by Andrew Greig
‘Morning, wankers!’ Jon, of course, sounding very buoyant. And with good reason – he and Sandy are already at the rock wall that gave the others trouble yesterday midmorning.
‘… We’re tired, but no problem with the heads. So we’re very pleased, we’re going much faster than Mal and Tony did, I think.’ A characteristic competitive note, though he immediately adds, ‘Of course, we’ve had their steps to follow, which is an immense help. It’s snowing slightly …’ Pause. ‘Actually, it’s a great day!’
His exuberance sends smiles and optimism chasing round the circle of Jhaved, Alex, Shokat and myself as we crouch about the radio.
‘It’s going very well so far. The only problem is going to be coming down because we haven’t got enough rope. So that could be very entertaining.’
Then the familiar Duff tones cut in. ‘Good morning, we’re on the West Ridge and we’re on the final summital pyramid.’ (This turned out to be an optimistic way of putting it.) More smiles all round. We may actually pull it off, after two years of planning, cock-ups and setbacks, and six weeks’ hard labour. Glittering prizes …
Mal continues, his steady, emphatic Scottish voice just a little breathless. ‘We’ve done the flat section above Camp 4, and we’re now just passing the first serac barrier. We’ve probably got about a thousand vertical feet to go. We’re not feeling too bad. Fucking cold, though.’
Jon: ‘What are snow conditions like up there?’
‘Bit heavy going, youth. We keep breaking through wind crust into deep powder snow, and there’s more of those funny flounder holes. Not too bad, but then again, it’s not perfect either.’
There’s laughter at this typical Mal utterance. We’re all feeling very good, very close to each other. With that we sign off, each to his own business.
Alex has packed his sack and announced he’s going back up to the Brew Tent for a day’s exploration and photography. I don’t think it’s because he’s lost interest in the final push, but rather the reverse. He’s been restless and distracted ever since we returned to Base Camp. He’s got a touch of summit fever, and listening to the lads’ progress inflames it. Well, we all have desires we’ll never satisfy, though carrying them about is a waste of energy.
‘Wish them luck from me,’ he drawls, and the tall, emaciated figure plods off towards the Ibex Trail.
Meanwhile Sandy is tackling the rock wall between Camps 3 and 4. He’d climbed the first section much as Tony did till he came on an old Brown-Patey piton, tested it. Still solid after twenty-eight years. Thanks very much, he thought, clipped into it, then belayed Jon up. Now he edges with extreme attention along the crumbling traverse ledge and comes to the choice between the overhanging chimney above and the rock slabs on the south face that Mal had faced the day before. He opts for the slabs and with some trepidation scrapes his way across and up, trying not to be distracted by the 3000-foot drop below his boots. He remembers saying to Andrew a few days back, ‘If climbing was dangerous, I wouldn’t do it’, and that youth’s incredulous expression. He smiles to himself. This is not dangerous; a false move would kill me and Jon, so don’t make one. Concentrate …
He runs into the same rope-drag problem as Mal and Tony had, and belays at about three quarters of the rope length. While Jon moves up towards him he looks up and spots Mal and Tony, tiny figures in red and blue, way up on the ridge. They look as if they’re approaching the west summit of the Tower, but his Highland caution says, Don’t bet on it …
‘Hate this bloody snow,’ Mal grumbles as yet again his boot breaks through the thin windslab crust and ends up knee-deep in powder snow. And again. It’s like wading through mud or running a marathon under water, and at 23,000 feet the body is deteriorating all the time, white blood corpuscles and brain cells dying in their thousands every minute. One’s physical and mental resources drain away like sand through an old-fashioned egg timer, measuring out the time one can still safely spend up here. That timer can only be reversed by returning to Base.
… We’ve had 100 feet of nevé and 1500 of powder snow. The whole route’s changed beyond recognition since Brown and Patey. The Icefall for a start … Twenty-five, twenty-six … Twenty-seven … Doesn’t Tony ever tire? Twenty-eight … Take a break at fifty … Twenty-nine, I’m getting too old for this. No I’m not … Thirty-one … When I start counting steps it’s getting serious … Thirty-five …
By now they are on the couloir leading up to where rocks bar the ridge in front, and serac barriers are stacked up above and on the left. Neither of them like the look of those seracs. It’s definitely a time for speedy movement, but the sun’s softening the snow now and draining their energy down the plughole.
So round 8.00 Mal and Tony decide on a brew stop. They dig the space, get out the stove, fill the can – then look at each other.
‘Got the matches, youth?’
‘I thought you had them, dad.’
‘If I do, I can’t find them.’
In the depths of his fetid sack, Tony finally scrapes out five matches in a battered box. He tries them, one after another. The damp heads slide off the wooden stems. The ever optimistic, ever ingenious Duff tries to spark a light from the batteries of his head torch. No chance.
They look at each other, torn between accusation, apology and laughter.
‘Ah well, all the less to carry,’ Mal says finally. Tony shrugs, nothing to be done. So they leave the useless stove and pan, pick up their sacks, and head with some trepidation up towards those cresting seracs.
Sandy Allan is enjoying himself. Leading, he’s come up against three tricky rock and ice pitches. He’s feeling good and strong; the climbing isn’t desperate, but hard enough to be interesting and exhilarating. Just the kind of stuff they came to the Tower for – the challenge of technical climbing at altitude. He makes the last few moves and comes to the end of his rope length. Finds a crack and bangs in a peg, clips in. Above him the ridge swoops on up towards the west summit, where he can still just see Mal and Tony. They appear to have stopped moving. Jon’s coming up behind. He can see right over the Lobsang Spire, Mitre Peak, Cathedral, and across the Baltoro to countless ranges of unnamed, unclimbed peaks. A lifetime of climbing out there. This is good value. This beats working. This is possibly even better than Dominique. This is what it’s about.
Kathleen … I’ve scarcely thought about her since she last spoke so clearly in my head as I stumbled down towards Camp 1. She should be back in Scotland now, doing whatever loved ones do when they are outside your ken. She should be here beside me on this boulder above Base Camp, looking straight up the glacier at Mustagh while the last act approaches its resolution. So should serious Adrian with his sudden humour, and Mohammed of the candid eyes and brilliant smile. And Rocky Moss … They’re all part of what’s happening up there. We’re not really separate at all. The isolation of one person from another, so distressing at times, is only apparent. We’re joined together by invisible, weightless ropes of affection, shared experience, cooperation, humour and love as we move together through the world.
The radio’s on, but no one’s come in. They must all be busy, concentrating, working it out. It’s getting warm now, the first flies of the day. Jhaved is singing in the Mess Tent, praying perhaps, and Shokat’s radio sails eternally from his tent. Do I wish I was up there too? No, not really. Making Camp 2 and back again was enough. Maybe if I’d had a chance at the Col … Forget it. My speeding pulse and summit fever are not personal now; it’s for them.
Two enormous ravens circle low over our camp. Cawing derisively, they settle on rocks just beyond stone-throw. They are motionless, as if waiting. This has never happened before. What does it mean? Dead climbers return as these ‘Himalayan budgies’ … No one believes it, yet when we joke about it, it feels true.
A good or bad omen, their settling here today? Each of those black, yellow-rimmed eyes has an image of the mountain in it, the same mountain I’m looking at, the same mountain on which my friends are now struggling
to get nearer their own obscure summits.
Tony is not a happy youth. He’s cursing the mountain, this waist-deep powder snow, and Duff for sending him out on this crazy line. He is leading – more accurately, floundering – below the second rock wall. He is not enjoying himself.
Tony: Shortly after our non-brew brew stop, we came to another rock wall. It looked like it should be turned below some seracs on the left. Mal said, ‘Just go up and wind your way up through the rocks.’ I didn’t like the line I thought he meant, but set off anyway. The first bit was névé, lovely stuff, then suddenly I was waist-deep in powder snow. I struggled around, then I was up to my neck in some sort of hole. I tried everything, swimming and rolling, but I just couldn’t get to the rocks only 20 feet away where I could see a brilliant crack for a runner.
I exhausted myself there, and finally shouted down to Mal, ‘Look, this is not on!’ So he said, ‘Just go across left below the seracs’ and it was miles across this face, and I mean miles, like 100 metres or more, all avalanche prone and on belay and my thoughts going across there were, There’s no way I’ll do this again, ever. I was just gripped. I kept saying, ‘Jesus, Mal, this is fucking ridiculous!’ And it was. This was the slope that shuddered under Patey and Hartog, and it felt like it could go any second. And the seracs above us …
I reached some ice and put a sling over a spike, useless really. I set off right, back up across the rocks and that was horrendous because a slip there would have taken us both off. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mal, where are you sending me?’ It felt like I was being sent. I was blaming him … Nerves really, I suppose. I finally found a good belay, and Mal led up through some ice and back onto the ridge. I was totally wasted, more tired than I’d ever been. I looked up at the west summit, it didn’t look any closer than when we set out. If I’d have given up anywhere, it would have been there.
But they don’t give up. They plug on as the day gets hotter and the hours slip away, pausing more and more often, to lean, gasping, over their axes.
10 a.m. Sandy radios in. He’s in his ‘Jolly good’ mood. They’ve cracked the first rock wall and are now getting close to the old Camp 4 site. He and Jon intend to go on past Mal and Tony’s bivvy to give themselves less to do tomorrow. What’s it like up there, Mr Porridge? ‘Basically very nice.’ Mal and Tony have just gone out of sight, and it’s unlikely they’ll see each other again until the Camp 4 bivvy when the lads come down from the summit this evening. That meeting seems a long way off. Over and out.
I sit cross-legged in front of my tent, radio at my right hand, recorder at my left. This is my vocation, and I enjoy it. I’m glad, overwhelmingly so, that Mal banged on my window and snatched me away from my settled life. This is good action.
Shokat, his hair oiled and brushed carefully into place, paces up and down. He stops every so often to stare at our goat. The goat stares back at him. It does not know it’s scheduled to be the highlight of our celebratory meal when the lads return. Ignorance is a blessing of sorts. We who are not quite so ignorant can only plan and strive and worry. I am ignorant of what’s happening up there, and wish I wasn’t. Jhaved squats in front of the Mess Tent, scraping elaborate patterns on the ground with a kitchen knife. He knows it’s all in the will of Allah.
We’re all waiting, and there’s nothing we can do but wait.
In the meantime there are sluggish flies to flick away, and this cigarette. I’ve smoked my way through my mum’s airmail letter, and now start on a sheet from Dominique that Sandy left me.
It’s the first time I’ve smoked a French letter.
Rough stuff.
12.0 Sandy on the radio. He and Jon are at Mal and Tony’s bivvy. It looks slumped and desolate, so they’re going on to a better site. Mal radios, but I can’t make out anything for electrical interference. The weather is deteriorating again up there, and there’s a thunderous feeling in the air. Bit worrying, that. Sandy relays that the lads think they’re some 100 vertical metres below the west summit, are very tired but hacking on …
Mal: A small rock triangle started to figure in the game plan. The wading had become unacceptable. So Tony led off up a ledge system, our shattered bodies in tune with the nature of rock. I reviewed myself, control total thankfully, the urge to continue powerful, more powerful than worries about what would inevitably become an exciting evening descent. Already we should be turning back.
Up to join the lad, then diagonally up a groove – hardish rock climbing, and several very hard ice moves near the top. To me the most satisfying piece of climbing so far, a 70 degree corner, the left wall ice and the right wall rock. Bridged up, axes whacking away, the ice spray sparkling rainbows …
Back on the ridge again, the west summit proved not to be. Depression and determination vie against each other. We talk little but feel a lot, our lives inextricably linked now and for a lifetime. Companionship, irritation, worry, desire for the end of the uphill, a point where we could turn about. But not yet …
At Base Camp now we’re raised, gripped by the nearness of success. It’s remarkable how an expedition like this suddenly accelerates: two years’ planning, the long walk-in, five weeks here slowly establishing and stocking camps – times when no progress seems to be being made at all, when morale slumps and no one feels like getting up in the morning – then it all comes down to three days feverish activity, succeed or fail.
The temporal shape of our adventure is mirrored by the physical shape of the Mustagh Tower. The huge, wide base, slowly rising, gradually narrowing and accelerating upward, then the final quick swoop up to the summit. It probably took the Egyptians years to lay the foundations of a pyramid, yet the last 100 feet would go up in a few days.
The breeze ruffles the yellow flowers dotted around Base Camp. I think of Kathleen, of Liz waiting and wondering back home, of the lads on the ridge, of my mother and father. They’re all different distances away, yet whenever you think of someone they’re as near as can be, beside or inside you. It’s like our radios: however distant the point of broadcast, the voice is right beside you.
Mal: Overall impression of total tiredness, pure will, a bizarre desire to succeed no matter what, worryingly cold toes. A rapidly expanding vista to north, south and west, most of the peaks below us now. Slight weather eye on, yes, the weather. Hatred for crusty powder, counting steps, looking after the rope and the next place to stop (great – an old peg – good excuse to stop!). Gut fatigue and plugging plugging steps, will the rock handhold stay in place, oh well too tired to worry, use it anyway …
*
1.00 p.m. Mal on the radio. I snatch it up. He’s loud and clear this time, but sounding breathless and flat with tiredness. We can hear the clinking of harness and rack in the background as Tony prepares to lead the next pitch. For a moment it’s as though Jhaved, Shokat and I are standing right next to them, willing them on.
They’ve been ploughing up more knee-deep snow. The west summit seems to keep retreating before them like the end of a rainbow, but they’re nearing some boulders that look as though they lead up to it.
‘As long as these clouds don’t wipe us out in the next hour or so, we’ll be all right.’ Pause. ‘Tony’s just started plodding off, so I’d better hold his rope. Over, out.’
Smiles all round. ‘Summit near, Mr Andy?’ ‘Soon, inshallah.’ We take a hurried lunch. Jhaved’s made something special, but it’s wasted on us. We talk as we eat, in quick bursts.
I think we’re going to make Mr Covington eat his words. He was the American climber who supposedly said to Rocky, ‘That Mickey Mouse expedition doesn’t have a chance. They’re not even serious.’ Well, he’d tried the easier east ridge the year before and scarcely got off the glacier. We relished that remark. It gave us something to prove, and right now the lads are up there proving it. If we can get all four to the summit and back, a clean sweep …
Mal: A constant treadmill of false summits saps the will as efficiently as a bullet kills. ‘What’s it like?’, my hopeful plea
as Tony tops another crest. ‘A long way,’ he says emotionlessly, not even bothering to turn round or stop. A sinking, heavy, lifeless feeling as we go on for no logical reason I can remember, hope rising and falling with every step or setback. So tired, and all the time in my head a ticking clock, the sweeping second hand brushing away at our chances and perhaps our lives …
2.00 p.m. Sandy radios from their Camp 4 bivvy. They’ve arrived, shagged but safe, and are now brewing up and drying out gear. They can just see Mal and Tony. ‘Yeah,’ the casual, sleepy voice continues, ‘they look about eighty feet below the west summit.’
My heart’s banging away, we’re all grinning and sweating in the heat. Eighty feet! Surely they’ve cracked it. But no one dares say so, so instead I ask Sandy to describe his outlook up there.
‘You mean the quality of life or how many glaciers we can see?’ comes the reply.
He hands over to Jon, and we have a leisurely, pleasant chat. He’s done for the day and is relaxed and enthusiastic.
‘Actually it’s been a really interesting day. Very similar climbing to one of the Italian ridges on Mont Blanc in that it’s not easy and not hard. And as we’ve got higher the blocks, those tottering heaps of shit I told you about, have got bigger so you can pull up on them. On the China side there’s this absolutely huge glacier just like a motorway with the streaks down the middle and everything, it’s great. It’s been very uncanny … Everything’s slightly pink and dingy and looks hand-tinted like one of those 1920s postcards. Yes, it’s been a strange old day …’