Summit Fever

by Andrew Greig

  There was a pause, then Mal said carefully, ‘That’s an interesting idea, Jon. I’ll talk it over with Tony and we’ll let you know later what we think.’ Jon tried to press him further, but Mal signed off quickly, pointing out they were very tired and wanted to get back to Camp 2 before the ice slope started releasing boulders down the lines.

  It was an interesting suggestion. Before it, we’d all assumed the two pairs would go for it separately. We talked round it for a while. Certainly a good gesture of final solidarity; it made sense in a lot of ways. But if Mal and Tony were to stay up at 2 rather than return to 1, that meant a few changes. Alex and I would have to take a tent up to 2, so that both pairs could sleep there. And we’d need to take up food for them – and the only food we had was our own. Hm …

  Alex and I went back to our tent and talked it over. In essence, if we did this, we’d be acting as support for the lads, rather than acting independently. Well, that felt OK. I wanted to contribute. But if we did that, we wouldn’t have enough supplies for ourselves to go back to 2 a second time, sleep there and have a go at the fixed ropes to the Col – unless we went back to Base Camp. Which meant another trip through the Icefall, on our own this time. And we’d be tackling both the climb to 2 and the ascent to the Col on our own – terrain that neither of us had any experience on. And I’d lost faith in Alex’s abilities.

  But ever since Mal walked into the kitchen and announced, ‘You can go to the Col, it’s about 21,000 feet …’, it had been my summit, my goal. Carrying this load for Mal and Tony would make it much more unlikely.

  I looked at Alex. ‘What d’you reckon?’

  ‘I think we should carry for them and see how we feel.’

  ‘OΚ. It’s time I did something useful.’

  So that was that. At 4.00 we all discussed the situation with Mal and Tony who were now back at Camp 2, thoroughly shattered. The game plan – an Alex phrase we’d all picked up – was for us four to go to 2 tomorrow, Alex and I carrying tentage and food for the lads. He and I would then return to Camp 1, because there wasn’t enough tentage for six at Camp 2, and we’d scarcely acclimatized to Camp 1 level yet. The next day we’d go to Base and, if we felt like it and it fitted in with the lads’ movements, we could come back up again. Meanwhile the Four Aces would go for the summit together.

  Waiting for supper, we’re all rather excited now – even Sandy and Jon, for the first time. The crunch – or at least the first bite – approaches. We can sit at our tent and look up to the summit, knowing that the fixed ropes, the tents and supplies are all there. We’re coming together when it really matters.

  Sandy is hunched over the stove, his ruddy face already swollen, pushing his thin hair away from his eyes. Jon as ever is sprawled back with his hands behind his head, looking up at the roof where more esoteric reggae dubs crackle from his speakers. Alex is sitting cross-legged at the entrance trying not to be sick. And I’m tired and high, smoking a last cigarette – burns very reluctantly at this altitude – and thinking back on the Icefall today and forward to Camp 2 tomorrow. I’m right in it now and it feels fine.

  We’ve passed the time with casual, rambling conversation. Much of it about food. ‘Sardines on toast …’ someone would say. A long pause while we consider this vision. ‘Bacon …’ We’d lie salivating at the thought of bacon we’d eaten and bacon we would eat again, crisp and lean, three rashers on a plate … ‘With fried eggs and tomato,’ another voice would add. ‘Yes, but with croissants and pots of real coffee.’ Coffee, elixir of life, taken in a Parisian café, all the quickening dream of life in its rising steam! ‘And a pack of untipped Gauloises.’

  How this deprivation sharpens the senses and the appetite! So many places to go, so many ordinary things suddenly so precious, haloed by memory.

  When we can bear it no more, the subject reverts to climbing. Jon and Sandy eloquently persuade me I must go to Chamonix and do some Alpine routes. ‘Good crack in the Bar National, youth!’ And Jon adds, aware of my priorities, ‘Cheap wine and fags – some nice easy routes too. You’d love it. You did all right today – if you were in Cham, we could already be getting into bacon and eggs in some café …’

  It sounds tempting. I still intend to pack in climbing after this, but there are a few Scottish winter routes I want to knock off first. And maybe a fortnight in Chamonix, do a few of the easier classics …

  I find myself talking about my dad and his death for the first time. Jon looked at me curiously. ‘You really keep things to yourself, don’t you?’ Maybe I do. It had never occurred to me to tell them. I write instead.

  We retired to our tent, took sleeping pills and read till sleep came to claim us. I lay awake listening to Alex’s Cheyne-Stokes breathing getting slower and slower, then a pause that went on and on, and just when I’d be about to reach over and shake him, he’d take a deep shuddering breath and start up again. It was freezing outside and the stars were spattered brilliantly across the sky like an exploded diamond tiara. I was as happy and raised as a child on the first night of summer camp.

  In the middle of the night, I woke to a sharp crack and a movement beneath me. ‘Alex?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Did you hear that?’ ‘Yup. Think it was some liP Bertha opening up.’

  I felt around the floor of the tent and came to a small decline where my fingers met no resistance. ‘I think it’s under the tent.’ ‘Can you be bothered getting up and moving?’ I lay and thought about it. ‘Not really.’ ‘Nor me.’ So we didn’t.

  But we slept lightly after that.

  When I looked out at 4.00 a.m. on Thursday 26 July it was very cold and snowing lightly. There was a fair amount of fresh snow on the tent and on the ground. I hoped it wouldn’t cancel today, then put my head down, curling deep into the bag for warmth.

  To be woken later by a call from Sandy. We lit the stove, got the water heating. Single porridge, two brews, a protein bar. Dressed, packed our sacks. At the last moment I stuck in an extra Kendal Mint bar. Could be a hard day. I took a last glance inside our tent – my Kundera book, Walkman, spare munchies, funny to think they’ll be in exactly the same place when we come back here. Unless that narrow new crevasse opens up a lot.

  At Sandy and Jon’s tent we roped up for the day, Alex and I together. I’d have preferred it otherwise, but there it was. Sandy was in an unusually grumpy mood, positively sullen. Our cheerful good mornings had no effect on him. He wasn’t happy about the time – round 6.30 by now – or the weight we were having to carry. (In his diary, he recorded that he had a sore head and we were all being particularly irritating, which just shows how desperately subjective all our assessments and reactions were.) We all took some of his load. It was the first time I’ve seen Sandy not 100 per cent and, as Jon said, it’s something of a relief to see he’s human. The snow had stopped and the sun made it a perfect spring morning as we plodded off.

  Above the Icefall the glacier suddenly escapes the confines of the Ibex Trail cliff on the left and the spires on the right that run on to bisect the south face of Mustagh, some two to three miles further on. It widens out into a great amphitheatre, rising gently for half the distance between us and Camp 2, then curving up as on the rim of a bowl. A mile or so beyond the top of that rim, 100 yards out from the bottom of the southwest face, was our objective. I knew from listening that the two main danger zones were the threat of avalanche on the long slope out of the bowl, and that of collapsing seracs poised above the rim of it. It was this area of crouched menace that had been christened the White Tiger.

  The first hour or two is exhilarating and relatively painless. We’re moving past ridges and towers and still, ghostly glacier pools. Everything is on a bigger scale than the lower glacier, but less broken up. Most of the crevasses are too wide to jump, so we follow them along till we come to a snow bridge which we hurry over. I’m quite enjoying myself till Sandy points out that much of this area is riddled with smaller crevasses, only they’re covered over so we can’t see them. After that I’m very careful to wal
k exactly in his and Jon’s footsteps.

  Finally we come to the bottom of the White Tiger. We start zigzagging up it, glancing apprehensively at the seracs above us bunched like 100-foot-high paws. At once the incline starts hitting us, like a series of body blows. I gasp for air and energy, but there’s none there. The gap between Alex and me and Jon and Sandy starts widening. We’re down to a mile-an-hour plod now. What worries us is a massive build-up of snow running along the top of this slope. The sun is strong now and the snow is softening. There are several inches of soft snow on top of hard snow-ice; I don’t know much about avalanches but I’ve a feeling this is a classic set-up for one. If the slope starts to go, we’ll be lucky to get clear. Or if those massive white paws shift …

  Worry wears away at our nervous energy. We try to move faster, but it’s impossible. I keep looking up towards the crest of the ramp; it doesn’t get any closer or look any safer. This is very unpleasant. But there’s nothing I can do about it, so plug on and hope for the best …

  It must be an hour or more later that we finally stumble over the crest and the incline slackens off. By now we’re stopping every five minutes though it feels like an hour. We take another breather. The next section is one long heartbreaking gentle uphill, gradually traversing left. Somewhere under that towering southwest face is Camp 2. This is the section that the others always said seemed to go on for miles; the first part of it is strewn with hollow-sounding areas, and the second is exposed to the collapse of the massive seracs on the ridge that eventually bisects the south face. Again there’s nothing we can do about that except be hopeful and fatalistic.

  We look at each other. What we see looks dire. We set off again.

  Now we seem to be wading through glue. The sun is needling down and smacking back up off the snow. Even through two pairs of shades, brilliant points of light are dancing across my retinas. The effect is one of disorientation, a timeless trance where everything hurts endlessly. When we stop every 200 yards or so, we begin to feel half-human. But as soon as we put one foot laboriously in front of the other, our legs ache with lactic-acid build-up. So much effort in just lifting boot and crampon out of a foot hole and moving it to the next.

  How do these guys keep doing this? Whether they’re crazy or brave or plain tough, what’s remarkable is not the danger they accept, but the pain they embrace. I’d no idea it was like this. Jesus …

  I’m sick in my stomach from gasping. Chest’s pounding through to my backbone. Eyes smart and throat raw. I feel as if in the final throes of seasickness: all I want is for this to stop. We stop. We start again. It’s worse than before. We’re getting nowhere, better to keep going into this mindlessness. This is what all that running was for, pushing through the pain barrier along the Queensferry shore in fading light …

  This is the real thing. The nightmare mountain, the endless snow slopes, the harsh grind of altitude. God it’s horrible.

  I can’t go on.

  I must go on.

  I go on.

  Pain isn’t the right word but it will have to do. Does it hurt the others as much as this? How can we measure one person’s pain against another’s? Is Mal’s ‘wasted’ equal to my ‘shattered’, equal to Sandy’s ‘pretty tired’? Are they braver than me, more determined or simply fitter? Let’s think about this, anything to take my mind off what’s happening now, this endless punishment, these white desperate hours beyond my limits.

  Another stop. We lean, gasping, over our axes. I break into my Kendal Mint cake, hand some to Alex. He simply nods, too tired to speak. At least he looks as shattered as me. As long as he goes, I go. The sugar hits us. We straighten up like geriatrics in the last remnants of our pride and put our feet to the treadmill.

  Somewhere along the line, when for the nth time I had gone on when I couldn’t go on any longer, I decided I wouldn’t come back up here. Forget about the Col. Okay, but let’s get to Camp 2, you wimp, you bumblie, you staggering wazzock. You’re not going to let a sick American outwalk you.

  If only the light would stop needling my eyeballs. But no headache, that’s good. You’ll do it, looks like you’re gaining on him …

  The incline slackens off. Now we’re in direct line of fire from the seracs. I’m much too tired to care. Bad sign, that. Care, you fucker. If we don’t care, there’s nothing left.

  One thing the running taught me: there’s always an end. Then I’ll feel great.

  Now this is odd: the footsteps in front of us suddenly diverge and move a rope’s length apart. We look at it, mystified, then laugh out loud. Sandy’s been in a bad mood all morning; we can picture the little irritations, the short, snappy argument, then the parting of the ways till the rope lets them part no further. In front of us in the snow is the very picture of a mountain tiff – and 200 yards on, the tracks converge again in conciliation.

  Very touching.

  Then round the corner comes a strange, wild-looking youth in shades. It’s Jon. What’s this he’s saying? Just a short way now? Oh aye, Jon. But he’s got an empty sack and insists on taking half a load from each of us. We’re too tired to be proud. A good youth, capable of these sudden unexpected generosities just when you need them.

  (Back at Camp 2, Sandy recorded, Mal had jokingly suggested that Jon just wanted a good mention in the book. Sandy shrugged at this. Big deal. Who gives a fuck? drifted in and out of his head. A good deed’s a good deed.)

  Suddenly there it is. A sagging brown tent in the wilderness below the south face, three ragged figures coming towards us, silhouetted against the sun. They look black and charred, ringed with fire. They’re pointing cameras our way. I try to prepare a grin or a joke, but when we stumble up to them I can only look blankly through their cameras and nod as they warmly and generously congratulate and welcome us. ‘Well done, youth.’ ‘Bleedin’ good, mate! Seriously, I’m really impressed.’ ‘Not bad for an author.’ Laughter.

  I just manage a smile, sling my pack and camera into the snow anyhow. Jon, amused: ‘You just don’t care, do you?’ I sense his affection and empathy. ‘Nuh’ is all I can say.

  I sit oblivious to everything inside and out till slowly the greyness departs. I’ve pushed myself further than ever before, but I’m here. Wherever here is. Tony puts a lukewarm brew into my hand and smiles. This is it. My top. Like Kath arriving at Base Camp, I briefly feel tearful with relief and pleasure – then remember we’ve still got to turn round and go back.

  Summits glow mostly in retrospect.

  Camp 2 is a blur in my memory. I saw it for only half an hour, through a haze of fatigue. One tent, a second being put up, Mal standing with an absurd plastic shovel, a vague impression of the south face towering nearby and the more distant ice slope up to the Col – that’s all I remember. Summits, wherever we find them, are absurd. Three months in Pakistan for this fragmentary half-hour. Of course making your summit matters. When they say it doesn’t, what they mean is that getting there is half the fun. You can’t extract the summit from an expedition any more than you can extract the smile from the Madonna: the meaning is in the whole. We need the summit to aim at, but the value of our journey is spread everywhere along the line. It’s in the blank, painful miles and in the occasional milestones of outrageous happiness.

  You may choose heads or tails, but in the end you pocket the whole coin.

  I got to my feet and stood looking about for a last couple of minutes. The lads were busying about putting up the new tent and sorting gear. There seemed a new purpose and seriousness about them. This was where they get professional; this is where they stick their necks out. If you see a parrot in the jungle, its plumage suddenly makes sense. So it is with my friends the shuffling dossers. Their physical and mental qualities are adapted to these places. I’m glad I’ve been up here to see that.

  Now let’s just get out of here.

  Alex and I shake hands with the Aces, all aware we won’t meet again till they’ve succeeded or failed on the summit. They thank us again for our carry, we wi
sh them luck. We pull on our packs – now wonderfully light – take a last look back at a place to which we’ll never return, and set off down the hill, into the white.

  The trip back to Camp 1 was another epic. After ten steps the soft snow had balled up under my crampons, giving them no more grip than dancing shoes. So I started knocking them with my axe, first one then the other, every second or third step, virtually all the way back. This was tedious and energy consuming but vital – particularly when we hit the ramp where a slip could well take us both away.

  It was the heat that did for us. We were now walking through noon and the sun casseroled us from all sides. It softened the snow, weakened snow bridges, and our energy ran off us like our sweat. And we lost our way again.

  It was a relief to finally get off the bottom of the zigzags down the ramp, to step clear of that poised avalanche threat. We were moving quite well at perhaps two miles an hour. It was very hot, and our arms and legs were weary from constantly banging soft snow off our boots, but our troubles should have been over.

  They’d only begun. Alex’s famed route-finding abilities took us off too far to the right. Because I’d lost faith, on the way up I’d tried to memorize our route and was sure it was more to the left. Alex pointed out he’d spent months in the Cascades doing this kind of thing. We held to his line and pretty soon lost contact with the prints from the morning.

  There followed a frustrating and at times horrible couple of hours as we slipped and slithered along increasingly bizarre contours, followed bigger and bigger crevasses to more and more insecure snow bridges, tried to tiptoe over hollow-sounding slopes. Again and again we had to retrace our steps when a line was blocked. This sapped our energy and morale. I was frankly fed up with him. I was also anxious and very very tired.