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When to lose hope
19:57 p.m. EST Apr 18, 2004
Published March 15, 04.
Last year, Carlos Pauner was making his descent from the summit of Kangchenjunga, the world’s third highest peak, with teammates; Gnaro Mondinelli, Mario Merelli and Christian Kuntner, when he was separated from the team.
Snowfall and poor visibility led Pauner off the new route, pioneered by his expedition. His teammates reached base camp but Carlos was missing. As the hours, and then days, went by, his friends grew increasingly silent. Hope was lost.
Higher up on the mountain, fatigue began to take hold of Pauner, but he knew that “In the mountains, you must move, or it can be the end.” With one of his crampons broken, his ice axe lost and after losing his traction on an ice slope and falling over 100 meters, Pauner became disoriented. He spent three days without food or supplies, bivouacking at night in the open.
Miraculously, Carlos Pauner, made it back to Base Camp. His hands were severely frostbitten; he was forced to use his hand as a replacement to the lost ice axe. He alerted Base Camp of his presence by igniting a signaling torch; sherpas came to greet him with hot tea and escorted him down the remaining distance.
Sometimes fate, often with experience an adventurer will make it back from a near tragic situation.
In 1985, Joe Simpson and climbing partner Simon Yates climbed to the top of Siula Grande, a previously unclimbed Andes peak. On the way down, Simpson slid and broke his lower right leg, threatening to strand both climbers at 20,000 feet with no tent, fuel or food.
Facing this situation the climbers made the decision to lower Simpson on a rope 300 feet at a time. One descent left Simpson dangling over a crevasse with Yates unable to either lower or raise him. Had Yates spent any more time on this difficult state of affairs both climbers would have frozen to death. Yates cut the rope, dropping Simpson onto a ledge deep in the crevasse. Yates returned to base camp believing that his friend and partner was dead.
Joe Simpson's leg was broken in several places but he still had the will to survive. He spent one night in the crevasse and most of the next day getting out. Simpson found an exit from the crevasse through an ice cave and, incredibly, crawled miles down the rocky mountain back to base camp.
On Friday March 5, Dominick Arduin left for the North Pole on a supported, solo expedition. A big open water lead just off the starting point posed the first immediate problem for this years expeditions. Dominick and Frederic decided to ski/paddle across the huge, 55 km semi open water area, in an attempt for a clean North Pole expedition (which must start from land).
Dominick estimated that her crossing to solid ice would take at least 2 days. An avid canoeist living in Arctic Finland, she is used to cold and water. She brought 10 kg of snow with her for fresh water, a canoe, a dry suit, and two weeks worth of supplies.
She has not been heard from since that evening.
Dangerous conditions on the ice, bad weather, silent sat phones and a malfunctioning emergency beacon have not made it easy to keep up hope. But, if the harrowing tales of Pauner and Simpson teach us anything it is that pioneering souls can surprise us.
True, Dominick's tracks dissapeared in a mess of new ice. But we have seen tracks of polar friends end in such sections and not been able to retrack them on the other side - even though we were litterally on top of them. To find such tracks from air must be even more difficult.
We've seen Dom survive cancer twice, and live through hypothermia and frostbite. Francois Bernard, one of only four people in the world to have done the three poles "the hard way" (Everest plus the NP and SP unsupported) has been coaching her and is leading the search for her.
There are bad signs but there is also hope. It's just too early to give up on Dom.
Image a generic Arctic "top of the world image" taken last season, courtesy and copyright Martin Hartley.
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