White Limbo: The Classic Story Of The First Australian Climb Of Everest

by Hall, Lincoln

  Up on the mountain the others were able to climb a further hundred metres and cache the food and equipment they carried in a small hole dug in the snow slope. It was not a good place for Camp II, but there seemed to be no safe sites anywhere. The weather the next day was bad. Snow fell overnight and continued through the morning. The fine-weather plan had been for me to head up the ropes with Narayan and Tenzing to stock the depot at our high point. Instead we all loafed around Camp I. Those energetic enough spent the afternoon skiing the gentle slope behind camp—a great method of keeping our spirits up in the bad weather. It is during exercise that one’s body has to fight hardest to cope with the oxygen lack, and that of course helps the acclimatisation process.

  The bad weather continued, so the next day Tim, Andy, Simon and I made the six-kilometre journey down to Advance Base Camp. It was much more comfortable there. Camping on grass is invariably better than on ice, and the 300-metre altitude drop made sleeping a little easier and deeper because of the small increase in atmospheric oxygen.

  The following afternoon Simon headed down to Base to file a story. Andy chose to have faith in the weather and went back up to Camp I. He could not have misread the signs more completely. That night about thirty centimetres of snow fell. We woke to find the mess tent sagging sadly and the Quarter Acre Dream collapsed with poles bent under the weight of snow. Tim and I shovelled the snow away with pots and the lid of our pressure cooker as our snow-shovels had been carried up to Camp I. We repaired the minor damage then set about making breakfast.

  When the sun dissolved the clouds the snow melted quickly. The stream in front of the tent drained through the rocks and the northern end of our little valley. Before long the drain could not keep pace with the snow-melt so the water-level began to rise towards our tent door. As the water was still a couple of metres away there did not seem any reason to panic. A week earlier the water had crept into one corner of the tent but the cold of night froze its advance and by morning it had receded to its usual level. We hoped that would happen again today.

  Late in the afternoon, as we sat in the tent drinking tea and eating biscuits with water lapping around our feet, we accepted defeat and agreed we would have to move the tent. For two people it was a major task. Everything had to be carried fifty metres up the hill to the most suitable flat spot: barrels of food, boxes of film gear, pots and pans, books, spices, odd pieces of clothing and equipment, and the tent itself. We dragged it all to the new site. Tim held the centre pole erect while I ran around hammering the pegs into rocky ground. By dusk everything was rearranged inside. Our work wasn’t over, for the water had crept the few extra metres to the Quarter Acre Dream. From there we moved everything that might be damaged into the mess tent. Moving the tent itself would have to wait until there were more people to help.

  Everyone came back down to Advance Base Camp the following day. Because of the amount of snow that had fallen it would be several days before it was safe to climb on the mountain again. The days passed easily in different combinations of reading, eating, talking and sleeping. I spent the sunny mornings doing yoga. There was no urgency to do anything. We could afford no room for impatience; attempting to act before the conditions were right would be foolhardy and dangerous.

  On 1 September, after a week at Advance Base Camp, Geof, Greg and Andy went back up to Camp I. and Jim and Colin went with them to film their activities. It was a pleasant change to be at Advance Base with fewer people. Simon had gone down to Base Camp so only Mike, Howard, Narayan, Tenzing, Tim and I remained. Between the twelve of us there had been remarkably few angry words during the six weeks we had been away from Australia. Sometimes there was a little tension between the climbers and the film crew over the film crew not pulling its weight, though the difference was largely imagined. The film-makers not only had to carry loads of food to make sure they were adequately supplied but also had to film everything that was going on in and around the camps.

  By making life uncomfortable, high altitude encourages irritation at the same time as uniting everyone in hardship. Certainly for our group friendships grew deeper and stronger as the trip progressed. Flashes of anger were dismissed as signs of tension and impatience with weather, rather than any personal affront. Whenever somebody started taking things too seriously Narayan would seize the opportunity to tease those involved. Personal melodramas were a source of unconcealed delight to him and he enjoyed helping people realise the ridiculousness of their position with a few well-chosen but mispronounced words. As we sat around the kitchen tent while he and Tenzing cooked he would entertain us with stories of the practical jokes he had played on other expeditions and treks. For some of us, many of the tales were familiar for we had been the recipients.

  On the first evening that the others spent at Camp I, Greg radioed to say that birds had attacked our food. Andy, who had been the last to leave the camp, had failed to put a few things away and had left a couple of vital tent-door zippers undone. The saddest losses were serious damage to our big block of Jarlsberg cheese and the devouring of nine blocks of chocolate.

  Worse news came the following day as Tim and I packed in preparation for our return to Camp I.

  Mike walked over to us. “Geof wants to talk to you,” he said.

  Tim took the radio and ran up to the moraine ridge where the reception was best. Ten minutes later he strolled down, looking pensive.

  “What’s the story?” I asked.

  “They left Camp I this morning to head up the mountain. Now they’re near the Face and have just spotted bits of Camp II on the glacier. It’s been avalanched.”

  “Hell! That will give them something to think about. It’s just as well no one was up there.”

  “Of course. It’s much better to find out now that the place is not safe.”

  “What did they find?” I asked. “What have we lost?”

  “Don’t know yet. They only just spotted the tent lying amongst the debris.”

  “What, it’s good to have that anyway.”

  It was such a beautiful day and the dangers of the mountain were far enough removed from Advance Base for the news not to affect our mood of excitement at being on the move again. We ate lunch and left camp. Narayan had set off that morning. Mike, Howard and Tenzing were to follow us. The glacier to Camp I was a familiar trail by now and for long sections we could turn our minds off and think.

  The most important thing about the avalanche was that it showed we had assessed the conditions on the mountain wrongly. That sort of mistake could be fatal. A place we had thought safe had been removed from the mountain by a gigantic snow slide. The amount of snow dumped on the 3000-metre Face made huge avalanches when it slid from the slope. We had realised that but underestimated the size of the problem. It was a valuable lesson learnt at the cost of some replaceable food and equipment.

  At Camp I, more bad news awaited us. Geof, Greg and Andy had just returned from the Face.

  “How’d you like to climb Everest in your walking boots?” asked Geof as a greeting, nodding at my Adidas shoes.

  “What do you mean?”

  Andy answered for him. “The gear we left at the ’schrund has been buried by another avalanche. We couldn’t find a thing.”

  “Bloody hell! That’s all the boots and crampons and ice-axes!”

  “Well, Geof and I have boots,” said Andy, “but Greg’s, yours and Tim’s are there.”

  The three of us had left these things on a ledge at the back of the crevasse at the base of the Face to avoid carrying them backwards and forwards as we skied to and from the start of the climb.

  “Sounds like a day of digging tomorrow,” said Tim. “It can’t be buried too deeply where it was.”

  Later that night Howard found some reassuring words. “These things always happen in threes, so you should be all right from now on.”

  “How do you mean? What’s the third?” My mind was thinking that day’s news only.

  “The two avalanches and the birds pillag
ing our food.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks, Howard. We can all relax then.”

  The following day was far from relaxing. We left camp early to avoid the intense heat on the glacier, and climbed up to dig where we thought the gear was buried. The position in the crevasse was readily identifiable from the distinctive icicles which hung from the overhanging back wall. By late afternoon we had shifted a tremendous amount of snow. All we had to show for our efforts was a hole five metres deep over an area of five metres by three. Around our ditch we probed the snow with our extendable ski-poles, but to no avail. Dejected, we returned to camp.

  The next day Tim and I searched the slope below our ditch with our ski-pole probes. Geof, Greg and Andy headed up the ropes, hoping to find a safe site for Camp II. They planned to remain there and fix ropes through the steep ground above during the next four days. To make things easier for them Jim and Colin went ahead to free the ropes buried by the recent snowfalls. Narayan and Tenzing followed up the ropes with supplies for the others’ planned stay on the mountain.

  The day was not a success for any of us. Tim and I did not find our lost equipment, and Colin and Jim found freeing the ropes to be strenuous and tedious work. At about three o’clock a huge bank of dark clouds rounded the Changtse corner of the Rongbuk Glacier heading for the North Face. By four o’clock it was snowing steadily. Narayan became dangerously cold as he had neglected to take warm clothes with him up the ropes. It had been so warm on the glacier that he thought he would be back long before the weather changed. Within half an hour of the snow beginning to fall, powder-snow avalanches were pouring down the Face. Geof, Greg and Andy decided it was impossible to stay there that night. The big avalanche that had swept away the small snow cave and the gear that was inside it had also removed a hundred metres of fixed rope. It was obvious that nowhere beneath our high point was safe. The small outcrop that we had reached on our first day of climbing offered some shelter so they dumped their food and equipment there in a kitbag. As they began to descend, the avalanches were already becoming serious. Knee-deep powder slid down the slope around them with frightening force.

  At the bottom of the Face those avalanches passed by Tim and me on both sides and began to fill in the hole we had dug. The first one dusted us with snow and frightened me considerably. Now we could understand how, during the long storm, snow shed from the Face had buried our gear so deeply. We decided to head back to Camp I before any really big avalanches came down. Visibility was appalling, but luckily Geof had placed flags on the glacier that morning. The bamboo poles with bright orange rags tied to the tips, marked the route down the easily angled nevé. Now the snow cloud was too thick to see one flag from the next though they were only two hundred metres apart. As I peered into the whiteness for a glimpse of the next orange marker, snow driven by the vicious up-valley wind tore at my face. In such bleak conditions the best course was to ignore the discomfort and descend as quickly as possible.

  Back at Camp I, Tim and I began to cook dinner. It was several hours before the others arrived. Narayan had begun to suffer hypothermia so everyone stopped at the Stash to warm him up in the tent. By the time they descended the remaining few kilometres to Camp I, everybody was exhausted.

  The snowfall during the night made it too dangerous for us to consider going back up the mountain the next morning. At any rate the loss of gear made an immediate return impossible. We sat in the mess tent and considered the options before us. I was the only one with a complete spare set of gear—boots, ice-axe, ice-hammer and crampons. I had everything except a harness. The others were not in such a happy position. Geof and Andy still had their boots since, rather than ski, they walked to and from the Face. All eyes turned to the film crew.

  “What size are your feet, Howard?”

  It seemed that the route would be too difficult to allow the film crew to climb very high. In that case their boots, ice-axes and other climbing gear would not be used. And anyway, if we didn’t borrow what we needed we would have to abandon the climb, which would leave them nothing to film. Tim’s huge feet proved to be the only ones which could not be accommodated by loan or improvisation.

  “They’re the bane of your life, Tim,” I said, “along with your surname.”

  His feet were size twelve and a half. Mike’s size twelve boots were the closest approximation. It looked as though Tim would have to climb Everest in his cross-country ski boots. Combined with a pair of Geof’s insulated overboots, and rigid crampons with the imaginative name of Foot Fangs, it proved to be a workable solution.

  Andy took perverse satisfaction in writing on a postcard to his housemates: “In one stroke we went from one of the most hideously over-equipped expeditions ever to leave Oz to one of the lightest ever to consider Everest.”

  We spent the sunny morning airing sleeping bags and improvising harnesses from climbing webbing. Geof sat outside his tent tying flags to bamboo wands so that the whole route to the base of the Face could be marked for bad-weather descents. Andy severely sunburned his face, and particularly his eyelids, by falling asleep in the sun to the sound of his Walkman. Tim and I moved our tent to a flatter site, then, with the help of Narayan and Tenzing, levelled the ground under the mess tent. In the two and a half weeks since we had established Camp I, the ice of the glacier had melted considerably and had left our tents perched on little platforms.

  The weather closed in again overnight. Howard, Tim, Narayan, Tenzing and I entertained ourselves by skiing on the slope of the glacier behind camp. I stopped by the mess tent for a drink before heading up the slope.

  “If you’re going out on the glacier,” said Greg, “take Tim’s binoculars so that you can see whether that kitbag full of gear is still there.”

  “Ah now! It’s better not to know.”

  “Nonsense,” said Greg. “I’ve been lying awake at night worrying about it.”

  “Yeah. It’s worth finding out,” said Geof.

  “Why? Do you want to know whether to write that you’ll be coming home soon because you’ve got no gear?” Geof was taking our mail down to Advance Base Camp that afternoon.

  “Yep,” replied Geof. ‘“Dear Sponsor, from this expedition postcard of the mountain eliminate all dotted lines above Camp II … No, make that all lines on the Face. Instead I’ve marked where we lost our gear. X is where we lost most of our boots, ice-axes and crampons. Y is where Camp II used to be. Z is where another avalanche took our kitbag full of food, rope, climbing hardware …’”

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll take the binoculars.”

  The next day was also cloudy and cold but the conditions were not bad enough to prevent Colin, Howard and Jim from carrying the 16 mm film gear up to the Stash. I was not sure why they chose that day of poor visibility to perform a task that could be done at any time, except, as Colin said, “Jim gets restless”.

  Tim, Andy, Geof, Tenzing and I headed down to Advance Base Camp in the afternoon to meet Simon who was coming up the next morning with our mail. The letters had arrived at Base Camp from Lhasa that day with a German trekking group.

  The morning of 8 September was snowy again. Everyone else decided to come down from Camp I, and they arrived early in the afternoon shortly before Simon arrived with the mail. It was almost two months since we had left and so many things had happened that the time seemed even longer. Home was a long way distant, which made mail a real comfort and a reminder of the world we had put out of our minds. The expedition old-hands, Geof, Greg, Tim, Andy and I, had left homesickness behind. It was harder for Jim, Howard and Colin, who had wives and children. The rest of us were warmed by the reassurance of the future which awaited us if we were careful and not unlucky on the mountain. There was some bad news—a good friend of Colin’s had been killed in a plane crash in New Zealand. Apart from that, it was a great afternoon as we sat around laughing and swapping news with each other. The miserable weather outside for once seemed irrelevant.

  Geof was always the first to get restless. He did no
t necessarily have to be climbing, he just needed to be doing something. The next day he took the letters we had written down to Base Camp where they would await the departure of the German trekkers. Over the radio that evening he told us of the progress of the large American expedition which had arrived two weeks before. They had left Base Camp almost immediately and walked, with load-carrying yaks, up the East Rongbuk to begin their attempt on the North Ridge. By now they had fixed rope almost to the North Col but had retreated in the face of avalanche danger. In order to rest and to allow time for the slopes to clear they had come down to Base Camp. It sounded as though we were to be camp-bound for a few more days.

  Most of us had no problem filling in time. There were many books to read, and endless discussions to be had on topics as varied as nuclear disarmament and who had eaten most of the biscuits. Our letter-writing urge had been temporarily purged and pens were put to diaries instead. Greg’s diary was a joke for all of us. Most days he wrote the date, where he was, and closed the book.

  One day several of us were lounging in the mess tent writing, apart from Andy who was trying to fix his Walkman.

  “It’s entertaining to watch you all scribbling away,” he said. “You concentrate hard, then there’s a quick spasm of the neo-cortex and another few words dribble out.”

  Greg replied, “I’ve got these fantastic thoughts but I can’t get them down.”

  “About life?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” he answered. “Life, the universe, the whole damn lot.”

  “I’ll have to read that later, Greg,” I said.

  “No, you wouldn’t understand it.”

  “It should sell well in that case,” said Andy. “provided you give it a good title.”

  The Full Moon is a special time in the mountains. The snow on the peaks glows silvery bright; perspective and distance collapse so that the peaks seem close enough to touch.

  The huge moon reminded me that a month had passed since we had moved up from Base Camp to stay at Advance Base. Time was in a different gear. In Australia, one continually ran to keep appointments with people and machines, so that life was regulated by the face of one’s watch. Here, the mountain dictated when we acted and when we sat in camp. As far as I was concerned, time from the sun and the weather provided a more preferable style of living to that demanded by a fancily decorated quartz crystal.