|
Prologue
October 1997 my
friend Frank and I made an organised trekking in Nepal. Our
aim was "The Hidden Valley" Rolwaling, west of Namche Bazar,
including the high pass Trashi Laptsa (5755 m). Besides that,
there was a chance to climb the trekking peak Parchamo (6273
m). Our group consisted of 13 persons, including our travel
manager Mandina. For years I wanted to make a serious trek,
I had trained a lot, I was looking forward to it.
28 September 1997,
Schiphol 2m - NAP Netherlands
I missed the pre-union, so I met the group for the first time
in Schiphol Airport. I had some small talk with everybody.
Mandina, our travel manager, is a nice proactive lady. We
check in and drink some coffee at the bar. She tells us she
already knows two couples in our group from a previous trekking
around Dhaulagiri. After sharing some general information,
she tells that during a fierce snowstorm four porters have
died in this trek. The victims were isolated from the group
during an exceptional snowstorm at an elevation of 5000 m.
The porters belonged to the Dutch and another French group.
While other members of the group sheltered from the storm
in tents, the porters died because of hypothermia. I was shocked.
My friend Frank and I look flabbergasted at one another. We
wanted to go on a nice holiday. Later I realised Mandina wanted
to tell this story to be straight with us.
11 October, Beding,
3600m
After 2 weeks we have arrived in Beding, the main village
in the Rolwaling Valley. Now we are in the real high mountains.
We come to the end of the civilised world. Before us are white
mountains.
15 October, Drolambao,
Khaduk, 5350m
We arrive at
a flat part of the glacier, at the edge of a middle moraine.
High above us stands the snow covered Parchamo, and still
higher stands the rock cathedral of Tangi Tagi Reu. Everywhere
is soft crisping snow. With Mandina I explore the route to
the Trashi Laptsa. We venture onto a ridge of ice, and 100
meters under the pass we turn back. The sun sets. The sky
lightens purple, for a moment mountains, clouds dissolve in
violet colours. Then it gets cold, ice cold.
16 October, Trashi
Laptsa, 5755m
Today we are to cross the Teshi Laptsa pass….this year there
are no crevasses or steep icefalls. On the steepest part of
our climb to the pass we encounter a trekking group from Austria.
It's a chaotic scene. Porters in old clothes, sit in the snow
and slide down. Packages of luggage fly down. We step aside
and wait until the group has passed. In the afternoon we sit
in the warm sun under the vertical wall of Tengi Tagi Rau.
Most of our members don't feel like climbing Parchamo. Only
my friend Frank and Mandina will join me. Two members have
high-altitude sickness, and will go down immediately next
morning
17 October, Tashi
Poe, 5600m
I sleep very light. I hear someone sighing, coughing, all
the time. Is it Rein? I try to deny the sound, but it doesn't
work. What to do. Go into the extreme cold and watch. But
Rein sleeps with Frans in his tent. He can watch him. At 1
o'clock I must pee. I decide to take a look at the same time.
Quickly I go out of my tent, I have to pee more seriously
then I thought. The cold is breathtaking. Relieved I balance
downhill. The noise is coming from our dining tent. I go inside.
On some ropes and other climbing gear and under some small
blankets lay five porters. One of them is breathing really
fast. I talk to him: "Breathe slowly". I go to the sherpa
tent, wake them and tell one of the porters is ill. They tell
me it's not a porter from our group. After some persuasion
they boil some water and I give the porter to drink. I tell
him he should go down immediately next morning, but of course
he doesn't understand me at all. I go back to my tent. I want
to have some sleep before I climb Parchamo.
At 2 o'clock someone
vomits. I have to pee again. The sighing has been going on
continuously. Mandina is also awake. I tell her the story
of the porter and she gives me a diamox. It appears that Rein
has been vomiting, but he is feeling better now. I go to the
dining tent, the porters is still sighing. I listen carefully
and I'm startled. The porter is breathing noisily. Lung-oedema!
I give him the diamox and a lot of water. I alarm Mandina
and my friend Frank. They come down and examine the porter.
Same diagnosis: Lung-oedema. We can think of only one solution,
descend immediately. A few hundred meters should do according
to the books. The downhill glacier looked easy yesterday during
daylight. There is no time to loose. Action! The four companions
of the porters look bewildered to us. What's going on. They
simply don't understand. Their passivity annoys me. But the
four companions are cold too and may be sick as well. Mandina
tells our porters and sherpas to help the ill porter down.
We wrap him up in blankets and guide him down. He can still
walk it seems. The descent is relatively simple. But after
50 meters the porter can't walk himself anymore. We drag him
down. We cannot waste time. After 150 meters the sick porter
collapses. Frank takes him in his arms and shakes him, we
shout, but no reaction.
Frank looks for the heartbeat
of the porter. For a moment it is silent. Nothing. We slap
his face, pinch his ears. Nothing. This is impossible, this
cannot be. I open one of his eyes and shine with my lamp.
His eyes stare into nothing. No reaction. The porter is dead.
Pink froth comes out of his mouth. He has drowned in his own
fluids. We cover the body and walk back to the camp. I fall
into the arms of Mandina and cry like I never cried before.
Descent
That morning we didn't climb Parchamo. We never climbed Parchamo.
Full of emotions we tell our group what has happened that
night. Two companions of the dead porter leave to ask the
sirdar of the Austrian group to return. Again the men cross
the pass. We get to know the name of the dead porter, Raj
Kanzar. One of the companions of Raj Kanzar stays with us.
He is a little man with a gentle face, he cries all morning.
His grief is mixed with misunderstanding.
I walk to the dead body,
kneel and pray. The little man watches me. I feel he doesn't
understand what has happened that night. Why did we take his
companion into the freezing night?
The sun is shining, brighter
then ever. The contradiction with the dark night is almost
unbearable. The sirdar of the Austrian group arrives. Bit
by bit the story of Raj Kanzar becomes a little clear. He
and his companions were in a high camp for the third night.
Together with a group Austrians they had left Namche Bazar
a few days ago. The Austrians were acclimatised because they
came from Gokyo. The five porters had too little time to acclimatize.
We leave and go down.
We walk by the corpse. In thoughts I say goodbye. After 500
meters the trail on the glacier stops and the route goes through
a steep ice gully. One of the elder members of our group slips,
and she goes down headfirst. Everybody screams startled. With
an unbelievable reflex she turn 180 degrees and stops with
her feet. The descend through the ice gully is long and ends
in a steep slope with gravel and rocks. I realise that a descend
with the ill porter in the night would probably have been
fatal, for him and his helpers. I feel that I have failed.
My diagnosis was too late, we didn't organise his evacuation
well, and the route we wanted to take was unknown and dangerous.
At the other hand, we
were confronted in the middle of the night with an ill porter
from another group, we didn't know anything about his status,
how he felt the previous days, where he has been, what he
has eaten and drank.
The death of the porter
gives trekking a terrible sad taste. I doubt about tourism
in Nepal, and the exploitation of porters. On the way back
home to Lukla I see hundreds of young Nepalese porters carrying
huge trunks, tables, chairs. Half of them go up, the other
half goes down. And they all carry the same tourist junk.
It's a way to make a living, I know. But how will they manage
in high alpine terrain. The cold, the altitude, the wind.
With only their thin clothes, bad shoes, heavy loads and poor
food. I don’t know. How many die each trekking season? Nobody
knows.
Jan Timmer
Editor: This is a
very moving account of the harsh realities of a porter’s life
and death. Like any industry it can be made safe, enjoyable
and profitable for everyone. It just takes a little thought
and effort. Go trekking but make sure your porters will be
well equipped and cared for, BEFORE you go.
PS The round Dhaulagiri
trek mentioned at the beginning of Jan’s account and Trashi
Laptsa where the porter died are very serious treks and should
be treated as expeditions using only strong, fully equipped
porters with dedicated food, sleeping bags and tents.
|
