Dead Lucky by Lincoln Hall

soul of Tibetan Buddhism excised from the country, the Chinese were content to leave the shell of the religion in place as a tourist attraction and to present a front of tolerance. But the truth behind the façade was very different. Photos of the Dalai Lama were prohibited possessions, and only the simplest forms of Buddhist practice were allowed. Lamas who stepped beyond the prescribed guidelines were jailed—or worse.
    In 1984 Rongbuk Monastery had consisted of one small room, resurrected from the ruins left by marauding Chinese troops during the Cultural Revolution. On my several visits I had witnessed the stages of its rebuilding. By 2003 there was a two-story meditation hall with wings on each side of a courtyard. Rooms for the monks along the wings reduced the courtyard’s internal dimensions but provided good shelter. What was new in 2006 was a building on the downhill side of the road, directly opposite the monastery. It was obviously basic accommodation for the increased tourist traffic. The rooms appeared to be classically Tibetan in style, just like the small rooms in the monastery’s courtyard, each with a single door and no window, each opening out to the sheltered area created by the U-shaped building. No doubt a larger room served as a kitchen and eating place. The driver of our minibus was not interested in stopping for photo opportunities or verification of my architectural theories. His reticence was understandable. It was snowing heavily, and he obviously wanted to get to Base Camp, unload his human cargo, and head back down the narrow road before it became impassable. The weather worsened as we drove past an alluvial flat, white with snow and punctuated by the shapes of fifty or more yaks. Most of the animals lay sphinxlike and motionless, their black coats not yet whitened by the snow. Before I could decide if this was a camp for the yak-herders or a fenceless holding yard for the yaks, the scene was behind us.
    The higher we drove, the colder it became outside and the more the windows of the minibus fogged up. We were almost at Base Camp, yet no one would let me open a window. I laughed to myself at this attempt to postpone the realities of high-altitude mountaineering. In a month or two we would not be worrying about fresh air rushing in through a small window but about the possibility of the tents we huddled in high on the mountain being shredded by hurricane-force winds.

Six
    TENT CITY
    WITH THE SUMMIT of Mount Everest the most inhospitable place on earth, and with the base camps on both sides higher than any permanently inhabited place, people are understandably surprised when they learn that a road leads all the way to the Tibetan Base Camp.
    When China invaded Tibet and added it to the Motherland, they also assumed ownership of the entire Everest massif. Chinese maps of the time portrayed Chinese territory extending as far south as Namche Bazaar. In the Everest region the true border between Nepal and Tibet runs from the summit of Makalu westward over the crests and summits of Lhotse, Everest, Pumori, Gyachung Kang, and Cho Oyu—very much the skyline as viewed from the Pang La. Of course, the optimistic Chinese border was not recognized by Nepal, India, or any other country. Nowhere else in the world could a border be less traversable than across the top of Mount Everest.
    The Chinese came to their senses and corrected their maps. They salvaged some of their limitless national pride by mounting an expedition to Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for Everest). Their first task was the gargantuan one of constructing the Rongbuk Base Camp road that is in use today. With that achieved, they trucked in mountains of supplies and a climbing team of 214 Chinese and Tibetan men and women. Nothing could be further from the lonely experience of 1924—when a small British team including George Mallory and Andrew Irvine climbed close to the summit—than the Chinese siege ascent in 1960