by Clint Willis
The sun rose as they approached the crest of the ridge. Hillary and Tenzing had spent the night here some thirty-two years ago; the next day, they’d knocked the bastard off. That was Hillary’s phrase; it was a ridiculous one, but perhaps only in retrospect. Chris could make out the Northeast Ridge and the pinnacles. A British expedition was on the ridge now, hoping to do what Pete and Joe had failed to do three years before; perhaps they’d find the bodies.
The Southeast Ridge was steeper than Chris had expected to find it. The climbers carried on for what seemed a long time. The climbing wasn’t technically difficult, but the going was extremely hard. Chris was pleased when the South Summit came into view. Dougal and Doug had made their bivouac here, just down from the summit ten years ago. Chris peered down at the gully those two had followed up, and then down the higher reaches of the Southwest Face. He had never seen the face from above and its scale shocked him. He felt vaguely pleased at what he and his companions had achieved.
HE WAS SURPRISED to be here. He’d left Peter and Joe on the Northeast Ridge three years before and he’d thought himself finished with Everest. He’d gone home and once again he had promised Wendy and his two young sons that he would not return to the mountain.
He’d tried to keep his promise. He’d done expeditions to smaller mountains, including a trip with Al Rouse the previous year; with Peter and Joe both gone they had managed to patch up their friendship—that was a comfort, though Al had seemed troubled; he was still so young, his ambition almost frantic.
Chris had even turned down the first invitation to join this expedition. Arne Ness, a wealthy businessman from Norway, hoped to put the first Norwegians on the summit of Everest via the first ascent route—the yak route, people called it now. The Southeast Ridge—the South Col route—was a far cry from the Southwest Face or the Northeast Ridge. Still, it was Everest. The Norwegians had renewed their invitation, and Chris had accepted.
The typical BBC viewer might assume that Chris Bonington—Great Britain’s best-known mountaineer—had climbed the world’s highest peak several times. The fact was he’d never been to the top himself, and at fifty there wasn’t much time; if he made the summit today, he’d be the oldest man ever to get up the peak. He was by no means sure he could do it, but he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t feel much danger. This was not like other times, though he was climbing this morning with an old friend.
Pertemba Sherpa, thirty-seven, had been with Chris on Everest in 1975. Pertemba also had broken a promise in order to come here. He’d told his wife he would not enter the Icefall again. He had agreed to come on this expedition on condition that he could manage the Sherpas from Base Camp—but he’d eventually broken down and asked to accompany Chris on his summit attempt. Chris was delighted; it was right that they should climb this mountain together.
There were two Norwegians and two more Sherpas in the summit party. The Sherpas’ loads included spare bottles of oxygen for Chris and for the Norwegians. One of the Norwegians pointed out now that the party was low on oxygen; they might run out during the descent. Chris didn’t care; he found that the summit mattered enormously to him. Pertemba was likewise very determined.
The six climbers carried on up the Southeast Ridge. The climbing was very exposed but the slope was gentle until they came to the Hillary Step. Chris stood looking up at it. Doug Scott had taken a marvelous shot of Dougal leading the step when they’d come up from the Southwest Face and across to this ridge in 1975. A Norwegian—Bjørn Myrer-Lund—led up the step now, moving first in deep snow and then finding rock to his left. The Norwegian reached the top and fixed a rope for the others.
Chris came last. He was very tired again. He didn’t think the rope would be enough to get him up the step; for a moment he felt an almost childlike disappointment.
Doug appeared. The big man actually floated. It was disconcerting to see the big frame and the familiar searching eyes. The apparition regarded Chris with skepticism and a wary admiration. It was the look of a younger but in some ways wiser brother. The vision had a voice; it spoke to Chris in quiet, reassuring tones.
Chris found himself at the top of the Hillary Step. He was alone. Doug was gone. The other climbers had gone around a corner to the summit. He walked in their tracks. This was ground known to Doug and Dougal and Peter and almost certainly to Mick. It was odd that Doug had been the one to show up today; it seemed like a job for one of the dead.
Chris was aware of the dead—all of them. He had never ceased to be shocked by the ruthless nature of experience—how much was difficult and surprising, how much was unknowable. He had wondered at times whether death might simply deliver a person to a new set of difficulties.
The Norwegians and the Sherpas were waiting for him on the summit. He could not bear their congratulations, their evident good will. He looked at Pertemba and then away from him and across to Tibet, and then east to Kangchenjunga. The view across vast distances to other mountaintops implied the existence of an entirely different planet beneath the clouds, a world of cities and jungles unlike the world he had taught himself to imagine.
He didn’t know what to make of it, this wild and empty view. He turned his head and looked down at the top of Nuptse. He’d stood on that summit looking up at this one as if from the opposite side of a bridge; that was twenty-four years ago. The connection between that young self and the self who stood here on the summit of Everest disrupted all notions of time or of meaning.
He had wished for something like this. He had wanted to be the man he had become. His youthful self had somehow invented this moment, had invented him. He was the boy’s creation. He sometimes wondered if only when a moment passed did it take on a shape that you could believe or love—whether you had to have the story to have the life. He was fading, ephemeral. They were permanent, the dead; they had gone into the story.
He had two living sons at home. He loved their sweetness, but it sharpened his grief for what was lost to him and to the others. He understood something of the nature of death: how it filled and refilled the well of loss, an endless trickle and flow of unlived time. And yet time itself flowed from and into death, a sunlit river that emerged from and ended in darkness. Hamish and Don were old now, but even they were young in his recollection.
This was not nostalgia. He had come to fear the past and its power to find him out. And yet he returned to these places as if to seek its notice, as if he meant to show himself to his past, to live the moments he had escaped or bungled or forgotten. He meant for this place to burn off his shame and his sorrow or to burn them into him, to punish him for the sin of his joy, which even now filled him with desire for more of this.
He thought of the dead again, the stories they had become. His strength left him and he slumped beneath the weight of his dear ones’ absence. His hands touched the earth for balance and the weight lifted. He crouched sobbing in the snow as if in prayer.
His thoughts came clearly to him. He had undertaken much for reasons he could not remember or credit now and also because he had wished to understand. He wished himself emptied of such desires—relieved of his wish to know more than he did. He renounced his need for explanations. He clung only to his joy and to his grief; they were the same and he could not renounce them—he could not.
And for a moment those too were lifted from him: he knew only the snow and sky and all that lay beneath.
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———. The Shining Mountain: Two Men on Changabang’s West Wall. E. P. Dutton, 1982.
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Bonington, Chris. I Chose to Climb. Victor Gollancz, 1966.
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———. Quest for Adventure. Hodder and Stoughton, 1981.
———. Kongur: China’s Elusive Summit. Hodder and Stoughton, 1982.
———. The Everest Years: A Climber’s Life. Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.
———. Chris Bonington: Mountaineer. Diadem Books, 1989.
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———. Tibet’s Secret Mountain: The Triumph of Sepu Kangri. Widenfeld & Nicolson, 1999.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I OWE THANKS to the climbers and writers, living and dead, whose lives and work have enriched and inspired my own. They include the principal characters in this book, as well as the writers whose work is included in the bibliography.
I am grateful to the many people in Great Britain who offered me hospitality as well as insight and information; many of them also read and commented on versions of the manuscript. Al Alvarez took me swimming in Hampstead Heath, cooked me an excellent breakfast, and told me a fantastic joke about tomatoes as well as great stories about the postwar British climbing scene. Al also put me in touch with Jim Curran (see below) at an early stage of my research. Chris Bonington devoted two mornings of his busy life to answering my questions with great care; he also took me climbing one afternoon (he led, of course) and tried to help me find other climbing partners while I was in Great Britain. Joe Brown offered me a chair by the stove on a rainy Welsh afternoon and patiently fielded my questions. Joe provided important insight into his relationship with Don Whillans, as well as the course of expedition climbing during the past half-century. Charlie Clarke shared his memories of Peter Boardman, Mick Burke, Joe Tasker and others over an unforgettable dinner in London. Ruth Seifert delighted, amused and instructed me. I also enjoyed meeting Millie Dickson, the small child who wandered into the Clarkes’ home from the house next door, drawn by Ruth’s goodheartedness. Jim Curran put me up for two nights in a room where many a climbing great (and at least one duffer) has slept off a well-earned hangover. Jim interrupted last-minute preparations for an important showing of his art to ply me with food and drink as well as thoughtful and at times hilarious commentary on the history and nature of British climbing and climbers. He showed me (at my insistence) his paintings (I saw no etchings), gave me copies of his books and films, and introduced me to his delightful friends, who also fed me and who laughed at my jokes. Doug Scott was absurdly patient with me. He let me follow him around for three days (!), and delivered bracing insights about mountaineering, mountain people, spirituality and Bob Dylan. Doug also shared his fond memories and impressions of Dougal Haston, Don Whillans and others in their circle and put me in touch wi
th friends who provided further help. Joe Tasker’s family—especially his sister Mary McCourt and his brothers Paul Tasker and John Tasker—gave me shelter and other assistance and shared impressions of their beloved brother. I believe I learned much about Joe’s exceptional gifts and spirit through meeting Mary, Paul and John as well as several of Joe’s other siblings (Francis, Teresa and Margaret) and his parents, Tom and Betty. Paul and Mary also provided copies of official expedition reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, letters, photographs and other materials related to Joe’s climbs and other achievements. They introduced me to Joe’s fellow seminarian Monseigneur Ricardo Morgan, who shared memories of Joe’s time at seminary. Finally, Mary took me to meet Joe’s first climbing mentor, Father Tony Barker; Father Barker spent a morning recalling with great vividness Joe’s early experiences in school and among mountains. Martin Wragg gave me perfectly good driving directions to his home in the Peak District (it’s not his fault I got lost), explained the bandage on his head (rockfall in Canada), regaled me with memories of his early and somewhat hair-raising adventures with Peter Boardman in the Alps and the Hindu Kush, and offered an astute and loving analysis of Peter’s character.
Dave Bathgate told me stories about the 1975 Everest Southwest Face Expedition. Paul (Tut) Braithwaite shared memories of the Alps as well as Everest, the Ogre and K2. He also offered insight into the lives of various climbers. Martin Boysen shared his recollections of the young Chris Bonington as well as Mick Burke, Doug Scott and others, and recalled his experiences on Annapurna, Changabang and Everest. Maria Coffey provided inspiration and insights through her own writing and offered thoughtful and revealing answers to my questions about Joe Tasker’s habits and frame of mind during the final years and months of his life. John Harlin III took most of a morning off from writing his own book to share his memories of his father and discuss with great openness and sensitivity the man’s life, character and reputation. Hamish MacInnes offered his recollections of climbing with Chris Bonington and others in Scotland, the Alps, the Himalayas and elsewhere. Hilary (Boardman) Rhodes spoke to me at length and shared passages of her own writing with me, providing a moving and illuminating portrait of her friendship and marriage with the late Peter Boardman. Our conversation gave me essential perspective on the evolution of Peter’s life and hopes. Hilary also supplied information about Peter’s family background, with generous help from Peter’s brother John Boardman. Mike Thompson told me funny and illuminating stories about climbers, including details about Don Whillans’s later years.
