Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  I retyped my penultimate piece to go out with Terry, and added the final update: the weather was getting worse, not better, and so were we; nevertheless we were poised for the Pinnacles and still very much in the game.

  That was Rick’s assessment as we chatted across my typewriter. He was becoming more open and humorous as the trip went on, seemed to be pacing himself well. ‘We’re up on manpower’, he said in his quietly emphatic, dry voice, ‘and there’s a lot of motivation up there – I’m beginning to think we’re back up to 50/50.’ Jon rolled his eyes. ‘You’re appalling, Allen, you know that?’ Jon was much less optimistic and openly admitted he was still feeling quite wasted; though he was ready to go back on the hill, he did not share the vision of going through the Pinnacles without oxygen.

  But Rick felt that was the only option. Food, brewing materials and technical climbing gear were the essentials for C4; we simply didn’t have the manpower to carry oxygen as well. ‘Anyone carrying oxygen now is wasting his time.’

  Rick had timed things well. From the middle of the trip, he’d been calculating a final rest at BC before going for the Pinnacles; there’d only be one chance for each climber, and he wanted to be in good shape. So when the heavy snowfall had come two days before, with fresh climbers on the way up, he’d decided this was the chance for him to get in a few days’ break before going up for the last time. He described the set-up at C4, how he’d dug this ’rat hole’ into a snow bank in the Kangshung Face. From 7,850 the Ridge was a completely flat, broad plateau, then started rising and became the foot of the 1st Pinnacle. From C4 to there was perhaps one-third to three-quarters of a mile, 650 vertical feet, a two-hour plod. Pinn 1 looked ‘pretty formidable, but the snow arête on the left is the obvious line.’ He’d finally finished Les Trois Mousequetaires, he was ready to go.

  The jeep that was to take Terry out brought mail-manna. We were astonished to hear that Chris Bonington and the Norwegians had made the Summit by the South Col route, way back in April, one of the earliest ascents on record. They’d made very good progress, and got to the top before the bad weather really started. Jon dived with glad cries into the latest climbing magazines that had arrived. Rick quietly read through letters from parents and his girlfriend. The Clachaig Inn in Glencoe had sent us the Oban Times, plus the Beano and the Dandy, which showed a realistic assessment of our mental capabilities at this stage in the game. I had letters reminding me of the decisions awaiting when I got back home. That seemed distant and unreal; the Pinnacles dominated our imagination.

  An evening of guitars and hot toddies. ‘Bunch of old hippies,’ Jon muttered amiably as we cut a swathe through the mid-’60s by the irregular glow of the petrol lamps. We finished with ‘Base Camp Blues’ and ‘The Ballad of the North-East Ridge’, then stumbled through the dark to our tents, wondering as always what was doing on the hill.

  There is nothing romantic, spiritual or profound about the explosive shits, even in the high Rongbuk valley; stars circling Everest and the pre-dawn wind. I’d been lying awake wondering about the meaning of this trip. What is really happening behind the plethora of physical events? But there is no meaning, or so it seemed to me, hanging over the shit-pit (a fraught experience now that the Rongbuk nuns had quietly removed our security rope!). There is only the experience itself passing through you, intensely and often scarcely digested, like these goddam shits. This is happening now, this, this, this. That is the most truthful thing one can say about it all; stars and shits and the pre-dawn wind.

  The 14th dawned blue and cold. A lot of spindrift was ripping off the Ridge, where Urs and Andy were on their way to C4, so it was obviously wild up there. When will it let up and give us the optimum weather expected before the monsoon? Two groups of trekkers turned up in trucks. You’d think after our isolation we’d be overjoyed to see new company, but their questions, cameras and exclamations detroyed the austere beauty around us. We felt this hill was for us, for us and the Basques alone; we didn’t want anyone else coming and diluting our experience.

  Kurt and Julie turned up in the evening, looking sombre and tired. They broke the news to us about the Basque accident. Shocked silence, guitars quietly put down. Then the questions. Who? How? When? The big, bearded one, the smiling and tired one who’d made that creme caramel for Urs’ birthday just a couple of weeks ago. Juan-Jo.

  ‘Well, it puts our necks on the chopper, doesn’t it?’ Jon said quietly.

  I kept think of how we didn’t even know Juan Jo’s second name yet had shared brews, jokes, whisky and hill-information with him, shared being here. And how casually we’d waved the Basques goodbye and wished them luck as they set off for their summit bid in what we privately thought were unlikely conditions.

  My first hill-death. I realized that all the lead climbers here had been through that before, and at much closer quarters. What had that done to them? What was it doing to me? This tragic and oh-so-simple accident was a savage reminder to us all of the reality of climbing on Everest. Malcolm would feel it most, I thought; he’d be reminded of his responsibility in bringing these lads here, even though he knew it was their choice.

  Now they’re laughing in the Mess Tent and a man we knew is dead on the mountain, gathering snow. I sit at the entrance to my tent with the sleeping bag up to my throat, smoking a last cigarette. I’m chilled to the bone, and my imagination is very dark tonight – dark as the starless sky. Bad weather for tomorrow. But at least I can see it is dark. The man on the North Col cannot see even darkness. I borrowed Jack’s Bible sometime back, and keep turning to the sceptical ‘Ecclesiastes’ for its sustained rhetoric on the vanity of human endeavour. Now I come on this: Who knoweth the spirit of men that goeth upwards, there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion.

  The obscure joy of the living in still being alive. Maybe that is why they are laughing.

  Rick It brings home how close to the edge we walk. As I wrote to Roy, ‘I want to be bold but I want to live and love also.’

  Next day I talked with Rick before he set off for ABC, resolved to go for the Pinnacles, not knowing what the situation would be when he arrived. This was Pinnacle Day for Urs and Andy; a lot of spindrift, and evil-looking cloud in the afternoon. He agreed it would soon be time for re-forming climbing partnerships; he had hopes of linking up with Allen, but he had already been load-carrying up there for a few days and they would be out of phase with each other. Rick looked weathered, fit and relaxed, but he had clearly been seriously taking stock of what lay ahead.

  ‘If I knew I could do it, I wouldn’t be going up. … I’d be on my way to Lhasa!’ He picked up his sack and ski-pole, but lingered a minute to add, carefully choosing his words, ‘I would not like to think that if 1 fell off or something, and we had the summit in our grasp, that the Expedition would just pack up and go home.’

  Then he grinned, said ‘See you later,’ and set off nimbly for the glacier snout. I watched him till he disappeared round the corner, feeling a vague anxiety shifting in my chest. This was three years to the day since Boardman and Tasker set off from ABC to climb the Pinnacles and never came back. And also the anniversary of Marty Hoey falling to her death down Central Gully.

  Rick Met the three Basques on the long moraine. Shook hands and briefly embraced Mari. What more can you do or say except shake your head and walk on? God help them, and us.

  A party-party developed that evening, for Danny’s 20th birthday, the bumblies’ 7,000 metres, and Terry’s departure next morning. We’d suddenly realized we had too much whisky left, so got stuck into that, with pâté and even caviare for starters, then a vast spaghetti bolognese, wine and cake. Danny became extravagant in his gestures, knocking over cups, falling off his chair in fits of giggles. It was a night of laughter and singing and banishing our anxieties. Kurt played French, Italian and German songs, even one from Greenland. Chris: ‘Where did you learn that, Kurt?’ Kurt: ‘In Greenland, of course.’

  I fell asleep roun
d 2.0 am to the sound of laughter, shouting and thumping, as Danny was assisted to his tent. ‘Look, look at the stars!’ He pointed up dramatically, tottered and fell flat on his back, giggling helplessly.

  Meanwhile Tony lay in his iced-up tent at ABC, re-reading for the nth time his newly delivered letters from Kathy, feeling very happy. He was even looking forward to setting out for C4 tomorrow with Mal – like Sandy, Tony had been unattached most of the time, and Mal had been his partner on the Mustagh Tower. Liz reckoned that he knew this was his last chance to do something big on this trip, and prove he was capable of operating at extreme altitude. He fell asleep thinking of 8,000 metres.

  Terry and Mari, the leader of the Basque team, left next afternoon, the 6th. Mari was going as far as Lhasa to phone his news to Juan Jose’s family. Little wonder he was silent and drawn. And resilient; he and the other two lads intended to go back up and try again for the summit.

  Their jeep lurched into the distance, bearing away our news reports and precious mail, Terry still not knowing how things had gone in the Pinnacles push.

  We were astonished to see Urs picking his way towards us. He was supposed to be at C4! We crowded round for news. It was clearly bad; this was a very different Urs from the one I’d last seen at ABC. All the bounce had gone out of him. It was all ‘Terrible, terrible!’ The weather on the Ridge was terrible, they could hardly stand up in the wind, the spindrift was blinding and the cold extreme. Camp 3 was terrible, the tents tiny and letting in spindrift all night. Camp 4 was far too small for two people, even after they’d worked at enlarging it.

  We waited for Andy to arrive and give his version. But when he stumbled in, gaunt and hollow-eyed, almost shocked, what he had to say was not much more encouraging.

  ‘When I went up I felt really well, in very good condition, and now in three days I’m a physical wreck.’

  ‘Is true,’ said Urs, feeling his bony shoulders, ‘you feel like a boiled chicken!’

  He told us of his night at C4, the time spent enlarging C4 the next day, his harrowing descent. ‘Now I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life … and I’ve been quite tired before.’

  There wasn’t much time to think of the implications of this latest setback, for a boisterous group of Austrian climbers had turned up, on their way home after a successful ascent of Shishipangma. They’d had good weather, caught a perfect day and went to the summit from a camp at 7,000 metres … It pointed up the difference between their route and ours – imagine if we’d been able to go for our summit from 7090! We’d already had five climbers up to 7,850 and we were only just starting on the major problems of the route.

  Still, the North-East Ridge had appealed to the lads precisely because it was unclimbed and super-hard, and we settled down to celebrate the Austrian success.

  The Austrians’ joviality was made all the more poignant by the presence of the two remaining Basques. Quite untypically, I went over and embraced them, and was glad I had, despite the tears in their eyes at the warmth of our welcome. They had come over from their Base Camp to be taken out of themselves, to help get over their friend’s death and their own shock. We gave them distraction in an evening of communal singing in many languages: Austrian (boisterous drinking-and-climbing songs), Scottish folk-music and American rock ‘n’ roll, Urs drunk and beaming as he sang in Fench and German, Wattie and Danny simply drunk (Wattie playing a mean second guitar in Terry’s absence), Kurt sitting yodelling on a film barrel with THE HIGH-ALTITUDE BLUES’ scrawled above his head … The Tibetan cook sang a song, Antxon and Jose Manuel finally did the same and lost that distant, distracted look for a while, Luo wrote a poem on the friendship of many nationalities which Jack translated … A good night of warmth, laughter and closeness in the midst of triumph and tragedy, and for a while we could forget that we were still pushing up the narrow ridge between the two.

  No warmth and laughter for Allen Fyffe, lying cramped and alone in one of the tiny C3 tents. The wind howled across the Ridge and battered at the tent; he wondered how firmly it had been anchored. The noise made sleep near-impossible, and he would have taken his first sleeper of the trip, only he remembered that he had none with him. Still, working at Glenmore Lodge in all seasons is a good training in stoicism. He burrowed deeper into his bag and prepared for a long, insomniac night.

  Rick Bob and Nick at ABC. Bob still not strong. Jon and I to follow Mal and Tony; if they succeed on 1st Pinnacle, we are to push on through to the 2nd. Joy. General air of pessimism over dinner.

  While down at C1, Mal and Tony were happily falling asleep in the comparative comfort of CB’s. Mal had finally made his decision about oxygen use; good to have that off his mind …

  Allen begins 17th May by taking the battery out of his radio at 7.0 am and putting it down his longjohns to warm some life into it. It may stir the battery, but it does little to lift his lethargic high-altitude feeling. At 8.0 he makes the radio call to ABC to say he’s feeling rough and will put off the decision whether to try to carry to 7,850 today – a new altitude for him. He looks out on a clear blue sky, and the wind is finally easing. He collects ice and starts to brew, huddled in one corner of the tent to make room for the stove … The first drink makes him feel marginally more alive than dead, so he decides to make the carry.

  He picks up food-bags and gas. The first three fixed ropes up the 1st Buttress are on perfect nevé, the fourth is awful. Fresh snow has collected in the gully here and it collapses beneath his feet, leaving him hanging gasping on the rope, praying that the anchors are good. It’s very cold in the shadow and his hand pushing the jumar soon loses feeling from grasping the cold metal. He stops to re-warm it, having no intention of losing the fingers that are part of his living.

  He makes it to the top of the 1st Buttress, continues on past his previous high point, over the 2nd Buttress and on to the 3rd. Gradually it steepens and narrows; rocks on the right and a cornice of unknown size on the left define the line, and he soon begins to feel uneasy in his solitary state. (This is where Andy Nisbet had his ‘mummifying’ experience while descending from C4.) Allen decides those who came this way before him were either a lot braver or a lot less imaginative than himself; he cuts a line of deep steps – a rare enough procedure these days, but standard in Allen’s early climbing days in the ’60s, before the advent of front-pointed crampons and inclined picks on ice-axes.

  He carries on over several false summits and comes finally to a flat plateau and spots some gear and an unlikely rope trailing off down the Kangshung Face – he climbs down it, finds the C4 snow hole and crawls inside. ‘A real rat hole’ he decides, but notes that the snow is good nevé and could be dug out to make a decent refuge for four or more. Back up the rope, takes a good look at the Pinnacle. Pretty impressive … but not outrageous, not the visible parts anyway. He debates carrying some gear on to the foot of the 1st Pinn, but the weather is closing in and anyway he’ll be on the Pinnacles next time up. He’ll leave it till then to make their acquaintance. There is no doubt in his mind that he’ll be back; he’s carried a load to 7,850, is tired but fully in control.

  So he sets off down, taking the time to fix an abseil rope down the unpleasant section of the 3rd Buttress – typical Allen, paying attention to small safety details. Like Bob, he’s a family man who plans to live and climb for as long as possible. Some of the Boy Racers’ casual ways astonish them both.

  He finds Tony at C3 and gladly accepts a brew from him. Further down he meets Mal plugging on up through the mist, and is amazed and delighted to be handed his mail – a thoughtful touch that pleases him. Mal is having a bad day, tired from the start, feeling the strain of his second carry to C4. But he’s determined that this time he and Tony would improve C4 into a viable doss, and finally mix with the Pinnacles. Given climbable weather and everyone performing to their maximum, the Expedition was still in with a chance of doing the Pinnacles at least, thus completing the unknown part of the route to the summit.

  ‘He looks tired,�
�� Allen thinks, but as always, keeps it to himself. Mal’s been at ABC or on the hill for a fortnight now, far longer than anyone else, and the strain is beginning to show. They chat briefly then move off on their separate courses.

  At C2 Allen finds Jon and Rick who plan to go on to C3 the next day, then C4, then take on the Pinnacles where Mal and Tony leave off. There’s no saying just how far they will go, but Rick’s sights are set on going right through the Pinnacles if possible. That’s one of the reasons why they’re carrying an extra lightweight tent between them, for an overnight bivvy. In fact, they’re so laden down with gear that Allen offers to help them with the carry tomorrow. He sits and brews and eats and chats with them in the spacious C2 cave, writes up his diary for the day till he feels tired and besides he finds writing basically boring: he’d rather sleep.

  Meanwhile Sandy has arrived at Base Camp, optimism on two legs despite the latest setbacks on the hill. A heated divergence of opinion develops between him and the much more pessimistic Urs and Andy. Andy now believes that with the continuing bad weather and the wasted condition of half our party and the demands of the route itself, we will not climb this hill. Not only will we not make the summit, he thinks it unlikely we’ll succeed in doing anything on the Pinnacles. ‘We’ve just not enough strong climbers.’

  Liz is angered with his ‘defeatism’. ‘It’s not defeatism,’ Andy replies in his quiet, stubborn way, his eyes lowered, ‘it’s just realism.’ Neither Liz nor Sandy can accept that. Believing it can’t be done is surely a self-fulfilling prophecy; he has to believe. ‘If you didn’t believe we could do it, you shouldn’t be here,’ Sandy argues, and Liz adds, ‘At least keep your pessimism to yourself, otherwise it’ll affect everyone else.’ She is angry, protective almost, protective of Mal’s expedition; she knows how much was at stake for him here. For us all, but the pressure is inevitably greatest on the leader; it’s the leader who is the hero or the whipping boy in the public eye.