Dave Hahn

I could see a little meeting getting going at Camp VI. Though I was just 150 feet from the meeting, I couldn't get there any quicker. Four hours of slow and steady with a 250 lb pack (we were higher still) means that is the way the last 150 feet is accomplished also.

But I could see that Craig and the boys were back from the top, Alex was getting water in them, and Heather and Pinzo were slapping them on their backs. A good meeting, which was luckily still in session when Jim and I arrived. I could attend such meetings forever. But this one was on such a tight little piece of real-estate that we could barely fit there at once with our crampons and tents and packs and Oxygen bottles.

Besides, Craig, Danuru and Lhakpa wanted to get low in a hurry, a good plan. And we wanted to start brewing up and getting ready for the top ourselves... it would not be a long night. We'd save the stories for some better time with more atmosphere. A handshake with Craig seemed inadequate for what he'd accomplished, but it was all I could manage without knocking someone off our little flat place. He'd had a terrible trip for health... but darn if he hadn't just made all that insignificant.

Craig had been to 28,000' in 1994, and four years to mull over the final bit had done the trick. Scratch one Everest monkey from the back. For the Sherpas, the summit had seemed a given. How were you going to hold back the careers of such talented guys? Even so, they seemed pretty well jazzed about the whole thing. We warned all to descend with care, they left, and we got to moving into our new home.

Camp VI is higher than all but about three or four mountains in the world, but it only has about half of a view. Everest is thoroughly in the way. The afternoon was spent stumbling around our two small tents. Their doors faced each other, so when we'd settled in for the big snow cooking sessions of the evening, I could keep a watch on Heather and Pinzo as if looking at a mirror image of Jim and myself. These were small tents... "You getting ready to move your leg?" "Watch out for that stove." "Try to mop up that water I spilled" "You move that leg yet?"

I was trying to keep track of people via radio, Alex had stopped at Camp V, but the others had sped on down. The word was that they were bound for ABC. Now that is a heck of a day: summit, all the way down to Pemba's cooking in one fell swoop.

I knew that the third team of Panuru and Bob and Richard had moved right into place at Camp V. That was good climbing, the rest of us had used an intermediate camp we were calling "Low V" to shorten some of the big days of the North Ridge. The stage was set, all was well, but not as well as it could have been.

— Dave Hahn, International Mountain Guides' Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES

COMPLETE INDEX OF DISPATCHES