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

hostile place. Hoyt said as much: “Until greater minds conjure up a machine allowing one to see through cloud cover and instantaneously gauge heights above sea level, and until God has deemed Man worthy of admission to his most divine secrets, the top of Fumu will remain a mystery.”

“No it won’t” Chhiri Tendi replied as if stating a simple matter of fact. “I was there a few minutes ago.”

Junk’s eyes became vast. His mouth opened wide, so wide in fact he looked as if he were preparing to catch an apple with his teeth. No sound came out. His face might have turned red had it not been covered in frostbite. This was followed by a hacking cough that continued for more than a half-minute. Next to him, Hoyt sat upright, his back wooden. His facial expression did not change upon hearing Chhiri Tendi’s statement, but no soft curves remained there. Every contour – every muscle, wrinkle, and bone - became tighter, as if the whole composition would at any moment snap, leaving nothing but a surprised skull.

Immediately obvious to Chhiri Tendi was that his life might be in danger. He continued. “By mistake, of course. I reached the summit by mistake. I couldn’t see! I was looking for you two. Then the sky cleared for a moment. Just a second or so, and I could see I was at the highest point.”

Junk erupted. “You became the first man to reach the top of the world…by mistake?”

According to Chhiri Tendi’s elaborations during our interview, that is exactly what had happened. He had lost Hoyt and Junk in the cloud, and wandered lonely for hours. He generally walked upward, thinking that even if Hoyt and Junk were fighting, they were likely to try and fight up, toward the summit. Chhiri Tendi was searching for so long he even considered setting up his tent, thinking the sun might set at any moment. But he had lost track of time, as was easy to do in such a place. It was earlier in the day than he had presumed, and so the Chaos in the cloud remained eerily lit. His tent could not be set up anyway because the wind was too strong. In lieu of such a tactic, he took out his sleeping bag in order to rest for at least a moment, lying on his back and clinging to his backpack as an anchor and a blanket.

The rock beneath his back felt rough and uncomfortable. So he took off the backpack, permitted himself to float a tad, and kept himself buoyed to the mountain by lashing himself to the pack. Time passed and Chhiri Tendi did nothing but repeatedly give in to slumber and awaken with a start. In his waking thoughts, he despaired. Thinking back to his experience with Hoover’s beheading up here, Chhiri Tendi realized he had once again made the mistake of leaving his family in order to climb Fumu. He would not make the mistake again. Never on an expedition had he considered leaving behind his sahib to save himself, but now he played with the idea. Hoyt and Junk were important, but seeing his wife’s smile again was more important.

As if timed by some universal clock, the eruptions stopped for a brief period of time. The wind cleared out all of the acrid black smoke and left only blowing snow. For that moment, the upper reaches of Fumu were not unlike other eight thousand foot peaks. Indefensibly cold. Intermittently clear and then clouded over. These moments of clarity were not clear in the sense of blue skies and views spanning hundreds of miles from the Terai in the south to the Tibetan Plateau in the north, but clear in the sense that Chhiri Tendi could see around him for hundreds of feet before the pale sheet of snow veiled the backdrop.

And that was the moment when Chhiri Tendi saw he was at the top of Fumu. It was obvious. The peak of Fumu was almost ridiculous in its pointy, conical perfection, just as one might expect to see in a child’s hand-drawn rendering of a mountain. Its top was so pointy in fact it had been the thing digging into Chhiri Tendi’s back when he was trying to rest in his sleeping bag. With the sky clear, he saw that every direction was downward for at least a quarter mile. He had literally stumbled across the top of the world. Then an eruption spewed forth lava to the north and clouded up the sky again with smoke, and Fumu’s top returned to its miserable status quo.

Whether Chhiri Tendi should have mentioned this information to Hoyt and Junk is questionable. Despite their claims of moral reprioritization on a cosmic scale, Hoyt and Junk were livid. They looked at Chhiri Tendi with wild, unpredictable eyes. What would they do? No evidence existed that Chhiri Tendi had been to the top, so cold-blooded murder was indeed an option. But perhaps they would spare him if they felt Chhiri Tendi was essential to their return to civilization. Had he not just saved their lives? Was not levity in order? Junk removed all doubt when he transformed into a berserker. He emitted inhuman wails and launched himself at Chhiri Tendi. Perhaps Hoyt held back because he had a little more of a history with the Sherpa. But he watched and likely prayed Junk was successful in whatever designs he had. Chhiri Tendi told me:

“He lunged at me. I was prepared, I was in better shape than him, and I knew a thing or two about fighting. Who cares if he grew up in an American city? Try lugging paper from one country to another over mountain passes and dealing with armed bandits. Junk couldn’t use his hands because they were frozen, so instead he made the miscalculation of trying to knock me down. But he’s a short shit. Not much reach. When his outstretched hands were close enough