by Simpson, Joe
As I traversed left towards a short vertical chimney I looked up and saw ropes snaking up over a jutting roof. It was Matthew Hayes and Phillip O’Sullivan climbing the Difficult Crack. Slings clipped to protection pitons slapped against the rock as the rope came tight. A voice shouted a familiar English climbing instruction. The second climber appeared by the overhang and began to reach his hands into a soaking wet crack cutting through the roof.
‘Climbing, Matt,’ he yelled in response and then glanced down at his feet. I waved to him and held my thumb up.
‘All right, mate?’ I shouted. He said something in reply which I couldn’t understand. I had hoped that I might have reached his stance before he began climbing. The thought that he might take one of our ropes up with him and fix it for us had been playing on my mind but that possibility was gone. In a way I was secretly quite pleased. I wanted a go at leading the Difficult Crack and felt uncomfortable about relying on another climber’s help, even if it would have saved us a lot of time.
I edged across the traverse, my rucksack bumping against the roof and forcing me out over the drop to my right. I began crawling across the ledge, hampered by the friction of the ropes dragging heavily behind me. At its furthest end I found an old ring peg and clipped myself securely in place. I shrugged my rucksack from my back and pushed it to the back of the cave.
There was something familiar about the cave. and then I remembered a photograph in Chris Bonington’s book I Chose to Climb, of Ian Clough stirring a pot of stew at a bivouac. The roofed cave was the one they had used during their first British ascent of the Eigerwand in 1962.
Although most of my climbing heroes came from the generation of the 1930s, Chris Bonington’s career and his many books had been a major influence on my climbing development. It was his first autobiography, I Chose to Climb, that really inspired me to go and climb routes like the Eiger and the Walker.
I had always admired Bonington’s tenacity and determination to climb the Eiger. In 1961 he had arrived in the Alps directly from a 7000-mile road trip from Kathmandu after a successful attempt on the south face of Nuptse. He and Don Whillans had planned a protracted summer of Eiger-watching, determined to be the first British climbers to scale the north face.
On their first attempt they reached the Difficult Crack before retreating from the threat of bad weather. This was the highest point yet reached by British climbers. After a period of bad weather Bonington and Whillans headed off for Chamonix and, teaming up with Ian Clough and the Polish climber Jan Djuglosz, they made the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Freney. It was a significant coup made all the more impressive by the fact that the terrible tragedy on the Pillar experienced by Walter Bonatti had occurred only two months before.
The Italian party of Bonatti, Roberto Gallieni and Andrea Oggioni had joined forces with a strong four-man French team lead by Pierre Mazeaud, with Robert Guillaume, Antoine Vieille and Pierre Kohlman. In early July they reached the foot of the Chandelle, a distinctive 400-foot high rock obelisk that stands atop a 2000-foot plinth of broken granite. Bad weather moved in and the party was pinned down on a cramped ledge for three days and nights. Pierre Kohlman was struck by lightning in the first day of storm and severely weakened. With ineffective plastic sheets and no bivi tent the group huddled together for warmth.
On the fifth day of their climb they attempted to retreat down the Pillar, across the Col du Peuterey and down the Freney glacier. Hoping to reach the safety of the Gamba hut, they soon found themselves wading through chest-deep snow. After sheltering for a night in a crevasse they continued down. Antoine Vieille collapsed and died of exhaustion. Hours later Guillaume also succumbed. Bonatti’s great friend Oggioni was the next to collapse at the foot of a couloir leading up to the Col de l’Innominata, still 2000 feet above the Gamba hut. Pierre Mazeaud bravely chose to stay with his companion while Bonatti forged ahead.
Shortly thereafter Kohlman, deranged by the insidious effects of hypothermia, displayed signs of delirium and tried to attack Bonatti and Gallieni. They were forced to untie from their ropes and flee down to the hut. Of the seven who had set out only Mazeaud, Gallieni and Bonatti survived and the story became one of the most renowned and harrowing accounts of survival and tragedy in alpine mountaineering.
Undeterred by its serious reputation Bonington, Whillans, Djuglosz and Clough raced a competing French team of René Desmaison and Pierre Julien to the summit of the Central Pillar of Freney.
The Freney, the Walker and the Eiger had always inspired me. I had climbed the Freney early in my alpine career and stopped at the ledge where Bonatti’s party had been storm-bound. I then kept a sharp and wary eye on the weather. I remembered Whillans’s hand-jamming his way over the roof at the top of the Chandelle as I hung in that same upside-down, exposed position with 4000 feet of clear air sucking at my struggling body.
Whillans and Bonington then returned to Grindelwald for yet another attempt on the Eiger, this time accompanied to the foot of the face by a photographer from the Daily Mail which had agreed to finance their attempt. They retreated from the Swallow’s Nest and Bonington decided to call it a day and return to England. As he packed his gear in Alpiglen, intending to get the next flight back to England, they heard that a climber had been seen falling down the north face. They set out for the foot of the face to confirm their worst fears. A pompous German tourist was standing guard over the corpse, proudly pointing out the terrible head injuries suffered by the victim. Chris and Don covered the climber with a blanket and tried not to hit the tourist.
The following summer Chris was back on the Eiger with Whillans again fighting for their lives as they went to rescue Brian Nally after Brewster’s death on the Second Ice Field. Having then gone on to climb the north face of the Badile with Whillans, Bonington went to Chamonix and joined Ian Clough. Less than forty-eight hours later the pair were in Alpiglen. On the rubble-strewn lower rocks Bonington was disturbed to notice blood trails and a piece of flesh attached to some bone. He chose not to tell his partner. Later Ian told Chris that he hadn’t mentioned it for the same unspoken reason.
As they settled down in the cave to camp at the foot of the Difficult Crack where I was now belaying Ray they were surprised by the appearance of two climbers – Tom Carruthers, a well known Glaswegian climber, and Anton Moderegger, an Austrian climber. Bonington and Clough were baffled to learn that not only were they complete strangers but neither could speak a word of each other’s language. While Bonington and Clough went on to climb the face with one more bivouac on the Traverse of the Gods, Anton Moderegger and Tom Carruthers were last seen moving very slowly halfway up the Second Ice Field.
I saw the grainy photograph of the pair that Ian Clough had snapped from the top of the Flat Iron. The tiny figures had been crudely circled to mark them out on the immense expanse of grey rock-pitted ice. They were moving so slowly that there was no chance that they would reach the Flat Iron, one of the most dangerous places on the face, before the heat of the afternoon released the daily barrage of rocks. The rock slabs of the Flat Iron are scarred and pitted by the incessant impacts of falling stones that turn the place into a death trap in the afternoon. As Bonington and Clough anxiously watched their snail-like progress they could sense the uncertainty in their movements, two tiny spots becoming overwhelmed with fear.
Confident, rational decision-making would have been impossible given that they didn’t speak each other’s language – only mixed messages. In the centre of the ice field they were sitting ducks, vulnerable to the random bombardment of stone-fall. Clough and Bonington tried to shout a warning but they were too far away to hear.
The photograph, despite its poor quality, had a powerful effect on me. It seemed to sum up everything that was bleak and lonely about the north face of the Eiger. It was a last glimpse of short lives caught by chance on film which filled me with a sense of pity and pathos. I wondered what might have gone so terribly wrong. Were they swept from the face by rock-fall? Did one fall
and pull his companion to his death? We would never know. They simply disappeared unseen from an eerie world of dirty rock-pitted ice and plunging rock.
I glanced around the cave as Ray came into view at the end of the traverse. For a moment I had begun to feel uneasy about what we were doing. Perhaps I had read too many books and knew too many horror stories.
‘Hey, this is good,’ Ray said with an infectious grin.
‘Well, you’ve cheered up,’ I said, noting Ray’s surge of confidence.
‘Oh, yes, I’ve got over that,’ he said dismissively. ‘Just morning sickness. Hey, I recognise this place,’ he added, looking around the cave.
‘It’s a good bivi site. Better than the Swallow’s Nest, apparently.’
‘Did you meet those guys?’ Ray asked, as I sorted out my gear in preparation for leading the Difficult Crack. ‘I thought they might have fixed a rope for us.’
‘No, I just wished them luck. Anyway I quite fancy leading this,’ I said and started to move to the right where a crack cut through a bulge of rock dripping with icy water. I clipped the ropes through an old twisted piton.
‘Rather you than me,’ Ray said, as he fed the ropes out.
‘Look, I’m leaving my sack here,’ I said, as I clipped it to the piton. ‘When I get up I’ll tie the blue rope off and you can use it as a fixed rope while I belay you on the green.’
‘What about your sack?’
‘I’ll pull the green rope through the runners, drop it down to you and I’ll haul the sack up.’
‘Yeah, okay, sounds good.’
At the first touch of the crack, which was streaming with water, I marvelled at the nerve of the solo climber who only hours earlier had tackled the pitch without the security of a back rope. The water trickled down my sleeves and along my arms, sending icy rivulets into my armpits. I shivered and tried to get a better grip of the rock. I pulled up to the overhang and stretched to clip a tattered loop of rope protruding from the crack. I had no idea how strong it was or even what it was threaded through. Above it I could see another contorted, rusted piton. My fingers were quickly numbed. I knew I couldn’t waste time. Reaching as high as possible I managed to get a tenuous finger-jam in the slimy crack and, pressing my boots as high up under the roof as I could manage, I pulled nervously upwards, praying that my hand wouldn’t suddenly shoot out of the crack. I struggled to clip a karabiner through the bent peg and breathed a sigh of relief when the green rope was then safely clipped in. I noticed with some apprehension as I pulled through the roof that the tattered rope loop I had clipped to was only loosely jammed in the crack.
Above the roof the climbing eased and I began to enjoy myself as I followed the crack rightwards to a stance at the top of a short corner. To my surprise I could find no pitons or places for wires. Looking up I saw the way lead back left, traversing into a rocky corner directly above where Ray was standing. As I moved across to it I was dismayed to note a series of blocky roofs jutting from the corner beneath me. It would make hauling my rucksack a time-consuming task. After 100 feet of climbing I came to a secure stance at the top of the corner with two good pitons and a bolt to belay on.
‘OK, Joe,’ Ray yelled and I began to haul on the green rope that I had dropped down to him. I watched as the rucksack swung into sight from beneath the first roof and hauled hard to get it clear of the obstruction. It flipped upside down as it bounced over the lip of the roof and I watched my crampons swing from the attachment points on the top of the rucksack. After 30 feet the rucksack jammed hard under another roof. I couldn’t free it. I shouted to Ray to tell him to start climbing the blue rope using a sharp toothed camming device to grip the rope. I couldn’t belay him until he freed the rucksack and I could throw down the green rope.
Ray had found the prototype lightweight camming jumar in his shop and had thrown it into his sack as an afterthought. Now he was using it for the very first time and finding it almost useless. The grip relied too heavily on the sharp teeth in the metal cam. I could see an alarming amount of white core appearing on his rope. It was shredding the sheath. Ray was grunting and swearing as he pulled over the roof, fighting with the recalcitrant device which was steadily eating its way through his life-line with alarming efficiency.
When he could reach across to free my rucksack I hauled hard, with the result that it promptly jammed 15 feet higher under yet another roof. I started swearing angrily. On Ray’s third attempt to free the rucksack I noticed that the straps holding my crampons in place had almost worked loose. A solitary strap remained in a loose loop and the only thing preventing the crampons from disappearing into space was that one of the points had punctured the nylon tape. I yelled a warning and Ray managed to grab the crampons before they became Eiger junk.
When Ray arrived at the stance he was breathing heavily and swearing about the useless lightweight jumaring device.
‘Bugger, that,’ he said, throwing the piece of aluminium into the depths. ‘It nearly killed me.’
‘Look, sorry I got angry with you, mate,’ I said. ‘I thought you were making a pig’s ear of it.’
‘I was.’
‘Yeah, but it was my fault for not thinking about the haul line.’
‘No worries,’ Ray said and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Oh, and well led. It looked hard.’
‘More like wet and cold,’ I said. ‘Anyway, let’s have a drink and sort these ropes out. They’re a mess.’
As we chewed on some tough Swiss sausage and dried fruit I noticed the clouds had built up in the west. There was no longer a thin grey line on the horizon but a whole series of cumulo-nimbus clouds piling steadily into the sky. I glanced at my watch. One-thirty in the afternoon.
‘Hell, we’ve wasted an hour and a half at least,’ I said angrily. ‘Have you seen those clouds?’ I nodded to the west.
‘They said it was going to be overcast in the afternoon.’
I didn’t reply. There was something I didn’t like about the way the clouds were forming. I checked my watch again. The pressure was plummeting.
15 The fatal storm
We hurried up a rocky gully leading towards the base of the Röte Fluh. We moved together in an ascending 500-foot traverse over easy ground that led us leftwards over a series of snow-covered walls to a shield of rock. As I approached the wall I recognised the distinctive shape of the Hinterstoisser Traverse and felt a gathering excitement that we were about to pass another historic landmark. I found a tattered fixed rope clipped to some ancient but strong-looking pitons and quickly brought Ray up to the stance. Looking directly above the belay I saw an overhanging rock wall about 150 feet high. A thin trickle of water fell into space from its edge and I felt the spray cool my face.
‘That’s where Don Whillans abseiled when they rescued Nally,’ I said to Ray.
‘Must be,’ he said.
I didn’t answer because I had looked at the sky again and was now deeply troubled at what I saw.
‘Bloody hell, kid,’ I said and Ray turned to see what I was looking at. The western sky was now filled with dark thunderheads. The boiling white summits were building massively and even as we watched great plumes of coiling clouds were climbing thousands of feet into the air with every minute that passed.
‘We’re in deep shit. That lot is going to go off any moment. It’s big. This is no overcast afternoon,’ I said curtly.
‘That happened quickly.’
‘They can build very fast. I noticed the wind rising earlier. It’s the gust front pushed ahead by those cumulo-nimbus clouds. They’re all joining together. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. It might be short-lived but it’s really going to dump on us.’
I reached up and grabbed the fixed rope that was draped across the traverse. In three or four places the sheath on the fixed rope had been torn away and thin strands of white core was all that was left. I was filled with a nervous urgency, made worse by the oppressive and electric atmosphere of the onrushing storm front. There was no time for deli
cacy so I simply heaved myself across on the fragile rope, hoping it wouldn’t snap, clipping my own ropes through every battered piton I came to.
I glanced back and was astounded to see how dark it had become. Ray seemed to be standing on a cloud and behind him the ramparts of the Röte Fluh had disappeared. There was an ominous rumble of thunder from the surrounding clouds and water began to splash down across the slabby rocks of the traverse. The overhanging wall protected me from the worst of the deluge as I hurried across the rock, grabbing and clipping and hauling as fast as I could. I winced as another heavy explosion of thunder rumbled behind me. Glancing up to my left I saw a mass of fist-sized rocks spinning out into space from the top of the wall. I watched, transfixed, as they whistled past and spat down with sharp staccato reports into the rocky terrain several hundred feet beneath my feet.
An insistent rushing, sluicing sound began to increase in volume. I looked directly above me and was alarmed to see a curtain of water, hail and stones spewing over the wall at the top of the Hinterstoisser Traverse. Fortunately, the heavier debris sprayed far out into space, although the water and hail began to flow in torrents across the slabs I was traversing. I glanced back at Ray who was hunched at his belay stance, his hood over his helmet, in the direct line of a now heavy waterfall. Since I was preoccupied with climbing the traverse safely I simply registered these facts but didn’t feel unduly troubled. If anything I felt a mounting anticipation at the turn of events. The storm was dramatic and spectacular and, in a peculiar sort of way, enjoyable. For the moment we were safe and the security of the Swallow’s Nest beckoned.
After 130 feet of traversing I came to a vertical crack running straight up, bounded on its right side by a jutting roof. I knew that I should stop and bring Ray across, but with ropes nearly 200 feet long I gambled that I might just reach the shelter of the Swallow’s Nest. I climbed the crack as fast as possible, tugging hard on the fixed rope as the sky around me began to explode with heavy cracks of thunder. Lightning flickered within the clouds and water and hail began to rush down onto me. As I emerged at the top of the crack I saw a small snow ledge at the base of an angled rock wall. A flat roof projected protectively out over the ledge. There were bolts and an old fixed rope on the wall which I hurriedly clipped myself to and shouted down to Ray to come up. There was no response. I doubted that he had heard me above the tumult of the storm. I pulled on the ropes until they came taut and then gave three sharp tugs, which was our signal to climb if we were out of earshot.