Facts like billboards.
That kinda works … Phoooo.
Calm down. Calm down.
There’s nothing here, I gotta drill.
If you drill it won’t be A5.
I can’t climb A5. I can’t cope.
Thudthudthud.
My heart sounds like the hammer.
Very observant. Come on you’ve got a long way to go.
He knows I’m drilling.
He would, too. What makes him so high and mighty?
Bangbangbang.
The hammer’s become a limp fish.
At last.
Finally.
“OK, Steve. I gotta bolt in.”
“Good one. Howzit look above?”
“More hooking then a ramp thing.”
Hear that?
“Hear that?”
The girls
“The girls.”
They’ve laid out their colourful clothes on the grass and their shouts harry to your fear.
“‘Honeeeeee, wee loave youuu.’”
Do you think they heard?
“Yeeeeeaaaah.”
They heard.
I want her. Couldn’t they rap in to us or something?
OK, hooking, hooking. Yes. Stand up. And another.
“This is awesome, Steve. A1 hooks!”
Just hope I’ve drilled the bolt OK.
Or you’re on for some granite rash.
Get lost.
The bolt’s a way below now.
Smack a blade in then.
Steady. Or you’ll rock your hook off.
How’s that?
Vury Naaace Meesta Preeetchard.
I need a drink.
I need a fag.
“Just taking a break, Steve.”
God, my feet hurt.
La la. La la la la la la. La la la la la la. La la la la la la.
But, I feel mad.
You’re a long way from home, Sonny Jim.
“I’m going to start nailing up this ramp, but the placements are really shallow.”
“I’ll staay awaake.”
Dingdindgingding.
That sounds OK.
Clip in.
Stand up.
Huh! Oh God, it moved.
Care … ful.
No sudden moves.
You’re OK.
Another blade.
Dingdingdunk.
Not so good.
Watch you don’t pull it out.
It points downwards, so if I lean out on it I can create a mechanical key.
Dunkdunkdunk.
Now my heart sounds like a peg being placed.
Another bad one.
This land is your land this land is my land.
Mmmmmm – a flared Friend slot.
Not so good. Only two cams.
Weight it.
From da da mountains to New York Island.
Dead easy.
This land was made for you and …
Snap.
Fuck.
Hold on.
What’s happened?
The Friend’s ripped.
Come on. Crimp like a bastard.
Gotta get the Friend.
Hook it with your foot.
It’s slid away.
What to do now?
“Haaaaah.”
Get moving.
Slap one on for that edge.
But that’s moving further away from the pegs.
The pegs are shit.
Yeah, go on. And again. Side-pulls. Smear.
Wish-had-rock-shoes.
Heelhook. Brush the lichen off. Hang in. Dig the soil out of that hole. Pull that root out. Go on. Get a nut in.
P-u-m-p-i-n-g.
Tap it in with your hammer.
Clip in.
Carefully.
Yes.
Another piece. A good pin.
Dingdingdingdingdingdingding. Ding ding.
Safer now. It’s OK. I’m here. I’m here.
“Paaauuul.”
“Yeah.”
“Howsitgoing?”
“OK, Steve. Had a frightener but I’m back on track now. AAA111 to the beeeelay.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HYPERBOREA
To the north of the Arctic, beyond the tundra, beyond the vast sheets of ice, even beyond the pole is a land more wonderful than a mortal’s most fanciful dream. A magical land where trees bear fruit throughout the four seasons and wheat is harvested in loaves. The land of unicorns, the abode of the gods – Odin, Tyr, Thor and Loki – known to the Norse as Asgard. The ancient Greeks called this place Hyperborea – beyond the north wind – and their boldest navigators went in search of a perfect life without toil or hunger. They never found their Hyperborea but this is the story of how we found ours.
At Denver Airport Steve and I sipped coffee and reminisced about the technicalities of our recent new route, Adrift, on El Capitan in Yosemite. The last call for boarding went by unheard during discussions about the UK Cowboy Lasso pitch and the Big Island Bivouac. And as Steve led up to the Illusion Chain our plane was thundering down the runway. After a firm telling off by the woman at the gate, we laughed at how we were so often untogether everywhere but on steep dangerous rocks, and blagged our way onto the next flight.
We had planned to try the Asgard Wall a year before. Plans rolled along haphazardly; many useless items were packed and crucial ones forgotten. As if by accident the team eventually camped together on the windswept, boulderstrewn fjord shore of Pangnirtung. We met local Innuit people and got briefed at the park headquarters on how to behave if we got attacked by a polar bear. Apparently we had to run around the bear as quick as we could as they were incredibly fast at sprint starts but slow at turning. It was a desolate place. The people used to camp on the land throughout the year but in the early sixties the Canadian government undertook a huge programme to offer prefabricated housing to all Baffin’s people here on the shores of the fiords. The loss of their traditions has created a generation gap and a new problem – unemployment and all its associated ills. In the supermarket the solvents were kept in a reinforced cage and to buy white gas we had to get a special permit from the police and take it to a sealed bunker where it was stored. Alcohol is banned, too.
Right up to the last day Simon Yates and Keith Jones had been working hard building portaledges at the Lyon Equipment factory in Dent and the day before Noel heard he had become Doctor Craine, zoologist. Just one week before I had been Steve’s apprentice in modern hard aid on the vast sheet of El Capitan’s East Face. And now, after years of picking up Doug Scott’s Big Wall Climbing and gazing at that photo, we were taking a skidoo ride across the sea ice toward Asgard. Ipeelee, our driver, sped across the ice and towed the five of us on two trailers behind. Often we would come across cracks with dark water in them and Ipeelee would either drive around them or, if they were too long, turn around, take a run up and bounce across them. But we trusted him and, anyway, we were too in awe of the landscape that we were passing. The rolling hills had turned into giant granite slabs on either side of the fjord and, up ahead, snow-capped golden spires.
We had packed 1200 pounds of lentils and bigwall gear and this had to be moved thirty miles from the fjord head to the base of the wall on the Turner Glacier. There are no porters in the Arctic, so you either carry everything yourself or use a helicopter, which we resisted. However many plans we made of how all this gear was going to be shifted, the bags themselves seemed to decide when they would arrive at the wall. Dreams of hand cracks and stemming corners had overshadowed the reality of the workload. The idea of getting two people cracking on the wall almost immediately while the others ferried loads seemed a little naive. Food was rationed from day one and our loads never weighed less than eighty pounds.
As we crossed the Arctic Circle for the fifth time in three days I heard Noel comment, “Lord, every time I see those geese I feel less and less like a vegetarian.” After the ninth day of load-carrying, our
designs to trap the Arctic hare and geese had become elaborate in the extreme. The solitude was profound. Apart from a lone Catalan, who had come to attempt a solo of Mount Friga, we were the only people to have made footprints in the Auyuittuq National Park this year. Auyuittuq – ‘the land that never melts’; the name was apt. None of us had ever known such cold. As we skied up the frozen rivers of the flat-bottomed Weasel valley we wondered how on earth we could climb in such temperatures. It was obvious, we had come too early and the land needed time to warm up.
Ferocious storms came on a whim from whichever horizon they cared to as we skied up the Caribou Glacier and became stormbound at the col. After 130 miles of hideous load-carrying we decided that never had an expedition reached such depths before the mountain had even been seen. The food fantasies. The girlfriend fantasies. Warm beds, coal fires and steam pudding. We spent two days at the Caribou Col as deep snow drifted around our tents. It was a welcome rest from the constant grind.
On the morning of the thirteenth day the sun came out and we peered down the slope which led to the Turner Glacier and the face we had come to climb. It was in dangerous condition but with so little food what could we do? We couldn’t wait any longer and were desperate to see our line. Taking one of those risks that are accompanied by a silent prayer, we rappeled off the portaledge poles, lowering haulbags. The slope lay quiet and let us be. Roped together and dragging a haulbag apiece, we slithered down the glacier and our wall of dreams slowly turned to meet us. What we saw was both awesome and sickening. Huge patches of rime ice coated the face which was still very much in the shade at 5 p.m. The ice slope leading up to it was loaded and we all doubted silently whether, even if we got up the slope, it would be possible to take our hands out of our gloves to do technical aid work.
We set up camp and checked out the mountain, each impatiently awaiting his turn to look through the telescope. Panning upwards from the glacier the magnified arc traced a route: snow – scree – snow – buttress – ice – bergschrund – utterly blank granite. Working left and right the circular eye revealed only two cracks leaving the ’schrund on the whole face. This was disheartening but it made the choice simple. On the left a chimney led to the top of a pillar but above the wall blanked out. Further right a sickle-shape flake reached up to more flakes which died in mirror smooth rock. These disjointed features lured the imagination into believing that there was a way to reach the snaking corner halfway up the wall. The corner looked about five pitches long and above it a black vein of diorite led all the way to the decapitated summit. From previous experience of diorite we knew it would be loose but that loose, fractured diorite is climbable and blank granite isn’t – without drilling.
Pinned down for thirty hours in another hoolie we made a pretty good guess at how many minute squares of ripstop nylon made up the inside of my tent. The next day dawned – I use this term loosely as there is no night during the Arctic midsummer – sunny and freezing and we attempted to wade waist-deep in snow up the lower slope. Breaststroke worked but it felt like a suicide attempt and we ran away sharpish. Back at camp Noel strolled to his tent and reached for the zipper. But it wasn’t there. And neither was the tent. Luckily the tent’s prints were all over the slope and we easily tracked it down a mile away. Steve shook his head in dismay at these displays of British incompetence. That night Keith make the soundest mountaineering decision of the day and broke the rationing. A noble dahl, fit for a glass case, as Tilman would say, was followed by pears, apricots, chocolate buttons, peanuts and caramel wafers covered in custard.
The following day was pivotal. Keith and I again attempted to fix ropes on the bottom slope but, instead of improving, the slope had gotten worse. Ten-inch slabs broke off in six-foot pieces which pushed me backwards as I tried to lead the traverse. It was futile. The snow needed a week or two and a good thaw to either slide or consolidate but, by now, Keith and Simon only had a fortnight left. Bad planning on the catering front meant we hadn’t allowed for the huge appetites worked up load-carrying. We were already low on food.
The excruciating decision was made to walk the fifty miles home. We would shop and rest and stomp back in racked, ready and raring to go for another blast. And so, with our plan sorted, the pressure dropped 800 feet and we were pinned down in a blizzard for two more days. We met Jordi, our Catalan friend, on the descent. The reality of soloing a wall on Baffin had hit him like Thor’s hammer, Mjöllnir, and he had decided to bag it. Noel, Steve and I glanced sideways at each other, cogs clicking in our heads. Wouldn’t it be useful to have an extreme bigwall soloist on the team? “Hey, you come with us. Yes? Ven con nosotros.” He was delighted and joined us in the forced march to town.
After a very painful eating experience, and a farewell to Simon and Keith, we shopped and took a boat back up the now rapidly melting fjord. The boat couldn’t make it all the way through the drift ice but the walk was easier with lighter packs and after three days of carbo-loading and power-lounging, we got pinned down by ferocious weather halfway to Asgard, but began to see a pattern of two days bad then one day reasonable emerging. We walked at night on the glacier.
Jordi’s haulbag full of rope and hardware had been swept away in an avalanche. He was upset but “Es la vida.” From the base of Friga we looked across to the hourglass figure of the Scott/Hennek/Braithwaite/Nunn route on the East Face of Asgard, glowing gold in the 2 a.m. sun. This must be one of the greatest rock climbs in the world. Forty pitches all free at HVS (that’s what Doug said, but Braithwaite reckoned more like E3!) and arcing a line with the purity of the Nose of El Cap. “Why are we struggling with this pie-in-the-sky wall when we could have done numerous routes alpine-style already?” These thoughts cannot be entertained seriously.
We got back to our ditch which we referred to as base camp at 6 a.m. after twenty-eight days of shuttling loads. We now had thirteen days of food with which to attempt a big wall. Chances were slim but we work for the means and never look to an end. With no time to waste, Steve and Jordi went straight up and, finding the slope in much better condition, fixed nearly to the wall. Noel and I went up later and got a rope on the last section. The fixed lines would make it feasible for us to hump our vast amount of kit up the seventy degree ice slope to the start of the route.
At the top of the slope we discovered the perfect advance camp to work from. The glacier-polished face arose, continually over-hung, out of a huge bergschrund banked with snow. This proved to be an effective catchment area for all the dropped gear. The outer lip of the bergschrund was thick and high and a good, safe spot for a cave. It would shield us from the wind and exposure and the constant reminders of where we were. I like to hide away in the evening, go home for a few hours. Then we touched rock. It felt like a symbolic moment after thirty days of labour and the agonies of migration. We joked about planting our Survival International flag right here.
I eagerly racked up, tied in and surveyed the start of the route. It was hard aid right off the ground. The first placement was a poor micronut high up, so I taped one on the end of a ski pole and, at full stretch, fiddled it in. Earlier the team had all agreed that there should be no falls on the route, as the consequence of an injury here could be disastrous. I swarmed up to the nut and fiddled for a few minutes, trying to place a Lost Arrow. Then the nut ripped and I landed flat on my back. After the hysterical laughter had died down I finished the pitch with the help of Noel’s shoulder and a few skyhooks to bypass a three-piece suite of loose blocks. Noel moved swiftly up the next sickle pitch in one long fluid layback. This was why we were here, to climb rocks, not carry ninety-pound rucksacks up a downward-moving escalator. We fixed and came down.
With July came another terrible storm. This place was beginning to make Patagonia look like a holiday spot. But the weather cleared and the pitches crept by slowly. Beforehand we had decided on a no-drilling-on-Asgard policy but Steve, veteran of fifteen El Cap routes and new lines on Hooker and Black Canyon’s Chasm Wall, knew better. Middendorf, one o
f the world’s greatest wall climbers, had studied the face and commented, “Eighty holes at least.” To the Americans, riveting blank rock is acceptable and I had become accustomed to linking features on otherwise blank walls during my Yosemite trip. On El Capitan most routes use up to 200 holes. The features themselves are good sport and if you want to climb them you have to get to them somehow. This was a new way of thinking to Noel but on the fourth pitch, as the rock blanked out, he was not upset when we pulled out the Californian riveting kit and made four holes to get from one flake to the next.
We began working in shifts. One pair would push the route higher, while the other two slept. After fifteen hours or so the teams would switch. Using this system, it was possible to climb around the clock. Our 200-foot ropes meant we could really stretch the pitches and we would, overall, waste much less time building belays.
On the fifth, red-eye pitch, Noel was learning how to drill a rivet ladder, engulfed in the swirling mist. Time nudged forward, sometimes stopping altogether as I lay in the portaledge drifting into unconsciousness and, occasionally, jerked back into semi-reality to feed rope out through the Gri-Gri. I took my boots off and rubbed my feet. Time jumped ahead a little. The bombardment of ice particles continued unabated, the odd fat rogue hitting me square on as I huddled under the fly sheet. And, suddenly, for the first time, I became aware of where I was. Not in India or on the Central Tower or on Zodiac. I was on the West Face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island in the Arctic. I threw back the fly and looked out across a marvellous panorama of ice, rock and mist in the alpenglow of midnight. It struck me that this moment was the culmination of all that had passed in my life.
There were no shortcuts to arrive at this belay and even a minute’s change on the compass could have led me a long way from here. Feed more rope out and light a cigarette. What if I had never met Mo Anthoine and he hadn’t invited me on the Gangotri trip which got me started mountaineering? What if I had never met Noel or Steve? What if I’d parapleged myself when I fell at Gogarth last year? This lack of order makes me feel wonderfully insecure.
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