Michael Kodas' HIGH CRIMES First Chapter on NYT Website

First Chapter, New York Times
High Crimes
By MICHAEL KODAS

MOUNT EVEREST, NEPAL — MAY 18, 2004

Along the highway of rope that leads above 8,000 meters on Mount Everest, the Balcony is probably the most accommodating rest stop, but Big Dorjee Sherpa and his teammates never planned on taking in the sunset from this perch. Climbers who see the end of the day here are often facing the end of their lives as well.

Most climbers on the south side of the peak, in fact, hope to see the dawn rather than the dusk of their summit day from the frigid overlook that hangs 27,600 feet above sea level. Even at daybreak, they have been climbing for four or five hours by the time they get to this ridge of snow that stretches out like a runway toward the climb ahead. The rising sun bloodies the sky behind Makalu, the fifth-tallest mountain in the world, but the jagged tooth would be hard to miss even if it weren't so massive and highlighted in crimson and saffron: The peak of the Balcony's triangular ridgeline points directly at it. Below and to the south, the lighted tents of Camp Four, the highest camp on the route, glow yellow in the still-dark desolation of Everest's South Col, the highest refuge on the route in all but the most desperate of circumstances. To the north, the remote, immense, and relentlessly steep wall of the Kangshung Face stretches nearly two miles beneath the mountaintop, blushing with first light as it plummets into Tibet. Even mountaineers focused only on their ascent do well to take in this vista anyway. If they can't see these things, they probably shouldn't be here at all; the most benign clouds that obscue this view can turn deadly higher on the mountain.

Those who continue up from the Balcony often take advantage of the wind break provided by a couple of large boulders at the edge of the ledge. They take off their backpacks for a few minutes, often sitting on them while they regroup. Virtually every face is hidden behind a mask connected to a tank of oxygen in their pack. At the Balcony, most climbers on oxygen take the bottle they are sucking on, unscrew it from the system's regulator, and spin a full bottle on in its place. There's often some gas left in that first tank, so they plant it in a carefully noted spot in the snow to retrieve on their return from the summit around midday. When they get back down, they'll switch their last bottle of oxygen, which is probably nearly empty, for the one they started with, using the dregs of that first tank's gas to get through the home stretch of their descent to the relative safety of the South Col. On a busy summit day, orange and blue oxygen bottles awaiting their owners' return poke up out of the snow like buoys bobbing in a wave. For mountaineers who arrive at the Balcony late, or exhausted or stormbound, that last bottle of oxygen can make the difference between survival and death. When Big Dorjee returned to the Balcony from the mountaintop that day, he and his teammates were all of these things. And sometimes, he knew, even a bottle of oxygen isn't enough to buoy a faltering climber.

It had been more than six hours since the four-man team stood on the summit, and they had been climbing in the mountain's notorious "death zone" for more than twenty. Their descent had run hours late, and the other climbers who had made it to the summit that morning had been back in the shelter of the high camp for hours. Help was impossibly distant. Mingma Sherpa, standing beside his friend and coworker Dorjee, had made his first ascent to the top of Everest that morning. He knew enough to be terrified, but lacked the experience to recognize the myriad ways in which the mountain was trying to kill them. Dorjee, however, was coming down from his tenth trip to the top, and could see death coming at them from every direction.

A cloud cap was dropping on top of the mountain, stirring up a fierce wind and threatening snow. Below them the dark shadows of night were climbing up the peak like frozen specters that would drop the temperature to 20 below zero or colder. Dorjee and Mingma's last oxygen tanks had run dry hours earlier. The man they would later say was dead when they left him grabbed at their legs like a zombie as they walked off the Balcony. But that was the least of their worries.

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