Link to timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eUyU9lGKLlfhpvyxnS2-8CGxaxml_Q73rjE3J6nC6p4/edit#gid=0
In this timeline, I attempt to tell the story of the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster. Although the time frame was very short (May 10-11, 1996) it is quite complex. All 26 people involved had their own harrowing story to share, and sometimes even disagreed on what happened. From the very beginning I had to select timeline points that gave the gist of the story without losing critical information. For this reason although I tried to give a sense as to what happened to everyone in the expedition, I primarily focused on the story of Rob Hall and Beck Weathers - even the deaths of other climbers, Doug Hansen, Andy Harris, and Yasuko Namba had to be told in relation to Hall and Weathers.
I was first introduced to this story through Ed Viesturs' book No Shortcuts to the Top and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. To verify the timeline, I relied heavily on PBS's hour-by-hour Frontline website, "Storm Over Everest" and Jon Krakauer's radioed reports, as well as Wikipedia, articles in Medium, and news reports from the aftermath. I also researched the science of the storm, which made it into the timeline, and the science of human physiology during oxygen deprivation, which didn't. Please see my full list of resources below.
I had 3 main challenges with this project. The first was keeping the timeline to a manageable length. I had to gloss over many important factors - Anatoli Boukreev's early descent is a major controversy which I didn't dive into, and I didn't even mention the deaths of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police - Subedar Tsewang Samanla, Lance Naik Dorje Morup, and Head Constable Tsewang Paljor. This leads to my second difficulty, deciding whose stories to prioritize. Unfortunately the Indo-Tibetan expedition is reported as a "background" event to the disaster, meaning there simply wasn't enough information for me to coherently bring it into the storyline. However, their stories are important and equally tragic, as fully half of their expedition team died.
Finally, my third challenge was the need to carefully use passive voice to tell parts of the story, specifically as surrounds the controversy relating to the fixed ropes. If I had actively stated "Sherpas did not set fixed ropes, and this caused the deaths of 8 climbers" it would have been technically true but would also have glossed over the equivalent truth, "Western climbers were fighting over who was responsible to pay for the ropes." Hence my phrasing, "Fixed ropes were not placed."
References
1996 Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition to Mount Everest. (2021, April 14). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Indo-Tibetan_Border_Police_expedition_to_Mount_Everest
1996 Mount Everest disaster. (2021, April 13). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster
Alderman, J., and K. Arnold. (1996, September). The descent, step by step. Outside Magazine. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20160404180321/http://www.outsideonline.com/1845086/descent-step-step
AP. (1996, May 14). Climber radioed his wife before dying on Everest -- He assured her but knew there was no rescue. Seattle Times, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19960514&slug=2329189
Daniels, P. (2020, January 23). 1996 Mount Everest Disaster: Death on Top of the World. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/1996-mount-everest-disaster-4043349
Davies, B. (2020 April 29). The True Story of Everest 1996: One of Mountaineering's Worst Tragedies. Wired for Adventure. https://www.wiredforadventure.com/tragedies-on-the-mountain-everest-1996/
Frontline. (2008, May 13). Storm Over Everest: the Hour-by-Hour Unfolding Disaster. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/unfolding.html
Hogan, J. (2004, May 29-Jun 4). The day the sky fell on Everest. New Scientist 182(2449): 15. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18224492-200-the-day-the-sky-fell-on-everest/
Kangshung face. (2021, March 16). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangshung_Face
Kluger, J. (2001, June 24). Mountain without mercy. Time. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,136713,00.html
Krakauer, J. (2016, May 24). When you reach the summit of Everest, you are only halfway there. Medium. https://medium.com/galleys/into-thin-air-e5a2756a87c1
Minot, S. (2017, February 7). The Ill-fated 1996 Everest Expedition: 20 years on. SkyAboveUs. https://skyaboveus.com/climbing-hiking/The-Ill-fated-1996-Everest-Expedition-20-years-on
Ridley, J. (2015, September 17). Socialite vilified after Everest catastrophe breaks silence. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2015/09/17/socialite-everest-climber-speaks-out-im-no-villain/
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