My part in Elon Musk’s horrifying and tragic Everest catastrophe (Chapter Four)

Chapter 4

The Horrifying Muskalamity at Base Camp One

Read Chapter One: The Infiltration
Read Chapter Two: Elon Musk and Keith the saucy, Reuters fake llama
Read Chapter Three: Heseltina and the News Limited Yeti

*Also listen to the audio version of this article on Spotify HERE.

THE STORY SO FAR…

It is 1994. An impossibly handsome Dave G Donovan, at the time a young freelance journalist, has somehow managed to infiltrate a baroque Elon Musk expedition to scale Mount Everest. Along the way, through unfamiliar foreign cities and narrow mountain passes, he uses various strategies to chase the biggest story of his then embryonic career, including adopting various surprising disguises — one as an elderly former national badminton champion Sherpa and another as an amiable beast of burden called Bonny. Also in his adventures thus far, Donovan has befriended a statuesque fake llama, been terrorised by a corporate yeti and a gloomy giantess, and gotten closer than he ever expected to Elon Musk himself.

We now resume this gripping tale as the much exhausted and depleted Musk entourage, 15 days away now from the Nepalese capital, at last makes its final descent into Base Camp One.

Musk's bedraggled entourage limbos into Base Camp One

APPROACHING Base Camp One late on day 14 of our trek from Kathmandu, as that glowing orange orb began to dip towards the snow-bright Himalayan foothills, I considered various methods in which I might slaughter the remaining members of our party.

Of course, as I was later to discover, this almost irresistible homicidal impulse to indulge in the mass murder of one’s fellows was just something that occurs to all – or very nearly almost all – goodly and valiant expeditioners as they approach the intimidating peak that shouts a great big “Fuck off, go away and die!” to all who dare challenge it: Mount Everest.

As the Musk circus carnival – which had set out with such high hopes, glitter, Euro-pop, diamante fascinators, ostrich feather armbands and expensive brand name pogo sticks – limped, limboed, sashayed or hopscotched into Base Camp One, our numbers depleted by two in every in five. The few of us remaining, pantomime or not, felt an almost guilty sense of self-satisfaction at the immensity, if not enormity, of our shared accomplishment.

As for me, the then barely 23-year-old freelance reporter, dressed now in the threadbare and barely conceivable disguise of Bonny, the friendly and reliable pack mule, I could hardly believe I had put myself into this enviable journalistic position. But all the privations and indignities I had suffered over the previous fortnight would prove meaningless if I was not able to execute the final part of my plan and manage to procure revealing photographs of Elon Musk mostly disrobed or, preferably, totally stark naked.

Despite the many the Musk caravanserai had lost, whether inadvertently sent into a deep crevasse by Musk himself, or for whatever other reason, as we trudged the last few steps into the windswept, glacial, tent community of Base Camp One, there was an undeniable mood of festivity. There was also, of course, a lot of MDMA being consumed and so, the remaining Musk followers immediately set themselves empathetically towards putting up the world’s biggest circus tent, elephants notwithstanding.

As the bedraggled, yet still gaudy, Musk groupies immediately offered their famously incompetent services towards erecting this massive pagoda, I took the opportunity to divert myself, still as Bonny, down a convenient culvert, slightly out of sight of all this absurd and frenetic activity. There, I took the satchel, which contained my final disguise, concealed in the fake back legs of the mule costume and, with an appropriate degree of solemnity, kicked the sweat-stained pantomime pack mule outfit down a steep gorge in the general direction of Pakistan.

Boysenberry Schnapps: A Salutary “Tail”

No more than 12 minutes later, probably less, I was installed in the cocktail bar of the vast Musk Base Camp One “tent” wearing my latest – and possibly most ingenious – new identity, that of a svelte and mysterious Moroccan go-go dancer named Rochelle. As I began pouring drinks, I noticed with a degree of approbation that Musk was near the huge glittering disco ball performing his Teddy Bears' Picnic routine. If ever I was going to procure a photo of Musk in the nude, or semi-nude, then it was going to be tonight.

Also underneath the vast canopy, was a smallish brown bear riding a unicycle wearing a novelty helicopter hat, juggling kitchen knives while simultaneously playing the harmonica. The bear rode adroitly towards me and, taking his mouth organ quickly out with a foot paw, still juggling, comically mouthed the words, “You slag!” towards me. If there was any end to (the late) Keith from Reuters’ animal impersonation skills, I never saw it. He was certainly no one trick pony, let alone llama, yak, camel, giraffe, boa constrictor or, as I was then to observe, brown bear. My future mentor and godfather to all my 14 children was, as I have mentioned, a credit to the journalism “profession”, and is still mourned.

I went into a brief reverie and was surprised to find the dour face of Heseltina, or Saltine, as she was unaffectionately known, Musk’s personal assistant, bodyguard (and cousin) studying me impassively from the other side of the bar. She had a remarkable talent for coming upon all and sundry at any time or place unexpectedly and in really a rather sneaky way. Which was no mean feat, given she was more than 2.2 metres tall and built like a Springbok prop.

But I almost fell right out of my bustier and g-string when she said to me, in her raspy contralto, “Aren’t you that fucking pack mule?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I nervously brayed. “Now, how can I help?”

At that, Heseltina sighed heavily, upending a small nearby potted bonsai.

“A boysenberry schnapps, Bonny,” said Saltine, grimly shaking her head.

“My name is Rochelle, ma’am,” I hee-hawed primly.

“Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is, you silly ass,” she snarled. “Things are just about to get very ugly indeed.”

I poured her fake berry schnapps variety into a small pink sippy cup and let Heseltina slide away, in her peculiarly sneaky and gargantuan fashion.

I was curious to see what would happen next, since Musk had only, in my experience, drunk a single fake berry schnapps before passing out. The adrenaline must have been pumping through his system that night, however, since he was still upright after his first draught, albeit stumbling groggily around with his tongue out and drooling torrentially.

After receiving the drink from his stony-faced giantess cousin, Salty, Musk quickly suckled to the last drop that nip of rather soft liquor.

Everything after that happened quickly and is something of a blur to me now, especially after all these years. Consequently, it is fortunate I am able to jog my memory with the aid of the several hundred-high resolution Nikon fast-shutter zoom camera photographs I was taking of the event, while still serving the occasional patron at the bar.

I care not to dwell too much on the unfortunate events that followed after Musk removed his trousers and tight white Y-fronts. Suffice to say, his girlish screaming and convulsive giggling histrionics were not, as far as I was concerned, especially dignified, nor did they present him in the most favourable light.

I was, therefore, somewhat relieved when Musk ran outside into the howling blizzard and began passionately embracing and French kissing an aluminium tent pole. As one might expect, Musk’s tongue almost immediately became stuck to the metal. If only that was the full extent of his problems. Because, being nude from the pants down and as he was grinding lasciviously, certain other, well, lower regions of the future Twitter tormentor became even more strongly adhered to that pole.

I still wince whenever I look at the graphic photos of Heseltina ripping him and... well... him away from that strut.

And with that, the expedition to scale Everest was over.

END NOTE

The litigation over the release of the tragic and still somewhat mysterious frostbite “accident” is unfortunately still in train. All I can safely say, according to my lawyers, is that Elon Musk probably should have reconsidered that second boysenberry schnapps.

There may be a lesson in that for us all, but most probably not.

DISCLAIMER: The above tale is completely untrue. Only some of the names remain the same to imperil the innocent.

*This article is also available on audio here: