Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
Page 38
By dusk we had reached the knife-edge snow cornice of the summit ridge, but were still some thirty minutes and 300 metres below the actual summit further along the Mittellegi Ridge. So Kenton selected a nook on the far, southern side of the cornice, where we spent an hour digging out a platform for the sleeping bags. Ian’s notes recorded: ‘We had an awful night. There was no reception on the mobiles, so we couldn’t communicate with anyone or do the live broadcast. Then I dropped the ITV camera over the edge – but we were so knackered and it was so cold. It was a spectacular ridge to the summit, so it was a really nice finish. I’m pretty proud of what we had done. Particularly for Ran.’
We spent eleven hours in the snow dugout, and I remembered, nearly two years before, thinking I had a good chance of summitting Everest because Ian and I had spent that last pre-summit night at some 400 metres below Everest’s summit ridge. Almost there. And I never made the summit. Now here we were again, a mere 300 metres below another summit. Ian considered the Eiger North Face a far more difficult ascent than Everest’s North Ridge, but this time I had no cardiac troubles lying in wait, for we were at a mere 14,000, not 28,000 feet.
We left the bivouac at 9.30 a.m. and threaded our way towards the summit along a classic knife-edge ridge. Ian wrote: ‘Kenton led us with Ran in the middle and myself last in our little line. I was acutely aware that if Ran began sliding down one side of the ridge, it was my job to throw myself off the opposite side of the mountain, arresting our fall in a seesaw effect.’
At 10.00 a.m. on the fifth day of our climb we reached the summit. Thanks entirely to the brilliance and the patience (usually!) of Kenton and Ian. Within half an hour of our arrival there, an evil-looking cloud bank raced over the mountain ranges to the south, soon to envelop the Eiger. Our weather forecasters had got it dead right. As we descended down the easy side of the ridge I felt deliriously happy to be back on comparative terra firma. I made up my mind to steer clear of all mountains in the future . . . probably. It was great to learn that within a week of our return, our friends at Marie Curie Cancer Care had already raised £1.4 million towards our £1.5 million target, with hopes that our Marie Curie Eiger Challenge Appeal would top out at well over £3 million before it closed down.
The climbing training over the last two years has resulted in a lot less running, so I must try to get fit again. And expeditions, whether polar, archaeological or up mountains, do not provide any personal income, so I need to get back on the lecture circuit, along with the US ex-presidents and failed Big Brother contestants. As for the next expedition, that depends on who comes up with what suggestion, who agrees to sponsor it and which charity wants to benefit from its proceeds, should it succeed. I would love to reach the figure of £15 million raised for charities before I die, for that is a good sounding round figure to aim for, and I am two-thirds of the way there to date.
For a great many years I have been lucky with the very best of families, friends and good fortune at dicey moments. The future may still hold interesting times. Only yesterday, on 20 July as I finished writing this book, I received an email from Mike Stroud . . . ‘Any wild ideas for a trip together would be very much welcome.’ I do have an idea or two to put to him.
Appendix 1
I believe we are each very much congenital victims or beneficiaries. Of course there are twists of fate whereby the occasional house-painter’s bastard becomes a Führer or a grocer’s daughter an Iron Lady, but in the main we run life’s course the way we do because of our hereditary make-up. We are each the sum total of a chain of ghostly sires, generation upon generation of evolving characters, of actions good or evil, the vibrations of which pass silently on, foetus to foetus, until there is you and there is me.
On the pages that follow is a family tree of my ancestors. They have owned land in southern England since the days of an Ingelram Fiennes who lived around AD 1100. His family became anglicised and have lived here continuously since 1260. Earlier they were based in the village of Fiennes, which lies between Calais and Boulogne in France.
There are, of course, many members of the family, dead and still alive, not included on this simplified family tree.
A full sized version of the family tree can be downloaded from the Hodder & Stoughton website at the following address:
http://hodder.co.uk/news_events/news.aspx?ArticleID=101
Appendix 2
The individuals involved with the travels I have enjoyed over the years include:
Norway 1961
Simon Gault, Maggie Raynor
Pyrenees Crossing by Mule 1962/63
Hamish Macrae, Pat Offord, Maggie Raynor
Norway 1967
Peter Loyd, Simon Gault, Nick Holder, Don Hughes, Martin Grant-Peterkin, Vanda Allfrey
Nile 1969
Peter Loyd, Nick Holder, Charles Westmorland, Mike Broome, Anthony Brockhouse; UK: Ginny Pepper
Norway 1970
Roger Chapman, Patrick Brook, Geoff Holder, Peter Booth, Brendan O’Brien, Bob Powell, Henrik Forss, David Murray-Wells, Vanda Allfrey, Rosemary Alhusen, Jane Moncreiff, Johnnie Muir, Gillie Kennard; UK: George Greenfield
Canada 1971
Jack McConnell, Joe Skibinski, Stanley Cribbett, Ginny Fiennes, Sarah Salt, Bryn Campbell, Ben Usher, Richard Robinson, Paul Berriff, Wally Wallace; UK: Mike Gannon, Spencer Eade
Greenland/North Pole 1976/78
Oliver Shepard, Charlie Burton, Ginny Fiennes, Geoff Newman, Mary Gibbs; UK: Mike Wingate Gray, Andrew Croft, Peter Booth
Transglobe 1979/82
Oliver Shepard, Charlie Burton, Ginny Fiennes, Simon Grimes, Anton Bowring, Les Davis, Ken Cameron, Cyrus Balaporia, Howard Willson, Mark Williams, Dave Hicks, Dave Peck, Jill McNicol, Ed Pike, Paul Anderson, Terry Kenchington, Martin Weymouth, Annie Weymouth, Jim Young, Geoff Lee, Nigel Cox, Paul Clark, Admiral Otto Steiner, Mick Hart, Commander Ramsey, Nick Wade, Anthony Birkbeck, Giles Kershaw, Gerry Nicholson, Karl Z’berg, Chris McQuaid, Lesley Rickett, Laurence Howell, Edwyn Martin, John Parsloe, Peter Polley and others; UK: Anthony Preston, David Mason, Janet Cox, Sue Klugman, Roger Tench, Joan Cox, Margaret Davidson, Colin Eales, Elizabeth Martin, Sir Edmund Irving, Sir Vivian Fuchs, Mike Wingate Gray, Andrew Croft, George Greenfield, Sir Alexander Durie, Peter Martin, Simon Gault, Tommy Macpherson, Peter Windeler, Peter Bowring, Lord Hayter, Dominic Harrod, George Capon, Anthony Macauley, Tom Woodfield, Sir Campbell Adamson, Jim Peevey, Eddie Hawkins, Eddie Carey, Peter Cook, Trevor Davies, Bill Hibbert, Gordon Swain, Captain Tom Pitt, Alan Tritton, Jack Willies, Graham Standing, Muriel Dunton, Edward Doherty, Bob Hampton, Arthur Hogan-Fleming, Dorothy Royle, Annie Seymour, Kevin and Sally Travers-Healy, Jan Fraser, Gay Preston, Jane Morgan, Jack Willes
North Pole 1986/90
Oliver Shepard, Mike Stroud, Laurence Howell, Paul Cleary, Beverly Johnson; UK: Ginny Fiennes, Alex Blake-Milton, Andrew Croft, George Greenfield, Perry Mason, Dmitry Shparo, Steve Holland
Ubar 1991
Juris Zarins and team, Nick and Kay Clapp, Ginny Fiennes, Ali Ahmed Ali Mahash, Ron and Kristine Blom, Trevor Henry, Andy Dunsire and team
Alaska, Arctic and Antarctica 1993/2000
Gordon Thomas, Dmitry Shparo, Laurence Howell, Morag Nicolls, David Fulker, Bill Baker, Graham Archer, Charles Whitaker, Granville Baylis, Steve Signal, ‘Mac’ Mackenney, Steve Holland, Mike Stroud, Oliver Shepard, Charlie Burton
Seven Marathons/Seven Days/Seven Continents 2003
Mike Stroud, Steven Seaton, Mike Kobold, Tony Brown, Giles Whittell, Gill Allen, Robert Hall, Julie Ritson. UK: Ginny Fiennes
Everest 2005
Paul Sykes, Sibusiso Vilane, Ian Parnell, Neal Short, Jens Bojen, Mark Campbell, ‘Boca’ Lama (Nima Dorje), Louise Fiennes
Eiger North Face 2007
Paul Sykes, Kenton Cool, Ian Parnell, Louise Fiennes
Major Financial Sponsors
Pentland, Damart, Dyson, British Aerospace, British Airways/Terry Beuacqua, Occidental Oil, Land Rover, Excel, Paul Sykes
Charity Beneficiarie
s
The Multiple Sclerosis Society, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Cancer Research Campaign, British Heart Foundation, Marie Curie Cancer Care
(Total raised by 2007: £10 million plus)
Note
A book about the M.V. Benjamin Bowring by Anton Bowring, telling the full story of the Transglobe voyage, is expected to be in bookshops in 2008/09.
The original film of the Transglobe Expedition is now available on DVD. The three-year, 52,000-mile journey across deserts, oceans, the North West Passage and both Poles was recorded on film by Armand Hammer Productions. Written, produced and directed by William Kronick, the film is narrated by Richard Burton, with a music score by John Scott. It is available (on DVD region 2, UK & Europe only) for £20 from the Transglobe Expedition Trust, c/o 30a Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk NR35 1EE (Tel. 01728 604434). For further information and details about the Transglobe Expedition Trust, see the expedition website www.transglobe-expedition.org or email TGExpedition@aol.com.
Appendix 3
Land Rover 7x7x7 Challenge
(Route as planned by British Airways)
The results of the challenge raised large sums for our charities in the relevant countries and by 2007 had not been successfully repeated. The timings were all under 5 hours, except for Singapore and New York. The schedule was in outline:
© The Times/Helen Smithson (graphic) 21 October 2003
Appendix 4
Endurance Running
The last year when I can remember feeling reasonably fit was the year after my finger amputations in 2000. I was fifty-seven and averaging three 2½-hour runs most weeks of the year. I ran the London Marathon in 3 hours 39 minutes, some nine minutes slower than my best time in 1999, and, after many years of failing to complete either the Karrimor or the Lowe Mountain Marathons, I entered both with a top adventure racer, Gary Tompsett from Edinburgh. His memories of the Karrimor 2001 were: ‘We surprised everyone and ourselves as we survived the attrition of the terrain with our diesel-powered legs and good navigation, whilst the Ferraris around us fell apart, including the Swedish teams who made good scalps. We were 12th in the Elite. This dispelled the myth that you couldn’t complete these events.’
Later in 2001 we teamed up again for the Lowe Mountain Marathon, targeting the Veterans’ Trophy in the Elite grade. We had to overcome the age handicap system by a long chalk. We did, coming 12th overall in the Elite and first in the Vets.
In the winter of 2002, with top British endurance racers Ski Sharp, Steven Seaton and Anna McCormack, I entered the Southern Traverse adventure race based from Queenstown in New Zealand. Steven and Anna had to drop out for health reasons three days into the race, so Ski and I joined up with the remnants of another team. Together we ended up in 14th place. This race was extremely demanding, with long stretches of cross-country running, high mountains, bogs, devilish mountain biking, and lots of rough water for the canoe stretches. Ski and I agreed to try again the next year, and to that end I trained hard throughout 2002. An outline timetable was:
I entered the High Peak Marathon again in March 2003, this time with Yiannis Tridimas, a top UK veteran endurance runner, and two others. We came in 3rd overall in 11 hours 25 minutes. That year I had the heart attack and ran the seven marathons, but twelve months later I was back with Yiannis and his team. This time (2004) we came in 3rd in 10 hours 51 minutes and won the Veterans Prize.
Ginny died that February and, in a kind attempt to help keep my mind occupied, Steven Seaton entered me for the 26-mile North Pole Marathon, which I have already described.
In June with Yiannis we won the Veterans Elite at the Lowe Mountain Marathon, and came in 10th Elite overall in 11 hours 7 minutes.
In July, in John Houlihan’s team of three, we came 5th out of 110 teams in the 100-kilometre two-day Edinburgh Rat Race, the first urban adventure race in Britain.
In December, to pay back the Singapore Heart Association for their help during the 7x7x7 Marathons, I ran in the Singapore 2004 Marathon, being crewed by Louise, and completed the course in 4 hours 29 minutes. Slow in the humid heat, but an hour quicker than the previous year.
In August 2005, again crewed by Louise, I ran the Tour du Mont Blanc Ultra Marathon, taking 38 hours to complete the 158 kilometres of mountain trails, including 8,500 metres of climbing. I was 358th out of 2,000 runners.
In March 2006, crewed by Louise and running once more with Yiannis and his usual team in the High Peak Marathon, we again won the Veterans Trophy and came in 6th overall in 12 hours 14 minutes. The temperature en route dropped to –13°C.
In June 2006, Yiannis and I dropped out of the Lowe Alpine Marathon on Mull, having failed to find a checkpoint.
My last race prior to attempting the Eiger was the Karrimor Mountain Marathon (renamed the Original Mountain Marathon) in October 2006, aged sixty-two years. My team-mate and leader was Jon Brooke. We missed the last checkpoint on Day One, but completed the whole two-day course and came in 23rd in the Elite class, five places behind Gary Tompsett’s team. Jon was honest at the end of this race. He needed to race with somebody a lot faster than I now was. I was racing in Britain’s top endurance grade and had kept up after a fashion for quite a few years, but in 2005 and 2006 I had spent too much time trying to learn how to climb, at the expense of keeping up my running hours.
By the summer of 2007 I was struggling to jog for more than three hours non-stop and failed to complete a single long-distance race. So, I was happily surprised to be nominated Great British Sportsman of the Year 2007 by the ITV awards against the likes of the boxer Joe Calzaghe and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton. At 63 years old I felt a bit of a fraud. At the awards Louise sat immediately behind David Beckham and was fascinated by the butterfly tattoo that she said was to be found on the back of his neck.
At the time of writing, I have entered the 2008 40-mile High Peak Marathon with the Yiannis team and will see how things go. But even if I continue to drop down the endurance race rankings, I will still take on team challenge events of some sort, just to keep my feet out of the grave as long as possible.
I have found the ageing process can be slowed down by running for at least two hours every other day or, at worst, every third day. A route including reasonably demanding uphill stretches is important. Entering a team race at least once every three months gives a solid purpose to keep the mind focused. Any period of ‘no running’ causes ever increased difficulties when you get back in your trainers. At sixty-three I find I have to accept that I’m slower than at sixty, but I can still compete at a slightly lower level.
Appendix 5
The Eiger North Face – 1938 Route
Grading any climb for difficulty is always a controversial issue, so I have chosen a fairly typical assessment of this route by the Irishman Paul Harrington, who led a two-man rope up the standard route at more or less the same time of year (i.e. late February/early to mid-March) in 1997.
Both Paul Harrington and Russian climbing instructor Andrey Kosenko (who led the route in late February 2007) have considerable experience of Scottish Grading. Andrey summarised his Eiger climb as, ‘I have onsited various Scottish Grade VII climbs and found some parts of the Eiger route as demanding as them, when in poor condition.’
The Harrington Grading was given when the 1938 route was ‘less ice than normal, but with no fresh snow lying around and perfect weather’.
The Entry Chimney: (IV,4)
From the triangular snow slope up to the fixed ropes below the Difficult Crack: (V,4)
Fixed ropes below the Difficult Crack on the Hinterstoisser Traverse and between the First and Second Ice-Fields: Ungradable, but if the ropes were not there, you can be sure that in typical winter conditions you would be talking about no less than Scottish winter Grade VI
Difficult Crack: (V,5)
The first pitch off the end of the Second Ice-Field: (V,5)
The Ramp from the bottom up to the snow slope before the Brittle Ledges: (VI,6) and A1
Brittle Led
ges: (IV,3)
The eighteen-metre vertical access pitch to the Traverse of the Gods: (V,6) and A1
Traverse of the Gods: (V,4)
Exit Cracks: (VI,5) and A1. This is assuming the easiest route is taken and it is possible to tension traverse into the middle gully. If one of the other variations had to be climbed, you’re probably talking about (VI,6), or maybe even (VI,7)
Appendix 6
Organizing a Polar Expedition – Some Outline Tips
Antarctica is expensive and difficult to reach, which is why, blocked by the roughest seas in the world, nobody penetrated its interior until just over 100 years ago. Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton struggled over the Ross Ice-shelf and on to the vast inland plateau; while the Arctic Ocean, peopled by the Inuit who, for centuries, have survived along its coastlines, is infinitely more accessible to travellers. Sledgers who cross Greenland, the Canadian north and Svalbard often describe themselves as polar travellers, using the Arctic Circle as their yardstick. Thus there are a great many more veterans of the Arctic than of Antarctica.
Travel in the remote polar reaches of the Arctic Ocean itself and the high plateaux of Antarctica demands careful preparation and constant wariness due to unpredictable weather and local hazards which can rapidly prove lethal. On the other hand, during the summer season, polar travel can be easy and almost temperate on windless days and away from problem areas. I have travelled to both poles, often without suffering unduly from the cold, yet I lost part of a toe from frostbite during a weekend Army exercise in Norfolk. A need for wariness is not a uniquely polar prerogative but, due to the remoteness of many polar objectives and the potential hazards involved, the organisation for any polar expedition must be especially meticulous.