ALEX: The almost reflex drive towards Base Camp lent to our team a cohesion formed by a total unity of purpose, an identifiable and obvious goal desired by all. There were, however, some particular problems inherent in the make-up of our team which, once our Base Camp was established, needed to be faced. As we were over a week behind schedule in reaching the camp, the increased urgency of our future timetable underlined our differences by leaving less time to climb and, consequently, less room for compromise.
From the day Nick’s original climbing companion, Dr John Minors, had dropped out, the expedition had become unbalanced. The original proposal had been for the Face climbing team of Doug Scott, Paul Braithwaite and Georges Bettembourg to accommodate Nick and John Minors within their acclimatization plans as far as was reasonable, with a view to the fact that these two compatible climbers would then be able to enjoy their own devices in the area at a standard and speed dictated by their abilities. When personal circumstances forced Dr Minors to withdraw, plans shifted towards Nick’s ambitions being accommodated with the help of Georges Bettembourg, who had become increasingly interested in a ski descent of the mountain, rather than an ascent of the South-West Face. So it was hoped that, should Nick successfully accompany the other members of the team over the acclimatization programme, he would be able to accompany Georges over an easier flank, at least as far as an intermediate camp established during the acclimatization climbing, and possibly even to the summit if the terrain and Nick’s ability suggested this would be reasonable. However, it was always unlikely that such an ambition could be fulfilled. Doug put it to Nick quite succinctly.
‘You can’t expect to keep up with us. Some of us have been doing this sort of climbing for the last 20 years. It’s our trade if you like. I don’t expect you’ll be able to climb on the South-West Face of Shishapangma, and you certainly wouldn’t expect me to be able to design an oil rig.’
Some of us were a little more basic. ‘You’ll be lucky to get to Base Camp!’
Through the months preceding our departure Nick had become increasingly bullish about his prospects on the mountain. From the comfort of Britain, photographs of the Himalayan Giants can appear deceptively innocent, especially to the inexperienced. At high altitude, even on the easiest snow slopes, a high degree of stamina and competence is demanded. Without the logistic emphasis of the classic Himalayan style of mountaineering, more than ever the climber needs the depth of experience which ensures that his climbing is second nature to him, almost completely reflexive, for the slightest error can have the gravest consequences. At the very least, the danger of frostbite is a constant and very ready companion. However, in the deceptive ease of the pre-expedition socializing, the Alpine-style ‘fast-talk’, the mountain’s flanks were at times being endowed with an almost playground atmosphere, and Nick, not unnaturally, hoped for great things for himself. When Georges dropped out of the expedition, trying to accommodate Nick’s ambitions was once again a primary consideration, and amongst the several reasons for Doug’s invitation to Elaine was the hope that, as a second support climber, she would be able to share in some climbing with Nick.
On 13 April, in Zegar, the question had its first real airing. Until that time it had been overlooked, almost embarrassingly, while the experienced team sought to avoid the issue by postponing it until the effects of altitude had made themselves known. The problem was pinpointed during a discussion about a second, intertwined but less-vital current of tension – the different degrees of emphasis placed by each member of the team on the amount of time and effort we should afford for seeing Tibet itself. In the bare, spartan, concrete eating hall of our hotel at Shigatse, with its peeling whitewash and decaying atmosphere, we had considered our onward timetable. With their passionate interest in Tibet and its people, Doug and Elaine wanted to stop and camp at the village of Dingri. This village had a long history of association with the Sherpa people of Nepal, and their Sherpa friends had often talked of it. The remainder of the team were more concerned with moving straight through to the roadhead, a more blinkered drive direct towards the mountain, in order that we might maximize our time there. This conflict of opinion was heightened somewhat by the inclusion of Elaine, whose scholarly interest in the country and its people was, for her, perhaps the pre-eminent reason for deciding to come along. She had hoped to undertake some climbing during our acclimatization programme and then to travel in Tibet while the climbers turned their attention towards the South-West Face.
By the time we had reached Zegar, it was fast becoming apparent that the costs incurred in the towns, due to the high prices and the restriction on camping, meant that the expedition had to minimize time spent in such fabled cities as Lhasa. Moreover the System absolutely prohibited any deviation from the regulated path along the route. Doug and Elaine may also have been perturbed at the dominance of drive towards the mountain exhibited by the majority of the team. The debate was becoming a little heated around our rusting metal table, at which an almost untouched breakfast still lingered. Elaine, unhappy with the aggressive atmosphere as she perceived it, got up to leave the table.
‘Hang on, Elaine, you can’t just walk off like that when things get awkward, you know. You’ve got £1,500 tied up in this trip as well; you have to say what you think – aggressiveness or otherwise.’
‘Well, I’m mainly interested in Tibet, as you know, and I’m not going to hang around Base Camp for three weeks while you do your Face.’ The cat was out of the bag!
Roger spoke: ‘But we thought you would be climbing with Nick while we were on the Face.’
This was the impression shared, not without some concern, by Paul, Roger, myself and Nick. Elaine was not so sure. The differences in personality between herself and Nick ensured they were not an obvious match as close friends; and Nick’s lack of experience meant, as she quite sensibly pointed out, that such an approach was probably unrealistic.
‘It’s been done before [climbing as a team of two on eight-thousanders], but only by a few, very experienced climbers. It’s just not on for Nick and me.’
The realism was greeted with some relief by Paul, Roger and myself, but with some considerable worry by Nick, who pointed out that he had been under the impression that he and Elaine would climb together, and that he was anxious to maximize the amount of time he climbed above Base Camp.
‘Look, it’s no insult to Nick, this. I’ve no idea about his climbing; it’s just plain crazy for two inexperienced climbers to go on an 8,000-metre peak.’
NICK: Having become committed to the idea of this Tibetan expedition my approach was to think positive and concentrate on making it all work. I would take more care another time to have a list of potential stand-ins. However, even if I had prepared such a list, it is probable that none would have been available at the 10 days’ notice we had when Georges dropped out just before we left.
My personal commitment was not just a bullish dream of starting Himalayan climbing with an 8,000-metre peak. It just happened that this was the trip I set up in order to get the opportunity to climb in Tibet. Alex’s calculating mind and the application of his merciless lawyer’s logic was a necessary ingredient in the field. However, on any trip the outcome is frequently at odds with logic. In the country which epitomizes the heart of Buddhism I was prepared to let my fate lead me, not a mindless animal to sacrifice, but a thinking man to a new experience.
ALEX: There had never, of course, been any intention on Doug’s part to have inexperienced, unsupported members of the party wandering about over high Himalayan ground. He had hoped, rather, to share his joy of and experiences in these mountains with everyone over the first few weeks, making time and himself available and taking developments as they came. He feels keenly that the ambitious Alpinist should try to make room in his plans for the less experienced climber. I hold to a contrary, less patient approach, that a person should work his way through the mountains, should he wish to, on the back of his own experience rather than accept any degree of shepherding. I think it would be fair to say that, to a greater or lesser extent, Paul and Roger share this view. There would, therefore, have been a certain unwillingness to make available too much extra time to accommodate the slower pace of Nick and Elaine, even without the additional hindrance of the extra time consumed by the approach to our Base Camp. Inevitably, this created an undercurrent of potential tension at the Camp, which was considerably assisted by the fact that it turned out to be one of the most unrelaxing, almost miserable Base Camp sites that any of us could remember. The snow never melted; the lakes remained frozen for the duration of our visit; the sun was rarely seen and, when it appeared, it was usually feeble, the atmosphere, very hazy, creating a sense of consternation. Could this be the self-same sun that was so pleasant in Nepal, and might even burn the unwary to a frazzle? The overall effect was dispiriting. The wind would blast the snow around our amphitheatre, wreak havoc with the tents and kitchen, and nibble away at our morale.
The kitchen, which is generally the focal point and social centre of any expedition, was our tarpaulin, which we had borrowed from the Red Army down in Nyalam, draped at one end over a large boulder and secured at the front to two stout crossed poles. From outside it looked like a curious animal from the Magic Roundabout. Inside it was a squalid affair. The slope of the ground ran alarmingly and with icy certainty downhill, towards the rock. Spindrift whistled through the front and slipped in through the sides where the stores had been stacked to provide some ballast and protection from the winds. The tarpaulin was not over-large and any movement within the kitchen had to be conducted at an acute bow, which was at least useful in that the eyes, if open, were guaranteed to be looking in the right direction to pick a way through the minefield of pressure cookers, stores and plates that slid about the icy floor before migrating towards the rock. Had we been pitched in the bows of an ocean-going tramp steamer, life could not have been much more awkward. At times the entire construction strained violently as a particularly severe gust slammed in through the front and attempted to inflate the tarpaulin sufficiently to achieve a vertical take-off. Huddled in one-piece duvet and Gore-Tex windsuits, with feet freezing even in double boots, eyes down against the spindrift, one could have been forgiven for harbouring the illusion that we were an Orc road-mending crew high in the mountains of Mordor.
The poor weather also mitigated against the possibilities of sunbathing, so that much time was spent in individual tents, with the result that social intercourse was at a premium. Nick was feeling the effects of altitude and now subject to a bad cough, Roger was in love and wondering why he bothered climbing the Himalayas, Paul was worried for his chest, Elaine was feeling the uncertainty of her exposed position on the team, and Doug was finding himself in the awkward and unrewarding role of expedition intermediary; we needed prolonged bad weather like a hole in the head.
On 26 April Doug elected to return to Nyalam with Wu, to organize the transport of the remainder of our equipment with Pemba, to make arrangements for the collection and delivery of our mail and to purchase meat.
DOUG: As mist, blown by a cold wind, swirled around the site we had allocated for Base Camp, Roger arrived carrying the eggs in a wicker basket, teetering from boulder to boulder, a pole across his shoulder with Nick knee deep in soft snow supporting the other end. Alex was carrying a pole too, with the snow right up to his crotch. They flopped down by the tents that we had erected whilst Paul was pulling boulders towards a kitchen site. Elaine was producing cups of tea in the porter tent. Whilst I was cooking some rice Elaine came over angrily, telling me to let the lads prepare their own meat. This was the result of the banter that always goes on in the presence of vegetarians, usually in light-hearted vein although when the going gets tough maybe an aggressive edge creeps into their comments. Being grumpy, as my wet clammy clothes had rapidly cooled and there was everything to do, I snapped back telling her not to complain about moaning meat-eaters. She went to her tent.
Later I went over to see her and to find out that she was fed up with the lads’ aggression. I went across to the lads and told them not to grumble about the food to her, putting on a show of anger that soon evaporated as we continued eating, drinking and joking, celebrating our arrival long into the night. Early next morning, whilst I was putting the brew on and washing last night’s dirty pots, I talked to Elaine about the previous evening, trying to reassure her that all would be well once we settled in. ‘It’s just a stage in the game and you shouldn’t misinterpret the lads’ boisterous behaviour.’
She replied, ‘I cannot stand the aggro.’
Outside, Alex was saying to Roger, ‘This has been a great trip so far,’ and Roger agreed.
Inside, Elaine was saying, ‘It’s their language I can’t stand, and their constant moaning about the lack of meat.’
I knew there was more to it than this but could not quite put my finger on the reason for Elaine’s obviously distraught condition.
There was work to do. We were at this time having so much trouble with Pemba that we felt we could not rely on him at all. Before going on any further I decided that it would be best if I tried to clarify his position on the expedition with The Leader at Nyalam. At the same time, we could purchase tins of Chinese meat from the People’s Store there and, if possible, any fresh vegetables that had been brought up from the south. We still hoped to receive mail at Nyalam and so, for this reason too, I went down to arrange mail runners. Feeling pretty depressed, I set off with Wu. At such times homesickness always wells up.
On the way Wu and I became separated in the mist. I went back up to look for him but, after a couple of hours searching the valley floor, I reasoned that he must have continued down valley. Finally, I arrived at Nyalam to discover Wu tucked up in bed with all his clothing strewn around in front of the stove drying. It turned out that he had failed to locate the logs spanning the torrent and had fallen into the river whilst wading across. He had thought his end had come. He was so relaxed after his ordeal, so glad to be alive. There was no mail.
On the 26th, after a solid nine-hour sleep, I awoke to the loudspeaker music. During the day I purchased cases of meat, wrote letters home and spent a lot of time with Pemba hoping to win him over by discussing (with Wu interpreting) his climbing activities on Everest, where he said he got up to 8,000 metres. Pemba said that he was 46 years old and was born a peasant boy near Shigatse. He said his parents were slaves and that they had to give half their crop to the landowner every year, also that they could not leave their land without his permission. His father had some yaks which ate the landowner’s crops, so the landowner beat Pemba’s father, putting him in bed for a week before he died from his injuries. A few weeks later Pemba’s mother died – he was then 16 years old. He had three sisters and two brothers, all older than himself. One of the sisters was a nun. He continued to grow crops, tending the yaks and then, in 1960, after helping transport loads for the 1960 Chinese Everest Expedition, he joined the CMA as one of the first recruits. He went on three expeditions to Shishapangma’s north side. It was in 1975 that he reached 8,000 metres on Everest, and the following year went up to the base of K2 from the north. He spent most of his time instructing other climbers from China and Tibet. He reckoned he was well off, having a farm and two yaks a few miles north of Shigatse which were being looked after by his wife with their two children, a girl aged four and a boy aged eight. He had money in the bank (3,500 yuan) and a radio and considered himself much better off than his parents. I asked him about his religion. He said that he did believe in a lot that the Buddhists had told him but what he tried to do was to work hard for his country and be honest. He said a lot more than the seven monasteries we had heard of were still functioning out of the three and a half thousand being used before liberation. There were plans, he claimed proudly, to restore the Rongbuk monastery near Everest over the next two years, with the Chinese providing all the materials.
Just then the Party Secretary for Nyalam poked her head through the door to talk to Pemba. She was a big woman dressed like the Sherpas and with one very large tooth poking over her bottom lip. She seemed a rather nice lady and I wondered how the Tibetans and the Chinese got along together, for here in Nyalam there are not only Chinese officials but also the military, this being a frontier town. In 1959 many Tibetan people fled from the Chinese along this valley to find sanctuary. Pemba said they need not have fled because the Chinese did not do all the dreadful things that were expected of them. Now they all worked together as brothers; in fact, Pemba said, the Tibetans hold high positions in the running of their affairs. For instance, he said, Lodse, who climbed Everest in 1975, is now in charge of the CMA in Lhasa and his wife is Chairman of the Tibetan Financial Committee.
By now it was late at night and the snow was coming down outside. Quite a crowd had gathered in my room and one by one they left, leaving me with my thoughts and dreams.
On 28 April we left Nyalam, having suffered for three days the worst food I have ever had; rice, spinach and boiled potatoes for breakfast – and for lunch – and for dinner. The left-overs were recycled for the next meal at the communal kitchen serving the Chinese workers who do not have a wife with them.
Pemba said he would move up to a yak hut, the highest building on this side of the mountain and later christened by Elaine ‘Smaug’s Lair’. He said he would do his best for us but I had absolutely no faith in the man. He was only concerned about himself.
Wu and I walked to the yak-herders’ huts an hour and a half from Nyalam, where inside one of them we found three young Tibetans who offered us tea. Wu talked to the older woman in Chinese, a language she had learned although she had never been to school. We got into a conversation about contraception. In China, Wu said, they are only allowed to have one child in the cities; if they live on a farm they can have two, whilst in Tibet, which is reckoned to be underpopulated, a family may have three children. Once you have achieved the limit you are supposed to be cut. I asked him to find out as much as he could about the lives of the Tibetans. Apparently they are allowed to own three or four yaks, and all the rest belong to the commune, who give them 300 yuan a year each for food. He was not able to say much more than is put out by the government agencies.
It was a pleasant interlude, a nice contrast to sit among these calm, gentle people after three days in Nyalam. They told us that many Tibetans now inter-marry with the Chinese; in fact the lady, Pandgo, who climbed Everest in 1975 had married a Chinese sportsman who was a Leader in Lhasa. It did seem to me that Everest had given a big boost to Tibetan and Chinese co-operation and perhaps also a lot of pride and stimulation to get the place moving.
We walked off, up valley to Base Camp, the frost on the ground twinkling orange while birds flew in droves flitting this way and that with a flutter of feathers as they dipped and dived above us. This time we went further along the valley before climbing up the moraine. There were several birds with long curly beaks, which no doubt fed on the shoals of fish – some of them two or three inches long – that swam in the cold, clear streams meandering over the flat valley bottom. Dwarf willow catkins stuck out of the snow and we saw many cat tracks crisscrossing our route.
From the moraine crest I could see our mountain; it seemed a long way off in time but I found comfort in the thought that all the running around this valley would help me to acclimatize for the virgin South-West Face. By the time I reached camp I was feeling confident that we would climb it. I knew it would have to be on the first attempt and in Alpine style.
I staggered into camp – only Nick was there, ‘How’s Mr Scott?’ he said in his Irish drawl.
‘Obviously better than Old Nick,’ I replied, judging by the way he was coughing.
Elaine was off on a walk around to the east, whilst Paul, Roger and Alex had gone up to find a site for Advance Base Camp. They all returned more or less together, full of enthusiasm as they gulped down their tea. They reckoned the South-West Face of Shishapangma looked feasible and the peaks upon which we were hoping to acclimatize seemed reasonably accessible.
On 29 April we all set off to carry loads to Advance Base Camp after a meal of rice-porridge, eggs and chips. Elaine, without much enthusiasm, decided to come along too. Alex and I went up front, breaking trail in the soft snow. We stopped to climb one of the superb boulders dotted around the undulating country between Base Camp and Advance Base Camp. Elaine plodded by as we were engrossed in our climbing and walked on into the mist. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to wait but I left it as she seemed withdrawn and moody. Fifty minutes later when we arrived at the Advance Base site, a friendly place in a little hollow amongst grass and boulders, there was no sign of her. We dumped the gear and food then, yelling ‘Elaine’ at the top of our voices, headed all the way back to Base Camp. It was like a walk on the Cairngorm Plateau and now just as wild as the Cairngorms are in winter – snow, wind and bad visibility. We hoped that Elaine was back in camp but when we arrived there at 5.30 p.m. she was still absent. We sat around having a beer, and then put our boots back on to go and look for her, when she staggered in obviously very distressed. I went over to comfort her but she pushed me away saying that she had been crawling around for two hours, vomiting. Poor lass. Elaine did not eat that evening. I suddenly realized that she was very dehydrated, which accounted for her vomiting; it is so easy to become dehydrated, especially for someone as slight as she is.
I fed her tea and orange drinks and tried to jolly her along without much success. She talked to me about the backbiting that goes on about Nick. For Alex she had only contempt, saying that he always spoiled a good atmosphere with his aggressiveness and took the others along with him. Without realizing it, they changed from sensitive beings to oafs. I suggested to Elaine that she put all her energy into climbing now, then into Tibet later; it is impossible to be in two places at the same time.
The following day did not start much better, for it was whilst I was making tea and preparing breakfast with Roger that I talked to him about Elaine’s comments. Roger denied that there had been any backbiting; they had simply been discussing how they could get Nick up a climb and about the share-out of camera gear after the expedition.
Elaine came into the kitchen, having heard our conversation from her tent, and saying: ‘You have no right to bring that up.’
I told her, ‘It is necessary for the trip.’
We take off in a violent argument, both reverting to type: mechanical man, mechanical woman, out of control; me going on about her moods and the edge she was putting on the trip, calling her a stupid bitch, and her yelling at me to shut up. Paul comes and goes, Alex arrives and says it has been a good trip and adds: ‘The only fly in the ointment was the woman who could not take it in a man’s world.’
Finally I retired to my tent and Elaine came over with a mug of lemon juice and we laughed at our argument and then talked about all the good trips that we had known and what had made them so. She had met Alex after our argument and they had had a talk.
‘Did it help?’ I asked.
‘He was brutally to the point,’ she said.
Later, Alex told me that during this conversation he had told Elaine that he did not want her to come between him and
Shishapangma. He asked her what was her reason for being here. Was it just to follow Doug about like a puppy?
Alex told her, ‘You are the problem of the trip – if you were not here there would be no problem.’
I felt like the pig in the middle whilst all this was going on, trying to grasp an answer that might reconcile the two extreme elements of the trip. I could see both sides quite clearly but could think of no solution. Alex, with a single-minded drive for the mountain, a person great to be with whilst everything proceeds in that direction; and Elaine hoping to enjoy a climb that would take her above the valley to have a good look around, and then to go down to spend time amongst the Tibetans with whom she empathized so well. As soon as either Alex’s or Elaine’s expectation appeared to be in jeopardy the negative energy that was generated put a dampener on the whole of the enterprise. I blamed myself for not having foreseen this problem. The only reconciling factor possible was a bit of love but there was none – not between Alex and Elaine, they had both put up their shields.
May Day dawned bright and clear; at long last the weather seemed to be improving. Elaine, her old affable self, was already in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Roger and Paul had ‘the runs’, which didn’t improve Roger’s temper or his liking for Nick’s strange ways. Roger talked to him in his clipped manner, ordering him about the camp on errands, to which Paul just smiled and joked: ‘RBJ calling water boy; RBJ calling water boy.’
It was time to go. Alex was champing at the bit.
ALEX: It had been our hope to push to Advance Base Camp today in order to start our acclimatization climbing, but both Paul and Roger had become quite ill overnight and so that they would have a chance to recover the remainder of the team settled for another carry. On my way back, in order to start a competition which I knew Paul at least would find irresistible, I raced back as fast as I could manage, running over the last hill, leaping in unsteady bounds down the final slope before collapsing into camp. Forty-five minutes to get there, and 15 minutes’ horizontal coughing after that.
Back in camp, another problem was developing. Eight yaks and our two yak-men had appeared in camp, carrying – unbelievably – one load between them! As if that were not enough, Pemba, who had engineered this masterstroke, had taken up residence in the small shack before the second bridge and announced his intention to proceed no further. With the yak-herders came two similar letters, both addressed to Wu. We were to remove our Base Camp immediately.
We were, to say the least, incredulous. The complete and total lack of understanding of mountaineering and mountains was frustrating to the point of tears. This liaison officer was no more interested in our expedition than in the price of a wet suit in Bradford. We were to withdraw because our camp was too high, the highest base camp ever established in China, even higher than the Everest Base Camp, which should be the highest as Everest was the highest mountain! Our height, he asserted, was 5,400 metres at least, and possibly 5,600. This seemed somewhat unlikely from our point of view, as the rock summit high above our camp was only 5,400 metres on the map. However, Pemba assured us, all this was against regulations and Wu was to withdraw from our camp immediately while negotiations were opened. Pemba’s note stated that regulations did not permit camps above 5,000 metres. This was doubly frustrating as, first of all, it was unlikely that we were higher than 4,900 metres but, more importantly, there was no such regulation. The regulation and the altitudes were being plucked out of thin air to suit a purpose – that purpose being essentially, we believed, the comfort of our liaison officer. Indeed we believe, and not without reason, that there is a simple conspiracy among liaison officers in Tibet to keep base camps as close to the roadhead as possible for their own convenience. After all our time and effort in getting to our camp, with our attentions finally directed towards the climbing, we were, unbelievably, being menaced once again by the System in the shape of this unsympathetic, selfish man. Reaction was immediate, if not always helpful.
‘Hang him!’
‘Inform the Express!’
‘Sack him!’
‘Ignore him!’
Someone would have to go down, but who? Once again, the ugly tentacle of lost time was rearing in our direction. Doug would go down. Who would go with him?
‘Alex?’
‘Not me, I’m going climbing.’
Even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t. If the business were to be done quickly, we were the obvious choice. Nick was intent on sacking Pemba, but this was simply, obviously, not possible. No matter how aggrieved one might feel, it is a dangerous course to make a move which stakes your version of events against that of a government official and then expect justice’. Any such action would put the position beyond our control; new, unknown elements would be introduced into the equation with who knew what results. Doug was right; we had to go down.
There was a half-moon that night. Wu, Doug and I grabbed a hasty supper from amongst the evening meal’s preparations and left at about 10 p.m. through the beautiful, cold savagery of mountains lit by moonlight and valleys dark in their shadow, a blackness into which we plunged off the far end of the moraine ridge. For the final half hour of the approach, down towards the sleeping shack, dogs had sensed our coming and barked their warnings. Armed with this knowledge and a fistful of stones we crossed the bridge and approached the den. Agitated and angry, the dogs’ eyes gleamed in the periphery of our torch vision, but they sensed our mood, felt the occasional projectile and slunk quietly away.
The small, ill-fitting, stubborn wooden door that was the entrance to the shack yielded to a kick. Inside, startled exclamations greeted us, peering eyes blinded by our torches. Pemba was at the far right wall; Gandhi, the dismissed yak- boy, slept beside the fire, opposite the door.
‘Pemba, get up!’
For over two and a half hours we argued in that damp, smoky, desolate shack. Pemba sat on his bare wooden bed with his thick army coat pulled close over his shoulders, rubbing his knees in a slow pantomime fashion, looking (he thought) at once troubled and concerned, understanding and hurt, and consequently, in our eyes, like a cunning child caught doing wrong. I sat on Pemba’s right on a small earth bench while Doug alternated between sitting on his left and on an inoperative wood-burning stove and attempting to pace about the den which was still filled with solid banks of winter snow. Gandhi made efforts to prepare tea from damp twigs. Much blowing and puffing produced an impenetrable smog, but little in the way of tea. Wu sat on my right and tried to keep some sanity as the argument developed through him, thick and fast.
‘Now Wu, tell Pemba that he is a menace, in all of the 20 expeditions I have been on I have never had a worse liaison officer. He is a total hindrance, always mayo, mayo, mayo (no), we can’t stay just one night in Lhasa, we can’t cancel the minibus, we can’t stop for pictures, he can’t manage the yaks … ’
‘Mr Pemba says he has done his utmost … ’
‘Utmost!’
‘Utmost to help you and you simply don’t appreciate it.’
‘Mayo, mayo, mayo, what good’s that?’
With maps and photographs we demonstrated as convincingly as we could that our camp was not above 5,000 metres, but Pemba continued to insist it was impossibly high.
‘Mr Pemba says you are mountaineers. You will be very tired and when the weather is bad you will need to rest. You must come down to this place to rest; your camp is too high!’ A willingness to give advice on matters that are quite beyond the ken of the adviser seems to be a habit in this part of the world. We tried changing tack to an approach more in keeping with the realities of the Chinese System.
‘Tell Mr Pemba that we are very important people, as he must realize for such a small team to be invited as guests of his government to such a large mountain. Tell him I am the third most important mountaineer in the British Mountaineering Association, Doug is Mr Everest who discovered the Chinese tripod, Paul is the biggest retail man in our country and Roger is a very important mountain guide. Tell him we are writing a book. If this mayo mayo persists, we will have to report him to the CMA, to Peking, to our Embassy and to London. He will be a man to be avoided at all costs.’
‘Mr Pemba says he has been on several expeditions and has never had any trouble. He will tell all his future expeditions about you. You are the worst expedition ever to come to China. Mr Pemba says he is a citizen of the People’s Republic of China and you should not treat him like this.’
You know you are at the bottom of the barrel when ‘citizen of the People’s Republic of China’ comes up in the conversation, but still it went on. Pemba had to come to Base Camp.
‘Doesn’t he even have the basic curiosity of a mountaineer to get two days up a yak-track?’
‘Mr Pemba says his knees are too bad to go up to the camp, and that he has a bad chest.’
‘What’s wrong with his knees?’
‘Arthritis.’
‘Advise Mr Pemba to stop eating meat!’
In the end it was agreed that Wu would return with us to Base Camp, which was vital as, without him, we would have no one to secure our tents in our absence whilst climbing. Pemba would follow, he assured us, as soon as his knees permitted. There was no more argument about rules and regulations, no reference to altitudes, it all boiled down to claimed arthritic knees which, when we looked at them, did seem pretty bad. Why had the CMA sent such an unhealthy man to an unknown base camp? I slept outside that night, unable to stand the interior’s squalor. The following morning we made a weary return to camp. Having forgotten my sunglasses, I had to wander back with my scarf tied over my face, a sort of a breadline production of the Elephant Man. We were greeted by coffee and pancakes, congratulations and tales: ‘Number three mountaineer – that must make me number one!’ and a good dinner into which considerable thought had gone.
The camp was resplendent. Roger had donned his organizational cap and harassed anything on two legs. There were even different bags for organic and inorganic waste. It was unlikely to last.
At last we were free to turn our minds to acclimatization. Our intention was to climb the South-West Face of Shishapangma in Alpine style. As explained earlier, this means that the climbing team approaches the foot of its objective intent on climbing that route in one single push, without any support from fixed ropes, previously placed camps or previous presence on the route. It is a major aspect of the recent trend in Himalayan climbing towards lightweight climbing, though lightweight climbing is not necessarily Alpine style. The crux of the Alpinist’s approach is his desire to avoid setting foot on the proposed route until he is sufficiently acclimatized by climbing elsewhere to contemplate climbing that route in one single acquaintance.
The process of acclimatization, by which the climber adapts his body to the rarefied atmosphere and lack of oxygen at higher altitudes is, perhaps, best understood by taking the process backwards. While the planning varies between individuals, their experience, level of fitness and stamina, and the nature of the climb, my thinking for such a climb as the South-West Face would run along these lines. The summit is just over 8,000 metres; it is a fairly technical climb by modern standards but will probably allow a fast ascent by a rapidly acclimatized team. Ideally, the team should have bivouacked previously around 7,000 metres and climbed above the bivouac the following day, perhaps enjoying three highish bivouacs on the overall trip. In order to be fit enough to do that without going over the limit and exhausting themselves for the Face, they will need to have bivouacked at 6,400 metres on a previous climb, climbed above that for some distance and, again, enjoyed two or three bivouacs on that climb. The climber will then look around the area on which he is and try to fit the theory into the places available to him to climb. It is also often a good idea to use acclimatization to check out and leave some supplies on a proposed descent line.
Acclimatization theory and practice differs widely between climbers, but for our team on this occasion the above approach was approximately agreed on, and the area seemed to fit the bill perfectly. To the right of the South-West Face was a shoulder which I have subsequently discovered had a name, Pungpa Ri, at 7,445 metres. (Anders Bolinder, the eminent Swiss cartographer, had passed on to Doug this information gleaned from an original map by Peter Aufschnaiter.) This was also on a possible descent route. A climb in this area would prepare us for an ascent of the Face. In order to be fit enough for this climb, we could utilize the easier slopes of Nyanang Ri, a mountain of 7,047 metres. To the right of that again was a snow and ice slope on the ridge that led from Nyanang Ri eventually to our Base Camp, the highest hump of which was around 6,200 metres and upon which we might also have enjoyed useful first-day climbing. This first day would have been particularly useful for Nick and Elaine, who, with less experience and stamina than the rest of the team, would need a longer run-in at acclimatization. However, we had by now lost even more time, and so, in the kitchen on the evening of 2 May, I proposed that we did not have the time to accommodate this and should move directly on to the slopes of Nyanang Ri. Paul and Roger were in immediate agreement. Doug did not dissent.