There are many rituals associated with climbing Everest, and their very familiarity was a reassurance, a series of signposts towards the summit. I enjoyed waking in the dark of the pre-dawn in my own little tent, then going across to the cook’s shelter which was so much warmer and cosier than the mess tent. The cooking stoves, which had been lit by one of the cook boys, were standing on a table of piled stones in the middle of the shelter, roaring away under the big detchies. Ang Tendi, our chief cook, was still in his sleeping bag, curled up on a mattress on top of some boxes at the end of the shelter. Ang Nima, one of the cook boys, poured me a mug of tea and I sat on a box.
‘What are the Sherpas having?’
‘Dahl bhatt, you want some?’
‘Yes, please.’
Ang Nima ladled out a plateful of rice covered with dahl in which swam big red chillies. I nursed the hot plate as other Sherpas trooped in one by one. Soon the shelter was packed with Sherpas and the three other climbers going into the Icefall that day.
There were no commands. The Sherpas drifted out, picked up the loads which had been allocated to them the previous evening, and then, pausing at the chorten on which a fire was smouldering, muttered a prayer, tossed on it a handful of rice or tsampa, and plodded off in the dim light towards the Icefall. I, too, always uttered the prayer that everyone would return safely from the Icefall that day.
The way started gently over rocky debris past the American camp, then wound through shallow valleys between fins of ice and piled boulders, onto the lower slopes of the Icefall. It was a steady crescendo of drama; the first little ice towers, the first crevasse, and then a complete network of them, which we laddered one by one. The first hint of danger came as the towers became bigger and we reached the debris of collapsed séracs, a slope of ice boulders, one piled on top of the other, smooth, hard, slippery and insecure. I disturbed one the size of a kitchen table and Bjørn lunged out of the way only just in time as it bounced down the slope, dislodging others in a domino effect.
We nibbled away at the route through the Icefall, the climbers divided into two teams taking alternate days. As is always the case, what seemed frighteningly dangerous on first acquaintance quickly became familiar with the introduction of ladders and fixed ropes. The higher we climbed, the more insecure it became, so that what had seemed appalling one day became comparatively safe in contrast to the next barrier.
It was nerve-racking yet invigorating, trying to pick out a safe route through this maze of ice. We were also starting to work as a team, not just the climbers, but also with the Sherpas, who took their full share in route finding. Each day we pushed the route out a little further but it was taking too long. A week had gone by and we still hadn’t broken through into the Western Cwm. It was the morning of 22 March and I was having breakfast in the Sherpa kitchen when Pertemba came in, dressed for the hill.
‘I think I’ll have a look at the Icefall today,’ he said.
I certainly didn’t mind. Apart from anything else it meant that I was not the only one to have broken a promise to his wife! Pertemba wanted to get things moving and to see for himself why we hadn’t pushed the route through to Camp 1. But I don’t think that was the only reason. I had sensed his growing frustration with his administrative role on the expedition, grappling with the problems of getting all our loads ferried to Base Camp in the face of a porter and yak shortage. Whilst relations between Sherpas and climbers had been getting steadily stronger as we worked together in the Icefall, back at Base Camp, as so often happens, petty misunderstandings were causing tension. It was all about money and food – it nearly always is.
Arne and Christian Larsson, our Base Camp manager, were used to doing business in the world of shipping with firm contracts which were honoured to the letter, every dollar accounted for. Business in Sherpa country is different. Pertemba had had to pay over the odds for both porters and yaks. In sending back some of our high-altitude porters to bring up a consignment of ladders which had got no further than Pheriche, there had been a dispute over their ration allowance. But the greatest irritant of all was over food. The Sherpas had opted to be paid a ration allowance so that all their food could be bought locally but then, almost inevitably, they had yearned for the chocolates, sweets and biscuits that the climbers were eating.
It all came to a head over a load of fresh oranges. The trekkers who had come in with us to Base Camp had chartered a helicopter to take them back to Kathmandu from Pheriche and Arne had used it to bring in the oranges. Ang Tendi asked if the Sherpas could have some but was told they were reserved for the climbers. It was the only time I had anything approaching a row with Arne.
‘It’s inevitable they’re going to want to share in the goodies,’ I pointed out. ‘You always want something all the more if you’re not allowed to have it. It’s human nature.’
‘It cost me a great deal of money getting those oranges in,’ he replied. ‘The Sherpas said they wanted to buy their own food and we’ve already paid out a hell of a lot for it. They should stick by their agreements. Anyway, if we shared out the oranges amongst everyone at Base Camp, there’d hardly be enough to go round.’
‘But can’t you see? We’re going to depend on the Sherpas’ enthusiasm to get us up this mountain. What on earth are a few oranges compared to keeping them happy? It’s worth making concessions at this stage when it could make all the difference between success and failure later on.’
In the end Arne agreed to share out the oranges and, once the concession had been made, very few Sherpas bothered with them. We ended up throwing most of the oranges away after they had become rotten. As the expedition progressed Arne and Christian became much more relaxed in their dealings with the Sherpas and consequently their relationship with them got better and better.
That morning Pertemba wanted to escape from all these niggles and grapple with the much more tangible problems of the Icefall. The worst section was near the top. A tottering cliff of ice about seventy metres high barred our route. The only way to bypass it was through a canyon filled with ice blocks spawned from the sérac walls. About halfway along a huge fin of ice protruded. Instinctively I chose the narrow passage behind it. It seemed to give what could have been little more than psychological protection from the threatening wall above.
The passage was shoulder-width and about five metres long. I had walked a dozen paces or so beyond when I heard a sharp crack, followed by a dull heavy crunch. Glancing behind me I saw that the fin, for no apparent reason, had broken off at its base and, like a vice, had closed the passage I had just walked through. It needed little imagination to visualise what would have happened had this occurred just ten seconds earlier. I was badly shaken. There was none of the adrenaline rush, in itself a stimulant, that you get from a fall or near-miss from an avalanche, just a dull, nagging fear with the knowledge that I was going to be exposed to this kind of risk every time I went through the Icefall. I made a weak joke about it to Arne, who had been behind me, and pressed on into the sunlight that had just reached the slope beyond. In its dazzling brightness the piled ice blocks seemed less threatening.
But the danger was still there, though at least now we were on top of the huge peeling flakes of ice. It was like a gigantic toy box into which had been tossed a pile of multi-shaped building bricks; shift one, and the whole lot would collapse. We had reached a stable island of ice near the head of the cataract. A good place to pause. Odd was already there.
‘Pertemba and Pemba Tsering have gone ahead,’ he told me. ‘I couldn’t keep up with them. There’s just one more big crevasse system between us and the cwm. They’ve climbed down into it.’
We sat in the sun and ate our lunch, constantly glancing across the waves of broken ice to the smooth haven of the Western Cwm, but there was no sign of Pertemba. An hour went by and then someone shouted.
‘There they are, you can see them, they’ve made it.’
They were two tiny dots dwarfed by the plunging walls of Nuptse but very definitely on the other side of the crevasse system and in the Western Cwm.
On his return Pertemba told us they had gone beyond the site of Camp 1 and that the Western Cwm looked straightforward. He was full of bounce and seemed happier than I had seen him so far on the expedition. I suspect that the sight of his fellow Sherpas going into the Icefall had begun to irk him. He was a good administrator but he was still a climber. His lightning foray had been important for his own self respect and perhaps even his standing with his fellow Sherpas, though on getting back to Base Camp he settled into his administrative role once again and showed no signs of wanting to go back to the mountain.
We were now ready to establish our first camp and Arne discussed the plan over lunch the following day. In deference to my lack of Norwegian, conversation when I was around was nearly always in English. He didn’t go in for formal meetings but used mealtimes as a forum for discussion and planning. He proposed ideas, listened to counter-suggestions, but it was always Arne that made the eventual decision and, through this, maintained an effective control. With the exception of Christian Larsson he was the least experienced mountaineer in the team but, nonetheless, he was a good leader with a combination of charisma, a good sense of humour and a quick analytical mind that enabled him to absorb a series of conflicting ideas and come up with a sound conclusion.
Odd, Bjørn and Stein were to move up to Camp 1 the following day and push the route on up the Western Cwm to Camp 2, which would be Advance Base – all good familiar stuff, for this was identical to the build up for the South-West Face. I enjoyed my position within the expedition. Arne had agreed that I should look after the logistics, which meant supervising the flow of supplies up the mountain. Although at times I found it frustrating, not being able immediately to implement my own ideas, I could be very much more relaxed than I had been on previous trips.
During the next two days, however, a difference in approach emerged. Arne announced at dinner that, in view of the danger and instability of the Icefall, he proposed keeping all the Sherpa force at Base Camp until we had ferried everything we should need for the climb beyond up to Camp 1. There was a sound logic in the idea, since it would reduce the number of days we would have big Sherpa teams moving through the Icefall. In addition, once everything we needed was in the Western Cwm, a major collapse in the Icefall need not delay the build-up of supplies.
Even so, I was not happy with his plan. I preferred dividing the Sherpa team between the camps from the beginning to maintain the forward momentum of the climb, trying to keep a stream of supplies behind the climbers out in front. I felt that this was psychologically important, so that the entire team would have a sense of urgency and drive. It would also mean we were making maximum use of the good weather we were experiencing. I didn’t say anything at the time but slept very little that night, exploring the implications of Arne’s plan. He was not at all well at this stage with a severe throat infection that he just couldn’t throw off. If you are feeling ill, this inevitably influences your judgement, and I was worried that Arne subconsciously was favouring a slower build-up on the mountain because of his throat condition.
I had brought with me an Apple Mac computer that was powered by batteries and a solar panel. I was using it both for writing my reports and letters and also for calculating logistic problems. First thing next morning, as soon as the sun hit the tent, I switched it on and, using the spreadsheet, calculated the implications for the next ten days of Arne’s plan and of my own idea of distributing the Sherpas more evenly. I then went over to his tent before breakfast to show him my calculations, demonstrating that with the build-up we already had, we should be able to station a Sherpa team at Camp 1 the moment we had the route to Camp 2 opened. I suggested that I should also move up to Camp 1 to supervise the flow of supplies through to Camp 2. Arne saw the point and we agreed to a compromise. Six Sherpas would join me at Camp 1 the following day when we moved up.
I was going up with Ola Einang, Ralph Hoøibakk and Håvard Nesheim. The latter two were the strongest climbers in the expedition, one of the oldest and the youngest. Ralph was managing director of a big computer company yet, in spite of being forty-six and having a sedentary job, he was the only member of the team who was as fast if not faster than the Sherpas. When making the route through the Icefall, he had always been far ahead, often soloing steep ice in his search for the best route. He was not remotely interested in my computerised logistics.
‘I’m managing and planning all the year round. This is my escape,’ he told me. ‘I’m happy just climbing.’
Håvard, at the other end of the age spectrum, had the same attitude. He had just qualified as a doctor but was on the expedition as a climber. He held the Norwegian height record, having joined a Polish expedition to Lhotse, and reached their top camp on the Lhotse Face just below the South Col. Håvard came from Tromso in the far north of Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, where the sun never sets in the summer and it never rises in winter. His personality perhaps mirrored his home environment. He was the expedition joker, flamboyant and full of laughter, yet beneath it there was steel. The jokiness was a thin protective layer over a strong ambition. He very much wanted to reach the top of Everest.
They moved up to Camp 2, sited on a bare rocky moraine just below the South-West Face, while I stayed at Camp 1, checking through the supplies as they came up from Base Camp. I learnt over the radio that Kjell Torgeir, our doctor, had recommended that Arne, Christian and Stein should drop back down to Pheriche to help get rid of their sore throats. Arne hadn’t delegated the command in any way, but at this stage it didn’t really matter since the expedition was now running in the natural pattern of a siege ascent. Ralph, Håvard and Ola were out in front making the route up the Lhotse Face and behind them the Sherpas were relaying supplies to Camp 2. Liaising with Pertemba at Base Camp and Pema Dorje at Camp 1, I was able to control the flow of loads and the distribution of Sherpas on the mountain.
My Apple IIc had stood up amazingly well to the dust and glacier grit, to temperatures ranging between –10°C at night and the mid-eighties inside the tent during the day, all of which computers tend to hate. It had been bumped on the back of a yak as far as Base Camp and then carried by a porter up through the Icefall. I could only operate it during the day when the temperature rose above freezing and the power of the sun could charge the battery through the solar panel. It was to achieve a record of its own when I took it up to Camp 2 at 6,400 metres, as I suspect this is the highest on the earth’s surface that a computer has ever been used.
Once the three out in front had reached the middle of the Lhotse Face where we planned to establish Camp 3, the only people available to replace them were Odd, Bjørn and myself. I was beginning to look forward to being in the lead. It would be our job to make the route to the South Col which would put the other three into position for the first summit bid. I didn’t mind that. It seemed appropriate that it should be an all-Norwegian effort for the first push, but I was worried about my own stamina and was frightened of burning myself out while pushing the route up to nearly 8,000 metres. From my experience in 1982 I knew that my recovery rate had slowed down, an unwelcome product of my years.
Odd, Bjørn and I moved up to Camp 2 on 3 April. It was already a little village of tents perched amongst rocky mounds and, sadly, littered with the debris of former expeditions. With several large expeditions a year visiting the mountain this has become a serious problem on Everest. It’s not just the rubbish that has been left behind but also the pollution of water supplies. We had all suffered from Giardia, a form of dysentry, at Camp 1, almost certainly because the snow from which our water was melted was polluted from the latrines of earlier expeditions.
The previous autumn Dick Bass had financed a Nepalese police expedition whose main function was to clean up the mountain, though at the same time they were hoping to make a bid for the summit and for Dick to complete his seven summits odyssey. Unfortunately, through a series of misunderstandings with the authorities, Dick was forced to withdraw before they had even reached the foot of the Lhotse Face. The police pressed on, however, making a bid for the summit which ended with two of them falling to their deaths. They also cleared a large quantity of rubbish from the lower part of the mountain though, perhaps because of the sheer volume of it, there was still a great deal in the immediate environs of Camp 2.
The others that day had reached a point just below the proposed site of our next camp. They had had three hard days out in front and were keen to get back down for a rest. They told us that they had found the shattered body of a Sherpa at the foot of the Lhotse Face, a grim relic of the previous autumn’s expedition.
We spent the following day sorting out the camp, checking gear and getting ready for our move on to the Lhotse Face, deciding to make a carry in the first instance, and actually get the camp established before moving up. I was feeling fit and well acclimatised, largely due to my steady progress up the mountain, ferrying light loads and working on the logistics.
But it was good to be moving up into the lead, as we zigzagged through the crevasses that guard the upper part of the Cwm. The Lhotse Face, a thousand metres of bare ice leading up to the South Col, looked formidably steep. An avalanche cone dropped down from the bergschrund that guarded its base. The bergschrund itself was filled with snow but the wall beyond was sheer for about twenty metres. It had been a fine lead by Håvard Nesheim who made the first ascent. The previous day Sundhare and Ang Rita had carried up some ladders and put them in position.
Walking below the South-West Face, and now looking across towards it, brought many memories. Most amazing of all, though, was the site of our old Camp 4. The super-boxes, specially designed by Hamish MacInnes, were still there, faded into a brown-yellow, no doubt stuffed with ice, but clinging to the snow slope below the little rock spur we had feared would give all too little protection from the avalanches coming down from the walls above. The site had been better than we had thought, and the boxes themselves had more than justified their weight.
The Sherpas were pulling far ahead. Odd was with them. Bjørn and I went more slowly, pulling up the fixed ropes over endless slopes of ice, broken only by steeper bulges. The average angle was little more than forty degrees but the ice was so hard that it must have been intimidating to lead. I glanced up to see Odd and the Sherpas now on their way down. They had pushed beyond the high point of the others and had found a site for Camp 3. It was on a wide shelf, sheltered by a sérac wall. A small blue tent left by the Korean winter expedition that had attempted the mountain just a few weeks before hid from the winds in a little depression. We were at a height of around 7,400 metres.
By the time we reached Camp 2, Kjell Torgeir had arrived. He wasn’t a climber but was a keen cross-country skier, marathon runner and an excellent expedition doctor, conscientious, kindly and very capable. He had brought with him a small battery-operated centrifuge and was using this to check the haematocrit levels of the team. At sea level about forty-eight per cent of the blood is made up from the red cells that absorb oxygen from the lungs but, to help compensate for the lack of oxygen at altitude, the body manufactures more red cells. The problem occurs if there are too many, for then the blood becomes as thick as treacle and there is a danger of it clotting, causing heart attacks or strokes.
Kjell had just checked Odd’s blood to find that the haematocrit level was dangerously high, at about seventy per cent, and he had just advised him to return to Base in the hope that a loss in altitude would thin down the blood. Odd, who had been going so much more strongly than either Bjørn or I, was both shocked and depressed by the discovery.
And so the following morning it was just Bjørn and I who set out with Ang Rita and Sundhare for Camp 3. We were quickly left behind by the two Sherpas as we slogged up the ropes, weighed down with our personal gear, much heavier loads than the previous day. One advantage of this was that by the time we reached the camp the Sherpas had erected both tents. All we had to do was crawl inside and light the stove for our first brew.
That night we slept on oxygen. On the South-West Face in 1975, we had only started using oxygen at Camp 5, at about 7,700 metres, but since we had plenty of oxygen bottles and the Sherpa power to carry it, it seemed to make sense to start using it at Camp 3 as Bjørn and I wanted to avoid burning ourselves out in this push to the South Col. Snuggled in my sleeping bag, the hiss of oxygen was reassuring as I woke from time to time through the long night.
The following morning I started cooking just after dawn, but we were slow in getting away and had extra brews as we waited for the sun to creep over the shoulder of Everest and give us the benefit of its warmth. I poked my head out of our tent and saw the Sherpas just emerging from theirs. Time to move. Bjørn and I were using oxygen that day, but the Sherpas weren’t. Consequently they were ready first, shouldering rucksacks filled with rope and climbing hardware. I was still struggling with my oxygen system. The straps of the mask were the wrong length. I couldn’t fasten one of the buckles, lost my temper and hurled the mask into the snow. Bjørn seemed quietly amused. By the time I had got myself organised the others had vanished round the corner of the sérac. I plodded behind them, feeling flustered and tired before I had even started. The oxygen didn’t seem to be doing anything at all for me.
I soon arrived at a steep little step. They hadn’t bothered to put a fixed rope on it. I climbed it clumsily, goggles misting up, and the snout of the oxygen mask making it impossible to glance down and see where I was kicking my cramponed boots. Why the hell hadn’t they put a rope here? I cursed them, cursed the mountain, cursed the whole expedition. Sundhare and Ang Rita were no more than little dots on the other side of a sweep of ice leading to the distinctive broken limestone rocks known as the Yellow Band and Bjørn was already halfway across the ice slope on his way to join them.
‘Come on Bonington; get a grip. You’re behaving like a small child,’ I told myself.
I was going so badly there seemed little point in trying to catch up with the others. Sundhare and Ang Rita were obviously capable of fixing the route and Bjørn would soon be with them. They had run the rope out almost horizontally across the slope towards the lowest point of the barrier formed by the Yellow Band. It looked as if it could do with a few intermediate anchor points, and that the approach to the traverse needed some fixed rope. I decided I might just as well spend the rest of the day doing this. I’d be conserving my energy yet doing something useful. I immediately felt better, dropped back down to the camp and collected some more ice pitons and rope, dumped the oxygen gear that had been so cumbersome, and returned to the fray in a much better humour.
I have always enjoyed putting in fixed ropes; there’s an element of craft to it, getting the rope to just the right tension and placing the anchors so that it is easy to transfer from one rope-length to the next. I was enjoying myself. Meanwhile I could see that the others were making good progress, slowly climbing up alongside the Geneva Spur.
After a couple of hours I returned to the tents to prepare tea for Bjørn and the Sherpas when they came back. They had fixed about 300 metres of rope, most of it salvaged from the many old ropes left embedded in the snow and ice. Sundhare had done most of the leading and it is in this that one major change since 1975 can be seen. Then most of the Sherpas had still been essentially load carriers, but today an increasing number of them are becoming first-rate mountaineers, accustomed on some expeditions to guiding their clients up the mountain. The Lhotse Face was familiar territory to Sundhare and Ang Rita. Not only were they much faster than we were, they knew the way from previous experience.
Next day both Bjørn and I felt terrible. We hadn’t slept well and had dysentery. Could the snow of Camp 3 be polluted too? On the morning radio call Bjørn spoke to Arne, who had now recovered from his sore throat and had moved up to Camp 2.
‘Chris and I are feeling lousy. We’ve both got the shits. I don’t think we’ll go up, but don’t worry, Sundhare and Ang Rita should make it to the South Col today.’
There was a long pause.
‘Hello, Bjørn, this is Arne at 2. I’m very concerned with what you say. You can’t leave it all to the Sherpas. What do you think the Norwegian press are going to say if it’s the Sherpas who reach the South Col while you’re lying in your pits?’
‘Yeh Arne, I see what you mean. I’ll have a word with Chris, over. What do you think?’ he asked me.
‘Hell, put like that I suppose we’ve got to go.’
‘Hello, Arne, we agree with you. We’ll go with the Sherpas.’
I was determined to get away early this time, got my mask sorted out and was away first, but I didn’t stay in front for long. Sundhare and Ang Rita stormed past before I had got halfway across the ice slope and Bjørn caught up with me above the Yellow Band when I sat down in the snow for a prolonged rest. I felt profoundly discouraged and couldn’t help wondering whether I was going to have the strength to make it to the top. In theory the oxygen flow should have reduced the altitude to 5,000 metres or so but, in effect, it didn’t seem to be helping at all.
‘I don’t see the point in going on any further,’ I told Bjørn. ‘There’s no way I’m going to catch them up. I’m not going to burn myself out just for a bit of public relations.’
‘Oh well, I think I’ll go on a bit further. I’d like to see the view from the South Col,’ he explained diplomatically.
So Bjørn went on up the ropes, and I returned to the tents. I could at least have some tea ready when they got back. Bjørn never caught them up, but met them on their way back down. They had reached the South Col and fixed rope all the way. Bjørn went on to the crest of the Geneva Spur so that he could at least look across to the col. The route was now complete to the site of our top camp. All we had to do was stock it and we would be able to put in our first summit bid.
We dropped back down to Camp 2 that same afternoon. Christian Larsson and Arne, looking better although he still had a bad cough, had arrived there the day before. That night over supper we discussed the summit bids. Arne had already decided the obvious choice for the first summit bid would be Ralph, Håvard and Ola. He told us that he wanted Bjørn, Odd, if his haematocrit level allowed it, and me to make the second attempt, while he and Stein would make up a third party.
‘I don’t want to hold you guys up, and I could do with a bit more time anyway to get rid of my cold,’ he concluded.
The following morning Arne called a meeting in the cook tent. We now had sixteen Sherpas at Camp 2 and most of them crowded in. There was an atmosphere of relaxed, yet excited, anticipation. The gas stove was purring away and mugs of tea or coffee were being served by Ang Rinzay. The meeting mostly involved a discussion between Arne and Pema Dorje on the composition of the Sherpa part of the summit teams.
‘On that first attempt the Sherpas will not be asked to help the climbers at all,’ Arne told Pema. ‘The climbers must carry their own oxygen and get to the top without any kind of help, but on the second and third attempts the climbers will want some help. Their Sherpas can carry the spare oxygen.
‘We’ve got enough oxygen and equipment for any number of attempts. You Sherpas can make a fourth attempt of your own if you want. There’s no reason why anyone wanting to go to the top shouldn’t have a try.’
We spent an hour discussing the composition of the summit teams, the Sherpas listening and occasionally adding their comments. The important thing was that they felt fully involved and, even though the majority had no ambition to reach the summit, I’m sure they appreciated being given the opportunity.
The excitement was infectious. I was already suffering from an acute attack of summititis, was impatient of logistics and wanted to get back down to Base Camp or even lower to recuperate for my own bid for the top of Everest. But there was work to do. I had to check through the gear we were going to send up to the South Col in the next few days. The Sherpas did not want to stay at Camp 3 and preferred to make their carry straight through to the South Col from Advance Base, a distance of three miles and a height gain of 800 metres, carrying fifteen kilos without using oxygen.
Christian was going to be in charge of this vital phase of the expedition. He has a methodical thorough mind and questions the logic behind every proposal. It’s certainly an ideal quality for a Base manager, but that afternoon I was at my most impatient, like a small boy at the end of term time, unable to wait for the holidays to start. I found it impossible to concentrate, muttered bad-temperedly about needing all the rest I could get after staying so long at altitude and added aggressively that whatever happened I was getting back to Base that evening.
‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ I told Christian, as I quickly packed a rucksack and set out down the Western Cwm. Bjørn and I met Stein in solitary residence in Camp 1. He had worked so hard in organising the expedition back in Norway but had acclimatised slowly and was now gradually making his way back up the mountain, hoping to get sufficiently fit to make a summit bid.
Back down through the Icefall, the upper section had collapsed yet again. The route wound through narrow corridors, across ladder bridges, warped by the shifting pressure of the ice, and over ice boulders jumbled from a recent fall. Odd had found a better line to avoid the death alley of the way up, but it went beneath a huge blade of ice that was going to collapse sooner rather than later. I ran beneath it, balancing over the slippery ice boulders. At last we were down but paused at the American camp to chat about their progress. They were now established high on the West Ridge, but still short of their top camp. Those at Base looked tired and drawn.
Back at our camp, great platefuls of boiled potatoes spiced with chilli awaited us. It was positively hot in the late afternoon sun. Bjørn Resse, the photographer from VG, the newspaper that was sponsoring us, lay stripped to his shorts, soaking up the warmth.
Kjell Torgeir had come down with us and the following morning carried out a transfusion on Odd, removing a litre of blood and replacing it with saline solution, in an effort to bring down the red blood cell count. Ralph and Håvard were on their way back from Pheriche. They had been there for four days. On my previous expeditions I had stayed at Camp 2 throughout the expedition and no one had gone below Base, but it certainly seemed good sense. Base at 5,400 metres is too high for fast recovery. In fact, at that altitude the body is still slowly deteriorating. Bjørn, Odd and I therefore decided to go down as well, but just before we set out Pertemba came over.
‘You know, Chris, I’d really like to go to the top with you,’ he said.
It was something that I had thought of, particularly after his little foray into the Icefall, but I had never liked to say anything to influence him. It meant a great deal to me, because of our friendship over the years, the link that he formed with my previous visits to the mountain and all the experiences, rich and good, as well as tragic, that those had involved.
We set off for Pheriche just after lunch. It was so easy, lightly laden, going down hill with halts at the tea houses at Gorak Shep and Lobuche. Night fell as we came off the terminal moraines of the Khumbu Glacier on to the flat valley floor. The kitchen-living room of Ang Nima’s lodge was crammed with trekkers and Sherpas sitting on the benches at the two tables and on stools round the open range. A cacophony of languages, English, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch and Sherpa made the place a colourful Tower of Babel.
Ang Nima greeted me warmly. He had been with me on the Annapurna South Face Expedition in 1970 and on Everest in 1972, but his climbing days were over. He had a good head for business, had started his hotel in a tiny yak shelter in 1975, and had built it up over the years with a big bunk room and a well-stocked shop. That night we gorged ourselves on Sherpa stew, fried potatoes and fried eggs, washed down with copious draughts of chang. It was a different world from Base Camp with new people to talk to and fresh food to eat. It was difficult to believe that I had been only 300 metres below the South Col just three days earlier, and even harder to imagine going back again.
I spent most of the next three days sleeping but during my waking time I became increasingly tensed at the prospect of the summit bid. For the first time I felt isolated from my fellow climbers. Several Norwegians, friends of team members, had trekked into Sola Khumbu. Inevitably they talked amongst themselves in Norwegian. Experiences and friendships that I hadn’t shared, as much as the difference in language, heightened my own sense of isolation and, through this, my homesickness, a longing for Wendy, a longing for the expedition to end so that I could get back to my Cumbrian hills.
But then the brief holiday was over. It was time to return to the mountain. In just five days’ time, with a bit of luck I could have climbed 5,000 metres to stand, at last, on the highest point on earth.