Conquistadors of the Useless

by Roberts, David, Terray, Lionel, Sutton, Geoffrey

  At last they came to a miserable platform where there was sufficient cover to bivouac. That night was extremely trying. Half the party had now bivouacked twice already, and all of them were worn out from the enormous exertions of the climbing. Above all they were in the grip of anxiety. The snow fell all night in huge flakes, and it was a very real question whether they could hope to escape from the face alive in such conditions.

  The last day was highly dramatic. Although the actual ground becomes less difficult at this point, it was in such terrible condition that Heckmair peeled off several times. His last fall in particular was very nearly fatal, as he sprained his ankle and spiked one of Vörg’s hands with his crampons. The danger of avalanches increased the difficulties. Every so often they would sweep the entire gully, and the party was nearly carried away twice despite the fact that they had worked out the frequency of the falls and were protecting themselves with numerous pitons. At last the gully opened on to the summit slopes, the angle gave back, and they came to the final ridge. Thanks to the technique and bravery of four men the greatest problem in the Alps had been solved.

  After our successes of 1946, Lachenal and I became aware of our possibilities. We felt morally and technically ready to repeat the exploit of the Austrians and Germans on the Eigerwand, and this now became a definite part of our programme for the following season. That November, however, all our projects were endangered owing to a trivial accident. I cut my right hand very deeply on a broken drinking-glass, slicing the tendons of my index finger clean through, and as a result of subsequent infection I nearly lost the use of the hand altogether. After a month of intensive treatment in hospital the finger was still practically useless, and my ability to grip was seriously diminished. It might have been worse: I could still continue being a guide, but it seemed most unlikely that I would ever again be able to do the hardest rock climbs since, as can be imagined, they call for great strength in the fingers. Even if some years of patient adaptation should make such climbs possible for me again eventually, they seemed out of the question for the following season. I therefore decided to make the best of it, gave up all my plans, and settled down to build myself a chalet.

  After several years of somewhat chilly relations between my father and myself, due partly to the incompatibility of our characters and partly to the difference in age, we had now once again become firm friends. Despite his strict principles and obstinate ideas I had learned to recognise the man of real kindness behind the austere façade. For his part, having confidently expected me to go to the bad, he was most relieved to see me earning my living in a decent and honourable way. True, my profession was not what he would have chosen for me himself; but my brilliant success in it poured balm on his soul. My passion for climbing was as incomprehensible to him as ever, but the austerity of my way of life and the pains I had been to in order to follow it seemed to him worthy of respect and even of encouragement.

  In the course of the last few years he had frequently offered to help me according to his means, but my excessive pride had always made me reject his proposals. Now, realising how important it was to have a home of my own, and being quite unable to provide one from my own resources, I decided to swallow my pride and rely on his generosity. With his aid I was able to take advantage of an unusual opportunity to acquire a site in full view of Mont Blanc at a very low price, and also a complete chalet that some rich owners were about to have demolished. By carefully numbering every plank as it was taken down so that it could be re-erected on my own land I made sure of a roomy and comfortable home. Naturally I had to do most of the work myself, but the gaps between my professional seasons were sufficiently long to make this possible, and many of my friends offered a helping hand.

  I gave myself up to this labour so completely, and found it so all-absorbing, that I became quite resigned to living without ‘grand alpinisme’. A sudden access of respectability even made me feel that it was time I began to settle down. Lachenal, however, was far from any such thoughts. Aware of his capacities and bubbling over with vitality, he was dying to get at the Eiger. He was quite prepared to try leading the whole climb, and reckoned that I would be an acceptable second even with a disabled hand. He therefore began to work on me, finding a valuable ally in the shape of my wife, who was rather sad to see me giving up all my mountain ambitions and settling into the humdrum life of an ordinary guide at the age of twenty-five. She hoped that a success on the Eiger, which she never for one moment doubted, would give me back my enthusiasm. Never a day went by without either Lachenal or Marianne – if not both together – getting at me to start training so as to be ready when the moment came. They even went so far as to place a photograph of the celebrated face opposite my bed.

  In spite of remedial therapy my hand was still very weak, and my forefinger very sensitive to cold, by the time May came round. Far from feeling like a conquering hero, I toiled all the harder at the construction of my chalet. The weather got better and better, until conditions were just right for the big ice climbs. If I paused for a moment from my hard and tedious labours, I could not help but see the Aiguilles and hear their siren voices calling down to me. Bit by bit I succumbed to nostalgia, and by the time Lachenal came along at the end of the month and suggested doing the third ascent of the Nant Blanc face of the Aiguille Verte I could hold out no longer. To make up for this weakness I made him promise a day’s work to compensate for the one I was losing, and refused to set out until I had finished my afternoon’s labouring.

  After a hurried supper and a short bicycle ride, we left the village of Tines at 7.30 p.m. An approach march of somewhat over three hours up steep, rhododendron-covered slopes brought us to a good bivouac site close to the face. Less than five hours later we had to be off. Conditions were ideal from the very beginning. The initial couloir, which is one of the steepest in the Alps, was covered in hard snow, making it possible to crampon up quickly and safely. Louis was climbing like an unleashed greyhound as usual, and we literally rushed upwards without taking any safety precautions. After we had done about a quarter of the face a short pitch of iced-over rock slowed us down for a moment or two, but soon afterwards we came to a snow rib which enabled us to resume our mad career. It was now certain that we would be off the difficult part of the face before the sun softened the snow.

  It was our first climb that year. I was in good physical shape thanks to skiing all winter and to the heavy work I had been putting in all spring, but naturally lack of acclimatisation to the altitude made it impossible to sustain efforts as easily as in mid-season. After a virtually sleepless night and two hours of climbing at racing speed my limbs began to feel like lead. There seemed no point any longer in climbing as though we were making a bid for freedom, and I suggested relenting a little. Despite the fact that it was his first climb too Lachenal remained insensible to fatigue, almost as though he were no longer made of mortal flesh and blood but had entered into a state of grace in which miracles might occur. Far from slowing down he accelerated his pace, cursing me into the bargain for my weakness. I was goaded by his will like a driven beast, and somehow or other managed to keep up with him. In this way we reached the easy slopes of the summital cone in just over four hours, where a curious phenomenon took place.

  Now that the nervous tension was all over, the effects of altitude struck down our untrained bodies like a bolt of lightning. I was invaded by an enormous weariness, and Lachenal’s inhuman vitality went out like a match in the wind. He was in an even worse state than myself, and could hardly hold his head up. We collapsed in the snow, weak as puppies, every twenty steps. This last bit of the climb took us three times as long as normal, but in spite of that we finished the whole ascent in the altogether exceptional time of five-and-a-half hours, a figure which gives some idea of our mastery as a team in those days.

  This brilliant success on the Nant Blanc reanimated my enthusiasm and gave me back the confidence to attempt a little rock climbing. Although the rocky
stretches on the climb had been very short, I had noticed that my hand bothered me much less than I had expected. Work started again at the Ecole Nationale in June, and I was detailed to instruct the young candidates for the Guide’s Diploma. The weather was constantly fine, and we did some classic ascent almost every day. Thus I was able to get the strength back into my hand gradually, while coming into good all-round form.

  Vibram soles were still unobtainable in France, so we asked our friend the Italian guide Toni Gobbi to get us some. With his usual kindness he agreed at once, and after an exchange of letters a smugglers’ rendezvous was arranged on the Col du Midi for a certain Sunday in June.

  To plod all the way up the Vallée Blanche, or even up the shorter but equally uninteresting Glacier Rond, seemed a boring ordeal. In order to combine business with pleasure we decided to get to our assignation by the elegant and difficult north rib of the Aiguille du Midi, a somewhat more devious but also more interesting method of approach. The upper terminus of the old Téléphérique des Glaciers served us as quarters for the night. When the alarm went off it was still dark outside. Ominous clouds clung to the flanks of the mountains, and it was drizzling softly: there could be no question of attacking in such conditions, so we quickly returned to our bunks. At dawn patches of sky could be seen here and there, though it was very far from being good weather. But the rain had stopped, and that was all we needed. If we were to have any chance of keeping our appointment we should have to move very fast indeed. We were at the foot of the climb in half an hour. Five hours later, climbing as though pursued by the foul fiend, we stood on the summit, despite the fact that we had spent half an hour eating two-thirds of the way up!

  As one climb succeeded another I began to get back my strength and my confidence; but, unfortunately, the ascending curve was broken towards the end of the month by a curious incident. While climbing the west face of the Peigne, a route that I had pioneered, the sling on which all my pegs and karabiners were hung came undone just as I was getting to the crux, and the whole lot shot into space. To improve matters, the previous party had taken out most of the pegs which were normally left in place.

  I decided to carry on in spite of all these setbacks, but the weakness of my right hand turned out to be terribly embarrassing on such a difficult and exposed pitch. I successfully managed the traverse across to the final crack nevertheless. At this point I was clinging on, just in balance on tiny toe-holds, above a yawning drop. I could neither go on nor get back. My right hand lacked the strength to grip the hold requisite to the next move, and as my left hand was rapidly tiring I felt my body beginning to tremble. Since I was about to fall in any case I decided to risk everything on the throw of the dice, and with a convulsive jerk upwards succeeded in getting a better hold for my left hand and a place to jam my left foot in the crack. After a moment’s rest I was then able to finish the pitch properly.

  This occurrence could hardly help but affect my morale, and I wondered how on earth I had ever been able to envisage calmly committing myself to the most redoubtable face in the Alps. Once the Guide’s Diploma course was over I decided that the only thing was to take the bull by the horns and try a really big climb, thus proving whether or not I was fit for the Eiger. Lachenal had work to do, but my friend the guide Jo Marillac agreed to go with me to try the south ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey which, with its four thousand feet of climbing and pitches which were then considered grade VI, seemed the ideal test piece.

  In order to train ourselves for a training climb in itself so renowned, we decided to attempt the first direct ascent of the big step in the south-west ridge of the Pèlerins, known as the Grutter ridge. With its reputedly impossible overhang this short climb seemed likely to be exceptionally difficult, and our expectations were in no way disappointed. Free climbing over the overhang proved to be a real problem, and so did several other pitches. The fact that I managed to lead them all despite my weak hand gave me back some of the confidence I needed.

  The south ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey is one of the most beautiful rock climbs in the whole of the Alps, if not the most beautiful of all. Only a great author could worthily evoke the power of the titanic pillars which buttress it, the elegance of its pinnacles, the warm colour of its granite; and at first view even the most hardened climber cannot help feeling a little intimidated.

  Long and sustained though it may be, the south ridge is not quite a top-ranking climb from a technical point of view. Urged on by dubious weather, Marillac and I did the whole thing in nine hours despite a serious mistake in route finding. Since then it has even been done in under seven by certain fabulously fast parties. I have repeated it five times as a professional guide, and can claim to know it fairly well. Most of my clients were climbers of quite modest ability, yet none of them found it totally beyond his own capabilities at any point, which would hardly have been the case if the pitches were genuine VI.

  Although the test did not, then, turn out to be particularly searching, the ease with which I had performed gave me back sufficient confidence to agree to follow Lachenal on the Eiger. My friend’s leave was drawing near. Properly speaking I should have been instructing a course of aspirants guides at this time, but the director of the Ecole Nationale, René Beckert, very sportingly gave me leave of absence. I had unluckily sprained my ankle on the descent of the Aiguille Noire, and it was taking rather a long time to clear up. I was still limping, and should really have rested it for a few days; but I could hardly rest up during the first part of the course and then ask special permission to go off to the Eiger during the second. This would have been to risk hearing repeated the words of the captain who was so put out at my return from the north face of the Dru:

  ‘Either one is ill or one isn’t.’

  His character was too vulgar to be capable of understanding that some men can transcend any circumstances in order to accomplish what is in their hearts. And so I continued to work in spite of the pain, limping along at the tail of the party. Heaven was on my side, however: the weather grew worse and we were reduced to climbing on little crags along the side of the valley. In these circumstances the ankle soon began to improve.

  For his part, Lachenal had made the most of the fine weather at the beginning of the season, piling up big climbs and speed records, and even doing the fourth ascent of the Croz buttress on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses. He was in stupefying form, literally overflowing with life and high spirits. I can still see him arriving at huts with his feline stride, his thin, handsome face lit up by eyes sparkling with gaiety and intelligence. Joking with one, slanging another, constantly coming out with unexpected sallies and backchat, he would warm up the atmosphere in a moment with his torrential vitality.

  The omens, then, seemed good for our attempt on the Eiger, and only the continuously bad weather put everything in doubt. The day before we were due to leave things began to look brighter, however. There was new snow high up, but lower down the mountains looked to be in good condition. There was nothing for it but to go.

  Mountaineering is not always thought of as a sport: it seems an arguable point. However that may be, it differs from other sports in that there is in principle no contest for glory among men, only between man and the forces of nature, or man and his own weakness. With a few rare exceptions the climber has no renown to hope for, and no audience to encourage him apart from his companion on the rope. Alone among the silence and solitude of the mountains he fights for the joy of overcoming his chosen obstacle by his own unaided powers. In its simple, original form no other sport is so disinterested, so removed from human considerations, and it is precisely in this kind of purity that much of its grandeur and attraction lie.

  But mountaineers are far from being angels, even if they do frequent a world of light and beauty. They remain men whose hearts are soiled by the world from which they came and to which they must presently return. Few of them indeed are able to look fame in the fac
e and pass by, once they have come close. There is no getting away from the fact that there has always been competition between leading climbers, and the rivalry for certain summits and faces, even for their second or third ascents, has often been as feverish as anything known in the stadium. There have been many cases of grown-up men calling each other names and even coming to blows at the foot of a climb. Others have gone farther still, seeking to eliminate their rivals at any cost, giving them inaccurate information, stealing or hiding their equipment, or actually cutting their rope.

  Lachenal and I had always found this sort of thing totally beneath contempt, and it has never failed to astonish me how men who have chosen a sport for its intrinsic grandeur could reveal such pettiness. I think I can honestly say that we were very little moved by the spirit of competition. For example we did comparatively few first ascents, though opportunities were certainly not lacking at that time. The repetition of the really great Alpine routes seemed to us much more interesting than discovering obscure little climbs in remote corners. Like ugly girls, many of the ridges and faces which preserved their virginity until comparatively recently did so more from lack of attraction than from intrinsic difficulty. As for the minute facets and riblets on which some climbers try to build a reputation today, they will never have more than the ephemeral interest given to them by a Press ignorant of mountain values – but perhaps that is all such climbers require.