“I Am Sorry Because I Left Him”

“I am sorry” was the first remark from “Oh Eun-sun”, the 38-year-old mountaineer (YoungWon trading company/Association of mountaineers at Suwon University OB), who came back from her solo climb up to the Everest, the highest mountain in the world, and her first climb as a female Korean mountaineer. She said this because she could not forget the pain when she had to leave the body of Captain Park Moo-taek of the association of mountaineers at Keimyung University (36 years old), who was killed in a disastrous accident despite the fact that she found him.

On May 20th, she found the body of Captain Park as soon as she ascended onto the second step of Everest, which is 8,750 meters above the sea level and one of the most difficult routes on the northeast edge.

She said “I burst out crying when I saw Captain Park dead and hung by his rope on the rock wall, which I could not reach. However his face seemed peaceful.”

After she informed this fact to the base camp, she kept climbing up since she believed that gaining the summit fit the principle of mountaineers, although she thought about going back down.

When she heard that Captain Park and his members were involved in a disaster, it was about 3 p.m. on May 18. She was at camp 5, which is the last camp located at a point 8,300 meters above sea level when she heard from Captain Park that he could not go down to the camp due to snow blindness (which is condition when one cannot see because of inflammation in the cornea or conjunctiva caused by exposure of unprotected eyes to sunlight reflected from snow) through a wireless transmitter.

Paek Jun-ho (37 years old), who was at the camp with her in a second climing group volunteered to rescue Captain Park, giving up the challenge for the summit. Although Oh Eun-sun wanted to stop him since she was afraid of a second accident, she just gave her equipment, including an oxygen tank, because she could not do anything about the situation.

After two days of waiting at camp 5, Oh Eun-sun started for the mountaintop alone on the 20th day of May. At that time she was worn out from the bitterly cold weather and the rarefied oxygen. Finally, she threw out one of the two oxygen tanks she was carrying, each of which weighed as much as 10 kilograms. She said “I could not help but throw that out. I had no reserve to think about what will happen next since it was just too heavy.”

After 11 hours later from the start, she finally reached to the top. Although she was there just for 10 minutes, her oxygen tank was empty within 30 minutes from the top. It took her about 11 hours to get back to camp 5, which is 5-hour trip distance normally, since her mind was lost. She fell down when she found the light from camp 5, but she was able to make it back to her tent with the help of a sherpa from a mountaineer group from another country. The sherpa who was supposed to wait for her had already descended because of the worsening weather situation.

Including this one, Oh has gained four summits among the highest mountaintops across seven continents in the world. Remaining mountaintops on her list are Kilimanjaro (5,963 meters), the highest mountaintop in Africa, Carstensz (4,884 meters) in Oceania, and the Vinson Massif (4,897 meters) at the North Pole. She has a plan to challenge for Kilimanjaro this August and will make an expedition for the other two tops next year.

She added, “Someone’s life was taken a few days ago at Insu Bon. Life is just like that, but you should be more brave when situation gets more difficult.”

Oh Eun-sun seems to understand the meaning of life at the mountain through her near-death experience.

Chang Jeon jeon@donga.com