Our Chinese staff faced a different prospect. Base Camp would be home to them for the next two months at least. Within a week we would move up to our Advance Base and the Chinese would be left to themselves.
The C.M.A. had provided us with an abundance of personnel. There was a liaison officer—an official troubleshooter—for the climbing team and one for the film crew. Three technicians manned the radio which sent Simon’s reports out to Beijing and hence to the Age in Melbourne. Mr Xia acted as interpreter for everybody. We employed Namagel, a Tibetan from Xigatse, as cook for the Chinese. As our jeep driver had little to do most of the time, he helped with the cooking. After the initial settling-in period all but the radio operators would have nothing to do but pass the time. Theirs were jobs we did not envy. Mr Qu, the liaison officer for the climbing team, and Mr Yang, who performed the same job for the film crew, were old expedition hands so Base Camp was no hardship for them.
Mr Qu reached the summit of Qomolangma Feng, as he called Everest, during the epic climb the Chinese made in 1960. They followed the North Ridge, the line attempted by the British before World War II. Everest posed its usual obstacles. Lack of oxygen was combated with breathing apparatus. The task of stocking the camps on the mountain was performed by a support team of over a hundred people. As for bad weather, no amount of planning or Communist inspiration could help with that. The climbing itself was relatively straightforward, with the exception of a couple of short steep sections towards the top, where they least needed to encounter difficulties. The second of these involved a vertical section of rock a few metres high. Unable to scale it by any other means Mr Qu removed his gloves, shoes and socks, in order to be able to use the small holds. Thanks to his efforts and with the help of his rope, other climbers were able to climb up to him and on to the summit. It was an expensive solution to the problem as he lost his toes and parts of his fingers to frostbite. His stay with our expedition was much more relaxed, for he limited his excursions to within a few hundred metres of Base Camp.
Mr Xia, though, was at a loss in the mountains. He had never ventured far beyond the walls of the various educational institutions where he had studied. The intellectual struggles and pleasures which provided the satisfaction in his life were missing. It was not that they did not exist in the mountains, for life there posed questions as bluntly and directly as anywhere else on earth. The Himalaya were a foreign world to him, one whose language he could not hear, let alone begin to understand.
At Base Camp we were returning to a style of living that had become familiar to us through many expeditions. The goings-on in the world at large would be forgotten. On these occasions, when we possessed a radio, the news it gave always seemed unreal and distant, belonging to a place which existed independently of our mountain arena. In the world outside, the major events were the clashes of people or nations who were breaking or redefining rules, be they accepted conventions of behaviour or international borders. Here the mountain set the problems. We coped by defining our own rules and living by them. That was much of the satisfaction of a long climb such as this since, in the end, we had only ourselves to answer to.
Base Camp was simply the place where the road stopped. It was too far away from the mountain to be of any practical use as a climbing camp. Nevertheless, it was good to spend a few nights at the roadhead at an altitude of 5100 metres, before moving higher into thinner air.
The second day at Base dawned fine. We needed to explore the upper reaches of the Rongbuk Valley to find a site for our next camp. A walk of about a kilometre over river flats led to the Rongbuk Glacier. As with any glacier, the ice of the Rongbuk carved away the walls of the mountains on both sides as it flowed down the valley, leaving unstable slopes similar in appearance to huge road-cuttings. Rocks and landslides continually fell onto the ice so that the lower parts were concealed by a blanket of stones and boulders. The rock-cover slowed the melting of the glacier so that it extended to where the climate seemed too warm for permanent ice. Finally the glacier ended and a series of streams poured from the snout of the gigantic frozen river. As it melted, the rocks which had been on its surface were dumped in huge piles.
Those piles, called terminal moraine, interrupted our gentle walk along the river flats. We were lucky to find that here, where the valley had widened, a trough had formed on the true right bank between the valley wall and the piles of moraine pushed to the side by the ice. The moraine trough made travel up the first part of the valley unexpectedly simple.
An hour and a half from Base Camp we reached the major side valley of the East Rongbuk. We were faced with crossing a mighty torrent, the river which had sprung from the East Rongbuk Glacier several kilometres upstream. The volume of water was not great but the watercourse was steep and cluttered with boulders splashed wet and slippery by the churning stream. The faint trail we had been following disappeared into the river. Even if we managed to cross near the lower trail we still needed to find an easier path for the yaks that would be carrying most of our food and equipment up to our next camp.
About a kilometre upstream the gorge of the East Rongbuk opened out into an area which was almost flat. As I approached, the low rock walls and rusty tins and other rubbish told me that this was the site of Camp I for the earlier expeditions that had attempted Everest’s North Ridge. The sunshine disguised little of the spot’s bleakness. The landscape consisted of scree slopes, crags and snow-capped peaks. Nowhere did there seem to be any earth, only boulders, pebbles and powdered rock.
The river had divided into smaller streams separated by tiny islands. It seemed a sensible place to cross. When I had removed my shoes, socks and trousers, I noticed that water splashed on the rocky banks and protruding boulders had frozen despite the warm sunshine. Expeditions always involve a certain amount of discomfort, I told myself, and these icy boulders and the murky, fast-flowing, freezing water are about to provide the first of it. I floundered across, dancing on each of the rock islands to restore some feeling to my feet.
The way ahead was pathless scrambling over the scree which ran down from the peaks towering above. After a couple of hours we came to a fork in the wide glacier. The West Rongbuk branched to the right and the main Rongbuk turned left around a spur to travel its final ten kilometres up to the North Face.
At the junction of the spur with the lateral moraine a tiny valley had formed. Half the hollow was filled by a pond which was fed and drained by a small stream. The combination of sheltered flat ground and running water was rare in the surrounding rubble of broken-down mountains. Just to make sure there was no better alternative nearby we walked around the corner formed by the spur. A superb view of the North Face confronted us. We forgot the search for camp sites and feasted our eyes on its huge sweeping snow slopes. Much of our planned route up the Face was obscured by a ridge running down from Changtse—the bulk of Everest loomed above and behind the 7500-metre north peak of the massif. Ahead of us lay ten kilometres of broken glacier travel to the bottom of the Face. There seemed to be no practicable place for a camp and with ten kilometres to return to Base Camp we felt we had come far enough for one day. We lay back and admired the view for half an hour. The Rongbuk Glacier at that point was not yet covered with loose moraine rocks. Instead, huge ice towers rose in the shapes of shark fins, as if a school of giant fish were preserved in white ice. Crossing the glacier would be difficult here, and thankfully unnecessary. Half a dozen steep ice peaks, which our maps neglected to name, flanked the West Rongbuk Glacier. We were surrounded by mountains that rose from a glacier which was itself higher than almost every other mountain range in the world.
The breathlessness we all felt came neither from the magnificence of our surrounds nor from the feeling that finally we had arrived. The cause was the lack of oxygen at an altitude of 5500 metres. For the next two months the thin atmosphere would be a constant limit to what we could achieve. The effect would be worst on the upper reaches of the mountain where every step would be a tremendous effort. That
time was many weeks away. Until then our bodies would gradually adjust to the oxygen lack. Attempting to climb high without allowing time for acclimatisation would induce severe sickness that would almost certainly result in death. Survival in these mountains depended on caution and a thorough knowledge of both the physical and physiological dangers.
For the moment we were content to put our energies into setting up our Advance Base Camp in the small valley at the fork of the Rongbuk Glacier.
The next day was a rest day. I relaxed my body and mind with a long session of yoga, then scrambled about six hundred metres up the rocky ridge directly above the camp. The rock was friable, giving enough spice to the steep sections to evoke the intense concentration which provides much of the satisfaction of rockclimbing. I returned to Base wearily in the evening and reached the tents at the same time as a couple of Tibetan men.
They were the owners of the yaks that were to carry our equipment up to Advance Base. We had not expected them to arrive until the following day but, as we sat down to dinner, twenty-five yaks herded by another three Tibetans walked over the low piles of ancient moraine to the small meadow which was our camp. That night we organised supplies into suitably sized loads for the fifteen yaks we chose to hire, though in the morning the Tibetans insisted on rearranging the loads.
So that they would be able to tolerate the cold of the high mountains, the C.M.A. had provided the yak owners with suitable clothing. Rather than carrying these things until they were needed, they wore them. The sunglasses for snow glare were worn permanently on their heads, with the tinted lenses looking backwards in blatant admission that their main purpose was to keep their long hair in place. Down jackets replaced their heavy sheepskin coats but they were worn in the same style. In all but the most intense cold one sleeve dangled empty like a spare arm, leaving their throwing arms free, as the Tibetans’ method of herding and directing their yaks was with carefully aimed pebbles.
Despite carrying heavy packs weighing perhaps forty kilos, the walk up to our Advance Base site was relaxed, since we were limited by the slow pace of the yaks. The water-level in the East Rongbuk River had dropped considerably so we were able to follow the lower trail by leaping from rock to rock. We supposed that it was only during a hot day after a big snowfall that the river was swollen. Certainly the lower route saved a great deal of time and effort.
As we neared the small valley we walked ahead to decide the best place to unload the yaks. A beautiful grassy area had been cut into small islands by the stream that poured out of the moraine above but inspection revealed the ground to be uneven and therefore unsuitable for tents. Eventually we chose a muddy but level spot near the lake. Above and behind lay more uneven turf where we could sit when the weather was kind to us.
We watched the Tibetans unload the yaks then set about pitching our mess tent and kitchen tent. The kitchen tent was a huge but simple four-sided pyramid with a single central pole. Apart from its weight it was simple to erect. Tim, Narayan and Tenzing battled with that while Geof and I pitched our wits against the tent we had already nicknamed the Quarter Acre Dream. It was a large and luxurious tent complete with windows, a verandah, removable curtains and a dozen holes. The Sydney firm of Goodearl and Bailey had donated it to the expedition. It was robust and weatherproof when erected but complicated to assemble. An added problem was that as we unrolled it heavy snow began to fall, driven by a bitterly cold wind. I read out the instructions while Greg, Geof and Andy struggled with the many poles. Immediately it was up we bundled all the gear inside to keep it dry, so that soon there was no room for us. We sat in the kitchen tent which was roomy and cozy from the heat of the stoves. For the rest of the trip the Quarter Acre Dream, which we had brought to use as our mess tent, remained our store.
When the storm subsided we pitched our two-person sleeping tents. Being away with a smaller group evoked the familiar feeling of camaraderie which had always been an important part of our climbs, so it was with some reluctance that we returned to Base Camp the next morning with the yaks and yak drivers. But there was food and equipment to be packed into loads and we knew we would be back up within a day or two.
Making up the loads was a routine process. Everything had to be carried up to Advance Base eventually; it was simply a matter of determining priorities.
Tim was worried when he could not find his boots.
“When did you last see them?” I asked.
“Sunday night. In Manly.”
“Oh …”
Bags and boxes were turned inside out and the kerosene lamp burnt late into the night as he searched.
“I can’t believe they’re lost. They’ll turn up,” were my sleepy words of half-hearted reassurance when he finally came to the tent to sleep.
The next day we headed up to Advance Base, this time to stay. For the whole walk Tim was trying to work out where his boots were. At camp, when we were unpacking the yak loads, Tim questioned Andy. By that time he knew the exact location of everybody’s boots except his own. Andy, who as usual had been floating along in his own daydream, admitted to having a pair of boots in his kitbag.
“But your boots are still at Base Camp!” protested Tim.
“Are they?” asked Andy sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised there was a panic on.”
It was good to be in residence at Advance Base. Simon, Mike, Howard and Colin remained at Base Camp. They would accompany the yaks and yak-men for the last two ferries of equipment. The sun hit the tents shortly after ten o’clock in the morning, a misleading figure since all clocks in China were set to Beijing time thousands of kilometres to the east. Over the border in Nepal, only a few kilometres to the south, it was half-past seven. Nepalese time was more accurate in that it related to the sun, but we found it simpler to set our watches to the rest of China. The only real advantage was that we were encouraged to get up earlier. Such confirmed sleepers-in as Andy and myself felt guilty about staying in our sleeping bags much past ten-thirty, and even that sounded decadently late.
The next day we set about making our camp as comfortable as possible. One thing there was no shortage of was rocks. We built a lavatory magnificent both in its construction and its view of the mountains. With the summer of Mt Everest directly ahead we had no need to be frightened of constipation. Fear is the great laxative. By hunting around we found enough flat rocks to pave the floor of the kitchen tent which would otherwise soon have become a quagmire.
The good weather continued, allowing us to make our first excursion along the Rongbuk Glacier from Advance Base. We discovered that the obvious comforts of our camp had been ignored by other expeditions for a less hospitable spot on the glacial ice. About an hour closer to the mountain we came to the site where the big Japanese expedition of 1980 had camped. Huge piles of half-burnt rubbish littered the area. Even perfectly good equipment had been destroyed. Empty tins and cooking-gas cartridges were scattered in all directions.
Such abuse of the environment pointed to a type of thinking radically different from our own. Those Japanese climbers had used the mountains as an arena for conquest, a place to prove themselves mightier than the mountain. To them the scars of that battle were irrelevant—it was only the achievement that counted. Our priorities were different. As much as possible we wished to leave the mountains as we found them, aloof and mighty, and unblemished by our petty struggles. On a grand scale our climbs were of no relevance. Only to ourselves was success or failure, life or death, a concern.
The Everest region is one of the most rugged and beautiful mountain regions in the world. The remoteness and recent political inaccessibility of Tibet have ensured that the mountainous country has remained unaffected by the evils of tourism. Despite this, the first foreign expedition to visit in over forty years had left a lasting mark on the purity of the northern approaches to Everest. The sight made us determined to carry all our rubbish back to the roadhead and away on trucks.
Travelling on a glacier demands full concentration, at l
east until the route is known. We were able to forget the ugly sight of the rubbish dump as we tried to find the best way up the valley. Just around the corner from Advance Base the hillside was dangerously unstable so we were forced onto the glacier itself. From above it appeared as though the ice was covered with mounds of loose pebbles, the debris of landslides. Once on the glacier we appreciated the illusion. The ice which could not flow around obstacles on the valley floor was pushed up into miniature mountains. Rocks were thinly spread over the surface except where the ice walls were too steep and bare ice barred our way. The covering of rocks permitted us to walk on slopes that would have been impossibly slippery had they remained smooth ice. Nevertheless care was always needed for sometimes the stones slipped away beneath our feet.
At other places we skirted the deep chasms of crevasses, the edges of which had been eaten away by the sun to make very obvious and definitely uninviting funnels leading to the depths of the glacier. Sometimes the crevasses were filled with water, a murky brown from the rock debris. In other places, where the ice was clean, water in the craters appeared a brilliant turquoise blue.
As with most large glaciers the difficulties of travel on the Rongbuk were largely offset by the beauty of the place, especially towards the centre of the glacier where our path wove in and out between the giant ice pinnacles. Between the icy spires, shallow streams flowed, bubbling up out of the ice for no apparent reason and disappearing just as suddenly. In places the streams tunnelled through the towers and the caves they carved were filled with beautiful soft blue light. Sometimes icicles had formed over the entrance like bars; in other places they hung from the overhanging walls of the towers.
When we walked further up the glacier we were able to work out how the remarkable spears and towers of ice had formed. The higher reaches of the glacier (the nevé) was a big snow basin. As the ice slid slowly down the valley the surface began to break up. At one place it was a honeycomb of gaping crevasses; slightly further down the thin walls melted to form jagged ridges. In the next stage the saddles and low walls between the peaks had weathered away, leaving spectacular minarets of ice. These grew smaller and sparser until finally, near Advance Base Camp, the last of the towers melted or collapsed into blocks of ice. It was a continuing process for, while the glacier moved down the valley and as the final ice peaks fell, the ice at the head of the glacier was breaking up into crevasses, creating the beginnings of more towers.
White Limbo: The Classic Story Of The First Australian Climb Of Everest Page 10
