Years of dedicated article writing for club journals (after being harassed, threatened and blackmailed by editors desperate for any garbage vaguely relating to mountaineering) has taught me the failure of my attempts at humourous prose. So any compulsive gigglers hoping to be splitting their sides at the brilliantly witty sentences about to follow had better STOP NOW. Having got rid of the ’in for a laugh’ readers, I can now get down to the nitty-gritty of attempting to have the remainder slashing their wrists before the last paragraph.
What follows is an extract from my diary written soon after returning to base camp. The expedition I was leading spent 2 months in Northern Pakistan and was primarily of a scientific nature, but some mountaineering had been planned to fit in with our work. Our base camp was set up in a side valley next to a large glacier, and close by our tents were those of a French expedition which had been attempting to climb this particular mountain for about a month prior to our arrival. It has never had a British ascent and has only been successfully climbed three times to date, the last occasion ending in the deaths of the Spanish team in an avalanche on the way down. Enough of the history? On with the story, based on fact, fuelled on dried up chapattis, apricots and lots of bullshit...
Tuesday I decide I’m going up to where the French Camp 2 was (they have left, having been unsuccessful in their attempt), which is just below the main slopes of the mountain and about four hours slog from our camp. The other four all decide to come too, although I was treating this as a purely reconnaissance trip. We set up a reasonably luxurious camp on some levelled-out snow, giving an excellent view of the impressively unstable looking slopes across the glacier.
Wednesday James and I decide to see how unstable they really are. We don’t manage to get away until 7 a.m. and I am sure it’s suicidal to go wandering through that lot during the day. However, the brain is not an entirely logical organ, especially after it’s been living on lentils and foul-smelling rice for the last week, and mountaineering gives it an excuse for indulging in the relative pleasures of freeze dried meals. Emotional criteria can often outweigh purely pragmatic ones and the idea (possibly folly, possibly obsession) of conquering this sparkling icy pyramid had been swimming about in the depths of my mind for many months. It was by now well established and growing with every stride.
Then it happened. What I had been dreading for hours... the zip on my trousers broke! "Oh my God! James – I’m done for," I cried. The prospect of frostbite in such a sensitive area was mind-boggling. While my mind boggled, James fumbled in his pocket and produced THE safety pin. What I owe to my faithful comrade I shall never know. But I digress.
We established a camp that was as safe as we could make it and explored our precarious surroundings. We had about 3 man-days of food left as we had only planned to come this far believing, from the French account, that the rest would he too difficult and dangerous. However, the desire within me was not going to let this opportunity slip by quite so easily.
Thursday Both being exhausted by our efforts of the days before we again started far too late. Taking minimal equipment we set off. On several of the thinner snow bridges and steeper sections we found French fixed ropes which we had no compunctions about clipping into (for safety only!). By 11 a.m. the snow was very soft and at this altitude the going was painfully slow and frustrating. At one particularly frustrating point James asked me, "Are you enjoying this? Does this wet, cold crawl give you pleasure?" A question I’ve often found hard to answer, but one which didn’t seem important at the time. All that was important was reaching the summit. A very romantic, perhaps unrealistic, idea – but an immovable one.
The ridge was eventually reached by sunset and to our amazement there was a tent abandoned 100m from us. The howling wind forced us to practically crawl to it. Alas no food, but a sanctuary. Like sitting in a car when it’s raining, the weather, from inside the tent, always sounds much worse than it is, and it was with considerable effort that we forced ourselves out into the rapidly cooling night air. Very proud of our achievement we battled our way back to our camp 1200m below, the faint beam of the headtorch making us feel a little less lonely, a little less isolated than we were. We reached the tent at midnight, completely exhausted.
Friday Spent the day recovering, and abbed for some food down the crevasse that the French Camp 3 fell into. Didn’t manage to pick up much, most being well buried.
I’ve got to go for the summit, I just must. James has decided to go back down and I will carry on alone. Suddenly feel very lonely, very fragile. I mull around, improve the camp, fidget. Go to bed early.
Saturday Didn’t sleep at all. Away by 2 a.m. with sleeping bag and all the food. A perfect night, cloudless, good three-quarters moon, cold. Took a more direct route and ended up an some very steep snow leading to an unpleasantly concave slope. Idiot! Save an hour and kill yourself. But everything remained stable and I eventually gained the ridge by 1 pm.
What am I doing here? This is madness. What if a storm breaks? What if I get altitude sickness? what if... I’ve hardly enough food for tomorrow, let alone getting down afterwards. A blaze of thoughts and doubts surges through my mind. I make a brew and a much desired hot supper and take three sleeping pills.
Sunday No sleep and up at midnight. I gingerly stick my head out of the tent. It is a perfect night again. Calm, cold and a good bright moon. Even with this good omen my enthusiasm and strength for this little caper are fairly submerged in a pool of doubts. I haven’t slept for three days and I had hoped that I could ascend all 3400m in that same length of time. Make several brews, try eating but have no appetite. Pack my sack and fiddle with various bits and pieces until at 2 a.m. I decide to go.
The snow is beautifully crisp and firm and the air quite still. This really isn’t so bad. I make good progress and my confidence in reaching the summit grows as I find my way up the ridge.
I reach the top of a steep slope which, it seems, has lead me onto the final summit snowfield. I am quite overwhelmed. It is only 8 am. and even though I’m now moving quite slowly I’m sure I can reach the top in an hour or, at most, two. I dump my sack by a rock outcrop. Don’t need it now. Be at the summit by 9 am. and back to the tent by midday. Oh what a fantastic day! I can feel the strength rushing back to my mind.
Yet this slope seems a bit longer than I thought – or am I going slower? Still make it by 10 a.m. I should think, can’t see any major obstacles now. Start pacing my steps – 1, 2, 3 ... Take a rest. Mustn’t rest too long or the snow will start to soften. This slope just seems to be going on and on. I feel as if I have been here forever and am getting nowhere. I can see the summit, but have I the strength to reach it? Oh to have someone else to push me, to encourage me, to make the trail. This goddamned snow is getting unbearably deep and soft. I can see the summit perhaps just 200m away. I could run 200m in 30 seconds. Come on! It’s really no distance at all now. Come on, push it! Trying to put one foot above the other completely exhausts me. I’ve been lying here for an hour now and I must have gone five metres in the past two.
My mental committment was total – I could not have wanted to reach the summit more, but my body was not so eager, Three days lack of sleep, lack of food and lack of air were getting their revenge on my presumption. I was in the snow up to my hips (most normal people’s ankles) and was beginning to realise that I just could not go up any further.
Total dejection overtakes me. Eventually I start to slip and slide my way back down. Every so often I think I see a figure below, or a bag of rations, but they just merge into reflections in the snow. It is far easier to see a way up a slope than down it and after losing my tracks I end up in a seemingly insoluble maze of crevasses. I have to go back up a little way. It is so tiring, so painful. This can’t go on – I can’t go on. I cannot stand and end up crawling up the slope a few feet at a time.
Some 100m from my camp I find a French cache of food, a packed up tent and gas cartridges. I reach my tent at dusk, physically destroyed, but I know I must be away early the next morning to avoid extra danger of avalanche. Devouring the two man-day ration pack I found seems to make little difference to my strength and again it is painfully difficult to sleep. I feel small and alone, but the hot food is surprisingly comforting.
Monday I got away by 8 am. taking some fixed rope and deadmen. In two hours I was down at camp 3, amazed at how easy it was going down on goad solid snow. I made endless brews and consumed sugary sweets, then dismantled the camp. Almost back in the land of the living. I headed down the final easy-angled snow slopes, being careful to avoid the more obvious avalanche chutes, and arrived at camp 2 to find only Paul left. He lovingly prepared lots of hot food and drink and after a rest we headed back for base camp. Back at base we found that in our absence a bear had attacked our supplies, which were carefully stashed in thick plastic barrels under a large pile of boulders. One barrel had disappeared entirely, probably eaten whole by the wretched animal, and the other was pierced with claw marks. Equipment was strewn everywhere. It had trodden on a camera and put a claw right through it. My only consolation was the thought of. what 55 packets of. dehydrated beef goulash must have done to the bear’s digestive system!
That just about wraps it up. Congratulations to anyone who hasn’t got the razor blades out yet – it looks like you might survive until next year, when it’s going to be polar bears, seals, ice, ice and more ice. My chief source of satisfaction from this year’s escapade, apart from having our sole tin of Mont Blanc chocolate mousse donated towards my restoration, was the knowledge that, in less than a week, I had got considerably higher than the French team who had been at it ’hammer and tongs’ for six.