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THE EVEREST CHRONICLES
#5
SUDDEN STORMS
It was an absolutely gorgeous day for climbing on May
10, 1996. At the very top of Everest, as author Jon Krakauer describes
it, the sky overhead was "an achingly brilliant blue." But of
course, for Rob Hall, the owner and guide of Adventure Consultants, May
10 had always been a lucky day. Twice already he'd successfully been to
the top on that date; the Sherpas called it an "auspicious"
date for him.
Actually, it wasn't really luck at all. For all of April, the jet stream
of the Himalayas is focused right on Everest, "like a fire hose,"
writes Krakauer, "blasting the summit pyramid with hurricane-force
winds." But by early May each season, the monsoons from the Bay of
Bengal usually drove the jet stream north into Tibet, providing hundreds
of climbers with a very brief window of opportunity.
However, on May 9 it didn't look like Hall was going to be so lucky. His
eight clients had barely managed to stagger up to Camp Four, up at 26,000
feet. A forlorn bunch of tents huddled in a bare spot. And when they arrived,
the wind was screaming across the South Col. The several expeditions waiting
there were nervous and terrified as they listened to the shriek of the
wind outside. Already one expedition had turned back, failing to reach
the summit. And there wasn't enough oxygen to wait for more than about
a day; they either had to go up or go down.
But around 7:30 that evening, it looked like Hall's predictions and tea
leaves were right after all. All at once, the wind was gone and the stars
came out. The leader went from tent to tent: "Jonno! Stuart! Looks
like we're on, lads. Be ready to rock and roll at eleven-thirty."
And so right before midnight on the hopefully lucky day, May 10, the Adventure
Consultant team, the Mountain Madness climbers, and also a Taiwanese group
of climbers began to head for the top. Miraculously, it seemed to be the
perfect weather for a summit climb. Here's how Krakauer describes that
night in his bestseller, Into Thin Air:
"The night had a cold, phantasmal beauty
that intensified as we climbed. More stars than I had ever seen smeared
the frozen sky. A gibbous moon rose above the shoulder of 27,824-foot
Makalu, washing the slope beneath my boots in ghostly light, obviating
the need for a headlamp. Far to the southeast, along the India-Nepal frontier,
colossal thunderheads drifted over the malarial swamps of the Terai, illuminating
the heavens with surreal bursts of orange and blue lightning."
That's a breathtaking account, isn't it and no pun
intended as we remember how agonizingly thin the air is up there in the
Death Zone. But weather-wise, it looked perfect. The next day as Krakauer
got to the South Summit, then finally made it up the tricky Hillary Step,
a tough 40-foot vertical notch, and the last few yards to the roof of
the world, it was still beautiful. It was 1:17 in the afternoon, which
was right on schedule. And the midday sun overhead was brilliant in an
immaculate cobalt-blue sky.
However, as Jon Krakauer writes later in a Chapter One preface, there
was something down below. Just as he turned to head down, he noticed that
there were some clouds hiding the nearby mountains: Pumori, Ama Dablam,
and some of the lesser peaks around Everest. An hour ago it had been perfectly
clear down there. But now . . . a few clouds. He describes them as "innocuous,
wispy, insubstantial."
"Gleaming in the brilliant midday sun, they
appeared no different from the harmless puffs of convection condensation
that rose from the valley almost every afternoon."
Well, if there's ever a tale where the expression "the
rest of the story" carries painful meaning, this has got to be that
story. Because if you're familiar with what happened, or if you read the
recent Reader's Digest version of this Everest experience, you know that
those harmless-looking clouds soon came whipping up to the top of Mount
Everest. By a margin of maybe 15 minutes, Jon Krakauer made it safely
down to Camp Four. But others in his party, who weren't quite that far
along in the climb, or who waited to help the weaker climbers, got caught
in what turned out to be a murderous storm. And "murderous"
is no metaphor. Four climbers in Rob Hall's group died in that storm,
including the two main guides. In the Mountain Madness group, leader Scott
Fischer also perished.
There's a point to all of this, of course, and here it is: Storms can
so quickly come upon a person. The tragedy I've just described happened
in May of 96. Just a few months ago, this past May again, as more than
300 climbers prepared to take advantage of that tiny window of good-weather
opportunity, six climbers made it to the top, taking the difficult North
Face route. However, on their way back down, that jet stream abruptly
returned with listen to this 140-mph winds. It was a blast no human
could withstand. Those six climbers were literally blown right off the
mountain and never seen again.
Now friend, you and I might not be mountain climbers. And after the last
five minutes, you might be determined never to go up even the smoothest
hill again. But in our spiritual lives, isn't it true that the winds can
suddenly blow? We can be in what we think is a beautiful calm, and five
minutes later we're standing in the middle of a spiritual twister going
140 miles an hour.
So many of the sin stories in the Bible seem to blow right out of nowhere.
The first murder happens in Genesis chapter four, where Cain kills his
brother. And it's such an abrupt homicide, filling up just one verse:
"Now Cain said to his brother, Abel, Let's go out to the field.'
And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed
him."
And that's it! All because the Lord had rebuked Cain
for not obeying Him as Abel had. In an unpredictable flash of rage, the
third human being on our planet rises up and kills his own younger brother.
We mentioned King David the other day, who gradually compromised and bent
rules until he was in deep sin trouble. And yet, there's still a suddenness
to the Bathsheba story. He sees her, he sends for her, she gets pregnant,
he has her husband killed, he gets caught. The whole thing takes just
a few verses in the Bible, and you get a sense of that jet stream coming
down and just blowing away this king who was always known as "God's
own man." What were once clear blue skies were suddenly filled with
dark storm clouds.
We've had a number of radio programs recently that focused on the final
Thursday evening before Jesus died. Peter, James, and John and the eight
other faithful disciples were brimming with confidence. Just a few days
earlier, their Master had ridden into town like a king on the back of
a donkey. "The Triumphal Entry," we still call it today. The
crowds were singing, "Hosanna! Hosanna!" Jesus was up in the
polls.
And yet here, just a very few days later, instead of the sunshiny optimism
of political victory, there was a sudden storm. In only a few hours they
went from scheming about suites at the White House to looking at the business
end of a Roman sword. The jet stream of persecution came on them literally
out of nowhere. Almost before Peter knew what had hit him he had screamed
denial curses at his best Friend and joined his partners out hiding in
the dark bushes.
And here in the year 1999 there are as many Christians blown off the path
of safety as there ever were. You can go into any Christian bookstore
and read about good people sometimes faithful ministers who abruptly
found themselves blown away by temptation. They wake up in a hotel room
they had no business being in, or with embezzled church funds in their
bank account . . . and they honestly did not mean for that to happen.
"How did I get here?" they cry out into the wind, baffled and
heartbroken. "I never saw this storm coming."
As we go back to our Everest story, Jon Krakauer actually comes up with
two mountaineering principles that would work well for the people of God
also. First of all, he describes how any responsible climbing expedition
has climbers all roped together. They're fastened to each other; one climber
who slips is secured to the rest of the group. So when a sudden gust of
wind blows you over, or you hit an unexpected slippery patch on the way
to the top, your fellow climbers dig in with those crampons and hold you
in place. Belaying, it's called, and Krakauer tells the incredible story
of veteran climber Pete Schoening on the Himalayan mountain K2, second
highest in the world. A fellow climber developed thrombophlebitis, and
they knew they had to get him down immediately. At 25,000 feet one of
the men slipped and began to slide down the Abruzzi Ridge, pulling four
others down with him. Schoening reflexively wrapped the rope around his
shoulders and ice ax, dug in, and managed to not only hang onto the sick
man but also arrest the slide of, not one, but all five of those men.
Can Christians, then, similarly rope themselves together spiritually and
protect each other? Is fellowship and church attendance and communal prayer
vital? You'd better believe it, especially in stormy weather.
Suggestion number two comes late in Krakauer's book, as he looks back:
"Wisdom comes easily after the fact. Shocked by the toll in human
life, critics have been quick to suggest policies and procedures to ensure
that the catastrophe of this season won't be repeated. It has been proposed
that a guide-to-client ratio of one to one be established as the standard
on Everest that is, each client would climb with his or her own personal
guide and remain roped to that guide at all times."
Friend, when there are storms all around us,
the only way to climb is one-on-one with your Guide. Fastened with a rope
of faith, of Bible study, of daily prayer, to our Savior Jesus.
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