White Limbo: The Classic Story Of The First Australian Climb Of Everest

by Hall, Lincoln

  In 1979 I began work as a trekking guide in the Nepalese Himalaya. Fifteen adventure-hungry Australians were entrusted to my care for up to a month at a time, and I had to ensure that their adventures stayed at the gentler end of the scale. I began to value other people’s views of the world and to appreciate that many had their own private Everests to climb. It was humbling to work with the Nepalese. For them, performing a job well was reward in itself. Life was lived for what it offered, not in constant hope of a better but never attainable future. I have learnt as much from the people of the Himalaya as from the mountains, and have felt some of the satisfactions of helping others to the same appreciation.

  The dangers of mountaineering are very real to me. Several times I have come near enough to death for it to feel as close as the darkness beyond a candle flame. Those occasions prompt a lot of thinking. On every big climb I keep a diary to try to capture not only the events but my feelings. Some things remain inexpressible so I turn my hand to poetry in the search for their essence. My approach to climbing and, I suppose, to life is more introverted than that of my companions. Usually suggestions of soft options and words of caution come from me because of my healthy awareness of my own mortality.

  Each of us had our own strengths and weaknesses. Individual shortcomings were offset by the strength of the group so that together we made a harmonious and formidable team.

  By the end of 1982 our planning was complete. Ahead of us was the task of raising the finance, then assembling and shipping our food and equipment. Just as important was preparing ourselves for the climb. The only satisfactory training for mountaineering is climbing mountains. To that end Geof organised an expedition to Pumori, an outlier of Everest. For Andy, Tim, Greg and myself our objective was Annapurna II. Certainly those mountains provided problems we would encounter on Everest. At the same time they were mighty climbs in their own right. And for a while, as we faced their particular challenges, Everest was almost forgotten.

  North of the lowland town of Pokhara in central Nepal the Himalaya soar up in an uninterrupted sweep to the crest of the Annapurna range. It is as if in this one place the geographical formality of foothills has been forgotten. The obstacles presented by the gorges that cut through the vertical flanks of the mountains more than compensate for the lack of intermediate ranges. With nothing to obscure the view the mountains catch the eyes of all who travel by road from India or Kathmandu. Though the whole Annapurna range is visible from Pokhara one peak in particular attracts the interest of mountaineers.

  Behind and to the east of the spire of Machapuchare rises the huge mass of Annapurna II. The summit pyramid of stark black rock dominates the skyline. The spur which falls directly from the summit and divides the pyramid’s south face into its east and west facets suggests to climbers an obvious though difficult line of ascent. All four previous attempts to climb that route had failed.

  Over several years our work as trekking guides had taken Tim and myself to the Annapurna region many times. Always that south spur of Annapurna II tempted us, and finally we yielded to it. Our style of climbing lent itself to the difficulties of the mountain. A small team minimised the logistical problems of the exceptionally rugged approach. As for the peak itself, its situation was magnificent. Just to be on its slopes amongst the clouds would be reward enough. To leave the summit untrodden would not spell absolute failure. At least, acceptance of the likelihood of defeat was how we justified to ourselves our decision to attempt such an awesome objective. The South Face of Annapurna II remained the major unclimbed route in the Nepal Himalaya so we half expected to fail as all previous expeditions had done.

  Tim, Andy, Greg, Queenslander Mike Groom and I met in Kathmandu at the beginning of August 1983. I had been working in Kashmir and arrived in Nepal a few days early. The casual style of the expedition was set when I was an hour late in meeting the other climbers at Kathmandu airport. The only way to cope with the lazy chaos which is the modus operandi of Kathmandu life is to operate at that same level of disorganisation. Consequently not only was I an hour late but I arrived on the back of my friend Ang Karma’s motorbike, hardly the vehicle to transport my companions and their mountains of equipment. Various plans of action were discussed above the insistent attempts at bargaining from half a dozen unwanted taxi drivers and hotel touts. Eventually it was with the help of Ang Karma’s brother, Kunga Sherpa, and a well-travelled jeep which Kunga had borrowed that we transferred ourselves and all our gear to Kunga’s place.

  Kunga’s big new house at Bodnath on the outskirts of Kathmandu was our base for the next few days. We had worked with Kunga for several years and during that time we had become firm friends. An intelligent, well-educated man, Kunga had no illusions about the corruption and incompetence of sectors of the Nepalese government. He had learned efficient ways to deal with the Mountaineering Section of the Ministry of Tourism. Often that meant ignoring the rules completely, which suited our somewhat anarchic style of organisation. To our minds, more essential than the compulsory bureaucracy imposed on mountaineering expeditions was the buying of supplies and equipment. For these tasks we were helped by five Nepalis who were to work with us during our adventure. Narayan Shresta was to be our sirdar (“boss”); Maila Tamang, expedition cook; Lobsang Tenzing Sherpa, sometime cook and all-time pillar of strength and dependability; general dogsbody Tomai Magar (Tomboy-sahib); and our mailrunner and practical joker Onchu Sherpa. As well, Ang Karma accompanied us for the first three weeks of the climb.

  Each year Nepal’s mountains attract not only dozens of mountaineering teams but thousands of trekkers who come to walk in the foothills and high valleys. Tibetan traders and the wives of Sherpa men who work in the trekking and climbing business make good money dealing in secondhand equipment. The bulk of our gear was bought from their shops. With Maila and Tenzing we calculated the food quantities for two months in the mountains. After six days of fossicking in crowded bazaars, prolonged sessions of bargaining, and overloading battered taxis with our purchases, everything was packed into porter loads at Kunga’s house. It was Friday evening, and we were ready to leave. When Kunga told us it was bad luck to leave on a journey on Saturday we postponed our departure, despite wanting to send Onchu and Maila ahead to arrange porters to carry our loads. Kunga suggested a way that they could avoid leaving on Saturday. On Friday night, they left their rooms down the road from Kunga’s place and came to stay with Kunga. First thing in the morning they left, having technically begun their journey the night before. For a Himalayan climb every portent of good luck must be courted.

  One good omen (at least that was our interpretation) was our first glimpse of Annapurna II. As we roared along the narrow winding road on the roof of our bus a parting in the monsoon clouds revealed our route. No other mountains could be seen.

  In order to climb in the settled weather at the end of the monsoon it is necessary to arrive in Kathmandu and travel to the base camp while the rains are still in progress. The day we made the eight-hour bus journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara the rains held off. Yet on steep hillsides beside the road the rice paddies were running with water. The local farmers kept the long irrigation canals clear and repaired the washed-out walls of terraces. At some places rice was being planted; at others the fields were already a vivid emerald green. The monsoon was a very busy period. For us it was a good time to relax and begin to concentrate our mental energies on climbing the mountain.

  Usually the walk-in is the time to prepare one’s mind for the rigours ahead. My already fit body tuned its muscles as I walked through the lowlands, but my mind needed to be flexed. I contemplated my reactions to danger, wondered whether I’d have the strength to push myself to the limits that the lack of oxygen would demand of me. I imagined the fear, the discomfort of the extreme cold, and the breathlessness which comes with an adrenalin rush at high altitude. I had coped with these things in the past, but this time the mountain was tougher and bigger than anything we had climbed before, on top of which the short
walk-in gave less time to prepare ourselves.

  Onchu and Maila flagged down our bus as we drove into Pokhara, and took us to meet the forty-odd local men and women who were to carry our food and equipment. After half an hour of chaos while the porters argued amongst themselves about the size of their loads we walked away from Pokhara, north towards the clouds. The first afternoon was an easy stroll along the banks of a river. The next day’s walk was straightforward but made oppressive by the muggy heat. Interest and refreshment came from wading side-streams, sometimes dangerously swollen by the monsoon rains. We cut over a minor ridge into the valley of the Mahdi Khola, the river which drains the southern slopes of Annapurna IV, Annapurna II and Lamjung. Occasionally the sun broke through the clouds making the heat almost unbearable. The parting of the clouds did give us another view of our mountain, a reminder of why we were sweating up and down the muddy lowland trails.

  The southern slopes of the Annapurna massif are the wettest part of Nepal. The monsoonal clouds drift north high above India and empty the last of their rains upon the immense barrier of the Annapurnas. There are no foothills to intercept the storms. The exceptional wetness is reflected by the flooded streams and the lush, impenetrable jungle that clothes the lowest slopes of the mountains. To us, a reminder of the ruggedness ahead was the fact that virtually all our porters deserted shortly before Siklis. It had taken two days to cover the thirty-five kilometres to this last village at the base of the mountain. We waited a day there while Narayan employed more porters, this time locals who claimed they knew the terrain and the rigours it would demand. A day of slashing and hacking to clear the path through the jungle took us only a few kilometres nearer. Mirjan, our chief track-cutter, assured us we would reach Base Camp the next day. As we struggled through the giant stinging nettles and plucked dozens of leeches from our bodies the crisp air and simplicity of life in the high mountains seemed a long way ahead.

  The next morning we came upon the settlement of Hoga—a couple of hectares of fertile river flat. The people who farmed the area reached Siklis by a high route through their alpine pastures. It was a very long way around but it saved them the continual work of keeping a path cut in the quick-growing jungle we had travelled through. We bought and devoured some fresh buffalo milk yoghurt and arranged for supplies of beans and potatoes to be carried up to our Base Camp another three hours’ walk further on.

  Base Camp was still in the jungle at an altitude of 2600 metres. We cleared sufficient vegetation to set up our camp and considered the enormity of our project. The summit was more than five kilometres above us. During the next six weeks we would work our way up the slopes till we established a high camp at 7000 metres. From there, if our careful planning had been accurate, we would have strength enough left to climb the most difficult part of all, the steep rocky pyramid to the summit.

  The immediate problem before us was the gorge. The sight of the steep rock walls was enough to send most of our porters hurrying back to Siklis. It was fortunate that amongst the three men willing to stay was Mirjan, our track cutter. Though Narayan had employed him in Siklis he lived with his parents at Hoga. He had acted as guide for several of the previous expeditions. With his aid little time was wasted finding a path around and over the thickly vegetated cliffs. After a thousand metres of struggling with vertical bamboo thickets and dense rhododendrons the forest gave way to lower but equally dense undergrowth. There we were lucky to find enough level ground to pitch our tents for our first depot.

  The labour of carrying loads of food and equipment up to the depot was done in perpetual mist. It was almost a protective cloud, preventing us from seeing the extent that the cliffs rose above us and the doom that awaited us should we slip during the muddy climb. It rained heavily the morning we left Base Camp to spend our first night at the depot. That afternoon the clouds parted enough for us to appreciate our spectacular situation. Across the gorge, cliffs rose from Base Camp for three thousand metres. From the glacier at the top of the huge precipice avalanches fell through a thousand metres of air before sliding down steep ramps and gullies to the bottom of the valley. The noise of the avalanches reverberated across the gorge with our camp seeming to be the focus. For that reason we named it the Auditorium.

  From the Auditorium our route wound its way up steep tussock slopes and smooth bluffs. In some spots we left ropes in place to make our load carrying a safer operation. We repeated the procedure of moving supplies up the mountain, this time to a camp we called Easter Island because the silhouettes of the rock buttresses above our camp were reminiscent of the ancient Polynesian statues. Easter Island gave us our first relatively close view of the summit pyramid, though the top was four thousand metres above our lush, rainy camp.

  Above Easter Island the terrain began to open up into the huge cirque of mountains whose ice-and snow-melt had cut the gorge out of the rock. At that point the gorge itself was choked with the landscape-forming ice of the glacier. Our route crossed the jumbled glacier to the slopes of our mountain. Again days were spent ferrying loads, this time up grassy slopes bestrewn with myriad alpine flowers. The site of our Advance Base Camp at 4700 metres was an idyllic spot with magnificent views out over the ramparts of the gorge to the lowlands.

  Advance Base Camp was a place for us to rest while we prepared ourselves for the “real” climbing on ice slopes and snow-covered cliffs above. The tough approach had already conditioned our minds to working in the dangerous vertical environment. Now we had to contend with the extra discomforts of cold and lack of oxygen. We had been mentally preparing ourselves for this stage of the climb for months. It was a relief for us to face these familiar challenges and to leave the rain and mud and leeches behind.

  The first obstacle above us was a broken glacier. Andy and I negotiated a way through the maze of ice-blocks and crevasses, and began work on the 200-metre cliff beyond. The next day Greg, Mike and Tim climbed to the top of the cliff. They had followed the route used by previous expeditions and marked by old pitons and tattered ropes. Beyond that we were faced with several options. Greg and Andy returned disappointed from a hard day reconnoitring the route. The direct line we had hoped to take to the Col (high pass) at the foot of the summit pyramid was threatened by avalanches. Mike and I investigated the other option. It proved to be much longer but fairly straightforward and definitely safer. We dumped our gear at the site for Camp I and returned exhausted to Advance Base. The lack of oxygen at these altitudes made physical activity such hard work that after one day of climbing we needed a day of rest. While half the team recuperated the other half climbed. Tenzing and Narayan helped us with the thankless task of carrying supplies up to Camp I.

  As we acclimatised, the debilitating effects of oxygen debt lessened. After a week at Advance Base we moved up to Camp I where we were faced again with the painful process of adjusting to the height. Camp I was in a hollow just off the crest of the ridge which came down from the south spur of the mountain. It was that spur, dividing Annapurna II’s South Face into its east and west facets, which we hoped to climb.

  During our 1982 climb of Trisul Tim, Mike, Narayan and I had experienced gale-force winds, strong enough to flatten our sturdy mountain tents. Since then, whenever the snow was suitable for their construction we camped in snow caves. At Camp I we dug two caves—one as a kitchen and one as sleeping quarters. It became such a comfortable camp given the limits of comfort imposed by the cold and the altitude of 5800 metres that it soon earned the nickname of Hotel Annapurna.

  Above, we were again faced with two choices. One way meant obviously more difficult climbing and hence was less suitable for the carrying of heavy loads to our next camp site. We decided to explore the easier option, which meant travelling along a glacier below the ridge rather than on top of the ridge itself. Our main worry was that avalanches would fall onto our route from the flanks of the ridge.

  That proved to be a real danger. As we made our way along the glacier we crossed piles of avalanche debris. There was r
eassurance in that—since each avalanche that had fallen was no longer a threat. A few hundred metres below the Col the weather, which had been deteriorating all morning, became so bad that we were forced to dump our loads and head back to Hotel Annapurna. A short way before camp we were faced with climbing a fifty-metre cliff we had descended that morning to reach the glacier. We had left a rope in place, so it was a simple matter of climbing the rock with the rope for safety and as an aid. Only one person could climb the rope at a time. A blizzard was blowing when I, the last of us, began to scramble up the cliff. Because of the bad weather the others decided not to wait for me but to continue to the nearby camp.

  A short way up the rock I put my weight on the rope. To my horror it immediately went slack. Before I had time to think I heard the rumble of rocks falling down the cliff. The rope had pulled loose some boulders. I flattened myself against the wall with my arms crossed over my head. Rocks showered around me, large pieces striking my right foot, my arm and my helmet with sickening force. When the dust subsided I checked that all parts of my body appeared as they should be. The pain from my arm and foot was already intense. I realised that I had to get back to camp before the shock wore off and the pain incapacitated me. Only determination got me to the top of the cliff. On the glacier again the wind and snow blew unobstructedly—with darkness approaching it was dangerous weather for an injured person to be away from camp alone. I hobbled back to Hotel Annapurna, already mentally accepting that the climb was over for me. At the snow cave the others were shocked by the sight of me—clothes and rucksack torn, my glasses broken and my face covered with blood. Luckily my injuries were not as serious as my appearance suggested. My helmet had been split, and it was that combined with my quick reactions which had saved my life. On my return to Australia an X-ray confirmed that a bone in my foot had been broken. For the rest of the climb my stiff mountaineering boot acted as a perfect splint.