Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  We creep round a bend. ‘See you, Jimmy!’ I nod, speechless. Spread out before us now are the true Himalayas, a surf breaking on the horizon and leaping into the sky. Or a necklace of teeth that happens to be some 200 miles long – and smack in the middle, unmistakably and unarguably, the biggest and wickedest canine of them all.

  Our trucks have gathered at the top of the pass. We jump down and stand and stare. Kurt and Julie are filming us, but we don’t need to fake our reactions. We’d been prepared for disappointment, knowing Everest doesn’t look impressive from the Nepal side, but from here it’s a towering, squat pyramid gleaming with promise and threat, putting all other mountains into their proper place. But what other mountains! We identify them: the giant Makalu, the classic white triangle of Pumori, the sprawling magnificence of Cho Oyu, Chomo Lonzo …

  And our ridge, the North-East Ridge? To our amusement, Dave Bricknell corrects Bob and Allen’s identification: the long, tapering left-hand skyline is our target. It doesn’t look too steep, is Andy Nisbet’s first thought. Most of us share a degree of relief; at first sight it doesn’t look outrageous. What it does look, Mal thinks, is very, very long. That’s going to knock the stuffing out of us, the amount of work we’re going to have to do over 7,300 metres.

  ‘A piece of piss!’ Jon laughs.

  ‘A serious challenge,’ Sandy replies. ‘But then – we’re Serious People!’ But to himself he thinks how poorly his down suit fitted him when he tried it on, how cold it’s going to be up there.

  ‘Just as well WE’RE SHIT HOT!’ the chorus goes up – and then we fall silent again on the high pass, looking over at our future. Mixed feelings of exhilaration, confidence, uncertainty, apprehension. We are very impressed; it is mammoth, absolutely worthy.

  There were still several hours left in the journey to Base. It must have been this stretch that did me in, for my water was finished. Everest was getting bigger all the time, breathtaking if one had some spare breath to take. Down into the valley, past the last primitive village of outer Tibet. My truck was dropping further and further behind. Finally we were into the Rongbuk valley, the truck grinding and lurching from one boulder to another. There was a pile of ruins on the left and in front of it one tall chorten was still standing. I recognized it from the pre-war photos – the Rongbuk monastery, where expeditions used to be received and blessed by the Lama there. They all came this way on the long march from Darjeeling: Shipton, Tilman, Odell, Norton, Mallory, Irvine. And the eccentric Maurice Wilson, who aimed to climb Everest on the strength of rice and meditation but instead died on the lower slopes of the North Col, he sheltered here. For even the most blasé of us, Everest is special; to be here is to live among history and legend, to climb here is to become a permanent addition to the Everest story.

  A few miles more of sand, rubble and frozen streams, then the truck pulled up. In something of a daze I took in a scene of purposeful activity. Bob and Allen had gone ahead in the jeep to choose a site and start putting up the Mess Tent. Already barrels and food boxes were being unloaded from the trucks, tents were going up, stoves being carried into the Mess Tent. We were lucky with the weather; anticipating a freezing gale, probably snow and a real struggle to organize ourselves, we had instead a warm, still afternoon and time to take care of the essentials at a leisurely pace. But we didn’t hang about because as soon as the sun went down it would be another story.

  I knew I wasn’t quite well, should have said so and sat down for an hour to rest and drink. But not wanting to be a wimp – maybe everyone else feels as bad and they’re all working away – I retrieved my barrels and rucksack, dragged them over to a flat spot and started putting up my Vango tent. Bob, always helpful, gave me a hand, then we did his tent and I dragged myself over to lend a hand with the Mess Tent.

  The sun went down, and all the clothing went back on. Waiting for the brew and supper, I had a stabbing pain in my neck, felt sick and grey. I slumped down, nearly knocking over someone’s plate. Sandy spoke sharply; he probably wasn’t feeling his best either and I was too far gone to care. Dumb animal passive suffering, unable to respond or listen to the chat, too sick to eat or drink, I stared helplessly at the plate in front of me.

  It was Julie who came over, took one look at me and efficiently took charge. When it matters, she and Kurt are on the ball. A vague memory of being led to my tent, helped into a sleeping bag, my head propped up. Two flasks of coffee appeared. ‘I want you to drink this, all of it. If you don’t, you’ll feel very ill.’ I want to say something, like thank you or yes, but just nodded, absorbed in my pain. ‘And if you feel worse, call out. Don’t keep it to yourself – I did that on Nanga Parbat and got very sick.’ I made some kind of gesture, stared at my mug and with considerable effort steered some of its contents towards my face. And again. Cerebral oedema, I was sure I had it. Urs appeared, looked me over and said oedema was exactly what I had, ‘not too awfully, I am thinking,’ repeated Julie’s instructions, gave me some pills and went away. He’s the right kind of doc, neither alarmist nor dismissive.

  It’s 4.0 am. I feel desperately weak and weary but semi-normal now. It’s been a long night but I should be okay. A last drink, put away the journal. Blow out the candles and pull the draw-string tight. Lie in the dark and say it to yourself: I’m at Everest Base Camp.

  Boy Racers & Old Farts

  BASE CAMP 22ND MARCH – 4TH APRIL

  ‘Rule 5: All moraine is terminal.’

  I woke feeling weak, washed-out, and thankful for the light of day. Drinking some water from the bottle stashed inside my bag to keep it from freezing overnight, I slowly took stock of myself: trace of a headache, throat burning, nose and head thick with the mucus the body produces at altitude in an effort to protect the lining of nose and throat. Breathing shallow and snatched, pulse faster than normal. Sitting up too quickly makes my head spin. Don’t feel wonderful, but as well as can be expected for a first morning at 5,150 metres.

  Running through the check-list of the body and mind like a pilot checking out an aircraft before take-off, was something each of us did every morning, automatically. Call it hypochondria or self-monitoring, either way it’s essential. In the mountains we’re obsessed with every aspect of our bodies and our mental condition. It’s banal, yet that perpetual self-awareness adds to the intensity of the experience. Ironic how in the midst of the world’s most huge and awesome scenery much of the time we are preoccupied by the coldness of feet, colour of urine, replacing suncream, adding or removing another layer of clothing, drying out socks. Other than that one is usually aware only of the most immediate aspects of the outside world – the ground underfoot, the brew in one’s hand, the hissing stove. Only once in a while do we lift our heads, relax our attention, and for one unforgettable moment take in where we are.

  We lay in our tents that first morning at Base Camp, each coming awake and going through the check-list. Most of us felt headachy, off-colour, throats burning from the dry air, had slept poorly – though the lads would hardly ever admit at the time to feeling any less than 100 per cent.

  But it would be a while before we went climbing. There were another six days to go before the yaks were due to turn up to take our food and equipment up the Rongbuk glacier to Advance Base Camp. We’d need all of that time and more to acclimatize and organize. Chris Bonington’s team had two weeks here before they moved up to ABC. Unfortunately, due to our later departure from the UK and the delay in Lhasa, we didn’t have that much time – even at this early stage the arrival of the monsoon around the end of May was in the back of our minds. From now on we were on a countdown, never knowing how many days we had left.

  We’d discussed the strategy of the Base Camp phase of the trip on the way in. We had to establish a base that was as comfortable and orderly as possible, for it would be to here that we would return at intervals from the hill (always called ‘the hill’ not ‘the mountain’ – makes it seem smaller) for Rest and Recreation. ABC at 6,400 metres was too high for recovery. W
e had to acclimatize. And there were many days’ work in preparation for the next stage: sorting out all the gear for the yak runs – packing it, calculating how much food and gas we’d need for ABC, making dozens of two-man hill-food packs for Camp 1, then lighter ones for Camp 2 and beyond, sorting out our own barrels of gear. All this done at the geriatric pace of altitude, for here at 5,150 metres there were about half the normal number of oxygen molecules in the air, which is roughly half one’s physical energy – and mental, too, it seemed to me struggling with my first Sunday Express report.

  As Base Camp Manager, Dave Bricknell had drawn up day-by-day work-sheets assigning our daily responsibilities. Some of the lads, being used to small and self-organizing Alpine-style expeditions, found this degree of planning risible, while recognizing it was probably necessary. Difficult for Dave, who had never been climbing, to give orders to experienced mountaineers, and difficult for them to accept it. A certain degree of irritation on both sides, everyone testy from altitude, but we recognized the uncomplaining and valuable contribution he was making.

  Moving slowly, I pulled on my boots, hat, gloves, a layer of pile and a down jacket before emerging from the tent. The morning was blue, windless, bitterly cold for the sun hadn’t yet risen over the hills that channelled the Rongbuk valley up towards Everest. Though some ten miles away, its squat pyramid of rock and snow slammed down across the head of the Rongbuk valley, dominated Base Camp. This morning spindrift flew horizontally from the summit, pale and gauzy as a prayer-scarf.

  Mal came over, we exchanged good mornings and stood looking. Sunlit, every detail of that near-mythical mountain stood out clearly – the West Ridge, the ‘Yellow Band’ of limestone that ran across the North Face, the Hornbeim Couloir, the First and Second Rock Steps on the summital East Ridge where Mallory and Irvine had disappeared, the last Pinnacle where Joe and Pete may be … ‘Christ, I wish I was going for the Summit today,’ Mal said. ‘It’s a perfect summit day. It can’t last. The 1938 Expedition who used this site arrived in perfect conditions like these and then they failed because of sustained bad weather.’ He seemed more relaxed and communicative now we’d got over our second major hurdle and actually arrived at Base Camp with all our gear and everyone in reasonable shape.

  In the Mess Tent the lads on cooking rota had breakfast well in hand: brews, cereal, biscuits and cheese. ‘A regular hotel, this,’ Nick said, smiling. There was a line of tables and stools up the middle of the two interconnnected box-frame tents, a cooking corner, where Chris Watts crouched thoughtfully over the two moody petrol stoves, which were already playing up, washing-up bowls, kitchen rolls, a box of books, bags containing our personal utensils hanging along the sides. … Dave had organized an oasis of comfort and order in the midst of the elemental chaos around us. These pristine standards inevitably dropped as time went on and we became more frazzled and weary, but Base Camp never ceased to be an ideal place for R & R (Rest and Recovery in this case, though there was Rock ’n’ Roll later when we were fit enough to sing).

  At 10.00 am the sun hit the tent and the bitter chill quickly lifted. Time for work. Urs, Bob and Allen went to dig out a latrine – and never was there a Superloo with such a view, looking across to Everest as, cord in hand, one hung out over the abyss. Those on the cooking rota washed up and set off across the ice-lake nearby in search of water. The others began the long task of laying out and opening up 120 boxes to set up loads for ABC. Urs had excused me from work that day, so I had time, feeling slightly guilty and apologetic, to sit around and take stock of our surroundings.

  Base Camp was sited on a broad, flat expanse of stones and sand, the residue of the retreating Central Rongbuk glacier whose snout ran across the valley some 300 yards away. Beside us was an ice-lake where we could chop through to pools of water. Bonington’s expedition three years previously had used the same site, while the pre-war expeditions had tended to use the more sheltered area half a mile down the valley where the four-man Basque team were camped. Immediately behind our camp was a hillock of rubble. I wandered up it with legs that had all the resilience of blancmange. Along the crest were half a dozen stone memorials. Placed as they were, we could never cease to be aware of those cairns. Everest in front, the memorials behind, we in the centre. We all went up there many times, to pay our respects, to reflect and to hope.

  And these were just the post-war casualties. Jon came back that afternoon from visiting the Basques with a broken stone slab that read 1921 KEL. They’d found it near their camp. We worked out it must have been to Kellas, the doctor and climber who died, probably from pneumonia, on the 1921 reconnaissance expedition. It had come from a large memorial where the names of all the prewar casualties were recorded, though we were never able to find and restore it.

  The summit spindrift had grown to a mile long white flag, and it was certainly not one of surrender. These expeditions are little wars of their own. ‘Of course, climbing is pointless,’ Mal once admitted as he frowned into a pint of Clachaig lager. ‘It doesn’t change anything. Except ourselves, which is the whole point. Just because I do something well which anyone could do if they put their mind to it, and it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference anyway – well, there’s nothing brilliant about that, is there?’

  From that little hillock, one could deduce something about the nature of our Expedition from the lay-out of Base Camp. The imposing Mess Tent was the focus, but the rest of the tents were scattered about at random, according to each occupant’s choice, some distance from each other. Mine was at the outer edge. Bob’s was nearest the mountain, and only his had the entrance on the Everest side (‘I know it’s draughtier, but I like to be able to look out and see the hill’). And apart from the two couples’ tents, only Tony and Andy Nisbet shared. The rest of us had a tent to ourselves. That was pleasant, a luxury. Only in retrospect does it seem symptomatic, and perhaps unfortunate. Privacy is important on long expeditions, but it could be we had too much of it. Like our tents, we were a loose, scattered group.

  Kurt and Julie’s tent was set apart from the others round the corner and out of sight. The same arrangement was to be repeated at ABC, where they again chose to isolate themselves. In the preparation stages it had been unclear whether they were part of the Expedition or filming it. Now it was beginning to seem that they were an expedition in themselves who occasionally happened to film us when they weren’t away doing other things, who were mainly to be seen at meal times. Still, I wasn’t going to forget it was Julie who’d noticed and acted when I was ill. Right now she, Kurt and Danny were filming aspects of Base Camp. The lads were still not enjoying this, partly because they felt phoney and partly because of the extra effort involved in the repeated performances of their activities. Even those who respected their achievements and understood the necessity for the filming had serious doubts about it.

  Later I shuffled down the frozen lake to a melt stream. Washed socks, my hands aching with cold, then lay in the hot sun and daydreamed of home, and success here. My socks iced up and my face was burned, a typical Himalayan combination. Still feeling weak and headachy, the short walk back to camp exhausted me. Then I looked around and saw everyone was moving very slowly, as though the air was a clear, thick glue.

  It was good to sit all together at the end of the day, get brews down, eat and chat. Supper was courtesy of Wide Boy Productions (Jon, Rick, Sandy, Tony); a kind of canneloni-glue followed by stewed apples and custard. ‘Hey, this is good!’ said Mal. Sandy grinned ‘That’s what they all say – at first.’

  Bob and Allen came in late, Bob indignant. ‘You said we were going to eat at 8.00.’ Jon gave his most angelic smile, paused. ‘We lied.’

  He was Membership Secretary for the Alpine Climbing Group, and that evening wrote Chris Bonington a postcard. ‘Dear Chris, Remember your ACG membership is coming up for renewal.’ We all signed it and dropped it in the mail bag. He was only 20 miles away with the Norwegians on the other side of Everest, yet our card would probably travel hundreds
of miles to get to him.

  Mal in a philosophical mood says, ‘Life is like a tin of shortbread. …’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll give you two Yorkies for it, mate!’

  So much laughter on these trips as we sound each other out, entertain ourselves, forget today’s stresses and tomorrow’s uncertainties for a while. And it is almost impossible to explain later what was funny.

  It was suddenly too cold to stay in the Mess Tent any longer, so we separated for the night. Wild out there – pitch black, a bitter, gusting wind, ten degrees below. Suddenly comfort is a struggle. Find tent, grope around for head-torch, then zip up the flap, boots off, massage some feeling back into feet, take off one layer of clothes and into the bag. Weak and breathless, lie there a minute. Then put my kingdom in order: light candles, water bottle and socks inside the bag, pee bottles, pen, journal, Walkman, munchies, salve for cracked lips, batteries in gloves under my armpits. …

  The early days at Base Camp took on a rhythm. The weather had a definite pattern: clear and windless in the morning, warm over lunchtime, then cloudy and windy in the afternoon, very cold at night. We’d assemble over breakfast, then get on with our assigned work till lunch. In the afternoon there’d be some time for washing and gradually sorting out one’s own gear for ABC, perhaps a short acclimatization walk. Then supper, banter and planning the next day, till the sudden cold drove us out to our own tents.

  Jon Up at 8.0 for a pre-yak recce – me, Rick, Tony and Nicko (the young and stupid team). Up the pleasant path to the turning to the East Rongbuk glacier. … We went on to about 5,450 metres – three hours’ walking – then back for lunch. I had a bit of a headache, but it went after a few brews.