by Clint Willis
Peter climbed on. He hammered in more pitons and clipped slings to them and stood in the slings. He was aware that no other person had been here, that no one belonged here. He cleared ice from rock, reaching awkwardly and working until his hands felt almost hollow, empty of strength. He shook and gasped with effort. His grip on his ice axe began to fail. He noted features of the rock and the ice as he chopped; he was like one of those soft creatures in a streambed—he groped for material to weave himself a shell. It seemed ridiculous to have bones on the inside and only skin for protection. His thoughts wandered and returned and left him again as he worked. He didn’t know what to do with his mind—it was like a helpless and troublesome dependent.
The climbing became more difficult. He placed the pick of his axe into a slab of ice and tied a sling to the axe. The sling gave him enough support to cross to the first good foothold he’d seen in two hours of chopping steps in the ice. There was no wind. He looked down but he couldn’t see Joe. Peter moved across to a section of decayed rock and managed to place his last pitons. He stood in two slings and called down to Joe.
Joe heard him and followed on Peter’s rope. He arrived out of breath, and offered no acknowledgment of what Peter had accomplished in leading the pitch. Peter set off again. But it was late; he made 20 feet of progress and turned back. The climbers retreated down the fixed ropes.
Peter took the lead again the next morning. This was his fourth pitch since they’d come to the bottom of the overhangs three days before. He hung from his axes on ice that seemed likely to sheer away from the rock. He came near to fainting from fatigue before reaching a gully that offered a small ledge for an anchor. Joe followed, and now it was his turn to lead. He moved quickly up onto ice, climbing on easier ground.
Joe led another three pitches the next day, climbing mixed terrain past weathered and unstable rock. The third pitch brought him to the base of a rock tower. Peter struggled to follow. He felt something—desire, a wish to be safe and comfortable—nibble and tug at the frayed remnants of his strength. He carried a sack of provisions, and its weight was like a punishment. The climbers left their supplies at their high point and rappelled the fixed ropes back to their ridge camp for the night. Peter, sliding down the ropes, felt something give way in him. Nothing worried him; for a moment he felt that he couldn’t be touched, couldn’t die.
It took several hours each morning to climb the fixed ropes to the previous day’s high point. The time had come to abandon Camp One on the ridge and strike out for the summit, carrying their food and shelter on their backs. The prospect frightened them.
They woke too tired to climb. They spent the day in their tent. Snow fell in the afternoon; the next morning the sky had a roof of cloud. The unpromising weather convinced them to drop down to Base Camp to pick up more food for their final push.
They moved down across the ice field and onto the glacier. They stumbled and shuffled across the rocks as the mountain receded. They had fixed rope on 3,000 feet of the route. That left another 2,500 feet to the summit. It was September 28; they had been on the mountain for three weeks. Joe pointed out that it had been a year and a day since Peter had reached the summit of Everest. Peter considered the fact, and a sense of detachment—familiar and vaguely shocking—arose in him. He saw as he always did Mick walking up that ridge into white oblivion.
THEY SPENT A single night at Base Camp. They had hoped to find new neighbors; there had been talk in Joshimath of an American expedition to Dunagiri. They found no one. They wrote a note offering details of their climb so far. The note was meant to find its way to their families if the two of them didn’t return from the mountain. Joe in particular felt it would comfort his people to know whatever could be known.
They left Base Camp in the morning. They walked up past Advance Base and on up to Camp One. The weather began to close in. They carried on with heavy loads up the ice field, a place already strange to them, spooky after their brief absence. They were halfway up the fixed ropes when light faded from the sky.
They stopped and melted snow for drinks. This upper section of the route was too steep to provide bivouac ledges, so they had brought hammocks for sleeping. They fussed and struggled with the hammocks. Joe had designed them with a half-dozen straps that converged to a single suspension point. He’d lined them with foam and a nylon sheath against the wind. There was a system of rods to prevent the hammocks from wrapping themselves too tightly around the occupants’ bodies—but they’d left the rods up with the gear they’d already carried to the top of the fixed ropes.
The two climbers spent a miserable evening and night—struggling to breathe, fumbling with boots, suffering from cramps and claustrophobia and the cold. Snow and wind made their way into the hammocks. There was no escape in the darkness. They had tested the hammocks before leaving England, spending a night in the meat lockers at Joe’s workplace, swinging in the cold light with the hams and other carcasses. This was far worse.
Peter fell asleep briefly and woke with his foot jutting out of the hammock and into the sky. The foot was numb with cold and he quickly retrieved it. The climbers had come to see their body parts as gear, indispensable, under their protection. The nights until now had offered relief from the days of struggle; tonight the climbers longed for the sun that would free them from their coffinlike shelters. They were afraid as well as uncomfortable—it occurred to both of them that a falling rock could sever the ropes and pitch them into oblivion. Peter imagined himself and Joe as two swimmers in an ocean at night.
They woke to white—clouds and snow and more cold—and lay in the hammocks until ten o’clock. Peter’s voice roused Joe. Peter had removed a glove to tie his boots, and he’d lost feeling in his fingers; now he was shouting in pain as the blood returned to them. He stopped shouting and told Joe not to worry—the fingers wouldn’t stop him from climbing. Joe felt something crack and some of the anger that had pestered and distracted him leaked away.
They left their miserable bivouac without taking time to melt snow for water. Their fatigue and their heavy loads made them slow. Darkness returned as they reached the top of the ice field. A storm blew up. Once again, there were no ledges. They managed to melt enough water to fill their cups once. They drank it and pitched the hammocks and clambered into them. They had not yet reached the top of the fixed ropes, but already they were dangerously tired and very thirsty.
The third day was no better. They finished climbing the fixed ropes and gained another 150 feet and that was all they could manage. They longed for a ledge, for water and food.
They woke to a storm on the fourth day. They retreated, following the ropes back to Camp One on the ridge. Joe arrived first. He fell asleep in his tent without thinking to put a pan of snow on the stove. Peter arrived and admonished him for his oversight. They groused mechanically at one another. There was no real sense of outrage, only fatigue and a creeping worry that they might not be able to climb the route.
The weather had improved during their retreat but when they peered up at the route they wondered at their own audacity. They had at times imagined that they could climb this spectacular wall if only they tried for long enough; their optimism now struck them as stupid, inappropriate. They roused themselves after a short rest and continued down to Advance Base Camp. They were too weary to go further. They spent the night there and descended to Base Camp the next morning.
They rested two days. Joe dressed Peter’s fingers, which were cracked and painful. The climbers were far behind schedule. Peter assumed that he would return to England too late to keep his BMC job, but the prospect meant nothing. Neither climber spoke of leaving because the notion was so intensely alluring; to speak of it would endanger this enterprise, this way of being.
They agreed that they would need at least one more proper camp above the ice field. They couldn’t maintain their strength if they had to sleep in the hammocks. They talked again about how to descend the peak if they managed to climb it. They fought over petty matter
s—who should cook or perform certain camp chores; Peter’s tendency to sit daydreaming when there was work to bed done. One or the other would say: Don’t worry. It will be all right when we get back.
Each climber had come to trust that the other had no wish to quit the route. This understanding gave them comfort and a new regard for one another. They were grateful to each other. Peter complained of his fingers but Joe didn’t mind; that sort of weakness was a relief after Dick Renshaw’s stoicism.
Joe told stories that revealed little about him. He spoke once of his past—of his parents and his nine siblings, of his position as the eldest of five sons. His seven years in seminary and his stint at university had left Joe suspicious of institutions and ideology; he was impatient of authority but he claimed to have no time for idealists and thinkers; he said he simply wanted to do things.
He believed that they must climb the route. It was no longer something he wanted and he took no pleasure in the prospect of having done it. He couldn’t find or name any value in it. They would have to do it on faith. He took unthinking comfort in that familiar notion.
Peter saw that Joe was no skeptic, was rather a fanatic. Peter also knew himself for a kind of believer, but he thought himself happier than Joe. He sometimes wondered if he could compete with Joe’s appetite for difficulty. His motivation to finish the route was informed by his connection to Joe. They were blurred mirrors to one another; it was difficult for one to imagine himself and his motives apart from the presence of the other.
They discussed practical matters, in particular their need to establish a higher camp where they could sit or even lie down—where they could cook and sleep. They would bring a tent lining and chop a ledge, however cramped. The season was advancing. They would carry more clothing this time. Joe found an extra down jacket among supplies they’d acquired for the porters. Peter packed the bulky one-piece suit he’d worn on Everest.
THEY PREPARED TO leave Base Camp for a third time. They revised the note they would again leave behind for anyone who might come looking for them. They set about packing. They heard voices as they prepared to leave on the morning of October 6. They emerged from their tents to find visitors. Three members of the American Dunagiri team had entered their camp. The Americans brought news that a young American woman had collapsed and died high on Nanda Devi. The girl, Nanda Devi Unsoeld, was the daughter of the famous American climber Willi Unsoeld. Joe and Peter had hoped for visitors but this news was disturbing and the men who brought it seemed old, unsure of themselves.
Joe and Peter said good-bye to them and left for Advance Base Camp. The two climbers walked up the glacier chatting about their visitors. They felt that much of their strength had returned to them. They had made a late start and soon they were walking in moonlight. The night grew chill and white. Peter shivered and felt some lining give way and his happiness filled him like blood; he wondered if Joe felt something like that.
They spent the night at Advance Base Camp on the glacier. The camp was near the slopes that led up to Shipton Col—the col crossed by Bonington and his party two years before. Joe and Peter climbed up to inspect the old anchors and ropes that lay buried or partially buried in snow. There had been another expedition on these slopes since then; climbers had crossed the col on the way to Kalanka. The ropes were badly weathered. Joe weighted one and a piton came out; he teetered and almost fell but recovered himself. These mountains were dangerous; just wandering around could kill you.
They would have to come down from these slopes if they chose to descend from the summit by way of Bonington’s East Ridge. The poor condition of the old anchors and ropes meant they’d have to set up their own rappels. They put off their decision.
They returned to the glacier and climbed their own fixed ropes to Camp One. It remained their high camp for now, but they meant to establish a higher one on the ice field that lay above the great overhangs. Peter spent the afternoon—five hours of it—mending his overboots. The boots were in tatters, like much of the climbers’ gear and clothing. A two-hour thunderstorm rolled through during the early afternoon; it reminded Peter of the Alps. The clouds drifted off and the climbers saw that the Rishi Gorge had turned white.
A strong wind followed the storm. The wind continued through the night. They woke late in the morning and argued over whether to climb. Joe was against it. Peter argued the point just to see where the debate would take them. They decided to wait. They did not want to spend another night out on the steep ground below their high point, this time without even the hammocks, which they’d left back up on the ice field.
The weather improved later in the morning, but it was too late for them to change their minds. Their talk sputtered and died. They puttered and read and thought and listened to the unfamiliar quiet. It was odd not to be climbing in this calm. Peter read John Steinbeck’s diaries; he found them trivial and tedious and stopped reading to make marker flags from strips of cloth. The climbers would leave the flags near anchor points on the route. This was to help them find rappel anchors if they decided to descend the West Face. That seemed likely now. Their route was difficult but much of it was familiar from their repeated visits. The idea of finding their way down new ground was too frightening now that they were so tired.
They dozed off early. Pete woke at three o’clock and melted snow for tea. They were away from the tent by six o’clock. Peter carried the extra down clothing. Joe followed him. Joe’s job was to dismantle the fixed ropes below the balcony, the spot where they had spent their first night in the hammocks. They would need those ropes for the Rock Tower, the last major feature on the face.
The weather was cold, but they were warmly dressed. They moved well. Joe imagined himself as a bird, a creature that visited this place by some genetic right. Peter, climbing a vertical section on the fixed ropes, tore a hole in his down suit and bits of fluff escaped. He watched them rise hundreds of feet in the updrafts that swept the face. He felt his strength, a relic of these weeks of struggle. He knew it could leave him at any time but it filled him with a brittle, joyful confidence.
They reached their old high point at midafternoon. Peter untied from the rope and wandered about looking for a ledge with room for a tent. He climbed 15 feet and then gently told himself that it was not wise to be unroped here where a fall would be like falling from the sky itself. He retreated. Joe arrived and the two of them set out to chop a platform from the ice. They anchored their tent liner to it and then Peter led an easy pitch, fixing rope for the morning. The ridge sank into shadow as he rappelled back down to the new campsite.
The new sleeping arrangement was cramped, but far superior to the hammocks. The climbers were able to cook and sleep. The new situation made them once again believe that their climb was possible. This time their belief seemed less a tactic and more of a bona fide discovery.
The ground ahead looked very difficult. Peter and Joe agreed that each climber would lead just two pitches in succession—not four, as they’d done lower on the route. Peter led his second pitch the next morning. It was much more difficult than the one he’d led the night before. He felt his fatigue again and his vulnerability, how susceptible he was to suffering. His fingers grew cold as he climbed an ice bulge. He was afraid that he’d damage them further if he stopped to put on crampons. He moved left onto rock and then climbed a narrow funnel of ice. He hammered in ice pegs and clipped slings to them, stepping in the slings to gain height.
This brought him to the foot of an overhang, a six-foot ceiling strangely disorienting as he leaned back to study it. He crawled across a narrow ledge that took him around a corner and onto the mountain’s North Face, a near-vertical field of iced-over rock, barely touched by the sun. He had gazed upon this face from the glacier—even at that great distance it had filled him with dread. He’d never thought to arrive here, and for a moment he swam in a fear that seemed rooted in a sense that he had planned none of this, that some false, unloving guardian had imposed it upon him. He looked down into th
e void and then up to a looming 200-foot corner—vertical, slick with ice, impossible.
He retreated back around the corner to the ledge beneath the overhang. He rested for a moment and then he set off up a short crack. He hoped to climb the roof by direct aid—hammering pitons into the crack and clipping slings to them and using the slings for steps—but none of his pitons fit the crack. He wrapped his fingers around an edge and leaned back on his arms, pressing his feet into the wall. Laybacks are difficult at sea level, and this one was absurdly strenuous; he was climbing at altitude, encumbered by his gear and wind suit. He was losing strength too quickly. He inserted a fist into the crack and twisted his wrist just so. This allowed him to hang on the arm and he rested like that. He waited just long enough for a whisper of strength to return and then he finished in a rush, up and over. He grabbed at a slab of rock that moved; he knew it would take him with it and scoop up Joe further down, but his feet found decent holds and he stood in them, his chest heaving. He fended off the urge to throw up. He hammered in a piton and fixed the rope to it and called to Joe.
Joe climbed the fixed rope and took the lead now on difficult mixed ground that reminded him of winter routes in Scotland. He brought Peter up and then set off again and moved left, this time out onto the North Face. He followed a steep tongue of ice until it disappeared. He would have to climb on rock again. The rock was too steep to manage in crampons. He buried his pick in the last of the ice and then ever so carefully stood on the head of his axe. He crouched to take off his crampons and stood upright again to step across onto the rock—every movement precise, the climber aware and yet not aware of what would happen if the movement dislodged the axe—the brief chaos and the long near-silent drop, punctuated by spinning blows and lights to end in quiet.
