Makalu Gau

Makalu Gau was the leader of the Taiwanese National Expedition and one of the climbers caught in the May 10, 1996 Everest disaster. He joined the summit traffic behind the teams of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, then endured the night high on the mountain with the failing Fischer. Rescuers brought Gau back alive, but he suffered extensive frostbite and later lost extremities: his survival was a hard-won return, not an escape from lasting injury.

Identity and Expedition

Gau led the Taiwanese National Expedition, which made its summit bid in the wake of two larger commercial teams. The expedition’s presence became part of the congestion on the upper route: by 4:00 A.M., climbers from Fischer’s Mountain Madness and Hall’s Adventure Consultants were thoroughly intermingled with Gau and two Taiwanese Sherpas. Hall and Fischer had not expected the Taiwanese team to follow them. The account suggests they were likely seeking to climb in the stronger teams’ wake, where others would break trail and fix ropes.

The arrangement placed Gau amid a procession of climbers whose movements and delays increasingly affected one another. He was not simply an observer of the teams’ summit effort: he climbed among them, reached the high ground with Fischer, and became a central figure in the rescue that followed.

On the Summit Route

As Martin Adams prepared to rappel down the Hillary Step, he looked over the edge and saw a Sherpa climbing upward, Gau behind him, and Fischer following. Adams was astonished to find Fischer still coming up so late in the day and regarded his presence there as a problem. Fischer called up to Adams, apparently believing Adams had yet to reach the summit, and tried to encourage him to continue. Adams answered that he had already been to the top.

Adams noticed that the Sherpa and Gau were moving slowly and urged Fischer to pass them by climbing onto a parallel rocky rib. Fischer considered the alternative but returned to the line on the fixed rope, perhaps judging the rib too exposed. The encounter shows Gau’s position in the climbing queue at a consequential moment: the slow upward progress of the three climbers was visible to Adams as a possible obstacle, while Fischer’s decision to remain in line left him climbing behind them.

Stranded with Fischer

By the morning of May 11, Mountain Madness’s oxygen supply had run out, and Neal Beidleman and the clients prepared to retreat. Two Mountain Madness Sherpas and a Sherpa from Gau’s expedition climbed toward the Balcony carrying oxygen and hot tea for Gau and Fischer, who had spent the night bivouacked together below it. Boukreev, unwilling to descend without knowing Fischer’s condition, told Beidleman that he would stay behind.

The Sherpas returned to Camp IV with Gau after reviving him with hot tea and oxygen. Fischer, whom they found unconscious but still breathing, remained on the mountain. At about 1:00 P.M., they placed an oxygen mask on his face and connected it to a full bottle. Gau’s rescue therefore supplied the first urgent indication that the night’s ordeal had not killed everyone trapped at that height, while Fischer’s condition remained precarious.

When Boukreev later went to the Taiwanese tents, he found Gau with frostbitten face and hands, able to speak a little. Gau told him that he and Fischer had been together the previous night. The news briefly gave Boukreev hope that Fischer might still survive, but Gau’s account also made the situation feel bleak: Boukreev thought Fischer was already dead, though he still sought confirmation from the Sherpas who had gone up.

Rescue and Lasting Consequences

Gau had returned to Camp IV through the efforts of the Sherpas who climbed to him and Fischer with oxygen and tea. The rescue was not the work of one expedition alone. The next morning, guides Todd Burleson and Pete Athans of Alpine Ascents, along with Ed Viesturs, David Breashears, and members of other expeditions, helped evacuate Gau and Beck Weathers to Camp I, where a helicopter could land and fly them to Kathmandu.

The account later distinguishes Gau’s survival from recovery without lasting harm. He and Weathers were the two survivors who suffered extensive frostbite and subsequently lost extremities. Gau’s return from the mountain thus carries two meanings at once: he survived a night at extreme altitude and was evacuated, but the cold left permanent physical consequences. His brief speech to Boukreev, reporting that he had been with Fischer, also links the rescued climber to the disaster’s unresolved final hours and to the fate of the expedition leader who did not return.