They were the first South African expedition ever to be granted a permit to climb Everest, a mixed-race group that aspired to put the first black person on the summit. Their leader was Ian Woodall, thirty-nine, a loquacious, mouselike man who relished telling anecdotes about his brave exploits as a military commando behind enemy lines during South Africa’s long, brutal conflict with Angola in the 1980s. Woodall had recruited three of South Africa’s strongest climbers to form the nucleus of his team: Andy de Klerk, Andy Hackland, and Edmund February.
