Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain, Jonathan Bloom [best ebook reader TXT] 📗

Surprised by the sudden change in predicament, Junk stood still and silent for a moment, eyes fixed on the place where the Cobras had been. Cole stared back. Had the Cobra leader not let go of his hostage, the hostage would have fallen as well. Cole’s shocked expression betrayed that realization. The two continued to stare at each other, Cole with his mask off, Junk with his mask on.

“Thank Saint -austina” Cole shouted over the cacophony. Junk observed that his colleague could not get the initial “F” of the saint’s name out due to frozen lips. “She has shown –ee -ercy!” He was laughing and crying at the same time. He was looking everywhere, considering his reprieve and taking in the sight of the world that was still his to enjoy. “I -ust say” he yelled through the tears and laughter, “that could not have turned out -etter!”

And with that a massive geyser of lava shot straight up where Cole had stood. The spew arced thirty feet above the ridge. Chhiri Tendi looked back at the event and saw Cole’s detached arms hit Junk, as if trying to pick a fight despite lack of management. As for the rest of Cole, he was simply gone, incinerated, instantly cured of frostbite, and lost in the brilliantly lit night sky. Junk instinctively dove into the deep snow, as did Chhiri Tendi even though he was already easily thirty yards up the ridge. Bright red liquid spat out, not quite as high anymore, but still voluminously and in a wide span. Junk rolled about, trying to dodge volcanic bombs as they landed and hissed around him. He dug into the snow behind his head, hoping to hide as much of himself as possible under snow cover. Lava poured over the edge of the north face but did not drop far before solidifying and turning to black rock. Then the lava stopped, and what was left was a fat and perfectly conical hornito with black smoke belching out of the top.

Junk’s horror passed quickly; one might say too quickly for a sane man. He did not look back at his camp or the remnants of the explosion or the severed arms of his friend. Chhiri Tendi heard him give out a roar and begin to approach. Junk waded through the deep snow - passing Chhiri Tendi without even a sideways glance to acknowledge the Sherpa’s presence - on his way to Hoyt, the summit, and almost Certain Death. Chhiri Tendi followed suit but was losing ground by the moment. The two Americans ahead of him were moving at a shocking clip, as if the transported by a sleigh hidden beneath the snow. It did not help matters that Chhiri Tendi was weighted down by a heavy pack while Junk and Hoyt were unencumbered. Had Junk reasoned for even one moment through the fog of his dizzy anger, he would have realized Pasang Dolma was no longer with him. Not carrying a pack to the summit was foolish to a degree the mountains do not forgive. He could survive without a tent and cooker, but that assumes all goes as planned, with nothing to bollocks up progress. Should he be delayed even slightly – if he got lost in the cloud for several hours for instance – the mistake of leaving behind his pack could become deadly. Even the water supply he had manufactured earlier using ice melted on the cooker was now freezing in the canteen on his belt. The frostbite continued its own slow ascent up Junk’s arms and legs. The master planner of business schemes and expeditions had skipped planning altogether at this, his most crucial hour.

Hoyt could not be seen when the sun came up on the morning of the 12th. He was already in the cloud. Junk was almost there. “The sun was behind me” Junk wrote later. “I knew it would be only a memory in a matter of moments, yet still I did not slow down nor did I turn to look back at her brightness. She had stopped providing warmth long ago anyway. Her light had become a meaningless flirt. The sun offered nothing to me anymore.” And then the sun set upwards, rising over the inverted horizon of Fumu’s cloud.

Chhiri Tendi wrote:

“When I reached the cloud several minutes after Junk, I was terrified to enter it. If I removed my mask, would it be breathable? Would I be able to see a single inch ahead of me? I thought of my wife and child one more time, pictured them taking their late-day walk around the village with me, a fly landing on my wife’s brow and her brushing it away, my son running ahead with the intent of hiding behind a fence and jumping out to scare us. But I would run behind him, hands out, turning the prank on him. With this thought, I left the frigid wind and sunlight behind and walked up into the cloud. The world around me changed immediately…”

Chhiri Tendi could see several feet ahead of him, and then he could not, and then he could again. The density of the cloud changed moment by moment. The temperature shot up to blistering heat, and then it dropped again, like taking a steam and then jumping into a lake in winter. This made it impossible for Chhiri Tendi to regulate his core temperature. If he disrobed, he would suffer frostbite from the cold. If he kept the layers on, he would slowly cook. The ground around him was a monochrome paisley, whorls of black ash and stone flowing into snow, slush, and rivulets of icy runoff.

But in the moments when the cloud eased its grip on Chhiri Tendi’s vision, the items that truly captured his attention were the fumaroles. Conical towers rose up in impossible angles. Most were narrow, tall, and black. Some easily reached a height of twenty feet. They presented like