by Dan Simmons
“Can’t be the oxygen sets,” said the Deacon glumly. “You remember that Finch will be sending those straight from Zurich to the ship for loading.”
It grew dark. Our dinner had consisted of freezing—literally freezing; there were ice crystals in them—sandwiches we’d packed in a now mostly snow-filled hamper and a thermos flask of hot soup that had lost all of its heat somewhere around when we did, ten hours earlier in the northwest suburbs of London.
The snow continued to fall. The Vauxhall’s flickering headlights put out almost as much light as two sputtering candles. No matter; there was no one else idiotic enough to be out on these roads this night anyway. Perhaps the full moon that Jean-Claude wanted had risen while we drove on. We’d never know. The world was a whirling white mass through which Jean-Claude drove firmly ever onward, blinking unmelting snowflakes out of his eyes as he squinted into the white-darkness ahead.
“We’re going to Mount Snowdon,” said the Deacon. His pipe would no longer stay lit in the gale blowing through the flapping sides and roof and window panels.
“Non,” said Jean-Claude grimly. The last time I’d seen his smile had been somewhere just after Birmingham.
We didn’t get to his destination that night. The first of two tire punctures that we were to enjoy during the trip made sure of that. Luckily, Dick Summers had had the foresight to have two workable spares lashed to the Vauxhall’s left-rear running board. (I could get in and out of my rear seat only on the right side.) Less luckily, the jack and other tools needed to change the spare in the roaring blizzard—we had broken down in mid-road, so if a lorry or other vehicle came barreling out of the snowy darkness, it was all over for all of us (we didn’t even have a flashlight—or “torch,” as the Deacon called it—to carry down the road to warn other cars, nor even a candle, much less a road flare)—we finally realized must be buried in the tiny boot of the huge Vauxhall. And the boot was locked. And the ignition key would not open it.
We wove a tapestry of obscenities so thick that night I’m certain that it’s still floating somewhere near the England-Wales border.
Finally one of us thought of merely banging the hinged boot cover, hard, thinking that perhaps it was merely frozen closed rather than locked, and the tiny flap of metal swung up as easily as you please, revealing a jack, tire iron, and so forth that looked to have been made for an automobile a fifth the size of the hulking Vauxhall.
No matter. We had the tire changed in under ninety minutes.
We spent the night in an overpriced and not very clean local hostelry in a place called Cerrigydrudion. We arrived too late for the warm food they’d served earlier, and the owner wouldn’t open the kitchen to allow us to forage. The public room did have a fireplace, and although the owner, on his way to bed, stepped forward as if to tell us not to put any more coal on the fire, one glance at the glares from all three of us froze him in his tracks.
We stayed by the tiny fire until midnight, trying to thaw out. Then we dragged ourselves to tiny, strange-smelling rooms that were almost as cold as the Vauxhall had been. We’d brought our best down sleeping bags—after J.C. had told us that we’d be camping out this Saturday night—but the cold and evil smell of the tiny cells was too much, and somewhere around three a.m. I pulled on more outer layers of clothing and trudged back out to see if I could get the fire relit.
There was no need. J.C. and the Deacon had got there before me, had the tiny coal fire burning brightly, and were both snoring as they lay in contorted positions sprawled in and across two wing chairs. There was a third ancient wing chair in the room. I dragged it over—the screech waking neither of my climbing partners—got it as close to the little fire as I could, pulled the down bag over me like a comforter, and slept soundly until the inn’s host rousted us out of our happy nests at six in the morning.
That Sunday, January 25, 1925, was one of the most beautiful days in my life, albeit at the tender age of 22, when so much of my life still lay ahead. But to be honest, none of my “most beautiful days” in the almost seven decades since have been shared with anyone quite the way I shared that day—and then more such days and moments during the following months—with my friends and brothers of the rope, Jean-Claude Clairoux and Richard Davis Deacon.
There was deep snow everywhere, but the day was blue-skied and sunny. Perhaps the sunniest day I remember during my time in England, with the possible exception of that perfect summer one when we visited Lady Bromley. It was still very cold—at least ten degrees below freezing—so the snow wasn’t melting, but the huge Vauxhall, with its powerful engine and gigantic, strangely knobbed tires, was in its element. Even on the provincial Welsh roads where no other vehicles had traveled that morning, we barreled along at a comfortable and safe thirty miles per hour.
After only a few miles, we all realized that we couldn’t stand being entombed in the top-up Vauxhall again, so we stopped the car in the middle of the empty, blindingly white road—our two tracks behind us disappearing over the last pass like black railroad tracks in a domed white world—and we deconstructed the ragtop’s rag top, storing pop-off windows, canvas sides, and the rest on the floor next to J.C.’s huge bags riding next to me.
We’d each pulled on our five layers of wool, then the personal-use eiderdown balloon-fabric parkas we’d brought back in our Gladstone bags from Mr. Finch’s Zurich, and finally the Shackleton-Burberry anoraks. J.C. and I also donned our leather flying or motorcycle helmets and face masks, complete with Crooke’s glass antiglare goggles.
I wish to this day that someone had been there to take a photo of us as we passed by all that Mount Snowdon–area emptiness. We must have looked like Mr. Wells’s Martian invaders.
But it turned out that our destination—Jean-Claude’s secret destination—was not the frequently-climbed-in-winter Mount Snowdon or George Mallory’s Pen-y-Pass slabs where we’d rock-climbed the previous autumn; our destination, reached mid-morning that January Sunday, was the lake Llyn Idwal and its surrounding moraines, roches moutonnées (Jean-Claude’s description but familiar to me from our many alpine climbs during the previous year), brilliant striations in the cliff sides, wild moraines and scree slopes, erratics (boulders brought there by long-gone glaciers and left sitting on the rocky flatlands like huge hurling stones forgotten by a race of giants), and exposed deep-rock strata on vertical faces and slabs and slopes everywhere around us. The Llyn—the lake, frozen then—was surrounded by hard-rock verticality. J.C. pointed out the high peaks of Y Glyder Fawr and Y Garn as we got out of the car and stretched our legs in the snow. Jean-Claude and I were wearing waxed-cotton gaiters to keep our high socks dry. The Deacon, also in knickerbockers, wore old-fashioned puttees—though of the finest cashmere—and looked like the rather fussy-looking British climbers in the photos of the ’21, ’22, and ’24 Everest expeditions. Also, with his khaki knickerbockers and khaki wool shirt visible through the opening of his unbuttoned balloon coat, the Deacon looked like the military man—Captain—he’d been during the Great War.
There was something almost disturbing in seeing the Deacon in brown and khaki and high puttees like that. If it brought back harsh memories of the War to him, he certainly didn’t show it as he got out of the big car, stretched, craned his head back to look at the surrounding peaks and icefalls, and then got his pipe out of his tatty old wool-jacket pocket and proceeded to light it up. I remember that the smell of his tobacco in the cold air was like a powerful drug.
I was worried that it would be another two-hour hike to our climbing spot—as with Mallory’s damned pipe-ledge rock—but Jean-Claude had parked the gigantic Vauxhall only a hundred yards or so from his true destination.
He’d been after vertical summer waterfalls that had turned to icefalls; he’d been after 200-foot walls of ice over rock that ended in daunting ice-over-rock-slab overhangs. He’d found them. Frozen waterfalls and spectacular icefalls filled the entire valley at this far end of the mostly frozen Llyn Idwal and under the cliffs of Cwm Idwal. We
lugged the heavy bags to the base of one of the largest, steepest, and most overhanging-at-the-top vertical icefalls, where he dumped his load in the snow and waved for us to do the same. And then he began to explain something that would change alpine and Himalayan climbing forever.
“First you must change into the new boots Messrs. Fagg created for us,” said Jean-Claude. He pulled two pairs of the stiff boots from one of the heavy canvas bags. J.C. was already wearing his.
The Deacon and I grumbled but found separate boulders to sit on while we took off our comfortable and broken-in new alpine boots and tugged on the ridiculous stiff ones. We’d tried walking in these new things in London, and they were hideously uncomfortable. (The Laplander high-and-fuzzy felt-and-leather boots were best—like walking in knee-high, extra-warm Indian moccasins. Unfortunately, the rocks and boulders we’d be walking on in Tibet, usually while carrying heavy packs, on the 350-mile hike in to Everest would bruise the soles of our feet too much if we wore the fuzzy boots all the time. But they’d be perfect as in-camp boots.)
The Deacon and I took a few clumsy steps in the full-shank “stiff boots,” frowned at each other, and scowled at Jean-Claude. Those stupid boots had almost no flex at all. They’d never break in to become comfortable hiking or climbing shoes.
J.C. did not seem daunted by our glares. Also, he was too busy removing a host of metal and metal-and-wood items from his three heavy bags of tricks. “What are these?” J.C. asked us, holding up two old crampons I’d seen him use many times.
“Crampons?” I said, hating the schoolboy rise in my voice at the end. “Crampons,” I repeated more firmly.
“And what are they used for?” he continued in his schoolmarmish, only slightly French accent.
“Crossing glaciers,” I said even more firmly. “Sometimes going up snow slopes—if they’re not too steep.”
“How many points does each have?”
“Points?” I said stupidly.
“Spikes on the bottom,” said the Deacon. He was fumbling with his damned pipe again. I wanted to hit him with one of the four-foot-long icicles dangling from the lower part of the icefall ahead of us.
“Ten points,” I said. I’d had to envision my crampons at home and mentally count the spikes. Stupid. I’d used them since I was a teenager. “Ten.”
“Why don’t we use them more while climbing?” asked Jean-Claude. “Why won’t we use them high on Mount Everest?” His soft, innocent voice sounded treacherous to me. There was some trap here. I looked at the Deacon, but he was suddenly very busy getting his pipe relit.
“Because the damned things are no good on rock,” I said at last. I was losing patience with this dunce-schoolboy role.
“Is everything underfoot high on Everest rock?”
I actually sighed. “No, Jean-Claude, not everything underfoot high on Everest is rock, but enough is. We can use crampons for the occasional snowfield, if it’s not too steep. But hobnailed boots are better. More grip. More traction. The North Face of Everest, and most of the North East and East ridges, according to the Alpine Club’s reports and what the nineteen twenty-four expedition high-climbers say, consists mostly of downward-tilting rock slabs—like slate shingles on a steep roof. A very steep roof.”
“So crampons would be inadvisable there?”
I had a geometry teacher in prep school who used to lead class instruction and discussions in that tone. I hated him as well.
“Very inadvisable,” I said. “It’d be like walking on steel stilts.” That hadn’t been easy to say clearly.
Jean-Claude nodded slowly as if finally coming to a basic understanding of Himalayan and high-alpine climbing. “And what about Norton’s Couloir?”
“Norton’s Couloir” was what climbers were now calling the great slab-and-snow-filled gully that runs straight up the central North Face of Everest to the Summit Pyramid. A year earlier, Edward Norton and Howard Somervell—Norton in the unroped lead—had blazed a route off the East Ridge onto the North Face above the so-called Yellow Band of rock above 28,000 feet. Norton, with Somervell not feeling well and trailing far behind, had reached the great snowy gully and tried to fight his way almost vertically up the couloir. But the snow was almost waist deep. And where it wasn’t, the downward-tilting slabs were covered with ice. Norton finally began to realize how precarious his position was—one glance under his sliding feet showed a direct drop to the Rongbuk Glacier some 8,000 feet below—and he was forced to end his summit attempt, descending very slowly to Somervell and asking in a shaky voice if they could rope up. (This sudden loss of nerve after daring attempts, in climbs with terrible exposure, wasn’t uncommon, even in the Alps. It was as if the brain, suddenly clicking on a survival instinct, finally overrode the adrenaline and ambition of even the most courageous climber. Those who didn’t heed this “loss of nerve” in truly dangerous situations—such as George Mallory—often didn’t return from climbs.)
Norton’s couloir effort had been an astounding attempt. A new altitude record of 28,126 feet—surpassed, if it all, only by Mallory and Irvine on their fatal final attempt along the windy North East Ridge.
But most would-be Everest climbers had written off Norton’s Couloir as impossible. Too steep. Too much loose snow. Too much vertical climb. Too serious a penalty for a single slip after too many hours at too high and cold a place under the most extreme exertion possible.
“Why not use crampons to climb Norton’s Couloir?” asked Jean-Claude. “Or even along the steep snow ramps above twenty-seven thousand feet on the East Ridge or North East Ridge, where only Mallory and Irvine have gone?”
The end of that sentence chilled me. But then, I’d taken off the Finch balloon coat and a cold breeze was coming down Cwm Idwal and across Llyn Idwal.
“Crampons don’t work on a snowfield as steep as Norton’s Couloir,” I said irritably. “Or even on the high-ridge snowfields below where they established high camp at around twenty-seven thousand feet.”
“Why not?” asked Jean-Claude with that maddening Gallic smugness.
“Because human feet and ankles don’t bend that way, God damn it!” I said loudly. “And because crampons can’t keep a grip on steep snow slopes when the climber’s weight isn’t above them, bearing down on them. You know that, J.C.!”
“Yes, I know that, Jake,” he said, dropping his old crampons onto the snow.
“I think our friend has something to show us,” said the Deacon. His pipe was puffing along well now, and he spoke through gritted teeth.
Jean-Claude smiled, bent to his big bag, and pulled out a single, shiningly new metal crampon. It took me a few seconds to see the difference.
“It has front spikes…points,” I said at last. “Like horns.”
“Twelve-point crampons,” said Jean-Claude, his tone brisk and businesslike now. “The German ice climbers were talking about them. I had my father design and manufacture them.”
We all knew that Jean-Claude’s father had gone from being a blacksmith to running one of the biggest metal-pouring and forming companies in all of France, certainly in Chamonix. M. Clairoux Sr.’s business had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to French government (and some British and one American) contracts during the Great War. Now they produced everything from specialized steel pipelines to dental instruments.
“That looks dangerous,” I said.
“It is,” said Jean-Claude. “To the mountain that does not want to be climbed.”
“I think I understand,” said the Deacon, stepping forward to take the scary-looking 12-point crampon in his hand. “You kick these points in, put your weight on the solid, almost unbending shank of your new stiff boots, and use it as a platform. Even—theoretically—on near-vertical ice.”
“Oui,” said Jean-Claude. “But not just on ‘near-vertical,’ my friend. On sheer vertical. And worse than vertical. I have tested them in France. We shall test them here today.”
I confess that my heart started pounding rapidly. I’ve never enjoyed ice cl
imbing. I hate surfaces where my boots can’t get a grip, however tenuous. J.C.’s “we shall test them here today” made my cold skin go clammy.
“There is more,” said Jean-Claude. “Show me your ice axes, my friends.”
We’d brought ours with us, of course. I pulled mine out of the snow and set it in front of me: long wood shaft and metal adze and pick on top. The Deacon retrieved his ice axe from the snow and leaned on it.
“How long is your ice axe, Jake?” asked J.C.
“Thirty-eight inches. I like that shorter length for cutting steps on a steep slope.”
“And yours, Richard?” Ree-shard.
“Forty-eight inches. It’s old-fashioned, I know. But so am I.”
Jean-Claude merely nodded. Then he reached into the bulging bag in the snow and brought out a series of “ice axes” that weren’t ice axes at all. The longest couldn’t have been much more than 20 inches or so in length. They were hammers, for God’s sake. Only with different adzes and picks atop each wooden or…dear Christ…steel shaft.
J.C.’s daddy had been busy at his steel-fitting plant.
“Your designs?” asked the Deacon, hefting one of these absurd hammer-things.
J.C. shrugged. “Based on what the Germans have been doing this year—you two told me so yourselves after you returned from Munich last November. So I climbed icy routes with them in Chamonix in December—with some young Germans, that is—saw their new techniques, used some of their new equipment. Then I made my own variations at l’usine de mon père to improve what they had.”
“Those aren’t ice axes!” I was almost spluttering.
“No?”
“No,” I said. “You couldn’t hike with any of those, couldn’t lean on them, couldn’t even cut ice steps on a steep slope.”
Jean-Claude held up one finger. “Au contraire,” he said softly, lifting one of the five short axe-hammer-things he’d left lying on the canvas bag. The one he was holding up looked most like a regular ice axe—wood shaft and all—but like a real ice axe that had been left out in the rain and shrunk by two-thirds. But instead of there being an adze on one side, as our ice axes had, the short end was as blunt as a hammer. It was a hammer.