In the end I abandoned trying to climb the mountain by computer with the thought that we would have to rise above the logistic barriers – one usually did! With that thought I plunged into the mass of work that inevitably accompanies the organisation of a major expedition and also my own work to earn a living, lecturing about how Doug and I had struggled up and down the Ogre. On top of this we had agreed with LRC that each member of the team would visit at least one of the LRC factories. I drew the Durex factory in the East End of London.
I can still visualise the assembly line – long baths of liquid latex rubber, with hundreds of giant phalluses, going round and round on a long spindle, dipping into the baths. On either side of the baths were seated lines of women whose job was to peel off the contraceptives once they were completed. I could sympathise with royalty who always seem to be visiting factories, though I am sure they have never been to one like this, as I walked down the line surrounded by a little cluster of managers, trying to think of intelligent questions.
‘Do you find this job interesting? – How do you maintain quality control?’
I got an answer to that – and was shown another phallus, on which were placed randomly selected sheaths and into which was blasted a jet of compressed air that would seek out any leaks. I watched bemused.
But things were going well. We had now got enough newspaper, film and book contracts to cover the cost of the expedition. British Leyland were lending us two Sherpa vans to carry all our gear out overland and the equipment was coming together. It was just before Christmas 1977 when I noticed a big septic pustule on the side of my chest where I had broken my ribs. I went down to our family doctor and he sent me into the local hospital. Hugh Barber, the orthopaedic consultant, told me that it was almost certainly caused by osteomyelitis, a bone infection resulting from my broken ribs.
They put me under an anaesthetic, opened up the pustule and scraped it out, down to the bone, hoping to remove the infection. But in February, only a few months before we were due to set out for K2, the boil reappeared. I was in the middle of a lecture period and was meant to be giving a lecture and opening a climbing wall in Sunderland a couple of days later. This time Hugh cut an even wider hole, gave my ribs another good scrape and then despatched me, stitched up, sore and aching in time to give my lecture. It was another fortnight before I could start running again to train for K2.
I had only been jogging as a regular training schedule for a couple of years. Before Everest in 1975 I had thought that a brisk walk up High Pike was quite sufficient. It was Louise, my secretary, who started running some time in 1976. She joined me shortly after we moved permanently to Cumbria in 1974 to assist with the organisation of the Everest expedition and has been with us ever since, looking after my affairs when I’m away, helping Wendy, becoming a close friend and adviser to both of us and doing much of the basic administrative work on all my expeditions, as well as helping me write my books. The first tentative jog we both made was around our block, about a mile of tracks to Pott’s Ghyll, a house tucked away to the west at the bottom of the fell. A quick lunchtime run became a regular feature. We slowly expanded its length, first adding a leg up to the spoil tip of the old barytes mine about 120 metres above the house, then going for the summit of High Pike itself. This gave around 400 metres of climbing and a run of five miles. I then started going further afield, south-east across to Carrock Fell, whose summit is girdled with the remains of an iron-age fort, and south-west to Knott, a round hump with a sprawl of grassy ridges embracing secret valleys in this least trodden of all the Northern Fells.
My companion was Bess, our Staffordshire bull terrier, and then Bodie (short for Boadicea), an indeterminate mix of sheepdog, setter, perhaps a bit of lurcher and heaven knows what else. She is a fine-boned dog, nervous and affectionate, with a good head for heights and real ability as a climber. My running has brought me a deeper and more intimate knowledge and love for the hills that border our home. Running amongst them has become a very important part of my life.
By the beginning of May I had built up my running fitness once again. We had packed all the expedition gear, squeezed it into our two Sherpa vans and they were on their way, overland to Pakistan, supervised by Tony Riley.
The rest of us were going to fly out to Pakistan in early May. I had decided to go out three days early with Pete Boardman so that we could shop for local food and get through a lot of basic administration before the rest of the team arrived.
Tony was at the airport to greet us. He had had an eventful trip having been nearly caught up in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. There were tanks in the streets of Kabul and the two vans had only just got through the Khyber Pass before the frontier closed. I don’t think any of us gave him full credit for the way he had got the gear to Pakistan under very trying conditions.
I enjoyed the next few days. I spent more time with Pete than I had done on the entire 1975 Everest expedition. We called round to the Ministry of Tourism, had our initial briefing and met Captain Shafiq, our Liaison Officer. He was short, well built and immensely enthusiastic. I took an immediate liking to him. Everything was ‘no problem’.
The three days were filled with visits to the air cargo hangar to try and find the boxes we had air-freighted out at the last minute, trips to the bank to draw money and excursions into Rawalpindi to buy local food from the bazaar – sacks of lentils, flour, dried tomato and chillies to the accompaniment of cups of black tea, bargaining and chatter. It brought us closer both to the country itself and the reality of the expedition. At the same time I got to know Pete better, found that we were very much on the same wavelength in that we liked to be soundly organised, and I felt that we probably had a similar approach to mountaineering, a combination of romanticism and ambition, allied to a methodical approach to climbing. I felt at ease in his company and enjoyed working with him.
With the arrival of the complete team, the tempo hotted up. We had a series of social engagements and a lecture on the Ogre expedition to give at the British Club. I had already given one for the British Council and was very happy to leave Doug to do this one. Climbers rarely enjoy listening to each other’s lectures or, for that matter, giving them, knowing that friends and colleagues are in the audience. The rest of us sat by the swimming pool swilling down beer while Doug gave an alfresco lecture to a packed audience. There was a reception in Rawalpindi, laid on by LRC for Pakistan dignitaries – it was at this that we learnt that one of the factors that had influenced them in sponsoring us was that they had been trying to open a contraceptive factory at Karachi – and then an all-night party at Caroline Weaver’s, the Embassy secretary with whom most of us were staying again.
We were due to fly out to Skardu the next day. I felt like a harassed sheepdog as I chivvied my hungover team to the airport to catch the plane. It was a repeat of the previous year – the same spectacular flight to Skardu, the hectic selection of porters, the jeep and tractor journey to Dasso. It was good to be walking once again, to recognise a cluster of houses, a multi-veined rocky crag or a solitary briar bush by the path. We also recognised some of the Balti porters who had been with us the previous year.
But this time it was more luxurious. We had with us two Hunzas. Sher Khan was to be our cook, though we found that he needed constant supervision and had no experience of European processed foods. The other one was very different. Quamajan was going to act as a high-altitude porter and generally liaise with the other porters. He had been on several expeditions, spoke good English and was immensely helpful. He quickly became a good friend and was very much a member of the team. The Hunzas are the Karakoram’s version of the Sherpa and are very different in both physique and personality from the Balti who live in the valleys bordering the Baltoro massif. Quamajan’s hair was almost ginger and his features European, as are those of many Hunzas. Occupying the valley north of Gilgit leading to one of the political and geographical crossroads of the great mountain chain dividing Asia and India, the Hunzas are rep
uted to be descendants of one of Alexander’s armies and certainly an amazing number of them are blue-eyed and fair-skinned.
The journey to Paiju, the campsite just short of the snout of the Baltoro Glacier, was uneventful and relaxed. We were now on fresh ground and had just crossed the Panmah river which, since it was early in the season, was still fordable, though it was a chilling and frightening experience, with the waters coming over our knees, pulling at our legs and undermining the rounded stones underfoot. We crossed it in groups, clinging on to each other for support.
At Paiju our porters were due a regulation day’s rest. It was a delightful spot, the last glade of trees before the Baltoro Glacier. After seven days’ continuous walking it was good to have a day to catch up with letter writing. It was late afternoon. The porters were encamped in small groups under the trees across the stream. I was aware of the murmur of talk mingled with the babble of the water. Shafiq, sitting in the entrance of his tent, was arguing with one of the porters. As their voices began to rise in anger more and more porters gathered round. Suddenly, Shafiq leapt from the tent and began hurling stones at the audience to disperse them.
I was just hurrying over to try to cool things when he rushed after one of the porters with a rock in his hand and next moment had the man on the ground as if he was about to smash out the unfortunate porter’s brains. Doug, Nick and I rushed up, seized the stone from Shafiq’s hand, and tried to find out what on earth was going on. By this time all the porters were on their feet, crowding around us, shouting, screaming and gesticulating. Shafiq, in a rage, was shouting, ‘He insulted me. He assaulted me. I’m going to put him in prison.’
As far as I could see it had been Shafiq that had done all the assaulting but I was more worried about calming everyone down – the porters were building themselves up into a state of hysteria and, if we weren’t careful, they might all take off, leaving us in the lurch.
‘But Shafiq, what was the cause of the trouble in the first place?’
At this Shafiq plunged into another torrent of Urdu with everyone shouting and screaming at once. I grabbed Shafiq and pulled him away from the crowd.
‘I think Shafiq should apologise,’ suggested Doug. ‘It was he that started all the agro.’
‘You can’t undermine his authority too much. We’ve got to try to help him out of this.’
It took about half an hour to discover that the porters wanted to be paid in advance before they set foot on the Baltoro Glacier, that they weren’t happy with the gear we had given them and that they thought they were owed another rest day. Checking with Nick, I conceded that we would pay them half their wages that same day, that we would also pay for the extra day’s rest, which we owed them anyway, but that we couldn’t improve on the shoes we had already issued, since we did not have any others.
The background shouting had died down to a mutter. The audience were beginning to drift away; that particular crisis was over. I walked back to my tent and slumped on to my sleeping bag. Later that afternoon it began to rain. I knew we didn’t have enough tarpaulins to cover all the loads and lay listening to the rain patter on the tent roof for half an hour before summoning the energy to crawl out of the tent and look for some plastic sheets. The porters, crouched round their cooking fires, were singing quietly – it sounded like a ballad – a mournful dirge in keeping with the heavy grey sky, the dripping branches of the trees and the barren rocky slopes stretching up into the clouds.
Next morning it was still raining. We delayed our departure for a couple of hours and then, as it began to clear, set out for the Baltoro Glacier. Powder snow avalanches were tumbling down the snow-veined ridges and gullies of Paiju, the rocky spires flanking the Baltoro Glacier were wreathed in shifting clouds – it was a confusion of greys and blacks – even the freshly fallen snow had a grey quality that rendered the scene unutterably grim. The Braldu River swirled brown and turgid from the snout of the glacier as I scrambled up the initial rocky slopes of the moraines. From the top we gazed over the tossing waves of piled rocks that we knew stretched some thirty miles up the glacier to Concordia near its head. There was an ominous, yet immensely exciting quality about it.
It was two days’ walk to Urdokas, the last grassy camp-site on a terraced hill littered with gigantic boulders. There was an awe-inspiring panorama of granite peaks – Uli Biaho, slender and thrusting, the Trango group with gigantic walls and the slender finger of the Nameless Tower, almost dwarfed by the mass of its neighbours. We were going to have a day’s rest in hope of an improvement in the weather. From Urdokas onwards we would be very vulnerable, since we barely had enough tarpaulins to go round for makeshift tents for the porters.
There were other problems as well. We were now responsible for feeding all our porters who had divided into little groups of different sizes, based on friendship, family or because they came from the same village. Issuing the rations each day was quite a task. They were entitled to a box of matches per day for each group and they got through them as well, for lighting fires, particularly in the rain, was never easy and they all smoked prodigiously. Unfortunately Pete and I had forgotten to stock up in Rawalpindi. We searched through all the boxes to dig out our spare lighters, but we were still short. The thought of the expedition failing for the want of a match haunted me.
I was more worried about the weather. There were two inches of fresh snow at Urdokas and I wondered what was it going to be like at Concordia. I therefore decided to push out an advance party to recce the ground ahead and find out if it was going to be possible to get the porters all the way to our proposed Base Camp on the Savoia Glacier. Doug and Joe were the obvious choices, since they were the only ones without any specific responsibility for the day-to-day running of the expedition. They took Quamajan with them and eight porters. By now Joe had had a chance to size up my leadership profile. His judgement of my decision-making was perceptive and not exactly flattering:
On this trip, with Chris in overall command, there was a tendency to analyse his every statement or action, to sift out his train of thought and underlying intentions. On other expeditions he had engineered the pairing of people and subsequently the ordering of the movements on the mountain which would dictate the role of anyone in an attempt on the summit.
Chris was changeable in his opinion and his great failing or strength was that he usually thought aloud. This gave the impression of uncertainty but was simply a process which most people conduct within themselves and then produce a considered final decision. An interpretation of Chris’s overt mental process as uncertainty, and any subsequent attempts to impose a decision on him, was a mistake. No one succeeded in changing Chris’s mind by any outright statement and each of us guarded the conceit that we had worked out the way to get Chris to adopt our own point of view, whatever premise he had started from, as if it were his own.
My version of this would be that I believed in talking through problems informally with other members of the team and was always ready to adapt my own views if their ideas seemed better. However, I didn’t believe in doing this in the frame of a formal meeting, since it is all too easy to slip into the trap of running the expedition by committee when every decision has to be reached by a vote. This is an unwieldy way of making decisions and doesn’t necessarily lead to the best choice. Tacitly it was accepted that I had the final say, though inevitably this led to lobbying, as Joe described:
We all conspired to see whether we could each manage to win Chris over to doing what we wanted him to do, given that we knew his initial reaction had been negative.
Of the 300 porters we had had at Askole, 233 were left; they had consumed nearly seventy loads of food in the last four days. Nick had paid out £1,500- worth of rupees in wages but still had over £20,000, all packed in an aluminium box that was carried by one of the porters. To them it was worth several fortunes – the equivalent of £1,000,000 in a London security van. And yet there were no special precautions. The porter allotted to carry it picked up the box in
the morning and delivered it to Nick’s tent at the end of the day. Everyone knew its contents but, perhaps because it belonged to all of us, it was totally safe.
The porters spent the day preparing chupatties over their wood fires, for this was the last of the wood. Beyond Urdokas they would be dependent on oil stoves. The rest of us lazed in the sun, read books and played on the boulders. We were told that a narrow chimney that cleaved a huge boulder had been climbed by Walter Bonatti back in 1954. We all had to climb it, watched by a group of Baltis. Another route was then pointed out up a thin crack in a bulging fifteen-metre wall. Galen Rowell had climbed this, we were told. Pete couldn’t resist the challenge. He got about three-quarters of the way, became aware that he would injure, or perhaps even kill himself if he fell off, and called for a top rope. The Baltis were content to watch, except for Sher Khan, our cook, who was a natural climber and in his bare feet eased up boulder problems on which we were struggling in our specialised rock-climbing boots.
I felt happy and relaxed, even though there was an immense amount of work to do, so much more than in Nepal where one tended to leave everything to the Sherpas. Here we not only had to sort out the issue of the porters’ food but also had to supervise closely the cooking of meals. The very pressure of work, the vast scale of the mountains and the threat of bad weather helped unite the team. We set out for Concordia on the 28th.
The Everest Years Page 12