Dead Lucky Read online




  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  PART ONE - DREAM CATCHER

  One - SINGAPORE 2004

  Two - RETURN TO EVEREST

  Three - BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL

  Four - KATHMANDU

  Five - HIMALAYA

  Six - TENT CITY

  Seven - EVEREST 2006

  Eight - EAST RONGBUK

  Nine - EVEREST THE HIGHWAY

  Ten - SKY BURIAL

  Eleven - RUSSIAN ROULETTE

  PART TWO - DEATH’S OWN COUNTRY

  Twelve - BIG STEPS

  Thirteen - THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

  Fourteen - COUNTING CHICKENS

  Fifteen - FADING LIGHT

  Sixteen - TIME TO KILL

  Seventeen - CLOAK OF DARKNESS

  Eighteen - AWAKENING

  Nineteen - THE WHITE LIMBO GUY

  PART THREE - RUNNING ON EMPTY

  Twenty - THE DEVIL’S SPADE

  Twenty-one - RUNNING ON EMPTY

  Twenty-two - TOUCHDOWN

  Twenty-three - POSTMORTEM

  EPILOGUE

  7 SUMMITS-CLUB EVEREST EXPEDITION

  Notes on My Survival

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Index

  About the Author

  JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Originally published in Australia by Random House 2007

  Copyright © 2007 by Lincoln Hall

  Interior illustrations © 2007 by Ken Beatty

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

  or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not

  participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation

  of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hall, Lincoln.

  Dead lucky : life after death on Mount Everest / Lincoln Hall.

  p. cm.

  Originally published in Australia by Random House in 2007;

  published simultaneously in Canada.

  Includes index.

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-3091-0

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  TO MY FAMILY,

  Barbara, Dylan, Dorje,

  Al, Julia, and Michele

  FOREWORD

  by Lachlan Murdoch

  ON THE MORNING OF Saturday, May 27, 2006, the world’s newspapers had an obvious splash. Lincoln Hall, one of Australia’s most accomplished mountaineers, had survived a night near the summit of Mount Everest after having been declared dead by his fellow climbers. “Back from the dead,” “Lazarus,” and “Miracle climber” were all words employed by zealous editors as they tried to convey what none of us could really imagine: a night spent alone in the thin air of 28,000 feet, balanced precipitously between the mountain and a great void below, between hallucinatory visions and terrifying reality, between life and death.

  Having met Lincoln many years ago, I would not have been shocked to hear of his death on the world’s highest mountain. I would probably have been more shocked to read that he had died in a car accident or crossing the road. That’s not because I thought he was some thrill seeker, some adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Actually, I knew Lincoln to be an excellent and very accomplished climber. The fact is, several great climbers I had either met as a youth or bumped into at climbing camp-grounds or parking lots have since prematurely met their end. The headlines that morning in May 2006 were so shocking, not because Lincoln died on Everest that night but because he did not.

  An extremely experienced mountaineer, who had both the good sense and great discipline to turn back shy of Everest’s summit in 1984, Lincoln wrote of that decision in his book White Limbo that “The summit was not everything. Survival was,” and of the disappointment he would later feel for having lost what he then believed was his one chance to stand for a few moments upon the top of the world. Knowing that had he pushed on to the summit he would likely have died, he wrote: “Although I will never see the summit panorama other than through the eyes of Tim and Greg [his fellow climbers], I know no view is worth that price.”

  Unexpectedly, twenty-two years later, Lincoln had a second chance to summit Everest. He climbed strongly to the mountain’s apex, where he did indeed enjoy the rarest of views. It was a perfect day. With only a few clouds in the sky and with the lightest wind, Lincoln was feeling good. He would not, it appeared, have to pay that ultimate price. Critically, he was focused on the dangers of the descent ahead.

  Next time you look at a summit picture, try to look beyond the tired faces allowing quick, compulsory smiles framed by panoramic views. Often you will see something else. Sometimes, below the surface, you will see the summiteers’ weariness, their knowledge that the climb is only half complete. Perhaps an eye askew on the weather, or on the time, or on a struggling climbing partner, or an ear picking up the muffled sound of a distant avalanche. Adrenaline and fear are both characters in the background, along with the ever-present danger of acute altitude sickness at the most extreme heights.

  Lincoln did not linger on the summit and started down the mountain after allowing himself the briefest of rests. It was then disaster struck. The day and night that followed were extraordinary by any measure and comprise a story that is certain to become a classic of mountaineering literature. The narrative tells us not only of Lincoln’s journey back from the dead but also of his family’s and colleagues’ struggle to come to terms with the loss of a husband, father, and friend before learning of his miraculous survival. Why do some of us climb mountains while others are happy with a comfortable job and a decent retirement plan? Why do some need to find their limit, step right up to it, peer over the edge, and step gingerly back? The question has been asked so many times it is now a sort of cli
ché, although at its heart it is really a riddle. Readers searching for a simple answer to such a question will not find it within Dead Lucky, as no book or essay or lecture can expose an answer to somethingthat cannot be taught or learned. It must be felt. What Lincoln Hall does so effectively in Dead Lucky is allow the reader into the most private thoughts and feelings of a man who must climb mountains; and in doing so, gives us some hints to perhaps allow us to unravel the riddle for ourselves.

  A keen reader of mountaineering literature will immediately recognize Dead Lucky as among the very best of its genre. It is a top-shelf book and a great read. Those familiar with his earlier books will notice a slightly older, more mature Lincoln in these pages. He is a very human character, with strongly felt responsibilities to his family, which at times he struggles to reconcile with his climbing. He is also a character who knows his own limitations and frailties, and understands that sometimes on a mountain, as in life, events can happen that are unexpected and out of your control. In effect, he is more like the rest of us, which makes his story all the more remarkable.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  DEAD LUCKY HAS BEEN the most difficult of the eight books I have written, which hardly seems fair because it was an intense adventure that only needed to be written down. But the issue of writing was where my problems began—frostbite to my hands made it hard enough for me to hold up my trousers, let alone write a book. The benefit of an adventure that kills you and then brings you back to life is that the key scenes are unforgettable. Unable to write or type, I made use of the dictaphone that I had taken on the expedition. I have found that the best way for me to add conversations to a book is to repeat them into a recording device as soon as possible after they have been spoken. Luckily, my almost-undamaged left thumb was all I needed to operate the dictaphone, and instead of just conversations, I was constantly recording thoughts, relating incidents, and describing scenes.

  My efforts to gather the building blocks for my book received a giant boost when Brent Waters offered to help me recall those parts of my adventure that remained unclear to me. His method was to ask me to relate in detail the events of the expedition—which I willingly did, for up to five hours at a time. Brent sometimes asked for more detail and sometimes identified gaps in my story. In this way, he managed to prompt me to recall vividly much of what had happened. All of this was recorded on Brent’s dictaphone. As well as prompting memories to surface, the process also helped me understand my part in the broader narrative of the pre-monsoon Everest climbing season of 2006. What was omitted from this narrative were the colors and the sounds and the shapes that help paint a big picture. As soon as I was able to write, I began to build upon the framework by adding people, places, moods, emotions, and conversations.

  During my twenties, mountaineering expeditions were a regular part of my life, but the past two decades have been quite different. My focus has been on my family, and major expeditions have been few and far between. More commonly, I have led simpler climbing trips as a guide, which allowed me to stay in touch with the mountains without being away for more than three or four weeks. But the true connection with a mountain can happen only during a major mountaineering expedition. From the moment I commit to an expedition, my life becomes more intense. Success can only come with proper planning from the beginning, so immediately there is attention to detail. What was different about my 2006 visit to Mount Everest was that the attention to detail continued after the expedition was over. My frostbitten extremities and my weakened body meant that every act had to be taken with great care. My book was constantly in my mind and my dictaphone was constantly nearby. The sense of commitment that began when I decided to go to Everest continued until I completed the very last page of this book.

  There are particular barriers to writing a firsthand account of a high-altitude mountaineering expedition. Physical exhaustion and oxygen deprivation threaten the mind as much as the body. In everyday life, one’s memory is compromised by omission or misinterpretation, but at high altitude the effect is much greater, and precise recall is very difficult. After a major summit is achieved, the broad picture may be shared by everyone who was there, but individual details will be different. Accordingly, some of what I have written here may differ from the accounts of others who were on Mount Everest at the same time. For example, the demise of Jacques-Hugues Letrange, as reported on the Internet, differed greatly from the version of events related to me by Caroline Letrange on the day she returned to Advance Base Camp from her high point of 27,000 feet.

  Apart from such irregularities, which are to be expected, I had the different languages of cerebral edema and hallucinations to translate for my readers. Both these influences gave me a very different take on reality. My approach was to immerse myself in these altered states so that I could convey the experiences. My last three books have been about other people, so it is refreshing to write a story of my own again. One of the great satisfactions of writing is that in order to convey a feeling or a concept in my writing I am first forced to understand it myself; only then can it ring true for my readers. In the same vein, when I succeed in describing the nature of a landscape—as opposed to just throwing a few adjectives at it—I feel more connected to that place, to the point where the writing becomes a silent dialogue with the natural world.

  This book is not a comprehensive account of what happened on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest in April and May 2006. It is my personal story. The conversations related here, if not always verbatim, are true in essence. Many are based upon recordings made on video cameras, iPods, and dictaphones, as well as transcripts of radio and television interviews. Several members of our expedition have been able to confirm details with me. Their contributions were particularly useful because I left my diary in a tent at 27,000 feet, and I was not able to retrieve it during the difficult descent that followed two days later. Perhaps, one day, a high-altitude archaeologist will stumble across my diary and will ratify the events contained in Dead Lucky. Far more likely, however, is that the tent where I left my black notebook will be destroyed by the wind, with the disintegration of the notebook itself following not long afterward. Pages will take off in the breeze like errant Buddhist prayer flags. But instead of holy messages, those fluttering pages will carry only jottings of homesickness, friendship, and the fulfillment of dreams.

  Prologue

  EVEREST 1984

  A DEEP RUMBLE SHATTERED the peace of the mountainscape—the familiar, gut-wrenching roar of an avalanche. Alone and 3,000 feet above the Rongbuk Glacier, I felt safe, huddled in the embryonic hollow that was the beginnings of our snow-cave. Every avalanche of the last few weeks had taken one of two courses. Either they plummeted down the Great Couloir—a wide ice gully immediately to the east of me that split Mount Everest’s North Face from its summit pyramid to the bottom of the mountain—or they peeled away from the slab that spread westward across the entire expanse of the North Face.

  My bolt-hole in the mountainside was at this stage so small that I had to twist and wriggle to escape onto the three-foot-wide ledge I had dug along the slope outside. Within fifteen seconds I was on the ledge, a frozen porch set in the heavens. The tiny snow-cave, destined to become our Camp Two—our first camp on the mountain itself—was in the side of a spur that rose above the surrounding slopes like a shark’s fin above the waves. I envisioned that any avalanche coming my way would be parted by the spur, just as the fin would cut through water.

  Most of the avalanches occurred to the west of me, so I looked in that direction, across the vast snow-covered slab I had named White Limbo. My eyes were hungry for the unmatchable display of power that is a Himalayan avalanche. Still, I heard the roar, but there was nothing to be seen. I looked to the east, but the snow slopes of the North Ridge were frozen and motionless. The sound grew louder, the thunder bearing down. I lifted my head and gasped in horror.

  The snow-load from the entire upper section of the Great Couloir had cut loose, creating a monster avalanc
he. Huge clouds of it fanned outward, too much to be funneled down the couloir. Within moments, the overflow would wipe me and my invincible spur off the mountain, like hairs shaved from an upper lip, such was the scale of this awesome place.

  But I wasn’t interested in the scale of things. I seized my only hope— there must always be hope—and groveled back into the snow-cave. Already claustrophobic, I peered anxiously through the low entrance, my heart furiously thumping. Within seconds the avalanche hit. A blast of air blew spindrift through the entrance, then hundreds of tons of snow roared by with the speed and momentum of an express train. More snow swirled into the cave and still more thundered past in a constant blur of white. Instinct drove me to wriggle out, away from the threat of being buried alive inside the slope. But as soon as I dragged myself out onto the ledge, I thought the avalanche would now crush me. It was too late to do anything but lie low on the ledge, facedown, my hands over my nose and mouth to keep out the snow. Time seemed to freeze, but the snow kept coming. I wanted it to be over, but also I wanted time to remain frozen so I could stay alive.

  Then suddenly the whiteness vanished, and with it the noise. In its place was an incredibly bright sky, not yet blue but filled with millions of crushed snowflakes, particles sparkling as if the world’s entire supply of glitter had been thrown into the sky above me. I lay on my back, laughing with delight and trembling uncontrollably. Our special spur had, in fact, proved to be invincible.

  Suddenly I remembered my friends. I wanted to stand but did not trust my trembling legs. I crawled along the ledge and peered over the lip. Greg was only 150 feet below, his harness clipped loosely to the rope.

  “You okay?” I shouted.

  “Yeah,” he called, barely audible, his breath stolen by the avalanche. “But bloody cold. My clothing’s filled with snow.”

  “And Tim?”

  “He’s fine. Below me. Just out of sight.”