by Clint Willis
He wangled an invitation to join a 1973 Indian expedition to Kashmir, on the border of Pakistan and India. He recruited his neighbor Nick Estcourt to come on the trip. The two British climbers hoped to make the first ascent of a peak called Brammah (6,416 meters; 21,050 feet). They set up a camp at 5,000 meters and sat out a week of bad weather. They made the summit in a long day of climbing, up a ridge to a dome of snow. Chris was pleased to share a high summit with Nick, who had given so much on Annapurna and Everest. It made things easier between them. Their descent to high camp was interrupted by darkness, and they spent the night on a narrow ridge, looking out to views of distant lightning. The glow of those storms appeared to them beautiful and ominous, the flickers of some far away sea battle.
Nick and Chris on the approach to Brammah
CHRIS BONINGTON, CHRIS BONINGTON PICTURE LIBRARY
CHRIS WAS PLANNING another small expedition for the following year. He’d invited Doug Scott, Dougal Haston and Martin Boysen—Nick Estcourt couldn’t take more time off from work. The four British climbers planned to join four Indian climbers to attempt Changabang, (6,864 meters; 22,520 feet) a highly coveted peak in the Garhwal Himalaya. The explorer Tom Longstaff, almost seventy years before, had called Changabang the most beautiful mountain he had ever seen. The Scottish climber W. H. Murray—Chris growing up had loved his books—had later written rapturously of gazing upon Changabang in the moonlight: a product of earth and sky rare and fantastic . . . the heart gave thanks—that this mountain should be as it is.
The mountain in spite of its great beauty remained unclimbed. The peak’s pale granite walls were unrelentingly steep on all sides, so that climbers and explorers often compared it to a gigantic shark’s fin. Changabang thus offered Chris and his partners a superb technical challenge. It also provided an excuse to travel to the Garhwal region of the central Himalayas, a wild and remote district that had challenged and delighted previous generations of British explorers. Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman had forced a way up the difficult Rishi Gorge in 1934 to reach the inner sanctuary of Nanda Devi (7,817 meters; 25,646 feet), which lay five miles south of Changabang. Tilman had led the team that climbed Nanda Devi two years later. Shipton meanwhile had explored the northern part of the sanctuary, including the glaciers that led to Changabang itself.
The region held great spiritual significance for Hindus, who believed it to be a home of the Gods. Bonington and his fellow climbers during their approach to the peak would encounter many holy men, wrapped in blankets and clutching their begging bowls; these men were pilgrims on their way to the temple at Badrinath, high in the foothills.
Chris suffered pangs of guilt as the expedition’s departure date approached. He was leaving Wendy and the two boys yet again. This time they would have to fend for themselves in a trailer in the northern Lake District, while Wendy oversaw renovations of a ramshackle property called Badger Hill. The Boningtons had bought the place for a song three years before. It had proven a perfect retreat; they had now decided to leave the Manchester suburbs and make their cottage a permanent home. It was something out of a fairy tale: a low, slate-roofed affair well off the main road, peering out of thickets at the end of a single-track lane, the lane patrolled by stray sheep from neighboring farms.
The expedition members left England on May 1. A telegram was waiting for Chris in New Delhi. Nepal had granted him permission to attempt Everest in the fall of 1975, just over a year away. He had applied for the slot thinking he’d like to make a small, alpine-style expedition up the original South Col route. Doug and Dougal now urged him to change his plans. They wanted another shot at the Southwest Face. They conjured up for Chris a vision of walking beneath that huge wall on their way to the South Col route. The face would beckon to them a dream they’d abandoned. Their failure to engage it would define them more than anything they could accomplish elsewhere on the mountain.
Chris wasn’t convinced. He dreaded the task of organizing a second large-scale expedition to the mountain. He also questioned whether another attempt on the Southwest Face during the difficult postmonsoon season had any real chance of success. He equivocated: they would go to Everest next year, but he would not choose the route yet. For now, there was Changabang to climb.
THE EXPEDITION TRAVELED eastward up the Rishi Gorge. They crossed to the Rhamani Gorge to travel north toward Changabang. The group took ten days to get to the peak, slowed by difficult routefinding on dangerous ground. One of the Indian climbers wandered onto exposed ground and survived a fall that could have been fatal. The Garhwal porters were fractious; they complained about the cold and the rations and a shortage of cigarettes. They threatened to drop their loads and go home in a dispute over medical supplies—they wanted more pills and other medicine that they could stockpile for future needs or for use in trade.
The dispute blew over. The expedition established a temporary camp on May 17. They settled in for a few days to rest and to prepare for the next stage of the journey. Chris and Dougal set out the following day to find a site for Base Camp and have a closer look at the mountain. They spent two days making their way up to the foot of the Rhamani Glacier, where they established Base Camp in a grassy area near running water.
The West Ridge looked much steeper and more difficult than it had in photographs. The South Ridge, a series of rock towers also accessible from the Rhamini Glacier, looked even harder. Dougal floated an alternative: The team could cross Shipton Col at the bottom of the South Ridge and descend to the Changabang Glacier. This would put them in the very heart of the Nanda Devi Sanctuary—and in position to climb the mountain’s more feasible Southeast Ridge.
The expedition established an Advance Base Camp at the head of the Rhamani Glacier, at 18,000 feet. Doug Scott and Martin Boysen moved up to the camp on May 22, and spent several days climbing and fixing ropes up the steep, snow-covered granite wall that ended at Shipton Col. Dougal and Chris meanwhile made an attempt on Rishikot, a 21,000-foot peak above Base Camp. They set out at one o’clock on the morning of May 23, carrying down jackets and food for a one-day attempt.
They were trying something new—treating a Himalayan peak like an alpine romp—and the freedom of it made them giddy. They climbed through the remaining hours of night and into the morning, kicking steps in shallow snow that lay over steep ice, using ice pitons for protection. The sun rose but they moved in shadow, kicking shallow and precarious steps toward a line where the snow turned gold; after a time they crossed into the golden snow and felt the sun’s warmth upon them. They paused and gazed across and upward to clouds that obscured the summit of Changabang. They climbed further, and as they did the sky changed; the sun disappeared and they approached a high gray slick of cloud. Then they were in blowing snow. It was still only nine o’clock in the morning.
Chris, Doug, Dougal and Martin study Changabang
DOUG SCOTT, CHRIS BONINGTON PICTURE LIBRARY
They climbed through the late morning and into the afternoon, bugs on a wall—little routefinding, just a tilted white plane. They were barely aware of the bulk of the mountain. It was as if they were climbing a miracle of geometry, a random surface in the vastness of space. They might step or fall through it—like stepping through a cornice or snow bridge—and into an entirely different world. The stories they imposed upon their lives had faded until they knew nothing at all; thoughts arose and departed like the meltwater released in the shallow depths of the ice field itself. This peace of mind flickered and receded at moments and they felt themselves reach for it as you might reach for the hand of someone falling.
They moved slowly at times. The snow high on the wall was rotten, pocked and brittle. They finished the wall and stood on the summit ice field in snow and wind. The summit itself wasn’t close; going on would mean spending a night out in their down jackets, with the likelihood of frostbite or worse. There were two hours of daylight left to them—they had been gaining height for sixteen hours. They turned back. They reached camp six hours later, at ten o�
�clock, having climbed and descended 7,000 feet.
It gave them something to bring to the Changabang climb. It was one more experience leading them down a path that had called to them from the beginning. Mountaineering had given them reputation and success and prospects but on a climb such as this one on Rishikot they could imagine that those things were distractions, that success was mostly a burden. They clung less fiercely to their lives and futures and comforts. This was true for some of the other climbers as well as for Dougal and Chris. They pursued with growing intensity and recklessness these moments where the desire for liberation from time and from fear overwhelmed their attachment to any life but one backlit by a vast and glittering darkness.
DOUGAL AND CHRIS moved back up to Advance Base Camp on May 26. They spent the next day reinforcing the line of fixed ropes that led up the wall to Shipton Col. That work cleared the way for a succession of carries, and by May 31 the expedition had accumulated enough gear at the col to support a six-man attempt on the summit.
The summit team at Advance Base Camp included the four British climbers, as well as the leader of the Indian party—Lieutenant Colonel Balwant Sandhu, known to all as Ballu—and Sherpa Tashi Chewang. The climbers planned to move their supplies down the other side of the Shipton Col to a camp at the head of the Changabang Glacier. They would climb from there to a second col—the one between Changabang and its neighbor Kalanka—and establish a top camp near Changabang’s Southeast Ridge. The party could then dash up the ridge to the summit.
They set out early on May 31, rising just after midnight to climb the fixed ropes to Shipton Col. They arrived at the col in the early morning and loaded up with gear. Each man took some 80 pounds on his back. They plunged down a snow slope toward the Changabang Glacier, moving as quickly as they could with their heavy loads. They drew near the glacier at around eight o’clock in the morning. The snow had turned soft as they descended, making it harder to keep their footing. They were anxious about the risk of avalanche.
They established the new camp at the base of a rock spur that would provide some protection against snow slides. Doug spent the day gazing up at the face that the party would have to climb to reach the Southeast Ridge. Avalanches scoured the face every hour or so. Snow fell the night of June 1. The climbers spent another day at their camp on the Changabang Glacier to allow the snow to settle. The delay meant they would have to ration their food to reduce the risk of running out before their eventual return over Shipton Col to Advance Base.
The moon came out that night. They set out at ten o’clock, roped in pairs, climbing in the cold and dark to take advantage of the firmer snow. Dougal—he was climbing very strongly—led them in single file up the moonlit face to a huge basin. The deep snow in the basin slowed the party’s progress and intensified their fears of an avalanche that would sweep them back into the depths that accumulated beneath them as they climbed. They reached a ridge of ice and as they prepared to climb further the slope beneath them unleashed a huge slide that carried away their freshly made steps.
Someone made a joke. Two or three of the other climbers made amused sounds and the party resumed their climb. They moved in silence, each man alone with his thoughts as the world once more dwindled to snow and night. A climber might occasionally try to acknowledge the growing void at his feet, but he would not be successful. The darkness was a shiny black stone. A person couldn’t fall into that.
Dougal led a difficult pitch and anchored a rope. The others jumared up to join him, but Dougal had disappeared up into the next set of difficulties. The moon set at 3:30 in the morning. The darkness grew more complete so that it was hard to see the ground in front of them. The party came to a halt and waited, their feet growing numb while light appeared at the tops of the surrounding peaks. The climbers crossed a crevasse to reach a shelf where they set about making camp.
The six climbers crowded into two tents. The day passed quietly. They heard no sounds but the sounds they made themselves. Hearing the shuffling and coughs and talk was like hearing a person tune a piano in a wilderness. They sorted gear. They made stew in the evening and ate a communal supper—the six climbers huddled over stoves, five of them sharing a single spoon. Dougal preferred to eat with a piton he kept handy for the purpose. Later they retired to their tents. Chris shared a tent with Martin and Ballu. Dougal, Doug and Tashi had the other. The climbers lay pressed against one another in the early darkness and tried to sleep.
They rose at one o’clock in the morning and had breakfast—tea and cereal. Martin Boysen was optimistic about finishing the route. He could see reasonable climbing to the col between Kalanka and Changabang, and after that just the long Southeast Ridge to the summit. Tashi was feeling under the weather; Martin heard him mutter something about ill omens.
They were off by two o’clock. Chris and Dougal were first to leave camp. Chris took the lead this time. He struggled past an overhang. He found his rhythm, and climbed 100 feet of steep ice, fixing a rope for the others. They followed, and then the climbers waded through deep snow to the col at the bottom of their ridge. The sun rose in a clear and windless sky as the climbers stared across a spectacular vista of mountains reaching north to Tibet.
The ridge to the summit of Changabang looked more difficult from here: a knife’s edge of snow, growing steeper as it approached the top of the peak. They dropped their gear and reformed into two roped trios—Chris, Martin and Ballu made one rope. Dougal, Doug and Tashi made the other. Martin led the first rope. The snow here was loose and decayed; it lay on a base of brittle ice that wouldn’t take an ice piton. The climbers moved slowly, one man at a time. They sometimes straddled the ridge as if riding horseback—au cheval—using their hands to stay in balance. Other times they dropped to one side or another of the ridge crest and teetered across steep snow slopes that fell away into views of distant glacier. Dougal and Doug left Tashi with the others and climbed ahead. The two of them cut occasional steps in the ice to safeguard the team’s descent.
The climbers were all very tired and increasingly aware of their thirst. Their discomfort reminded them that they lived in their bodies and not merely in the stories that preoccupied and frightened them. Dougal in his fatigue and in his half-felt bliss at being here looked upon his own membranes and muscles as if upon some forgotten geography. He saw his body as he might have seen a contour map of new ground, long unexplored and assumed to be empty and arid, now known to be rampant with life.
The ridge beckoned them further into the sky. They were fearfully high already; they could look down some 6,000 feet to the Bagini Glacier, a dirty-gray swathe shadowed in the remotest distance. They climbed on into the afternoon, each climber bound to others so that one man’s fatigue or clumsiness slowed the other climbers down. The world seemed frozen. They moved within the confines of a moment that did not change but instead unfolded endlessly even as they themselves grew increasingly weary and thirsty and ever more quiet.
Dougal and Doug reached the summit at four o’clock in the afternoon. The others arrived an hour later. The six climbers crouched together in a cold mist, thinking of the descent. It was twenty rope-lengths to the col and then they must descend the wall to the Changabang Glacier. Other peaks appeared and vanished in the clouds that swirled and moved past like elements of some tidal body. Doug and Chris took a few pictures. They had climbed the mountain but there was no impulse to gloat or preen; there was instead a faint and obscure and somehow sweet sense of having done wrong, of deserving notice for that.
No one wished to linger here. Dougal and Doug spotted a place on the summit ridge that looked as if it might be slightly higher than the point where the party had gathered. The two of them crossed the snow to tag it. The others set off down. The descent of the narrow, snow-covered ridge was as difficult as the climb. The climbers looked upon a wintry void as they picked their way down. Gravity made them awkward—it was like an incompetent friend or clumsy child at their heels—but at moments they lost track of their suffering:
night came and they sailed and drifted away from the moon, which lit the snow and echoed the sun, of which their memories in turn seemed images from prehistory, something discovered in drawings in caves. Gravity, the sun’s echo, the snow, the thin air they breathed—each climber felt himself to be solitary amid this even as each was glad of the other’s company.
Dougal and Doug had performed their summit errand and moved down to catch the others. Martin was moving more quickly than the rest. He descended the last difficult stretch to easy snow slopes and made a final rappel to the glacier camp to put up the tents and make tea. The rest found him at it when they staggered in.
It was ten o’clock. They were tired. They ate nothing that night. They brewed tea and drank it and chatted. The four British climbers eyed each other and pondered their experience of the past two days. The climb had been difficult, but well within their limits. And something else: they had enjoyed it. They sprawled around their campsite and made jokes and wished for nothing. They talked like boys—the kinds who dig for buried treasure and expect to find it.
12
THE CHALLENGE OF Everest’s Southwest Face still lay before them. A third Japanese expedition had failed to get past the Rock Band that guarded its higher reaches. The news made Chris realize that Dougal Haston and Doug Scott were right—that his ambition and his destiny were linked with the task of climbing that face. The problems it posed occupied his thoughts on his journey homeward from Changabang in the spring of 1974.
