The Seventh Summit

Chapter Three

20th April, 1985, in the early hours of the day, we started our ascent to Camp III towards the Lhotse Face. The fixed ropes were of great assistance as it eased our tiredness gradually almost back to normal. It was still quite a challenge to climb it that easily. This time though, it seemed that I was gonna lose this race to Baig. He was quite efficient with the ropes. He was climbing at double the speed I was ascending at. And I had no qualms over it. Because the decision can be made only after determining who reaches the summit first.

After a long ascend of almost half a day, we finally reached Camp III very tired and highly exhausted. I couldn't feel my face for a few minutes and Baig too was trying hard to catch his breath. This got me really curious, because breathing was the only trouble Baig was suffering from.

To find out more about it, I contacted the base camp.

"Shiv to Mishra, come in over," I said.

"Yes, this is Mishra. Go ahead Shiv, over,"

"Mishra, I need you to get some details on Baig's health condition history records. I wanna know if he has had some past serious illnesses or ailments or whatnot."

"I'll get on it right away Shiv. You take care, over and out," Mishra replied and the frequency went static. There had to be something that Baig has been hiding from everyone.

As I waited up at Camp III for any information from the Base, but my mind was constantly getting blocked by the thought of how cold it was getting out there. I was curling in my sleeping bag every five minutes. I turned on the lamp as I couldn't sleep for a while. I wanted to sit and do something to take my mind off the cold weather outside. I quickly took a deep breath and started searching my for something in my gear, but to no avail. Then I remembered that I still had my walkie-talkie. I contacted the base. I requested them to get me luggage and find a book called The Brambhik (A book co-written by my friend Manish) in there and read it out aloud for me. Mishra's assistant Suresh did it really well. It really eased my heart and my mind altogether.

But then Suresh was interrupted by Mishra, who finally had some information perhaps. At least that was what I was hoping for.

"Shiv, you were right," Mishra immediately said.

"What is it?"

"Zubin Baig is suffering from Asthma, not too serious, but dangerous under such climate all the same."

Holy Shit!

Baig has walked into his own grave by taking such a step. This man is ready to risk his life just to make his country proud. What a guy! I know that we were competitors, but I had started to developed a sense of respect for the guy. I was taking this race as a sport, but he took it as his best opportunity to leave a mark on the world.

***

2nd May was the day when we moved ahead and started our ascent towards Camp IV. This was the most challenging portion that we had encountered so far. The reason was that climbing towards South Col. really made things difficult for us due to rapid decrease in the atmospheric pressure in the air. But I was more worried about Baig than myself. His asthma was definitely going to get worse and he might start suffering from hypoxia (Hypoxia is a condition in which a body suffers deficiency of oxygen to the tissues.). But now it was too late. He was not going to accept his illness as a reason for his defeat. He had come too far to turn back now.

We were climbing the Geneva Spur, which was just below the Yellow Band. But as we were climbing up, suddenly, a chunk of rocks fell that barely missed both of us. But what was worse was that a large berg of snow hit Baig straight in the chest as he was climbing ahead of me. He lost his hold on the ropes and his carabiner broke and he fell, sliding down straight towards me. As I saw him sliding towards me, I reacted instinctively and grabbed hold of his jacket. As he started panting hard, he grabbed my hand and I pulled him towards me.

I then shoved my ice axe in the snow hard and held him by his shoulders. Thankfully he did not throw my hand off his shoulders. But that was because he was he was partly conscious.

"Baig, you must return back my friend. You need to get yourself safe before your asthma gets any worse," I requested him. But he simply shook his head.

"Zubin, the air up there will be twice less than half of what we breathe back home. Please try to understand my friend. Everest is famous for its murderous nature. Don't take your life so lightly," I begged him further, but he shoved his fist in the snow and pointed up, showing me the summit.

I had nothing to say at this. I simply stayed quiet for a moment.

"Okay Baig. Let's do this, together. Forget countries for a while and be sportsmen," I told him. He then slowly turned his head and looked at me with a confused expression.

After almost an hour long respite, we finally got up and finally started climbing up the last 50m out of the 500m distance between Camp III and IV. These 500m seemed like 5000m to us as for the first time, we put aside our geographical differences and showed some sportsmanship. We were finally at 26000ft up on a mountain. We were still 3000 feet away from the summit.

***

This time, we decided to share a tent, just to give each other some company. As we talked about things regarding each other's respective countries, I noticed that Baig was quite a nice guy. He belonged from a really poor family. But his hard work and sacrifices brought him where he stood today.

Things started to take a turn for the worse as the time passed on and we realized a little late that we had finally entered South Col. Which is also more commonly known as 'The Death Zone'. We came to our senses and remembered that we were now too close to the stratosphere and it was next to dying, if we failed to take proper breaths at proper intervals. But it was a tougher task altogether, as the air pressure from Camp IV onwards was almost one-third to what we breathe at places near to sea levels such as Mumbai.

I immediately contacted the base camp to get a twenty on the weather and find out how long we have to wait before making our final ascent to the summit. I got a reply almost instantly. We were instructed that since we are not using supplemental oxygen, we will have to wait the night out and start our final ascent in the very early hours of the morning, so that we can descend our way back as fast as possible, and that too before it gets dark.

It seemed like a good plan. They definitely must have thought it through before suggesting it to me. We then retreated back in our sleeping bags side-by-side as we went to sleep before the final race to see who finishes his streak first.

"Don't keep your hopes up too much Mr. Arora. My asthma may slow me down, but I'm gonna win all the same," Baig mocked me jokingly.

"Insha'Allah," I answered as we finally closed our eyes, falling in for a quick nap.