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This was her seventh trip through the Khumbu Icefall, her fourth journey to Ca already with the other wo ell, it would be their last foray onto the hts at Caht at Camp Three, and then a short and fitful atte for the su
Climbers kneait They kne to count, to plan, and totheths of rope, lungs sucking air fro metal spikes into rivers of ice
Sheer will
Rose and slow, and counted One Two Three Four
She turned back to the ice and climbed
When she reached the top, she passed Indira to join the others, sto their lers to make it up
Anna was deep in conversation with one of the Sherpa Rose for a friendly face, but she didn’t find one She stood apart, reluctant to impose herself where she wasn’t wanted
The other women called her princess behind her back They felt she hadn’t paid her dues Her two years’ intense preparation was nothing in co their own expertise Some of them disliked the fact she’d sold a book about the woan They worried Rosemary would use more than her share of resources, that she spent too h with her head in the game
The British press called her Lady Diana on the raphs from their files of Rosemary in a demure suit and pearls, to natter endlessly about her charity work and her manor home and her status as almost-baroness
They’d made her the blue-eyed, white-blond face of as meant to be an expedition that celebrated the diversity and power of contemporary British womanhood, and apart from Indira, her teammates resented her for it
It couldn’t be helped Roseed one summit after the next At the end of the day, each woman had to depend on her own body
, her own interior resources to power her up the mountain Rosemary would show them what she could do
If she lay awake nights wondering whether she could actually do it, she would keep that fear to herself
She warmed her hands in her are of the cliff to look over the icefall Anna spoke ani her head
“Bloody Doctor Doom,” she said as she approached
“Pardon?”
She jerked her head toward thewith “That’s what they call him Mad bastard”
Roseed closer to her teammates “What did he say?”
“He says the icefall isn’t safe and we should go home”
The Khuh to lacier, actively shifting and changing froerous that the international clie of the Sherpa “ice doctors” It was the job of these experienced and seasoned Nepalese e, fix ropes, and lash in place the dozens ofclimbers to move efficiently up ice cliffs and over crevasses
The first tiain and again that yes, it was true, many climbers died in the icefall They died when thetons of potential energy They died in avalanches They broke ars, or they collapsed from the accumulated effects of altitude illness