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Borge Ousland, Polar veteran turned mountaineer recounts his Everest summit bid
12:28 p.m. EDT Jun 12, 2003
Polar veteran Borge Ousland shared with ExplorersWeb the account of his recent summit attempt on Mount Everest. Borge’s roots lay in the Arctic/Antarctic, where he has many achievements, including ski traverses of both the North/South Poles. He was also the first to ski solo and unsupported from Russia to the geographic North Pole.
Borge was a deep-sea diver in the oil platforms in the North Sea and was the first to use an “immersion suit” to swim across gaps on the Arctic ice while skiing to the Pole. Since then, several successful teams have followed suit and used the pioneer’s swimming technique.
Borge has since tried his hand on 8000m mountains and has successfully summited Cho Oyu. This year he joined with Jagged Globe, a commercial guiding outfit for Everest, and was hoping to complete what is known as the, “Three Poles.” (North Pole, South Pole, and Everest.) Borge managed to ultimately climb past the Balcony, but had to turn around when he realized he wasn’t going to have enough oxygen to make it to the summit and back down safely.
Read Borge’s account below:
We left on our last summit attempt from South Col 9 pm in the evening the 25ft of May. Our team consisted 6 climbers and two leaders. The weather this season had been very unstable and this was our third attempt. We knew that it would be the last one since the monsoon would come in a few days’ time prohibiting further attempts due to weather conditions.
The wind blew strong across the South Col when we left that night, but not worse than expected and we did good time up to the Balcony, reaching this small piece of flat ground at about 8500 meters. For some reason our two leaders had changed plans just before departure, and instead of the agreed set-up with one leader in the front and one securing the back, they both went in the front, bringing with them the team’s only radios and spare oxygen regulators. “Stick to your Sherpa” was the last I heard from them before they both took off for the top.
I climbed with a fourty year old Sherpa, who had been on the top three times before. On the last part of the expedition, however, he had showed signs of fatigue, and a week earlier I had asked our leader to climb with another and stronger Sherpa. He agreed to that, and said I could climb with a young Sherpa who had proved to be both eager and strong. But a few hours before departure from the South Col, our leader came to me and said I had to climb with my old Sherpa after all, assuring me that he had regained his strength and was fit for the top. The younger Sherpa, he had decided, would climb with himself instead of with me as agreed.
After the Balcony my earlier worries regarding my Sherpa-companion`s physical shape became a reality. He started to lag more and more behind, and often I had to stop to wait for him on the steep slopes above the Balcony. The others were at this stage already far ahead, and I had no means of contacting them.
On one of the rock outcrops below the South Summit my companion collapsed completely. I was fifty meters above him shouting to him but he did no longer respond. I got worried and went down again, and when I reached him he was barley able to speak and was clearly disorientated. I saw that he had lost one of his mitts and he showed serious signs of hypothermia, mumbling that he was very cold and showing me his hands and indicating that he was unable to hold the ascender (safety clip for the ropes). I also noticed that he had run out of oxygen, probably without realizing it, adding further to his state of detoriation. The ledge we sat on was on one of the steepest parts of the route and I changed his oxygen bottle with great care, gave him hot energy drink from my thermos, and rearranged his mitts.
Slowly he regained his senses and when I asked if he wanted to go down, he confirmed by nodding. When I thought he was ok again, I took the spare bottle of oxygen he had in his rucksack, sent him down and continued up alone. I had been delayed for at least two hours, resulting in me having to change to the last bottle of oxygen much earlier than planned, somewhere below the South Summit.
Walking in this altitude was heavy, but I felt in good shape and was still determined to reach the top. But when I reached the South Summit at 8750 meters (28710 ft) my oxygen regulator told me that I only had half the bottle left (100 bar). I could see the top, only 2-3 hours more to go, but my oxygen would only last me about another three hours more before I would run out.
My head was reasonably clear, and even though I had been on this expedition for two months and wanted to reach the top more than ever, I knew that the risk was too great. There were no more people coming up, I was the last one, and if I ran out of oxygen on the narrow summit ridge, I would have been all alone out there and would probably not have made it back. The brain goes real quick when you go from three litters of oxygen a minute to nothing at this altitude.
There were no other options than turning back, and this filled me with sadness and anger. Sad because I got so close without reaching the actual summit, and anger because we had two leaders who did not recognize their duties and unwritten rules as expedition leaders. Both of the leaders had been close to the top on previous expeditions, but had to turn back. This time they put their own summit ambitions before the safety of the team they were supposed to lead, and this time both of them reached the top.
I met Sir Edmund Hillary after my solo crossing of Antarctica in 1997. Together we travelled to the South Pole by air, and this meeting was my inspiration to climb Everest. I came to see and explore what Hillary and Tenzing saw as the first, and in this respect I have explored what I came for. Despite all the people and fuss, -with its dramatic nature and history, the Khumbu Icefall, the Western Cwm, the Lothse Face and Everest itself are above all a great experiences. In addition this expedition has given me valuable knowledge about peoples lack of judgement at altitude, -not to mention leadership.
Børge Ousland 090603
Image of Børge at the South Summit, 8750m, courtesy of Børge Ousland
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