By IANS
Kathmandu : Nine years after he gave up his attempt to summit Mt. Everest to save a dying climber, British mountaineer Ian Woodall returned to the world's highest mountain again this year with a new mission – to restore dignity to the woman he couldn't save and other victims.
Last Monday, the 50-year-old and his chief Sherpa, Phuri Geljen Sherpa, accomplished part of the mission, conducting a moving burial ceremony at 8000m for Francys Arsentiev, the 40-year-old American heroine who died on the slope in 1998 in a double tragedy.
The first American woman to scale Mt Everest without bottled oxygen, Francys collapsed returning from the summit.
It was the most terrible tragedy for her 10-year-old son Paul awaiting at their home in Colorado with Francys' husband Serguei, who was also with the expedition, disappearing while trying to get help.
Serguei is believed to have fallen down the sheer drop on the north face of the Everest. His body is yet to be found.
When Woodall and his partner South African Cathy O'Dowd reached Francys that fateful day in May 1998, she was fast sinking.
Though just a few hundred metres away from the summit, the couple abandoned their climb to return to the base camp and get help.
By the time a rescue party reached Francys, she was already dead.
The death haunted Woodall.
"Thousands of miles away in the US, there's a little boy waiting for his parents to come home," he told IANS after returning to Kathmandu. "How do you tell him they are both dead?"
Since he didn't even know Francys' maiden name, it took nearly a week of frantic communication with the US consular offices in Lhasa and Washington to trace her parents.
All the time, Woodall kept silent.
"I didn't want her son to come across the news in some paper in a drugstore or hear it on TV," he says.
But the silence enraged the media, who scented a "story" and made him its victim. Woodall was accused of pretending to have had abandoned his attempt to help an ill climber to cover up his failure.
The British army infantryman lived with the criticism. But what he couldn't live with was the thought that every year, climbers who went up the same route, saw Francys sprawled on the snow in her bright purple jacket.
"It was like being in an open grave," he says. "There she was, decomposing in full view of everyone who passed by and no one did anything about it."
Finally, after eight years, he realised there was only one person who could do something – himself.
"When you summit Mt. Everest, you are too tired to bury a body on your way down," he says. "And no one ever goes all that way up unless they are attempting the summit."
Since he has scaled the peak twice, from the north as well as the south, the summit held no further lure for him. "The view is the same," he says. "However time you climb it."
So this year, he planned a small expedition, with just two Sherpas, who would reach Francys and cover her with the mound of loose rocks nearby.
When news of his plan became known, people started talking about the other dead bodies on the mountain.
That's when he decided he would also bury David Sharp, the 34-year-old Briton who died at about 8400 m last year while dozens of climbers went past without stopping to help.
"Next to Sharp is the body of an Indian climber," Woodall says. "He is one of the three Indians who died in 1996.
"Every year, people literally climb over his legs since the ropes are fixed right across him.
"I can't understand how you can leave your own like that."
However, his plan to bury Sharp and the nameless Indian belonging to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force expedition was grounded. When he reached the spot, the bodies had vanished.
"I heard Sharp's parents had visited the base camp this year and approached a large commercial expedition. Maybe they moved him.
"As for the Indian, there was heavy snowfall in the area. I think when the snow melts he will pop up again."
Francys' burial also didn't go according to schedule due to the now.
So they simply dug up her body, draped an American flag over it and lowered it into the North Face drop after reading out her son's message to her.
"Hopefully she has gone where her husband is," he says
Woodall, who spent $45,000 from his own savings for the Everest burial, says the two Sherpas made a huge sacrifice.
"The more you summit, the better your CV looks," he says. "But Phuri and Ang, who had been with me during earlier expeditions, gave up their chance to climb the summit because they too understood how important it was."