‘This morning they will bury me alive. Little by little I will run out of air and suffocate under the snow.
‘They will find my body in spring, when my orange suit emerges from the melting snow and the feathers float among the tears.’
These were the thoughts running through the mind of adventurer and National Geographic photographer Cory Richards when he was caught in a devastating avalanche on the world’s 13th highest mountain.
In his new book, The color of everythingRichards describes in haunting detail how his life flashed before his eyes, sometimes strange and sometimes almost mundane.
Richards was the first (and still the only) American to climb one of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in winter, reaching the summit of Gasherbrum II in Pakistan in February 2011.
He and his fellow climbers, Denis Urubko and Simone Moro, were descending from that record-breaking climb when they were swept away by the sudden avalanche.
“A chunk of ice falls or too much glass falls or the wind blows in the wrong place and I hear it before I see it,” he writes, recalling the moment the avalanche occurred.
Richards filmed himself collapsing immediately after the avalanche, for the short documentary ‘Cold’.
She writes: ‘They will find my body in spring, when my orange suit emerges from the melting snow and the feathers float among the tears.’
‘It sounds like thunder, a freight train and wind all at once.
‘I try to run, but the snow is up to my waist and too heavy. I take three steps before the gust of air lifts me up and I become weightless.
‘I crash into the tongue of the avalanche… tumbling over and over into an exploding heap of down and nylon… and it’s only two colors. Black and white. Black and white. Over and over and over again.’
As the snow filled her open mouth and nostrils, making it difficult for her to breathe, she couldn’t scream.
“Splinters of color appear amidst violent flashes of black and white as the weight of my body sinks deeper into the rubble. Down is up. Up is down,” he writes.
Meanwhile, her emotions went from fear to instinct, to anger, and finally to resignation.
Richards, who has spoken openly about his mental health struggles, reveals that, convinced these were the final moments of his life, memories came back as disjointed fragments: “A birthday. A date. A bowl of Cheerios. Parking tickets. Song lyrics and books and movies. Faces and things left unsaid and words I wish I could undo and actions I wish I could take back and things I never did, and I remember I have to pay taxes.
“Life flashes before my eyes, but there is no poetry in it. It’s just Polaroid photographs of a collection of things, emotions and questions.”
This, he writes, is what it feels like to die in an avalanche: a clash of sensations, thoughts and helplessness.
Gathering all his remaining strength, he threw his head and hand toward what he hoped was “up” and miraculously found air. Buried completely save for a single arm, which held his chin above the snow, he took his first frantic breaths of air and began frantically trying to free himself before the next avalanche came.
As he lay rolling around in the snow, moaning and convinced his friends were dead, he suddenly heard Simone’s voice: “Cory, everything’s okay.” And Denis: “Simone! I’m okay, too!”
All three were alive, against all odds.
Climbing made Richards famous. In addition to his ice-covered face gracing the cover of National Geographic issue 125, he created the award-winning documentary Cold.
“Talking about pain, anger, frustration and everything else is not a sign of weakness and it doesn’t turn anyone into a snowflake,” Richards says. “It requires real vulnerability, which is a skill of strength.”
Richards, Denis Urubko and Simone Moro were descending when they heard the sound of thunder, a freight train and wind, all at once.
Thirteen years later, Richards remains the only American to climb one of the world’s eight-thousanders in winter.
The climb made Richards famous, and his ice-covered face graced the cover of National Geographic issue 125.
But all the magazine covers and lectures hid not only his constant struggles with extreme depression and bipolar disorder, but also a crippling post-traumatic stress disorder, which would manifest itself in violent outbursts and a descent into alcoholism.
Then, in 2020, he got a call that put him back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Now sober, he has been accused of sexual misconduct in the past — a drunken joke that came back to haunt him in the #MeToo era.
National Geographic’s internal investigation was eventually concluded and Richards’ name was cleared, but there was no going back. And while the magazine decided not to cut ties with its star photographer, he knew his career there was likely over.
A year later, immersed in a film project about his life and about to climb a new route on Everest, his life finally came crashing down in epic fashion.
He had spent days sobbing in his tent. Sleep-deprived, his thoughts ranged from nightmares about the avalanche to delirious daydreams to screaming into his sleeping bag until he was hoarse.
“I hug my legs to my chest and bounce my jaw on my knees, rocking back and forth and holding my head,” she writes. “I can’t stop crying, but I’m shocked to realize that I’m crying.
‘At some point I start talking to myself in a measured tone, reassuring myself that everything is okay. But in the end the only words that come out are ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘no, no, no’.’
An army helicopter shot down on Gasherbrum II: proof of the dangerous conditions of the mountain
On their descent, they passed mummified bodies of those who had tried something before and failed.
All the magazine covers and conferences hid not only her constant struggles with extreme depression and bipolar disorder, but also a crippling post-traumatic stress disorder.
After 40 hours without sleep, and just before attempting a new route on Everest, Richards realized he could not continue.
By writing so honestly about her bipolar episode and suicide attempt, Richards hopes to help destigmatize mental health issues.
Knowing he couldn’t continue the climb, he walked off the mountain alone and abandoned the film project, leaving his colleagues furious. Years of planning, tens of thousands of dollars and a film crew in place vanished in his wake.
Back home in Colorado, broke, physically exhausted, his career in tatters and receiving angry emails from those he had terribly disappointed, he Googled “how to tie a slipknot” and stood, naked, on a stool.
“I shower for anywhere from two minutes to an hour because I want to be clean when people find me,” he writes.
‘I put the rope around my neck and lean lightly on the knot.’
He describes the feeling he gets when it becomes harder for him to breathe and, just before he passes out, the stool tips over and he grabs it with his feet.
As he crawls along, shaking, he realizes that he doesn’t want to die. He just doesn’t want to live like this.
By writing so honestly about his bipolar episode on Everest and subsequent suicide attempt, Richards hopes to help destigmatize mental health issues and encourage greater openness, particularly among men.
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to escape my own story of madness,” he writes. “I’ve chased the horizon, mistaking it for a perfect future where everything will make sense.
“I chose to live madly to overcome madness itself. I thought that through rebellion, doing more, being better, and being different, I could overcome the restlessness of my mind in climbing, exploring, or creating. But what if noise and madness were the gift?”
She adds: ‘Talking about pain, anger, frustration and everything else is not weakness and it doesn’t turn anyone into a “snowflake”. It requires real vulnerability, which is a strength-building skill.
“In silence, we collapse. In silence, we die.”
The color of everything:A journey to calm the inner chaos by Cory Richards is published by Random House on July 9
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