Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  Sandy 2.00 am. Watching the flame of this candle, trying to block out the rattling tent and wind. Drifting for a long time between the tumbling and ice-axe braking of this morning, the cold toes as we built the walls of the snow cave, Dominique, and wishing Tony and I would not argue. Hoping that Jon and Rick are OK, that there’s not too much spindrift blowing in their tiny cave. High-altitude mountaineering, it ain’t a simple way of life.

  Tony Genuinely homesick tonight – a big hug would work wonders just now, from the right person.

  The next day, Chris continued, he went back to look for his sack. The wind was still outrageous.

  Chris Determined to find my sack I wandered on to the glacier alone to below the face in the area of C2. I lay and scanned the face with Urs’ binoculars until I spotted a tiny dot of red lying on a ledge very high up. I then climbed up the face, carefully picking the easiest line since I did not have an axe. Balancing delicately on my front points and clawing with my bare hands on to stones embedded into the ice. Only slight damage to the sack, so I extracted my axe from it and climbed back down feeling I had achieved something despite the risk.

  Jon and Rick returned to ABC after carrying on up to C2. No further action on the hill. Nick and Sarah came up. That evening they all sat in the freezing Mess Tent and had a long discussion. The mountain had decisively put them in check; where did they move from here? They could stay put and conserve energy – but for how long? They could in most weathers still carry loads up the fixed ropes, but the route needed to be pushed out as well. In the end they decided the priority was to fix the Buttresses and establish a Camp 3. So Sandy and Tony would climb together again (each privately resolving to try to get on better with the other), go to CB’s and try to fix the second Buttress next day. Then Jon and Rick would come up behind and set up a Camp 3, somewhere … The wind had dropped as they left the Mess Tent that night to go their separate ways, tired but resolved and hopeful.

  Sandy Just been out squatting, cold, deep-dark sky, stars, some tumble brightly, moonshine on North flank of Everest. Glacier cracks as ice settles. Jon coughs. Me, feeling of being watched in this semi-eerie place. Mountain looms big, shall be up there tomorrow night with Tony! Wonder how Chris Bonington and the Norwegians are getting on on the Nepali side …

  Crawl back inside, a carousel goes round my head. Candle flame is straight, no turbulence, peaceful here tonight, only occasional sounds from the glacier and the rustling of my Gore-Tex-covered arm as I write. The pen, as it sounds a full stop.

  Who are we, what are we? A rasping cough from Tony’s tent …

  And that was as far as Chris’s story went, for he’d set off down to us at BC that morning. He could only add that Bob Barton had arrived at ABC in very poor condition, with an intense pain in his right shoulder to add to his blue lips, fogged vision and chest pains. He was feeling desperately weak and demoralized, and it was doubtful whether he should or could carry on. Mal grimaced, nodded. Poor Bob, he was having a bad expedition, but there were bound to be more falling by the wayside, that’s why we had brought ten lead climbers.

  In a way he was almost relieved. Everest had finally shown its teeth, as any great mountain must. The lads had obviously been shocked by the numbing ferocity of the wind. ‘I’m not worried, youth, totally expected. Now we can get down to some real Himalayan mountaineering …’

  Mal lapsed into a thoughtful silence, lit a cigarette and sat there in his characteristic hunched-forward, elbows on knees, frowning stance. I caught his eye, he grinned ruefully. He wanted to be up there, but still wasn’t fit to go. Wattie had crawled away to his pit. Mal restlessly picked up and started to reread Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, which had become very popular on the trip. ‘What’s it about?’ he’d asked when I first suggested it. ‘Mountaineering.’ He’d come back and said delightedly, ‘You’re right, it is about mountaineering! These pilots were crazy in the same way as us!’ But now he tossed the book aside. ‘It’s time to put that shit away.’

  More waiting days at Base. The weather changed. The wind dropped and Everest was white and shrouded, like a gigantic piece of furniture in an empty house. Snow began falling at Base. We spent much of the time lying in our tents, wondering and worrying, listening to Chris cough day and night. Luo began to press us for a departure date, explaining that the arrangements for yaks, trucks, drivers and hotels had to be made well in advance. Mal gave him a provisional date of 31st May, reckoning that if we hadn’t made it by then it would be because we couldn’t. It seemed very far away.

  Two days later, 28th April, I saw a small figure staggering slightly towards my tent. I went out to meet him. It was Tony, but a completely different Tony from the buoyant, optimistic youth I’d met a week before at the halfway tent. He was coughing continuously, wasted and depressed. He actually croaked, ‘I’m feeling bad, Andy.’ Α superfit youth, he’d never known illness and exhaustion and he was shocked. His body had failed him. He’d come down with bronchitis and was full of Urs’ pills, and had been sent to Base with instructions to stay seven days. He slumped in the Mess Tent, trying to breathe between coughing bouts, and brought us up to date on events on the hill.

  He and Sandy had made it to CB’s on the 26th and settled in there for the night. His earlier cough was becoming continuous, he had no idea what the matter was. Nick and Terry had carried an O2 cylinder each – a particularly impressive effort on Terry’s part, given his late arrival – to CB’s, and then they set off down. There was a lot of fresh snow on the traverse across the couloir below the snow cave, a foot-hold crumpled and Terry found himself sliding downhill … to be jerked to a stop 50 feet down by his jumar clamped on the fixed rope. One of the snow-stakes had pulled; the others held. Heart pounding, he got to his feet and carried on, very carefully. Thank God for those fixed ropes, Bonington had certainly been right about them. They made it back to ABC through steady snowfall without further mishap. Nick was still feeling terrible. Amoebic dysentery is debilitating at the best of times, but on Everest …

  Urs and Andy arrived at ABC. Urs examined Bob and was slightly mystified not to find the symptoms of mountain sickness. It could be some unidentified and unresolved chest infection. Or a blood infection. Or even some kind of psychological effect. If his condition persisted, Bob might have to go back to Llasa for a chest X-ray.

  Next morning at CB’s Tony was in need of some commiseration, after having a dreadful night coughing and struggling to breathe. After 45 minutes of continual coughing he finally managed to spit out some phlegm. ‘Did you have a bad night, then?’ Sandy asked.

  Tony restrained himself with difficulty, and merely grunted.

  ‘Do you want to go down?’

  ‘I’ll go on as far as I can.’

  The chances of them fixing the 2nd Buttress already looked slim. A lot of fresh snow made it hard work to use the fixed ropes. Progress was exhausting and downright dangerous once they left the ropes behind above 7090. Sandy finally arrived at the foot of the 1st Buttress, dumped his load and sat amid plumes of spindrift waiting for Tony, who was labouring one hour behind. To keep warm, Sandy tried to dig a snow cave, but soon hit ice.

  Tony finally appeared through the snow, gasping and staggering. He’d been trying to catch Sandy up to tell him he had to go down. He told him now, unpacked his load and set off. After a moment’s hesitation, Sandy followed, knowing he couldn’t do much good alone up here, and also he was worried about Tony, who was clearly on his last legs. With fresh snow building up continuously it would be very easy to slip and one slip could take him all the way.

  They made it safely to CB’s. There they met Rick and Jon on their way up to C2 to sleep the night and try in their turn to push the route further. They persuaded Sandy to stay on the hill and help them, while Tony slumped into the corner in his own world of despair.

  Tony Sandy stayed up and I made a harrowing descent, slipping and sliding down the fixed ropes. I’ve never felt this bad, never. It was a white-out crossing the glacier an
d I couldn’t even tell the slope of the ground beneath my feet, so kept falling over, quite lost at times between wands. Very upset too as I thought I’d blown any chance of going higher – cried with relief and fear when I eventually reached ABC. Bob had to help me off the glacier. Urs told me I only had high-altitude bronchitis. Seven days at BC should see me back yet.

  So Tony had come down next morning. All he could tell us was that the lads were planning a mass assault on the hill for that day – a team of ten in all. It was the largest number we’d yet put on the mountain. ‘Sounds like the Ypres offensive.’ We hoped it would be more successful than that.

  Mal was more concerned about the daily snowfall than he had been about the wind – we could have done with that wind now to blast the snow off the hill, but the days had become eerily, obstinately still. ‘It makes the hill about ten times more dangerous and much harder work.’ There was increased likelihood of avalanche or serac collapse (either of which could wipe out the fixed ropes and anyone on them), and poor footing everywhere on the unfixed sections above 7090. It was a measure of our lack of progress that no one had been on the fixed rope up the 1st Buttress since Andy Nisbet had fixed it nine days before. And from Tony’s account, the lads’ morale had also taken a battering. They’d done well to shift some loads in such conditions, but that’s not the same as moving forward and up. ‘I just hope they don’t beat themselves into a frazzle, or get avalanched or something,’ Mal said. Like Chris before him, Tony emphasized there was no point in us going up to ABC, which was already overcrowded, so all we could do was wait for news of the ‘Big Push’.

  Bob The ropes are obviously going to be busy today, so I got away early with Terry, and first on to the ropes with an O2 cylinder. It’s hard work breaking trail in the new snow, but steady progress is made and I don’t feel to be going too badly. However, after a bite to eat at the top of the ice-bulge it turns out that snow conditions above are dreadful and it is a real struggle to reach the rock outcrop. The traverse is insecure and a couple of chutes show where Sandy or Jon took a slide while descending and the rope-length above is a nightmare of soft snow. At last I crawl into CB’s cave …

  Jon Perhaps we’ve been too long up here. Rick’s remarkable Joe Tasker impersonation. Massive determination, whispy beard poking out of a yellow down suit, head leaning into the slope … Not so good at getting up in the morning.

  Sandy Left CB’s with two cylinders in my sack. Eight inches of fresh snow, blue fixed ropes springing up leaving a trail in the soft white snow as I thrutched with my axe, searching for the lines of safety … Panting from my lungs, drips of sweat wash the Factor 15 protection cream into my eyes. It’s going to be a hard day. I come to the second snow stake supporting the fixed line, exhausted I leave one O2 cylinder hanging from a red sling, move on, step here, step there, pant, pant, pant. Sit down, almost there. Kidding myself. Come to C2 three hours later (usually this takes one hour.) ‘Hullo, Jon, what’s going on?’

  ‘Oh, ran out of puff, had to come down. Rick’s gone on.’

  ‘Take care, see you later.’ So Jon descended the fixed blue, I went on to C2, watched the black dots from ABC make their way along the glacier. They’re wasting their time, the weather’s too bad.

  Rick Across the flat bit above 7090 with tent, rope, stove and radio. Jon packs it in, exhausted, and goes down. I go on to the foot of the 1st Buttress, snow starts to fall again and I retreat …

  Bob Rick arrived at CB’s from above and together we descended into a maelstrom of snow, and a scene of some confusion. A knot of people wait helplessly at the start of the traverse and Danny hangs from the traverse rope, tired and incapable, watched by Kurt and Julie from below. I sense a bottleneck, so Rick and I sort Danny out then continue down the ropes to the glacier … nine inches or so of new snow have been dumped so further progress for a few days seems unlikely.

  After Danny had been rescued from his ‘bicycling windowcleaner’ act (picture the motions made by someone hanging helplessly from fixed ropes and seeking to get a grip on loose snow!), a general decision was made by ‘the bottleneck’ to descend. And so ended the Big Push, not blown off this time, but ground to a standstill in soft snow. ‘The retreat from Moscow,’ Rick noted. Very little had been achieved, no new ground gained and everyone was exhausted.

  Allen That evening all at ABC, so very crowded and most folk pissed off. We’ve only a month or so and a hell of a long way to go. We need a wind to clear the Ridge of fresh snow. A bad day, when the Expedition went into reverse.

  Jon stomps doggedly into BC the next afternoon, his blond hair matted and blasted. He accepts his first brew. ‘What’s it like up there, Jon?’ He shakes his head, ‘It’s just shit.’

  Then Rick and Terry, both staggering slightly. Panda eyes, heightened cheekbones, speaking in hoarse whispers, coughing. Terry ill with bronchitis, Rick is thinner-faced than ever, his cockerel coxcomb of ginger hair now plastered across a burned forehead. The deterioration is painful to look at, distressing as lying listening to Tony and Chris and Jon all night coughing their throats to shreds.

  Outside it starts snowing again, which does nothing to improve the team mood of frustration and stagnation. We have lost another week’s progress, and this sustained bad weather is beginning to seriously prejudice our chances. Jon and Rick repeat that there is little point in our going up to ABC. With only four weeks to go we have only a foothold on the 1st Rock Buttress, and there is an unspoken awareness that we might have to alter our plans.

  Mal Spent today calculating oxygen requirements in case we have to cut and run at some stage, [i.e. Make an Alpine-style attempt on the Pinnacles and the Summit.] Certainly expected to get bogged down at some stage – but it looks as if some direction is required at the front. Pretty much stalemate at the moment. Decisions when I get to ABC but until then low profile as usual.

  Jon and Rick debated whether, with hindsight, they should have pushed the route when the weather was still good, and just concentrated on carrying loads when it turned bad. But as they said, that’s just hindsight. There would be a lot more ‘Should we have …?’ and ‘If we had …’ in the next few weeks. It is as hard to abandon such speculation as it is to stop scratching an itch.

  Sandy But now another variable creeps into my head, like a long time ago in Morocco when we, a few of my (now dead) friends and some Berbers were all sleeping under a canvas below a tree, and about 3.0 am one of the dancing girls of the night before crept in to join her Berber boyfriend Ali. My thoughts come like that … friendly, slipping away from religiously strict parents… Meanwhile the asses stirred and munched on golden stalks of the old harvest.

  … Dismantled ideas: we came here to climb a hill, only this one’s higher than all the other plate collisions which make up our tiny world. Trying to remember we’re climbing with colleagues/associates – is that the same as friends? Or have we all been too busy, too into the game to be friends? A confusion of bread mixes: yes, we make the dough, we’ve got the yeast – and nobody is rising.

  So what … so what are we all learning from being here, are we becoming any better, stepping on and out of our previous selves, or are we just stepping into more colour photos and frames? …

  The next day at ABC Allen was sick, so it was Bob, Nick and Sandy, who set off to carry loads up the hill. Sandy was worn out, and vomited going across the glacier. He forced himself some distance up the fixed ropes, then accepted the inevitable and turned back, despondent about his own failure but impressed by Bob and Nick’s determination to push on through yet more fresh snow, despite them both feeling well below their best.

  Bob It’s hard physical graft breaking trail up the first couple of ropes, not helped by the jumars slipping on the icy ropes. But then Nick takes over and I have the luxury of good steps to move in. When I reach the rocky shoulder he’s pressing strongly ahead, but I become increasingly concerned about the dangerous snow conditions – a slab about nine inches thick is breaking away very easily – and I s
hout a warning to Nick, who seems just about to start on the most dangerous part of the traverse before CB’s cave. His reply is non-commital and most of it tattered by the wind … I shout to explain that I’m going back, cache my load and swoop down the ropes, feeling a lot more relaxed when Nick has recrossed the basin.

  It’s been a good day’s work and we feel that we’ve made the point that we can work on the mountain in unpromising weather.

  Nick noted more briefly in his energetic, rapid scrawl:

  Snow deep and difficult – danger of avalanche on traverse below C1. The heat returning across the glacier was terrible – burned my tongue a little! Felt a lot better despite difficult conditions

  That night Sandy made his ‘usual calm sort of static friction but frictionless entrance’ into the BC Mess Tent. He was in an edgy mood, kept asking questions, launched into an attack on the four hens that had been bought at, I think, Kurt’s suggestion. ‘Typical stupid British fuck-up, not thinking at all.’ His objection was not on health grounds but because of the bad karma that would result in killing anything above the Rongbuk monastery (which no one intended doing). He was furious and jittery about this. ‘If anything’s killed on this trip, that’s it, I’m leaving straightaway.’

  But it turned into an exceptionally good evening as Terry and I began writing ‘The Ballad of the North-East Ridge’ with everyone throwing in suggestions. Because Mal wanted to tape it for BBC radio, I changed the melody from one based on ‘Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ to a new folk/rock one, which revitalized the entire song. It revitalized us too, and the evening became hilarious as we blew away our boredom and anxieties with whisky and laughter, gasping for air as we whooped. Whisky, laughter and companionship, with the reticent Rick chuckling away, and Chris and Tony looking happy for the first time in ages. The evening drew us all together. We felt like a team, a close company of friends as we bawled out the chorus, laughing ourselves into the ground at the absurdity of ourselves and our entire venture.