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

the trigger. ‘Go ahead’ I cried. “End this suffering! My heart, soul, and belly are on the verge of emptiness. Do it! I am ready to cross the River Jordan!’”

To Hoyt’s surprise, Yuudai aimed the gun into the air and fired. A red flare rose hundreds of feet into the sky above them, lighting up the side of the Eastern Ridgeas they climbed. When they finally arced, fell back to earth and fizzled, the silence must have been deafening and filled with one thousand awkward thoughts. The two men quietly went to their separate tents and retired for the night.

The rest of Hoyt’s team did not recall ever seeing the flare that night. The location of their camp should have provided them with an uninterrupted view of Hoyt and Yuudai’s location. Chhiri Tendi has no explanation for this, except perhaps they were all in their tents at the time.

However, other eyes did see the flare. First was Junk. His fellow climber Zeigler wrote that “Junk saw something shoot up – just barely - over the Eastern Ridge. It seemed too low to be a magma eruption, although it lit up the sky in a similar fashion. Junk probably would have danced around in the dark had there been enough air to support such behavior. Instead, he simply blurted out a loud, forced ‘Ha!’ and commented that the ‘abstemious, joy-retardant faggot’ appeared to be having problems. No action was taken to set up a rescue. Zeigler was unsure in his writings whether no action was taken because Junk hated Hoyt that much, or because their distance from the flare and the existence of the Eastern Ridge made rescue impossible.

But still even more eyes had seen the flare. About eight of them in total. These eyes were much closer, only a few hundred feet further up the base of the Eastern Ridge from Hoyt. These eyes were angry, insane, and situated in the heads of men who wore stuffed cobras around their necks.

Chapter Thirteen: What Happened To McGee

Junk finally took pen to paper on September 7th. He did this for three reasons. First, seeing as practically everyone else on the expedition was writing, he felt it was about time he did the same. Should not his own perspective be documented once this journey came to an end? What if Hoyt was keeping a journal, which he undoubtedly was? Some document needed to exist to counter whatever falsities he concocted. Second, the lack of air was making him feel sillier than usual. As his brain reverted to a more childish state, he found himself to be more playful and creative (at least in his opinion). The urge to produce became overwhelming. Deep sea divers will sometimes experience rapture of the deep. Junk was experiencing some kind of rapture of the skies. Thirdly, he was smitten. River Leaf had captured his heart. Junk was quite explicit in his explanation as to why. “River Leaf does not laugh at my jokes. I told a classic rib-tickler about a Polack and a Mick fishing with the Pope and she didn’t even crack a smile. She speaks only when there is something needing to be said, unlike me, who finds the availability of carbon dioxide in my lungs a sufficient excuse to say something. She can commit acts of extreme heroism or extreme violence if the need arises. Mother would have loved her. They’re two of a kind.” River Leaf had become Junk’s muse.

The commencement of his journal coincided with the expedition striking out from Camp Two, half way up the eastern lip of the Icy Bellows, on their way to Camp Three where the lip meets the Eastern Ridge. The journey from Camp One at the Rakhiot Glacier to Camp Two had been painless. The wind from the Bellows had been relatively calm for no understandable reason and the lip had not presented any technical challenges; no steps, no narrows, just a gentle walkway to the skies. This next stretch to Camp Three would not be so simple. The lip became rather nasty right away. Two steps, the first about twenty feet high and the second slightly taller, blocked their route. The air would also be thinner. Other than these challenges, the route remained relatively wide and gentle and certainly less challenging than the southern route which Hoyt had chosen, with its scree and its maw. Although Junk had to admit the Rakhiot Glacier and Qila Pass had taken far more of a toll on his campaign than he had expected. Perhaps the steep slopes and unpredictable rocks of the southern route would have been preferable. Then again, they had seen Hoyt shoot off a flare. Not all was right on their side either.

Junk may have been cheery, but the other Americans were tired and despairing over their losses. Taylor, Fenimore, and Morrow, all gone. The remaining team members were all suffering from altitude sickness or frostbite or both. Cole’s frostbite had spread to his nose and other cheek. If he did not attend to the problem soon, he would have to begin climbing down. McGee was dizzy and nauseous from the altitude. His fear of heights had gotten the better of him, slowing him down to a snail’s pace. The world dropped off sharply on both sides, and that is enough to make anyone feel they are performing a high wire act. To someone with acrophobia, that terror is multiplied manifold. McGee must have also worried for his heart which had not experienced such persistent exercise ever before. River Leaf was moving more slowly and seemed to finally be feeling the effects of her surroundings. Everyone was talking less and the words that did come out were garbled. The thinking beneath the words was equally garbled. Even the more experienced climbers were starting to make bad judgments as they rose into the realm of twenty thousand feet. Junk himself had left his entire backpack behind after