Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

is closely related, Sherpa is not a written language, so Westerners are forced to resort to phonetic renderings. As a consequence there is little uniformity in the spelling of Sherpa words or names; Tengboche, for instance, is written variously as Tengpoche or Thyangboche, and similar incongruities crop up in spelling most other Sherpa words.
    * Although the Tibetan name for the peak is Jomolungma and the Nepali name is Sagarmatha, most Sherpas seem to refer to the mountain as “Everest” in daily conversation—even when speaking with other Sherpas.

     
    FIVE

    LOBUJE
    APRIL 8, 1996 • 16,200 FEET
    Passing through the towering ice pinnacles of Phantom Alley we entered the rock-strewn valley floor at the bottom of a huge amphitheater.… Here [the Icefall] turned sharply to flow southward as the Khumbu Glacier. We set up our Base Camp at 17,800 feet on the lateral moraine that formed the outer edge of the turn. Huge boulders lent an air of solidity to the place, but the rolling rubble underfoot corrected the misimpression. All that one could see and feel and hear—of Icefall, moraine, avalanche, cold—was of a world not intended for human habitation. No water flowed, nothing grew—only destruction and decay.… This would be home for the next several months, until the mountain was climbed .
    Thomas F. Hornbein
     
    Everest: The West Ridge
     
    On April 8, just after dark, Andy’s hand-held radio crackled to life outside the lodge in Lobuje. It was Rob, calling from Base Camp, and he had good news. It had taken a team of thirty-five Sherpas from several different expeditions the entire day, but they’d gotten Tenzing down. Strapping him to an aluminum ladder, they managed to lower, drag, and carry him through the Icefall, and he was now resting from the ordeal at Base Camp. If the weather held, a helicopter would arrive at sunrise to fly him to a hospital in Kathmandu. With audible relief, Rob gave us the go-ahead to leave Lobuje in the morning and proceed to Base Camp ourselves.
    We clients were also immensely relieved that Tenzing was safe. And we were no less relieved to be getting out of Lobuje. John and Lou had picked up some kind of virulent intestinal ailment from the unclean surroundings. Helen, our Base Camp manager, had a grinding altitude-induced headache that wouldn’t go away. And my cough had worsened considerably after a second night in the smoke-filled lodge.
    For this, our third night in the village, I decided to escape the noxious smudge by moving into a tent, pitched just outside, that Rob and Mike had vacated when they went to Base Camp. Andy elected to move in with me. At 2:00 A.M. I was awakened when he bolted into a sitting position beside me and began to moan. “Yo, Harold,” I inquired from my sleeping bag, “are you O.K.?”
    “I’m not sure, actually. Something I ate for dinner doesn’t seem to be sitting too well just now.” A moment later Andy desperately pawed the zippered door open and barely managed to thrust his head and torso outside before vomiting. After the retching subsided, he hunkered motionless on his hands and knees for several minutes, half out of the tent. Then he sprang to his feet, sprinted a few meters away, yanked his trousers down, and succumbed to a loud attack of diarrhea. He spent the rest of the night out in the cold, violently discharging the contents of his gastrointestinal tract.
    In the morning Andy was weak, dehydrated, and shivering violently. Helen suggested he remain in Lobuje until he regained some strength, but Andy refused to consider it. “There’s no way in bloody hell I’m spending another night in this shit hole,” he announced, grimacing, with his head between his knees. “I’m going on to Base Camp today with the rest of you. Even if I have to bloody crawl.”
    By 9:00 A.M. we’d packed up and gotten under way. While the rest of the group moved briskly up the trail, Helen and I stayed behind to walk with Andy, who had to exert a