by Clint Willis
The Japanese had visited the face in 1969 and 1970. Their second expedition had included a team of more than 100 climbers and Sherpas, with an army of porters in support, but the climbers had turned back at the bottom of the Rock Band.
Jimmy Roberts—Chris’s friend and mentor on Annapurna II more than a decade earlier—had organized a third attempt on Everest’s Southwest Face for the spring of 1971. The expedition was to include an all-star roster of mountaineers from various countries. Chris had turned down an invitation to come as leader of the climbing team; he was worried that the climbers wouldn’t form a cohesive enough group to get up the route.
Roberts also had invited Don Whillans and Dougal Haston, and both men had accepted. The two of them climbed together on Everest as they had on Annapurna forging much of the route up the face. They eventually established the expedition’s high camp near the right-hand end of the Rock Band, but by then several climbers had quit the expedition. Chris had been right; competing national cliques had poisoned the atmosphere of the expedition. The climbers who remained were too exhausted or ill to support an attempt on the summit. Bad weather had also plagued the team. An Indian climber—Harsh Bahuguna—had died of exposure during a storm.
A second international team tried the route a year later, in the spring of 1972. The expedition leader was a cantankerous German promoter named Karl Herrligkoffer. Don joined the expedition, but Chris and Dougal turned down their invitations. Herrligkoffer gave one of their slots to Chris’s old friend Hamish MacInnes. Hamish had continued to cut an eccentric swathe through the fringes of the mountaineering world, at one point leading an expedition to search for the Yeti. He taught climbing and ran the Mountain Rescue Team in Glencoe; he also designed and manufactured climbing equipment. He’d always wanted to climb Everest; back in 1953, he’d teamed up with a friend to launch an unofficial—illegal, infact—vastly underfunded and somewhat harebrained expedition to the peak. Hamish and his partner had been making their way to the mountain when they got word that Hillary and Tenzing had reached the summit. Hamish accepted Herrligkoffer’s invitation as an opportunity to come to grips with the mountain.
The other British slot on Herrligkoffer’s team went to a rising English climber named Doug Scott, a strapping young teacher—he was thirty—from Nottingham. Doug had made his first climb with a washing line in Derbyshire, three weeks before his twelfth birthday, which came on the very day Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit of Everest. He had spent his teens climbing in the usual places—the Lakes, up in Scotland, down in Wales—with summer trips to the Alps. He had married young, at age twenty, but he hadn’t by any means settled down. He lived his life as a schoolteacher and family man between low-budget trips to exotic destinations—mountain ranges in Africa and Central Asia, including climbs in Chad, Afghanistan and Kurdistan. He’d also climbed big walls in Norway, the United States and elsewhere.
Doug was an intimidating figure, slender but immensely strong, with wide shoulders and big hands. He was ambitious and he was an idealist; the combination could be maddening. He looked a lot like John Lennon, staring skeptically out from behind wire-rimmed glasses, his gaze framed by dark, shoulder-length hair and a beard. He had something of Lennon’s accent and some of his attitude, too: Doug knew his rights, and he enjoyed questioning authority—he in fact liked to run things himself. He believed big mountaineering expeditions were by nature corrupt—hierarchical and unsporting—but he wanted to climb big mountains. Herrligkoffer’s invitation to Everest was a chance to get in that game.
Herrligkoffer’s 1972 expedition to the Southwest Face also included ten Germans, seven Austrians, one Swiss and a South Tyrolean. The Continentals were suspicious of the three British climbers. Several Germans soon accused Don and his compatriots of saving themselves for a summit attempt. The British contingent eventually withdrew from the expedition. Illness and exhaustion took their toll on the remaining climbers, who eventually retreated without reaching Don and Dougal’s high point of the previous year.
CHRIS MEANWHILE HAD applied to Nepal for permission to lead his own expedition to the Southwest Face. He’d engage it on his own terms rather than tag along on someone else’s expedition. Chris assumed he would have to wait in line for years, but he was wrong. The Herrligkoffer expedition was still on Everest when Bonington learned that an Italian team had canceled their expedition to the Southwest Face, scheduled for the fall of 1972. The Italians had withdrawn at almost the last possible moment; the Nepalese authorities invited Chris to step into their slot.
He accepted immediately—but he had serious reservations. The expedition would have to try and climb the face during the postmonsoon season, a time of year when no expedition had climbed Everest by any route. The late fall brought very low temperatures and high winds. Worse, the timing of the invitation meant Chris had only a few months to finance and organize a large-scale expedition.
He cast about for alternatives. Why not climb Everest by the normal South Col route—the old Hillary and Tenzing route—but do it in better form? Chris figured a small-scale alpine-style expedition would require only four principal climbers. He had set about recruiting them when he learned that Herrligkoffer’s team had failed to climb the Southwest Face.
This was May. Chris quickly realized that the challenge of the still-unclimbed Southwest Face was too great to pass up, despite the huge logistic and fund-raising obstacles and the absurdly tight deadline. He now calculated that he’d need eleven climbers for the trip. That group should include six men who would share most of the leading—and perhaps have a realistic crack at being chosen for a summit team.
Chris himself would fill the first of those six slots. That left five for his friends. He began by inviting some of the Annapurna team. Dougal Haston—still running John Harlin’s old climbing school in Leysin—was an automatic pick. Nick Estcourt was another. Nick had worked hard on the Annapurna expedition, and Chris knew he could rely on his neighbor’s good sense to help sort through problems that might arise. He liked having Nick around; they knew each other’s strengths and accepted each other’s oddities and shortcomings.
He invited Mick Burke, too. Mick was newly married and starting to establish himself as a professional cameraman. He had questioned many of Chris’s decisions on Annupurna, and had given him absolute hell for favoring Don and Dougal and their summit ambitions. But Mick’s criticism wasn’t manipulative—as Don’s often was—or petulant. Mick was a contrary bugger and he had his problems with authority, but he wasn’t blind to the fact that Chris often made good use of his leadership role. Mick’s attacks were sometimes useful reminders of facts or feelings the other climbers were afraid to acknowledge. And Mick would do the necessary in a pinch. Beth Burke would come too; her nursing skills would be useful at Base Camp.
That left two lead climber slots. Chris filled one of them with his former mentor Hamish MacInnes. Hamish had pulled his weight on Herrligkoffer’s expeditions to the Southwest Face. Moreover, he had considerable skill as an engineer, which would prove useful in creating a path through the complexities of the Khumbu Icefall—the notoriously dangerous maze of crevasses and ice towers at the start of the route.
The sixth remaining slot went to a new acquaintance, Doug Scott, who had helped arrange some of Chris’s lectures in Nottingham. Doug was by all accounts an immensely strong climber—his performance on Everest that spring had impressed even the hard-to-impress Don Whillans.
That left the question of Don himself. His association with Chris—in recent years, a very public one—had lasted almost fifteen years. Their shared history and Whillan’s fame in the wake of Annapurna seemed to guarantee the older man a role on the new expedition, especially in light of his two recent trips to the Southwest Face itself.
That was the popular view—an outsider’s view. But while Chris felt a certain loyalty to Don, he resented Don’s willingness to take advantage of that loyalty. Don as Deputy Leader on Annapurna had alienated and then infuriated some of the oth
er climbers, including Mick Burke and Nick Estcourt and Martin Boysen. Mick in particular had been deeply angry; his own working-class background made him less willing than some of the others to tolerate Don’s bullying and condescension. Mick and the other Annupurna climbers were convinced that Don had saved himself for the summit. And perhaps Don had done just that; he might have believed that Chris owed him this shot at success, that it would be some compensation for Chris’s own success on the Eiger and elsewhere.
Any such debt was discharged. Moreover, Chris wasn’t sure he needed Don on Everest. He had relied upon Don’s route finding, his survival instincts and even his selfishness to help the Annapurna expedition succeed. The others—Mick and Nick and the rest—were more experienced now; they were ready for their shot. Mick made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want Don along; Nick took the same position. Even Dougal—who had served his high-altitude apprenticeship with Don on Annapurna and then on the first international expedition to Everest—turned against his mentor. Chris understood; he had bridled at Don’s stubborn and sometimes bullying ways in the Alps a decade earlier. And Chris himself also worried that Don, having been to the Southwest Face twice, might not be content taking orders from a former protégé who had never been on the face.
Hamish MacInnes and Doug Scott did what they could to press Don’s case. Neither man had been on Annapurna, but they’d climbed with Don more recently, on Everest. Like others before them, Hamish and Doug had been impressed by Whillan’s strength and skill in the big mountains. And they got along with him, liked having him around. Don’s awkward ways made him a kind of lightning rod for the insecurities of others—he welcomed and absorbed their resentment. Some of that resentment might otherwise have settled on Hamish—whose self-sufficiency sometimes rendered him oblivious to the others and their views—or Doug, who could be overbearing at times, and whose sheer strength made him a threat to the others’ ambitions.
That wasn’t all. Don had saved Hamish’s life back on the Bonatti Pillar. Doug had known Whillans almost as long. They’d met in the Lakes, when Doug was a boy of fifteen, already powerful enough to break the older man’s rib in a pickup rugby match at Wasdale Head (Don had blackened his eye in return). Doug didn’t see Don as a threat; he’d cheerfully cooked for Don that spring on Everest, where he’d watched the older man’s antics with a half-amused admiration.
It didn’t matter. Chris announced the team that spring, and Don’s name was not on the list. It was a spectacularly public rebuff. For Don, the snub echoed other betrayals—Joe Brown leaving for Kangchenjunga, Chris climbing the Eiger with Ian Clough. Chris for his part sometimes felt the rift as another loss.
Bonington had added several other expedition members in supporting roles. His old friend Jimmy Roberts, now running a trekking company in Nepal, would serve as Deputy Leader. Kelvin Kent—Base Camp Manager on Annapurna—would run Advance Base this time. Mike Thompson wasn’t able to come on this trip; Chris filled his place with Dave Bathgate, a Scotsman who was a strong climber. Chris recruited another Scot, Graham Tiso, to organize equipment—Tiso owned a climbing shop in Edinburgh—and serve as a support climber.
Ken Wilson, the contentious and respected editor of Mountain magazine, was coming out to cover the expedition; he could help run Camp One. The expedition needed a doctor. Chris’s first choice—a friend named Peter Steele—couldn’t make it, but Brown recommended a friend named Barney Rosedale, who agreed to come.
Tony Tighe, a young Australian friend of Dougal Haston’s, was planning a trek to Nepal. He offered to meet up with the expedition and help run Base Camp. Tony had drifted into the Club Vagabond in Leysin a few years earlier and stayed on; he’d ended up managing the bar. Chris had spent a day skiing with Tony in Leysin, and found him easy company. He accepted Tony’s offer.
THE CLIMBERS AND their 16,000 pounds of gear, food and oxygen cylinders arrived in Kathmandu on August 23. They assembled their 400 porters and set out for the twelve-day walk to Base Camp. Chris spent much of the walk mulling over assignments for his team’s various members.
He had decided that his commitments as expedition leader were too demanding to allow him a leading role in forging the route. He would hang just behind the leaders, keeping an eye on the flow of supplies and people up the face. Dave Bathgate could take his place as one of the six lead climbers. Chris sorted them into three pairs: Bathgate and Nick Estcourt, Mick Burke and Doug Scott, Hamish MacInnes and Dougal Haston.
Chris hoped to avoid the infighting that had occurred on Annapurna, and with that in mind he also mapped out the roles each team would play on the peak. The three pairs would share the first task: finding a way through the Icefall. Each pair would take turns leading on the lower part of the face, as well. Nick and Dave would then take the lead from Camp Five to Camp Six, at the base of the Rock Band. Mick and Doug would tackle the Rock Band, which had stymied every previous attempt on the face. They would then make the first summit attempt—if they weren’t too exhausted by that point. Dougal and Hamish would wait in reserve for a second summit attempt.
The plan reflected Bonington’s take on the various temperaments of his climbers as well as their abilities. Dave and Nick would accept a secondary role more readily than the other pairings. Mick and Doug would probably be too weary to make the summit after their efforts on the Rock Band, but they would value the Rock Band as a prize in itself. Hamish and Dougal would have little reason to complain of their reserve role; it probably offered them the most realistic shot at the summit.
Chris had arranged for the team to arrive at Base Camp on September 15, the start of the postmonsoon season. He worried that they would encounter too much monsoon snow on the route if they arrived sooner—but arriving this late posed other problems. Their late start left them with a narrow window—a month or so—before the arrival of the postmonsoon winds that could transform the mountain into a hell on earth.
The British climbers and the Sherpas who served as high-altitude porters had to pass through the Icefall to reach the Western Cwm (pronounced “koom”); this was the enormous valley of snow that lay below the Southwest Face itself. The team spent almost a week building a route through the Icefall. Much of the work involved fixing ropes and building makeshift bridges to span yawning gaps in the glacier. Hamish and Dougal soon stepped into the role Don and Dougal had taken on Annapurna: forcing the route, making decisions and implementing them without fuss or delay. Most of the other climbers—including Chris—were sick from altitude or the change in diet.
They made each passage through the Icefall in the knowledge that the glacier was moving beneath them. The climbers passed through its shadows like thieves, hoping to escape notice. The Sherpas spent the most time in the Icefall, ferrying loads of equipment and food on the lower sections of the route. They prayed before they entered the place, but otherwise seemed not to fear it.
Doug Scott and Mick Burke established Camp One at the bottom of the Western Cwm in perfect weather on September 20. A group of twenty-five Sherpas carried loads to the new camp the next day, while Dougal and Hamish worked with Sherpas to improve the route through the Icefall, bypassing obstacles and reinforcing the crude rope-and-ladder bridges the expedition had built to span the worst gaps in the glacier. Nick Estcourt and Dave Bathgate meanwhile moved up to Camp One—but the weather deteriorated, with high winds and low clouds. No one climbed on September 23 or 24. It was just as well: a huge section of the Icefall collapsed, undoing much of their work. Chris mainly felt relief that no one had been in the area when it occurred.
More snow fell, slowing the expedition’s progress up through the Western Cwm. The climbers eventually established and stocked Camp Two at the foot of the Southwest Face. Doug and Mick moved up to establish Camp Three on the face itself, but a storm drove them down in early October. They returned to the face and reached the site of Camp Four, at 24,600 feet, on October 9.
Hamish and Dougal took over the lead. They dug platforms at Camp Four for two MacInnes Box
es. Hamish had designed the box as a sturdier, lighter alternative to the Whillans Box. They took two days to ascend a huge snow gully that led toward the Rock Band, climbing with bottled oxygen, fixing rope as they went. They reached 26,000 feet on the evening of October 14, running out of rope just short of the site they had chosen for Camp Five.
The weather was perfect. Chris entertained visions of a summit attempt by the end of the month. The expedition meanwhile had to keep supplies moving up the face. Chris himself moved up to Camp Four with several Sherpas on October 15. He planned to lead four days of carries to Camp Five. Nick Estcourt and Dave Bathgate could then occupy the camp and push the route out toward the projected site of Camp Six, a barren shelf of snow just below the Rock Band.
CHRIS CAME AWAKE at Camp Four to the roar of wind and the rattle of ice on the walls of his tent. His oxygen canister had run dry. It was midnight. He lay in the dark and listened to the sounds. He imagined the white of windblown ice swarming in the darkness outside. The wind continued through the night and into the morning. Chris put off leaving his tent in hopes that the weather would improve. He was still inside—reading The Lord of the Rings and brewing endless mugs of tea—when Kelvin Kent arrived from Camp Three.
Kent was a relatively inexperienced climber. He didn’t know better than to be out in such conditions, and he had managed to struggle up through the wind with his load. His hands were frostbitten—he’d neglected to wear windproof shells over his wool mittens. Chris lit into him, feeling guilty even as he did so, and sent him down the mountain with a Sherpa—leaving one less man to make the carries to Camp Five.