The Beckoning Silence

by Simpson, Joe

  I clipped the ropes through my belay plate, dropped my rucksack onto the ledge, clipped it to a sling, then lay back against the sloping rock wall, which was completely dry. A fine curtain of water was spraying over the lip of the roof. I lit a cigarette, keeping the ropes taut in case Ray started moving, and stared across the First Ice Field. It was at that point that I fully appreciated how powerful the thunderstorm had been. The ice field was a continuously moving sheet of hail and water. Individual rocks bounced down the ice and sprang into space from the lower edge of the ice field. I leaned forwards and craned my neck to look up at the rest of the wall which had now opened up as I had escaped the confines of the Röte Fluh. I gasped in shock at what I saw.

  Far out to my left, in line with the Spider, a great water spout was spewing from the lower edge of the Second Ice Field and cascading in a free-falling torrent hundreds of feet high. Higher up the wall there was a ceiling of grey cloud level with the Traverse of the Gods, but I could make out the Ramp ice field and the dark diagonal gash of the Ramp. Another waterfall was spraying out from the top of the Ramp ice field in a triple-headed torrent. The main mass of the water was falling the entire length of the Ramp in a 300-foot arc, pounding into the rocks at the start of the Third Ice Field. A continuous barrage of rocks was flying off the Second Ice Field, some impacting the First Ice Field in front of me with sharp, cracking sounds and whirring out to fall 3000 feet to the meadows below.

  I stopped feeling elated and felt alarmed instead. I had never seen such a transformation on a mountain face in my life. The entire wall was a confusion of falling rocks, hail, small avalanches and waterfalls. I thought of Heinz and Scott and Will Edwards and his guides, and wondered where they were. I hoped they weren’t in the Ramp because I doubted anyone would survive such a battering if they were trapped in that deluge. If they were not swept straight out of the fissure they would surely be drowned.

  Then I thought of the solo climber and something clenched tight and cold inside. Could he have reached the Ramp this quickly? I thought and then dismissed the idea. No, but he could well be on the Second Ice Field. I stared at the debris discharging from the lower rim of the ice field and knew that anyone caught out on that vast expanse of ice would be having a torrid time with little chance of survival. If he was moving without any back rope he wouldn’t stand a chance. If he tried using a back rope system he would be so slow he would certainly be hit. Some choice! He’s probably already dead. I thought of Adi Mayr’s long, silent fall. What about the Brits? They can’t be very far ahead of us. With luck they should be able to get back to the shelter of the Swallow’s Nest.

  I looked around the bivouac site. Normally it is a narrow 18-inch wide rock ledge suitable for no more than two people. With the bad weather of the past week there was enough snow banking out the ledge for us to stamp out a reasonable platform that two of us could lie down on and still be sheltered by the roof. It would be damned cramped for four of us, I thought and felt the ropes give and slacken. Ray was crossing the Hinterstoisser. I spat the cigarette out and watched it tumble down onto the ice field and slide away into space. We’ll have to change our game plan.

  When the storm first broke Scott Muir, Heinz Zak, Will Edwards and their two guides, Hansruedi Gertsch and Godi Egger, were just about to move across the Traverse of the Gods towards the ice of the Spider. A few hours earlier, as Hansruedi had been safeguarding Will Edwards he happened to glance down and saw a lone climber moving fast at the bottom of the Second Ice Field. No partner appeared behind him. Glancing back a short time later he saw that the man had disappeared. He noted the weather and assumed that the soloist had taken the prudent option of retreating to the Swallow’s Nest. Distracted by the seriousness of their own position he gave no more thought to the matter. They were now high on the mountain, committed to climbing out of the wall with thunder clouds massing rapidly in the west, and he knew that the hail and water would be rapidly funnelled down the cone of the Spider.

  That morning they had left Death Bivouac in fine weather and enjoyed good, dry rock climbing in the Ramp. Despite the slowness that a filming schedule imposed and the congestion of five climbers in the narrow confines of the Ramp they had climbed efficiently up onto the Ramp ice field, crossed the Brittle Ledges and climbed the loose and steep rope length up the Brittle Crack to reach the relative safety of the Traverse of the Gods. There was a good bivouac site at the left end of the traverse, but despite the gathering storm clouds they felt confident that they could reach the Exit Cracks at the top of the Spider and climb out of the face that day. The storm caught them at a highly vulnerable point.

  The Traverse of the Gods is aptly named, given its lofty and exposed position and the fragile, loose nature of the climbing. From the top of the Brittle Crack there is a reasonable belay at the left edge of the traverse, but from there on for 400 feet towards the Spider the points of protection – weak, damaged pitons, battered into shattered downward-sloping cracks – are marginal, to say the least. Most climbers would prefer not even to weight such pitons statically, let alone fall onto them. For the most part the climbing was not technically difficult but the rock is suspect and the drop beneath the climbers’ feet is 5000 feet of clear air. The wall beneath the traverse is especially steep and undercut, hugely increasing the sense of vulnerability. The hardest climbing comes right at the end of the traverse around a protruding prow of rock close to the edge of the Spider. There was a good belay to be found at the far end but nothing reliable in between.

  It is no place to fall. In fine weather and dry conditions it is a traverse that would alarm all but the most dishonest climber, however easily they might have climbed it. With snow covering foot- and handholds it becomes a seriously unpleasant enterprise. As the guides saw the oncoming storm they made an immediate change to their climbing order. They roped together as one party of five climbers and the guides set off from the security of the left-hand belay with the firm instructions that the last climber was not to unclip from the pitons until he knew the good belay at the far end had been reached by the leading guide.

  At the most inconvenient moment the storm broke. Scott Muir was attempting to climb around the prow of rock at the end of the pitch and could see Heinz Zak belaying him from the edge of the Spider. Already unnerved by the exposure, his composure was broken when a wave of hail and water rushed down the rocks as thunder cracked and lightning flashed around the summit ridge far above him. The storm front had collided with the mighty ramparts of the Eiger and the Scheidegg Wetterhorn and in a very short time had unleashed its massive load of water. The entire mountain appeared to be flowing downwards in an unstoppable flood of hail, water and rocks. Scott slipped and cried out in alarm.

  Down at Kleine Scheidegg Simon Wells and his crew had been monitoring the progress of Matthew Hayes and Phillip O’Sullivan, the two climbers above us. Hanspeter was scanning the face with his binoculars as Mark Stokes tended to the camera. A curious crowd of onlookers hovered around the tripod. Having spotted the two men near the Ice Hose, Simon had assumed that they were Ray and I, unaware that there was a party ahead of us. The previous day he had been unable to get a long-distance shot of Heinz Zak and Scott Muir alone on the Second Ice Field because Will Edwards and the two guides were always in the frame. It was an ideal opportunity to get the shot they wanted and they knew we would appreciate a minor role in their documentary. They set the big camera to run unattended, filming the pair as they struggled very slowly up to the Ice Hose.

  As the storm swept in the summit area quickly disappeared into clouds and an ominous blue-black light filled the amphitheatre. When it broke Hayes and O’Sullivan were at the foot of the Ice Hose, sheltering from the mass of debris washing over the rock band, extending 300 feet above their heads. It must have been a terrifying experience. While the storm lasted the First Ice Field was being raked with stone-fall and avalanches and it would have been suicidal to attempt the two abseils down to the shelter of the Swallow’s Nest. They had no choice
but to sit the thunderstorm out leaning against the security of the rock.

  Ahead of them lay the Ice Hose, streaming with water. This 300-feet high gully connects the First and Second Ice Fields and provides the easiest line through the rock band. Sometimes it can be completely iced up, presenting a steep vertical ice climb, but more frequently the ice is thin and loosely bonded. In hot years it can be no more than a damp flow running through the rock band which must be climbed on awkwardly sloping smooth holds, sometimes smeared with a thin film of verglas.

  Perched on the Traverse of the Gods 2000 feet above where Hayes and O’Sullivan had taken shelter by the Ice Hose, Scott Muir was convinced that he was falling. Suddenly engulfed in a wave of hail stones so heavy that it obscured the rock he was traversing across in a bewildering moving white mass, he was unable to find the crucial foot- and handholds that would lead him around the prow. With his hands and feet disappearing into the gathering tide of hail, Scott had the unnerving sensation that everything was moving down, the hail, the rock he was holding onto and himself. He seemed to be standing on a moving white carpet. Then he slipped, a heart-stopping lunge towards the abyss that elicited a yelp of fear almost as soon as the slip was halted by crampon points biting securely onto a hidden hold. Heinz Zak, who was calmly belaying Scott from an exposed position on the edge of the Spider, could see that his partner was on the edge of panic. He urged Scott to steady himself. A fall could be disastrous to them all. As thunder exploded above him Heinz reassured Scott that he wasn’t falling and belayed him across to the ice of the Spider.

  Fearing that their position had become critical with astonishing speed, they knew that they would have to climb fast to reach the shelter of the rocks 350 feet above them at the top of the Spider. As the storm clouds deposited masses of hail, snow and water it would flood down the summit ice fields and into the maw of the Spider. With every moment that passed the risks of heavier and heavier avalanches increased.

  By the time the party began to climb the Spider the storm had passed with amazing rapidity. The hail and watery slush quickly dissipated and the sky lightened. They had been reprieved.

  Despite its ferocity and thunderous noise the storm was short-lived, probably lasting no more than forty-five minutes, and had dumped most of its precipitation in the first twenty. By the time Ray had reached the Swallow’s Nest the sky was already clearing. In the distance protesting thunder reverberated as the storm clouds swept eastwards across the towering pillar of the Scheidegg Wetterhorn, ripping themselves to pieces as they crashed against the ramparts of the Lauterbrunnen Wall.

  ‘Well, that’s our first Eiger storm,’ I said as I set the stove and balanced a pan of snow on the hissing blue flames.

  ‘And our last, I hope,’ Ray said, looking damp and bedraggled from his impromptu soaking in the waterfall. The torrent had been so powerful that he had been forced to endure a twenty-minute dousing, waiting for the pressure to ease off, despite my shouted curses and impatient triple yanks at his harness.

  ‘Tea or Cappuccino?’ I said, holding up a tea bag and a foil packet of instant coffee.

  ‘Cappuccino,’ Ray said. ‘It’s not bad here is it?’ he added, admiring our sheltered eyrie.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘If we stamp out a ledge and build it up on the outside we should be able to make a lie-down bivi here.’

  ‘What, and not carry on?’

  ‘I don’t fancy it,’ I answered and watched as a flurry of stones swept the First Ice Field. I raised my eyebrows at Ray, who had been watching the stones.

  ‘No, maybe not,’ he agreed.

  ‘Let’s have a brew and see how the weather develops. My feeling is that the storm has done its worst, cleared the air now, and we should get a sunny afternoon.’

  ‘With luck.’

  ‘It’s three o’clock now, OK,’ I said handing Ray a mug of frothy coffee. ‘We might have six hours of daylight to reach Death Bivouac, maybe less. But we have no idea how hard the Ice Hose will be after this storm and it might well slow us down.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m not sure I fancy sticking my head out onto the Second Ice Field. Look!’ Ray said, pointing upwards. A volley of stones was winging out into space from the wall above the Hinterstoisser, thrumming as they spun down through the air. ‘They might not be that big but I don’t fancy one in the face. It would ruin my modelling career.’

  ‘Yeah, I was thinking that,’ I agreed. ‘And we’ll end up climbing the Flat Iron in the late afternoon. I think the effect of this downpour will still be kicking rocks down for a long time yet.’ As I spoke there was a heavy thud from the First Ice Field and we turned to watch a football-sized stone bound in great leaps down the ice.

  ‘That settles it,’ Ray said, emphatically. ‘We’ve got plenty of food, a good bivi site and a settled forecast for three, maybe four days. Let’s sort this place into a really comfy bivi.’

  16 The happiness of a lifetime

  We began to arrange a cat’s-cradle of ropes linking the bolts that had been fixed to the back wall of the bivi ledge. Soon we had fixed a washing line of rope hanging with hardware, slings, axes and crampons, cameras and rucksacks tidily out of our way as we methodically stamped the ledge wider, banking the outside edge to stop us slipping off in our sleep. We paused every now and then to watch the flurries of stone-fall. The bombardment didn’t seem to have eased up very much. After an hour’s work we felt satisfied that our sleeping arrangements were as good as we could make them and we made a thin mattress on the snow by coiling our ropes in wide s-bends and placing our empty rucksacks on top of them. Once we had put our insulated sleeping mats on top of them it began to feel quite palatial.

  We were in high spirits, delighted to have found such a fine bivi spot and feeling that everything was in control. We were happy to change our game plan and not force a way on towards Death Bivouac. Why take unnecessary risks?

  I was sitting at the far edge of the ledge overlooking the Hinterstoisser Traverse and the sweep of the First Ice Field which ended abruptly in a lurching abyss some 80 feet below me.

  ‘Good God! This is where Hinterstoisser and Kurz tried to abseil,’ I said pointing at where the ice field plunged over the huge overhanging rock band. Stones rattled down the ice and I thought of the desperate position they must have been in. They were in a full-blown storm, not some vicious passing thunderstorm, and the avalanches spewing down the ice field must have been frightening.

  ‘Remember Anna Jossi saying she saw Angerer, the guy with the head injury, slumped here, not moving?’ Ray said.

  ‘God, it must have been awful,’ I said fervently.

  I stared at the ice field, imagining their crouched, battered figures hacking a stance from the ice, trying to find good placements for the pitons. I thought of Hinterstoisser moving out to one side searching for a crack in the rock while Angerer crouched passively on the ice, a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. I imagined the sudden heavy rush of that final avalanche or the thunder of the rocks that swept Hinterstoisser cart-wheeling helplessly out into the void. I thought of the brutal impact of Kurz’s and Anger’s falling bodies wrenching Rainer hard against his belay piton and strangling the life from him. I shuddered at the thought of Kurz’s last moments.

  ‘What time is it?’ Ray asked, breaking the spell.

  ‘Nearly five. Why?’

  ‘I sort of expected to see those Brits appear by now.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a point,’ I said. ‘I was worrying about the solo climber. Do you think he survived?’

  Ray gave a eloquent shrug of his shoulders. His grimace confirmed what I already feared.

  ‘Shit!’ I muttered and got to my feet. I tied myself into the end of the green rope and pulled some slack free from beneath the sleeping mats. ‘Here, watch me on this,’ I said to Ray, handing him the rope. ‘I’m just going to go up and have a look around the corner. They might be coming down.’

  ‘Watch it, kid,’ Ray warned. ‘There’s
a lot of crap coming down.’ I nodded and stepped past him, grabbing a tattered length of fixed rope that was tied to a rocky outcrop 20 feet above me. I used it to swing myself out to the left onto the slushy névé of the ice field and then pulled myself hand over hand up the rope. Clipping a sling to the piton that the weather-worn rope was tied to I leaned around the corner and peered up the First Ice Field.

  ‘Any sign?’ Ray asked.

  Above me the ice field angled up for 300 feet until it ended at a rock band. I saw the distinctive white line of the Ice Hose cutting left to right through the rock band. It appeared thin and unstable. A flurry of snow drifted down. There was no sign of the climbers. Large chunks of ice peeled off the edge of the Second Ice Field.

  There was an unusual slumping sound and a cluster of ice chunks rained down as if something large was coming. I swung quickly behind the rock and ducked my helmeted head down low. It was a strange noise that I couldn’t explain. It was neither a heavy impact nor a slithering sound. I cautiously raised my head and examined the Ice Hose with a critical eye. I had been worrying about it all day, curious to see how hard an obstacle it might be. The ice appeared honeycombed and rotten. I swung hurriedly back down to the ledge as another volley of rocks sprayed down the ice field.