by Ben Fogle
I had spent the previous month at sea-level with my family in the Bahamas. The cold, snowy mountains of Nepal were certainly a shock to the system as I helicoptered from Kathmandu deep into the Khumbu Valley – on the route to Everest herself. Within a day of arriving we were at base camp getting ready to climb another 6,000-metre peak. It was the first time since Bolivia that the three of us had been together in the mountains.
At midnight, we pulled on our safety harness and roped ourselves together. Joining us was a local sherpa called Siddhi. In the chill morning air, we set off up the mountain. The climb was easier than Illimani, but nonetheless we struggled.
About halfway up, Victoria stopped for a rest and she broke. She hit the wall and just couldn’t go on. I was confused and upset, and I didn’t know what we could do. If she was struggling here, then what would happen once we went higher?
Victoria settled on a safe glacial plane while the three of us climbed on towards the summit. We could see her all the way to the top, a tiny silhouette dwarfed by the surrounding snow and ice. Just as the summiting of Illimani had been tempered by worry and guilt, I found myself once again torn between the elation of reaching the summit of Island Peak, getting another step closer to my dream to climb Mount Everest, and my worry over Victoria.
Surprisingly, we never talked about what happened on Island Peak. I’m not sure why. In some ways, I assumed Victoria might have decided to abandon the expedition, but she didn’t. In fact, she seemed to have a renewed sense of determination and Kenton and I admired her resolve.
An astonishing athlete, Victoria had embraced mountaineering effortlessly. I never doubted her physical ability and in fact, I always felt she had a better chance of summiting Everest than I did. But I could see that she struggled with self-doubt. She seemed to listen to a loud inner voice of negativity, which belied her strengths and amazing potential. Kenton and I did our best to reassure her and reinforce how good she was on the mountain, but her own questions about her ability were never far from her mind.
I asked her once whether she had ever been happy with her performance in life.
‘No,’ she replied.
‘Not even when you won a gold medal?’
‘I could have won it better,’ she smiled back.
That’s the thing about Victoria, always scrutinising herself, her own harshest critic.
I hoped that Everest would be a chance to change that. To embrace the unknown and the uncontrollable variables, to give in to the wilderness and silence the inner voice of doubt. We returned to Britain with just a couple of months to make final preparations for the climb.
Shortly after returning from Nepal, my father-in-law announced that after 40 years as a doctor, he had decided to retire. Weekly tennis and golf had kept him in rude health. Fit as a fiddle, he was in great shape. I had been thinking about the trek to Everest Base Camp and decided to invite both my father, Bruce and my father-in-law, Jonathan Hunt. Although I knew the trek would be demanding of two 70-year-olds, I also thought it would be a great opportunity for them to share the experience.
Both Mum and Dad had joined me in various escapades around the world. Dad came out to Ecuador and we visited the Galapagos together, and my mother came out to see me in Costa Rica where we explored the rainforest and even trekked to a smouldering volcano together. They had both come out to La Gomera when James Cracknell and I had set off to row across the Atlantic together, and they had been in Antigua when we arrived two months later.
They have both always supported me 100 per cent. I hate to think of the angst through which I must have put my mother.
In 2017, I invited Dad to join me in Tanzania. He had never visited Africa and I wanted to share with him the wonders of the Serengeti where I was making a documentary about the migration of the wildebeest as they made their way up to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. Dad was with us for 10 days, and it was magical to share with him one of my favourite places on earth.
Dad, at 74, is still working. A veterinary surgeon, he is one of the world’s leading authorities on animal behaviour. He has written nearly a hundred books on dogs and cats and he loves his job. I have often worried about him and wondered whether retirement would be a sensible option, but then his job is who he is. I don’t know what he would do without it.
Dad’s commitment to the clinic and his continuing support of my mother, who was still convalescing at home after her long period in ICU, meant that he couldn’t come on our Everest expedition, but Jonathan surprised me by accepting.
It had been a genuine offer and I hoped that he would add an extra dimension to the trek to Base Camp. While many people are drawn to the Base Camp trek itself, for us it was merely a means to an end. It was an important part of our acclimatisation, but it was incidental.
Kenton had warned us of the risk of sickness and ill health along the route. The 10-day trek to Base Camp is often the breeding ground for illness that can jeopardise the whole mountain climb, from colds and flu bugs to stomach ailments and other lurgies. Jonathan’s 40-year career as a GP meant that we would have a doctor along with us to keep us in good health, as well as me having a family member there. He could be our team doctor.
Victoria and Kenton embraced the idea, and before we knew it, I found myself shopping with my father-in-law for pee bottles and thermal leggings. While having Jonathan along was a great idea, I was worried about the responsibility of taking him. The trek to Base Camp would be a relative walk in the park for those of us heading higher, but for a 70-something the trek could be physically demanding. What if something happened?
I knew how much it meant to Marina for him to accompany us. In a strange way I think it softened her overall worries. The original plan was that Jonathan accompany us to Base Camp where he could stay for a couple of days before heading home.
‘I think he should stay for the whole expedition,’ she said, ‘why doesn’t he become your Base Camp doctor too?’
I think there was a relief for Marina in the knowledge that we would both look out for one another. It made the Everest Expedition more palatable to her.
At the end of our Island Peak climb in Nepal, Victoria and I stayed on to do a couple of days’ fieldwork with the Red Cross. The idea was we would visit some of the people and places supported by the charity.
On the first day, we visited a prosthetic clinic where those who had lost limbs in the earthquake had new limbs fitted. We watched a wheelchair basketball match and met survivors of the disasters, including a young boy who had lost his mother and his leg. We met volunteers who had lost family members and families who had lost their homes and their livelihoods. We visited a blood bank, where I left a pint of my own blood, and we visited rural communities that had lost all their infrastructure.
Victoria and I saw how the Red Cross had helped the Nepalese get back on their feet. They had helped communities rebuild water supplies and sanitation. We were shown how micro-financing had helped families start new businesses and stand on their own two feet. It was moving and humbling. For Victoria in particular, it gave purpose and meaning to our climb and strengthened her resolve. I was always worried that she didn’t have the same motivation to climb Everest that I had.
While my ambition and hope were part of a lifelong dream, her motivation was slightly more rudderless. By that, I don’t mean she lacked commitment, but I always felt she needed more of a reason why she should do it aside from just the physical challenge. Our time with the Red Cross in Nepal was surprisingly emotional and armed us both with a greater sense of purpose and connection to the task at hand.
CHAPTER THREE
Responsibility
I hate goodbyes. I always have. And this one wasn’t going to be easy.
The first goodbye I can remember was when I was about eight. My Canadian father would pack my two sisters and me off to his homeland every summer for eight weeks with my grandparents, Morris and Aileen. How I loved those long summers, those two months on the shores of Lake Chemong in the Kawartha r
egion of Ontario in my grandfather’s hand-built cottage. We paddled, swam and fished. It was the antithesis to London where we lived just off Baker Street in a house with no garden.
Here, nature was on our doorstep. We had freedom within the Canadian wilderness. I felt alive. But all good things must come to an end, and I’d have to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa for a year. I hated those goodbyes. I would bawl my eyes out when we were on the way to the airport and cry all the way back to England.
It’s strange but 35 years later I can still feel the emotion, that unique pain of longing and missing. I’m sure it’s why I still hate goodbyes.
Then there was the first time my mother dropped me off at boarding school. I was 14, a year later than everyone else mainly because I was never meant to go to boarding school. I didn’t want to go. My parents didn’t want me to go, but no other school would have me. My parents had taken the decision at an early age to send me to a private school, but I wasn’t academic enough for the high-intensity academia of London day schools. I flunked my exams and ended up with a place boarding in Dorset.
The memory of Mum and Dad driving up the seemingly endless drive towards the imposing building will never fade. All the other pupils already knew one another. I was the new kid. Geeky, unsporty and spotty. I clung to my parents and cried for the better part of a year. A year. Can you imagine what I put my parents through? Sorry Mum and Dad.
Like I say, I’ve never been good at goodbyes and that hasn’t changed.
We are in Colombo International Airport in Sri Lanka. We have just had the most amazing family holiday. Me, Marina, Ludo and Iona: three weeks exploring this beautiful Indian Ocean island. We have laughed and smiled, swum and surfed in the sweltering heat, met elephants and released baby turtles, bumped around in tuk-tuks and eaten every meal together. And now it’s over.
I always get post-holiday blues, but this is different. Much, much different. It’s bigger and it’s sadder. I am saying goodbye as I head off on the biggest challenge of my life. From here, I will fly straight to Kathmandu in Nepal while the rest fly back to England. Our happy family will separate, and I will begin a two-month expedition to climb the highest mountain in the world.
The last day in Colombo had been slightly painful. It had been hot and humid and by the afternoon a huge thunderstorm had broken over the city. Everest had loomed over us like an invisible weight.
The children of course were oblivious to the magnitude of what lay ahead. They were still in the sweet spot of innocence, glorious naivety. It was one of the attractions of attempting the climb while they were still basking in childhood optimism and hopefulness, to avoid them having to face the reality of the risks ahead.
Marina was quieter than usual. I could sense the weight of Everest on her shoulders. The burden of the unknown that she would carry for the next few weeks as she continued with life back in London while I began my trek deep into the Himalayas. We smiled and laughed, but there was an air of sadness. Perhaps it was the rain and the thunder, but it felt heavy. It clung to us.
And now, here we were at Colombo Airport where our lives would separate. No more family smiles, hugs, laughter …
I waited until the last call for my flight. I wanted to put off the goodbyes for as long as I could.
I scooped up the children who enveloped me like an octopus. I squeezed them and inhaled their smell. I nuzzled their necks and whispered into their ears, ‘Look after Mummy.’
‘Have fun, Daddy,’ they both smiled with that innocence and excitement that only children can muster.
‘Please keep safe,’ hugged Marina, ‘we need you.’
We both cried. I didn’t want the children to see my tears. They have seen me cry before and it’s important for children to know they can cry, but this felt different. The tears felt like an admission of fear and I didn’t want them to fear Everest. I wanted them to be excited and inspired by the mountain.
The tears felt like a weakness, liquid fear. In a way they were. My stomach was knotted and twisted. I have left my family for plenty of risky expeditions over the years, but this one felt different – it felt bigger, taller, badder.
I had struggled to rationalise my yearning to climb Mount Everest with my role as husband and father. After all, being a dad is a primary role. It’s not something that you just do part-time. It comes with responsibility and commitment.
I need them and they need me.
Shortly before I left, I had asked the children to give me something special that I could take to the summit with me. Ludo chose his panda teddy bear that he’d had since he was a small child, known as Pandear, and Iona, a little more inexplicably, chose a carrot dog toy.
As well as the two stuffed children’s toys, I wanted to take something else. One of Ludo’s favourite things in the whole world is his silver shark’s tooth necklace. He got it while we were in the Bahamas and he never takes it off. ‘Can I borrow your shark’s tooth to wear to the summit?’ I asked him. It was a big ask, but without hesitation, Ludo placed it around my neck. In its place, I made Ludo a special necklace that I placed around his neck.
That little necklace ceremony was profoundly moving. The silver shark’s tooth had such a profound power and energy. It was a reminder always of what was waiting for me at home.
Marina – Saying goodbye
As the dregs of the harsh winter loitered into March, Ben packed for three months away – two weeks of tropical heat in Sri Lanka, a teardrop-shaped jewel of a country for an amazing family vacation, and two months of extreme altitude in one of the harshest terrains on the planet.
Our holiday was blissful. We travelled through the verdant land, racing along the endless beaches, surfing and releasing turtle hatchlings back into the sea. We fell in love with stray dogs, learned about different curries and watched in awe as blue whales breached majestically in the gargantuan ocean. As our halcyon holiday neared an end, I felt the wave of anxiety welling up in my chest. Our goodbye was fast approaching, and I wanted to put a pause on our bliss.
My mother reminded me that I’ve never been good at goodbyes as Ben left for the South Pole and my face was a blurry sea of tears. When my holidays ended and I had to return to boarding school, my tears would start two days before I actually left. The anticipation was often worse than the actual goodbye.
Distraction is the only thing that helps and for me this came in the form of Ludo and Iona, whose emotions it was my job to temper.
In the days before we left for Sri Lanka, Ben asked the children to think of something special for him to take up Everest. He asked them to give it some thought, and had the idea that it would be a poignant thing for the film crew to record before he left.
We gathered the children and asked them to fetch the prized objects that Ben would carry to the roof of the world. They disappeared to their rooms and returned shortly after, bearing their prized possessions. With great reverence, they presented to Ben these carefully selected talismans. His eyes looking earnestly into Ben’s, Ludo placed a skiing medal (third place) that he had won earlier in the year on a family ski trip. In the meantime, Iona pressed a squeaky carrot dog toy that she had bought in the garden centre that weekend.
A consummate professional in front of the camera, even Ben couldn’t hide his surprise. He did a good job at feigning excitement, but he is not an actor and when the cameras had stopped he asked why they’d come up with the choices they had. ‘My medal is my most precious thing – it’s real gold!’ Ludo exclaimed, bursting with pride. ‘And I just love my squeaky carrot,’ explained Iona. ‘I know it’s meant to be a dog toy but it makes me laugh, and you know I love carrots!’ After a gentle explanation that his ski school medal was not in fact made of a precious metal, Ludo agreed to send his beloved panda with Ben instead: appropriately threadbare and well-loved and conveniently small and light, it fit the bill perfectly. Iona, however, demonstrated all the confidence and stubbornness that we love in our seven-year-old, and nothing would convince her to change he
r mind.
Ben’s flight to Kathmandu left half an hour before our London-bound flight. As his flight was called, he gave the children one last hug, clutching the precious toys they’d given him to take to the top of the world, Ludo’s beloved shark’s tooth necklace around his neck. I gulped back my tears.
‘Make sure you come home safe,’ I mumbled through my sobs as I clutched his broad shoulders and buried my head in his neck. He nodded and held me tight. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, ‘don’t ever forget that’ and with that he was gone, his tear-stained face turning back to me to wave as he walked down the long airport corridor.
I hastily wiped the tears off my face, returning to the children. We sat, perched by the window overlooking the runway as we watched Ben’s plane taxi away, frantically waving, the children electrified with excitement that we could actually see his plane and with innocent joy at the adventure that lay ahead of him; while I tried to muffle my sobs and crossed my fingers that the luck that had defined our lives up until this point was not about to run out.
Being a father is my proudest achievement. My children are my all. I would do everything and anything for them. I would give my life for them. So why was I risking my life?
Life, of course, is full of compromise. Society instills so many ‘values’ and ‘expectations’ on all of us. There is an assumption when you marry and start a family that you will conform to an idea of parenthood. And life, of course, is also filled with sacrifices, but here’s the thing: who are you if you have sacrificed the very things that made you the person you were? You are pretending to be the person people expect you to be, rather than the person you really are. Isn’t that being disingenuous when we as parents are trying to instil confidence and honesty in our children? Are we not being slightly fraudulent ourselves?