Kingdoms of Experience

by Andrew Greig

  Meanwhile our Expedition carried on on the neighbouring ridge, just a mile or two away. Tony made his second consecutive carry to C3 and returned to ABC, coughing badly and not very happy. Nick went to C2 and slept the night there, the only person on the entire route. After de-briefing Urs and Andy that morning, I decided to head down to BC. Important things should be happening soon with our first attempt on Pinn 1, but I was done-in, and had to write my penultimate newspaper piece for Terry to take out with him. Then I should be fit enough to come back up and stay for however long it took us to finish this mountain or for it to finish us.

  I enjoyed the ramble down to Base, feeling brain and body slowly come alive again as oxygen seeped back into my system. I met Allen looking fit and Bob looking exhausted on their way up. I hurried through Rock Alley, where the stonefall was becoming regular, skirted the melting ice-lake, down to the rock shelters of the prewar Camp 1. The world took on faint smells of life – moss, rabbit droppings, deer. It became very warm, I felt my skin crisping like bacon.

  Good old BC. Walked wearily across the flat stone-field, as always savouring this moment. Slung my rucksuck down by my tent. Pm done now. All I have to do is listen, watch and write. Step inside the Mess – Jon, Rick, Danny, a warm welcome and the usual flood of questions. Fresh bread, cheese, coffee. Talking with difficulty through a parched and tattered throat. ‘Get it down your neck,’ Jon grinned, ‘This place is the business!’

  Sandy Mal came down to ABC, not too exhausted, Oh was Liz pleased to see him, their affection real real obvious. When one sees such open and contented sharing caring, one can’t help but wonder what one is missing … Or when Nicko radioed in at 6.0 sounding ace and content and Sarah came in late – the disappointed look on her face … When I realize that I see such things I ask myself, ‘Allan, are you getting lonely, kid?’ Old farts develop thataway, Tinker may say.

  But still shut such thoughts off! Got to, unless it was easy to pray, ‘Beam me out of here, Scotty,’ and end up wrapped in the warmth of D.’s eiderdown and arm …

  Monday 13th May, ABC

  ‘Aye, okay, give me a second.’

  Sighing in his head, Sandy squirmed out of his bag. Another day on the hill. He seemed to have been doing this most of his life. Well, he had been, his choice made when he was 25 and finally left the distilling industry for this dosser existence. Still … pull on fibre pile, then his blue Gore-tex windsuit (never red, he’d had a premonition he would die on the hill wearing red), then his Berghaus jacket with the Pilkington logo. Pulling up the leg-zips he remembered his mum sewing them on and thought momentarily of parents, home, the daffodils would be fully out there … He pulled on the Koflach boots, picked up his harness and stomped over to the Mess Tent.

  Breakfast of tea and oatcakes and Alpen while Andy scoffed his favourite ‘Ready Brek’, which Sandy personally would not feed to a porky pig. Then finally away, aiming to make C3 in a single day. Andy took on the extra work of breaking trail across the glacier and set off up the fixed rope, then Urs who felt he was going well, and Sandy in the rear.

  ‘One more time,’ he thought – Kurt’s catch-phrase. Only this is the real thing, not for cameras. Another windy spindrift morning, jugging up the ropes with sacks bulging with dossing gear and technical climbing equipment for the Pinnacles. All the familiar landmarks reached and left behind – the ice-bulge, CB’s, then straight on to C2, where they found Nick in good form after his lonely vigil and ready to make his carry up to C3. It heartened Sandy to see the way these selfless and crucial high carries were being made at last.

  Then on to the Ridge above 7090. Windy as always and deathly cold, but the sky clear for the time being as Sandy broke trail along the ridge-pole of the world. They finally arrived after 6.0 pm at the two tiny tents of C3. Nick left his load and set off down; Urs and Sandy shared one tent, Andy had the other. They brewed and waited for the 7.0 pm radio call. Mal came in on the dot and said immediately ‘We need to speak to Urs.’ His voice sounded taut and urgent. Sandy immediately thought: who’s hurt? It was that kind of voice.

  ‘The Basques have had an accident, one dead and one injured.’

  Mal and Julie explained briefly what had happened. The Basques had been helped down to their ABC; Bob and Mal had gone up there to look at the injured Basque, who seemed to have got off lucky with bad bruises, a broken wrist, and severe shock. Urs wasn’t needed as yet, so he could go on to the Pinnacles, but they’d keep in touch. …

  Sandy We both felt very sick inside, water on my eyes. Said to Urs it was the Factor 15 suncream running off my forehead, but he knew and felt the same. We were wondering who was dead and who was injured, what Kurt and Julie went through as they helped the rescue. We saw black dots today on the North Col but did not consider it further. Urs appeared most shaken. He said, ‘Looks like God does not want me to get to 8,000 metres,’ but I felt more – a lot more – than that in his speech.

  We brewed, Andy came over from his tent and the three of us squatted on the tiny floor area, steam from our lips and noses, and talked over the bad bad sad and almost anticipated news. Andy departed, I asked him to take great care in going to his tent, only a few yards but a good place for an accident … as is anywhere on this hill. ‘Okay, I’m back!’ he shouted.

  Sleeping tablet took over. … Thoughts in my head of the value of Alpine-style climbing, its high death-rate, my future Gangapurna trip. Should we forget the idea? Haston dead in an avalanche, Alex MacIntyre, so many others. And now another Basque killed on the so-called ‘piece of piss’ North Col route. … Is it worth it? There’s daffodils, new lambs, disco action and easy hills to climb back home, beaches to lie on, good books to read, films to see … and of course … other mountains to climb!

  With such turmoil I tried to sleep and did so intermittently.

  Half-awake at 7,300 metres … stove, pan, some snow, where’s the lighter, warm it in hands inside the sleeping bag then light the stove, blue flame and condensation spitting from the billie on to the stove, hands cold, back under armpits. … Careful not to move in case the stove gets knocked over, spindrift and hoar frost falling on to one’s face and sleeping bag. … ‘Hi, Urs, how did you sleep?’

  ‘Awfully. …’

  Another morning in Sandy’s world, but today there’s a cloud hanging over it, something he doesn’t want to think about too much yet. It hangs between the three of them, unmentioned, as they gear up to go to C4.

  The Plan. Urs and Andy to go to C4, complete the snow-hole started by Rick, spend the night there, and start on the 1st Pinnacle next day. Sandy to carry food, gas, an O2 cylinder and regulator to C4, and then return to C3.

  Actual. Andy Nisbet broke trail up the snow-choked gully on the 1st Buttress, on to the 2nd and up the mixed ground there. At the top of the 2nd Buttress Sandy conferred with Andy as they waited for Urs to catch up. Sandy was tired and low, thinking of the Basques, of the black clouds looming over the North Col; he was worried about finding his way back to C3, and so they decided he should dump his load and go back now. This was a repetition of 11th May, when Sandy had to leave his load short of C3 in poor visibility. Then again he had been the odd person out in a threesome, with the other two planning to sleep overnight at their destination.

  So Sandy set off down, and the plan had gone adrift already. Not crucially, for Urs and Andy still had everything they needed for the 1st Pinnacle; more prophetic were Sandy’s reasons for turning back, which he admitted were as much psychological as physical.

  Andy had had a ‘really dreadful night’ (strong words for him) at C3, unable to sleep at all, all kinds of thoughts whirling through his throbbing head. In the morning he felt downright ill and it took him one and a half hours to have a brew without throwing up. The weather was deteriorating now, the spindrift blinding at times; he wasn’t enjoying himself but he kept on going.

  Urs was shaken by the violence of the weather. He hadn’t really believed it when Mal had spoken of crawling on the Ridge, putting it do
wn to un-British exaggeration, ‘guide stories’. Now he believed as he struggled to keep his footing, and his morale leaked away with his energy. Climbing was only part of his life; the rest of it was in a remote valley in Switzerland with his wife Madeleine, their joint medical practice and their children. The Basque death played on his mind. How easily that could happen to him as it had to so many. … Over 7,500 metres was well into the ‘Death Zone’, he knew the figures. … Why should he risk losing the pleasures of home for this? What was he doing here at all? His ABC dreams of climbing the Pinnacles, of going without oxygen above 8,000 metres, had vanished with the hill below him. He went on, hating it. Terrible! Terrible!. …

  They found the C4 ‘rabbit hole’ round 3.0 that afternoon. They’d expected to find it small for 2, but this was ridiculous. So they worked on and off for four hours to enlarge it. At the end of scraping around, kneeling and doubled over in hard nevé at nearly 8,000 metres, they were exhausted and had a hole that just might sleep both of them. They also discovered there was no food or brewing materials there. Another high-altitude mix-up, as typical as it was crucial. Rick insisted that he’d told them twice there was nothing at C4, and Andy had a clear impression he’d been told there was food, etc., there. Of course Sandy had been carrying hill-food, but his load was back at the top of the 2nd Buttress.

  They drank warm water and lay in their bags in the now coffin-sized snow hole. Urs looked at the ceiling just above his head, felt himself starting to hyperventilate, his head whirling with the Basques, thoughts of Pete Thexton’s death on Broad Peak – was that hyperventilation? – home, the prospect of another night up here, a terrible claustrophobic attack he’d had on K2 in a cave bigger than this, growing tension making his breathing faster and faster, hyperventilation –

  – ‘Andrew, I must go down!’

  No time for discussion. He was in a panic, knew only that he couldn’t spend the night here, had to get down the hill before the light failed entirely. He crawled out of the coffin, laced up his boots, took his sack and gasping wildly set off along the gloomy Ridge. …

  Leaving Andy wondering what had happened, uncertain whether to follow or stay. Which was safer for him, which was safer for Urs? He felt too shagged out to go down. But the North-East Ridge was a dangerous place for an exhausted and panicky doctor/climber to descend in the half-dark. ‘A little worried’ he lay down again and hoped sleep would come to ease his head. It took all his self-discipline to close his eyes and empty his mind of fear for the night ahead.

  ‘Sandy!’

  ‘What the hell?’ Sandy thought, glanced at his watch: 9.30 pm. He hastily unzipped his tent and to his astonishment saw Urs, beard and face encrustedwith ice, swaying slightly. ‘What’s happened?,’ fearing the worst.

  ‘Oh it’s hell up there. Awfully! I come down, Andy stay, he is tired but OK in snow-hole.’

  ‘Here, have a brew.’

  ‘No, I go down to Camp 2.’

  After a few more words, Urs went on; getting to the haven of C2 was the only thought in his fear-filled mind – that and the possibility of wandering over the Kangshung Face. He was now on his last legs, beginning to stumble. He sat down for a rest, woke up to find himself sliding into a hollow 20 feet further down the Ridge. By now it was fully dark, he made his way by the pale light off the snow, searching in vain for the footprints of the morning. …

  He made it after the most nightmarish hours of his life and stumbled into the C2 snow cave, where Bob and Allen had settled down to sleep. They fed him brews as he told his story. Like Nick and Sandy they were perturbed by his precipitate departure, which went right against climbing ethics. Now Andy was up alone at Camp 4 and no one knew what condition he was in. ‘Tired but OK,’ Urs said, but then Urs was in no state to judge and Andy was notoriously reticent about his condition. Few enough people had slept at nearly 8,000 metres without oxygen, let alone one with a record of altitude sickness. And of course now there was no chance of him doing anything on the 1st Pinnacle. Allen Fyffe put it tersely; ‘This is a balls-up due to lack of real communication and again little has been achieved. Now concerned about Andy’s safety. …’

  Meanwhile the object of everyone’s concern was having a long and sleepless night in the tiny C4 snow-hole while the wind howled by outside. His head was bad, he was weak with hunger and dehydration; his throat was torn by coughing and by dawn he had coughed up blood.

  ‘But considering it was at 7,850 I thought it was quite a good night.’

  Next morning he found he couldn’t sit up. It took him nearly an hour to put on his boots, then he started on a brew, i.e. hot water. Feeling a bit better, he thought he’d better do some work, and spent four hours scraping away at the hole on and off until he felt it was habitable for two. By early afternoon he knew it was time to go down. As soon as he stood up to walk, he found his legs wouldn’t hold steady. He set off lurching towards the Buttresses with only the last threads of will-power and his axe keeping him upright. He came to an awkward, steep section coming down the 3rd Buttress. One slip and he’d go all the way. He began down-climbing, his feet dropped away and he was left hanging by one axe, on the very brink of disaster. ‘Gripped? I was mummified’ He re-applied himself to the slope and waited two minutes to regather his frayed nerves and energy and let his breathing return to normal before continuing. At the bottom, he staggered, and remembering the Basque tragedy, held his axe in braking position all the way.

  Meanwhile Sandy and Nick had woken in the C3 tents, covered in spindrift as usual. Another wind-blasted morning. As Sandy had expected, Nick was too tired to go on up to C4 as originally planned, so they both descended to C2, Sandy looking back constantly for a black dot coming over the Buttresses.

  It took only half an hour, downhill and with the wind behind them. There they found Allen Fyffe looking fit and alert; he told them Bob was in desperate shape again, coughing and headachy and blue at the lips, so he’d gone down. Another disappointment for Bob and the Expedition. Urs was about to depart, looking wasted but in a better state of mind. From somewhere Sandy and Nick found the commitment to make another carry with Allen back up to C3, which virtually completed the shifting of loads up to that point, though they primarily went back to look for Andy. Though things were going wrong at the front, the hard graft of the back-up work was still on target, in the teeth of sustained bad weather. That was why Sandy felt sure we were still in with a reasonable chance. The next stage would be the ten or so crucial carries over the Buttresses to C4, while another pair put it to the touch on Pinn 1.

  He thought it over as he forced himself forward through the wind towards C3. Yes, Malcolm’s ‘wastage’ was happening, that was to be expected, but we can still do it. Andy and Urs should probably have been split up earlier, all the signs had been there … and there was that long looked-for dot crawling over the top of the 2nd Buttress, that’s a relief. …

  ‘Great to see you, man, do you want a brew?’

  ‘Yes please,’ whispered the frozen face that hid Andy Nisbet. He flopped down in the C3 tent, too exhausted to take off his crampons. Nick and Allen set off down, while Sandy cooked and brewed, concerned for his friend’s condition. Andy lay down for a while, then said he was as ready to go down as he would ever be, so they set off.

  Sandy had never seen him like this, so slow and weary, constantly having to stop. He seemed to be shrinking visibly, as if the flesh were melting off his bones (by the time he had got back to BC he’d lost a stone in three days). Down to 7090, to C2, to CB’s, Sandy shepherding him down the fixed ropes, Andy now moving like a marionette whose strings were loose, flopping about with every step. ‘A bit spaced out, my body had stopped doing what my head told it.’ On to the glacier and across it, all in a very slow dream, stopping over and over. …

  Finally up the moraine back into the Mess Tent, to relieved welcomes from Mal, Tony, a slightly guilty looking Urs, Sarah, Jon, Rick, Nick. Mal had been concerned enough about Andy that he’d begun packing gear to go with
Tony back up the hill to find him and help him down – so they were doubly relieved! Urs and Andy would obviously be out of it for several days (and no one was going to rely on Urs above C3 again); bit of a fiasco really was the general consensus. Urs and Andy had been nursing themselves for this push and it had achieved virtually nothing. But, like Sandy, Mal wasn’t over-downhearted; he and Tony were going up the next day for the second attempt on the 1st Pinnacle, which was still enough to make the heart beat faster. …

  I have in front of me two photos: one of ABC buried and forlorn under fresh snow, with two figures in full gear leaning towards each other as they rope together for the plod across the fixed ropes; the other is of Rick, dapper and smiling in the sunlight in front of the Mess Tent at BC, leisurely sipping a brew and squinting up the valley towards Everest. A guitar is leaning in the background against the tent; above it, scrawled ‘NO MORE HEROES ANY MORE’.

  A tale of two kingdoms. The difference in outlook in both senses – what you see and mental attitude – between BC and the hill was absolute. As was the lack of communication between them, the delay involved. Together they are crucial to an assessment of what was to happen.

  Meanwhile we waited in the now warm weather at BC for news of Andy and Urs’ Pinnacle attempt. Looking at the hill and trying to guess the conditions there, I thought it was like looking at the stars: by the time the light-news gets to you, its source could be long snuffed out. They could have fixed the entire 1st Pinnacle, they could be dead, and we simply wouldn’t know.

  Terry was packing up to go out on the jeep. For weeks he’d been wrestling with the decision whether to be here for the climax of the trip, or try to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Now he’d his personal summit under his belt, he knew where his priorities lay, though leaving at this point was hard for him. Liz had trimmed his beard, and at this moment he was shaving, preparing for his reentry into the world.