19

A Mountain Mind

We made our summit push at 9 p.m., eventually reaching the Bottleneck at one in the morning. The adrenaline pulsed through me. I knew the seracs were hanging over us like a toothy jawline. It needed only one to crack and crash down the incline for all of us to die in a grisly collision, or for a chunk of falling ice to shred through our rope, pulling the team down the mountain with a violent yank. Moving slowly around the intimidating terrain, I focused my thoughts, ignoring the occasional attack of stomach cramps as we later advanced up the summit ridge to reach the peak.

My heart was full as I braced myself against the winds, but the buzz of success was strangely fleeting. Having topped out at one of the world’s deadliest mountains on the morning of 24 July – a climb that was steeper and riskier than the world’s highest – I was reluctant to take in the clear blue skies for too long, or enjoy the now.

I wanted to get down as soon as possible, because (1) my stomach had been feeling weird for a few days and I guessed that climbing down might prove as uncomfortable as climbing up. (2) I wanted to hit Broad Peak as quickly as possible on the next expedition. And (3) the sooner I completed the Pakistan phase, the sooner I could deal with the pressing issue of gaining the permits for Shishapangma. There was no room for reflection or emotion this time.

On occasions, my attitude towards climbing a mountain was not dissimilar to the psychological position I’d adopted for military operations. In both circumstances I was never sure if I was going to come back alive, and once a mission was finished, it was often the best course of action to leave safely and efficiently. Of course, I was always supported by information: before military jobs we worked from the gathered intelligence regarding the enemy, their location and their capabilities. On climbing expeditions, we relied heavily on our knowledge of the mountain, weather reports, and our equipment; but some factors were forever beyond our determination in both scenarios.

In war, unexpected hostiles might be lurking nearby. During climbs, a rock fall might explode from nowhere. Once a team stepped into action, the unpredictable became a dangerous opponent. The best approach to neutralising it was to work steadily and methodically, without emotion.

I wasn’t a robot, though. There were some moments when my work on the mountains felt overwhelming. On some occasions during the mission I even prayed for death (though I never worried about it, or feared it), in moments when the very thought of putting one foot in front of the other felt too draining to contemplate.

These events, though rare, usually happened during trailblazing or line-fixing efforts, where I’d become so exhausted after climbing for twenty hours or more, that to close my eyes, even for a second or two, caused me to slip into sleep. As my body dropped to the ground, my brain would often jolt, shocking me awake like one of those falling dreams that kick in whenever a person drifts off too quickly, their muscles having relaxed all at once; triggering a hypnagogic jerk, where the brain imagines the body as tumbling from bed, or tripping over a step. On some peaks, fighting off the urge to snooze fitfully became a never-ending battle.

Sometimes the elements seemed capable of overwhelming me, too. Climbing through extreme weather conditions with sudden drops in temperature caused my bones and extremities to burn. Hurricane winds whipped up spindrifts; they ricocheted off my summit suit, and weirdly, banner-day conditions were sometimes equally demoralising. On Kanchenjunga, under clear, still skies, every muscle in my body had trembled with pain as I struggled to bring those casualties to safety.

Each step had felt torturous as I heaved their weight towards Camp 4, and every now and then I briefly imagined the sweet release of an avalanche collapsing above me. Picturing my fall in the whiteout, I felt the eruption sucking me down deeper, a rock or chunk of ice knocking me unconscious. Out cold, I’d suffocate quickly, blissfully free of pain; the suffering would come to an end. Thankfully, those thoughts were only ever fleeting.

I’ve never been someone that grumbles about pain in front of others, or opens up about any emotional hurt I might be experiencing – not too much anyway. I feel weirdly exposed even writing these ideas down: it’s a vulnerable process. But a lot of that strength had to do with being a soldier, where an alpha-male culture encouraged individuals working within it to suffer silently.

The lads I served with rarely grumbled about discomfort, or discussed any psychological hurdles they might be overcoming, and I followed suit, managing my issues alone during Selection. Sometimes Suchi would ask me what it had been like and I’d mumble some vague and limited description. I suppose to admit that pain was part of my job would be to accept its reality, and to do that would increase my chances of becoming crushed by it. What the UK Special Forces required were people that could grin and bear it. I sucked up the agony thrown my way and laughed as much as I could.

My combat mentality later helped me to overcome the turbulence of the Death Zone. For one, I was able to use discomfort in positive ways by turning it into a motivational fuel. During rare moments of weakness, where I’d briefly envision turning around, I’d think: Yeah, but what happens if I give up now? Sure, quitting would have brought some much-needed respite, but the relief would prove temporary – the longer-lasting pain of giving up would be bloody miserable.

My biggest concern throughout the mission was not finishing, either through weakness or dying, so I used the potential consequences of failure as a way of not quitting. I pictured the disappointed people who had once looked to my project for inspiration, or the joking doubters that would inevitably make comments in interviews and call me out online. Their faces fired me up. Most of all it felt important that I complete the fourteen expeditions in one piece. I needed my story to be told truthfully and in full because my success was not a coincidence.

Then I remembered the financial risks I’d taken. I visualised my parents living together in the not-too-distant future, once my mission was completed, and the love I had for them was enough to inspire positive action. My heart and intentions were pure. I didn’t want failure to sully them, so at my lowest ebbs, such as in the middle of a day-long trailblaze, I forgot about the aching muscles in my legs and back simply by imagining the burn of humiliation. I was soon able to make another step through the heavy snow, or along the rope, until one step became two, two steps became ten, ten steps became a hundred.

No way was I allowing myself to quit, so I also recalled my undefeated record. I have reached all my objectives, from the Gurkhas to the Special Forces and then at high altitude. Now is not the time to break down.

In many ways, this was the echo of an old mind trick I had used in war. When trying to negotiate pain, I often worked to create a bigger, more controllable hurt, one that would shut out the first – replacing an agony that was beyond my control. If my Bergen felt too heavy, I’d run harder. Any backache I’d been experiencing was soon overshadowed by the jabbing pain in my knees. On K2, I moved faster to forget the cramps in my bowels, but I also once climbed with a grinding, pounding toothache, the result of a condition called barodontalgia, where the barometric pressure trapped inside a cavity or filling changes with the high altitude. (Some people have complained of fillings popping out during a mountain expedition.)

On that occasion there was no option to turn around; I had a group of clients to lead, so instead I worked towards locating a second, more uncomfortable pain, one that I could turn off if necessary. That day, I climbed non-stop, working for a full twenty-four hours at a speed that left me fighting for breath. My lungs were tight, my whole body was in turmoil, but by the time I reached the summit, the throbbing in my gums had been forgotten.

Suffering sometimes created a weird sense of satisfaction for me. The psychological power of always giving 100 per cent, where simply knowing I was delivering my all, was enough to drive me on a little bit further: it created a sense of pride when seeing a job through to the end.

I remember there were times throughout Phases One and Two of the mission when the thought of leaving my warm sleeping bag filled me with dread. I knew the temperatures outside would be painfully cold, and the climbing would be hard, but to stay cocooned in relative comfort would have slowed down the mission – I wouldn’t be giving 100 per cent. The best option was to move quickly and purposefully. Simply unzipping the door and pulling on my crampons helped to motivate me for the next push.

Though a physically small step, this was a huge psychological gesture during an expedition because it showed desire. In much the same way that making the bed first thing in the morning was a mental cue that a new day was beginning, so the arduous effort required to pull on my boots and crampons was a trigger for the work to come. Self-discipline was my biggest strength during the mission. I was always the first to get up, even when it felt horrendous to do so, and there were times when I wished someone could encourage me. Instead I had to motivate myself at all times to step away from the relative comfort of my shelter.

Once I was outside, it was far easier to plan for the conditions; to hang back and rely solely on computers or radio communications for an indication of what was going on with the weather, felt like a shortcut, and taking any shortcuts during the expeditions would have suggested to everyone around me that I wasn’t fully committed. In turn, that one half-hearted effort might have led to countless other half-hearted efforts on the climb.

The knowledge that I was giving 100 per cent also served as a motivational factor during the fund-raising drive for the mission. I contacted a number of people who, on paper, were never going to help in a million years. One example was the successful entrepreneur and billionaire Sir Richard Branson: I sent him a handwritten note before the mission started that explained who I was, what I was doing and why I was doing it. The letter was posted with the assumption that Sir Richard probably receives hundreds of similar requests every week, and that mine was another one to lob at the bin. I even sealed the envelope with wax and stamped an ‘N’ into it with an embosser I’d picked up from a stationery shop. There was no donation in the end, but knowing that I’d explored all possibilities allowed me to sleep comfortably at night. I was leaving everything on the table, it was important to have zero regrets.

There needed to be balance, though, and I made it my job to practise patience at all times. Because of my desire to achieve so much in so little time, restlessness was an easy trap to fall into – for all of us. The group had been climbing for three months. It was highly unlikely we’d make it into the final phase before autumn, and that was only if Shishapangma was open for us to climb. In the meantime, we had to remain calm. There was no point in rushing at high altitude, or making rash decisions, seeing as we were waiting on events that were out of our control, such as those permit applications. Every moment on the mountain was a next-level test, where restlessness might prove fatal.

New challenges were thrown at us every day. I had been going from mountain to mountain in quick succession, so it was important to assess my team, my expedition and myself constantly. Were we ready? When is the best time for our summit push? Are our bodies too exhausted to climb?

I didn’t waste a second. If I was pinned to a position by the weather, I rarely sat back and relaxed. While stuck at a base camp, for example, I worked on figuring out the best ways to tackle the incoming conditions, or I worked on the funding of the mission. I also used those moments to train or to calm my mind by taking in the environment and the scenery. As a result, I often felt at peace while working at high altitude.

Most of all, I learned how to function effectively in unpleasant conditions. Throughout my military life I was trained to survive and succeed in almost any environment going, so I found it easy to work through the mountains. But that same mindset was available to every climber. It was possible for a novice to become accustomed to the harsh realities of life in base camps very quickly; after a few days or a few weeks, surviving even higher up the mountain becomes a habit for a lot of people, especially if they have positivity.

It helped that war had given me a low baseline in terms of personal comfort. As I told Suchi when financing the early stages of the project: I could live in nothing more than a tent for months and still find a way to earn money for the family. I’d previously lived in jungle, mountain and desert environments for work. Anything else felt like a luxury. I was primed to function effectively at high altitude. As we moved down K2 and readied ourselves for Broad Peak, my mind felt strong. Ten peaks had been ticked off the list. Discomfort was fuel.

* * *

As the second phase came to a close, the fantasy of dying pulled on me once more. Having rested at K2’s base camp for three hours, and met with Mingma and Halung we then pressed on to Broad Peak, the twelfth-highest mountain in the world at 8,051 metres above sea level. The pressure upon me was building. I’d hoped to top out on Phase Two’s final mountain in one day, but more and more challenges seemed to be stacking up. We were knackered, both physically and emotionally, and I was still feeling sick. Worse, my kit had been soaked through on K2. As we prepared at Base, I made sure to air out the equipment as best I could, but there was no way of drying my heavy summit suit in such a short period of time.

When we started out for Camp 1, my trousers and coat felt like a sodden, squelchy bear hug. At a much higher altitude that unpleasant sensation could become potentially dangerous, particularly if the moisture inside my suit turned to ice. I would freeze quickly, so at Camp 1, I took advantage of the high sun and dried out my kit as best I could. The importance of nailing Broad Peak as speedily as possible was becoming increasingly evident to everyone. But the mountain gods had made other plans.

Broad Peak was smothered; a heavy snowfall had landed shortly before our arrival, burying the fixed lines, and while a light path had been marked by a couple of climbers who had made it to around Camp 4 a couple of days earlier, a lot of their footfalls had been filled in. We’d have to trailblaze a path to the very top. The burden of heavy work was upon Mingma, Halung Dorchi Sherpa, and myself, and as we charged through the powder, my body seemed unable to cope with the workload. Not only was the rope to the summit buried, requiring us to yank it up through a few feet of snow, but we were having to lift our knees high, over and over, for any forward momentum.

My breathing was laboured. The energy levels I’d once carried in reserve were depleted and my guts still rumbled like a blocked drain. Every now and then, I’d steady myself against the stomach cramps until I couldn’t ignore them any more. Nature was finally taking its course.

‘Oh, fuck, no’, I thought, looking around desperately for somewhere to unload my bowels. But my current position was too sketchy and taking a dump at high altitude was no joke. Perching on a steep slope, with or without rope, while fumbling around with the zippers and Velcro of a summit suit in sub-zero temperatures was an awkward situation. I’d find myself exposed and likely to fall in the most undesirable circumstances, so I pushed ahead in agony, until I noticed the mountain levelling off above me, around 200 metres in the distance.

‘This is my chance,’ I thought, as I charged ahead, my lungs burning.

The climb seemed to be never-ending, but the pain in my legs and chest overwhelmed the churning in my guts, until, finally, I was able to locate a spot where I could hold myself without too much effort. I unzipped my suit and dealt with a very unpleasant level of personal admin.

Physically I seemed near to failure. Realising that a record-breaking time for finishing the Pakistan 8,000-ers was within reach, I leant heavily into the mountain mind. Stubbornly, I worked even harder. I closed down the pain in my cramping stomach by striding forcefully to the top, stage by stage. By the time we’d made it to 7,850 metres, the effort had finally taken its toll, and my back and legs were buckling. While the discomfort in my guts was fading away, I felt exhausted. Slumped in the snow, an extreme pain flooded my muscles and bones.

Whenever I coughed, the taste of blood seemed to cling to my tongue, a sign the high altitude was impacting on my body. Broad Peak had worn me down, but with our morale in a precarious state, it felt wise to outline a clear plan of action; not explaining the situation, as obvious as it might seem, could sometimes give a team a misjudged set of priorities or expectations. The bottom line was this: the route to the top of Broad Peak was a beast and it needed us to climb a steep couloir towards the ridgeline. From there we could work our way over to the true peak, hitting the very top at sunrise.

‘Guys, we’re all pretty fucked,’ I said. ‘The conditions up here are tough, so we should rest a bit, regroup, and then work really hard to the top.’

In my condition, this was set to be one of the more gruelling events of the mission’s second phase, but we were on the move again a few hours later, oxygen masks strapped across our faces. But having climbed to around 8,000 metres, my breathing felt increasingly laboured, and when I checked in with Mingma and Halung, they confirmed that, yeah, the workload seemed even more challenging than usual; Halung had trailed behind us for some time and had been unable to help with our efforts as we climbed.

At first, I put our combined slump down to the physical fallout from K2, but the decline in energy was still alarming and when I clocked our oxygen cylinders, the awful truth about our slowing pace was revealed. Fuck, we were out of air! Even worse, the fixed lines had finished, so we would need to traverse the last fifty metres or so to Broad Peak’s summit as quickly as we could, alpine-style. I’d been presented with one of those life-or-death decisions that were so common during combat, where evaluation and decision making would prove key.

Option one: retreat by returning to Camp 3, where we could gather some extra oxygen and push for the summit a day later, though a system of bad weather was due to rush in.

Option two: get the job done, without a visible route to follow while relying on our GPS system to steer us onwards, while keeping us clear from a nasty fall off the mountain.

Option two it was, then.

We walked around the mountain’s ridgeline, bombproofing our steps, working towards what looked like Broad Peak’s highest point, but once we arrived, another, higher promontory emerged through the clouds ahead. And another. Managing the emotional highs and lows under intense exhaustion was challenging enough, but operating with our GPS soon became impossible.

Though the worst of the weather wasn’t upon us yet, it was still bitterly cold and windy; the visibility was poor, we were shrouded in thick cloud, and barely able to see in front of our faces. Considering that none of us had climbed Broad Peak before, we weren’t entirely sure which way to go. (And it was for exactly these reasons that mountain climbers liked to work with experienced guides.) Only by communicating with our radio contacts in Base Camp, Kathmandu and London, all of whom were linked up to another GPS to track our location, were we able to get a steer on our exact position. Voices in the clouds told us to move left, right, or forward.

The work rarely eased up; we were at our limits. Extreme fatigue gripped us all, and as we became increasingly disorientated, our lives were very much on the line. There was every chance that one of us might take a fatal misstep or make a stupid decision. Like those confused climbers I’d heard about, prone to hallucinations or delirium in the Death Zone, we’d been exposed. At one point, I looked down and realised that we’d been climbing alpine style for some time having forgotten to connect ourselves to a safety ropeFN14 – a high-altitude health and safety priority.

Disconnected from one another, I knew that if Mingma, Halung or myself slipped, there would be no chance of arresting the fall – a horrific slide from the mountain, into a sheer drop below, would surely follow; but if we were all linked, the combined weight and effort of the group might help to slam on the brakes. Our oversight had been a result of extreme tiredness. I pulled out a length of line and lashed everybody together.

While I liked to carry the bare minimum of equipment and supplies during a summit push, Mingma often travelled with one or two luxuries. During a short rest, I noticed him rummaging through his rucksack until he pulled out a packet of Korean coffee. Tearing it open, he tipped the ground beans into his mouth, gesturing that we all do the same. The powder was bitter and claggy, we coughed on the acrid taste, but a caffeine kick was soon working through our system.

Before long, Broad Peak’s summit flag appeared in the distance. We hung around for as little time as we could, laughing bleakly at how the mountain had nearly killed us, and taking only a couple of pictures before descending again. There was very little joy. I couldn’t wait to get down and the team had been angered. For a lot of the time it felt as if Broad Peak had defeated us, even though we’d reached the very top in tricky circumstances.

Mingma and Halung decided to sleep at Camp 3 for a few hours, but eager to get home, I carried on down, wandering into a layer of thick cloud. Big mistake. I was soon confused, unable to locate the fixed line that would see me all the way to the bottom of Broad Peak. At one point, I even found myself perilously close to the edge of a sheer drop, which fell away by several hundred feet. I cursed my luck and poor judgement. ‘Why the fuck do you do these things?’ I thought. My damp summit suit was freezing; I was cold and unable to focus on the terrain ahead, and what I really wanted to do was sleep. Suddenly, surrendering seemed like a viable option.

If I died here, then all of this pain would end.

It had happened again. I was being overwhelmed by the effort, but I wasn’t beaten. Before any military operation, a sure sign of approaching failure was to enter into it believing that a defeat was on the cards. The only way to succeed was through positive thought.

I need to kick-start my revival.

Turning my thinking around, I found fuel: I saw myself a year down the line, fuming at my inability to pull through at the end. I thought of the people that had put their faith in me, the friends I had made along the way – and most of all I considered Suchi and the family. They needed me to get back. Finally, I envisioned the finishing line, my ascent on Shishapangma and the reception in Kathmandu as the world learned of my successes. The fug of despair was lifting.

Just make it happen. You can’t give up here.

With the sun rising higher, it didn’t take long to figure out that somehow I’d moved away from our earlier route in the confusion. Our ascent had taken place mainly in cloud and at night, and we’d followed the fixed lines up to Camp 4 for much of it; we’d only found ourselves in trouble after hitting the ridgeline, and when the satellite technology proved too problematic, our radio comms had then helped us to the top.

Thinking that I’d be able make it down by sight alone, especially in such thick cloud, while exhausted, was an error. I needed to reconnect with the ridgeline somehow – by doing so, I could hopefully locate the fixed line, and from there I’d be able to switch into autopilot. I had only to look out for some visual cue. I scanned the horizon for footfalls in the snow, and there, a hundred or so metres above me, was a barely visible path, gouged into the powder by our earlier trailblaze, the prints shadowing a length of rope.

I turned around, using all of my strength to go up, then to go down again, all the way visualising the spoils of success and the fury of failure.