Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  For some godforsaken reason we (I) front-point as good as some other people, for some reason I can jam my ice-axe in, torqued to the max, in cracks that other people have failed to, and so my body heaves exhausted over some rock or ice-bulge and hence a First Ascent. … And God or whatever – me, I’ll go for God – set the sun a-shining just before I got frostbite, or slowed the winds down just before we got hypothermia, or set the correct abseil position in the rock just when we needed it, or opened a little window so we could see the direction when we were totally lost. Some people call it luck, me – luck and unknown but most welcome INTERVENTION.

  Here, we’re here, I’m here, hoping that my own ability and the rest of the lads’ ability and the gods will see us OK. We’re gamblers, we’ve got no cash; we have lives, we love them, that’s the stake. The reward for me is to continue this life, on this planet, driving down the roads I know and walking through the door of my friends’ houses … and between that, Inshallah, a summit or two.

  Jon Camp 3 is loosely inspired by a large rock Allen discovered near the foot or the 1st Buttress. There’s a hole behind it which has been excavated to form a gear stash. Then there’s a platform for one of the Wild Country special Mountain Gemini tents, skewered to the ground with an assortment of stakes and ice-axes. The tent is very light but very small, with the floor space of two Karrimats and barely enough room to sit up inside. Lots of hoar-frost in the morning. I didn’t catch much sleep at all that night but never mind, it’s our big day tomorrow, when we push out the route up to the site of Bonington’s 3rd snow cave at 7,850.

  The Camp 3 tents were to continue to be a problem. We’d had them specially made smaller to reduce weight, but they ended up too small. Also plates of ice formed inside, and the Velcro-fastened door (to save weight) wouldn’t close properly and let spindrift blow in. With that and the wind’s hammering away at the exposed position all night, no one had anything like a good night’s sleep or rest there, which severely damaged their effectiveness the next morning.

  Jon Away by 10 am after Rick, who’s some way ahead (the tent only allows one person to move at a time) and will remain so all day. The worst part is the 1st Buttress, split by a horrible collapsing couloir. Not very steep, Andy climbed it on shafts, but it must have been a struggle. Bits of Bonington’s orange climbing rope contrast with our bright blue polyprop. A small gear stash, then soloing again up alternating snow-covered gravel and firm, easy-angled nevé. The 2nd Buttress is much smaller than expected. Then an easy ramp protected by CB’s rope – anchored to God knows what. Easy rock climbing in crampons. Then off and up soloing again. …

  Put the legs into automatic and let the brain monitor the body – am I hyperventilating? Are my lungs filling up with fluid? (Pulmonary oedema). Have I a headache? (Cerebral oedema). The landscape drifts past, some false summits then I turn on to a broad plateau. First view of the Pinnacles – they look technical and forbidding, can’t wait to get stuck into them. But not today – my breathing tells me it’s the first time my body’s been this high, my right foot is very cold, can’t feel any toes, must get down. Rick’s digging a snow cave – no sign of Bonington’s – and will come down later. A man with the discipline to achieve desired objectives. He always seems surprised and disappointed when the mountain tells him otherwise. Perhaps he likes mountains because he can be beaten occasionally – though not often as he’s one of life’s winners and calculators. Leavened with his faith, he’s a great human … I shuffle down, very tired, having to sit down now and then.

  Meanwhile we sat in the almost-warm sun at ABC, scanning the Buttresses with binoculars. Finally we spotted a figure high on the 2nd Buttress, then another some distance behind. Rick, then Jon. They were going slowly, but steadily getting there. The perfect weather brought some much-needed relaxation and optimism.

  ‘I don’t know if faith moves mountains, but it certainly helps you climb them!’ Mal remarked. At the same time, he had to be realistic. ‘At the moment I’d say we were poised between success and failure,’ he said as we sat on our barrels looking up at the Ridge. ‘If Jon and Rick can find Bonington’s 3rd snow cave near the Pinns, or dig one out themselves, we’ve a real chance, if the weather stays like this. But I’m beginning to think we’ll have to adjust the oxygen situation. Maybe use part of a bottle to carry two others to the foot of the Pinns. … Time’s getting tight and people are getting seriously wasted.’ He passed me a cigarette; I lit up and watched it burn fitfully, like ourselves up here, not enough oxygen for real combustion. ‘Yes’, he continued, tugging at a beard as wild as mine, ‘it’s time to bring up the sick and the lame, women, children and convalescents … and bumblies. Think you can do another carry?’ His eyes were hidden behind mirror shades; I regarded myself in miniature in them. I looked rough: wasted youth. ‘Terry and I are planning to carry to CB’s day after tomorrow,’ I said. ‘If we can, we’ll go on to 7090 the next day. Wattie reckons that’ll be all the loads up there that we need.’

  ‘Thanks. That’ll help. Liz wants to try for CB’s, she can go with you.’

  I nodded, feeling nervousness and anticipation chase each other round my body at the prospect of 7090. Over 23,000 feet, high enough for any bumbly!

  Rick Past Andy and Urs’ high point and on over mixed ground to another nevé slope, slight false summit, finally we are at 7,850 on a flat plateau. Jon has dropped behind. Almost windless. Jon belays me over the rim of the Kangshung Face down on to the top of ’Fantasy Ridge’. I probe about but cannot find Bonington’s snow cave. Jon’s feet are cold and he starts to descend immediately. I dig into the slope for two to three hours. … Only now do I realize how tired I am. Descend slowly.

  One of the best days I’ve ever had in the mountains. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.

  We waited for news from them on the 7.0 pm radio call. Tony arrived, looking unshaven and ragged, as if he’d just come off the hill rather than being on his way to it. He said his bronchitis had cleared up, but he was still coughing regularly. He also brought good news from BC – Andy was recovering quickly from his snow blindness, finding lying in his tent for two days with bandages over his eyes to be ‘very boring’, and he’d be up with Urs in a couple of days. Mal was heartened by this sense of urgency; we needed all the manpower we could get.

  Then Rick came in on the radio, clipped and laconic as ever. ‘Well, we’ve a very small snow-hole at Camp 4.’ A silent cheer, smiles all round. Mal asked, ‘Well how big is a small hole?’ ‘Very small. Tony-sized! But it could be bigger. I’ll go back to work on it tomorrow if I’m feeling strong.’ Pause, a fresh explosion from static on the radio. ‘Right now I’m not feeling very strong.’

  Evaluation: quite good. We’ve a Camp 4 site, and good nevé snow bank to enlarge it in. It would have been better if we’d found CB’s old cave. Jon’s probably approaching his limit and is coming down. Rick’s obviously capable of going to 8,000 metres and beyond; Mal hopes he isn’t going to burn himself out going back up there tomorrow – and alone. What Rick was doing is roughly like climbing two major Himalayan peaks in consecutive days. Once again, it is a situation brought on by unequal partnerships.

  Terry Today was the day of the exploding kippers! As all tins are frozen, we normally put them in the kettle to defrost. Andy G. put two tins of kipper fillets in the kettle at lunchtime and then forgot about them. We were both sitting outside watching the action on the two ridges (Basques on the North Col as well). All of a sudden there was a dull explosion from the Mess Tent and when we went in the place was absolutely plastered in bits of kippers. …

  Another day of stable weather. We sat in the crisp morning air watching two black dots emerge from C3 and separate, one toiling up, the other coming down fast. Eventually Jon arrived at ABC to ‘a Warhol-like 15 minutes – Kurt’s camera, Julie on sound, Terry, Liz, etc., on professional Walkmen. ‘It’s a white hell up there.’ Hoarse-throated, lip-salve smeared, skin peeling – ‘I’ll never do a good Boy George impression. As tired as I�
�ve been for a few years.’

  As Sandy and Chris patiently submitted to several takes of their setting out for C2, made the necessary comments on how desperate the Pinnacles looked, one more time, etc., we sat and watched Rick moving screamingly slowly up the Buttresses. His suffering communicated itself across the mile of blue. He stopped, sat down, went on again. Jon shook his head, ‘Rick has this single-minded desire to burn himself out as quickly as possible on this trip. He’s fucking phenomenal. …’

  ‘Pretty awesome,’ Mal agreed, but he worried about the safety of a solo climber going to near-as-damn-it, 8,000 metres for a second day running, with no one near him on the hill. And we couldn’t afford to have Rick burn himself out entirely on this push: he’d said to Jon at C4 that the Pinnacles terrified him just looking at them, but he had every intention of getting into them. Rick believed in a massive way. If he and Jon had been able to work together to complete digging out a C4 snow-hole the day before. … If. …

  Still the yellow dot stumbled on. At the foot of the 2nd Buttress he stopped, and remained motionless, for five minutes. Then he turned to look down the way he’d come, then the distance ahead, utterly alone in the moment of truth. Then he slowly leaned forward into the slope and took the next five steps.

  Rick I take a bale of fixed rope and move oh so slowly to the foot of the 1st Buttress. Must make use of these good conditions. At the top of the 1st Buttress I pick up two sections of gash fixed rope and a snow saw and move on even more slowly. By the top of the 2nd Buttress it had become an exercise in will-power (almost no sleep again last night). Finally make 7,850 in about five hours. …’

  The fixing rope intended for use on the Pinnacles was an interesting demonstration of Rick’s priorities – carrying it to 7,850 meant he was too exhausted to enlarge the snow cave greatly before heading back down. That was not Rick’s fault, but it was disappointing, for setting up a Camp 4 had been the whole point of Jon and Rick’s push. We were now firmly in the pattern of accomplishing a crucial bit less than planned and hoped for.

  So Sandy and Chris slept at C2 that night, while Mal dossed alone (‘sleep entirely undisturbed by ghosts’) at CB’s. Their aim was to carry some loads to C3, and on to 4 if possible. The carries to C4 would be the most crucial of all, and the hardest.

  ‘Expedition on a very fine line,’ Mal wrote as he lay in his sleeping bag sipping the day’s final brew. ‘We need ten days’ climbable weather.’

  Himalayan Thuggery

  10TH – 18TH MAY

  ‘Puts our necks on the chopper, doesn’t it?’

  Kit for tomorrow: sleeping bag, down boots, Karrimat; spare gloves, socks, balaclava, sweater. Lip-salve and suncream, pee bottle, loo-roll, head-torch, lighter, drugs (sleepers, codeine), water bottle.

  Munchies, drinking chocolate, ½ book, notebook, pen. Cigarettes, cup, spoon. Camera, radio battery. Pick up Ο2 gear.

  Wear: thermal underwear, salopettes, down jacket, pile jacket, wind-suit, gloves, balaclava. Koflachs with Alveolite inners; cramps, harness, jumar, 3 slings, 3 krabs. Prayer-scarf. Lucky stone. Bottle up and go.

  Fresh snow in the night but a beautiful morning. Alpen, brews, shortbread, oatcakes and more brews. As usual the stoves work poorly, take hours to melt the ice and we end up not drinking enough. Tony, Terry and I kit up methodically, saying little, concentrating. Share out food for tonight, hill-bags and the O2 gear Mal requested. Last look round my tent, then zip it shut. Terry and I rope together, nod, okay youth? I lead off towards the Raphu La.

  A wondrous arena as always, this shallow, shining crucible. Only the crunch of our feet and the deep pant of my breath. I’m becoming addicted to emptiness and silence. Terry and I have quite different paces – I like to trudge slow and steady, stopping as seldom as possible, while Terry goes fast in long energetic strides and stops at most of the wands across the glacier. He says climbing and its shuffling-dosser life-style is his necessary counterbalance to the money and comfort-saturated world of advertising. ‘A sort of appeasement,’ he says. But he goes at both activities in the same forceful, buoyant way.

  At the bottom of the fixed ropes we look up and see Liz nearing the ice-bulge – she slept in Kurt and Julie’s tent on the Raphu La last night, to give her an early start today. She’s set on finally making CB’s this time. Tony’s on the next rope section below, on his way to C2. The hill’s getting so busy we’ve had to book CB’s in advance for tonight’s doss.

  On to the ropes. Seems natural now – clip in jumar, add safety krab, deep breath and go. Short steps help, looking for a sustainable rhythm of legs and arms. Start counting steps, almost like a mantra, slowly emptying the mind. Soon only the slabby snow underfoot exists, that and my slipping jumar. It’s this simplicity I come here for. All problems are immediate; they’re either up to me (like making myself carry on) or completely out of my hands (like the seracs above the couloir traverse).

  Liz is on the ice-bulge now. She’s so slow but so determined. The slower you go and the more often you have to stop, the more determination it must take to push on again. Terry below is still rushing short sections then leaning, gasping, over his axe.

  Enjoy the ice-bulge – how large it loomed in my mind a few weeks ago! Over the top and quite confidently traverse to the rock rib. This one-time high point is now just a half-way mark. Soft, deep snow behind the rock rib, I’m feeling oddly assured and have to remind myself to clip in properly and not be too casual.

  A wait at the start of the traverse: Tony’s sitting half-way across, waiting for Liz to finish and get on to the next rope section. He waves, at ease and in no hurry. I wave affectionately back. Off with the sack, clip it, cut a snow ledge and settle down to wait. Five minutes of pure ease and happiness in this elevated openness, looking across the Himalayas to Kangchenjunga, to nearby Makalu, to Changtse, to the North Col, where we saw the Basques go up yesterday. I’m climbing on Everest and just being alive is being in love.

  Liz finally struggles over the far rim of the couloir – she’ll definitely make CB’s now – Tony gets up and follows very carefully in her footsteps. The crest above him is wildly corniced, we glimpse the sheer flutings of the upper Kangshung Face, and the seracs that castellate the skyline. Hope they don’t collapse today, they’ve got to sometime with all the new snow we’ve had. Tony gets across, I gather myself and set off after him under the deep blue altitude sky – then inside two minutes conditions change completely. First spindrift swirling up in my face, then snow whirling out of the grey. Tony’s disappeared somewhere in the murk. Not so much alarmed – bad weather curiously exhilarates me and I’m quite happy not to see the drop below! – but peeved because I’d wanted Terry to take a picture of me on this traverse to match the one in CB’s book. Still, as Sandy says, that’s just COSMETIC SHIT! I’m here and that’s what matters.

  Tony’s steps are already filled in, so I carefully stomp my own. A six-inch slab breaks off regularly and slides into oblivion; I’m too inexperienced to know if this is a bad sign or par for the course. Move on faster, axe in left hand, sinking the shaft deep into the slope, pushing the jumar ahead with the right. Adrenalin and concentration drive out anxiety. The half-way stake. Clip in, relax, look up at the shadow of the looming serac and decide to move on. Now the rope curves uphill into the purgatory section – steep, footsteps collapsing, one false crest after another. Down to ten steps now.

  Over the top, see the tangle of ropes and gear outside CB’s. A warmth like whisky in my brain. Clip in to the stake, clip my sack and crawl inside. There’s Tony and a tired but beaming Liz, radiant with unspoken satisfaction. I congratulate her and she hands me a brew in exchange. We sit there feeling pleased with ourselves; I’m tired, but much more clear-headed than last time I was up here.

  Tony moves on after some chat. He’s buoyant and optimistic again, but his cough sounds bad. The cave darkens as Terry’s bulk slithers through the doorway, covered in snow but grinning broadly.

  As snow melts on the stove, we arra
nge ourselves carefully in the cave. It’s small for three plus our gear, and we can only move one at a time. The chamber is kneeling-high at the far end, but only crouching at mine. A mild claustrophobic anxiety at the back of my mind, especially when we fix the Karrimat across the entrance to keep out spindrift. But the blue light filtering through is soothing, and this cave is much more peaceful than a tent.

  Liz is unhappy at the prospect of descending alone through the gloom and the freshly covered slopes. Terry suggests she stay the night. Three in this cave? Well … We look around, find Chris’s double bivvi bag and Allen’s down boots and gloves – and a one-piece down suit. Up to you, Liz. She decides to stay, so one by one we slowly take off our crampons, boots and damp socks, lay out our mats; Terry and I slither into our sleeping bags. Liz tries on the down suit and finds it warm, then gets into Chris’s bivvi-bag. Lying between us, she reckons she’ll be warm enough. So we settle in for the evening. I make the mistake of lying next to the snow-filled bag, so continually have to twist over to fill billies from it, which I pass to Liz who passes them to Terry and the precariously balanced stove beside him. Terry also believes he is in the worst position and Liz probably does too. All our movements are slow and cautious in this overcrowded cave. So easy to knock over a stove, or knock snow off the walls on to ourselves. Patience and restraint needed all round. The heat of the stove makes water drip down on to us.

  Eventually we have our stew and eat it with little appetite. Rummage in a hill-food bag and find two pepperoni sticks, which we share – after all, we’re climbers now so we can use what we find. As the dessert treat, Terry produces some hoarded Bovril cubes, which seem like the last word in luxury. As we lie silently drinking in the dim light, it occurs to me we’re not really masochists at all, but enlightened hedonists. Only scarcity and discomfort can yield such intense pleasure in simple things, transforming a luke-warm mug of Bovril into the elixir of life, and two pepperoni into an experience of near-mystical intensity!