Summit Fever

by Andrew Greig

  Lights out 6.00 p.m., alarm set for 4.30 next morning to go back up and pitch Camp 2 properly.

  Enthralled, impressed and distinctly apprehensive for my own chances on the hill, I turned the next page of Sandy’s diary. Shokat had finally turned off his caterwauling radio. Kath lay quietly snoring, her face blank and puffy with water retention. Tomorrow was a rest day for me. I’d check out the Ibex Trail. I read on.

  My alarm gave a single buzz, my head throbbed twice to say good morning and remind me where I was. I pushed my hands against the tent and heard snow slide off the fly. I looked out – snow around, mist all over, a wind. Not so good.

  ‘Okay, youth, want a brew?’ Jon took it, swearing at his really sore head, trying to hold the pain in his forehead in one of his climbing-scarred hands. His eyes looked at me, they tried to be friendly but I could see he was suffering and had not really recovered from the exertion and altitude of the previous day. I liked this youth, I hoped he’d be okay. I knew he’d push it and say he’d be well enough.

  He’s a strong little bastard, I thought. I admired his determination as he tried to drink his tea. I radioed Base Camp. The lads there said that unless there was a vast improvement in the weather they would not be bringing loads up to Camp 1. I was disappointed …

  Another brew. Jon came round though his head was still slow. We geared up and left round 6.30. I led, sinking into fresh snow, feeling like a blind man as I stabbed in front of myself with a ski pole. Often the pole would slip easily through into the emptiness of a crevasse, my feet sometimes left holes looking down into a black void. So we ambled on. Watching Jon I realized he was just coming along with me to be on the other end of the rope so that we’d be able to push up a new camp – for the good of the expedition. That was good.

  Hourly radio calls, half-hourly stops for water. Several close calls as we slid down to our waists in slots. Energy wasted as we extracted ourselves. Up the steep col – hard this, my head exploded, pulsating pain as the blood pumped around. Jon must have been feeling like this at Camp 1, I thought. Push push on until up to my knees, each step a real effort.

  We came to the cache of the tent etc – only the ski pole and flag visible. We picked up the gear and went on. We expected another half hour, but it was more like 1½ hours. Jon wanted to pitch the tent at one spot, but there was avalanche debris all around so I said No. Jon said he just wanted peace and quiet. My pounding brain picked this up to mean he wanted me to shut up. We argued and I burst on ahead because I knew and felt deeply we shouldn’t site Camp 2 in that spot.

  We were both exhausted at this point. Jon came after me and took the lead. After twenty steps he turned and said he was very sorry. Great and thanks, I said. I led another fifty steps in the deep snow, then Jon took over and we came to a safeish spot and sat down knackered. We could not tell if we were on flat ground or not because of snow and throbbing head illusions and fresh snow blowing onto our glacier goggles. Jon said we’ll go on a few more steps and we did and finally came to a safe, flat place, no avalanche debris or hanging seracs.

  We dug a tent platform. I said I was sorry that we’d argued and apologized for him having to apologize. Then we laughed a bit and worked well together putting up the tent.

  … I pushed the pace back to Camp 1. A brew and a retort, then set off for Base. We got lost in one part of the Icefall and this resulted in some desperate glacier and serac climbing and dodging. We came through a happy team, joking over our argument. We both noticed how different we were. I take words at their literal meaning, Jon uses words very casually. We both agreed we’d have to learn to be tolerant, a big lot!

  Base Camp was rainswept and coldish but felt like paradise to Jon and I.

  On the eighth day Adrian, Alex and Mohammed set off to carry gear to Camp 1 while Jon and Sandy recovered. They got to the end of the Ibex Trail, but despondently turned back due to bad weather. In the evening the wind got up and nearly blew away the Mess Tent. They lashed it down some more and huddled round the stove chatting, singing, banging out rhythms on empty jerry cans and trying not to feel cold. For the first time snow fell at Base, but did not last long.

  Their storm was a higher-altitude version of our downpour at Paiju. As they were struggling to hold on to the Mess Tent, Kath and I must have been baling out ours. Realizing this made me wonder what various friends in Scotland were doing at this precise moment, and I felt briefly homesick. Just altitude blues, I was learning to recognize them.

  Next morning Adrian, Mohammed and Alex set off yet again for Camp 1, the latter two looking not at all keen but going anyway. Alex finally had to turn back, but Adrian and Mohammed struggled on, dumped their loads and returned. That night Sandy noted that all three looked worn out, sick and wasted. He wished he and Jon could have had the better load-carrying support, yet was very aware that the lads were doing their utmost. Some of the essential groundwork had been done, but not as much as he’d wanted. Do I hope for too much? he wondered. If I hoped for less from myself and other people, I wouldn’t be disappointed so often. But would we achieve much then?

  On the last day before our arrival, Sandy and Jon got up early yet again, packed their sacks with food and gas, snow stakes and deadmen and stoves, and set off up the Ibex Trail one more time. The aim was to spend the night at Camp 1 and push on to 2 to stock it up next day.

  The acclimatization gained by having slept at Camp 1 and been up to 2 was making a considerable difference. The Icefall would never be a stroll, would always be potentially dangerous, particularly when descending in the heat of the day, but it took a lot less out of them than on the first couple of occasions. They arrived early, got the brews going, and lay out on Karrimats to pass the rest of the day reading, chatting and listening to music. Sandy’s taste was largely what Jon scornfully called hippy music, and for the most part their partnership was soundtracked by Jon’s tapes with Sandy once in a while vetoing some particularly depressing nihilist post-futurist experimental squeaks-and-pops band. (‘If that’s a band, youth, it’s time they snapped.’)

  In the afternoon radio call Adrian announced that Mohammed had found Mal, Tony, Andrew, Kathleen and Shokat at Urdukas. Jon asked if they had the bleeding money, and Sandy asked what had happened to Burt and Donna. Though they were both keen to get back down to meet the others, catch up on news and get their mail, Camp 2 had to be stocked, so they stayed up that night.

  Crossing the glacier and climbing up to Camp 2 came much more easily next day. Their blood was thick with red corpuscles that caught and carried what oxygen was available. The weather was fine and cold, and they confidently crossed snow bridges that in a few hours would become potential trap doors, depositing the unsuspecting climber into the depths of a crevasse.

  They arrived at Camp 2 to find avalanche debris within 100 feet of the tent. They felt pleased that they’d made the effort to shift it to where it now was, and with their judgement of position. Of course, there was no knowing if it really was out of the line of fire, but it looked that way.

  So they lit the stove, massaged their feet to get some feeling back in them and, after much discussion, decided to come all the way back down to base. There was little point in staying at Camp 1, for there was no fixed rope there to haul up to 2. Besides, Adrian had affirmed that there was mail waiting …

  They hurried down. Letters for all, devoured in one feverish gallop full of chuckles, groans and exclamations, then reread more slowly, then finally read right through again alone in one’s tent, savouring each word, the handwriting, the very feel of a letter from home. Letters are a reassurance that that half-remembered world still exists. Their importance is not in what they say, but that they’ve arrived at all.

  I dropped Sandy’s diary and lay back looking at the ceiling of the tent in the flickering candlelight. I was impressed by the amount of persistence and effort the lads had put in prior to our arrival. Reading between the lines, it had clearly been hard and at times painful and risky. And now Mal and Tony would be wo
ken in a few hours’ time to go straight on to the hill. They just don’t let up.

  I felt a certain resolution and confidence in me, a pale reflection of theirs, like the sun lighting up the moon that hung above the Lobsang Spire as I glanced out before finally going to sleep. The still night, glimmer of Masherbrum across the valley, the goat wandering on its tether, the dark wedges of tents … Base Camp Mustagh Tower. It is real. We’ve arrived. Now see where we go from here.

  8

  Move It On Over

  We learn to step high with Alex

  12–15 July 1984

  I woke next morning with rapid, shallow breathing and a racing pulse. As I lay concentrating on slowing my breath, I could hear voices drifting over from the Mess Tent. I sloughed off my sleeping bag like a snake shuffling out of an old skin, and stumbled over there. Tony, Mal, Mohammed, Jon, Sandy, Adrian were sitting around in boots and gaiters and salopettes, putting back the brews and porridge preparatory to another day’s Himalayan thuggery.

  ‘Split the tent load, Tony?’ ‘How much gas for Camp 2?’ ‘See us over another brew, youth.’ ‘Take a line up the ramp to the left of the bungalow-sized boulder.’ No rambling conversation this morning, instead terse, practical details. We’re on the job now.

  Adrian is serious, methodical and preoccupied. He’s very aware he’s going up for his last session on the hill, that tomorrow’s Friday 13th, that the next day is his twenty-ninth birthday. Though much more of a climber than I, we share a similar attitude; the main thing is to get off with it. He’s got other things in his life, such as his marriage and his profession.

  Sandy is dishevelled, amiable and strong. He greets me, as he always does everyone, with a cheerful Good morning! Jon sprawls back on the Gasherbrum 2 boxes, his eyes distant, abruptly cackling at a remark. They both look worn but durable, like their gear. Tony as ever vibrates with enthusiasm; Mal is more controlled but clearly straining on the leash. They both drain their mugs, say cheerio and leave. Some five minutes later, the others follow them. ‘Give us a radio call at two and six.’ ‘See you.’ Jon fools around briefly with Jhaved, a wave, then he and Sandy set off. The partings are always casual, yet they always matter. If all goes well and the weather holds, they hope to fix the ropes up the Col and get the first look at the condition of the summit ridge. Then we’ll know what our chances are.

  I don’t like this.

  Ibex Trails are strictly for ibex. And for climbers who leave their brains in their rucksacks and their imagination at home. I don’t like edging along this sloping ledge of grit and loose stone with the cliff on my left forcing me to the edge of the 500 foot drop on my right. The pulse in my ears beats its drum, my breathing is erratic. I cling to the rock on my left, take each section in short, sharp rushes, feeling the surface slip under my boots.

  What prompted me to come up here by myself today? Why on earth did I think I could cope with climbing at all? I still hate exposure as much as I did six months ago in Glencoe. This fear is as total as seasickness and, like seasickness, attacks the mind and the body equally. It’s not fear of anything – though if I slip here I wouldn’t survive – it’s just plain, unreasoning fear. In the same way some people violently dislike eating tripe, I recoil from heights. Shit, shit, shit!

  I curse myself, Malcolm, all ibex everywhere, as I edge on. With every step upward, my unease intensifies. I really don’t enjoy this at all. Only a form of amnesia makes me forget it. I know, though it doesn’t help, that I will forget how unpleasant this is, and my total lack of enthusiasm, when I’m back at Base Camp.

  The trail goes on and on. Every step I take is one more to retrace. I get to a point where the path seems to skirt round a boulder that sticks right out over the face. I cautiously sit down and look at it. I feel my commitment draining away, like water running out from under a glacier. I know I’m not going to go on. Not today at any rate. Angry and disgusted, I set off back down.

  A rattle of stones from above. I duck in close to the cliff. They clatter past 20 feet away. I look up. Some 300 feet above me, three ibex are peering down at me from a higher trail. They appear to be elegantly sneering.

  Here’s a way of explaining the configuration of the Mustagh Tower, the approach glaciers and our camps.

  Say the Tower is a detached mansion in an estate of enormous stately homes, and you are going to pay it a visit. Then the Baltoro glacier is the main approach road. The Mustagh glacier is a side street leading past the Tower. Base Camp sits on the kerb opposite the entrance. The Ibex Trail gets you onto the garden path of the Chagaran glacier. There’s a lot of crazy paving here, mined with booby traps and trap doors. The Icefall is a cross between a maze and a dozen sets of iron gates. Clearly Mustagh Mansion aims to discourage casual visitors.

  Camp 2 is the porch. You’re standing on the doorstep, right under the sheer walls. Will someone dump an avalanche on you from an upper-storey window? Fixing rope up to the Col opens the 2000-foot-high creaking door. In front of you now stretches the stairway of the northwest ridge, a two-day epic to the summit. At the end of that you will join a most exclusive party …

  (Of course, you could try to sneak in by the easier northeast ridge, the one the French climbed and Covington’s American expedition failed on, but really that’s just the tradesmen’s entrance.)

  Friday 13th was a quiet day at Base Camp. The morning was sunny, blue and cold. Kath and I wandered up to the stream behind Base, which turned out to involve a fair uphill trudge across a couple of boulder fields. We passed the ruins of old rock houses that Mohammed said were left from the time the Mustagh Valley had been an ancient trading route into China, a couple of days’ trek away. Peace and clarity came, as they so often did on the Expedition, from sitting quietly by the stream, waiting for socks to dry.

  It is a world of absolute sensory deprivation where little moves, with vast canvases of blue and white and black. In this desolation, the tiny purple and yellow flowers astonish the eye. In the silence one’s ears attune to the brushing of wind over stone, the distant clatter of rockfall, the croak of a chough drifting over the ruins. It is the same with one’s palate. A finger of shortbread brought from home lingers the whole day.

  Mal and Tony were back down for lunch, after dumping their loads at Camp 1. Mal told us he had been building cairns on a ‘safe’ area when, crack, a crevasse opened up between his feet and two seconds later he found himself 20 feet up an ice serac with no clear idea how he’d got there, and shaking with adrenalin. Neither of them liked the Icefall one bit, particularly when descending. Alex, who took an almost Scottish delight in death and destruction, shook his head gloomily. One day that whole baked-Alaska mother is just going to s-l-i-d-e away.’ He cackled in the manner of the prophet Jeremiah pronouncing a particularly horrible doom in store. Of course, we mightn’t be on her at the time,’ he added, not very hopefully.

  Wind me up, Scottie.

  *

  Adrian radioed to say he and Mohammed had made their first carry to Camp 2, but because Mohammed felt bad they might be coming down tomorrow instead of going back up again. Mal pulled a face, as I knew Sandy would when he heard. It was quite a serious setback. No one knew if Alex and I would be able to carry to Camp 2, and there was a limit to how much of their own support the lead climbers could do without diminishing the time and energy needed for a chance at the summit.

  The gist of the message back to Adrian was typical of these situations: ‘Do the best you can, but you decide.’ There was no attempt to persuade or cajole or denigrate. By the sound of his voice – flat and dead with none of the ‘old boy’ humour – it had been an exhausting day. And as I read later, Sandy was lying in the tent at Camp 2 confessing to his diary how irritating and immature Jon had been all day. While Jon with his sore head was most likely thinking what a pain in the neck Sandy could be.

  The lack of oxygen made cigarettes burn slowly, and the flies were sluggish. We spent the unpleasantly hot afternoons at Base swatting them, lying around trying t
o read, write or listen to music while Shokat’s radio wailed, the three chickens squawked and the goat grazed half-heartedly. I began to realize that as in war, a lot of a Himalayan expedition is spent killing time. I was trying to enjoy the free time and the last few days of Kath’s company, yet wanting the phoney war to end and to get into action.

  A big meal of retorts, rice and dal in the Mess Tent. Jhaved lit the hurricane lamp, we pulled on our pile jackets and chatted on, enjoying the companionship and putting away one brew after another. About eight pints of liquid a day, Adrian had recommended back in ’Pindi. It had sounded a lot, but they went down easily.

  Tony was enormously happy and didn’t mind saying so. He was on holiday, surrounded by mountains, working on a severe mountain with the promise of real technical challenges. He seemed to love hills for their own sake more than any of the others. In his early teens, he told me, he’d done two newspaper rounds a day to be able to go to the Lakes every weekend and tramp 30 or 40 miles a day. Eventually he acquired an ice axe and learned how to use it, and gravitated inevitably towards technical climbing – particularly rock climbing, at which the others acknowledged he was easily the best in the party.

  He trained as an engineering draughtsman, but kept on climbing. I gathered between the lines that he’d had a very rough time while training, on account of his being small and cherubic-looking. Maybe that had tempered his natural love of being in the hills into the hard, cutting blade of ambition. I wondered if the desire to prove himself as tough as anyone was what drove him. Jon, Sandy, Mal and Tony were all driven, for deep-seated reasons of their own. Initially I’d been curious to discover what those reasons were. Now I felt it didn’t matter so much. I was becoming less and less able to stand outside them and analyse. Now I was beginning to accept that I was here and they were here, and that the doing mattered more than the why.