by Andrew Lock
Each and every one of the 8000-metre giants I had summitted had been a glorious undertaking in itself. Each and every one had provided me with more personal challenge and self-knowledge than I could possibly have gained in any other field of endeavour. I was glad that there were only fourteen, as I was pretty worn out by the end, but the project had been about the challenge that each peak offered, not about the summits.
Time and again I’d put my life on the line to chase the fourteen, and in doing so I’d experienced life at its rawest. I’d tested myself in the most brutal way and survived. To continue when every fibre of your being is telling you to stop, when you are at your most desperate, is to know yourself. And to face extreme fear and the possibility of imminent death is to really know and appreciate life. I had lived. I felt fulfilled, sated and worthy. This was the reward for pushing myself so close to the edge.
After so many years, I’d come to crave this feeling. It was a feeling I’d experienced only when success had been hard fought for. Often it had come only at the very last minute, when all hope seemed lost and when I’d been forced to draw on an unknown inner strength in order to claw my way back from the very precipice of failure and disaster.
That was what motivated me to climb these giants. That was my answer to the perennial question: ‘Why?’ I climbed because the mountains allowed me to ask, and answer, my own question: ‘Am I good enough?’ The answer could not be known until I made the final step up to each summit. Each journey to discover that answer was the richest experience I could imagine. But it was an endless quest, because each success was not enough. If I was good enough to complete one challenge, then I had to find another, tougher one that would ask the question of me again. A question for which the answer was not certain. With each success, I had to return to ask again, and yet again, until I received the answer that I didn’t want to hear.
*
When climbing Shishapangma, I’d once again managed to escape the humdrum of normality, the irrelevant squabbles of petty people in the workplace, traffic jams, and the financial and emotional stresses of everyday life. I’d journeyed a path that took me both physically and psychologically to another world. It was the world I wanted to be in, where I was most comfortable. But now, back in the ‘real world’ in Australia, I had to face up to the future—and to the one relevant question regularly asked of me: ‘What’s next?’
For the last few years I’d spoken of quitting the 8000ers once I had summitted all fourteen. It was simply too dangerous a game to keep playing, and I’d lost too many friends along the way. I knew my own demise was inevitable if I kept returning to high altitude. It had been easy to make that promise while I still had unclimbed peaks to look forward to. Now that I’d finished the project, the future might have looked rather empty. But even as I’d flown home from Shishapangma, I was planning my next climb. I just couldn’t help myself.
There was still one thing that I hadn’t achieved on the 8000ers: I’d climbed all of them without auxiliary oxygen, except Everest. On both the 1991 and 1993 expeditions, I’d abandoned my oxygenless summit attempts to help or search for teammates in trouble. In 2000 my focus had been on leading my commercial team up and down safely, and I’d insisted that we all use oxygen to achieve that. In 2004 I’d summitted successfully with oxygen but abandoned my attempt without oxygen a few days later, when my sixth sense had warned me of an impending storm. Everest without gas remained an elusive but very real goal for me.
I wanted an appropriate challenge, and climbing Everest without oxygen seemed pretty achievable, given my experience. I decided, therefore, to traverse the mountain. I would climb up one side, then, leaving my equipment behind in the high camp to be collected by a Sherpa, I would climb over the top and down the other side. The question was whether to climb from south to north or vice versa.
The mountain answered that question for me. I knew it would be imperative to descend from the summit as quickly as possible, at least down to 8000 metres and preferably lower, so I could avoid the onset of altitude sickness. The Nepalese side of the mountain is quite direct, affording quick access to, and descent from, the peak. On the Tibetan side, however, you spend much longer at the very highest altitude. The mountain’s shape dictates that expeditions on that side must place a Camp 5 at around 8300 metres. This is the highest camp regularly used on any 8000-metre mountain. The effect of spending an extra night at such an extreme altitude on the way down would significantly compound the likelihood of me developing serious altitude illness, even with supplementary oxygen. Without it, oedema was virtually guaranteed. Far better to climb up the long Tibetan north ridge, then drop quickly down the south side into Nepal.
Within a week of returning to Australia I had contacted my agent in Kathmandu and asked him to investigate permits for me to traverse Everest from Tibet in 2010. I needed a permit to climb in Tibet and another to allow me to descend into Nepal. The Nepalese were happy to issue their permit, but once again, the autonomy of the Autonomous Region of Tibet came into question. The permit had to be approved by a number of Chinese agencies, and somewhere along the way the process stalled. No reason was given.
I was disappointed but could do little about it, so I decided to make 2010 a rest year. I’d been climbing regularly on the 8000ers since 1991, with 1992 and 2001 being the only years I hadn’t undertaken at least one 8000-metre expedition. Even in those years I’d climbed to reasonable altitudes, 6000 metres or so. When I sat back and looked at it, I’d been alpine climbing since 1985, and on peaks above 6000 metres every single year since 1987. As it turned out, the timing for the break was pretty convenient. I had a big project on at work, and I was also able to pursue several other high-priority goals.
Having grown up in the Scouting movement—all the way from Cubs to Rovers—I was a big fan, and I really appreciated the significant development opportunities it offers our youth. I wanted to give something back to the organisation that had provided me with so many wonderful adventures, as well as building in me the confidence and skills to identify and pursue my dreams. My regular absences from Australia meant that I couldn’t take on a leadership role, but I wondered if I could give motivational talks to scouts, at all levels, to encourage them to get out and pursue their own dreams. Importantly, I recognised that the Scouting movement in Australia had become risk-averse in recent years, no doubt due to increasing liability concerns. I wanted to show scouts and leaders alike that risks could be managed, and that risk-taking could be conducted in a responsible manner. Scouting numbers had dropped, too, and I was very keen to help reinvigorate interest in the movement.
By coincidence, I was asked to speak at the Australian Scout Jamboree in early 2010. I agreed, but on the condition that the national headquarters consider my proposal to become involved in a broader capacity. They did, and before the year was out I was appointed as Ambassador for Scouting in Australia. It’s a position I still hold with great pride.
They say that things happen in threes, and before I knew it I was asked to be an ambassador for the Australian Himalayan Foundation, which raises funds to support education, health and the environment across the Himalaya. I accepted the position and also took on an ambassadorship for the Sir David Martin Foundation, which works to rebuild the lives of youth in crisis. Each of these organisations is incredibly dedicated to its cause. It has been humbling for me to see the enormous effort contributed by so many dedicated individuals to achieve outstanding community and social outcomes, both in Australia and internationally.
The extra time I spent in Australia through 2010 also meant I could socialise more with my friends, and re-engage in some other adventure activities that I hadn’t had the time for in recent years. Canyoning, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, surfing, bushwalking and fishing were all high on my agenda again—and they remain so today.
*
Between the charities, the Scouts, work and a new relationship, I was pretty busy. But the lure of high altitude did not fade away, and my th
oughts kept returning to Everest. At the beginning of 2011, I again sought a permit for the Everest traverse. This time the Chinese were more direct: there would be no permit, although they still didn’t offer a reason. So be it, I thought. Instead of a traverse, I would make an expedition to just one side of the mountain, and my summit attempt would be oxygenless. To make the climb more interesting, I would do it solo.
After the incredible summit day Neil and I had enjoyed on Shishapangma, where we had the mountain to ourselves, I had no desire to join the ever-increasing numbers on the ‘normal’ route from the Nepalese side of Everest. That limited me to the North Ridge from Tibet. There would be some other expeditions on the north-side route, but only a quarter or so of the numbers on the south side. If I followed that route, however, I would have to forego my plan for a quick descent from the summit, as I’d have to backtrack all the way along the extensive North Ridge. And that would be after I’d already spent more time at high altitude on the way up than I wanted to. Well, I’d been looking for a challenge.
Having made the necessary arrangements, I travelled to Base Camp in May 2011. I was sharing it with a commercial expedition but would climb alone on the mountain. I waited until most of the other groups had completed their summit attempts, so there’d be no congestion on the route. Rather than making my summit attempt from the highest camp, at 8300 metres, I planned to commence my assault from Camp 4, at 7800 metres. This would make for a very long summit day but would expose me to extreme altitude for less time overall.
All was going well, with two days of good weather forecast in late May. As I climbed to Camp 4 on the first of those two good days, a few friends of mine from another expedition reached the summit in almost windless conditions. If the weather held, I would realise this final challenge in less than twenty-four hours. As it turned out, that was too much to ask.
Setting out at 9 p.m. from my tent, I expected to have to climb for fifteen hours to make the top. After three hours, however, at an altitude of about 8100 metres, the wind picked up and blew itself into a gale. I huddled for over an hour with my back to the storm in the hope that it would pass, but it didn’t. Chilled to the core, and with no hope of going any further, I retreated to my tent, where I spent the night being shaken by mighty wind blasts.
The gusts were incredible—frequently, my tent, with me in it, was blasted off the ground and tossed towards the edge of the ridge. All that secured it were the few lengths of cord I’d tied to some nearby rocks. The material strained and the poles bent out of shape but it held. By morning the wind had eased sufficiently for me to descend, but not enough for a repeat attempt. The weather continued to deteriorate, so I returned to Australia.
*
In October 2011 I was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to mountaineering. It was a great honour. The ceremony was conducted at Government House in Sydney, and the governor presented me with the award. My mother, brothers and girlfriend, Alexandra, all attended, but sadly Dad had passed away a few months earlier. I was sorry he missed it, especially since, upon his death, I’d found in one of his cupboards, twenty years’ worth of newspaper clippings about my climbs. While we hadn’t spoken much about my achievements over the years, he’d obviously been proud of them.
*
In 2012 I returned to Everest with the same plan as I’d had in 2011. The only difference was that I launched my summit attempt from Camp 5, at 8300 metres. I’d decided that the climb from Camp 4 was just too long. This time the weather forecast was more accurate; the problem was me. Without supplementary oxygen, the extra day spent climbing to 8300 metres, and then camping overnight at that altitude, proved too much for me. Even before I set out for the summit I felt myself deteriorating. I vomited several times, but not having eaten anything for a couple of days, produced only bile and suffered gut-wrenching stomach cramps. I was bitterly cold, despite wearing all my normal high-altitude clothing.
I knew that I was suffering acute mountain sickness, although I didn’t feel so bad as to give up the summit attempt immediately. I decided to continue and to monitor myself closely. The major risk was that I might be affected to the point where I could no longer self-assess accurately, or descend if I needed to. But that was a risk worth taking.
Setting out at 10.30 p.m. into a stiff breeze, it was an excruciating effort even to take the first step, and all I could think was, Well, this will be a long night. I had struggled early on during summit attempts on other mountains and then found my second wind along the way, so I hoped that the same would occur on this night. It didn’t. As I plodded upwards in the blackness, shivering uncontrollably, I noticed that I was becoming unsteady. Soon I was tripping regularly, and realised that I’d lost depth of field in my vision. In the dim light of my headlamp, I couldn’t tell exactly where the ground was.
I pressed on, but to compound matters, started seeing double, which made it difficult to place my footing and see the rope. I found myself dropping into little micro-sleeps each time I rested. These are definitely not recommended when you are trying to hang on to the side of a mountain. Then I lost my peripheral vision. It was as if the darkness was closing in around me and I was looking down a tunnel. The darkness actually appeared to rush at me. Later, writing my blog from Base Camp, I described it as ‘giant bats flying at me’—no doubt the effect of some high-altitude hallucinations. That was the final straw.
I was lucky that the analytical side of my brain still hadn’t been affected by the altitude—only my coordination, balance, consciousness and sight were failing! It was 1.30 a.m. and I was at 8500 metres, just 300 metres below Everest’s summit. But that was still many hours of climbing away, and it would have been suicide to continue. I knew that I was well affected by cerebral oedema and on the precipice of succumbing to it completely. Descent was the only cure.
Very carefully, I backtracked to Camp 5, where I rested until daybreak. I wanted to keep down-climbing in the darkness but didn’t trust my vision. With the grey light of dawn I started down to Camp 4, continued through to Camp 3 at 7000 metres, and kept on descending all the way down to Camp 2. With every step lower, I could feel my senses and coordination returning.
The next day I walked the 20 kilometres back to Base Camp, glad to be in thicker air and relative warmth. For several days I noticed that my speech, sight and balance were affected by the oedema I’d suffered. I’d been lucky. Too many climbers have suffered similar effects but not made the decision or had the ability to get back down to safety. Lonely, frozen corpses on the mountain are permanent reminders of their misfortune.
At Base Camp I considered whether or not to have another crack at the mountain. I was quite sure that I could summit if I strapped on the oxygen. But what was the point of that? I’d seen the view from the top twice before. My challenge was to summit without oxygen, and I’d been defeated. My question had been answered.
*
I had several days to wait for the jeep that was to take me back to the border. While I was there, a young Australian climber with whom I was sharing the Base Camp reached the summit with his guide and Sherpas, all using oxygen. While I was happy for him, I wondered about his motivation. On the drive to Base Camp some weeks earlier, we’d stood on a hill near the township of Tingri and looked out across the expansive Tibetan plateau towards the Himalayan chain.
‘Which one is Everest?’ he’d asked.
I was stunned! What motivates someone to climb the world’s highest mountain when he doesn’t even know what it looks like? Then again, the previous year I’d met a guided client who’d had no climbing experience at all and whose only motivation for ascending Everest was that it would enhance his business resume. As soon as he’d been guided up and back by a strong team of Sherpas, he’d quit climbing.
As I reflected on this at Base Camp, I thought about how radically the Himalayan climbing environment had changed since I’d started. I’d learned to climb and developed my skills over many years. I’d undertaken the majority o
f my climbs in small teams with very little equipment. We’d usually forged the routes ourselves, carried our own loads and made our own decisions. We’d climbed without oxygen or Sherpa support. We did things that way for the adventure—that was the fun of it. Now most expeditions comprised relatively unskilled clients who relied on guides, oxygen, fixed ropes and substantial Sherpa support to make their decisions and get them up and down.
Of course, guiding had been around since climbing began, and I too had led people with limited experience on a couple of mountains. But now, more and more commercial expeditions were using even greater amounts of oxygen and rope, and more Sherpas, to take people with less and less experience up the big hills. The spirit of adventure was becoming subservient to success at any cost. It demeaned the mountains a little because the challenge was being taken out of the equation. For me, challenge was the whole point! But now the rules had changed and I felt like an outsider in my own game.
I’d started mountaineering in 1985 and taken on my first 8000-metre climb in 1991. My first success on an 8000er had come on K2 in 1993, and my last on Shishapangma in 2009, sixteen years and twenty-three expeditions later. I’d summitted both Everest and Cho Oyu twice, and I’d made six ‘first Australian’ ascents. With these latest two expeditions to Everest, I’d been mountaineering for twenty-seven years, eighteen of them on the 8000ers.
This last climb was the only time I’d ever been so seriously affected by the altitude as to be almost killed by it. It had been an extremely close call, and a timely reminder that I’d broken my own promise to quit when I’d finished the fourteen.
And I was tired. I was tired of being alone. I was tired of broken relationships. I was tired of the pain. Most of all, though, I was tired of the cold—that aching, bone-chilling cold of high altitude, where there is never enough oxygen to stay warm. I’d managed to keep all my fingers and toes intact over the years, but they were damaged. They ached painfully in only mild cold, and I lost all sensation in my big toes for months after each expedition.