Quest for Adventure

by Chris Bonington

  It took them another two weary hours to hack out a platform, pitch the tent and get a brew on. They were both frost-nipped, chilled to the bone and ravenously hungry and thirsty. Neither of them in their long and challenging climbing careers had encountered a day like this. They were undoubtedly lucky to be alive.

  Next morning they decided to take a day off – they didn’t have much choice; they were so debilitated. They didn’t talk much. Brendan was a self-contained person, good to climb with, considerate and yet someone who was difficult to get to know.

  Meanwhile, the others also set out. Mick and Steve had been surprised at the slowness of Andy and Brendan as they watched them from Advance Base, but once they started climbing on 25 May they discovered why. They made no better headway each day and suffered the same restricted bivvy ledges, but they were better placed on the afternoon of the storm that had hammered Andy and Brendan, being at the second bivouac in plenty of time to get into the shelter of their tent. Roger and Julie-Ann fared less well. They had set out on their independent line to the left on the day of the storm and, caught on steep ground, were forced into a standing bivouac, with their tent draped over them. It was a long bitterly cold and very uncomfortable night. It says something for their determination that they all kept going.

  On 28 May, after a day lying in their tent drinking hot brews and eating, Brendan and Andy felt better. Brendan led three hard pitches but again there was no sign of a good bivvy ledge, so they abseiled back down to the previous night’s campsite, leaving their ropes in position. This led to a complication since Mick and Steve, who had been using the same bivvy sites, but had not taken a day off, now caught them up. Mick and Steve had mixed feelings. While they got on well with Andy and Brendan, they also believed in travelling as fast as possible with the freedom to stop where and when they liked. On terrain like this good bivouac sites were at a premium and whoever was in the second party would have second choice.

  They discussed what to do and decided, at least on a temporary basis, to join forces. Andy and Brendan would stay out in front, take Steve and Mick’s ropes and push the route, then the second pair could pick up the two fixed lines to use for their ascent. Since each party still had their own protection gear and slings, they could easily revert to climbing independently. Another factor was that Brendan and Andy were on their sixth day and had only brought eight days’ food, while the other pair were not only just on their fourth day, but found they had a surprise surplus of mashed potato. This particular brand went further than any other they had used before, giving about six times the finished bulk, which meant they would have more than enough to feed all four members of the team.

  That morning, day seven for Andy and Brendan, it took a long time to jumar up the ropes and they only started climbing at around midday. There had been ominous streaks of high cloud at dawn and the weather looked as if it was going to close in even earlier than usual. Mick and Steve delayed their departure, even enjoying the lie in. The climbing up above looked hard and was obviously going to take a long time. There didn’t seem much chance of getting one good bivvy ledge, let alone two, so they decided to stay where they were for the day and night and to follow on independently the next day.

  It was inevitable that Andy and Brendan were going to dislodge blocks of ice as they hacked their way up, but Mick and Steve hoped that they were out of the line of fire, ensconced on the crest of a little snow arête. They were soon disillusioned. A roaring whirr signalled something much more solid than an ice block and a rock tore through the wall of the tent to miss Steve’s head by five centimetres. They screamed up at the others and spent the rest of the day wearing their crash helmets, cowering as close to the back wall as they could. Two more blocks of ice tore holes in the tent and the spindrift poured in covering their sleeping bags, mats and everything. They even discussed retreat, worried by the damage to the tent and the prospect of their being in the firing line for the rest of the climb but neither Steve nor Mick retreats easily. They decided to keep going.

  It had been Brendan who had dislodged the rock and he felt terrible, but there was nothing he could do about it. The ice was hard and brittle, breaking off into blocks as they swung in their tools. Andy led the next pitch, probably the hardest and most elegant on the entire climb, up a thin and intermittent smear of ice plastered on smooth almost holdless granite. Pitch followed Fitch, all of them formidable, up the iced groove line, seemingly the only way up this vast wall of granite with its huge corners roofed by massive overhangs and tenuous cracks that petered out. It was like El Capitan at altitude, but much bigger, with ice and snow. There were no forest glades, winding roads and Camp 4 in the valley below – just the crevasse-seamed glacier and empty snow peaks.

  But Andy and Brendan were beginning to revel in their isolation and the unrelenting quality of the climbing. They were getting ever closer to the top of this huge wall. Two more bivouacs, the first on the narrowest ledge yet, more difficult and committing climbing, and at last they reached a steep snow-plastered slab which led to a cornice. They cut through and were standing on the crest of the ridge that we had climbed back in 1974, which finally led to the summit of Changabang.

  It was nearly dark and they hacked out a platform from a mushroom of snow. Next morning dawned cloudy and it was snowing by eight. They decided to sit the weather out. Andy had quite forgotten that it was his birthday. Brendan had not and produced six Snickers bars which he had stored away. They shared them and settled down to a day of hungry rest, feeling a deep sense of contentment at having fought through the eight days they had spent on that huge face in such appalling conditions. Andy wrote: ‘We had grown close on the climb and had become like an eccentric couple. We knew what soup or type of tea the other preferred, knew each other’s aspirations and fears. Philosophising high on that twisting corniced ridge seemed a luxury after the grinding face.’

  They finished their food at their evening meal, but were looking forward to Mick and Steve’s arrival and to sharing their mashed potato surplus. Next morning they started up the ridge in a clear dawn. It was a delight to be on comparatively easy ground, though it was narrow and corniced. They were travelling light but felt weak from lack of food as the cloud rolled in and it took them an hour to wade through deep snow between the two horns of Changabang’s summit to reach the top. Then, as if the gods wanted to give them a reward, the cloud cleared away and they gazed at the magnificent twin peaks of Nanda Devi rising out of the mist-filled Sanctuary. But it was time to descend and they had a long way to go. They heard a shout and could just discern the figure of Steve Sustad as he came up on to the ridge.

  Mick and Steve had followed a slightly different route, joining the summit ridge higher than the others. They had used the same bivvy ledges and had had a glimpse of Roger and Julie-Ann, far below but still climbing upwards. They could see Andy and Brendan’s tracks dropping back to the tent and decided to follow these down so that they could camp together that night, hoping to go for the summit themselves the following morning.

  Steve was already starting down and Mick was just picking up the loose coils of rope, when Steve slipped. The wet afternoon snow had balled up between the points of his crampons, his boots skidded from under him, and he was off, sliding down on the south side of the ridge, his cumbersome rucksack stopping him from rolling into position to use the pick of his axe as a brake. He was gathering speed and the slope was steepening. Mick’s first reaction was to jump down the other side of the ridge, but the crest was too far above him. His axe, sunk in soft snow, was not much good but he quickly took the rope round his waist and braced himself: ‘To begin with, I felt I was in with a chance. I could feel my crampon points biting home and see Steve swinging around below me. But the farther he swung, the more the slope steepened and the more the strain grew. Ultimately, I crumpled to one side and came on to the axe. I felt just a token resistance as I was dragged down. My feelings were of total despair. All those promises to my wife and children.’


  He was now free-falling in mid-air. There was a huge thump. He felt a sharp pain across his face and, almost to his surprise, he realised he had stopped. He explored himself cautiously. His nose was bleeding but he did not seem to have broken anything. He called Steve. There was a painful pause and then Steve croaked, ‘My ribs hurt, I don’t feel too good’.

  They quickly ascertained that he had broken several ribs. It was now five in the afternoon and they had fallen about sixty metres below the crest of the ridge. They were very lucky that it had not been further. A broad snow ledge had saved them. It was the best campsite in days but they had a disturbed night, Steve gurgling and groaning, both wondering how they were going to get back to Base Camp. The following morning they climbed up to join the others, who had spent their third night on the crest of the ridge.

  Thanks to Mick’s potato surplus they at least had some food, but they were in a precarious situation. They had two choices: either to abseil down the face they had just climbed, the option that Steve favoured, or to take the easier but much longer descent down the south side. This would entail crossing Shipton’s Col, abseiling down on to the Rhamani Glacier, climbing up that and over the Bagini Col to get back on to the Bagini Glacier and their Base Camp. The others favoured this longer route and they set off taking the rest of the day just to reach the col between Kalanka and Changabang. Steve was in considerable pain from his ribs and one of Andy’s fingers was frostnipped. Next morning they started down the Kalanka Face in near white-out conditions, following a broad gangway diagonally across it. It was blowing hard and bitterly cold. The ropes were frozen and they were moving slowly in their exhausted state, feeling their way down in unfamiliar territory. A break in the clouds showed they were on the right line and did not have far to go to reach easier ground but, just as they were getting their bearings, the cloud rolled in once again.

  Mick was the first to abseil down. It was over an overhanging sérac wall, and would have been hell for Steve. There seemed a better line out to the right. Brendan volunteered to go across and fix an anchor. It was easy ground and he traversed across the snow slope unroped. It took him twenty minutes to find a good placement and screw in the piton. Andy and Steve chatted while he worked A muffled rumble interrupted their conversation. They glanced up to see a series of avalanches triggering each other off far above and then sweeping down in an ever-growing cloud towards them.

  ‘Brendan, Brendan!’ Andy screamed to warn his climbing partner, as he drove his own axe into the snow and clipped himself to it with a sling. Brendan had no sling, no rope, not even his axe. He tried to grab on to the ice screw as the snow silently engulfed him. Avalanches are very different from what you see on television. There is practically no sound, but their power is vast. Brendan was swept away out of sight and a few minutes later it was as if the avalanche had never taken place. They were left in a numb horror at what had just happened.

  They camped a very short way below on a small spur and the next day continued down, looking at the huge ice cliffs over which Brendan had been swept. They shouted his name again and again but the sound was absorbed by the still silent ice walls and snow slopes of Kalanka. There was no reply, no sign of their friend.

  They spent that night on the Changabang Glacier and set out at one o’clock the following morning to make the long climb up the gully leading to Shipton’s Col. It was tough going in crusty snow that sometimes held their weight but would then give way, causing legs to plunge deep into the soft powder below. It was agony for Steve. Once at the col, the face on the other side is steep and sheer, comprised mostly of rock. The abseils were once again painful and very time-consuming. They camped on the Rhamani Glacier and ate what little was left of their food, and they still had another 1,000-metre climb over the Bagini Col. They dumped practically all their gear as they went and reached the site of Advance Base the following afternoon. Mick and Steve decided to stay there but Andy wanted to share the dreadful news with Roger and Julie-Ann. He was also worried about his finger which was now black, swollen and suppurating, so he pressed on to Base Camp.

  Roger and Julie-Ann had only got back the previous day and were still asleep, exhausted by their adventure, when Andy arrived. They had spent ten days on the face, joining the route the others had taken just below the second icefield and reaching the upper icefield on the day the fierce storm hit the others on their way down. They had sat out the storm, buffeted by avalanches, and then made their own precarious retreat.

  The worst had happened. A friend was dead, though it could so easily have been more. Steve could have died on the face when the rock missed him only by inches. Mick and Steve were lucky to survive their fall on the summit ridge and all six of them had been pushing the limits, often with negligible protection in appalling weather throughout the climb.

  It was a magnificent piece of mountain exploration, adventure in its fullest sense. Did they push the risks beyond reasonable limits? Perhaps, but that is in the nature of adventure.

  – Chapter 13 –

  The Crossing of Antarctica

  Fuchs, Hillary and the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1957–1958

  The Antarctic continent is an icy desert – the coldest, most arid place on earth. Here is no grass, no vegetation except a little lichen on the rocks by the coast in summer. Inland, only the highest mountain peaks emerge from the ice and snow. The ice cap is over 14,500 feet thick in some areas. The penguins and seals, the only wild life on the continent, are dependent on the sea for their sustenance. There have been no human inhabitants and even today, the shifting population of scientists with their support staffs are totally reliant on the outside world for supplies. Yet the Antarctic can get a hold on people as tenaciously as any mountains, ocean or desert. Men who have worked in the Antarctic return again and again, and even after settling down in their home countries with wives and families, they still yearn for that harsh, empty but incredibly beautiful land.

  I am not sure whether a certain kind of personality is attracted to the Antarctic or if life in polar regions moulds the man, but a very definite type of person seems to emerge. You need a resolute, almost plodding sense of endurance to survive. Everything takes a long time. An expedition is going to take a year, perhaps longer, to complete; it is not a question of surmounting a spectacular mountain peak, but rather one of sheer survival, of just keeping alive, of plodding over endless icy wastes, carrying out a task of survey, meteorology or some other scientific aim. It may entail wintering together in one tiny hut. And so the successful polar man is a great survivor with a lot of self-control; often quiet and self-contained, immensely tenacious, a steady plodder, he is not the athletic star with whom many mountaineers could be compared.

  Vivian Fuchs, who was to lead the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition, summed up the difference saying: ‘I see mountaineering like a hundred yards race, where it is a quick, tremendous exertion of effort that counts; whereas the Antarctic thing I see as a cross-country race. You will always win against nature if you hold your position and then, at the right moment, press through.’

  In many ways Vivian Fuchs epitomises the polar explorer. Of medium build and height, he has a compact strength, both of physique and personality. He is a singularly self-contained man who rarely shows emotion and projects an aura of complete self-control. Like Thor Heyerdahl, he sees himself not so much as an adventurer, but as a scientist whose insatiable curiosity might take him into areas of risk, but the risk of adventure is in no way an end in itself. Born in 1908, Vivian Fuchs had a classic, middle-class upbringing, going to Brighton College and then St John’s, Cambridge. At school he was reasonably good at games and fairly bright, without being brilliant academically. From an early age he had a passion for natural history, collecting butterflies, beetles, flowers and odd-shaped pieces of wood. He was also practical and built his own radio set in the very early days of radio. As an only child he had a close, warm relationship with his parents and, as a result, grew and developed in a very s
ecure environment.

  At Cambridge, Fuchs studied geology and went on his first expedition, to Arctic Greenland. This did not lead to an instant devotion to polar regions for his next opportunity arose in equatorial Africa, with another Cambridge expedition to the African lakes. At the end of this trip there were still some unanswered questions and so other opportunities arose and he spent the period before the Second World War taking part in, and leading, a series of geological expeditions in Africa, collecting a PhD on the way. He would probably have become an African expert and was already negotiating for a job with the Colonial Government of the Sudan, but the war changed all that. Commissioned, he was sent to Staff College where his administrative abilities were both noticed and undoubtedly developed. With the end of the war coincidence, as so often happens, was to lead him into the career for which he was so singularly qualified.

  Antarctica was still a huge, empty continent of unknown potential. The great powers and the countries closest to it had already put in their claims and Britain, even during the war, had established a few scientific outposts on the islands off Graham Land, the peninsula that juts out from the Antarctic continent, reaching up towards the southern tip of South America. After the war the British immediately planned to widen their programme and advertised for personnel. Vivian Fuchs was one of the men who applied for a position with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and, because of his qualifications gained in geological surveying in Africa and his administrative experience in the army, was offered the post of Director in the field of all the British bases then in Antarctica. It was decidedly not a desk job and during the next three years Fuchs journeyed many thousands of miles with dog teams, learning how to travel and live in Antarctica.