May 10–11, 1996

May 10–11, 1996 marks the Mount Everest summit push that turned into a prolonged storm emergency. On May 10, clients and guides from Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants climbed toward the summit with limited oxygen and the expectation that fixed ropes would be ready ahead of them. The schedule, equipment, and communications arrangements all proved vulnerable: climbers waited for ropes that had not been fixed, the clients’ oxygen was tightly rationed, and the guides’ planned way of directing stragglers depended on a radio link they did not have. By evening, the descent had become a search for missing climbers in a blizzard; the crisis continued into May 11, when Mountain Madness’s oxygen was depleted and teams faced decisions about retreat, rescue, and whom they could still reach.

Preparations and accumulating risks

The summit attempt followed a staged acclimatization plan devised by Scott Fischer and Anatoli Boukreev. On the first excursion, clients were to climb to 6,100 meters, the site of Camp I, and return to Base Camp the same day. They were to carry only personal belongings and equipment to conserve strength; Sherpas under Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa would carry rope and supplies. Later excursions were to add an overnight at Camp I and a training climb toward Camp II, followed by rest and close observation of the climbers’ condition. The plan illustrates how the expedition sought to manage altitude through gradual exposure and recovery, rather than treating the summit day as an isolated test.

That careful progression sat alongside less secure logistics. The expedition’s two-way radios were old, ten-channel models that Martin Adams considered inadequate for a climb where timely information about weather, medical problems, supplies, and emergencies could matter. The weakness was consequential because the eventual summit-day strategy relied on Fischer communicating with Lopsang, while neither Boukreev nor Neal Beidleman was issued a radio. The communication system would not simply be an imperfect convenience: during the emergency, messages passed through several people and camps, and the information reaching Base Camp was sporadic and, in Dr. Ingrid Hunt’s view, sometimes incomplete.

The approach to the summit push also brought competing demands on Sherpa labor and the route schedule. Camp III had not been established when Boukreev and Fischer discussed the situation by radio on April 24. The Sherpas had worked for several consecutive days and were nearing exhaustion. At the same time, an agreement among Fischer, Rob Hall, Todd Burleson, Ian Woodall, and Makalu Gau’s Taiwanese National Expedition called for cooperation in fixing ropes between Camps III and IV on April 26. Mountain Madness had expected its Sherpas, rather than its guides, to contribute. But sending Sherpas to establish Camp III and then rest would leave none available for the joint rope work, and the team wanted to preserve its place among the early summit attempts as May 10 became a proposed date. Boukreev therefore agreed to take the assignment himself after a rest day at Camp II.

The uncertainty over fixed ropes continued above Camp IV. Clients from both Fischer’s and Hall’s teams understood that their climbing sirdars, Lopsang and Ang Dorje, would go ahead of them and prepare the route, so clients would not have to wait. Instead, neither sirdar nor other Sherpas had left early to fix the ropes. Lopsang later said that a member of a Montenegrin expedition told him the ropes were already fixed. Jon Krakauer disputed that account, noting that Lopsang and Ang Dorje carried rope with them, while others have considered the evidence circumstantial and pointed to Fischer’s late arrival at Camp IV, fatigue, and the demands of managing camp. Whatever the explanation, the mismatch between what clients expected and what they encountered turned into a bottleneck on the summit route.

Oxygen was another tightly constrained part of the plan. At Camp IV, Mountain Madness had sixty-two canisters: nine heavier Zvesda canisters reserved for sleeping and fifty-three lighter Poisk canisters for the May 10 climb. That amounted to 51 percent of the oxygen the expedition had purchased from Henry Todd; most of the rest had already been used, particularly by Pete Schoening and Ngawang Topche Sherpa, while a small reserve remained at Base Camp for medical emergencies. Five of the six climbing Sherpas planned to use oxygen, while Lopsang climbed without it but carried an emergency bottle. The five oxygen-using Sherpas each carried two canisters for themselves and two more for clients and guides, making twenty-one bottles carried up by the Sherpas.

The plan appeared workable if the schedule and recommended flow rates held. Todd estimated that a Poisk canister would last six hours at two to two-and-a-half liters per minute. Two bottles were expected to cover the climb from Camp IV to the summit and back to the South Summit, where climbers would collect a third cached canister; that additional supply was intended to carry them back to Camp IV. The ascent was expected to take ten or eleven hours, leaving one or two hours of oxygen at the summit, and the descent to the South Summit was estimated at three-quarters of an hour to an hour. But those calculations left little room for delays, higher consumption, or a descent slower than anticipated. Fischer and Boukreev had agreed that, if properly conditioned and acclimatized, Boukreev would guide without oxygen; Fischer’s plan was to provide clients with three canisters, or eighteen hours of oxygen, and to rely on Boukreev’s rescue ability if clients were not back by 6:00 P.M.

The summit climb and delayed descent

The climb began around midnight. As the team prepared, Fischer distributed oxygen, and Boukreev and Beidleman checked clients’ crampons, equipment, and condition. Adams recalled Boukreev giving him two canisters to check their pressure so that he would not carry a partly filled bottle. Fischer invited anyone ready to leave with Lopsang to go ahead. Sandy Hill Pittman stepped forward; Lopsang attached a short rope to her harness and led off with her on a towline. Charlotte Fox followed about ten minutes later, just after midnight and on her thirty-ninth birthday. Boukreev set out later with Adams, carrying oxygen and a mask in his pack in case he decided to use them. Fischer, as agreed, was the last of the clients and guides to leave, intending to act as sweep.

At the Balcony, climbers from three expeditions converged. They paused to change from their first oxygen canister to their second, drink, and recover. Adams described the mental effect of the altitude as a descent from barely being able to think to not being able to think at all. The pause exposed the gap between the clients’ expectations and the route as it stood: they had believed ropes would be in place before the midnight departure, but no Sherpas had gone ahead to fix them. Waiting in the Death Zone consumed more than time. It used oxygen and daylight and extended exposure to cold and altitude, narrowing the margin available for the descent.

There was no definite summit-day turnaround time for Fischer’s clients. Fischer had not announced a set hour or a specific point by which climbers had to turn back. Instead, he had discussed a moving strategy with Boukreev and Beidleman: Lopsang and the guides would alternate leading, Fischer would bring up the rear, and he would turn around stragglers as he passed them. If a problem arose, Fischer was expected to contact Lopsang, presumed to be near the front; Boukreev and Beidleman had no radios. Fischer had a personal Two O’Clock Rule, but it was not set as a rule for his clients. Hall’s clients likewise held different understandings of whether their turnaround time was one or two o’clock, or whether the decision would be made on the mountain.

After waiting nearly an hour on the South Summit, Boukreev and Beidleman decided to work together to fix the route to the summit. Boukreev retrieved lengths of old rope from the snow and moved toward the Hillary Step, leaving some of the work to guides and Sherpas behind him. Beidleman tried to pay out rope with Adams’s help, but it snagged in rocks. He tied it to a snow stake and could not find another anchor; unwilling to leave a length of rope that climbers might mistake for a secured line, he threw it toward Tibet. Less than half the intended route was fixed. These improvised efforts could not undo the lost time or provide the continuous protection clients had expected.

Boukreev reached the summit at 1:07 P.M., relieved rather than celebratory. He hoped that if the clients followed quickly, they could still return to Camp IV with oxygen. Jon Krakauer reached the summit at 1:12, with Andy Harris following shortly afterward. Beidleman and Adams arrived at about 1:25 after passing Krakauer and Harris on their descent; Beidleman was moving slowly, and Adams turned up his oxygen first once and then again to its maximum when Beidleman asked. The summit was therefore reached under a tightening oxygen constraint, with clients still climbing behind the first arrivals.

The flow of climbers did not stop when the first guides began descending. Beidleman said he was anxious to leave, but each time he prepared to go another wave came over the ridge, including clients who were close to the summit. He did not feel he could leave while they were still approaching. Between about 2:15 and 2:30, Madsen, Fox, Lene Gammelgaard, Pittman, and Lopsang reached the top. Pittman’s oxygen ran out in the last yards; Lopsang recognized her distress and used the emergency bottle he had carried from Camp IV to connect her to a fresh supply.

By 2:30, every client who had started the climb had reached the summit, but no one left until 3:10. Forty minutes went to celebration, photographs, tears, congratulations, and backslapping—time taken from the remaining oxygen and daylight. Fischer had not swept anyone back to Camp IV: after Gammelgaard parted from him early in the climb, he had made no contact with the clients. When Fischer reached the Hillary Step, he wanted to descend and let Krakauer and Harris go first. Boukreev spoke with him there shortly after 2:30, while climbers were still above and the planned sweep had not taken place. The delay made the descent’s central problem plain: the summit had been achieved, but the expedition still had to bring a spread-out group back through a route whose timing and communications had not held.

Storm, disorientation, and rescue

Boukreev estimated that he reached Camp IV at about 5:00 P.M. He expected other climbers to follow and asked Pemba to prepare more tea. He did not know that Pemba had remained at camp all day, nor was he told of a possible emergency above the Hillary Step. Meanwhile, Dr. Hunt was trying to gather news through a relay that ran from Base Camp through Ngima, Gyalzen at Camp II, and Pemba at Camp IV. Hunt felt that the information reaching her from Ngima was not accurate or complete and that reports were sometimes made to sound more favorable; she also found the contact with Pemba sporadic. Because Hall’s camp had better communications, she moved between the two camps and repeatedly asked over the radio for news.

Unaware of Fischer’s and Doug Hansen’s difficulties above, Boukreev understood that Mountain Madness clients would soon be out of oxygen. Around 6:00 P.M. he decided to go back up and prepared to leave by 6:30, carrying three canisters, a mask, and a regulator, with an ice ax and ski pole. Ten to fifteen minutes from his tent, the clouds dropped onto the South Col. Snow drove sideways in winds estimated at forty to fifty miles per hour, and visibility collapsed from gray to white. Boukreev started using oxygen when he doubted his reserves would be sufficient, tried to follow the fixed ropes, and climbed steep ice by feel while guarding against a fall down the Lhotse Face. His glasses fogged and froze where breath escaped around his mask; unable to see properly, he removed the mask and continued searching. Camp lights intermittently gave him a bearing, but even a step upward could hide them. The search depended on a thin line of visible light in a storm that made forward movement dangerous in its own right.

The climbers returning from the summit also lost their bearings. Gammelgaard joined Klev Schoening because she trusted his judgment and felt they moved similarly on the mountain. As she ran short of oxygen, he stopped her and made her take some of his, despite her reluctance. Near the end of the fixed ropes, they thought the camp lay to their right, then saw a larger cluster of lights to the left and joined it, later recognizing that this was the wrong choice. Beidleman called the gathering a dogpile. At its peak it included Beck Weathers, Yasuko Namba, Tim Madsen, Fox, Pittman, Beidleman, Schoening, Gammelgaard, and two or three Sherpas; Mike Groom was also there. Though two guides were present, no clear leader emerged. People moved according to whichever headlamp they could see, while Beidleman tried to call for one leader and one light to follow.

Beidleman steered the group away from the direct descent toward Camp IV. He had studied the ground before the storm and wanted to avoid the Lhotse Face and its precipice, so when he could direct the group he led it toward the eastern side of the South Col, where the slope was less steep. The choice reduced one danger but left the group wandering in terrain where the camp was close yet inaccessible in the whiteout. They were less than twenty meters from the Kangshung Face and about four hundred meters from Camp IV. In clear weather, the walk would have taken ten to fifteen minutes; under the continuing storm, the climbers were hopelessly lost. Brief openings in the cloud revealed stars and, at one point, the Big Dipper and North Star, but they did not establish a reliable route. A glimpse of Everest itself left one climber unsure whether the mountain in view was Everest or Lhotse.

Boukreev’s first search did not find the group. Back at camp, he helped Martin Adams into a sleeping bag after Adams returned with an ice-covered face, removed his crampons, and gave him oxygen. Adams could provide little information. Pemba brought tea and said he had seen lights approaching, but when Boukreev went out again he could find no one nearby. The darkness had become a full blizzard, and his headlamp offered little help. Later, on another trip to the area, Boukreev spotted Madsen’s lamp roughly thirty yards from where he had diverted uphill on his earlier search. He found Madsen, Pittman, and Fox in a tight circle, Namba lying on the ground and apparently unconscious, and Weathers missing from the group.

Finding the stranded climbers did not end the emergency. Lopsang had promised Fischer that he would send Sherpas, oxygen, tea, and Boukreev after leaving him on the mountain. But the Mountain Madness Sherpas could not or would not go up, and Boukreev was already dealing with reports of five clients down, three from his own expedition. He needed help and went to nearby tents belonging to Hall’s clients, Hall’s Sherpas, and the Taiwanese expedition. Hall’s members were asleep or unable or unwilling to assist; Kasischke was incapacitated by snow blindness and alone in his tent, while Harris, Weathers, and Hansen had not returned by 1:00 A.M. This was the second unanswered request for help that evening: Groom had earlier asked Adventure Consultants members to attempt a rescue of Weathers and Namba, without success.

At the same time, two Sherpas from Hall’s team had gone up in an attempt to reach Hall and any other climbers who might still be alive. The weather forced them back before they found anyone. Hall, immobilized at the South Summit and freezing, continued to radio through the night. Hansen, last known to have been with him on the evening of May 10, was presumed dead; Harris had not returned to camp. Weathers and Namba were eventually located alive near the Kangshung Face, but members of Hall’s expedition concluded that nothing could be done and left them where they lay. At 6:20 P.M. on May 11, Hall was patched through to his wife in New Zealand. He sent his love, asked her not to worry, and signed off; those were the last words heard from him.

May 11 and the limits of explanation

By the morning of May 11, Mountain Madness’s oxygen was exhausted. Beidleman and the clients decided to retreat down the mountain, with the IMAX/IWERKS expedition supplying oxygen to clients who needed it on the descent. Boukreev did not leave with them: he told Beidleman he wanted to stay until he knew Fischer’s condition. Meanwhile, two Mountain Madness Sherpas and one Taiwanese Sherpa climbed toward the Balcony carrying oxygen and hot tea, where Fischer had spent the night with Makalu Gau. The rescue parties found Gau and revived him with oxygen and tea; Fischer was unconscious but breathing, and the Sherpas attached an oxygen mask and turned on a full bottle. Boukreev, who had slept about two hours and lacked the strength for another immediate ascent, asked Pemba whether anyone was going to Scott and urged that Sherpas be sent.

Fischer’s death cannot be reduced in the account to a single cause or a simple flaw of character. The book identifies a combination of deteriorating health, apparently complicated by lack of oxygen; the hour when he was stricken and his position on the mountain; poor communications; the weather; and the condition and abilities of potential rescuers. Boukreev and Beidleman later said that a definitive sign of Fischer’s distress would have prompted them to try to turn him around. Lopsang blamed himself after learning Fischer had died. The explanation remains a convergence of circumstances rather than a certainty claimed in hindsight.

The dates hold both the summit’s achievement and its cost in a single sequence. A plan built around staged acclimatization, oxygen calculations, Sherpa labor, and a guide’s ability to rescue clients encountered delays, limited communication, and a storm that erased the distinction between a nearby camp and an unreachable one. The night’s outcome also remained uneven: some clients descended with help, others were found too late or presumed dead, and the rescue effort depended on people repeatedly going back into the weather with little assurance of finding anyone. For Mountain Madness clients who later spoke of their problems with the expedition, the loss did not erase their trust in Fischer; Adams said he would have climbed with him again. The surviving accounts preserve that tension rather than resolving it: confidence in a guide, a summit reached, and an emergency whose interacting causes cannot be made to fit a single verdict.