Summit 8000

by Andrew Lock

  On 7 May I climbed to Camp 2, where Sergey and his remaining teammate, Emil, were camped, but they descended to Base Camp after Emil twisted his knee, leaving me on my own. Dangerous avalanche conditions delayed me there for two days, but I was keen to continue the climb. Ivan and Fernando from the Spanish-speaking team were in their own Camp 2, so we agreed to climb together.

  It soon became obvious that this route was just as dangerous as the French line on the North Face. To access the German Rib, we had first to cross the plateau over which we’d sledged the dying Christian Kuntner two years before. Next, we crossed several hundred metres of avalanche debris and scaled a short but vertical ice cliff. Then we climbed 100 metres up and out of the way of the cause of all that debris: an absolutely massive ice serac, which hung 1000 metres above our route and avalanched several times a day. There was no way of telling when it would release, but if you were anywhere underneath it when it let go, you were dead. No ifs, no buts. It was massive.

  It took about thirty minutes of speed climbing, if you can call it that at 6000 metres, to get through death’s bowling alley. The key was to not stop. That sounds obvious, I know, but when you are in an environment where you are obliged to stop every minute or so to get your breath, climbing as fast as you can for thirty minutes feels like it will bring on a heart attack. When we reached safety, we slumped over our ice axes, screaming for breath for fifteen minutes as we recovered. I wanted to throw up, faint, collapse—you name it. But the route could not be avoided.

  Once we were on the rib, the ground was more stable, although it too was littered with seracs that forced us to edge up the side of the rib rather than on top of it. As we ascended, the snow became less and less secure. We could feel that it was tight and avalanche-prone, and with every metre it became more so.

  Conditions like these are as dangerous as can be found. Constant storms had created a great depth of snow, the top metre of which had been compacted by the ever-present wind. Below that crust, though, the snow was soft and had lost its strength. A little too much weight on the upper layer would cause it to sheer away from the snow below. Anyone on that top layer would be carried down the mountain.

  As we advanced, we constantly discussed the conditions, aware that we were pushing the limits of safe climbing but knowing too that there was no other choice if we were to succeed on Annapurna. Although the threat of danger was psychologically exhausting, the climbing itself was fun, with twists and turns, steep steps and tiny ledges. We spent a night on one of those ledges before climbing the next morning up even less stable snow. Finally, we reached the obvious crux of the route, a 200-metre cliff of crumbling, rotten ice. A teetering mass, it was overdue for collapse.

  It was clear that this would take us more than a day to overcome. With a blizzard building, we cached our loads, then abseiled for 1000 metres over several hours down the rib, through the avalanche chute and trekked back across the plateau to Camp 2. In the mood for some warm food and a good sleep, we continued all the way down to Base Camp, where we rested for some days while the weather raged above.

  I love my rest days at Base Camp, and on Annapurna they were even more enjoyable than usual. At 4000 metres we could sleep soundly, eat well and relax for a short time without feeling the constant dread of an imminent avalanche. I hung out with the Spanish group quite a bit. Their base-camp manager, Ferran, produced a golf club, and we spent an inordinate number of hours in pursuit of golf balls that ricocheted off jagged rocks as we developed our skills in ‘glacier golf’. It distracted us from the knowledge that we would soon have to re-enter the battle above.

  Unfortunately, though, we received word that an avalanche on nearby Mount Dhaulagiri, which I’d climbed in 1997, had killed two Spanish climbers, friends of many of the Spanish team on Annapurna. Given the dangerous conditions on our hill, the mood was dark, and there was considerable discussion about abandoning the expedition. I willed them not to give up and was greatly relieved when they agreed to continue.

  *

  One morning I was stretching my legs on a hill above Base Camp when puffs of dust started exploding on the ground around me. I realised that rocks were falling from the cliffs several hundred metres above me. They were absolutely silent through the air but hit the ground with a great whack and then ricocheted in every direction. To be struck would be fatal, but there was no protection available, so I bolted downhill to escape the onslaught. Somehow I avoided being hit, but it was pure luck. Even on our rest days at Base Camp, I thought, this bloody mountain is trying to kill us!

  It was a very windy and wet season, and for eight days we awaited a forecast that would give us the good news we needed. Finally, it was predicted that the wind, which for weeks had been at gale force near the summit, would drop to 30 knots on 24 May. That is still a very strong wind, but it was the best forecast we were going to get, so that would have to be our summit day. In the meantime, we had to reclimb the rib and overcome the 200-metre ice cliff.

  Iñaki and Horia had by now arrived at the mountain, but rather than climb with us they planned to start up a day or two later and make a fast dash to the summit. For that plan to succeed, they would rely on the rest of us to find a way through the ice cliff.

  Over the next few days, most members of the two teams reascended the route to Camp 2, then raced through death’s bowling alley and continued up the rib. Retrieving the cache, we advanced right up under the ice cliff, where we were forced to place Camp 3 for two nights, while we took turns to climb on the cliff and fix a safety rope up its forbidding yet hopelessly fragile face.

  On our second day at the cliff, Iñaki and Horia arrived, disappointed to find the route still not open. Sergey, Ivan, Fernando and I spent most of the day fixing rope up the face, while the others waited below. Exhausted and stressed, we were blocked at 6500 metres, near the very top, by an ice overhang. Iñaki came up to have a go. He attacked the obstacle with fresh vigour, overcoming it with some very delicate climbing. Sergey and I climbed through and fixed another 100 metres of rope, before Ivan and Fernando took over and fixed the last length.

  We’d hoped to drop down to Camp 3, pack everything up and climb back up the cliff that evening to put a safer camp on the ramp above, but there wasn’t time before dark. There was still more rope to be fixed to reach the snow ramp, so we were forced to spend a second night in the lower Camp 3 before climbing the ice face the next day to finish the job. No one was happy about this. The night before had been sleepless and nerve-wracking. The cliff above us had creaked and groaned, and chunks of ice the size of fridges had broken off the face, crashing down onto the ridge on which we were camped. We’d placed the tents in the safest spot we could find, but there was still a strong possibility that we’d be hit by one of those blocks of ice. Worse, the whole cliff might collapse on top of us. At least that would be quick, I thought.

  With the understanding that there was still more of the cliff to be fixed next day, the team debated the wisdom of continuing. Everyone except Ivan, Fernando, Sergey and me declared that the climb, the campsite and the whole mountain were just too dangerous. They were calling their expeditions off and quitting the mountain. It was interesting that those of us who had been opening the route and assessing the risks posed by the conditions thought it was still appropriate to continue. This was not because of any crazy summit fever but because we were more intimately engaged with the mountain, I believe, and had a better understanding of the risk. Those who had been following and perhaps not embracing the challenge to the same extent decided to go down.

  Risk management doesn’t mean removing all risk; it means managing it. At every step we’d assessed the potential for avalanches—the depth of the snow, the angle of the slope, the time of day and the strength of the sun, even the shape of the snow crystals. While I agreed that the conditions were extremely dangerous, I also knew that to climb Annapurna meant accepting a higher level of risk, as there simply wasn’t a safe route. Giving up then would mean I’d have to come
back and go through all that danger yet again. I did not want to come back a third time. I wanted to summit. It was better to own the challenge and manage it than run from it.

  Despite that rationalisation, the four of us settled into our tents fearfully, knowing that we had another sleepless, stressful night ahead while the others descended to safety. Every noise had our stomachs knotted, our nerves on edge, lest it be the last thing we ever heard:

  Plenty of serac debris came down in the night, and every noise was a matter of waiting to see if it was coming down on us. A long night and very tense. By morning we were still alive, though, and the weather was clear although a little windy up high.

  The morning light brought hope and relief, but it was short-lived. Sergey was snowblind, having spent too much of the previous day with his sunglasses off. His eyes were red and swollen and he was clearly in agony. Snowblindness, while not permanent, feels like having sand or dirt in your eyes. The only cure is to cover them for several days. He could not continue. I administered some antibiotic cream to his eyes and thought about what this development meant.

  I cursed the gods, because it had seemed we were past the main difficulties of the route. Sergey couldn’t descend without help. I could not leave him, which meant I would not summit Annapurna. I could think of nothing worse than coming back to this terrifying killer mountain. This potentially meant the end of my project to climb all the 8000ers, as there’d be no point continuing with the project if I wasn’t coming back to Annapurna. Project over—and all because of a pair of sunglasses!

  I was devastated, and Ivan and Fernando were equally upset. We’d made a good team and needed each other’s support. I started packing Sergey’s gear, but he stopped me. His eyes were bad, he said, but they would recover. He couldn’t continue going up, but with a day’s rest he felt he could descend on his own. I asked him again and again if he was sure. I told him that it wasn’t his fault and he didn’t need to stay. But he was adamant. A reprieve.

  Ivan, Fernando and I needed to adjust our approach to the climb since our logistical support had changed. We no longer had the backup of the group following us with extra rope and tents; in fact, we could no longer even take the two small summit tents we’d been using on this push, as we needed to leave one for Sergey. My tent was slightly larger, so we took it for the three of us and moved Sergey into the other one. With three of us in my tiny two-person summit tent, we wouldn’t be able to lie down, so sleeping bags were now no longer worth their weight and bulk. We took one between the three of us as a blanket. One stove, a tiny amount of food and the minimum of rope and other climbing equipment, and we were away.

  We hoped to climb another 800 metres up the ramp to the upper slopes of the North Face, where we would site Camp 4 at 7400 metres. Thankfully, the last bit of climbing out of the big ice cliff was less technical than the previous day, and to our relief we were soon over the crux and on the ramp.

  Like the slopes below, the ramp was terribly avalanche-prone. Great slabs of it echoed like a drum underfoot as we battled our way up through the blasting wind. As often as we assessed the avalanche danger and agreed to continue, we knew in our hearts that we were pushing safe limits beyond normal boundaries. But every step forward was a step closer to the summit, and by the end of that exhausting day we were at the top of the ramp, about 7200 metres in altitude. We hadn’t reached the site where we’d hoped to camp, but night had caught us.

  We hacked at the ice under a serac for an hour and a half to produce a tiny sloping ice ledge, the best refuge we could manage in the freezing blackness. With the three of us crushed inside our tent, sleep was impossible but irrelevant. We were at least protected from avalanches for the night—the first time in nearly a week. We nibbled some morsels and fought the buffeting tent to prepare a few tepid drinks, all the while waiting for the wind to drop to the forecast 30 knots. That was the very maximum into which we could climb, so if the forecast was even slightly off, we’d either have to give up or accept the reality that we’d be donating some body parts to the frostbite god. That prospect did not excite me.

  The sins of all weather forecasters were forgiven, though, when the wind did indeed ease, and at dawn we emerged into minus 20 degrees Celsius and a strong but manageable breeze. Having camped a little lower than planned, our climb was longer than we’d hoped for. It was also considerably steeper than we’d anticipated. We edged carefully around the serac from our tent and onto the face, where we took turns to lead, plugging steps in what is probably one of the biggest slabs of snow in the Himalaya.

  The gods had deigned to grant only one wish that morning, because the solid snow we’d prayed for overnight was nowhere on the mountain. It was the very worst possible slab and it echoed with every step. For the entire day we climbed with the constant expectation that it would suddenly break free and slip like a massive toboggan to the edge of the North Face, a free ticket to a decidedly deadly finish for the expedition. It was heart-in-the-mouth stuff, and not a fun way to spend a day out:

  Hardened by strong wind, the slab varies from a few centimetres to half a metre thick. Like the crust of a pavlova, it is firm but brittle and bonded to the layer below by little more than its own weight. You tell yourself that another 70 or 80 kilograms won’t make any difference to the tonnes of weight in the slab itself. You step up and hear the hollow reverberations echo through the entire slab. A few steps on and it feels like you are walking on air. If it slides you are finished. The slab will break up, swallow you and drag you to the inevitable precipice and a cold, crushing death below. You tell yourself that this is risk management, that the conditions are okay, that this slab will hold. Rubbish. You have no idea, really. It is blind luck if it holds and bad luck if it doesn’t. It is a game of chance where the winner’s reward for staking his life is a temporarily sated ego. The loser dies, as so many have. What drives this madness?

  Mad or not, we continued, hour after anxious hour. An avalanche thundered elsewhere on the mountain and we stopped, fearful that the vibration would trigger our own slope’s release. Ever so gradually, we progressed.

  The snow was worst near the top, and the three of us chose different paths. None was better than the others, but each provided us with hope. Eventually, we found ourselves under a small cornice. The summit ridge is reasonably level and dreadfully long—I’d read of climbers traversing the entire ridge to ensure they’d actually stood on the correct summit—but we could see from this point that the rest of the ridge was lower than us. It was knife-edged, so we took turns to belay each other up to the top, where we balanced precariously and looked 4000 metres down each side to the valleys below.

  For the fifth time, I’d become the first Australian summiteer of a particular 8000-metre mountain. I pulled out my Aussie flag and held it aloft for the others to photograph me. In the inebriation of the high altitude, though, I couldn’t work out which way to hold it for the camera. I made a choice and now have a photograph with the flag in reverse. It didn’t matter. In the end, I’d made it to the summit of my twelfth 8000er. Now my only worry was getting down safely to enjoy the success.

  We quickly debated which route to descend. Ivan and Fernando were keen to follow the ridgeline back across the top of the face to avoid the slab danger below, but I felt very strongly that the ridgeline was an unknown quantity and that it would be quicker and possibly also safer to return the way we’d come. They relented, and soon we were battling our way back to the tent. Darkness caught us and we struggled to find our safe shelter:

  As it got dark, we raced down and I pulled out the GPS to try and track our way to the tent but it struggled in the cold and the steep descent, and gave wildly varying readings.

  Fernando went high as Ivan kept heading down, and I slowed to look behind each significant serac band. It seemed as though we must have dropped below the tent. By eight pm it was pitch-black, getting cold and the wind picked up significantly.

  This was not the place to bivouac and the situation was ge
tting desperate because the forecast had told us that the winds would become almost cyclonic tonight. I was getting ready to turn back and climb up to search higher when Ivan yelled out that he’d found the tent.

  There followed a most miserable night, as the tent was gradually but inexorably buried by the blowing spindrift. Ivan made a cup of water for each of us, but eventually gave up. We settled in for a long, cold, sleepless night.

  *

  By morning, spindrift had frozen the tent into the mountain face. We tried half-heartedly to retrieve it but were too exhausted, so we abandoned it and began descending. At Camp 3, where we’d left Sergey, we found that he’d packed up and descended, his eyes having recovered sufficiently. We also saw that the place from which we’d taken my tent had a fridge-sized piece of ice sitting on it. Had we not moved Sergey into the other tent, he’d very likely still be there, somewhat flatter. The gods had been granting wishes after all.

  Water became our overriding focus, and the thought of it drove us down the mountain. At Camp 1 there were streams, and we collapsed onto the rocks and drank and drank. It was only at this point that I could fully relax, being off the glacier and out of the avalanche danger. Brilliant! We walked back to Base Camp. Ivan and Fernando were talking wildly, still high on adrenalin, but I became sombre as we neared the camp. After what I’d experienced in 2005, I felt humbled and simply grateful to have climbed the mountain and survived.

  At Base Camp I returned to a quiet dining tent. The cook brought me a cup of tea as my teammates went off to their tents. That was okay with me, as I wanted some time to reflect on the climb and its significance. I slept poorly that night but that was normal after a summit, as the adrenaline continued to course through my veins and I relived the climb. The bond that the three of us had formed was the strongest. We’d overcome the most dangerous mountain in the world and it was incredible.