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

too invested in reaching the top to make a rational decision. He was also oxygen-deprived. Cole “decided” to keep going, even if it meant losing his nose and cheek when he got home.

Junk went up the step first, followed closely by Cole and then River Leaf. She climbed without complaint and never stopped for longer than a few moments in order to calculate her next axe-strike. McGee was next and Zeigler offered to follow behind him, cheering him on and providing suggestions if needed. The Sherpa carried up the rear. As the team ascended, rumbles from the summit would mix with the wind, making for a disharmonious experience.

McGee stopped half way up. “I’m done” he uttered in a voice so quiet only Zeigler could hear. He needed to go down. The height was too great. He was terrified. “I’m afraid of heights” he called out needlessly. Junk queried the people on the step below as to the nature of the delay. Word was passed up the line that McGee had given up. “Bullshit!” Junk responded. “Get your ass up here, Fatty Arbuckle! We’ll talk about your running mascara when you’ve reached the top of this thing.” The others were in shock at Junk’s behavior, but clearly Junk knew his friend well because McGee started moving again.

They reached the top of the second step without a mishap. Perhaps they would have been overjoyed were they not so exhausted. The dyspeptic Sherpa no longer stood out in their demeanor because everyone on the top of the step that day was miserable. Even Junk’s daydreams of love were not enough to keep him chipper. He moved slowly and said little. Yelling at McGee on the step had probably been enough to make him winded.

Looking around, the landscape was slowly changing. The sound of the summit - sporadic cataclysms like God sounding a tympani drum - was now as loud as the screaming wind and strong enough to move the Earth beneath them. The expedition had also reached their first streak of black ash, a three-foot-wide line scarring the lip diagonally in front of them. Whatever fireball had caused it had likely come from near the peak of the mountain and then hit the lip, careening off into the eastern sky and the moraine below. Such an event could happen again at any moment. This new threat probably sank in for the climbers and further quieted them.

Junk made the decision they would again set up an intermediary camp. The wind was still abusive and his team, made up of several amateurs, was spent. “Original plan of for [sic] camps was to [sic] optamistic [sic]. This will end up being six camps, all of them justified.” Food was still not an issue, but the extended time on the mountain would require some conservation efforts. That would likely not be difficult for the team as appetites tend to diminish with altitude. Even the repulsively corpulent McGee was looking more slender than normal.

Each individual responds to altitude differently and so far their minimal acclimatization efforts had been sufficient for everyone. No one had gotten altitude sickness up to that point. But now Zeigler was complaining of debilitating headaches. They began as small pains in his temples at the base of the step, but were now causing him to double over, hold his head in his mitts, and squint his eyes hard. Each time the mountain erupted, he moaned in pain. Pasang Dolma recommended they take Zeigler down immediately to Camp Two. Junk agreed this was the prudent thing to do. He told two of the dyspeptic Sherpa to gear up and bring Zeigler down before nightfall. They could sleep at Camp Two and then make their way up the next day. Zeigler could also come back up if his condition improved.

“No” one of the dyspeptic Sherpa replied.

Such a response from a Sherpa was unexpected to say the least. Disobeying a direct order from a sahib – at least an order as rational as this one - was unheard of. Junk was quick-tempered in this rarefied atmosphere, and yelled with slurred phonemes “Get walgin’ you horthe’th ath!”

According to Cole’s journal from that evening, the Sherpa’s response was crystal clear, as if he had access to some personal, unseen reservoir of air. “No. All he needs to do is rest here and that will help him. We need to keep moving forward before we come across a storm. The wind is high, but the sky remains cloudless. The ‘Angry Parent’ cannot be expected to stay calm for much longer. We will stay here tonight. Zeigler will remain here after that while the rest of us continue the climb tomorrow.” This response must have put Junk into a bad situation. He could not dismiss the Sherpa. He knew they were required for him to conquer the summit, especially if he wished to do it before Hoyt (assuming Hoyt had not already beaten him). The Sherpa had also tapped into Junk’s urge not to slow the expedition down any further, even though he knew the only cure for altitude sickness was descent. Simply staying put was no elixir for Zeigler’s ills. What’s more, Junk could not cast aspersions on the Sherpa because they were essentially pulling the same stunt he himself had pulled on Tersely years earlier on the Everest expedition: Usurping the whole operation.

To everyone else’s surprise, Junk simply said “Bah!” and walked into his tent for a nap. He was too tired and the counter-proposal gelled too well with the urges lying coiled in his gut. He was compromising Zeigler’s life and his own leadership because of his aspirations of conquering Fumu before Hoyt.

River Leaf entered the tent moments later, causing some commotion among the rest of the team. These were, after all, a group of healthy men, which is to say their minds had been steeped in raunch since the arrival of body hair. The idea of a woman alone with a man in one of the