The hell night was real and fortunately we can chalk it up to experience. We’re low on food, low on time, and feel like we dodged a run away train. We’ve accomplished all we wanted and more, it’s time to get down. We’ve gone some 6 days with out updating our blog, and I just know family and friends are itching for some confirmation that we are alive and well….if only by a stoke of luck.