by Fergus White
Climbing the Icefall
The six hour mark flips past us. Angel maintains the slow, steady pace. I trudge right behind him, on my last legs. Thrashed as I am, I think the other three are even worse. They’ve left a gap to us they cannot close. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be more exhausted than me and stay upright.
It looks like what we’ve climbed through was the easy bit. We now confront near vertical faces. I lever off the jumar to pull myself up. If it were not for the fixed rope, the weight of my pack would pull me straight off these walls. Seasoned mountaineers would look away in dismay at how I manhandle, scrape and scramble my way up these steep sections. My arms throb. I falter under the pack. It’s slaying me.
I ascend a vertical ladder anchored to a wall of snow. I must remember the procedure. I must slow down my breathing. I cannot take a lazy shortcut. One slip will deliver broken bones and worse. I’m still panting. This is hell. This is endless. This is endless hell.
We set off seven hours ago. The sequence is automatic, unquestioning: left foot, a pause, right foot. Repeat and repeat and repeat. More obstacles overcome. More crevasses crossed. Clouds drift in and rescue us from the solar attack.
Finally, we see the top. We must climb around a few more ice blocks and then ascend one last vertical face. I reach the bottom of the wall with Angel. We’re in bad shape, when someone in my state is near the head of affairs rather than in a stretcher.
“I’ll go up and tell you what I see,” I call out. “Camp 1 should be close.”
The last climb drains what’s left of me. I’ve no one to blame only myself. I chose this. I knew it would be tough, but the drudgery of the challenge overwhelms me. There’s no glamour, no glory. It’s just relentless oxygen debt. Every second dispenses exhaustion. Each breath hurts. No cell escapes the suffering. I haul myself over the crest of the face. First just a forearm, then both elbows, then my stomach, and at last my legs follow. I look up from my hands and knees. I could cry. I have no words. The mountain wins again. This is not the top.
The route turns left and descends into the mother of all crevasses. We must climb down into it. Mini-crevasses loom within it. We’ll have to cross those fissures on ladders and then ascend the far side on a seventy degree slope. After that waits a vertical face, which is about a hundred metres from where I’m slumped. It looks like three ladders have been tied together on it, one above the other. It’ll be like scaling the side of a house. This obstacle will consume at least thirty minutes.
The Monster
Climbers struggle to clear the last crevasse of the Icefall. The man at the top stands above three vertical ladders and peeps over the crest. Below him, climbers negotiate two ladders at uneven angles over mini-crevasses. Truck-sized boulders of ice have tumbled down on the left. Glacial ice can be seen under the snow in the bottom right corner. The drop beneath this is endless.
“Can you see the camp?” I hear from below.
I cannot answer them. I cannot put together a sentence to describe what stuns my vision. It would be too cruel to tell them their ordeal is not over. The only saving grace is that there’ll be no more false hopes; I can see the Cwm Valley on the far side of the monster crevasse. I look down over the edge at the lads and beckon them to climb up and join me. I ignore their calls to report what I see.
One by one the lads crawl over the crest. Angel looks strong, having spent so many years in the mountains. But for the others, the realisation that this is not the top must be another kick in the teeth. I can only stare at Ade and then shake my stooped head. Any words spoken are colourful.
We penetrate down into the crevasse just before 2pm. The early wisps of cloud have turned into soup. Sahara desert becomes Arctic chill. I wrap up in my fleece jacket and hat.
Nature has not short changed us. The Icefall furnishes an epic finish. It calls for one last push, and once again the suspension of fear. We inch down and step along a narrow ridge with a bottomless fall on both sides. No one has to remind me to clip into the rope. We descend another ladder to the mini-crevasses, which this morning I’d have referred to as full-on crevasses. I try not to look into them. But while crossing, they lie in wait, if a little out of focus, in my field of vision. Below me lurks sinister blue ice. It disappears down and down, deep down into a dark, deathly, frozen nothingness.
I climb up the far side, with Angel just behind. The Icefall’s final demands are almost beyond me. I push myself up each laboured step, the snow only a foot from my face. The next mini-target is the final three ladder combo. I’ve seen mountaineers ascend it over the last twenty minutes; so, I know it’s well fastened to ice-screws and can be mastered.
Inside the Monster
I inch across the upper crevasse on a ladder. I think it is Martin who climbs over the lower crevasse. His ladder is anchored to a melting ice boulder, which appears to be balanced on the edge of the crevasse on this moving glacier.
“You go first,” Angel says. “I’ll make sure the others get through and then follow.”
My legs and arms quiver with tiredness. The thin air and heavy pack do not want me to see what lies beyond these rungs. The third ladder wobbles under my weight, but I place my trust in it. Going back is no longer an option. Spend several hours retreating to Base Camp? I wouldn’t make it. I have no choice. In Macbeth’s words: “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
I heave myself over the edge. I’ve made it through the Icefall. Slumped on the snow, I wheeze. A metre ahead of me, a narrow crevasse plunges down. It’s as if I’m atop a slim iceberg rather than a glacier. Drops surround me on all sides. On the far wing of that fissure the landscape levels off. My breathing slows. One by one the others haul themselves out of the beast.
We traversed some thirty ladders down there. Most crevasses were dispatched with a single ladder. The wider gaps required two bound together. We’ve toiled for eight and a half hours. This was never on the cards. When we met Angel, I thought we were near the top; we were only halfway.
“Let’s keep moving; it’s not safe here,” Angel says.
Freezing clouds envelop us. Visibility reduces to a few hundred metres. I strain my eyes to see the orange blobs that would mark Camp 1.
“Ade, can you see anything?” I point to the grey-white nothingness up ahead.
He has no answer. He just shakes his head. We must keep going. We put a first boot forward and follow Angel.
I can hold the slow pace that Angel sets, but it crucifies me. The minor slope works against us. I feel every step. We zigzag around crevasses. We press forward, but are still not far from the top of the Icefall. I only follow Angel because I’ve no alternative. No one has caught sight of Camp 1.
I’ve nothing left within me with which to keep going. But quitting is more than just not summiting. We’ve pushed high into the clouds at 6,000 metres. Base Camp lies far away behind us. A night of -20C encroaches. Somewhere up ahead wait tents where we can shelter and endure that night. I know what stopping entails. The survival book described how all techniques come second to the most important and basic: the will to live. That propels me to keep putting one foot in front of the next.
“March or die,” Ade says.
Maybe not as loquacious as Macbeth the general, but the ex-paratrooper’s words have summed up the situation better.
We reach another crevasse. We can’t walk around this one. Just to gain a few metres in distance, we must climb down into it, cross a ladder, and then ascend the far side. Several minutes of energy must be wasted to secure a handful of metres.
I’m almost numb to pain as I haul myself up the ladder on the far side. I think back to Linda’s description of the route a few days ago. Leaving aside the admiration I now have for that feat, I recall what she observed at the top. She travelled for a while beyond the Icefall. Then she estimated Camp 1 at another thirty minutes. That means it’s an hour from the crest of the Icefall to the tents, for a fit mountaineer.
Looking behind, Ade and Martin are slogging towards the crevasse. Matthew has dropped back further. Angel has taken it upon himself to ensure the four of us get to Camp 1, or at least are not alone if we don’t.
“Keep going!” he shouts over to me.
I cannot help anyone. It’ll be as much as I can do to drag myself to the finish. The fixed rope ends. I check my watch and altimeter. We’ve been on our feet over nine hours. At just over 6,000 metres, Camp 1 should be here somewhere. In every direction I see cloud.
The gradient almost levels. I can see ahead about a hundred metres. I follow what appear to be the footprints of previous climbers. If it was snowing on these tracks, I’d be lost in no time and playing Russian roulette with hidden crevasses. With a body and mind this tired and a blood stream struggling to get oxygen to my brain, I know it’ll be easy to stray off course. I pay special attention that I’m following recent imprints, but it’s far from obvious where I should aim.
I stare behind and perceive the shape of the next person in our team. When they disappear, I wait a minute for thinner cloud to breeze through so they’ve something to follow. There’s no point being useless to the lads.
We’ve slogged for over nine and a half hours. The altimeter puts me at 6,050 metres, a gain of seven hundred metres. It’s a massive gain for one day. That alone is putting a huge strain on my system. I concentrate on my left boot and then the right. I force myself forward. Based on everything I know and Linda’s estimate, the tents must be here. But to the left and right, I can make out nothing. I must plod on.
I see something in the mist. It’s not orange or yellow, but black. It must be related to Camp 1; there’s nothing else out here but snow. I head for it. As I get closer, it takes the shape of a human figure on a ridge. He’s not walking towards me or away from me. He’s just standing there. He’s tall.
“Fergus!” he roars.
It’s Pete. Good man, Pete. He knows there’s no rope on this section and the clouds have closed in. He stood out here to give us something to aim for.
“Pete!” I call back. “Camp 1?”
“This is it.”
This nightmare will soon be over.
I close the last fifty metres. A final effort to join him on the ridge ends my suffering. There were moments in the Icefall when I thought this challenge might be beyond me. There were times at the top when I thought life might be beyond me.
“We were giving up hope,” he says.
He looks fresh. He arrived hours ago and has long since got himself fed and watered. He points out camp. Down the ridge to the right, I see at least thirty tents in two neat rows, just as yellow and orange as I had imagined.
“What about the others?” he asks.
“Ade, Martin, and Matthew are back a bit. Angel’s bringing them in. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe a little longer to Matthew.”
“What about Doug?” Pete asks.
“Jesus, I haven’t seen him since we set off. I don’t know.”
We wait a few minutes. Several hundred metres back, a ghostly shape materialises through the clouds.
“Head in and get rested,” Pete says. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Thanks.”
I walk along the ridge to the tents. We’re pitched at the end of the line. As I pass the other teams, I see Hugo standing outside ours. Chin up, chest out I remind myself. We took much longer than this climb should have taken, all in all some ten hours. Hugo, as a guide, will observe our progress and look for weak links. He can’t have anyone on the mountain who’s a danger to themselves or others.
“Hi Hugo. All’s good up here?”
“What?” he says. “Yeah, all’s fine. What about you guys?”
“All good, little delay today.”
“And the others?” he asks.
“Just behind.”
“Ok,” he says. “You’re in a tent with Greg. The second last one, it’s just there. I’m in the one after it. Start boiling water. We’ll leave tomorrow at seven.”
I’ve not had a drink in about seven hours. My blood must be close to jelly.
“Sounds good. A drink would be nice. Later.”
I walk to what will be home for the next two days. I must stay upright while Hugo watches. How will I recover for tomorrow’s push to Camp 2? Three tents to go, two tents to go, this is the one. I peal the pack off my back and it drops on the snow. I could float away. Greg shoves his head out of the tent.
“Get in here, Fergus. I’ll take your pack. Where on earth were you guys?”
April 18
Camp 1 (6,050m)
Greg’s been here for hours. He has a litre of warm water ready for me and more on the boil.
“Get this into you.” He hands me a bottle.
This is not a sporting event where I can come off the field and put a bad game behind me. It’s more like the Tour de France. Tomorrow’s stage demands my attention. I must begin the recovery process. I gulp down half a litre and hope the water will start its magic. That’ll make a huge difference. If Greg wasn’t here, I’d have to go back out and fill a sack with snow. Then I’d have to spend forty minutes tending a stove, to get less than a litre of water.
“I’m in good shape,” he says. “I’ll look after the water for the day. Get yourself set-up.”
“Thanks man.”
There’s no obligation on Greg to do this. I hope I can return the favour later.
I’ll freeze if I stay slumped on the tent floor. It offers no insulation to the snow-covered glacier. Panting, I inflate my mat. It becomes plump in less than five minutes. I pull out the other gear I’ll need: the massive -40C sleeping bag, down jacket, head torch, water bottle, flask, food, hand sanitizer, a mug, and a fork. Kit lies everywhere in the three-man tent, but we organise ourselves with an imaginary line running through the middle.
“That’s the first bottle inside me,” I say.
“There’s another one on the way.”
Greg had been busy before my arrival. He’d walked out of camp to fill a bag with clean snow. Ice is better as it’s dense; snow melts down into nothing. Unfortunately there’s no ice near here. On returning, he’d set up the small stove in the vestibule, between the inner tent and the outer covering at the front. That area has no groundsheet. Its snowy base is perfect for storing wet equipment and firing up a gas canister on a level footing. If the pot had been anything other than even, it would have toppled once the water started to boil. He had to block all the gaps along the edge of the vestibule with boots and whatever gear came to hand; wind affects the flame and reduces the stove’s heating capacity.
“We’ll leave a little water in the bottom of the pot for the next boil,” Greg says. “If the snow sits directly on the base, it’ll burn.”
“Sounds like you’re on top of it.”
“I’ve had some practice today.”
The fluffy snow melts to a fraction of its initial size. He keeps adding lumps to the pot, for about fifteen minutes, till it’s full of melted water. Then he keeps an eye on it for another twenty as it comes to the boil. During the process, we cannot get in or out of the tent. Sudden movements near the vestibule are out of the question.
“Good stuff, it’s starting to boil,” he says. “We’ll give it another three minutes, kill bacteria.”
Greg pulls on gloves to hold the scalding pot that’s almost full to the brim.
“I wish this had a handle.” He picks it up by the rim in both hands.
I’m holding a water bottle in the vestibule as he fills it.
“Shit, that’s hot.” I let go as trickles of boiling water spill down my fingers.
We retry and manage to get most of the water into the container.
Through trial and error, we learn to dig a five centimetres deep hole in the snow, the same circumference as the bottle, and wedge it in. This eliminates the possibility of a dropped container. After a few boils we’ve to throw away the debris laden base water.
We need four litres
each per day to fight altitude sickness and keep our systems ticking over. Excluding what we drank this morning and on the ascent, we require nearly three litres each to rehydrate and get us through the night. As soon as Greg fills a bottle, I seal it, as if containing liquid gold. We enjoy a moment of relaxation and relief once it’s deposited to one side. Then the process restarts. He never shuts off the gas. Each boil renders about eight hundred mils of water in thirty minutes. Without liquid, there will be no summit. For me there would be no progress above here.
Even small movements within the tent strain me. After ten hours of punishment today, I’m in dire need of liquid, food, and rest.
Two sealed foil packages sit in a pot of water over the stove in the vestibule. These MRE’s (Meal Ready to Eat) form the basis of mountaineering and army rations. One of them has the words “BBQ Chicken” stamped on it. They start to bounce as the water comes to the boil.
“Give that chicken another few minutes,” I say. “Let’s hope it’s good.”
I last peed at 5am this morning. It’s now after 5pm, and nothing stirs downstairs. I must get hydrated to thin my blood. After today’s gain of seven hundred metres, I have to pee out the alkaline that’s poisoning my body. The measurements on the side of the bottles make it easy to record how much we’ve drunk. Greg will keep boiling until we’ve both got two litres inside us, and a full bottle for the night. It’s as well Greg is stepping up to the mark; if I went outside to collect snow, I’d be lucky to return.
Once I start peeing, my recovery will begin. After sunset, such a performance must take place inside the tent. Stepping out into -20C darkness would be asking for trouble. I’d have to put on clothes and boots that are close to -10C. Body heat and the warmth of the sleeping bag would be lost. A blast of icy air and perhaps snow would enter the tent. Instead, I’ll pee into a bottle that’s marked and kept for that purpose only. Some climbers place thick masking tape around such a container, so that even in the dark they’ll know by touch which to use. I’d a six hundred and fifty mil bottle for the function on Pumori. I discovered the hard way that my bladder is larger. I now possess a one litre vessel for the activity.