by Sandy Allan
Rangdu has a warm smile and a long fringe and is a sensitive man, not at all macho. Most importantly, he has that sound balance of judgement you only find in the best. Lakpa Zarok has a longer face than Rangdu, and a toothy smile. He is happily married to a wonderful Sherpani, Pasang Limey Sherpa, who hails from Namche Bazaar, the Sherpa capital. ‘Zarok’ is actually a nickname, being a small village situated between Namche Bazaar and Khunde where there is an experimental yak-breeding farm. Between expeditions he spends much of his life with his wife looking after their trekking shop in Namche. Like many Sherpas, the hard and risky work on expeditions can bring in relatively high wages, allowing their children to attend private schools in Kathmandu while their parents spend a lot of time travelling back and forth between Namche Bazaar and the Nepalese capital.
Zarok and Rangdu have become good friends, working with me on several of my commercial Himalayan guided expeditions. We’ve pulled off some good ascents with our clients. Both men are very strong, but Lhakpa Rangdu’s leadership and his understanding of Western psychology are very shrewd, acquired over many years working as a sirdar, or lead Sherpa. He climbs well and has travelled widely. Like many Sherpas, he started his career as a humble cook boy, working his way up to cook before eventually becoming a climbing Sherpa and then, thanks to his management skills, responsible for the running of expeditions. As he climbs technically very well he has been accepted to become an IFMGA mountain guide and as I write this he is diligently working towards becoming fully qualified.
Rangdu has reached the top of Everest nine times, as well as the summits of other 8,000-metre peaks in Nepal, like Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga, Manaslu and Lhotse. Zarok had climbed Everest seven times, as well as Cho Oyu and Kangchenjunga. Even though Zarok and Rangdu are outstanding high-altitude workers, lugging clients’ gear up and down the slopes of the normal route on Mount Everest, they also try to get work on more exciting adventures. In 2009, three years before our trip to Nanga Parbat, Rangdu and Zarok had worked for me guiding a client called Becky Bellworthy to the summit of Baruntse, where she became the youngest person to climb that peak. (She also climbed Everest in 2012, after recovering from a stroke she suffered there in 2011.) It was on that Baruntse trip that I really began to think that these two Sherpas were truly exceptional and that they would be great partners to have on a big new climb like the Mazeno. I showed them some photos I had on my laptop and asked them both to visit Ang Phurba – the same Ang Phurba who had accompanied Doug Scott on his first exploration attempt on the Mazeno back in 1992. He had also been an important member of Chris Bonington’s Sherpa team on the south-west face of Everest in 1975.
I knew Ang Phurba would advise them well. On another expedition we had spent a lot of time together shooting the breeze, drinking tea at his family house in Khunde and their other teahouse at Sanasa, a small hamlet on the main Everest Base Camp trekking route. Although Rangdu lived mainly in Kathmandu, he spent a lot of his time in the Khunde area, where Zarok lived in the adjacent village. I told them both to get Ang Phurba to explain in their own language about Pakistan and how long and difficult the climb would be. I asked them to think hard about the Mazeno as it was such a serious undertaking. I wanted the two Lhakpas to fully understand as much as they could about the climb and what it involved. Given the problems of finding the right people, it was still more or less a pipe dream in my own head – although I knew that, eventually, I would be going back to attempt the Mazeno again.
I suppose to other climbers peering in at our expedition it was a strange decision. Why would I want Sherpas when there are so many Western climbers? Perhaps some people don’t understand that some Sherpas are more than capable of doing a climb like this. They assume Sherpas are all about carrying bags for other people. That view of the Sherpas is very outdated now, with so many training to become qualified IFMGA guides. On commercial expeditions Zarok and Rangdu routinely work out in front fixing ropes or supporting other lead Sherpas. The number of Western climbers strong enough to do this sort of work, fixing rope and breaking trail while carrying heavy loads, is fairly small. As we get older and our strength diminishes, we have learned to trust the really good Sherpas to get on with it and they do an exemplary job by themselves.
Some Western clients don’t give sufficient credit to climbing Sherpas. They sometimes give the impression on their websites or in expedition reports that it is they themselves who lead the trip. Plenty of well-known Western leaders and clients benefit from the Sherpas’ hard work but fail to mention it in their dispatches back home. But as mountain guides taking clients to the higher peaks most years, ours and many others’ expeditions would have little success at all if it were not for the Sherpas. They are truly exceptional. When I was younger, and once I was acclimatised, I could just about keep up with the Sherpas. They would sometimes call me Sherpa Sandy, which I took as a huge compliment. But even back then I was glad to get a heavy pack off my back and grab a quick rest, or to take it easy by following in the footsteps of a Sherpa when the chance arose.
The Sherpas do this too, taking care of each other, leading for a while and then letting someone else take over. They have good systems of leadership and teamwork – much of it unspoken. The younger ones defer to the experience and wisdom of older Sherpas. I feel so lucky to have witnessed this system of apprenticeship and sense of brotherhood. As I have grown older I find it harder and harder to be out in front. When climbing in pure alpine style it’s necessary, but progress can be achingly slow when the snow is unconsolidated and you have to break trail. Friends like Russell Brice, an amazing climber in his own right and one of the best Western operators on Everest, says the same. We can keep up for a bit, but doing it day after day like the Sherpas is no longer possible.
Rangdu was delighted when I invited him to Nanga Parbat and Zarok also seemed excited and pleased. When Cathy committed to the expedition, helping us to secure the necessary funding, we had the resources to pay the Sherpas’ expenses. I also sent an email to Chowang at Arun Treks seeking a third Sherpa. He recommended Nuru, and I was really pleased with the suggestion. Although I hadn’t climbed with him we had seen each other on the same big hills. Lhakpa Nuru, with his cool glasses and spiky hair, had also summited Everest nine times and his uncle is Ang Phurba, who offered such good advice to Rangdu and Zarok.
It should be clear now that finding the right Western climbers hadn’t been that easy. The thought of carrying the weight of supplies required, for eight or ten days and up and over eight 7,000-metre peaks, just to get part way along a ridge, was a big disincentive. They knew the chances of success were incredibly thin. So, with all the usual human complications, the newly born babies, the happy marriages and so on, committing to such a vast enterprise was daunting. Me, I was happily divorced, my daughters were adults and while work was fine, there wasn’t much to stop me. I had the time and the inclination. I also knew I had enough control over my own emotions to make the right decisions. The thought of actually losing my life on this route never even entered my head.
If Rick and I can help support the Sherpas, I thought to myself, sitting in the bus, and we all get through to the Mazeno Gap, then surely Rangdu and Zarok will still have the energy to go on to the top. Cathy was just in front of me, her long, freshly washed hair catching the sunlight. I knew she’d be strong on the hill and having a sound female influence in the team could only be good. I was so glad she was here. Years before we had climbed together on Lhotse West above the Western Cwm and since then we have run into each other in interesting cafes from South Africa to remotest Tibet. Cathy’s contribution to finding sponsors had made this expedition possible. She would be running the expedition’s website and online social networking, and had bought all sorts of battery-hungry communications equipment to meet these needs.
In planning the expedition, she had said a few times there was no way that she would even get to the summit pyramid and would probably have to turn back. That was the reason I had
decided to invite a third Sherpa, to take her down safely. I explained to her that Rick and I would push hard and not go down until we got to the Mazeno Gap, on the basis it was safe to do so. She understood we would want to make the most of our attempt and not waste the effort and resources we’d put into getting us up there. The level of commitment was incredibly high, and we couldn’t lose sight of the main objective just because one of us got exhausted or disenchanted with the idea. If Cathy, or any one of us, had to turn back then we would have to go down with a Sherpa. That was a given.
Even so, I had no doubt at all that Cathy would get high on the ridge. I liked her energy and I knew her strength, her determination and her intelligence. Over the years Cathy has been caught up in a lot of controversy, little of it her fault. She had climbed Everest in 1996 during that famous, tragic season captured in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air. She had been part of that first South African Everest expedition, which had the backing of Nelson Mandela. Cathy was still feeling her way as a climber back then, but the team had included some of South Africa’s best-known climbers and mountaineers. They had fallen out with the leader, Ian Woodall, and taken their toys home, assuming that the inexperienced Cathy would soon give up. She didn’t, and both she and Ian reached the summit, although a third team-member who also reached the top, the British photographer Bruce Herrod, died while descending. Cathy and Ian later climbed Everest from the north, Cathy becoming the first woman to summit the peak from both sides. She and Woodall had been married but were now separated; Cathy I think was still feeling bruised by their separation and Nanga Parbat would be a welcome distraction. In all the years I’d known her, Cathy had shown commitment in the mountains and incredible determination.
Of course we would miss anyone who had to go down, but as a high-altitude climber you have to be a chess player. Years of working in extreme environments, whether in remote mountain areas or on the North Sea, have taught me something: to keep plans very simple and avoid building in complexity – that way I can react quickly to whatever happens. We were all equals on the Mazeno; the Sherpas were climbers in their own right. It was not their role only to carry and support us and they would certainly have the strength to keep going if Rick or I became exhausted on the ridge.
I didn’t much care whoever got to the summit, only that some of us did. That was my goal. We would all look after one another and do everything possible to support the stronger climbers and then get down safely when the time came. Each of us would be climbing for the others, six people with one mind, with the primary aim of getting as many of us as possible to the Mazeno Gap so that maybe, just maybe, there would be enough supplies to give some of us the energy to continue to the summit.
1. Getting Higher: The complete mountain poems (Polygon, 2011).[back]
– Chapter 2 –
Mentors
Driving through the Pakistani countryside, I rested my head on the window and thought of all the people who, over the years, had got me here. Mal Duff had been there at the start of it all. He was part of the reason I was on this bus now. I remembered waiting for another ride, from London’s Victoria station to Chamonix for one of Mal’s legendary climbing courses. He had sent me joining instructions through the post, because that’s how things were done in the 1970s. We were to make our own way to London and meet at an appointed hour under Victoria’s huge departures board. Mal would gather up his latest recruits and we’d all drive off together – only it didn’t work out that way.
As a nineteen-year-old lad, I was looking forward to my first season in the Alps. I’d learned the basics of rock climbing near my home in the Cairngorms. I had spent long evenings poring over books by famous climbers, from Albert Frederick Mummery and Edward Whymper to Gaston Rébuffat and Lionel Terray. My biggest inspiration, as a Scot, was the Edinburgh climber Dougal Haston who, in 1966, had climbed a new route on the north face of the Eiger after John Harlin had fallen to his death. Then, in 1975, Haston survived an unplanned bivvy above 8,000 metres on the south-west face of Everest with Doug Scott. I knew that both of them had climbed with a fellow called Chris Bonington, who seemed good at getting media attention and had written a book called I Chose to Climb, which was open and honest, inspiring and quite different to other mountaineering books of that time. Doug, who looked a bit like John Lennon, and Dougal were all over the news thanks to their success on Everest. Their mountaineering achievements inspired a generation – my generation.
So I found myself walking across the concourse at Victoria where a number of other youths waited for Mal under the departures board. We introduced ourselves, sniffing round each other in the way that young men do, trying not to appear like we cared, but caring a great deal. They seemed far more streetwise than me. Some had sprouted immature beards and had grown up in the city. I felt very much the country bumpkin. This was my first adventure away from home. Even the train down to London had been a novel experience. The only other train I’d been on was the small puffer we had at Balmenach Distillery, where my father worked.
The engine was owned and maintained by the distillery and ran down to the main line at Cromdale where it would pick up wagons left in a siding. The little engine would hitch up the big wagons, loaded with tons of coal or barley, and pull them back up to the distillery, where they were unloaded by men with shovels. The barley was turned to malt, a vital ingredient for the final amber spirit; the coal powered it all. With my twin brother Gregor and younger sister Eunice, I’d hitch rides on the train to visit the local shop and play with other kids.
Balmenach is an excellent whisky, a ‘single malt’ that without doubt is one of the very best from Speyside. Not only was my dad a distiller, so was his father before him and almost all my uncles on that side of the family. My mother was from farming stock and we have many relations who own large parts of the Black Isle and drive those big green John Deere tractors that delay motorists driving along the A9.
When Greg and I were born, our parents were running the distillery at Dalwhinnie, in a wonderfully isolated spot in the Cairngorms often mentioned on the news as the coldest place in Britain. My dad had driven Mum to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness when we arrived on 8 September, with me emerging fifteen minutes ahead of my brother. We have been good buddies since birth and have an uncanny connection to each other. To this day, one of us can pick up the phone to call the other and be connected without the phone ringing at the other end of the line. We have even gone out to buy ourselves the same new car – the exact same model, same colour and everything – without even hinting to the other that we were buying a new vehicle.
Greg now lives in the Channel Islands. He doesn’t climb but the bond we have gives me fantastic strength. He left school with ambitions to become a chartered accountant while I wanted to be a shepherd and whisky distiller. He now runs his own company advising large investment houses and multinational companies, and sits on the boards of huge financial institutions giving expensive and apparently sound advice. I am a shepherd in a way, shepherding people in the mountains, rather than sheep. We each have two daughters and all are the best of friends.
So there I was, a naive Highland laddie, standing in Victoria station daring to speak to these cosmopolitan youths apparently accustomed to crowds and swearing broadly, something I’d not heard at home. British Rail staff, many of them Afro-Caribbean, moved around us, the first black people I’d seen who weren’t on television. My Karrimor ‘Haston Alpiniste’ rucksack showed the wear and tear from years of Munro-bagging and other adventures in the Scottish Highlands, but otherwise I felt I was the novice of the party.
Hours later an older man with a proper beard approached us. He was quite skinny and had a fine, clear Edinburgh accent – Mal Duff. As he talked his arms waved. Our vehicle, supposed to transport us to Chamonix, had broken down. There were apologies galore. We were to board a train, pay for it ourselves, go to Dover, catch a ferry and then continue to Paris, where we would transfer by Metro t
o another station on the other side of Paris and catch another train to Saint-Gervais and so eventually on to Chamonix. He had no idea what trains to catch, which platforms they left from or a single clue about times. He winged it all the way, something I quickly learned was typical of Mal.
It was a mad but exciting rush between platforms, all of us running after him like chicks, bent double under our huge rucksacks. I was totally exhausted, having not slept since leaving Scotland, and I kept falling asleep, sitting on train floors since the seats always seemed to be occupied. Eventually, starving and bedraggled, we all tumbled out on to the platform in Chamonix to be told that it was only a mile or so to walk – in blazing sunshine – to the campsite.
This, it turned out, was on the wonderfully infamous Snell’s Field on the outskirts of Chamonix. The place is a legend in Alpine-climbing tales, a wild camping area in more ways than one and still home to a famous boulder called the Pierre d’Orthaz. (We all thought it was named after some guy called Pierre, maybe the guy who owned the field.) Mal had a team of illustrious British climbers working for him, none of whom were qualified guides, at least not then. There were tents pitched haphazardly and a kitchen area with gas stoves, pans and a water butt. We were given a quick introduction to the camping area, our tents and sleeping places, and were handed mugs of hot tea with a sachet of powdered milk.