The Mother's Necklace

by Matthew Horan

  The Yellow Tower. Slightly above and to the right of the climber in front, you can just see the specks of a couple of climbers, one in red pants, moving around to ascend it.

  A couple of smiling Sherpa faces greet me as I pull over the edge about eight minutes of massive exertion later. It’s another four or five minutes of slowly wending my way through icy runnels and boulders to get to Camp 2. I smell it though, as I come over the edge. Camp 2 wins prizes for the most photogenic, and least hygienic campsite in the world. You’re supposed to bag your poo in a biodegradable plastic bag and toss it over the edge of the world’s highest drop toilet. It’s clear a lot of people aren’t doing that. They’re certainly urinating wherever they can. It’s a neverending circle. You get there – and I did it too in the middle of the night – and you figure that emptying your pee bottle out of the tent, instead of away from the camp site, is acceptable, because everyone else is doing it and it already smells terrible. You’re too tired and it’s too cold to do what you’re supposed to do. I have, though, taken the easy option of popping a couple of immodium to block myself up and not have to worry about a summit-day poo.

  Regardless of the smell, the view is incredible. I’ve been trying to remember to soak it in the whole day. It’s really easy to put your face into the rock and concentrate on the climbing. But the whole reason for being in the mountains is to take in the whole experience, the amazing vistas all around. Looking back down the SW Ridge, Ama Dablam is surrounded by snowy peaks. Behind, the looming, imposing summit spire we’ll climb tomorrow, towering over us as we tower over the route below. And just off to our right, a sheer drop of a couple of kilometres at least, down the west face. The summit is the goal, but this camp is as far as many people get, and I remind myself, might be as far as I get, so it’s important to enjoy the view and appreciate the effort it took to get to enjoy it.

  I certainly won’t get any higher unless I prepare. I find our tent – it’s got my climbing gear there already – and settle in. I quite selfishly pick the smoothest side of the tent, which isn’t all that smooth, but avoids the miniature Ama Dablam which appears to be poking through the floor. I get a brew on and lay out my gear. I put on my merino long johns – I’ll sleep in them and then put on my down pants when I wake. My well-used Gore-Tex climbing overalls are underneath, ready to be pulled on last. Two pairs of socks – thin merino inners and thick outers. I’ve got a merino top (already on), a thin windstopper pullover and a thicker windstopper hoodie. My down expedition jacket I use as an extra duvet on top of my sleeping bag – it’ll go on over everything else. It’s got a windstopper shell as well, so I’m leaving my outer shell off. It’s too restrictive anyway over the top of everything else. In any case, if the weather’s bad enough to need it, I really shouldn’t be out this high. Beanie and neck warmer and helmet. My mountain boots will be the last thing on. They’re Scarpa Phantom 8000s. As in 8000m - warm enough for Everest. The last time I was this high in Nepal my toes nearly got frostbite from inadequate hired boots. No chance of that happening now. My crampons, 12-fanged alloy beasts which help my boots bite into snow and vertical ice, hang on my ice axe outside the tent.

  Pete taking a rest on Camp 2. My tent is the one on the top right.

  The rest of the crew is either already there or just behind. Emily is also there. She’s been on the same schedule as us and we’ve run into her a few times at the lodge. There’s also a couple of German girls and their Sherpas. All up, it looks like there’s about 15 people crammed into about six tents and getting ready for the summit.

  Dave flops in at 2pm – he’s shattered again, and tells me he had to be helped up the Yellow Tower by the Sherpas. Nevertheless, he’s here now and it’s a great achievement. I actually think he’s looking much stronger than he did yesterday. A bit of sleep and he’ll be good. We all set watches for 1am and settle in as soon as it’s dark, having melted as much snow as we can for the morning.

  None of us really sleep though. I get snatches of it, continually checking my watch. Anticipation and altitude conspire to rob me of much actual rest. Dave, meanwhile, is being robbed of rest by the miniature Ama Dablam, which is now poking into his side.

  November 25 – Summit day

  My alarm goes off at 1am. I know this, because I’ve been looking at my watch for the past 30 minutes waiting for it. “Ok,” I tell myself, and start unzipping the bag.

  “Come on Dave,” I say, giving him an unnecessary shake, because he’s been awake for a lot longer than 30 minutes.

  “I’m not going,” he says. Clearly he’s been thinking about this for the past few hours in the dark.

  “Come on mate, at least give it a go,” I tell him. “You’re close, you’re strong enough, don’t make a decision you’ll regret.”

  Dave’s adamant though. He’s had it. I give up trying to convince him, and start coveting his water. If I drink one of his bottles before I go, I think, it’ll save me the time of brewing up an extra one now. Happy days.

  “Jon!!” Dave bellows several times. “Jon Gupta!”

  Jon, who dresses a lot quicker up here thanks to acclimatisation and experience, is clearly unhappy to be woken. I suspect he was trying to snatch an extra 30 minutes or so of sleep and still be ready to leave with us. Jon gets dressed and leans over – our tents aren’t that far apart. Dave explains he’s feeling shit. He’s had a splitting headache, has been taking Diamox and paracetamol to no avail. Jon does what I can’t do and coaxes Dave to get ready and at least get outside. Oh well, there goes the extra water.

  I’m outside first, crampons strapped to my boots, harness on, axe strapped to my pack. We probably won’t need the axes at all with the fixed ropes, but if something happens to the rope – avalanche, rockfall, someone ripping out an anchor - you’re trapped without an axe to help you descend. My pack is just about empty – it’s really just an axe carrier. But it’s a useful accessory if it heats up on the upper slopes – not unknown – and I have to shed my down jacket. Everything I need is in my pockets – a couple of Cliff bars, camera, GoPro, two small 500ml Nalgene bottles filled with hot water that tastes like soup (so much for cleaning them properly last night). There is an extra water bottle inside the pack, and a second clipped to the hip belt of the pack in a thermal carrier. Three litres in all for what is likely to be at least an exacting 12-hour round trip.

  I’m off first. That’s not because I’m fast, it’s because I know I’m slow. I want to be on the rope and away so I can get a head start. I’m clipping in to the rope and scraping my crampons on the bare rock as I move towards the small snow ridge that leads to the start of the vertical.

  Jon asks me: “Why did you put your crampons on now? You should have waited until the snow.”

  I’m a little embarrassed. It’s actually not lack of experience this time. My New Zealand experience has always been to just do mixed climbing – rock and ice – with crampons on the whole time. Otherwise you’re taking them on and off, which wastes time and maximises the risk of losing one down the slope. At Camp 2, what it does is make it that little bit harder to get off the rock pinnacle and onto the snow. Within a couple of minutes it doesn’t matter anyway, as the snow starts and we begin.

  There’s about 20 to 30m of traversing, then the rope disappears vertically. I shine my headtorch up. I can’t see the end. I clip in and we start up. It’s an almost vertical gully, nothing like the steep but gentle slopes I imagined. I’m first on the rope, which is exhilarating, but after the first 20 to 30m of exhausting upward movement up I begin to worry about delaying others below with my slow progress. There’s nothing for it – there’s nowhere to pass me here. I glance down through my feet. Dave is there, moving at least as strongly as me, and below him, Dorje, who is shadowing Dave. Crystals and bigger shards of ice are tumbling from me to their heads. Each vertical step is an eternity. I take three or four in a row, then have to stop to suck in oxygen. If I’m covering 100 vertical metres in an hour I’m lucky. It’s windy, really cold, eve
n though we’re out of the worst of the wind on this side of the ridge.

  This probably goes on for at least 250m. Stop, unclip, reclip, jug up. We’re trying not to pull on the rope as we ascend. It’s there for safety, not as an aid, although it’s hard not to use it as support sometimes. Apart from the aesthetic reason of trying to actually “climb” the mountain, the anchors fixing the rope to the rock and ice probably aren’t as secure as you’d like, especially with four or five people below any given anchor.

  I stop once or twice and carefully extract my water bottle from its carrier. I’ve got thick pile-lined, leather ice-climbing gloves on, so it’s difficult, but I manage to do it without dropping my water. I took the only two pseudoephedrine cold and flu tablets I had before I started, and it’s worked on my sinuses, which are mercifully clear. Eventually the route flattens a little and we stop going up, traversing instead about 10 or 20m across to another gully.

  Dave and I let a few people past. Everyone’s breathing hard, an hour or so into this. Altitude is a great leveller. We climb on and find ourselves edging against a sheer wall on our right. The path narrows to a thin strip of snow, a ledge of maybe 30cm wide and maybe 20m long attached somehow to the wall at my right shoulder . The rope is fixed at chest height. Well, one of the ropes. There’s at least five and it’s tough to work out which one is the right one – the beautiful new Beal rope put up at the start of the season a month ago. I clip in to all of them just in case and edge across the snow bridge. Below us to the left it’s a dark abyss, ice crystals shimmering in the light as they’re kicked off. It’s a tension traverse, keeping the rope pulled out tight. It’s awe-inspiring and slightly terrifying. You really have to suck up your courage. There’s a certain fatalism to it as well.

  Jon Gupta in the Grey Couloir, near the tension traverse. You can just see the tents of Camp 2 below. (Photo: Jon Gupta)

  I keep winding upwards. We zig zag along the ridge, first one side, then another. When you look at a “ridge climb” from a distance, you tend to assume a clean, knife-edge ridge which you simply ascend. This is a monstrous big arête, blocky and massive. There’s a full pitch – a rope length of 30 or 40m – on one side, then another on the other side as we climb. This goes on and on.

  I think we’re on the northern side of the ridge again, but it’s hard to tell. It’s maybe 5.30 am and there’s still no sun, no sign of it. It’s tough, grinding climbing. At one point I really struggle to get around a section of ridgeline, maybe two metres of rock climbing, my crampons sending sparks into the night. There’s only air below me, I know, and I can’t seem to get the sequence of moves right to unlock what at sea level would be a small bouldering problem. Eventually sheer strength, determination and the embarrassment of keeping people below me waiting gets me over it. I’m breathing hard, part fear, mostly exertion.

  The night is a blur of small sequences. Flashes of a vertical gully here, a pull up through an ice curtain there. It’s terrifying, but beautiful. It’s probably some of the most amazing climbing I’ve ever done, but I can’t see anything more than a couple of metres away by headtorch. There’s no sense of the perspective, of the grandeur, except that there’s so much of it. Hours and hours of small climbing problems, all adding up. The sun comes up roughly as we start to crest a ridge below Camp 2.9. It’s about 7am – almost five hours climbing so far without a break, so we are moving slowly in the cold and wind. The ridge is really exposed and we’re about 20cms off to the right-hand side as we edge towards the camp.

  Camp 2.9 is sited below a couple of massive ice walls, two or three-metre long icicles hanging like Damocles’ sword. It’s spoilt by bits of rubbish and the smell of shit, but there’s not too much of it and being a place to stop and catch our breath is attraction enough. We descend about five metres to the tent platform. Ray and Steve, two older and impressive climbers from Newcastle in England - we’ve nicknamed them “The Geordies” - took the 2.9 option and they’re woken by us and stick their heads out of their tent. They’re both nudging 60, and this is their third year together on Ama. The previous two years they failed to get up, which is why they’re at 2.9, minimising their summit time. Steve has climbed six of the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on every continent. Only Vinson in Antarctica has eluded him, because it’s massively expensive – about US$50,000. Jon briefly talks to them on the way through. He’s got a deal for Steve – he knows of a client on a Vinson expedition next month who wants to pull out – he’s met Miss Columbia or something and quite understandably wants to concentrate on the relationship. He’s unloading the trip for $10,000. And so, at 6300m, a deal is sealed. Steve now has a couple of days to work out how he tells his wife.

  I gnaw on half a Cliff Bar, drink some water and sit on my pack. I take a fair bit of time, letting people pass. I feel guilty about having taken so long (I probably hadn’t but I still feel guilty) and want to let the faster climbers have their shot. Dave takes the break as a chance to review his progress. He’s like a blown racehorse. His hands are cold too – probably acclimatisation issues - and he decides to turn around. I want him to continue, but he’s back up on the ridge and too far away to convince otherwise. I see him disappearing back over the edge with Dorje. It’s probably the correct decision for him. One down.

  Pete, Adam and Laurent are away now, with Emily somewhere with them. Roland, Jon and I are below the German climbers. The Marine is below me with Jabu bringing up the rear. It’s fully light now and we can see the enormity of the ice wall. It’s maybe 50m high, with a vertical gully slashing down the centre. We edge under the icicles, past a few empty tent platforms and slowly start up. After about 10 or 15m, it’s clear something’s happened. Roland and Jon stop, and I wedge my crampons into some thin flakes on the edge of our gully. The German girls are clearly struggling. They’re wearing full 8000m down suits, which seems a bit of overkill on Ama. They’re taking forever. Roland and Jon start yelling at the girls’ Sherpas, trying to get them moving.

  “Jeez,” I joke to Jon, “She’s a worse climber than me.”

  “I don’t know if you call this climbing,” Jon calls back from above.

  The queue on the ice wall above camp 2.9, leading up to Mushroom Ridge. I’m on the bottom in the yellow jacket. (Photo: Steve Berry)

  I realise I haven’t taken any video so I get the GoPro out of my down jacket and go to turn it on. No joy. The battery just isn’t working at all in this cold. I’d charged it fully the night before and was hoping for some excellent shots on the summit slopes. I wedge myself into the gully more, strip off my gloves and stick them down the front of my jacket while I change the battery. Still no joy. I put it away, cursing the extra few hundred grams of useless and expensive weight I’m now carrying. Ray and Steve are about 20 or 30m below us, leisurely getting ready to head up as well and I can see them snapping pictures of our conga line stuck on the wall.

  Eventually the line begins to move – it’s been at least 30 minutes standing on tiny flakes of ice in this gully, trying to take the weight off one leg at a time while crystals flutter from crampons above, cold on your face. I can see one of the Germans being pushed over some overhanging ice from below by her Sherpa – it’s about two or three metres. I get there and absolutely attack it. There’s no way I’m embarrassing our team with a poor performance here. Jon nods approvingly as I pull through the slot in the ice and then he’s off, trying to get ahead of the German girls. We start to crest the ridge again – this is Mushroom Ridge, one of the last pieces of really technical climbing before the massive summit slopes. The wind is really whipping up now, even though we’re still slightly protected from it by the bulk of the ridge at Camp 3. And despite the fact the sun is now out it’s getting much colder from wind chill. It was maybe -20 on the way up in the dark. Right now it’s at least five or so degrees colder than that.

  The ridge extends for maybe 20m or so and it appears corniced, with the snow and ice extending over the actual rock it rests on. Cornices are to be avoided because t
here’s nothing solid under that ice and snow. Your foot goes through it, and there’s only air beneath. Still, there’s no other way up and icy footsteps in the ridge show it’s at least been safe. So far. I suck up my courage and ease forward.

  I see Laurent coming down the rope.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “This is shit,” he says in his Dutch accent. “Too cold, too many idiots on the rope. It is taking too long, and is not safe. I am going down. This is all shit.”

  Wow, I think. Laurent is a fitness machine. He does ultra marathons and climbs in the Alps every winter. He volunteers for mountain rescue. But he’s clearly worried and demoralised and I think I realise why. He’s used to the Alps, to hut-based climbing in the summer European sun. Himalayan climbing is next-level though. You’re supposed to suffer. The suffering is what makes the achievement worthwhile. You’re not supposed to be able to breathe, you’re not supposed to be able to feel the tips of your toes. But I suspect Laurent has never felt this before. Because he’s so fit, when he hits the high-altitude wall he quite understandably thinks something is wrong. It’s all new to him, on his first Himalayan climb. In contrast, here at almost 6400m, I’m the veteran, relatively speaking. I know what it takes to summit over 6000m, and I know it’s not supposed to feel good.