THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210326
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS
CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
Rappelling sheer rock cliffs and icy glaciers that reach into the clouds might strike the fainthearted as foolhardy, but for Bill Martin it's all in a day's play.
The 56-year-old Virginia Beach resident spent last month scaling peaks in Nepal's Himalayas, and from the top of 18,500-foot Kala Pattar surveyed nearby Mount Everest and an ominous plume of snow that jetted unseasonably off its summit.
Just weeks later, on May 10, eight climbers would die on the slopes of Mount Everest - at 29,028 feet the world's highest mountain - when a freak blizzard trapped them in the ``death zone'' without oxygen. In fact, those who perished were undoubtedly encamped at one of the six staged sites in their 45-day ascent when Martin paused to consider the view.
Martin's party of 13 - four American climbers and nine Sherpa guides - stood atop two daunting mountains within sight of Mount Everest before heavy snows forced them to turn back just a day's climb, or 1,000 feet, from the summit of Imja Tse, a 20,300-foot peak three miles south of Mount Everest.
Martin remembers well the keen disappointment that came with the predawn April 18 decision not to risk the arduous climb up Imja Tse's rock cliffs and sharply angled glaciers. Though blinding snows of the evening before had ceased by 2 a.m., the 4 inches of new snow that had fallen would have made the ascent especially treacherous, Martin said, and neither he nor his fellow climbers desired to tempt fate.
Sherpas left the final call up to the climbers: a Maryland couple and a retired Seattle, Wash., doctor, in addition to Martin, a retired Norfolk Southern executive.
Martin was philosophical about the fizzled attempt on Imja Tse, saying that in his seven years of scaling the world's tallest mountains, he has never left his life to chance. Besides, he said, he had already been to the mountaintops and seen the best.
``Imja Tse is a more difficult climb than Kala Pattar, but Kala Pattar is the most special place I've ever been,'' he said.
For him, the challenge of the mountain is on a par with the ``incredible'' feelings that overcome him when stopping in those ``sweet spots'' to take in the view. It's then that ``the glory grows'' in his mind.
Martin, who paid Seattle-based REI Adventures $5,000 for the monthlong trip, had no intention of taking on Mount Everest.
Inching one's way along an aluminum ladder that spans the abyss of a glacial crevasse - a necessary maneuver just to get to the base camp at Mount Everest - makes for odds that Martin won't play. Positioning oneself for an attempt on Mount Everest's summit also involves painstaking weeks of moving higher and higher into the ``death zone'' - above 17,000 feet - and the attendant threats of running short of bottled oxygen and the body's waning ability to fight off disease.
``It's just pure chance if you live through it,'' Martin said this week as he sorted through a veritable mountain of climbing gear at his Great Neck home. ``That's not my idea of fun.''
Commanding his deepest respect are the crevasses that can open and shut without warning as climbers dig their crampons - two-inch pointed steel cleats - and axes into the glaciers. And the ice slits pose a hidden danger when packed full of wind-driven snow.
The insidiousness of glacial movement was brought home to Martin as he lay in tented silence near the summit of Mount Ranier several years ago and heard the ``gronk'' and felt the Earth ``shudder'' as the ice flow moved beneath him.
Martin's Himalayan odyssey began when his party landed at Lukla airport and took on Gokyo Peak in early April. At 13,000 feet above sea level, Gokyo should have been an easy climb for the seasoned mountaineers, but it turned out to be a keen challenge.
Unusually heavy snowfalls had left the trail impassable to the party's five yaks, so Martin and his fellow climbers and Sherpa guides had to carry their own gear and skirt the fringes of the Ngozumba glacier to reach the summit of Gokyo - no easy feat because the approach and retreat had to be telescoped into just one day.
The uphill trek from Machherma - where 20 climbers and their guides died last fall in an avalanche - tested the abilities of the Martin party, seasoned climbers all. Then they had to forgo traversing Chala Pass because the short cut to Kala Pattar was in places snow-filled to a depth of 30 feet. Breaking through the crust could mean not just a ``posthole'' from which one could dig out, but a permanent burial, Martin said.
Martin comes to mountain climbing quite naturally. His mother, Mary Martin of Norfolk, found him on the highest rung of a 20-foot ladder at age 2. Frustrated in his desires to join the Army and participate in long-distance runs because of weak feet and knees, Martin worked hard to build his strength and, at age 49, began taking on the world's heights.
Martin likens the riskiness of an attempt on Mount Everest to bungee jumping, and says it's a good bet that he'll never climb the world's highest mountain.
``Some chances are inevitable, but how much do you want to trust yourself to luck - the crevasses, the weather?'' he asks, pointing out that one in 40 die trying to beat Mount Everest. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
CHARLIE MEADS
The Virginian-Pilot
No matter how well-equipped, Bill Martin of Virginia Beach had no
intention of tackling Mount Everest, where one in 40 climbers dies.
``It's just pure chance if you live through it,'' he says.
BILL MARTIN'S JOURNEY
Map and Graphic
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
ROBERT D. VOROS
The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB