(3 of 3)
On the northern approach to the peak, three members of an Indian expedition were stranded on their way down from the top. Their frantic comrades thought they had persuaded a late-departing Japanese group to forgo its summit attempt and stage a rescue. But when next heard from, the Japanese were announcing their successful climb. The appalled Indians believe the Japanese found all three men and left at least two to die. The Japanese called the allegations "contrary to the truth, one-sided and unjustified." Responded an adviser to the Indians: "They [the Japanese] will have to live with their consciences."
Those who survived the storm have the choice of seeing their fate as either a happy accident or a miracle. Fischer's climbers, now led by guide Neal Beidleman, were saved when Beidleman glimpsed the Big Dipper during a storm lull and was able to navigate them into camp. Gau's sherpa managed to wake him and get him down to the high camp, where he could receive fluids intravenously. But the most remarkable revival was that of Weathers, the Dallas doctor. At 9 a.m. on Saturday, fellow climbers left behind his apparently lifeless body; that morning the news was relayed to his horrified wife in Texas. Later that day, she got another phone call. People in the high camp had been astonished to see a zombie-like figure staggering down the hill toward them, face blackened from the sun, arms held rigidly outward, eyes closed to slits. Weathers had refused to die.
Neither Gau nor Weathers, both in critical condition, would have survived were it not for Lieut. Colonel Madan K.C., a Nepalese helicopter pilot. Choppers seldom venture above 6,000 meters: at a certain height, the thin air reduces their lift. Yet Madan flew up to a giant cross the climbers had painted on the Everest ice with red Kool-Aid. There he hovered, runners just touching the snow's treacherous surface, as Gau was loaded on board. Madan flew Gau down to the base camp, then repeated the process with Weathers. It was the second-highest helicopter rescue in history.
By last Tuesday, when the survivors of the most disastrous 24 hours in Everest's history honored their perished comrades in a Buddhist service, NBC's Everest chat room had reported more than a million hits, including tens of thousands of condolence messages. Beidleman responded, "We haven't enjoyed the fact of reaching the summit. And we are still in grief."
The mountain no longer seems so accessible. Krakauer, one of the two survivors in Hall's summiting party, believes commercial expeditions "need to be reconsidered" both because the customers put the guides' lives in additional danger and because "when the s----- hits the fan, there is nothing any guide can do for any client."
To which Sir Edmund Hillary, now retired in New Zealand, added, "I have a feeling that people have been getting just a little bit too casual with Mount Everest. This incident will bring them to regard it rather more seriously."
--Reported by John Colmey/Katmandu, Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi, Jenifer Mattos/New York and Simon Robinson/Auckland