Dead Lucky by Lincoln Hall Page A

under the leadership of Shih Chanchun. Completing the route pioneered by the British thirty-six years before, the Chinese planted the Red Flag on the summit on May 25, 1960.
    THE ROAD TO BASE CAMP had improved since my visit in 2003. Well-engineered embankments and wider hairpin bends made it easier for longer vehicles to manage the steepness of the final moraine wall. Our minibuses chugged up with no difficulty. Ahead, the terrain opened out into a broad valley with a floor of gray glacial silt. I recognized a short ridge that rose twenty feet above the flats. On its crest was a two-room building that marked the outskirts of Base Camp. The concrete hut provided office space for the Tibetan Mountaineering Association (known as the TMA) and accommodation for its officials; it was inhabited only during the spring and autumn climbing seasons. Below it was a small grassy area that existed only because a spring-fed creek brought life to the dry ground. This beautiful spot was where we had set up our base camp in 1984, and we had had the place to ourselves. A large American team was the only other expedition on the Tibetan side of the mountain that year, but it did not arrive until after we had moved up the valley to our higher but more sheltered Advance Base Camp, much closer to the North Face.
    The grassy area had survived the explosion of Everest expeditions over the preceding decade, but the spring water was no longer potable. The most obvious change was the growth of the shantytown of temporary tents where meals, alcohol, and the other services of a frontier land were sold. By 2006 the temporary settlement along the last stretch of road had doubled in size. Between two of the tents was Base Camp’s newest permanent building, the small concrete cube that was the Rongbuk Post Office. The northern approach to Mount Everest had definitely become a tourist attraction.
    The shantytown was politely known as the Chinese Base Camp. Beyond it was a vast alluvial flat. Most expeditions had set themselves up here. Our driver showed no mercy as he bounced and swayed the minibus across what was essentially a field of glacial silt, boulders, and dry watercourses filling with snow. With the visibility ahead limited to a few hundred feet, we drove past several encampments. Finally, rows and rows of yellow tents appeared to our left. The minibus jolted to a halt, and we clambered out into the storm. We had arrived.
    There was no mistaking the conditions outside, but it was still a slap in the face to step out of the warm fug inside the vehicle into heavy snowfall and a strong wind. This was the reality we would be living for the next two months, so I took it on board immediately. None of us was fully dressed for a snowstorm, so there was some urgency about getting our gear into tents. I could see that our driver had dropped us at the base of a huge wall of moraine that was like a rock dam across the valley. I had never seen as many tents in the one spot—and that was without counting the base camps of other expeditions, now hidden in the storm. The tent city was laid out in rows, and as somebody who had decided not to live in a city back home, I wanted to avoid living in one here. My best option was to choose a tent at the end of a row, with only one row between my tent and the eastern edge of the encampment. Mike was in front of me and Slate to one side. A good set of neighbors, I thought to myself. Mike’s neighbors were Christopher and then Richard, which was convenient for our small Australian team. I slung my daypack and cameras into the roomy yellow dome that would serve as my home for the next two months. I looked forward to making it into a comfortable refuge.
    Soon there was a call for hot drinks and snacks in the mess tent. The tent itself was extraordinary. Bright yellow and semicircular in cross section, it was nine feet high, twelve feet across, and eighty feet long. From a distance it looked like a giant yellow