Summit Fever

by Andrew Greig

  Sandy woke at 2.00 a.m. on 22 July, by 2.30 his brain began to play the game. Lighting the Gaz stove, he knocked over the billy can of half-frozen water from last night, but was pleased to note he didn’t curse or swear. His thoughts and emotions were in control. Good. That struggle for control in more and more extreme situations is the main reason for my being here, he thought, the reason for my breath turning to hoar frost in the head-torch light. We’re moving on today. This is where it’s at.

  He and Jon set forth two hours later at first light. A fine, crisp morning. In their sacks was 220 metres of fixing rope apiece, pegs, krabs, snow stakes and deadmen. They jumared across the ’schrund and clipped into the bottom of the fixed rope.

  Sandy: Being foolhardy, I was in front and had to excavate for the rope. Sometimes it was set very deep and I had to hack laboriously to see it, then pull and put my full weight on the jumar to free it. Twice I came to ice screws which were hanging loose, melted out by the sun on previous days. Replacing them, I moved on. Up with the jumar, hack at the ice – free the rope – up with the jumar – free the rope – move my feet, free the rope – up with the jumar, glancing back to check Jon’s presence, checking the belays … And on it went till I came to the previous high point, about halfway up the slope. Felt some sense of achievement there, put in an ice screw and hung off. I felt very well then, very precise, very awake …

  Mal: Definite lack of enthusiasm today, no drive, no strength, headache. Can hardly believe that it’s altitude-induced because we’ve been up here two nights already with no problems. Most likely some kind of bug from Base. Could do without that for tackling the Icefall …

  I sit perched on a rock above the Cave, looking up the Icefall towards the Tower. Alex was sick again this morning, so I decided to accompany the lads to the top of the Ibex Trail. It’s hard to imagine that the trail was a big deal to me just a couple of weeks ago. Something’s changing.

  It’s 7.00 a.m., the sun is moving down the glacier which is starting to wake up, groan and stretch. The whole mass of it falls apart on the Icefall slope as a loaf of sliced bread would if you took the wrapper off. I’m watching Mal and Tony pick their way over the crust towards the Icefall and Camp 1. It’ll be my turn tomorrow, inshallah. Better try to memorize their route, though it might be quite different tomorrow.

  Tony is in front, Mal clearly not feeling too well. In the back of Tony’s mind he’s nursing summit possibilities that seem wildly optimistic to Alex and me. They’ve only been once to Camp 2, for God’s sake, haven’t even slept there. They can’t have acclimatized to a sufficient level. Tony’s the one Adrian was most concerned about – a total revver in the first flush of youth, a classic candidate for altitude sickness.

  A sudden, stomach-lurching crunch from the glacier, somewhere up where they are now. I see their tiny figures pause, then set off again. I’ve come to care about and respect these lads so much. My friends in the distance and Sandy and Jon, who are somewhere on the fixed ropes now, are neither gung-ho jocks nor intellectual seekers of enlightenment. These are ordinary human beings with an obsession. That obsession has brought out in them qualities of persistence, patience, endurance, judgement and courage. These largely physical qualities pushed far enough take on a spiritual aspect and so become moving.

  Enduring fear, danger, hardship and disaster has given them an unusual degree of self-knowledge. They’ve lived over and over the naked confrontation with the self. When life is hanging by a thread on a mountain, there is no room any longer for evasion and self-deception; for better or worse you know yourself as you are. They have looked at death many times. They have known absolute fear and the struggle to control it. They know how weak and strong they are.

  And yet in other areas they can be as immature, self-deceiving, hesitant in dealing with life, as anyone else. Climbing a mountain doesn’t make it easier to speak in public or handle a dying relationship. They’re not heroes or sages. In their chosen field they’re aces; outside it they’re bumblies, perfectly stumblingly ordinary. If it wasn’t for this I could only admire them, not feel this affection. It’s the coexistence in us of the exceptional and the ordinary, the exalted and the petty – I look to my left and see the Tower, its breathtaking purity of line, its inspiring upsurge, and below it the shambolic mess one has to plough through to arrive at it. As so often here, the place I’m in completes the thought for me, embodying it.

  Sandy: Aware only of the spindrift cascading, the occasional rock falling from the South Face, the frequent cracks in the ice I was climbing, the clouds and mist rolling in and out, snow flakes and Jon, the position of the sun and how it shone, that was all that affected me, so it was nice but really exhausting. So I led up the first coil, and waited as Jon came up behind with the other coil of fixing rope. I took it as he looked wasted, and led out again …

  The climbing was getting hard now. I’d come to the foot of the 100-foot chimney that Patey described as Grade 5. Joe Brown could not lead it at the first attempt and had to let the Scot [Patey] take over. That must have been good value without 12-point crampons and inclined picks!

  I must admit I was not enthused at having to lead it. It was noon already, and it would be late by the time we got back to Camp 2. Also the snow was falling again, wind blowing, definitely unsavoury! But I decided to go on – I live in a fantasy world, you see …

  Mal: Arrived Camp 1 round 11.20, very angry to find Jon and Sandy have taken the only spoon up to 2. As Tony said, it’s hard to put up with selfishness when we’ve dragged more retorts up here for them, then find there must be twenty-five two-man packs of freeze-dried here anyway. Still, great news with Jon and Sandy fixing the rest of the rope. Waiting now for 1.00 call to see if they’ve made the Col …

  To my right there’s a ledge full of pink flowers like primroses. We always exclaim over them when we come up here, they fill our eyes like a silent explosion, a blooming colour in the iris. There’s so little organic life up here that a flower or fly or ant seem miraculous. Astonishing how life grips to the smallest niche – a scraping of soil, some snow melt, and there’s a scrappy, tenacious Eden: butterflies, bugs, flowers, grass, ibex, ravens, prowled by the invisible snow leopards.

  Not only do we notice and delight in every scrap of life here, but our own sense of being is intensified too. At times I’m enormously aware of myself moving among this vast, elemental indifference, the only breathing thing for miles. We cannot but be aware of our weakness and insignificance in this desolation, yet it’s oddly uplifting, like looking up at the stars in the blackest of nights.

  We’re so nearly nothing, but not quite. And that makes all the difference. The mountains teach us humility, but also how much we can achieve when we commit our all.

  Sandy: I began to lead the pitch and found it worrying. Ice very hard below six inches of soft snow. Gradually I remembered how to do this, my arms reached and axes stabbed and investigated. Finding good placements, I moved up the main pitch of ice and came upon a length of old white fixed rope. It was frayed and worn by the weathering of twenty-eight years, for it could only have been the good Dr Patey’s rope. Good value, eh?

  Not much time to think about that, for a new squall hurried me on up. Coming onto the crest of the ridge I felt pleased and wasted. Ethereal. I took a few steps and saw into China. Hey, great, did not try to evaluate or label it, just felt really nice, my mouth probably wide open at the view of peaks shrouded in the mist, only the blue, grey, black and white streaks of the mountain flanks visible.

  I took one more step onto the huge cornice – and fell down a hole that opened under my feet. Hell’s Teeth, I thought, there can’t be a hole here – even though I was in it! I pulled myself out. Looking down, I saw only darkness. My thoughts went to Herman Buhl on Chogolisa, to Pete and Joe on their last trip. I could not believe that I’d fallen into the cornice break. Desperate, yes, I was petrified.

  I moved back the way I had come up; after three steps I fell in again, this time right to my sh
oulders.

  Scared, the wind whipped me, although I had the fixed blue cord round my waist as a lead rope I felt lonely. There was no logic behind these holes hidden below the smooth surface. I felt obtuse, deranged, I thought, Look, youth, you’ve spent ten years in the Alps, you were on Nuptse West Ridge – how in God’s name can there be holes here?

  These thoughts took two seconds, I pulled and levered myself out and moved back close to the rock, placed a deadman then a snow stake, tied myself on and took in the ropes …

  When I returned to Base Camp, Alex looked thinner than ever and pale, but said he felt better. Tomorrow we’ll go up to the Brew Tent, sleep there overnight to acclimatize, then go for Camp 1 the next day. Day after we’ll go for 2, then return to 1. After that our plans are wide open. We’ve our own tent, and enough food for six days, so going up to the Col is still an option.

  I’m excited and apprehensive as we discuss it. I’ve had enough inactivity, I want some action.

  I also want to get it over with.

  Shokat returned round lunchtime, much more buoyant than before.

  1.00 p.m. Jon on the radio, the lazy, quasi-cockney accent drifting across the miles.

  ‘… Well … At the moment we’re lying flat on our backs on the ridge … We’re pretty wasted.’

  ‘So what’s the Col like?’

  ‘I wouldn’t really call it a col, over.’

  I play the straight man. ‘What would you call it, then?’

  ‘A tottering heap of shit.’ Much laughter and head shaking over that one. Typical Jon, the only one who’ll never admit to being moved by mountains. Like ‘But have they got the money?’, this became one of his classic remarks, applied from then on to everything from Jhaved’s pancakes to the interior of Jon’s tent.

  ‘What about this tennis-court area that’s supposed to be up there?’

  ‘I think it might be in China at the moment … No sign of it here, anyway. We can see the ridge in all its awful glory … A piece of piss … It looks really hard, actually. It’s great! And at the top there’s loads of cornices, but we might be able to sneak underneath them …’

  Sandy sat next to Jon, listening to the conversation. It depressed him. He had felt elated on arriving, then shocked to fall into two holes, then elated again. He thought it was wonderful up on the Col, the same Col Jon had just described as ‘a tottering heap of shit’. How could this be? It was as if they had entirely different views. Must be the difference in upbringing, he mused, we’re so different. I try not to be narrow, but sometimes it gets on my nerves. Then Jon said the summit ridge looked easy, while to me it looked desperate. I knew he was telling them a load of bull – he admitted as much – that I cannot understand. Why? Why must he take that ‘I own the place’ attitude? However, that’s just me, don’t worry about it, Sandy, Dominique would say …

  They signed off, examined the ridge as it humped and soared towards the summit then set off down. Jon went on ahead, Sandy hung back, wanting to be alone. They’d done their bit; they’d fixed rope to the Col. The door was wide open.

  It only needed someone to walk in.

  So at last the critical phase is approaching; at last I’ve come to what I sought and feared. The test. Test of what? My skill? Luck? Nerve? I think it over as I wash clothes in the icy stream above Base Camp. Clear water, hot sun on my back, the wind, rattle of boulders over by Lobsang, these tiny flowers – as always, being up here clears my mind for reflection. Time to be honest.

  Yes, I’ve probably come to test all these to some degree. But more than that. Simple curiosity. Not so much ‘Because it’s there’ as because I’m here. I’ve come here not so much to prove something as to experience how I’ll react in the face of genuine risk.

  Then I catch myself and laugh. Isn’t this all rather melodramatic? Well, if I get off with it, it will seem so. But I don’t know yet if I will. That’s the trouble with being a novice up here – I don’t know what I’m up against. But the other lads concede there is real risk, particularly in the Icefall. ‘There’s maybe a 5 per cent chance of getting wiped out going through there,’ Mal said a few days back. Then added casually, ‘Probably higher than that for you.’ Tony nodded.

  That is enough to merit serious reflection. It would be foolish and narrow to suppress or deny the dangers and struggle up ahead. If I make a mistake, I’ll be in serious trouble; if I get unlucky, I’ll be dead. Acknowledging that and accepting it, as I feel myself doing now, is the most valuable experience that’s happened to me on this trip.

  Not to stare down into the crevasse till knees tremble and head spins. But to be aware of it, take in its breadth and depth – then jump.

  10

  The White Tiger

  The author goes for his summit

  23–27 July 1984

  Sleepers, aspirin, Mogadon, Bradasol; camera, film; Walkman, notebook, pen; The Farewell Party; sun screen, shades; Kendal Mint cake, toilet roll.

  Harness, jumar, krabs, slings; thermal underwear, salopettes, sweaters (2), socks (2); Thermafleece, windsuit, gloves, balaclava.

  ½ tent, 4 hill-food bags, gas, matches.

  Lucky stone.

  Right now Alex and I are being Glacier Slugs. Lying in our tent below the Icefall, listening to light snow needling against the fabric. Early afternoon in the yellow-brown light; Alex kneels in the vestibule contemplating the steam that signals our next brew. His bony face is calm but gaunt, he’s still not too well and it was generous of him to come up today. I pass him a humbug which he accepts silently; I take one for myself – why do they always remind me of my granny? – and carry on writing.

  A bit of a stagger up here this morning, with our packs weighing over 50 pounds. The weight and bulk tend to throw one off balance when jumping. As always when I’m keyed up, everything was superclear. Moving on the glacier seemed more natural, less impossibly demanding. The heel bars seem to have fixed my crampons. That’s good.

  Just one stumble, coming up to the widest crevasse. Wait, look at it, what if I slip, Christ, here goes, oh not so bad. And there’s the Brew Tent already. Could really do with one …

  So we stuck up the single pole of the Brew Tent by way of announcing our arrival, then hacked out a more or less level platform on the ice next to it and put up our tent. Good to unroll the Karrimat and sleeping bag, unpack the Walkman, pills, sweets and notebook, set up the stove … How little it takes to make a habitation in the wilderness! How little we need to make ourselves at home! Good feeling, propped up on one elbow here with the bare essentials of life around me. Warmth, the brew Alex just handed me, a cigarette – what more is needed?

  Mal: Sandy and Jon just passed through, did the hospitality bit and borrowed the spoon back. They were obviously impressed by the summit ridge, although Sandy said it didn’t look as hard as Nuptse – good news.

  Very hot, stripped to Y-fronts, listening to Marley, Blondie and reading to pass the hours. Thoughts of home and Liz 5000 miles away. Sometimes this climbing lark seems so unreal, selfish and stupid.

  Jon and Sandy came galumphing down through the Icefall mid-morning with the rapid, nonchalant mastery born of years of practice, on their way to Base Camp. ‘Get a brew on!’ floated across the ice. We had an affectionate reunion. They looked and sounded changed, after a week on the hill they had become true creatures from the Baltoro. Hoarse, glazed, faces burned and swollen, puffy round the eyes, their hair set stiff in the wildest of post-futurist styles, they looked used. They looked a fucking mess.

  They were totally adapted to their environment.

  We all sat on our squares of cardboard, drinking and talking and laughing for all the world as if we were in a pavement café and not amid the shifting wreckage of a glacier 15,500 feet up somewhere in Baltistan. A mood of gaiety and ease seemed to affect us all and our conversation was unusually lively as it ranged over poetry, our LO, the meaning of life and the marvellous futility of human endeavour, reggae dubs, the squalid nature of decaffeinated coffee … Aft
er a week’s absence, we were taking pleasure in each other’s company. I talked more than usual, more natural I suppose, not holding back so much for fear of boring them when they asked about my writing and this book. They seemed genuinely intrigued. ‘Sounds good jest, youth,’ Sandy said, ‘do we get to your launching party?’ It feels as if so many things have come clear the last few days – my own motivations, this book, Kathleen, what these friends of mine are about. And with that, an excited calm.

  I feel balanced, committed and ready.

  We went for another romp on the glacier this afternoon. Without packs it was a joy. We did a number of ice slopes in a Scottie stylee, then Alex showed me how effectively one can climb with just one Alpine-style longer axe. I liked that, it’s more balletic, more about balance than hit-and-heave. More combination jumps, contouring across slopes, running down them, trying to make all the movements flow together. It’s coming much more naturally now, easier to watch feet, rope, around and above as I followed Alex up, down, across, over, under, through the wild ice sculptures, caves, bridges, sweeping wings of ice.

  It’s as if we were thoughts dancing over the corrugations of a wintry brain.

  Or as if a chef had gone overboard on free expression with 100,000 tons of meringue.

  We’ve been chatting on the radio. Mal and Sandy wished us luck. The radio transmits a lot more than information; it gives us encouragement, laughter and support. It’s good to hear the voices threading us all together: Mal and Tony taking a day’s rest at Camp 1 while Mal gets over his bug, Jon and Sandy now happily piling in the calories at Base Camp.