by Andrew Lock
I knew even then that this was the climb of my career. It wasn’t the most technical, although it was tough. But it was far and away the most dangerous. We’d spent the entire climb, the entire expedition, on edge and expecting disaster at any moment. It had been as much a supreme psychological battle as a physical challenge, and mental exhaustion stalked us constantly. Success brought intense feelings of relief, as much as of victory, and I still regard my survival as an achievement equal to summitting. I shall never set foot on that mountain again.
Postscript
Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, whom I’d first met on Broad Peak in 1997, was one of the most experienced high-altitude climbers in the world. As well as having achieved some great climbs and put up new routes, he was well known to most of the veteran high-altitude community in the Himalaya, and to many of the ladies, as a really nice guy. He returned to Annapurna in 2008 to reattempt the mountain from its south side. While making his summit bid, he developed pulmonary oedema. Despite a strong and coordinated rescue attempt, he died in his tent.
13
GETTING CLOSE
There are two kinds of climbers; those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest.
Alex Lowe
WHEN I RETURNED to Kathmandu after the Annapurna climb, I was emotionally tired. Exhausted, actually. I found it difficult to celebrate with my friends in the usual bars and had no interest in socialising with the eclectic mix of climbers and international characters that Kathmandu attracts. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I felt distanced from others. I wanted to be on my own.
Although that feeling diminished a little over time, Annapurna had been such an intense experience that it made my ‘normal’ life back at home seem wasteful and self-indulgent. This wasn’t exactly a new emotion. As I’d spent more and more time in the Himalaya, I’d felt ever more strongly that that was where I was most comfortable. But while adopting this simple, albeit dangerous, life was attractive, I knew that it wasn’t ‘real’. It simply wasn’t possible for me to climb all the time, if only because I had to work to fund each expedition. So a return to normality was unavoidable.
For the first time in many years, though, returning home was a bit of a culture shock. I found it difficult to engage with my girlfriend Julie, despite her strong support throughout my expeditions. I found work in the public service far less interesting than I had previously. More than anything, I had no time whatsoever for the mundane concerns of people whose lives revolved around gossip and office politics. In truth, I’d never really afforded those people much attention, but now I gave them very short shrift. I just couldn’t be bothered with their pettiness and irrelevance.
I knew that my experience on Annapurna had had an effect on me—if not in changing my values, then at least in clarifying them. It had reinforced for me what a valuable gift life is, and that it should be lived absolutely to the full. A number of times over the years, I’d found myself in lonely base camps for weeks on end, even months, wondering if I was wasting my life, my money and my opportunities in order to chase a foolish dream which, in the end, meant nothing, and would bring me nothing more than personal satisfaction, if I survived. There was no pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow. I’d never been very adept at selling myself or my story at home. Even after all these years and successes, I was predominately self-funded, although my ever-growing keynote-speaking business did at least support the habit.
It was ironic, really. I had quite a profile in international mountaineering circles, but at home I was barely known. This made it difficult for me to attract sponsorship. My peers around the world were heavily sponsored and able to live as professional climbers, whereas I had to work a normal job to fund my climbing passion. This was partly my fault for not promoting myself and partly because I came from the flattest country on Earth. Mountaineering has never rated too highly in Australia compared to cricket, or our other national sports.
I wondered if perhaps I’d run my course in the mountains. Was I burnt out? I’d been luckier than all those who’d paid the ultimate price while chasing the Himalayan grand slam, but was climbing these big peaks really worth such risk? By this time, I’d been climbing on the 8000ers for sixteen years, and had spent more than three years of my life actually clinging to the sides of these hills. Three years! Surely I could find better ways to spend my time. Surely life was worth more than a few brief moments on the top of some big chunks of rock and ice. Was it time to hang up my ice axe?
I’d taken the job in the public service to consolidate my finances and to create a new career opportunity—if I actually wanted to have one. But to pursue that career, I would have to devote myself to it and spend less time in the mountains. It was decision time: mountains or money?
I’d never considered giving up. I wasn’t quite sure I was actually considering it now, but I was definitely asking myself whether I should consider it. That was about as far as I’d ever taken the question before, even in those lonely base camps. I’d never forced myself to answer, because on each of those expeditions my self-doubt had evaporated the moment I was back on the mountain. The dark thoughts stayed at Base Camp, and as soon as I’d started climbing again, I was exuberant and fulfilled. I was re-energised and refocused.
While I tried to assess the value of my project—indeed, of my whole lifestyle—back in Australia I relived in my mind many of the expeditions. As soon as I started reflecting on my high-altitude experiences, my pulse beat more strongly, my breathing quickened and I felt a surge of happiness. I wasn’t stressed by the memories; I was excited by them.
The more I questioned myself about the point of these climbs, the more worthwhile they appeared—and the less relevant ‘normality’ seemed. My frustration was not that the mountains were impeding my life, I realised; it was that my ‘normal’ life was impeding my mountain experiences! I came to clearly understand what I’d always suspected. While the summit of any mountain was the sweetest prize, for me it was not the main game. Indeed the summit could almost be an anti-climax. The thrill was in the fight to get there. The camaraderie of shared adversity, the exuberance of overcoming seemingly impossible challenges, the thrill of life after escaping death’s clutching fingers—these were the real rewards. And only the high mountains could provide the intensity of that experience.
To hell with my career, I decided. I didn’t just want to climb; I needed to.
*
Maurice Herzog, the leader of the French expedition that had made the first ascent of Annapurna in 1950, said afterwards that Annapurna was a treasure on which he should live the rest of his days. It was a treasure for me also, but I knew I could not live out the rest of my days on that experience alone. Or even on all the experiences I’d had to that point. I had moved beyond being an amateur enthusiast. I was addicted. To the beauty, the thrill and the savagery, even to the pain. I wanted more.
I didn’t want to die—indeed, I was more focused on managing risk than ever—but that just added to the game. For an objective to be worthwhile, it had to have risk. Without it, I might as well have quit climbing and become one of those I pitied in the office. There was no question that I wanted to finish my 8000er project; it had been hanging around my neck for long enough. But over and above everything else, I just wanted to get back to high altitude. I threw myself into planning the next climb.
With twelve 8000ers under my belt, only Makalu and Shishapangma remained. Shishapangma I knew well, but Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, had quite a tough reputation. It was also the mountain that had seen the demise of my friend David Hume in 1995.
Before I could get too far into planning, I needed to repair my relationship with Julie. For several years she’d wanted to join me on an expedition. I’d always resisted, firstly because I didn’t want the distraction from my goal of summitting the mountain, and secondly because I felt that it would be an awful thing for my partner to have to walk out from a base camp on her own if I was ki
lled on the climb. I decided to compromise on my principles, though, and agreed to take Julie to Shishapangma for the 2007 post-monsoon season. I didn’t really anticipate summitting with her but thought that she might enjoy the expedition experience. I still hoped to summit but expected it would be on my own.
The trip did not start well. In Nyalam, Tibet, we shared a hotel with several other climbers who were also heading to Shishapangma. One of them had developed a nasty hacking cough a couple of days earlier. When Julie and I returned from an acclimatisation walk, we learned that he’d literally coughed himself to death, having ruptured an internal organ. I could not think of a more depressing and lonely death than dying like that in a squalid hotel room on your own without even having seen the mountain that had brought you to your end.
At Shishapangma the weather was woeful and we didn’t get too far up the mountain. Constant heavy snow prevented any real climbing. Julie and I spent more time in our base-camp tent than on the mountain, but it was a fun, although very expensive way to relax and spend some time together. The most exciting part of the expedition came when Julie insisted on trying to rescue a Tibetan mastiff that had somehow become trapped in an ice gully on the glacier.
After hearing its yelps and going to investigate, we saw the poor mutt running back and forth, having no way to climb out. With a savage mauling on the cards from the panicked pooch, not to mention the very real threat of rabies, I was happy to let our Tibetan yak herders take care of it, given that it belonged to them. Julie, however, insisted that I lower her into the gully so she could tie a rope around the monster and I could haul it to the surface—What could go wrong? ‘Lower me down, lower me down!’ I lowered.
Naturally, as soon as Julie was at the bottom, the dog, which was one and a half times her size, started snarling and gnashing its teeth as it advanced towards her. With new instructions issued instantly—‘Pull me out, pull me out!’—I then had to heave and haul her up the ice slope before the mastiff made a meal of her. It was duly rescued by our Tibetan yak herders.
We also provided a bit of assistance to a climber who had descended from the mountain confused and slurring his words—clear signs of cerebral oedema. I administered dexamethasone and within a few hours he was back to normal. Our own climb, however, ended with me going no higher than Camp 1. Shishapangma 4, Andrew 0.
*
While the trip with Julie had been good for our relationship, it hadn’t been a serious attempt on the mountain. By the beginning of 2008 I was ready to hit the hills again with a vengeance. After the stress of Annapurna the year before, I wanted to go on an expedition with a small and skilled team of friends, rather than a large and unwieldy group. More than anything, I wanted to enjoy the climb. I invited Neil Ward and Hector Ponce de Leon to join me, and both accepted.
Although Shishapangma remained an elusive summit for me, it was still the lowest of the 8000ers and I felt that it could be climbed as preparation for a higher, tougher mountain. We therefore decided to climb Shisha in April 2008, before travelling to Nepal for a quick, well-acclimatised ascent of Makalu in May. It would be a similar approach to my Shishapangma-Annapurna expedition of the previous year.
Before meeting the guys in Kathmandu, I set out on my usual two-week acclimatisation and fitness trek. I planned to push myself over long distances and as many high passes for as many hours a day as possible. I wanted my body to hurt and to respond to the altitude. Julie joined me for the acclimatisation trek. She was fit and motivated, and her passion for adventure travel and the Himalaya hadn’t been diminished by our unsuccessful expedition the previous year. Trekking was a much less intense way to spend some time together, although the relationship nearly came to an end on one particularly hard day.
We had trekked from the remote and beautiful village of Gokyo, over a high snow-covered pass known as the Cho La. Most parties making the crossing stop at a little outpost a couple of kilometres below the pass. Julie knew that I wanted to walk hard and agreed to keep going to the next village, Lobuche, which was several hours further on. That meant a long day, perhaps 20 kilometres, most of it at 4000 to 5000 metres in altitude. I knew that we should stop, because I could see that Julie was tired, but I really wanted to push myself.
About an hour before we reached Lobuche, poor Jules hit the wall. She’d used every last ounce of her energy and just sagged to the ground. It was my fault, and I knew it. Luckily, I had a small chocolate bar. The sugar revived her and she was able to continue, although I paid the price by having to carry both of our heavy rucksacks for the final kilometres. Oh well, it was good training!
In Kathmandu a week later, I met Hector and Neil while Julie flew home to Australia. We organised our equipment and bought food and fuel for the two mountains. However, the world of international politics was about to conspire against us. It was 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese authorities wanted the Olympic torch to be carried to the summit of Mount Everest. Not only did they refuse permission to foreign expeditions to Everest, in order to allow their own expedition to proceed uninhibited, they closed all the mountains in Tibet, including Shishapangma. I suppose they didn’t want any pesky foreigners waving ‘Free Tibet’ flags around on Tibetan mountaintops.
Rather than actually declining applications for Tibet permits that season, the Chinese Mountaineering Association simply ‘delayed’ the issue of permits. After a week in Kathmandu, during which we were repeatedly told ‘maybe tomorrow’, we decided to stop wasting our time and get some acclimatisation. We went trekking for a week in the Langtang Valley, close to the Kathmandu Valley.
This is a beautiful trek and provides quite a range of environments. A jarring 12-hour jeep ride over deeply potholed and rutted dirt roads was followed by a steep and steamy walk uphill through thick forest, heavy with humidity. We were soon drenched in perspiration. Monkeys screeched overhead, and the impenetrable foliage above us blocked any relief from the cooler air above.
The next morning, after a dawn start, we pushed ourselves hard to climb out of the valley before the heat caught us again. The vegetation thinned and soon we were walking on alpine trails, the jagged peaks of the Langtang Himal looming ahead, with crisp, cool skies above and stunning mountain vistas all around.
At the head of the valley we reached the village of Langtang, a collection of twenty or more teahouses. We selected one without other trekkers and were soon ordering food and hot drinks. Teahouses had evolved considerably since tourism came to Nepal. Originally, they were just rudimentary rural houses from which porters and other locals could purchase a simple cup of tea and dhal baht, and sleep near the fire, as they traversed the country by its myriad trails. With trekkers came money, and soon teahouses in the more popular valleys were being purpose-built with small rooms, bunks, and even tables and chairs. Menus increasingly catered for western tastes, with spaghetti, apple pie and beer replacing the traditional rice, lentils and rakshi (a traditional homemade spirit). Having pushed ourselves hard on the walk in, we were happy to enjoy the comforts on offer.
Over the next few days we trekked up nearby hills to gain a little altitude and test our fitness, returning each evening for a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep. After three nights we descended to the road head and endured the backbreaking drive back to the city. Upon our return, though, the stalling by the Chinese Mountaineering Association continued: it was soon clear that no permits would be forthcoming that season. We decided to proceed directly to Makalu.
*
At 8481 metres, Makalu stands alone and proud on the border of Nepal and Tibet, just 19 kilometres south-east of Mount Everest. A beautiful four-sided pyramid with impossibly sharp and jagged ridges at each corner, it is one of the most striking of the 8000ers.
Despite (or perhaps because of) its proximity to Everest, it received scant attention as other 8000ers were successfully climbed. A reconnaissance expedition that included Edmund Hillary visited the area in 1952, but the first real attempt on the mountain didn’t
occur until the pre-monsoon season of 1954. Named the California Himalayan Expedition to Makalu, its members included Willi Unsoeld, who would become a household name among climbers for his first ascent, with Thomas Hornbein, of the very technical West Ridge of Everest in 1963. In 1976 he joined with his daughter, Nanda Devi Unsoeld, and others to climb her namesake mountain, Nanda Devi, in India. Tragically, Nanda Devi Unsoeld perished during that expedition. Willi continued to climb, but he died in an avalanche in 1979 on Mount Rainer in Washington, United States.
Also on Makalu in the spring of 1954 was an expedition led by Hillary, who by then was a household name because of his Everest climb the year before. Hillary’s expedition did not fare so well this time. Two members of the team, Jim McFarlane and Brian Wilkins, fell into a crevasse. They both survived, but McFarlane was severely frostbitten and lost part of his feet and fingers. Hillary broke several ribs during the rescue and became so ill that he had to be evacuated.
A French expedition in the pre-monsoon of 1955 saw the first ascents of the mountain. Lionel Terray, already a revered lion of the mountaineering world, reached the summit on 15 May 1955 with his teammate Jean Couzy. Expedition leader Jean Franco and Guido Magnone, along with Gyaltsen Norbu Sherpa, summitted the next day, followed by four other team members a day later. This was the largest number of climbers from a ‘first ascent’ expedition to go to the summit—a particularly impressive achievement given the technical difficulties, constant wind and altitude.
The trek to Makalu is tough, traversing numerous passes and deep gorges. At some points you can see your day’s destination just over the other side of a valley, and you might reasonably think that it looks close. The trek to get there, though, requires a steep, seemingly endless descent into a gorge, followed by a tortuous climb of a thousand metres or more up the far side. By the time you reach your destination, your leg muscles are quivering with exhaustion. After a full ten hours of hard slog, it is demoralising to see that you’ve only progressed towards Makalu’s Base Camp by a few short kilometres. But you are pretty fit by the time you saunter into that camp a couple of weeks later.