Read Online A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth by Graham Ratcliffe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Graham Ratcliffe
Tags: General, Asia, Education & Reference, Travel, Biographies, Biographies & Memoirs, Memoirs, Adventurers & Explorers, Sports & Outdoors, Specific Groups, Mountaineering, mountain climbing, Nepal
Ads: Link
reach one’s goal does not lead to death, or the success in doing so to life; the two are often reversed by the unwise forging ahead.
The last sight I had of Alison was of her waving from the hotel minibus as she departed for Kathmandu airport that morning. Her smile was full of hope.
Catherine was scheduled to arrive at 5 p.m. the following afternoon. I hadn’t seen her for over two months. I wanted to get as much of my work out of the way as I could before she landed; my summit photographs were top of the list.
On my arrival at his shop, the proprietor presented the package to me with due reverence to indicate the care with which he’d handled my precious images. With great anticipation, I opened the small folder. The pictures had good definition and colour but were not quite what I’d expected. Yet I couldn’t actually say why. The gentleman looked at me to observe my satisfaction but soon picked up that I wasn’t, for some reason, showing the appropriate positive and grateful response. Much to his dismay, I informed him there was something wrong with his work. Affronted by this slur, he quickly defended his position, telling me he’d done exactly as instructed. At that moment, while holding one of my summit photographs, I glanced up at the wall behind him. Like many shops in the tourist area of Kathmandu, he sold panoramic posters with views from the summit of Everest. I held up my photograph so I could observe it and the poster at the same time. A smile of understanding spread across my face. I asked the shopkeeper if he could explain to me why, according to his poster, Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world was to the right of Everest, while in my photograph, taken from the same position, it appeared on the left. There was a perplexed silence from the gentleman.
I explained, ‘I think you might have put the negatives the wrong way up in your machine.’
A rather embarrassed owner asked if I could come back in a couple of hours, by which time he would have rectified the problem.
My next task was to call Alastair Leithead, primarily to let him know I’d summited. I also had to inform him that some photographs were being sent by courier that afternoon. Catherine and my family had been sworn to secrecy; he had not yet been told. We wanted the news to come out properly, once everything was ready, in order to promote the Muscular Dystrophy Group we were supporting. I telephoned him from the reception desk of the Gauri Shankar.
‘Hi, Alastair, it’s Graham. I’m back in Kathmandu,’ was my opening remark.
‘How did you get on?’ he asked.
‘I topped out,’ I replied.
‘What, you’ve dropped out?’ was his muffled query.
I realised I needed to choose my words more carefully on this far from perfect phone line. ‘No, I topped out. I reached the summit at 8.30 a.m. on 17 May. I’m sending a few summit shots by courier this afternoon. You should hold the story until you get them.’
A few pleasantries and Alastair was gone.
I now learnt a valuable lesson about journalists. Asking them to hold back a story until they got the corresponding photographs when they already had enough information to go to print was a waste of time, especially if they thought that another publication might beat them to the story.
Alastair wrote the article probably as soon as I’d put the phone down. However, he did us proud. The story occupied the full front cover of our regional broadsheet newspaper; inset was a picture of Everest, but not mine. We’d even reached the heady heights of the newspaper billboards. More importantly he’d not forgotten to make a sizeable reference to the Muscular Dystrophy Group.
It turned out, in the intervening time, that Catherine’s week had been almost as eventful as mine.
After my satellite telephone call, she’d been granted time off work, not by requesting it but by informing her employer that, unbeknown to her, I’d booked flights for her to join me in Nepal.
The last sight I had of Alison was of her waving from the hotel minibus as she departed for Kathmandu airport that morning. Her smile was full of hope.
Catherine was scheduled to arrive at 5 p.m. the following afternoon. I hadn’t seen her for over two months. I wanted to get as much of my work out of the way as I could before she landed; my summit photographs were top of the list.
On my arrival at his shop, the proprietor presented the package to me with due reverence to indicate the care with which he’d handled my precious images. With great anticipation, I opened the small folder. The pictures had good definition and colour but were not quite what I’d expected. Yet I couldn’t actually say why. The gentleman looked at me to observe my satisfaction but soon picked up that I wasn’t, for some reason, showing the appropriate positive and grateful response. Much to his dismay, I informed him there was something wrong with his work. Affronted by this slur, he quickly defended his position, telling me he’d done exactly as instructed. At that moment, while holding one of my summit photographs, I glanced up at the wall behind him. Like many shops in the tourist area of Kathmandu, he sold panoramic posters with views from the summit of Everest. I held up my photograph so I could observe it and the poster at the same time. A smile of understanding spread across my face. I asked the shopkeeper if he could explain to me why, according to his poster, Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world was to the right of Everest, while in my photograph, taken from the same position, it appeared on the left. There was a perplexed silence from the gentleman.
I explained, ‘I think you might have put the negatives the wrong way up in your machine.’
A rather embarrassed owner asked if I could come back in a couple of hours, by which time he would have rectified the problem.
My next task was to call Alastair Leithead, primarily to let him know I’d summited. I also had to inform him that some photographs were being sent by courier that afternoon. Catherine and my family had been sworn to secrecy; he had not yet been told. We wanted the news to come out properly, once everything was ready, in order to promote the Muscular Dystrophy Group we were supporting. I telephoned him from the reception desk of the Gauri Shankar.
‘Hi, Alastair, it’s Graham. I’m back in Kathmandu,’ was my opening remark.
‘How did you get on?’ he asked.
‘I topped out,’ I replied.
‘What, you’ve dropped out?’ was his muffled query.
I realised I needed to choose my words more carefully on this far from perfect phone line. ‘No, I topped out. I reached the summit at 8.30 a.m. on 17 May. I’m sending a few summit shots by courier this afternoon. You should hold the story until you get them.’
A few pleasantries and Alastair was gone.
I now learnt a valuable lesson about journalists. Asking them to hold back a story until they got the corresponding photographs when they already had enough information to go to print was a waste of time, especially if they thought that another publication might beat them to the story.
Alastair wrote the article probably as soon as I’d put the phone down. However, he did us proud. The story occupied the full front cover of our regional broadsheet newspaper; inset was a picture of Everest, but not mine. We’d even reached the heady heights of the newspaper billboards. More importantly he’d not forgotten to make a sizeable reference to the Muscular Dystrophy Group.
It turned out, in the intervening time, that Catherine’s week had been almost as eventful as mine.
After my satellite telephone call, she’d been granted time off work, not by requesting it but by informing her employer that, unbeknown to her, I’d booked flights for her to join me in Nepal.
Similar Books
