Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  As Tony and Rick make our first moves on the mountain, the Old Fart Collective sets off on the first day’s trek towards ABC. It snowed at Base the night before, the moon a sickly yellow through the swirl. The yaks look even more mournful than usual this morning as they slump like vast sheep, white in the snow. The yakkers roll balls of tsampa in their tents and light the yak-dung fires as we stumble through the day’s first brew.

  We finally leave mid-afternoon, after the usual yakkers’ pantomime. After Sandy’s illness, we’re all resolved to go very slowly. It seems to be not so much altitude gain as effort expended that brings on mountain sickness. So our initial steep climb up on to the moraine bank – some 200 feet – takes nearly 30 minutes, with several stops.

  An enjoyable day’s walk into the wilderness. Rubble, sand and ice. Wind-silence, the click of ski-poles, yak-bells and the croaking of a chough. After an hour and a half we make a left turn and plod step by step up the slope that takes us into the East Rongbuk glacier that leads to Everest. It’s easy to see how the 1921 exploratory expedition missed this turn-off, for it looks most unpromising. They ended up having to go 100 miles round the way into the next valley, the Karta valley, before climbing up to roughly our ABC site and then realizing the way they should have come. Each expedition builds on the experience of the last, just as we hope to learn from Bonington’s expedition here, and those who come after us will learn from us. We climb, at times literally, on each other’s shoulders, like those Chinese acrobats in Peking.

  We pass the remains of rock-enclosures which the pre-war trips used to shelter their Camp 1. We stand and consider them in silence, thinking of those who came this way before us. Everest is as much a myth as a mountain, this place is full of ghosts. This stream, this slowly changing view, these very stones under my feet – these are the same our predecessors knew … Altitude and silence making me light-headed, dreamily contented through the hours of painful effort.

  At length we cross the frozen lake in the light of the setting sun, pitch our tents and start brewing up. Suddenly it’s dark and the temperature plummets towards – 20°C. Andy Nisbet and I crawl into our bags and organize our evening meal. Good to be with Andy; with our shared history of altitude problems we’re both concerned at doing everything just right on the way up; we monitor each other, help each other out when one of us suddenly isn’t up to it. I’ll never climb at anything near his standard, but on this trek we’re equals, partners.

  Sweet-and-sour pork and instant potato, tea, chocolate and coffee. We’re feeling more substantial now, though both slightly lightheaded and headachy. Before settling down in the hope of sleep, I look outside. Moonlight not silver but white; yak-bells, clatter of their hooves, laughter from the yakkers’ tent; the air very cold and absolutely still, sweet with smoke; ridges soar in the moonlight on either side, ice-towers glimmer up ahead where we’re going tomorrow. This is the essence of adventure for me, camping somewhere new on the way from somewhere to somewhere else, the past distant and the future unknown.

  We all had a poor night, but Bob’s coughing and chest pains were bad enough next morning for him to wait for Urs to catch up from Base Camp. Possibly bronchitis, was the verdict, but not oedema. Bob decided to push on.

  It was a long and very demanding day of endless ups and downs on glacier moraine, of hurried traverses through stonefall-prone areas, of chivvying recalcitrant yaks. We seemed to have been going for hours when we met the Boy Racers on their way down. They seemed sickeningly fresh. Only Dave was finally showing the strain, though he’d coped extraordinarily well. They gave us an update on their doings: they had accomplished less than we’d hoped for, but quite a lot just the same. That was to be the pattern throughout, we always seemed to fall short of our aims – typical of altitude climbing. Jon cheerfully told us the worst of the day lay ahead. ‘Purgatory, mate, bleedin’ purgatory.’ In our innocence we thought he was just winding us up …

  Purgatory it is. I must have done something terrible in a past life to merit this punishment. Hour after hour anting our way along a medial moraine bank that ran like a disintegrating highway between ranks of surreal ice-towers, into the teeth of a freezing wind and swirling snow. These ice-pinnacles, fins of ice some 200 feet high, are unique to this part of the Himalayas. Allen with his geography degree explains their formation is due to the combination of intense sunlight and very dry air, which causes the ice to ‘sublimate’, i.e. pass straight from solid to vapour. We take pictures, another water-break and stagger on.

  We’re grim and silent, strung out along the moraine. Chris has the joyless Joy Division on his Walkman, Allen tries in vain to find fresh impetus from ZZ Top’s driving rock. I retreat into a world of vague memories and fantasies, force myself to remember and recite the whole of that damned Men On Ice which got me into this mess in the first place. Don’t look up, don’t wonder how much longer this is going to go on. This present step is bearable. And the next. And the next … Don’t force. Always keep something in reserve …

  But we were all running on empty by the time the yakkers finally halted at an inhospitable and exposed spot in the gusting snow. Andy had somehow got our tent up, so we started melting ice and making brews for everyone. My only comfort was that the others looked as bad as I felt, all staggering about like zombies trying to locate the barrels of gear we needed for the night. Liz suddenly started crying in sheer exhaustion and frustration, angry at her weakness. Mal sat on a rock with gloved hands under armpits, vomiting while he went through the agonizing hot-aches as circulation returned. Sarah was very pale and silent, feeling worse than she’d ever felt and missing Nick after meeting him earlier in the day. She resolved to go back down the next day and cheered up a little. Bob felt not so much exhausted as downright ill, was coughing feebly and wondering if he too would have to go down. Only Urs and Allen had any energy left in them, and gave it generously like the good team-members they were.

  Hard times in the freezing half-light, trying to wrestle shelter, warmth, and sustenance from our grim surroundings. Finally into our sleeping bags, change socks and gloves. Another brew boils, we drop our food-pouches into the billy and cook by the light of our head-torches. Andy is suffering after his earlier efforts and I’m largely in charge. We have a final brew with aspirin and a sleeping pill. I insist on making another. We wake from fitful sleep and brew up again; I glance out and see two other tents glowing by stove-light. Insomniac Brewers Incorporated …

  Bob Had a dreadful night with coughing and a headache and about 4.0 am I resolved to go down. Regrettably I got some broken sleep after that, felt good enough to start off, albeit very slowly. This was a bad mistake, and the final moraine slopes to ABC were a torture – I’d got violent chest pains and a severe headache and just collapsed into a tearful heap when Urs came to get me. I was rustled off to a tent immediately, vomited several times and then managed to doze for a while. Urs is very reassuring, but indicates that I might have to go down tomorrow. If I hadn’t been such a damn fool I’d have gone down this morning anyway.

  Mal … passed Bob Barton who was lying down on the moraine, which seemed strange but he said he was okay (mega mistruth!). Turned a slight corner and there facing me was the NE Ridge in entirety. Big – a very inadequate word. Fucking enormous. Emotionally I was buzzing. One of the few mountains that have affected me that way. Goose pimples or the shivers down the back of my legs. Pete and Joe up there somewhere. The Ridge is too big for just a couple of people. Mammoth.

  Tears in my eyes, yeah sure, but who or what for? Apprehension even fear for the people I’ve brought across the world to do this thing.

  We all finally straggle into ABC in various stages of elation and distress. Bob takes nearly an hour to cover the last 200 yards. ‘Summit speed,’ Allen thinks. Bob’s face is swollen, his vision blurry and his lips blue – as they were to remain for the next six weeks. In the Mess Tent Julie is doling out soup. An hour’s rest till we summon the energy to put up our tents. Kurt and Urs generously
go round helping build tent platforms amid the jagged, sloping rubble. I’m in a daze, working on automatic, but my monitor tells me I am in better shape than on arriving at BC.

  As I sink nose-down into broken sleep I think of ‘Our’ Ridge, seen in entirety today for the first time. It’s an 8,000-foot-high wave of rock and ice, soaring out of the flat calm of the Raphu La. A wave nearly three miles long. This mountain just gets bigger and bigger. Looking at it was a blow to the pit of my stomach. But immense satisfaction at being here. And some optimism – the general opinion is the Ridge is monstrous but climbable, given the right conditions.

  And then I look inside myself, and at my friends, and our ambitions seem laughable. Here we are, crawling to ABC on the last of our strength, at a mere 6,400 metres, and we seriously think –!

  Going Up

  5TH – 21ST APRIL

  ‘Totally shafted but grinning from ear to ear.’

  ABC was grim. Nobody liked it. It had neither the excitement of being on the hill nor the comfort and comparative ease of Base Camp living. Our tents were much closer together there, but since we were usually knackered they could as well have been 100 yards apart.

  All the lads’ diaries list the same discomforts. 6,400 metres is high for a base one might use for ten days at a time, too high to fully acclimatize to, too high for recovery. So we slept badly due to the lack of oxygen, all suffering those endless uncomfortable insomniac nights that drain energy and commitment. The usual lethargy, incipient headaches, nausea. Pronounced loss of appetite too, which wasn’t helped by our cooking arrangements. The petrol stoves, bad enough at Base, were a disaster at ABC. There always seemed to be someone crouched cursing over a dismantled stove. The small gas stoves made cooking and brewing slow and awkward. In retrospect, we needed a full-time cook at ABC; that would have made life there much less wearing, and kept climbers’ energies for more important work. No one wants to get up first thing in the morning, hack out a barrel of ice and start melting it; no one wants to set up breakfast or any other meal for another eight – it takes a serious amount of energy and good-will, both of which are in short supply at altitude. The result was invariably late morning starts, often by people who hadn’t had enough to drink, and patchy evening meals. All too often we’d huddle shivering in the Mess Tent, finding that a kettle of lukewarm water didn’t go far among eight, each individually trying to hack open a tin of fish or corned beef that was permafrost rigid in the middle and mushy at the edges where we’d tried to defrost it over a flame. All too often plates and pans and mugs went unwashed – for who could spare precious hot water, and who would make the effort? Liz and Sarah were both to do more than their share of ABC work, making their contribution to the Expedition, but when they weren’t there or were exhausted from assisting in load-carrying, conditions went downhill.

  One element entirely out of our control at ABC was the extreme cold. Minus 20°C to – 30°C most nights, often freezing and blustery by day. At night our breath would condense on the inside of the tents then turn to ice, which would shower down like snow when the wind shook the fabric or one brushed against it – ice which would then melt and make sleeping bags and clothing damp. Most of us had a stove for insomniac and morning brews, making us both more self-sufficient and more separate. My most vivid memories of ABC are of my numb hand groping out of my bag in the dark to fill a billy with ice, warming the lighter for a few minutes till it would work, then lying back watching the ice on my tent glitter by the stove’s blue light. Wondering what the hell I’m doing here, will I stay up another day or go down tomorrow? Is anyone else awake? For that matter, is there anyone else anywhere? And so one would wander down the solipsistic labyrinths of the oxygen-starved brain till the water finally boiled, then laboriously make the brew and drink, propped up on one elbow, staring into the mug and thinking of nothing at all.

  ABC was grim. We never liked it.

  But the adrenalin was flowing on 6th April, when after a rest-day we set off in force for the hill. Bob had had to go down, and Liz was worn out after working hard tidying up the Mess Tent the day before, but the remaining seven of us all put loads in our sacks, strapped on the crampons, picked up ski-poles, adjusted shades, smeared on barrier cream and set off for the Ridge.

  Andy Nisbet and I rope together. As slow acclimatizers, we’re carrying our loads – gas cylinders, a stove, hill-food bags – only to the foot of the Ridge. He asks me to lead, which I appreciate. It’s good to be given some responsibility. Today I’m raised, for the first time feeling myself to be actually on Everest. The early section sounds hollow in places, with many crevasses obscured by snow. Luckily they’re mostly only a few inches wide. Still, one could easily break an ankle or a leg here, so I go carefully, prodding with the ski-pole, scanning the snow ahead.

  I like this … crunching slowly across the glittering expanse. Everything’s yellow through glacier goggles, very high-contrast. Flat clouds steam over the North Col on my right, spindrift birls skyward from the North-East Ridge in front. Sudden gusts send the loose snow scurrying past our ankles. I look back at Andy, he nods slightly so I stop and wait till he comes up. We rest, leaning on our poles. It’s wonderful to feel so small yet fully in control, so relaxed yet so purposeful.

  We plod off again towards the next marker wand. Black specks in the distance. Another marker wand. I’m in no hurry to be done, this could go on forever. Only when we hit the final incline after an hour, a modest 15°, do we start to wobble and have to stop every few minutes. We finally crest the slope and see the ape-like figure of Danny standing in a forest of ski-poles, wands and loads. He grins broadly, openly exhilarated. The ‘novices’ show their emotions much more. Together we move the gear out of reach of any avalanche coming down the initial pyramid of the Ridge, make a stash and wand it so it can be found after snowfall. Then we sit on our packs, take out our water bottles and settle down to watch the action on the hill …

  Which was very slow, dreamlike, like a minimalist movie where at great length almost nothing happens. Mal had decided that we’d take up Bonington’s suggestion and fix ropes up the initial pyramid to the crest of the Ridge. That 1,800-foot snow and ice slope was not technically difficult for experienced climbers in good conditions, but Bonington had felt it to be avalanche prone, and his expedition had found the descent unpleasant, wearing and worrying in bad conditions. With our kind of heavyweight expedition we’d be going up and down there many times carrying loads; fixed ropes would make going up easier because one can pull with the arms as well as push with the legs, and make descents much more quick and secure. There had been some muted disagreement over whether fixed ropes were necessary, but that quickly disappeared once everyone had made an exhausted, bad-weather descent. In the end, they probably saved the lives of one or more of us.

  It was Allen Fyffe who crossed the bergschrund and led off the first 700 feet of the blue polypropelene rope, climbing slowly and methodically. He banged in a snow stake, secured the line and rested while Mal and Wattie came up the rope to his stance. Meanwhile Urs and the Pink Rabbit (‘Who is that masked rabbit?’ ‘This silver carrot will reveal my identity!’) led out the next bale of rope. They veered gradually to the right, by this time tiny specks on the huge face. The scale of the Ridge started to dawn on us as we realized this initial pyramid was merely an introduction. The Pink Rabbit led up an ice-bulge, where the slope steepened to some 70°, then crossed to a rock rib and found a belay there among the fractured blocks. Mal, Chris and Urs clipped on their jumars and laboured after him with their loads. At 6,800 metres, the rock rib was their high point for the day. They half-buried their loads and set off back down.

  (above) Jon Tinker, Pink Rabbit, Mal Duff at Base Camp

  (main picture) Liz Duff, coming on slowly below C2

  (above) Everest at dusk, N.E. Ridge on left

  (right) Mal Duff at ABC

  Jon Tinker leading towards Camp 1

  N.E. Ridge from moraine below ABC

  (above) C
amp 1, below crest of N.E. Ridge, 6850m

  (left) Terry Dailey on fixed ropes below C1

  The First Pinnacle, from C4, 7850m

  Danny Lewis, immaculate and tidy as always, below fixed ropes

  Rick Allen crossing the bergshrund

  Old Fart stepping out beneath ABC: Chris Watts, Andy Nisbet, Allen Fyffe, Liz Duff

  The Potala, Lhasa

  Pilgrim in lhasa

  ‘Pretty tiring for a first effort,’ Mal recorded. ‘Nice image of Fyffey enveloped in spindrift as we went back across the glacier, like one of Bonington’s pics and just what you would expect on Everest.’

  Meanwhile Andy and I were finding the way back to ABC long, and the last mild incline up to ABC was sheer hard work, as it would always be to knackered climbers returning from the hill. Finally we got up to do what we knew we had to – hack out a barrel of ice. Boom-boom headaches, irritation, absolute weakness. But with two brews the greyness departed, and we began melting more ice for the lads’ return.

  Half an hour later the Old Farts clambered wearily up the moraine bank. Mal looked particularly beat, while Urs and the Pink Rabbit were revoltingly cheeful. Then Jon and Rick turned up, having trekked from Base Camp in a day, eager for the fray. Lots of Boy Racer stress – ‘What have you done?’ ‘Why do we need fixed ropes?’ ‘When are we moving up to Camp 2?’ and so on. With Tony, Sandy and Nick due up the next day, I decided I’d head down the next morning, along with Urs and the Rabbit. Lack of tent space was the excuse I gave myself, but in truth I’d had enough for my first time up.