Summit Fever

by Andrew Greig

  Meanwhile, back at Camp 2, Sandy and Jon had woken at 2.00 a.m., feeling as fine as one can at that time. To Sandy’s grateful astonishment, Jon got the stove going and made the first brews, perhaps as a gesture of atonement for yesterday’s nonevent.

  They crossed the ‘schrund and clipped into the fixed ropes. They made rather good time up them, partly due to stonefall whizzing down the slope. The fixed rope limited room for evasion, and the effect was rather like being tethered at the wrong end of a bowling alley. ‘Very scary,’ Sandy recorded, ‘but it gave us an incentive to move quite fast.’ Fifteen hundred feet above him, he could see Mal and Tony moving on the ridge. They waved to each other. It felt good. Time to radio Andy …

  I woke up, stuck my head outside the tent. A good enough morning – bright, fresh, a slight haze that would filter the sunshine further up. The weather’s holding into the monsoon season, we’ve a real chance. The ‘we’ seems entirely natural. I began by observing this expedition from the outside, but now identify totally with it. A surge of optimism. We might just pull it off. Everything’s come right at the right time since Mal and Tony arrived at Askole with the money. Even Burt and Donna’s dropping out at Paiju helped Base Camp food logistics and made us more harmonious and coherent as a team. Then Mal and Tony’s late arrival with fresh energy to build on what had already been accomplished. Time for the morning radio call …

  ‘Base Camp here. We’re now open to callers and improper suggestions.’

  ‘—— ——’

  ‘Sorry, youth, I’ve got piles and that would be difficult.’

  Good to hear from Sandy. He sounds very well and elated in his casual Highland fashion. We exchange news and friendly abuse, wait for Mal and Tony to come in, but they don’t. Probably too busy. But he can see them, and they seem to be going well. It’s great having the radios, they allow us at Base Camp to be totally involved in what’s happening up there. Over and out.

  Sandy switched off and stuck the radio in his pack. Then it was head down, one step, push up the jumar, step, push, up into the dazzling morning sunlight.

  As Mal and Tony worked their way up the ridge, alternating leads, to their astonishment pale lengths of old-fashioned hemp rope started appearing in the snow, in and out of lumps of ice. It must be the fixed rope of Patey and Brown, left there twenty-eight years ago. Some of it fell apart at the touch, but other sections seemed quite secure. Could use that at a push on the way down, Mal mused. There’s going to be a lot of abseiling, and we probably don’t have enough gear. We always climb on the achievements of the past anyway.

  It was oddly moving and comforting to come on these signs of the last living things to go that way. He came on an old Pierre Allain karabiner. He reached down and tried the gate. It opened and closed perfectly. He examined it more closely and saw stamped on it: J. BROWN.

  It was ten years ago that he’d read Patey’s account of the first ascent and begun to dream of repeating it. Now he was 21,500 feet up the west ridge, holding a piece of their gear in his mitt. It seemed to say, ‘Yes, it can come true. Yes, it can be done.’ He clipped the krab to his rack and slowly, painfully, climbed after Tony.

  At 10 p.m. Sandy radioed in from the top of the fixed ropes. He could still just see Mal and Tony. ‘Looks like they’re on a difficult pitch, so it’s unlikely they’ll radio in.’

  ‘Yes we will!’ Mal’s amused voice sounded strong and coherent, not too breathless. They had stopped for a brew, and were now chatting and answering Jon’s technical queries. How many pitches, snow conditions, size of cornice, what technical gear would they need?

  ‘Immediately above us is the infamous 100-foot rock wall, turned on the south side, by Patey’s account. We’re on the hardest part of the climb … At least, I hope so! Sitting some three feet from the edge of the south face, can see right down to Camp 2, down the Icefall, Base Camp just around the corner. Better move on now.’

  ‘Good luck, youth.’

  ‘Yeah, you too, Sandy. Over, out.’

  The rock wall barred the ridge above them. On the right, a several thousand foot drop down the south face. On the left, seracs and the drop into China. Tony steadied himself and led off.

  He levered himself cautiously up a couloir of avalanche-prone snow that led to the foot of the rock wall. Then onto mixed ground where his crampons screeched and scraped on bare, loose rock, suddenly a liability. It was the first real technical climbing he’d done at this altitude, and harder than he’d expected. On shitty rock and insecure snow, with little protection, there was no room for a slip or the smallest mistake. Not when you’re on the tottering crest of the south face. Those old guys sure were good …

  Tony: Finally got onto a notch about 18 inches wide and covered in scree. So I kicked it all off and stood on what was left. Then I ran out of rope, got a wire in a really good crack, and waited for Mal to come up.

  Mal led a 50-foot level traverse out right, kicking out scree and tottering on top of the remains. Easy, but insecure feeling. Then a hard step down where he found an old peg. He clipped into it and studied the next move. He’d come out to a sweep of slabs straight onto the south face. Exposure no longer troubled him, but just the same the drop was impressive, and the slabs looked steeply angled and were probably rotten …

  Mal: It was either the slabs which looked very hard with crampons, or there was a little rock groove above me, slightly overhung, that went up over the horizon. I said to Tony, ‘It doesn’t look right to me’, but it seemed to be the only way. So I cleared away the loose stuff and pulled up into a shitty but easier angled corner. Loose holds all the way for 30 feet – typical Scottish buttress move, Grade 3 or 4 really, but quite hard at this altitude, in crampons.

  He grovelled up this diagonal groove to an à cheval stance on a shattered ridge, directly above the traverse line and Tony. This left the rope behind him in a big Z. So he was ratty about the rope drag that kept pulling him back as he tried to move up, then Tony was ratty at him when he started climbing for not taking in the rope, and Mal was ratty at him as he couldn’t pull up the rope because of the drag until Tony had made some progress …

  Average mountain aggravation, brought on by nerves, fatigue and lack of oxygen. As Tony said later, if anything goes wrong, like the rope going tight behind you, at altitude you automatically assume it’s your partner’s fault. The lazy bastard! The incompetent wazzock! It never occurs to you it might be the mountain and the rope’s just snagged. But irritation is a waste of nervous energy, so you try to put it out of your mind and concentrate on the next move, and the next …

  Then one more pitch, heading diagonally upwards to get them off the south face and back onto the West Ridge. Scraping and levering up over very steep snow-covered scree, they found it rather gripping as the runners were more symbolic than functional, being placed in the larger lumps of loose rubble. It was with some relief that they finally regained the ridge.

  ‘That was a bit hard, Dad.’

  ‘You’re not kidding.’

  They pushed on another couple of pitches, and came to a spot where the old fixed rope ended in a tangle around a number of boulders, and a scree platform sloped out from the ridge. An old piece of polythene flapped in the breeze. It was the site of the Patey-Brown Camp 4. They dropped their packs and suddenly felt lighter and stronger. They’d made it this far. Time for a brew and the 2.00 p.m. radio call.

  ‘How you doing down there, Andy?’

  ‘Very comfortable, thanks. We’ve just finished stuffing ourselves on lamb and chapatis. Shokat’s having a bit of a sulk … How are you, where are you?’

  ‘We think we’re at the site of the old Camp 4. We’re a bit buggered, but no headaches or anything. We think we’ll keep going a bit more and hope we find somewhere to doss higher up.’ He looked at Tony, who nodded. They were both very aware that John Hartog had become badly frostbitten due to a night out on his summit push, so they felt they should gain an edge by doing several more pitches that afternoon. Four p
itches today would mean eight less tomorrow and improve their chances of making the summit and back to the bivvy before dark.

  Jon broke in to ask practical questions. What was the traverse on the rock wall like? Was it protected at all? How much abseiling on the way down?

  ‘Getting down this is going to be the real problem. We’ll have to abseil a lot of it. So it would help if you guys bring up some rope, ice screws, slings and general ab tat to 4.’

  ‘Okay, Sandy and I will discuss that.’ Pause. ‘What does the rest of the ridge look like?’

  ‘Well, the summit looks enticingly close.’ For the first time, the suppressed excitement in Mal’s voice broke through. He laughed. Even over the radio we could sense the hunger and anticipation. ‘… Though it probably isn’t! We can see nearly all the route, and it looks easier than what we’ve done.’

  ‘Really good news.’ And a certain understandable envy and frustration seemed to surface in Jon’s voice. He’d said he didn’t care who got to the top first. That was as true as it can be among highly motivated, competitive people. But he was keyed up and very aware that the weather could break in the next couple of days and rob him and Sandy of the summit. ‘OΚ, when do you want your next radio call?’

  ‘Six will do us fine.’

  ‘We’ll keep in touch on the hour, just in case.’

  There’s always that ‘just in case’. No one speaks about it directly. All the death jokes of the walk-in have dried up. It seems to be felt bad luck to talk about the things that could go wrong. So that ‘just in case’ is as near as we get to expressing our solidarity, our concern for each other. And for ourselves.

  ‘Okay. Over, out.’

  Late afternoon at Base Camp. Getting cool now, the flies wound down like tiny mechanical toys. I sit on the big rock above the camp, looking up the glacier to Mustagh in the last sunlight. Hard to imagine they’re really up there on that ridge.

  Mustagh is not a beautiful mountain. Not one of those graceful, soaring, ethereal peaks. It’s big, hard-edged and unrelenting. I feel about this mountain as I felt about my father when I was ten. Respect, awe, tinged with fear. Well, I grew up, more or less, and the man mellowed. A heaviness in my chest as I realize yet again that I’ll never be able to tell him about this adventure. He would have enjoyed it. He would have nodded and laughed and poured us both another dram …

  Yet I find myself talking to him often, and he usually answers. Since he died he lives in me. I’ve internalized him. Part of me has his responses, his attitudes, his appetites. Like for whisky, for one thing … So I smile, nod at the mountain and light up a cigarette rolled with my mum’s last letter to me. The radio crackles. It’s Sandy, from Camp 3.

  After the usual ‘How are you?’ exchange, he asks if we’ve heard from Mal and Tony, it’s past 6.00. There’s some concern in his voice as he agrees they could simply have lost track of the time. Or they could be asleep already. Or perhaps their radio’s packed in. ‘Yeah, I’m making up the same explanations.’ Trouble is, none of them are very convincing. By now we’re both definitely worried. Ten past six. They must have stopped climbing by now, they should be in their bivvy. So why don’t they come in?

  This must be how it happens. Friends simply fail to report in. A collapsing serac, a slip on a rock slab, a pin pulling … So easy. Sandy and I both have the same thing on our minds, but neither of us is prepared to say so. I ask if they’re revved up for tomorrow.

  ‘We’re dead keen, yeah … It would have been nice to have heard from Mal, but …’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence. Dead time on the radio. The sun has gone down, it is getting cold. I look up at Mustagh and shiver.

  ‘Well, I’ll say –’

  Mal cuts in, ‘We’re somewhere just beneath the final tower now.’

  Delight, relief in our voices as we take in his report. Such pleasure and affection in hearing the familiar voice. He sounds more tired and trudgy than I’ve ever heard him, but underneath that weariness is the lift of excitement.

  They’d gone some five or six pitches past the old Camp 4 on knackering mixed ground. Floundering about in soft snow in the heat of the day, mostly moving together, sometimes belaying each other over difficult stretches.

  They had exhausted themselves. Even the irrepressible Tony sounded weary and admitted he was ‘quite tired’. But we all knew those extra pitches had put them in good striking distance of the summit. Tomorrow. If the weather holds. Inshallah.

  They’d eventually found a possible bivvy site on a corniced ridge below what looked like the final steep section, and called a halt due to ‘total embuggerage’. By this time they were at the staggering-about-and-useless stage of fatigue. So when they began shovelling out a platform for the tent they were short-tempered and ineffective. Tony seemed particularly feeble, to Mal’s eyes at least, patting at the snow with the absurd red plastic shovel. ‘If you don’t dig, you can lie in the bloody snow,’ he snapped. Tony bit back a reply and laboured on. McKinley was easy compared to this.

  Then, a foot down, they hit solid ice. A spasm of hatred at this bloody mountain, then they started prodding about elsewhere for another site.

  Mal: We got another platform dug after maybe an hour. We were just about to put up the tent when I put my foot through the platform right into a crevasse. About a foot wide and right across this ledge we’d cut. So we thought ‘Sod it’ and just put up the bivvy anyway. Really we were too knackered to dig a third ledge. So we slept with heads on one side of the hole, feet on the other.

  After the radio call we brewed and ate some. Big day tomorrow, but we’ve decided to treat it as just another mountaineering day.

  At Base Camp, at Camp 3 and Camp 4, we set our alarms and turn in. A white moon rises over the Baltoro. The last light glows on the tip of Mustagh and the upper slopes of Masherbrum.

  We lie waiting for dawn to rise on the final act.

  First to stir is Sandy in Camp 3. It’s 2.00 in the morning, Sunday 29 July, cold and dark. A dead world, and he himself half-dead it seems. He sits up in his sleeping bag. How often have I done this? Why do I bother? Why are we so narrow? Ah, but it’s good jest! Better one still if the lads make the summit today. Our turn tomorrow …

  He lights the stove and melts the ice-topped water from the night before. Jon slowly becomes more or less conscious, and as the first brew of the day goes down, they look at each other and inside themselves and decide they’re feeling well. They melt snow for a second brew; just as the pan is nearly full of warm water Sandy adds a last spoon of snow and knocks the pot over.

  ‘It’s almost like a parable,’ he remarks. ‘Just that little bit of greed and you lose the lot.’ Jon grunts, understandably not in the mood for this Highlander’s philosophical musings.

  They finally leave the tent round 4.00 in the first grey light, Jon leading. Following Mal and Tony’s tracks from yesterday, they make steady progress up the gullies and rock ribs of the lower West Ridge.

  It was 5.00 before Mal and Tony got going. This late start was to cause them problems all day. Their bivvy tent had proved a disaster, ‘more like a casualty bag’. Hoarfrost had formed on the inside throughout the night and fell off in plates onto their sleeping bags and gear, then started to melt. Bivvies at 22,000 feet are never hospitable, and it was all rather cold and depressing as they began spooning snow into the billycan for the first brew.

  Mal looked outside. Flurries of snow, and a deeper darkness massed over Lobsang and across the Baltoro. Not promising at all. He felt anger, real anger, realizing they could be robbed of the summit at this final stage. If the weather turns bad, we haven’t enough food or fuel to sit it out, so it would be all the way back down to Base Camp. And even if we make it, will the weather hold for Jon and Sandy?

  They were silent as they geared up, each summoning all their remaining will, concentration and experience. Harness, crampons, helmet, the rack of pegs and nuts and friends. The rope that will connect them all day as the partnership ex
pands and contracts towards the summit. And all the time, suppressed excitement beating like a pulse beneath the skin.

  Their sacks held the bare minimum. Shovel for emergency snow hole, stove, can, brew, some extra clothing. They sling them on, adjust to the familiar weight, then set off together on what they hoped was to be their last day heading up. The ridge here was fairly wide, gently undulating whalebacks, and the snow excellent as they trudged steadily up towards the first seracs.

  In my dream Mal, Tony, Jon and Sandy are dancing round in a circle, holding hands. They are in full climbing gear, and laughing. They are chanting, ‘Ring a ring of roses … Atishoo, atishoo! We all fall down!’ and they fall flat on their backs in the snow, helpless with laughter. I stand outside their charmed circle, watching them. Then Tony shouts, ‘Here, Andy – catch!’ and twirling through the air towards me comes a purple karabiner. All I have to do is catch it to join their game. I very much want to. Here it comes, turning end over end in slow motion. If I concentrate, I think I can do it …

  I blink awake. Yellow light in my familiar tent. Base Camp. Would I have caught that krab? I grovel for my watch. Ten to six. ‘Ring a roses’ – is it a bad omen? We get so superstitious up here.

  ‘Morning, Jhaved.’

  ‘’Lo, Mr Andy. Summit today, yes?’

  ‘Inshallah.’

  Jhaved nods approvingly. I’m learning all things are in the hands of Allah, all things are Maybe. ‘Summit inshallah yes. I make prayer …’

  ‘Aye, me too.’

  We sit nodding at each other like pigeons, grinning, excited already, caught in the flush of summit fever. It’s infectious across the miles. I switch on the radio and look out at the morning: nice enough down here, an odd haze over the sun, a lot of cloud across the glacier. Hmm … A light breeze ruffles the yellow flowers round the Mess Tent. The radio crackles …