In 2011 Paul decided to study for a Master of Science qualification to help his work as a self-employed health and safety adviser. Rather understandably he felt that rounding off an income-free year with a Himalayan trip might not pave the way towards marital bliss. A different partner was required.
The climbing partner issue is always a tricky one. I was keen for a 6,000-metre-plus challenge, and for multi-day technical climbs on such mountains it is pretty obvious that both climbers need to have complete trust in each other. However my track record with new partners is not good. I’m not quite sure why really. It’s not that I feel nervous or awkward or anything like that, but there have been several occasions over the years when first climbs with new partners have not gone well.
I particularly remember my first route with Paul. We had gone for a winter weekend in Scotland and had chosen to climb Route II Direct, a line that finds its way up the steep Carn Dearg Buttress on Ben Nevis. I had done it years earlier and confidently marched up to the start and uncoiled the ropes. Paul clearly expected me to move swiftly and competently and was noticeably taken aback as it became obvious that I was feeling less and less comfortable. Eventually I had to admit that I couldn’t make progress and seemed to have followed the wrong line.
‘I think perhaps we should be over to the right. I’ll climb down and across.’
At this point I slipped and fell a short distance, ending up hanging against the iced slabs and trying not to look too embarrassed.
‘I’ll just lower a bit to an easier-looking line.’
I could see Paul wondering how the hell he had ended up climbing with this chap and how he was supposed to descend the blank slabs I had just lowered down.
But that was early days. Since then we have forged a great partnership on greater-range climbs and are well used to situations where one or the other is struggling, lost, cold, frightened, gone the wrong way or whatever.
The partner issue was at the front of my mind when a fortuitous email arrived from Dave Turnbull, chief executive officer at the BMC.
‘Potentially interested in Nepal,’ it said.
Word had obviously travelled fast. I stared at the screen and contemplated. Since my taking over the presidency of the Alpine Club quite a few emails had flowed back and forth between us.
I thought back. Dave had shown a glimmer of interest in greater-range mountaineering on a climbing trip to Cornwall a few years previously. I knew that he shared my taste for ‘away from it all’ adventurous climbing. I recalled a very fine winter weekend on the Isle of Skye where we managed to make the first ascent of Madness Gully on Trotternish (a long-standing objective of mine) and enjoy a pleasant evening as the only customers of a fine French host in The Flodigarry Hotel. I wasn’t aware of Dave having an Alpine career as such – even less a Himalayan one – but we got on well and I knew him to be a solid, competent and reliable climber on both rock and ice. I also knew that, as he was a family man, keen climber and longstanding CEO of the BMC, our lives were full of much the same time-juggling challenges. We would certainly have lots of non-climbing common ground to discuss. The more I thought about it the more I felt he would be a great partner.
So confident was I of his qualities that I never bothered to quiz him closely about exactly what he had done. It was only after we returned from the Himalaya that I read Dave’s own potted history of his mountain experience:
My only Himalayan experience up to that point was doing the Everest trek from Jiri the year I left school. After that I’d dabbled with the Alps, but generally opted for adventurous rock climbing in the tropics and desert regions rather than snowy peaks. I put this down to an experience in 1990 when Frank Ramsay and I shared a three-day epic on Mont Gruetta. This was to be our ‘warm-up’ route for the Eiger, but after being hit by a TV-sized block, falling into a crevasse, and skewering my shin with a crampon, we binned the idea and scuttled off home.
But by that time we had already proved what my sixth sense had told me.
I stared at the email again and picked up the phone. Within minutes Dave had committed himself to a holiday being strapped on to a steep unclimbed face in a remote part of west Nepal.
East Tibet was off limits again and it was becoming pretty clear that I had been lulled into a false sense of optimism by reaching the Nyainqentangla East range in 2005 and 2007. Fortunately, the objective issue was resolved when a rummage through my file reminded me of a possibility in west Nepal that Ed Douglas had drawn my attention to a couple of years previously.
‘Came across this face which might interest you,’ said the accompanying email.
It showed a very steep face on a spectacular peak with just one obvious line of weakness.
Ed’s email continued: ‘Not sure how you might get down.’
That worry could wait. The route was eye-catching, on an unclimbed face and in a remote, interesting area of Nepal I had not visited before. Apparently without a local name, the peak had been christened Mugu Chuli. An objective had been found.
For one reason or another none of the usual suspects were available to join us. Dave came to the rescue.
‘Graham Desroy has been very keen on Nepal lately. He might be interested.’
I was aware of Graham, or ‘Streaky’, as a well-known character on the climbing scene for something like thirty years, and had heard stories about his taste for lurid Hawaiian shirts and bandanas – but had never actually met him. Although about the same age as me, he had focused on his rock climbing and managed to keep to a much higher standard than I had. In the last few years though he had become increasingly keen on Himalayan climbing and Nepal in particular. This would be his second trip to Nepal this year.
We had some email exchanges and Graham teamed up with fellow North Wales climber Jon Ratcliffe, who again I knew by name only. Jon, still in his thirties, was the youngster of the team and this would be his first trip to the Himalaya. He too was a talented rock climber and knew Dave well.
We met for the first time outside Terminal 4 at Heathrow. Graham was instantly recognisable by his distinctive features and brightly coloured shirt. Both Graham and Jon (and Dave for that matter) sported lean and mean physiques that prompted me to peer self-consciously at the little paunch that I tend to develop between expeditions. The thought of getting rid of it is a major incentive for me to make annual trips to stretching climbs on 6,000-metre peaks.
‘It’s like going to a health farm for four weeks each year,’ I explain to incredulous tax colleagues who quiz me about why I put myself through the hardship of multi-day climbs in sub-zero conditions.
On returning I always make a special point of proudly tapping my reduced paunch. I also make an annual promise to myself to keep it that way. Somehow though, it never happens.
Mugu Chuli stands at an altitude of 6,310 metres on the Nepal/Tibet border. Well off the tourist trail, the history of exploration in this part of the Himalaya is not extensive. Members of the Osaka Alpine Club visited the area in 1998, but it was probably a Spanish team who were the first Westerners to get a good view of it in 2008. They christened it Mugu Chuli, decreed it ‘outstanding’ and returned for an attempt in 2009. They were not successful, but a British team led by Julian Freeman-Attwood visited the area the same year, after which Ed Douglas kindly sent me his email. A Japanese team also visited in 2009 when attempting Kojichuwa Chuli, the highest peak in the area. They failed on their objective but returned in 2010 and succeeded in making its first ascent via the long west ridge. And at the time of my researching that was it: a very small number of foreign visitors and just one ascent in the area.
The more I visit such areas the more I appreciate the rewards of remote adventure and the excitement of visiting new places. And partially to maximise the time spent in the mountains, the more I do my best to minimise the time spent in centres of population such as Kathmandu.
When I visited Kathmandu back in 1995 it was all new to me and I was fascinated by the bustling tourist throngs, the smoking funeral pyres, and the tourist traps of Boudhanath stupa and Durbar Square. On that first visit I had been with Pat Littlejohn, Mike Morrison and Chris Watts en route to the north-east buttress of Tawoche. I particularly remember meeting up with Alison Hargreaves, who was starting out on her ‘solo the world’s three highest summits in one year’ venture. I had never really given much thought to such ventures before and was rather taken aback to realise that the easiest way to secure permission to climb Everest was to buy a place on an expedition which had already booked a place and was being organised by someone else. We met in a Kathmandu bar, and although I didn’t know her very well, rapidly it became clear that she knew us – Pat in particular – much better than the team that she was to spend the next couple of months with. I couldn’t help but notice that the other team members were chatting happily as friends do while Alison looked very much the outsider. I recalled her telling us that she would get Everest done and then return to the UK to see her young children for a few days before heading off to Pakistan to solo K2, the second highest mountain in the world. And then straight after that she would be off to get Kangchenjunga, the third highest, in the post-monsoon period. Was she really doing it for enjoyment we wondered? And, if she were successful, what would she do afterwards? It all seemed a world apart from our small group of four friends who were just out to have a good time on our chosen climb.
Pat and I enjoyed a great climb on Tawoche and, not long after returning to England, Alison’s success in soloing Everest without oxygen was trumpeted across the British newspapers. Both the national press and the climbing magazines were alive with gossip. Is a solo achievement less noteworthy if there are already steps in the snow? What about using fixed ropes? Should the soloist avoid such artificial aids to achieve a truly unsupported ascent? And what about other people – does their presence on the mountain reduce the degree of commitment and therefore the achievement? Is the only true unsupported solo ascent a naked one? But even Reinhold Messner wore clothes when he soloed Everest in the monsoon season with no one else on the mountain and no one in support except for his girlfriend at base camp. And no one would ever suggest his solo ascent was compromised in any way. It’s all very complicated, this ethics business.
A few weeks after Tawoche, Pat and I were copying each other’s slides and generally wallowing in retrospective pleasure. But the newspaper headlines had drastically changed. Now they were all about Alison’s death on K2 and the debate was over whether she had been an irresponsible mother to take on the risk inherent in climbing K2.
Back on that first visit to Kathmandu I had been excited to be there and spent hours exploring the back streets in search of new sights. This time, a combination of overfamiliarity, extreme commercialisation and limited holiday made me keen to restrict my stay. And so, the evening after we flew into Kathmandu airport, the members of the British Mugu Chuli expedition were settling down for a sixteen-hour public bus ride to the town of Nepalgunj. Somehow we had ended up on the back row of seats. This was bad planning as the road to Nepalgunj is not the best and Nepali buses tend to have a lot of bus projecting behind the rear wheels. This means that every now and then those on the back row are catapulted forcefully into the ceiling. The window seats, taken by Graham and me, had the added challenge of ceiling fans to smash into, whereas Jon and Dave on the middle seats found that it was simply impossible not to slip forwards on to the floor.
This was the first time I had travelled outside the tourist areas of Nepal and the contrast between them and the rest of the country was immediately apparent. For a start we were the only white-skinned people on the bus. Occasionally we would stop for breaks at ramshackle eating places, but there was none of the glitz and Western food of Kathmandu here.
For us limited-holiday types an unavoidable concern when visiting remote places is that things never go quite according to plan. Delays caused by porters refusing to continue or vehicles being halted by landslides can usually be sorted out in a day or two. Here though, the next leg was by light plane to an airstrip five or so days’ walk from Mugu Chuli. Nepalgunj Airport had a small but modern-looking LCD display detailing outgoing flights, helpfully recording three departures to Rara, our intended destination. But the morning mist hung around and by the time of the last scheduled departure no planes had taken off. I am not a great fan of hanging around waiting for planes. It’s a kind of impotent feeling. Frustration builds, other options are out of the question, and there is absolutely nothing that can be done except hope the delay is a short one. Expedition folklore is littered with stories of aspiring mountaineers who never actually made it to base camp. I hoped we wouldn’t join them. Luckily, by mid-afternoon we had loaded up and were ready to take off. Our pilot, we couldn’t help but notice, sported a delightfully inappropriate T-shirt featuring rows of skulls wearing old-fashioned Biggles-style aerohelmets.
At first sight the airstrip in Rara appeared stuck to the side of the mountain. Disturbingly it was just possible to pick out a crashed plane carcass to one side. By the time of our return journey, our plane too would be resting forlornly at the side of the runway, its buckled propeller sitting sadly next to the little tent which appeared to be the pilot’s living accommodation while repairs were arranged …
As an incentive to encourage more tourism, some of the bureaucracy traditionally associated with Himalayan climbing was no longer necessary in west Nepal. For peaks below 6,500 metres the mandatory liaison officer requirement had been lifted and, beyond securing the necessary permits and reporting to the authorities in Kathmandu, we were more or less free to do as we wished. We decided it seemed sensible to employ a cook/security guard/interpreter and an assistant, but being keen to keep the costs as low as possible we shunned all other assistance and proceeded on a ‘do it yourself’ basis. This is the approach I have always adopted, although I have to admit I sometimes wonder whether it might be worth the extra cash to agree an inclusive price with an agent and take it from there. But as both Prem our cook and Purbah our kitchen boy had been all the way to base camp with the British team in 2009, we felt pretty confident of a smoothly executed, good-value expedition.
The muleteers who arrived first thing the following morning looked a surly couple of lads and it soon became clear that our cook’s efforts at negotiation were not going well. Everything else in the area seemed very cheap but mules were apparently the exception. Unhappy faces greeted the realisation that it was going to cost in the region of £1,500 to take our equipment to base camp and back. I shouted, Graham put on his stern face and we stressed that if they insisted on charging so much other parties would be put off and ultimately it would be them that would suffer. It must have been something like two hours after negotiations began when all appeared to be amicably agreed and we were ready to go. It was then that Prem relayed that a little ‘problem’ had arisen and it became clear that our stern looks and vague threats to future income had clearly had no impact whatsoever.
‘What do you mean we need to pay extra for their food?’
I recalled this issue arising on a trip to Peru back in 1998. On that occasion the cost of donkey food had become a major issue. Cash had eventually been handed over after which I never saw the donkeys eat anything other than the lush grass growing freely alongside the track. I was determined not to be ripped off like that again so Prem was instructed to refuse any additional payment. The argument raged but as luck would have it the mules gave timeous support to our case by starting to eat cardboard boxes.
‘Look,’ I gesticulated angrily. ‘They eat anything. No way are we paying extra for their food.’
And so it was left, the arrangement being that for £1,500 they would get our equipment to base camp and back. Beyond that matters were vague. The expectation was that it would take five days. We said we would consider a bonus if they made it in less but there was no agreement about what would happen if it took longer. As we finally left one of the loads fell off immediately. It struck me that maybe we should somehow have tried to be more precise in the event of incompetence preventing successful completion of the job.
Nevertheless, it was great to be underway at last and the first day ended with us in high spirits, camped on the field of a tiny school in the hamlet of Lumsa. The headmaster proudly showed Dave and me around his little school. I knew that the area was in receipt of international food aid, but everyone that we had met thus far appeared well fed and it had not truly dawned on me how impoverished the region was. Tess, my daughter, had recently returned from a six-month teaching placement on a remote island in the Vanuatu group and, perhaps with that in mind, I was particularly interested in the facilities. Taking after her father’s penchant for the interesting and unusual, Tess had asked to be placed in the most remote and culturally interesting placement possible. She ended up teaching in a small island school that had never had any volunteer teachers before and stayed with a family that only spoke the local language, Bislama. Nevertheless the classrooms had plaster on the walls and rudimentary teaching aids were on hand. Here in Lumsa the two or three classrooms were in a low, single-storey building overlooking the river. The situation was idyllic but the walls were bare stone, the furniture was wooden benches and the only visible teaching aids were a blackboard and chalk. In the headmaster’s study a few alphabet charts adorned the walls, but the overall impression was of an establishment that could only provide a very basic level of learning. We asked about placements for foreign students willing to help out but the headmaster just laughed. It would be a harsh posting but, for better or for worse, it appeared that help of this kind didn’t stretch as far as Lumsa.
The night on the school field was all very comfortable but by 10 a.m. the following morning there was no sign of our muleteers and from the gesticulations of an increasing crowd of locals it was clear that a problem had arisen. It transpired that our muleteers had started out along the track to check out a landslide which the locals suggested might be impossible for the mules to cross fully laden. Why it took so long to decide what to do I will never know, but, perhaps inevitably, the end result was further payments to everyone even vaguely associated with a very limited amount of load ferrying. In fact by lunchtime the four of us had borne the brunt of the effort required and were in no doubt that unloading ten mules, ferrying their loads across tricky terrain and reloading them is very tiring and time-consuming.
But it was to get worse. Prem valiantly scouted ahead and soon rushed back in an agitated fashion. It seemed that the way ahead was blocked by a landslide that would be impassable for the mules and the only way forward was to cross the river on a narrow suspension bridge and follow a small path on the far side. With the benefit of hindsight this was a ridiculous decision. The track was narrow, the hillside steep and the way forward uncertain. The muleteers must have only had to glance at the intended way forward to know that they didn’t stand a hope in hell of making progress this way, but they persevered for a couple of hours before it became obvious that the track was absolutely unsuitable for mules. At this point Prem and I wasted more time by running on for thirty minutes or so just to prove what we already knew in our hearts. We would have to turn back. Finally we ended up recrossing the suspension bridge and camping on the track just as it got pitch black.
I could feel stress levels rising. After two days we were a little over a tenth of the way to base camp. We only had thirty days away from Britain so unless we could somehow speed up the mule travel we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting to base camp, let alone climbing the mountain that we had set our hearts on for the last year. We counted out our piles of Nepali rupees and dithered over whether we should ditch the mules and try and employ porters, who could cross landslides, instead. We decided to stick with the mules for one more day. I couldn’t help wondering what the next day would bring and slept intermittently. Such concerns tend to result in more sleepless nights than bivouacs on the mountain.
Prem’s ‘impassable’ landslides turned out to be relatively straightforward and were crossed with only one short carry. But there was a strong hint that further challenges were to follow when an old man relayed to us that it had been the worst monsoon he could remember. I had already had an inkling of this when the view from our flight to Kathmandu showed huge fresh sediment fans spewing out from the Himalayan valleys and flooding the plains. It was clear that thousands of man-hours would be necessary to repair the mule tracks and restore normality. And by mid-afternoon news was reaching us that a landslide ahead would necessitate a major detour away from the main track and up through the village of Mangri, which stood on a grassy alp overlooking the main valley.
Agitated screaming in a native tongue was mixed with shouts of increasing concern from Jon Ratcliffe.
‘Watch out! What are you doing? The black one’s in that garden. And the white one is under that house!’
I ran frantically into Mangri’s carefully tended vegetable gardens shouting my best Nepali mule commands. But the more I focused on bringing one animal under control the more the others would roam off to munch nurtured garden produce. The locals were not happy and the situation was beginning to feel dangerously out of control.
In an effort to speed things up Jon and I had taken it upon ourselves to take over mule driving. It wasn’t as if we wanted to be doing this but our two muleteers were proving to be enthusiastic drinkers who had stopped for yet another drink and were nowhere to be seen. On the open tracks leading up to Mangri, Jon and I had controlled things relatively smoothly but the narrow alleyways and distractions of the village were proving a challenge.
Jon was a star at it and his Nepali mule-controlling shout brought admiring looks from the locals. My performance was less convincing. The local children seemed to find this very funny and the adults less so. In fact, adult agitation was beginning to run high before a local man took over and guided our sorry train through the village and out of harm’s way.
By Mangri the devout Hinduism of the lower valley had more or less given way to Buddhism, and stupas, mani walls and fluttering prayer flags were much in evidence. The world through which we travelled gave the appearance of not having changed for generations. Subsistence farming dominated with electricity and generators in short supply and not a games console in sight. Children came out in force and gave every impression of never having seen a white man before. It struck me that we were five or six days’ walk from the nearest road and these kids could quite possibly never have seen a motorised vehicle. After all, they lived in a well-populated valley with apparently thriving communities, well connected by mule tracks and had no obvious reason to trek for a week to reach a roadhead. I can hardly imagine what the local children must have thought when, in 1998, the Osaka Alpine Club had apparently landed close to Mangri in a huge Russian helicopter.
It was with a great sense of relief that the landslide problems receded after we rejoined the main mule path beyond Mangri. By the time we stopped for the night, by a suspension bridge over the river, we were beginning to get positive messages suggesting that all might be well, at least up as far as the village of Mugu, the last settlement before the Namja La pass leading into Tibet. Above Mugu, the bridges had apparently been washed away. But that would be a challenge for a later day.
Much to my surprise day four of our walk-in was interrupted by a police check post and permit check. At first I didn’t recognise it as a police post. We hadn’t passed any buildings for hours and the ‘police station’ didn’t advertise its presence as such. The police officers were not in uniform and appeared to be deeply engrossed in Dashain celebrations. Dancing, coloured face paint and half-drunk bottles of alcohol were much in evidence.
To my surprise, Prem appeared to be offering to show our permit. The police seemed much more interested in inviting us to join them in their festivities. If Prem hadn’t mentioned anything I very much got the impression that we could have exchanged pleasantries and continued on our way. In the event, we were soon sat at a table drinking from generously filled glasses of a strong but unidentifiable local liqueur. At least Dave, Graham and Jon were. I had been struck down with the horrible feeling that I hadn’t seen our permit for some time and had no idea where it might be.
While the others were encouraged to drink and eat to excess I began unpacking the mules and searching frantically. One of the joys of getting older is more frequently forgetting where I have put things for safe keeping. Where had I put the permit? It was important, so I would probably have put it in a ‘special’ safe place. Paperwork was located, passports, money … but no permit. Eventually I checked the paperwork in my waist belt yet again and there, crumpled between research papers, was the all-important permit. I had no recollection at all of putting it there.
By now the police had persuaded the others to join in with their dancing. Somehow the quick glance afforded to our permit seemed not to do justice to my thirty minutes of increasingly panicky searching. We left the police check with smiling faces, cheery goodbyes and a wobbly step.
The settlement of Mugu charmed us with its unusual medieval-style buildings, adorned with weighty accumulations of firewood. This accumulation had clearly gone beyond practicality and we were told it had become something of a competition that was now putting the structural stability of many houses at risk. Meanwhile the structure of the community was rather obviously at risk from excessive alcohol consumption. Virtually all of the men we came across appeared to be drunk, and, judging by the number of Chinese beer bottles, it would seem that most of the alcohol here had come across the border from Tibet. True to form our muleteers enjoyed an evening drinking session before livening proceedings by having a loud and impressive fight in the middle of the night. The result was one very swollen cheek, one apparently broken thumb, a very frosty relationship and yet more delays.
Being the last village before the border, the Nepalis clearly felt that extra security was necessary as a defence against Chinese invasion. A solitary guard equipped with a gun resembling a blunderbuss stood rigidly to attention. Dave posed next to him for photographs as he stood proudly with his weapon while keeping a keen eye open for any waves of tanks that might descend menacingly from the Namja La.
In fact the prospect was not quite as ridiculous as it must sound. To my amazement, a vehicle track of sorts snaked up the valley towards the border. Although the Tibetan plateau north of the border is at an altitude of about 5,000 metres, it is generally very flat and relatively easy to build roads across. Indeed, if cost was no problem and permits could be easily arranged it would be quicker and easier to approach Mugu from the Tibetan side. The local people we spoke to were enthusiastic at the prospect of better communication with China, although I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was influenced mainly by hopes of more reliable alcohol deliveries. Anyway, for whatever reason, it transpired that the improved track only stretched for a kilometre or two and nothing at all had happened for a couple of years.
Seven days after leaving Rara airport the peaks lining the Kojichuwa Khola valley finally came into view. Mugu Chuli was immediately recognisable from Ed’s photo and looked every bit as exciting as we could have hoped. And from a beautiful base camp site at about 4,400 metres, only 400 metres lower than Mont Blanc, we could not fail to notice that it was not the only fine-looking unclimbed 6,000-metre peak hereabouts.
The delays with the landslides meant we had only twelve days before the mules returned. With this timescale very much in mind Dave and I set off immediately to incur some altitude headaches. Here, as the terrain immediately west of Mugu Chuli is rolling hills rising to just over 5,400 metres, we were able to acclimatise by making a couple of walking forays over hilly summits and soaking in marvellous views of the mountains and the Tibetan plateau. We endured three nights at a 5,100-metre camp before decreeing ourselves acclimatised and ready to attempt the wonderful-looking direct line up the west face that we had first seen in Ed’s photo. Taking into account a day sorting everything out at base camp we now had just seven climbing days until the mules arrived. With the face one day away from base camp that left just six to climb the mountain and get down. And our best estimate was that it might take seven.
The squeaky, white ice could not have been better. The heavy monsoon must have sent thousands of tonnes of spindrift cascading into the narrow lower couloir of our chosen line and compacted it to give perfect climbing conditions. Dave, enjoying his first climb in the Himalaya, expressed surprise. This was a million miles away from the Himalayan snow plodding so often portrayed in the press. Clear skies dominated the horizon and spindrift was minimal. Desperate-looking pitches succumbed with relative ease and as the sun dipped in the sky we were only a couple of rope lengths below the easier-looking central section.
‘Where do you think?’ Dave looked at me quizzically as I suggested a bivouac on a steep patch of snow to one side. Soon a new experience for him was being savoured. Having cut two narrow ledges, I snuggled down on one in a bivouac sack and Dave on the other in the tent fabric. The weather was perfect, our one-portion-sized dehydrated food between two was almost pleasant and, after a couple of rehydrating brews, we settled down for a good night’s sleep.
Next morning dawned fine. Steep, thin ice and spectacular ice streaks led up to more open ice fields and by the end of our second day we were about halfway up the face. We were going a little slower than planned but all in all it couldn’t have been much better. It was at this point that I was to demonstrate that nearly thirty years of greater-range experience doesn’t make one immune to the most elementary mistakes. The decision to be made was how best to bivouac when faced with a uniform fifty-degree ice slope and intermittent waves of spindrift. I should have insisted that we cut a bum ledge and sat together shielded from the spindrift by the tent fabric. But the temptation of a lying-down bivouac was too much and so I suggested a nose-to-tail ledge. As this was Dave’s first Himalayan bivouac in such conditions he was happy to defer to my judgement. But the bivouac sack I was using was new to me and so claustrophobic that I was wary of suffocating if I zipped myself completely in. And so, after a night of increasing spindrift and much squirming, so much snow got into my sleeping bag that it became distinctly damp for the top twenty centimetres or so. Noting that this had happened when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky did make me feel particularly silly. In the morning, Dave – relatively snug and dry – marvelled quietly as I sheepishly packed my bedraggled sleeping bag away.
‘Just a little dampness. It will be fine,’ I mumbled unconvincingly.
Our third day on the face started easily but soon steepened into rock walls thinly covered with ice. The climbing was not too difficult but with the ice too thin to take screws it required concentration and a steady head. As dusk began to threaten we were in a similar bivouac predicament to the previous night. The slope beneath the headwall was smooth and icy and this time there was no hesitation in going for a cut-bum-ledge-and-sit-in-tent-fabric bivouac.
It was only when I unpacked my sleeping bag that I fully realised the effect of the night before. My flippant comment that morning had almost convinced me that my bag was only a bit damp but now the whole thing resembled a frozen football. I unravelled it to the sound of cracking ice and tried my best to remain cheerful and get in. The upper part, I noted, was heavy with blocks of ice.
I tend not to find sitting bivouacs very comfortable at the best of times but usually I am at least able to snuggle down and enjoy being warm. This time I could not bring myself to wrap the upper section around me and was soon shivering badly. Meanwhile Dave had pulled his hat over his eyes, inserted enormous earplugs and was snoring gently.
I spent some time contemplating the coldness of late October night-time temperatures and wondering whether to cut the ice lumps out of my sleeping bag and throw them away. It wouldn’t do my sleeping bag much good but they must have weighed at least a kilogram and weren’t exactly keeping me warm. I dithered, made a midnight brew, shivered more, and was incredibly grateful that my down jacket had somehow recovered from the dampness. As it happened the jacket was a prototype that I was testing for Berghaus and it was filled with snazzy new water-resistant down. I didn’t know that at the time and was just very pleased – if a little mystified – as to why it had recovered so well. Even so, my shivering must have been impressive as at one point I managed to vibrate Dave into a state of semi-consciousness during which he agreed to share his sleeping bag with me if matters should get any worse over the days ahead. Regardless of how the situation had arisen it did seem silly to have one climber using up all his energy shivering while the other snored blissfully. Ultimately I decided to leave the lumps and hang the upper section of the bag out of my rucksack the next day where it would hopefully dry a little in the anticipated afternoon sun.
The previous day had also seen communication difficulties. Dave had been suffering from increasing throat problems that meant that he could only shout in a sort of strangulated cry. And I couldn’t hear; firstly because I increasingly can’t hear very well and secondly because the cold was such that I spent most of the day with all three hoods up. ‘Pardon?’ had become the most used word on the mountain.
It was as I emerged from my shivering bivouac that Dave moved very close and whispered in my ear. Initially I found this slightly disconcerting. However, it soon became clear that although he was in good condition in every other way, his throat problem had worsened and whispering at close quarters was now the only way he could communicate. Climbing signals would have to be in sign language from now on. At least that meant we understood the limitations and wouldn’t bother saying ‘pardon’ every few minutes.
Dave continued to whisper quietly as we each enjoyed our usual Snickers bar for breakfast. Soon though his throat problem was such that silence prevailed and he was reduced to a quiet thumbs-up signal to indicate that he was ready to start the difficult-looking traverse to the summit ice fields. We had feared this might be time-consuming powder snow on rock but it turned out to be superb mixed ground in a fantastic position. Each pitch was intricate and absorbing with thin ice providing little secure protection and the easiest way not obvious. We persevered slowly while away to the south we could enjoy the backdrop of the lush mountain valleys of western Nepal, and to the north the skyline was dominated by the arid brown plain of the Tibetan plateau. Along the crest of the Himalaya we could see the conical unclimbed 5,800-metre summit that we knew Graham and Jon would be climbing at that very moment. I hung from the belay and admired the view. It really did feel a privilege to be here. Dave quietly signalled that he too appreciated our position.
The end of the traverse marked the end of the technical difficulties. A few pitches of easier mixed climbing, a series of lung-gasping rope lengths up the final slopes and, just before nightfall, we breached the summit crest to find a perfect wind-scoured flat area for the tent. The summit itself was just a hundred metres or so away and could wait for the morning. It was the first time we had managed to pitch the tent since the foot of the face and we both collapsed thankfully into its protective embrace.
‘Wherever did that come from?’
Dave had unpacked a pillow. I recognised it immediately as one that he had used to wedge himself into the driving seat of his car on a previous trip to Cornwall. But whatever was it doing here? I had not seen it on earlier bivouacs and had never seen a pillow used on a Himalayan alpine-style bivouac before. As someone who prides himself on cutting back on every ounce I could hardly believe that I was seeing one now. Dave signalled satisfaction and looked so smug that I took the opportunity to ask him if he had enjoyed his climb and gleefully videoed the resultant croaking and whispering. As I lay my head down on my pillow of rope and boots, Dave snuggled down with his feathery monstrosity and spent some time levelling his sleeping mat by wedging bits of clothing under it.
‘Important to be comfortable,’ he managed to whisper before falling asleep within seconds.
The spot was wonderfully sheltered and I lay there listening to his slow, heavy breathing. My drying efforts had slightly improved my ice-lump problem and I had managed to get completely inside my sleeping bag and was definitely shivering less than the night before. Mind you, if things had been worse the chances of being able to wake Dave looked slim and the chances of successfully sharing his sleeping bag even less so.
The weather had so far remained absolutely perfect – not a cloud in the sky, and I looked forward to standing on the unclimbed summit early in the morning. A slight concern was that the face had taken a day longer than planned, but I wasn’t going to let that interrupt the sense of elation I felt at having reached the summit ridge. With a bit of luck we would be able to catch up later and still arrive in base camp the same day as the mules.
We were somewhat taken aback to unzip the tent and find threatening clouds scudding across an increasingly grey sky. The summit was gained quickly via a pleasing snow ridge, but a biting wind meant lingering was out of the question and thoughts of the descent began to dominate.
Ed Douglas’s ‘not sure how you might get down’ comment had provoked much discussion in Britain. Abseiling back down the route lacked aesthetic appeal and we always knew that it might not be safe because the lower couloir would be exposed to avalanches in bad weather. There was an option of descending into Tibet and then crossing back into Nepal, but the distances involved were such that enthusiasm for that was distinctly lacking. Ultimately, we had told the others that our plan was to traverse the frontier ridge over an unnamed 6,200-metre snow peak and descend the Nepali side from the low point between Mugu Chuli and Kojichuwa Chuli. But this would involve venturing on to the summit snowfields on the Tibetan side, and good visibility would be required for safe progress. The fast-approaching clouds looked likely to rob us of that just when we needed it most.
Graham had brought along a walkie-talkie set and as much as I make an exceptional effort to keep the weight down, it seemed churlish not to use it. In fact, by the time we were at our summit bivouac I was ready to admit that I enjoyed our regular daily chats with the others. Somehow they made everything seem a bit friendlier. In our evening contact from the top of the face we had confirmed that we were sticking to our original plan for the descent. At least, we thought we had confirmed that. In fact, we had unknowingly demonstrated a problem inherent in unclear communication. The signal had been poor but I recall the exchange from our end more or less verbatim:
‘All good here,’ Dave had croaked. ‘It looks easiest for us to start off on the Tibetan side and join the crest at the first col.’
‘OK. Enjoy.’
It was to be the last contact we had before arriving back at base camp. But Graham and Jon had formed the impression that we might go for the long-distance option of descending into Tibet, crossing back into Nepal and eventually joining the main valley back to Mugu. Standing on the summit in rapidly deteriorating weather, Dave and I were not to know that. We shook hands in an appropriately British way, managed a brief hug (quite challenging in blustery conditions on a sharp ridge) and headed off back towards our bivouac site and what we hoped would be a gentle contouring descent to the col that separated Mugu Chuli from the snow peak we would have to cross to get to our descent. We estimated that in good weather gaining the top of the descent route should be a long but straightforward day from the summit.
Soon things were not going well. The wind was strengthening, visibility was worsening and the ground was proving much steeper than anticipated. However, beyond concluding that images taken from Google Earth can be very misleading, there was not much that we could do except press on. At length, when we were both traversing horizontally on the front points of our crampons, it became clear that there was a large ice cliff beneath us. Abseiling over vertical cliffs tends to be a one-way affair and, after my experience on Sulamar, I was particularly wary. I was relieved when the mist cleared slightly at just the right moment and we could see that a couple of abseils would take us to what appeared be a reasonably straightforward, if steep, traverse to the col.
By the time we arrived the weather was doing its worst. The wind howled and it was difficult to tell whether the waves of snow that hit us were falling from the sky or being blown up by the wind. Bearing in mind the perfect weather of the previous ten days, I suspected it was the former. To add to the problems, Dave’s throat infection was getting worse and it was obvious that he was not feeling at all well.
‘I’d be off work if I felt like this at home,’ he mouthed in a barely audible whisper.
It is always difficult to know exactly how one’s partner is feeling but I was encouraged that he managed a weak smile as he spoke.
Regardless of how either of us felt, visibility was zero and it wasn’t at all clear exactly which direction we should take. There seemed no option but to pitch the tent, hole up and hope for better weather the next day.
A niggling concern was growing in my mind. We were perhaps one third of the way along the frontier traverse and it was the end of day six. The mules would arrive the next day and yet, even if the weather suddenly became perfect, it would take at least two days for us to get down. We tried to contact the others on the radio at the agreed time but there was no reception. And that added to the niggling concern. We wondered what they would make of there being no contact.
The next morning steady snowfall added to the challenge and by evening we had managed perhaps two hours of wading. A memorably undignified crawl through deep snow had very much slowed progress on one section. Along the way we used the semi-clear spells to take photographs with our digital cameras in the hope that they would help us avoid crevasses in reduced visibility. They proved laughably inadequate and ultimately, in knee-deep snow and a white-out, we had to acknowledge that for the second night in a row the only safe option was to stop, pitch the tent and wait until we could see something.
The mules would now be at base camp ready to leave and we were still holed up at around 6,000 metres. This was not looking good. We lay in the tent wondering what Graham and Jon would do. We felt guilty causing them so much worry and inconvenience, but didn’t think they would leave without us. At the last walkie-talkie contact they knew we were at least one day behind schedule. And, although we had not been able to get in touch with them since, they could see the weather was bad, so it seemed reasonable for them to suspect that we could have lost another day. But what if the bad weather continued? At what point would they conclude that the alarm should be raised? We lay there thinking, as the squalls blew so hard that the fabric of our little tent was pressed flat against our bodies. I wondered vaguely whether we might be better off digging a snow hole.
‘How long do Himalayan storms tend to last?’ enquired Dave.
There was no easy answer to this question. Having suggested the climb to Dave, I felt rather responsible for the position we were now in. I was also uncomfortably aware that the storm would be dumping lots of snow which would make progress along the ridge slow and tiring and the descent slopes avalanche prone.
‘Well … er … it varies. Hopefully it will be OK tomorrow.’
My response can’t have been very reassuring. We lay in our sleeping bags and passed the time discussing common interests of the Alpine Club and the BMC. By now the committee had accepted my restructuring proposals and my personal time investment had dropped to perhaps a couple of hours a night. A previously time-consuming suggestion that the Alpine Club should negotiate a new relationship with the BMC had dropped off the radar, but there were still plenty of common interests to discuss. Insurance was one issue that exercised both of us. Nepal in particular had seen an increasing number of fraudulent rescue claims and insurance companies were reluctant to offer cover. We discussed options, drew up action plans, righted the wrongs of the world … and eventually came back to discussing our own predicament.
We had plenty of gas left and so hydration was not a problem, but our food was down to one Snickers between the two of us. Lying there hydrating and gradually weakening for days on end was not a very attractive proposition. The quickest way to lose height was to descend into Tibet. Before the clouds had rolled in we had seen that relatively easy-angled glaciers flowed a long way north to the Tibetan plateau about 1,100 metres below us. So much snow had fallen that the much discussed descent possibility of going down the Tibetan side and then recrossing into Nepal seemed out of the question. That left the possibility of descending all the way into Tibet. I was pretty sure we could descend safely that way but it would risk an interesting diplomatic incident and, more worryingly, it would leave Graham and Jon completely in the dark with regard to our whereabouts. So how long should we carry on sitting at 6,000 metres hoping the weather would improve enough to allow us to stick to our declared descent plan?
Surfacing again for yet another brew our conversation started to drift downhill. We wondered when and how Graham and Jon might raise the alarm and what would happen then. The prospect of the publicity that was likely to surround news that the CEO of the British Mountaineering Council and the president of the Alpine Club were missing did not appeal. Aside from the extreme embarrassment factor it would be very distressing for our families. Oh dear. We discussed likely timescales and concluded that we had three days before Graham and Jon would start to get seriously concerned. Then, even if there was a telephone at Mugu, it would take at least another day to raise the alarm. In my own mind I decided that we should be prepared to stay put for one more day and then if there was no improvement head down into Tibet.
Unsettling as these thoughts were, there was nothing we could do but keep our fingers crossed that the weather would improve. I took out my book to pass the time, only to note with displeasure that it had got damp and turned into a block of ice. In the evening we again failed to make contact on the 6 p.m. radio call.
Perhaps surprisingly we both slept well. Wearing all my clothes, the ice balls in my sleeping bag were only occasionally inconvenient and I was awoken by Dave turning towards me with a big smile on his face. It was morning and the wind had dropped and cloudless skies returned. Time to spring into action. For the first time we could properly appreciate the immensity of our surroundings. We were tiny figures, insignificant in a huge expanse of glacial whiteness. Steep ice cliffs and gaping crevasses dotted the frontier ridge landscape and were an obvious risk for the unwary. Stopping and holing up when we did had been the right thing to do.
Suddenly, the atmosphere was so different. Being able to see is amazingly useful. We walked easily down a gentle, wind-scoured slope, jumped a bergschrund, felt the warmth of the sun on our faces and then sweated uncomfortably while descending south-facing slopes into Nepal. A lot of snow had fallen but by the time darkness halted progress we had made it all the way down to the glacier that we had started from. The surface was irregular rock debris covered in deep powdery snow, and with no chance of finding a place to pitch the tent, we lay down between the rocks and collapsed exhausted in our sleeping bags.
Next morning we were amazed at how quickly the grip of winter had arrived while we had been on the mountain. The upper meadows were covered with a deep layer of snow and the stream in a lush ablation valley was well on the way to being frozen. We passed our first yaks digging contentedly through the snow for a diet of frozen vegetation. I love yaks. They are such hardy animals and seemed much more at home in this environment than I felt as I staggered past. We were tired – there was no doubt about that. At one point I was in front and sat down on a rock to take a rest. I watched as Dave approached and wobbled past perhaps fifteen metres from me. He hadn’t seen me and I hadn’t the energy to shout; we had both been fully exercised.
At around lunchtime we met a relieved Graham and Purbah who had come up to meet us, carry our bags and deliver assorted edible goodies. Graham shared details of his and Jon’s probable first ascent of a peak on the frontier ridge west of Kojichuwa Chuli. Purbah smiled contentedly and we ate and listened. Life felt good.
As is so often the situation, we need not have worried. The snow had stopped the mules arriving on time and base camp had been moved down to the main valley the day before. And we had been monitored more closely than we realised. When the weather had cleared Jon had come all the way up to below our descent route and spent the day watching us through binoculars. He had even gone as far as to leave a cache of food (that we missed) crowned by a flashing head torch to help us locate it in the dark. Now Graham and Purbah had walked up to meet us. We were incredibly grateful. It’s wonderful to have good friends.
It turned into one of those occasions when everything worked. The muleteers drove their mules through the night to make up the two days we had lost, a plane miraculously arrived to replace the crashed and broken-down ones, a vehicle somehow materialised at the sleepy airstrip we were flown to and we were back in London on the Sunday in time for Dave and me to be back in our offices on Monday morning.
We had been away thirty days and had been in action every day. Our annual leave entitlement had been used to the full.