The Everest Years

by Chris Bonington

  Pertemba was already ensconced in our tent, with the gas stove going. Inside, with the stove and the heat from the afternoon sun, it was quite warm. I lay on my sleeping bag, sipping tea and savouring the knowledge that I was on the threshold of fulfilment. It was good to be sharing a tent with Pertemba.

  Just before dusk I forced myself out to check the oxygen sets of Dawa Nuru and Ang Lhakpa. This would be the first time they had used oxygen. They were going to carry two bottles the following day, one of which would have to last to the summit, and the other was for one of us to change on the crest of the South-East Ridge. Pertemba was also going to take two bottles, but both of these would be for him, for Ralph had told us that there was a spare bottle left by Ang Rita at the dump on the ridge. This would mean that Odd, Bjørn and I would only have to carry one bottle for our summit attempt but, because we had the use of two, we would be able to use a higher flow rate of between three and four litres a minute. Ang Lhakpa and Dawa Nuru, on the other hand, would have to complete the climb on two litres a minute.

  I wondered whether it was unfair? Were we being carried to the top by the Sherpas? Perhaps, but their stamina and acclimatisation was so much better than ours that I certainly didn’t feel guilty. We were giving them the chance to reach the summit and I knew that I was going to need all the help I could get. The sun was now dropping below the peaks to the west, a chill wind blew across the col and it was bitterly cold. I had a quick word with Odd and Bjørn, agreeing that we would set our alarms for eleven that night to try to get away by 2 a.m. We had noticed that there was less wind first thing in the morning and wanted to reach the South Summit as early as possible.

  I was glad to crawl back into our tent. We had a supper of tsampa stew and dried yak meat. I half-heartedly offered to cook but Pertemba wouldn’t hear of it, and so I curled up in the back of the tent and read the paperback I had carried up with me. It was hardly the most intellectual of reads, if appropriate for the altitude – Tom Sharpe’s The Wilt Alternative. It had me giggling happily and irreverently.

  I didn’t sleep much – I doubt whether any of us did – although I was excited rather than apprehensive. There was none of the stabbing fear that had preceded climbs like the North Wall of the Eiger or the Central Tower of Paine in Patagonia so many years before. I drifted into sleep, to wake to the purr of the gas stove. Pertemba had started to heat the water he had melted that evening and had stored in a thermos.

  Two hours later we were ready to start; boots, kept warm in our sleeping bags, forced on to our feet, outer windproofs and down jackets turning us into Michelin men as we wriggled out into the bitter cold of the night. It was –30°C and the wind gusted around the tents. A struggle with oxygen equipment, last minute fitting of the Sherpas’ face masks and we were ready.

  It was one thirty when we set out across the flatness of the col, crampons slipping and catching on the stones underfoot, and then on to a bulge of hard smooth ice that slowly increased in angle as we approached the ridge. Each of us followed the pool of light cast by our head torch. Pertemba was out in front. He had been here before. I was bringing up the rear and it wasn’t long before the gap between me and the person in front increased. We were now on a snow slope, a tongue reaching up into the broken rocks that guarded the base of the ridge. At the top of the snow was rock, crumbling steps, easy scrambling but unnerving in the dark with all the impedimenta of high-altitude gear.

  I was tired already; not out of breath but just listless, finding it progressively harder to force one foot in front of the other. Three hundred metres, an hour and a half went by. I was so tired. I had dropped behind, the lights of the others becoming ever distant weakening glimmers. They had stopped for a rest but, as I caught up, they started once again. I slumped into the snow and involuntarily muttered, almost cried, ‘I’ll never make it.’

  Odd heard me. ‘You’ll do it, Chris. Just get on your feet. I’ll stay behind you.’

  And on it went, broken rock, hard snow, then deep soft snow, which Pertemba ploughed through, allowing me to keep up as I could plod up the well-formed steps made so laboriously by the people in front. The stars were beginning to vanish in the grey of the dawn and the mountains, most of them below us, assumed dark silhouettes. The crest of the ridge, still above us, lightened and then the soaring peak of the South Summit was touched with gold as the sun crept over the horizon far to the east.

  By the time we reached the crest, the site of Hillary and Tenzing’s top camp in 1953, all the peaks around us were lit by the sun’s low-flung rays. The Kangshung Glacier, still in shadow, stretched far beneath us. The Kangshung (East) Face itself was a great sweep of snow set at what seemed an easy angle. Just beneath us some fixed rope protruded, a relic of the American expedition that climbed the East Face in the autumn of 1983. Across the face was the serrated crest of the North-East Ridge. I could pick out the shoulder where we had had our third snow cave and the snow-plastered teeth of the Pinnacles where we had last seen Pete and Joe in 1982. I wondered whether the climbers of Mai Duff’s expedition were somewhere there, in their turn looking across towards our ridge, wondering about our whereabouts. We knew from news reports that they had started on the North-East Ridge at the beginning of April.

  We were at 8,300 metres and it was five in the morning. Time to change our cylinders. There was still some oxygen in the old bottle but this could be used as a reserve on our return. We set out again, the Europeans and Pertemba with full cylinders, but Dawa Nuru and Ang Lhakpa with the same ones which they had used from the South Col. They would have to nurse their flow rate very carefully.

  We plodded up the crest of the ridge, our shadows cast far into Nepal. Ever steepening, sometimes rock, mostly snow, it was much harder than I had imagined. It seemed to go on for ever. Glancing behind me, the black rocky summit of Lhotse still seemed higher than us. A last swell of snow, with the wind gusting hard, threatening to blow us from our perch, and we were on the South Summit. We gathered on the corniced col just beneath it. This was where Doug and Dougal had bivouacked on their way back down from the top in 1975. The gully they had climbed dropped steeply into the South-West Face.

  There was a pause. Pertemba had broken trail all the way so far but the ridge between the South Summit and the Hillary Step looked formidable, a fragile drop on either side. Odd was worried about our oxygen supply. It had been three hours since we had changed bottles and he questioned whether we had enough to get back. The others had been climbing with a flow rate of three litres per minute, but I had found that this had not been enough. I had frequently turned mine on to four and so would have even less than they. But I knew I wanted to go on and at this stage was prepared to risk anything to get to the top.

  Pertemba said decisively, ‘We go on.’

  Ang Lhakpa got out the rope, twenty metres between six of us. Bjørn took the initiative. He tied one end round his waist and pushed out in front, trailing the rope behind him, more of a token than anything else, as we followed. The going to the foot of the step was more spectacular than difficult, but the step itself was steep.

  Odd took a belay and Bjørn started up, wallowing in the deep soft snow, getting an occasional foothold on the rock wall to the left. Pertemba followed, digging out an old fixed rope left by a previous expedition. The step was about twenty metres high and Bjørn anchored the rope round a rock bollard near its top. The others followed using the rope as a handrail.

  I was last, but Dawa Nuru waved me past. I gathered he had run out of oxygen. I struggled up the step, panting, breathless, apprehensive and then I felt what was almost the physical presence of Doug Scott. I could see his long straggly hair, the wire-rimmed glasses and could sense his reassurance and encouragement. It was as if he was pushing me on. Les, my father-in-law, was there as well. He has a quiet wisdom and great compassion. He had thrown the I Ching just before I left home and had predicted my success. This was something that had given me renewed confidence whenever I doubted my ability to make it.


  Doug and Les got me to the top of the Hillary Step. The others had now vanished round the corner and I seemed to have the mountain to myself. The angle eased and all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other for that last stretch to the highest point on earth. And suddenly I was there, everything on all sides dropping away below me. I hugged Pertemba who crouched beside me. The summit is the size of a pool table. We could all move around on it without fear of being pushed over the edge. Odd and Bjørn, who were raising and photographing the Norwegian flag, came over and embraced me.

  Then there was time to look around us. From west through north to east lay the Tibetan plateau, a rolling ocean of brown hills with the occasional white cap. To the east rose Kangchenjunga, a huge snowy mass, first climbed by George Band and Joe Brown in 1955, and to the west the great chain of the Himalaya, with Shishapangma, China’s 8,000-metre peak dominating the horizon. Doug, Alex McIntyre and Roger Baxter-Jones had climbed its huge South Face in 1982. Immediately below us, just the other side of the Western Cwm, was Nuptse, looking stunted, the very reverse of that view I had enjoyed twenty-four years earlier, when Everest had seemed so unattainable. To the south was a white carpet of cloud covering the foothills and plains of India. We were indeed on top of the world.

  At that moment another figure appeared, moving slowly and painfully. It was Dawa Nuru. He hadn’t turned back; he was coming to the summit without oxygen. I still felt numbed, took pictures automatically, without really being aware of what I was taking or how well they were framed. There was no longer any sign of the Chinese maypole that Doug and Dougal had found in 1975. It had finally been blown away some years earlier. There were, however, some paper prayer flags embedded in the snow which must have been left there the previous autumn.

  Pertemba had brought with him the tee shirt that Pete Boardman had worn to the summit of Everest in 1975. It was a hand-painted one that Pete’s local club, the Mynedd, had presented to him. Hilary, Pete’s widow, had given it to Pertemba when he had visited her in Switzerland, and now he had brought it to the top of Everest once more in honour of his friend.

  We lingered for another twenty minutes or so before starting the descent. I was first away, pausing just below the summit to collect a few pebbles of shattered rock. The limestone had been formed many millions of years ago at the bottom of the ocean from living organisms and had then been thrust up here, to the highest point of earth, by the drift together of the two tectonic plates of India and the Asian land mass. It was a thrust that is continuous. The Himalaya, the youngest of the earth’s great mountain ranges, is still being pushed upwards. Each year Everest is a few centimetres higher.

  – CHAPTER 19 –

  Back to Earth

  There was no room for elation; the steepness of the drop ensured that. I concentrated on every step down, now full of apprehension. My oxygen lasted out to our dump of bottles on the South-East Ridge. I changed my cylinder and continued down. The others had caught me up and passed me. I was feeling progressively more tired, experiencing a heavy languor that made even my downhill effort increasingly difficult. I sat down every few paces, beyond thought, and just absorbed the mountains around me. Lhotse was now above me but everything else was still dwarfed and far below.

  Someone, probably Pertemba, had reached the tents, tiny little blobs on the South Col. I got up slowly, walked a few more paces and sank on to the rocks once again. But almost imperceptibly I was losing height. I reached the top of the snow slope that stretched down to the col, cramponed down it cautiously, zigzagging from side to side, then noticed what looked like another tent in the middle of the slope. I veered towards it without thinking and, as I came closer, realised that it was a woman sitting very upright in the snow, fair hair blowing in the wind, teeth bared in a fixed grimace. I didn’t go any closer but looked away and hurried past. I guessed that it was the body of Hannelore Schmatz, the wife of the leader of the 1979 German expedition. She had reached the summit but had died from exhaustion on the South-East Ridge on the way down. Sundhare had been with her. She had died higher on the mountain but her body must have been carried down to its present exposed position by an avalanche.

  Once I was past her, my pace slowed down. I had used the last of my oxygen, paused to discard the cylinder, and continued down even more slowly. There was a short climb at the end. It took me a quarter of an hour to walk about fifty metres gently up hill. Odd and Bjørn had decided to drop down to Camp 3 that afternoon. We had forgotten to bring a radio up to 4, and they were anxious to let Arne and the others know of our success, but Pertemba and I decided to stay the night on the South Col. We dozed through the afternoon, were too tired to eat, but drank endless brews of tea.

  Next morning we descended the fixed ropes to Camp 3, collected Bjørn and Odd and continued on towards the Western Cwm. Running down the fixed ropes I was beginning to relax; the worst danger was over and after a night’s sleep I felt refreshed. We met Arne and Stein who were on their way up for their attempt. We hugged and laughed, received their congratulations and wished them the best of fortune. At the foot of the Lhotse Face another reception awaited, this time from the Sherpas at Camp 2 who had come out to greet us with a bottle of rum. Dick Bass and David Breashears, who were also there ready for their summit bid, joined in the congratulations. At last we set off for Base Camp with what I vowed would be my final trip through the Everest Icefall. I ran most of it, just to get out of the danger area quickly. There were more greetings, bottles of beer and rejoicing, but I couldn’t relax completely, because the others were still on the mountain. For me the final stages of so many expeditions had ended in tragedy.

  The next day was windy. Arne and Stein stayed at Camp 3. On 24 April a banner of snow was flying from the summit of Everest. They reported over the radio that the wind, even at Camp 3, was fierce, so they dropped back down to Advance Base. Ralph and Håvard were now also on their way back up the mountain to have another try. Ola agonised over making a second attempt. He was experiencing stomach cramps and was worried also about the safety and chances of success for a second bid. The Sherpas, who were making the vital carries of supplies to the South Col, were becoming tired and the reserves of food and oxygen were less than they had been for either the first bid or our own ascent. Ola finally decided to stay behind. It was characteristic of Ola, though, that having made this decision, in part based on considerations of safety, he went up into the Icefall on several occasions to help repair the route after sérac collapses. He felt that it was unfair to expect the Sherpas to do this without the presence of one of the climbers. The time now began to drag, as the weather closed in. Bjørn and I, restless in our waiting, even dropped down to Pheriche to spend three days bouldering and carousing before returning to Base.

  The perseverance of the others paid off. On 29 April Arne, Stein, Ralph and Håvard ,with their four Sherpas, reached the summit of Everest on a day that was so warm and still they stripped off their down gear. The following day Dick Bass, with Dave Breashears and the Sherpa Ang Phurba, also reached the top.

  These days an ascent by the South Col route is almost routine, but nonetheless our expedition achieved a large number of records of varying merit; we had put seventeen on the summit, the largest number of any single expedition; it was also the earliest pre-monsoon ascent; the first Scandinavian ascent; Sundhare now had the personal record for the number of ascents of the mountain, having climbed it four times; and Ang Rita had climbed it three times without oxygen; I had had the dubious honour of being the oldest person, by ten days, to climb Everest, a record I held for all of nine days, when Dick Bass took it from me. Being fifty-five, I suspect he might hold the record for a long time. He also achieved his ambition of being the first man to climb the highest point of every continent.

  Looked upon purely as records, I don’t think they mean very much. The speed with which we climbed the mountain and the number who reached the top are an indication of the efficiency and teamwork on the expedition. But perhaps most important
was the level of personal satisfaction, in that all but one person who had aspired to reach the summit actually did so, and could consequently return home with a sense of total fulfilment. Ola, the one who didn’t go to the top, was probably the best equipped to cope with that disappointment. He has such a generous spirit, was happy just to be amongst the mountains and had given as much, if not more than any of us, to the success of the expedition.

  As I walked back towards Luglha, I had a sense of profound contentment. I hadn’t achieved any records. I was the seventh Briton and the 173rd person to reach the summit of Everest. I had had a great deal of help from the Sherpas, as we all had. But standing on that highest point of earth had meant a great deal. Gratification of ego? Without a doubt. But it was so much more than that, though I still find it difficult to define exactly what that drive was. It is as difficult as finding a precise definition of why one climbs.

  There was certainly very little physical pleasure at the time – none of the elation of rock climbing on a sunny day near to sea level where the air is rich in oxygen, there is strength in one’s limbs, and a joy in being poised on tiny holds over the abyss, moving with precision from one hold to the next. There is none of that on Everest. There had been little questing into the unknown or even the challenge of picking out a route. I had been content, indeed only capable, of following the others to the top. But there had been the awareness of the mountains, slowly dropping away around me, the summit of Everest caught in the first golden glow of the rising sun, the North-East Ridge, with all its memories, glimpsed through a gap in the cornice, winding, convoluted, threatening in its steep flutings and jagged towers, now far below me. It was a focal point in a climbing life, a gathering of so many ambitions and memories, that had climaxed in that burst of grief and yet relief, when I reached the summit.