Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  ‘I thought climbing was private,’ he retorts. Must have been saving that one up for a while. I nod, concede the point. ‘It used to be – though all those pre-war Everest trips had newspaper contracts. And books. If you can think of any other way of paying for this trip, let me know.’

  We have another media session, this time in Glencoe.

  It’s good for us to be together again, for most of us know only two or three others in the team and just dealing with the media gives us a kind of solidarity. We go to a nearby ice-fall for a photo-session; Kurt and Julie decline to participate, explaining they’re not prepared to take the outside chance of even a minor injury which could put them out for Everest. The Press look slightly baffled as meanwhile the lads are casually swarming up and down the 750 ice, without bothering with ropes or helmets. I do it in more cautious style, but the ice is in good condition and the climb is very straightforward.

  ‘This “Ultimate Challenge” is bullshit,’ said Sandy next morning, looking at a newspaper with that headline. ‘The ultimate challenge has got to be having a normal life with kids and a job and doing that well. Maybe I should try that some day … As long as I can still go off climbing once in a while!’

  Our Expedition was inevitably attracting a degree of criticism in the climbing world because of our sponsorship commitments, media coverage and intention to use oxygen. ‘If some of the people who slag us got off their backside and put together an expedition themselves they’d find out what it’s all about,’ Mal said, peeved. Jon delighted in spreading the rumour that all the lead climbers were being paid £5,000 each, and anyone who got to the top would be given a brand-new Porsche. ‘Well, would you climb the North-East Ridge for free?’ he’d reply with wide-eyed sincerity when asked if this was true.

  The final weeks before departure were a desperate rush against the calendar. Chris Watts hassled, bullied, begged and cajoled for gear, some of it custom-made, to be delivered in time. Nick and Andy pressed on, assembling some four tons of food. Sandy finished on the oil-rigs and drove the Pilkington’s van from Aberdeen to London to Liverpool to Edinburgh, frequently overnight and dozing off at the wheel. His driving is as terrifyingly approximate as his climbing is exact. An old man in Nepal had once looked into his eyes and told him he’d die in a van – but Sandy counted this vehicle as a truck, ‘So that’s alright, eh?’

  British Airways came in to offer free flights to Peking for us and, crucially, to fly out much of our gear free. This prevented our escalating budget from getting completely out of hand.

  Pilkington’s were proving to be the ideal sponsor – supportive, involved but non-interfering. They seemed as excited by the project as we were. They didn’t just give us money; they gave us secretarial services, a warehouse for the accumulating mountain of gear, the truck. They had a team of apprentices turning out snow-stakes and deadmen for us. From their diverse companies we received Reactolite sunglasses, an optical nightsight, and heat-reflecting foam mats like giant innersoles to go under our tents. These were a real find, making a tremendous difference in both warmth and comfort to tents pitched on rough moraine in Arctic conditions.

  A crucial factor was Dave Bricknell’s and Terry Dailey’s flair for organization and co-ordination that among other things produced a 200-page computer print-out record of all our equipment down to the last tuna fish and toothbrush. Planning and providing food, clothing, shelter, cooking gear and climbing equipment for 19 people for three months is a military-scale undertaking. There is no room for mistakes or shortages – if you run out of lighters, pitons, gas, toilet rolls at Everest Base Camp, there’s no popping round the corner for more.

  It was only this combination of organization, facilities, and sheer hard work that made it possible to put together the Expedition in five months. Items still hadn’t arrived a week before we were due to leave; the last odds and sods were picked up on the evening before departure.

  The last pieces fell into place. Kurt and Julie concluded a contract to make a film for ‘Pebble Mill At One’ in addition to the ITN reports. The Scottish Daily Record printed that we were taking vast quantities of wine and whisky, and when we told them this was unfortunately no longer the case, they compensated in the best possible way – by arranging to have us given six crates of MacKinlay’s blended whisky. Liz used her contacts to arrange for a precious crate of The Macallan malt. These were of limited medicinal use, but added greatly to morale and Base Camp relaxation.

  On 2nd March I typed ‘The End’ to Summit Fever and went up to the attic to collect together all the gear accumulated there; I selected a few positive and high-spirited tapes and books, bought a lot of rolling tobacco and pencils and notebooks and a few personal treats like Drambuie and chicken breasts in jelly. Then the camera system, the Walkman, special fast-and slow-speed film, all the etceteras of contemporary expedition life. Across the country, 18 others were doing the same. Any anxiety was now replaced by a feverish impatience to be gone.

  Then the final farewell drinks and meals, a party, all enjoyed and appreciated but in one’s heart one has already left. The sudden poignancy of the last walk to the end of the harbour, gazing down into the water and wondering what lies ahead. The last handshake with a friend. The last night with a lover. Wake at dawn, clean the last dishes, close the doors, stroke the cats, lock the front door and walk away.

  Isobel drives me to Turnhouse airport. It’s a perfect Scottish morning of sun and dew, anticipating spring. There’s little left for us to say as I sit and stare out the window at everything I’m leaving. We unload the car. Her silk shirt is cool on my palms, her red hair flares in the low, brilliant sunshine. It’s a moment that will recur involuntarily over the next three months as I lie trying to sleep at altitude, or push myself one more time up the fixed ropes on the Ridge.

  We look at each other.

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  A brief embrace and she walks away, drives to her office to do a day’s work.

  ‘Are you going to make it this time?’ the check-in man asks cheerfully.

  ‘It’s uncertain enough to make it worthwhile,’ I reply, glancing back to see her car turn on to the main road, ‘I hope so.’

  That afternoon we congregated at the London hotel Pilkington’s had booked for our farewell Reception. Some of the faces are becoming familiar, hi Nick, hello Sarah, this is Bob Barton. I shake hands with the burly, bespectacled Yorkshireman, liking his warm and concerned air. Chris Watts handed out our remaining gear, and we packed it all in our individual blue barrels. Much bustle, commotion, everyone a little tense as we sorted out the final details. ‘I’ve never felt so twitchy about any project as I do about this one,’ Dave confessed. The ballroom was now crowded with media, family, friends, climbers, everyone who’d been involved with our Expedition. It was moving to feel all this support and we began to realize how many hopes were pinned on us.

  A Pilkington director, Sol Kay, made a short speech; Mal replied, at once casual and formal, growing into the role as time went on. We were presented with a stained-glass picture to give to the Chinese Mountaineering Association – only Mal noticed that the Union Jack was upside down and wondered if that’s a sign of bad luck. We decided to have it re-done and brought out by Terry Dailey five weeks later when his leave from Saatchi’s began.

  The media departed and it was time for some ‘serious jollification’ in Sandy’s phrase. Allen Fyffe found himself in distinguished company with Lord Hunt and Sir Alastair and Lady Pilkington, but with a suitable amount of alcohol the situation was enjoyable, and he and Hunt discussed Everest at some length. Then we slipped away from the jollification for the Business Meeting.

  It was the first time we’d all met together. Our doctor, Urs Wiget, was introduced, a small, broad, smiling, bearded man immediately dubbed ‘the gnome’. We’d just started going over the contracts and finances when a tall lad with over-sized hands and feet stumbled in and slumped down. Eventually someone asked, ‘Well, who are you?�
� Julie explained he was Danny Lewis, coming along as their film porter to help hump gear on the hill. ‘How high have you been then, mate?’ Jon enquired. Danny looked embarrassed, and I felt for him among this group of complete strangers. ‘Twelve thousand’ he replied awkwardly.

  Eyebrows went up in silent incredulity. Kurt and Julie had picked a 19-year-old rock climber (climbing a very respectable 6b) with virtually no snow/ice experience and none whatsoever of altitude, to do heavy-duty carrying on an extreme route. We wondered if this was a very bright idea. ‘Nothing against you personally, we don’t even know you.’ It was too late to do anything about it, and it wasn’t his fault, so we just had to hope he wouldn’t prove a liability to himself or anyone else. He sat quietly through the rest of the meeting, wide-eyed and attentive.

  Our accountant set out our financial situation. Inevitably we’d considerably overspent our budget, but counting the newspaper, book, BBC and ITN money, we had a small surplus. Personal differences used to be the great unmentionable in climbing books, now it is often finance. One thing we learned from this trip was the importance of having financial details and contracts out in the open, to be candidly discussed and with luck agreed on. Jon made my position easier by asking outright if I got any of the Sunday Express money, and I was able to say no, that all went straight to the Expedition, as did the first part of the book advance.

  And Nick was thinking to himself, Why are all these buggers making money out of us and we’re not? The truth was, as Mal pointed out, these buggers (Kurt and Julie, myself, the PR firm, our accountant, lawyer, everyone down to the caterers) were being paid for doing a job, and that job was raising the publicity and money that gave us a three-month Everest expedition with a lot of valuable gear to keep, for the princely sum of £200 each. Without the climbers there’d be no film, no book, but without the media contracts there’d be no Expedition.

  ‘So, can we sign the contracts, please?’ We all signed, wrote out our nominal cheques, formally enlisting ourselves to the common venture. Then Dave Bricknell made a welcome and unexpected statement: Pilkington’s were aware that we might feel a certain pressure to succeed because of all the money put behind us. They didn’t want that. ‘What we want to see,’ Dave continued, ‘is a successful expedition, and by that we mean going out and doing your best, which you will anyway, and coming back all in one piece and as a cohesive team.’ Silent, appreciative nods. The ideal sponsor’s ideal parting words.

  Business over, we broke up the meeting and returned to pleasure. Though there was the usual laughter, drinking and carry-on, Jon noticed there was slightly less excitement and high spirits than customary before an expedition. It may have been the size of the team, and us not knowing each other well. There was also less of the death-and-destruction humour, precisely because this was a death route. There was a lurking seriousness behind the smiles. We were also very tired by the weeks and months of activity it had taken to get us to this point.

  These factors, together with the prospect of a 5.0 am start next morning, kept most of us under control. We slipped away quietly upstairs with our partners by midnight, leaving only Jon and Sandy in full cry pursuit of a good time …

  At 6.0 am on 6th March we stumble through our last Press conference in a basement room at Heathrow. We try to look suitably keen, fit and enthusiastic, but in reality we were grey and hungover. Allen Fyffe in particular is grim as Dundee in November. ‘Can’t you guys smile? Please!’ We assume hideous rictus snarls.

  In an alley on the way back to the departure lounge a ladder is propped against the wall. Bob Barton and Sandy hesitate then walk deliberately round it. Already we’re becoming superstitious.

  1 Unsoeld and Hornbein climbed Everest via the West Ridge and North Face in the 1963 American expedition.

  My Old China

  6TH – 9TH MARCH

  ‘What’s that about?’ The future, I should think.’

  Three hours gone, another nineteen before we arrive in Peking. The Expedition sleeps or slumps back blank-eyed. Jon and Chris have Thoroughly Modern Music on their headphones (New Order and Yellowman); Bob, as befits his age and temperament, listens to Dylan, thinking of his wife Anna and their new daughter. Andy Nisbet is white-faced and immobile, he travels very badly and this flight is a purgatory for him. He thinks of the two flights after this one, across China and on to Lhasa, then three days of journeying by truck, and groans inwardly. Nick and Sarah are talking quietly with each other, as they will for much of the trip. Others conscientiously sign their way through stacks of Expedition postcards for schoolkids.

  Tony Brindle is missing his girlfriend Kathy to a degree he didn’t know possible. They’d informally become engaged shortly before his departure; he’s told only Liz about this to avoid teasing from the more cynically minded. I envy them their certainty, and the way Kathy had come to the airport with us to be with him till the last minute. I could use some of that certainty. For me the last three months have been an emotional soap-opera when everyone is in love with the wrong person, each wanting what we don’t have. Once in a while we’d look at each other and laugh at our painful absurdity.

  How are we to live? I’m not going back to the mountains just for more climbing and new scenery. We’re all setting out with half-formulated questions to be resolved, even if it’s just ‘Can I go to 8,000 metres?’ Each one of us on this plane has our own inner expedition, the secret expedition with its twists and turns, moving like an underground river below the surface of events.

  Mal hands round blow-up photos of the Pinnacles, taken from the North Ridge. The lads pore over the problems that are going to dominate our thoughts for the next three months. The Pinnacles look chilling to my unpractised eye: hard climbing at any altitude, an unprecedented level of difficulty at over 8,000 metres. Falling away steeply on the West side, and the sheer drop of the Kangshung face on the other – there’s no escape route off these Pinnacles till the far end of them when the North Col Ridge meets our one. ‘See that little notch on the First Pinn, that’s where Bonington turned back … Renshaw had his stroke a little higher … Looks like you turn the last Pinn on this side … See that tiny colour patch below the Second Pinnacle? It might be a bivvy tent … Or Pete and Joe …’ A short silence, no one wants to think too much about that, though it’s a mystery we all want solved.

  ‘Looks real horrorshow,’ Rick says quietly. No one disagrees.

  Jon points out the base of the First Pinnacle. ‘You see that? That’s as far as I’m going. From then on you’re on your own.’

  But I am thinking of a last hug from Kathleen before boarding the bus to Heathrow, the softness of her pink sweater under my hands while over her shoulder the full moon was setting in the blue-black sky behind the hotel. I am thinking of our last night together, the things we said, and the hollow talismanic stone she hung on a thong round my neck. It’ll stay there till I return. Then behind me Jon, who’d been up all night, his hair a devastated cornfield, enthuses ‘I’m thoroughly rat-holed – great!’

  Peking in March has the aethetic charm and oriental mystery of a fifties tower block; it is as stimulating as a wet January afternoon in Fort William. Or so it seemed to us as our coach nosed its way through Peking’s 10 million rush hour cyclists. The city was utterly flat and utterly monochrome. Clouds of grey dust blew down the streets from endless building sites where hundreds of men and women laboured with picks and shovels and baskets. It seemed that the entire city was being rebuilt in grey concrete. The patient cyclists were swathed in dark, padded jackets, fur-lined hats, many wearing grey face-masks against the dust.

  ‘These are new workers’ apartments,’ our interpreter Jack announced, pointing out another ten-storey concrete block. ‘And this is the LARGEST GROCERY STORE IN BEIJING!’ We try to look suitably impressed as we trundle by what looks like a particularly shabby and dimly-lit post-war Woolworth’s.

  Still, the Chinese arrangements had accorded with their reputation for efficiency. All our baggage was quick
ly retrieved at the airport, and we passed with almost indecent ease through the Diplomatic Channel of the Customs (two stages which can take several days at Delhi airport, many hours in Rawalpindi). Outside stood two coaches, one for us and one for our gear. We explained we’d only ordered one, but two was what we got and two is what we’d pay for. Which is also very Chinese. Rick, whose meticulous nature well suited him to being our money manager, noted it down as the first of our additional expenses. On the bus our interpreter introduced himself as Jack though he was in fact Yan – very slight, young, thin-faced with a long bony nose, bespectacled and given to blinking a lot; he did not look very Chinese and his English was easily the best we were to come across. In turn he introduced ‘Mr Luo, your Liaison Officer.’ A thick-set man with a broad Mongolian face, expressive mouth and a black crew-cut stood up and bowed. We chorused a ragged hello, feeling like Mystery Tour trippers introduced to our hosts. Which in a way we were. Jack and Luo would be with us right through the Expedition, as our troubleshooters and minders.

  We arrived at the Bei Wei hotel, imposing with plate glass doors and plants and marble-floored lobby, though something in the Formica surfaces, carpets and black Bakelite telephones marked it out as 30 years behind the times. We picked up the room keys waiting for us and staggered upstairs with our blue barrels of personal gear.

  ‘Basically, this trip is throwing together 14 people who desperately want to climb a mountain, and seeing if they want to enough.’ That was Chris Watts’s assessment as we sat chatting in our room. He was still feeling obscurely guilty about coming on the trip while Sonja stayed behind, ‘though I know she’d do the same in my position. There’s a lot of thinking climbers on this trip,’ he continued. ‘That’s good and bad – you can expect to see a certain amount of tactical manoeuvring once we get on the mountain.’ I nodded. I’d seen the forces of individual ambition and joint effort play off against each other on the Mustagh Tower, and between the lines of practically every climbing book. A big expedition is a choir composed of soloists.