Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom (bookreader TXT) 📗

They had been climbing along the base of the Eastern Ridge since waking up, long, sad rests followed by short spasms of advancement. Given the nasty conditions, the only indication of day’s closing was bleakness getting bleaker. Grays turned to deep blues. And then blues became black. No snow was falling yet, but the wind was picking up and visibility was minimal.

Unbeknownst to the two climbers, they were not far from the location where the rest of their team had placed equipment for Camp Three. The team members had down climbed to Camp Two for the night, but canned meals and fuel awaited, as did oxygen. Should they continue another three hundred feet along the wall, they would find the equipment and many of their problems would be solved. Hoyt and Yuudai continued to climb in the darkness as if sensing that possibility.

They came to Rauff’s Maw. Unlike their colleagues, Hoyt and Yuudai were not on the “happy side.” They would need to cross in order to progress. But Hoyt had planned well. As you may recall, it was the other team members who had deviated from Hoyt’s original route – the route he had planned months ago and then solidified when looking up at Fumu from Base Camp. Hoyt and Yuudai themselves were still on route. The Maw at that time was certainly an obstacle, but not insurmountable. You see, the Maw narrowed at its top and bottom, and they were at its top now. A small pass existed between the chasm’s topmost point and the wall supporting the Eastern Ridge. It was through there they were heading now and it was just past there they planned to set up their tents for the night. And it was through there that materials for the actual Camp Three secretly awaited. What had been three hundred feet from Camp Three was now merely two hundred feet. In the dark they stumbled and gasped, moving ever closer to relief, to ambrosia, to reunion with the others.

The beginning of the Maw was now only feet away, down the slope to their left. The Eastern Ridge wall was to their right. This path between the two obstacles was roughly ten feet wide and made of smooth, unflawed ice with an occasional pile of wind-blown snow that had likely dropped down the cliff from the Eastern Ridge. They could not see the Maw in the darkness, but if they could, they would see what appeared to be a yawning chasm dropping down nearly one thousand feet into a bottom obscured by the curvature in her walls. Even if the time had been noon on a brilliant summer day, the bottom of the Maw would have remained dark, silent, and vigilant for live offerings.

The snow began. It blanketed them and the ice at their feet in an instant. With the snow it seemed the air had gotten even colder (if such a thing was possible). Certainly out of energy and filled with doubt about the likelihood of survival, Hoyt collapsed and gave out a terrible moan. He wrote that night, “Fustration [sic]. Despration [sic]. Father was right. Makes me mad. Toes sting. ”

On the ground, he began to pray out loud. It was not a humble prayer. He did not pray for his life. He did not pray for Yuudai’s life. He prayed for Junk’s death and an explanation for his current circumstance. His prayer rose in volume until it was calamitous. A wailing. A keening. A temper tantrum. Hoyt’s old anger was still alive, barking at the Heavens for answers and urgent, savage justice.

No matter how cathartic the prayer must have been to Hoyt’s soul, its impact on the outer world was devastating. A cataclysm, heard but unseen, with the din of one hundred battlefields was now coming from everywhere, easily drowning out Hoyt; a corresponding quake in the ground took Yuudai off of his feet.

Blinded by darkness, Hoyt and Yuudai had no idea what had just happened all around them, except that it felt and sounded apocalyptic. When all was quiet again, Hoyt, torch in hand, rose and walked forward cautiously. He came to a spot where the ground simply disappeared in front of him. Shining his torch downward, he saw no noticeable bottom. He followed the ledge of this new drop off. It kept curving to the left. Before long he had made a complete semi-circle and was back at the wall of the Eastern Ridge, but now behind Yuudai. “By the bowels of Christ!” yelled Hoyt. “We’re trapped!”

They decided to wait for the light of dawn to fully assess their predicament and plan an escape. Conditions and space prohibited the construction of a tent. They were left with no choice but to bivouac into the snow freshly fallen all around them. Given the limitations available to them, they also had to place their new home right at the base of the wall. With snow coming down hard, the chances of a cornice coming loose on the Eastern Ridge and landing on them were astronomically high. Even if harm did not come from above, they had no guarantees the ground upon which they stood was intact. “We sleep in our grave” wrote Hoyt.

Once the structure was completed and they were inside, they found one unexpected comfort. The stone cliff supporting the Eastern Ridge made up one wall of their temporary home. It contained a slight crack, and out of that crack came a gentle warmth, possibly from some unseen vent. It tempered the biting air ever so slightly. Hoyt and Yuudai were still starving and lacking any energy, but curled up in their warm, down sleeping bags near Fumu’s exhaust, they had a brief respite from the cold.

Hoyt wrote hardly anything that night. Without question he was too weak to summon the will. Aside from the quotations mentioned earlier, he also wrote “Bless Yuudai. Saved food. A feast of pemmican.”

When morning of September ninth arrived, the storm broke just long enough to present