Climbing and soloing aren’t worth dying for but they are worth risking dying for.
Todd Skinner
CHO OYU IS the easiest of all the 8000ers, despite being the sixth highest at 8201 metres. Its shape allows climbers to access its summit via a face that isn’t too steep, although it can be prone to avalanches. The face has actually been skied a number of times. Many commercial expedition companies use Cho Oyu as a preliminary ‘training’ 8000er for their clients in the post-monsoon season of one year, before taking the same clients to Everest in the pre-monsoon season of the following year.
I wanted to go back to Shishapangma but thought that I could quite reasonably climb two mountains in the post-monsoon of 2004. Cho Oyu is just down the road from ‘Shisha’, so it seemed appropriate to climb it first. I’d summit it and acclimatise at the same time, before heading back to my main objective, Shishapangma.
Taking the same death-defying highway from Nepal up and onto the Tibetan plateau, I endured the culinary delights of Nyalam again before continuing another four hours along the Friendship Highway to spend a couple more acclimatisation days in the small town of Tingri. The highway passed through numerous little villages interspersed among fields sown with corn and wheat, and dotted with almost identical Tibetan houses. All were made from mud brick and were flat-roofed with whitewashed walls, and painted simply but colourfully. Every house had a winter’s worth of cut timber on the roof. These villages would have been quite beautiful in their simplicity but for the ugly concrete compound each of them had, to house an ‘administration office’ that bore a Chinese flag and was staffed by uniformed military administrators. Clearly, my understanding of ‘autonomy’ needs revision.
The windswept outpost of Tingri has been the last point of civilisation for expeditions heading to Everest since the earliest exploration of her northern flanks. George Mallory and his parties, like many other great explorers before and since, experienced the dogs, the dust and a last beverage before turning towards the dominating presence of Everest and Cho Oyu in the distance.
Meaning ‘Turquoise Goddess’ in Tibetan, Cho Oyu is a striking peak that stands alone from its neighbours and astride the Tibet–Nepal border. As the sun sets across the barren Tibetan plateau, Cho Oyu lights up in brilliant hues, a luminescent beacon in an otherwise cold and oppressive land.
Less than 50 kilometres from Mount Everest, Cho Oyu was the fifth 8000er to be climbed. And it was done in fine style. An Austrian team of Joseph Jöchler and Herbert Tichy, together with Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama, completed a daring alpine-style ascent. To reach the mountain, the group trekked into Tibet from Nepal over a remote border pass, the Nangpa La. Without the Chinese authorities’ permission, they made a lightning-fast climb, reaching the summit on 19 October 1954. Like its peers, Cho Oyu has taken a reasonable toll of would-be summiteers. More than forty-five climbers have died on its slopes since that first ascent. It has an even darker political history.
The Nangpa La is not just an access point to the mountain for unauthorised climbers. Located just below Cho Oyu’s Base Camp, it has for many centuries provided a trading and pilgrimage route between the two countries. Several times we saw Tibetans with their yaks heading over the crossing with loads of salt. A few days later, having traded the salt at the weekly market at Namche Bazaar in Nepal, they’d return with fresh vegetables and other necessities. The route has also been used by Tibetans to flee Chinese rule. In 2006 the Chinese border police from a military base close by (in the Autonomous Region of Tibet) opened fire on an unarmed group of Tibetans as they crossed the pass, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring many others. The incident was denied by Chinese authorities initially, but numerous climbers gave eyewitness accounts and video footage of the shooting was broadcast around the world. A documentary about the incident was released in 2008 called Tibet: Murder in the Snow.
I climbed solo but shared the permit and the base camp with an Australian Army expedition run by Zac Zaharias, the leader of the 1997 Dhaulagiri army expedition. Zac’s army team had varied levels of experience and progressed more slowly than me. I found myself socialising with other climbers, including Marty Schmidt, an American climbing guide who was then living in New Zealand. He was strong and fast at altitude, and I shared his preference for small, lightweight teams. He was also an excellent skier and planned to ski down from the summit. Marty had previously teamed up with my friend Hector Ponce de Leon on an attempt of the difficult North Ridge of K2. We were soon plotting adventures and lightweight climbs for the future.
I also met some of the who’s who of New Zealand mountaineering. A commercial expedition was supported by New Zealand guides Mark Whetu and Lydia Bradey. Mark had numerous ascents of Everest and other big peaks under his belt; indeed, he was the guide who’d assisted Australian Mike Rheinberger to the summit of Everest in 1994 on his eighth attempt. Lydia Bradey, an extreme alpinist in her own right, is credited with being the first woman in the world to have summitted Everest without oxygen, a feat she achieved solo in 1988. The world of dedicated high-altitude climbers is a small one, and I was gradually coming to know most of them.
The climbing was very easy, and I relished being on my own on the mountain, unencumbered by others or competing egos. I made my summit bid from Camp 2, rather than Camp 3, to save having to carry the whole camp another 600 metres up the mountain. The extra distance wasn’t too much of a chore, and I soon found myself on the massive summit plateau, facing a long and gently rising traverse to reach the mountain’s highest point. That effort was well rewarded, with a sensational view of Mount Everest’s north face, as well as Lhotse, Makalu, Pumori and Ama Dablam. I had summitted my tenth 8000er.
Brimming with confidence, I sauntered down the hill and collected my equipment, my mind already on the next goal: Shishapangma. I should perhaps have kept my focus on Cho Oyu, however, because as I descended on loose rock below Camp 1, I slipped and landed heavily on my backside, breaking my coccyx. I was able to climb down to Base Camp, but the injury was so painful that I couldn’t continue on to Shishapangma. Game over.
*
I was a little disappointed at not having summitted Shishapangma because it meant returning to Tibet yet again. I had expected to be done and dusted with that mountain by now, and there would be no further opportunities to climb it until the pre-monsoon of 2005. Winter gradually moved over the Himalaya, bringing furious jetstream winds and bitter ambient temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius—minus 100 degrees with the wind chill. The Nepali Sherpas and the nomadic Tibetan yak herders retreated to lower valleys and the warmth of their fires. Life slowed, tourists stayed home, rivers froze and snow fell. Only the mountains, ever dominant, stood unmoved by the change, patient beneath their winter shrouds, as the locals and we so-called conquerors fled to the safety and shelter of the lowlands.
At home, I nursed my injured spine back to health and enjoyed the Australian summer. I divided my time between the beach and the Blue Mountains, a mecca for rock climbing, mountain-biking and canyoning. My girlfriend Julie, whom I’d been seeing for about a year, was a very strong rock climber and was eager to hit the cliffs as often as possible.
When I wasn’t adventuring, I gave some thought to which of the four peaks that remained on my list I would go to next. Among them was Annapurna. Although its name translates from Sanskrit as ‘Goddess of the Harvest’, Annapurna is anything but godly. It is the most dangerous mountain in the world. More climbers have been killed per successful ascent of Annapurna than on any other mountain. The main reason for all the carnage is avalanches. There just isn’t a safe route on the mountain.
Ironically, Annapurna was the first 8000-metre peak ever climbed. This milestone was achieved by the French in 1950, three years before the British ascent of Everest. The French explored both Dhaulagiri and Annapurna in their reconnaissance but missed an easy way up Dhaulagiri and so chose to climb Annapurna. They were successful, but both men who summitted—leader Maurice Herzog and Luis Lachenal—lost fingers and toes to frostbite. Herzog’s account of the expedition in his book Annapurna—essential reading for climbers and armchair mountaineers alike—describes in the most graphically chilling detail the agony of the primitive treatment, and the subsequent amputations, that both men endured. If ever there was a story to counter any glamorous or romantic notions of high-altitude climbing, that is it.
The French experience on Annapurna was just the first of many epic expeditions. Among them was the 1970 British expedition, which made the first ascent of Annapurna’s brutally steep and avalanche-prone South Face. Its members included three greats of Himalayan climbing—Don Whillans, Dougal Haston and leader Chris Bonington. Their teammate, Ian Clough, was killed by a falling serac during the descent. In 1978 an American all-women’s expedition, led by Arlene Blum and supported by a strong Sherpa team, attempted to place both the first Americans and the first women on Annapurna’s summit. It was successful, but two died during the climb. The list of similar tragedies on Annapurna is long. By the time I turned my attention to it, there’d been approximately sixty deaths for just 120 successful ascents. Among the casualties was my old climbing friend Anatoli Bukreev, leaving me as the last surviving summiteer of our K2 expedition.
I was intimidated by Annapurna. How could I not be? But I knew that if I wanted to climb all the 8000ers, I had to climb Annapurna. I would just have to accept a much higher level of risk. In April 2005 I bit the bullet and decided to take my chances. I felt that by then I’d accumulated enough skills and experience to have the best prospect of success and, more importantly, survival. Also, I didn’t want to leave it until last, as some climbers did, because I could see that putting myself in that position might bring on summit fever, a desperation to keep going for the summit, no matter what the risk, in order to complete the project. Annapurna demanded the very highest level of risk management. Summit fever would be a virtual death sentence on this mountain.
I knew that Ed Viesturs, the United States’ most prolific 8000-metre climber, was heading there, so I asked if I could join his permit. He agreed but was heading first to Cho Oyu to acclimatise. I didn’t have the time or the money for Cho Oyu as well as Annapurna, so Ed put me in touch with two American friends, Charley Mace and Brendan Cusick, who were also keen to climb Annapurna. They’d both climbed in the Himalaya previously, so we agreed to form our own expedition.
In Kathmandu I caught up with my friends Ben and Shaunna, who, together with the communications guru from our Discovery expedition, Mike Swarbrick, were back in Nepal to finish off Everest after their unsuccessful summit push the year before. They’d actually been back on the mountain for a couple of weeks before I met them, but Ben’s knee had shattered in an accident in the Khumbu Icefall and he’d been evacuated. He was heading home with Mike, while Shaunna planned to return to Everest the next day to complete her climb. It was great to catch up with them again, and together we consumed more than a few liquid painkillers—for Ben’s sake, of course.
Charley, Brendan and I trekked into Annapura base camp along one of the best routes in Nepal. We first flew to the tourist town of Pokhara, beside the picturesque Phewa Lake, whose still waters provide glorious mirror images of the mighty Annapurna mountain range to the north. Then we took a small plane to the mountain airstrip of Jomsom, out of which I’d flown after the epic Dhaulagiri post-expedition trek. This is one of the most spectacular flights in the Himalaya. It cuts its way up the Kali Gandaki valley between the Annapurna Himal and Dhaulagiri, the deepest gorge in the world. I craned my neck in a hopeless attempt to look up to the tops of the monstrously high, sheer mountain walls on either side of our flight path. One of those walls was our destination, Annapurna 1.
Most trekkers who visit Annapurna walk to the Base Camp on its south side, which is a beautiful but relatively benign trek. We would be climbing from the north side, however, and so we followed a route that very few visitors to Nepal have travelled. And with good reason. Almost immediately we encountered a problem. A police checkpoint identified that several of our porters’ names had been misspelt on our trekking permit. No amount of pleading convinced them to let the porters through, despite the fact that our expedition effectively came to a halt right there. We were left with ten porters for twenty-three loads. Some hurried repacking allowed us to prioritise the loads we needed immediately and those that could be carried in later during the expedition.
Torrential rain dampened our spirits a little but not as much as the news that another expedition heading to our same Base Camp had helicoptered in, due to impassable snow on the approach. After spending a night in an impoverished village in the gorge between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna, we trekked across some sparse cornfields, then ascended a series of hills and ridges towards a high pass that was still well out of sight. We spent the entire day going uphill, gaining 1500 vertical metres’ altitude, and even then our campsite at 3750 metres wasn’t on the top. The only available water was a 1½-hour round trip away, so we had a dry dinner, moistened only by a puddle on the track that the local birds had used for their daily ablutions.
The following day we finally reached the top of the pass. The earlier news that we’d be stopped by deep snow proved to be incorrect, and we crossed a meadow-like plateau before descending to the side of a fearfully steep gorge called the Hum Khola. There it did snow heavily, disguising the track and making every step a potentially fatal slip. Indeed, a number of porters and even climbers have been killed in this area since it was accessed by Herzog’s team in 1950. As if to prove the point, one of our porters suddenly back-flipped off the track and tumbled 10 metres towards the precipice before somehow coming to a stop.
Herzog wasn’t the first to pioneer this route. As we edged our way around the cliffs, we came across a small cave with hand-painted figures on the wall. One of the porters told us that it had been painted a generation earlier, when a shepherd and his son had brought a few livestock this way in the hope of finding some pasture. They’d become trapped by the winter snows and, after eating their livestock, began to starve. Close to the end, the father told the son to kill and eat him, with which order the dutiful son complied. His fidelity to duty didn’t save him, though, and he too eventually perished, but not before documenting the events by way of the rock paintings. A sad story, but pretty good paintings.
*
After crossing several more gorges and taking numerous more falls, we descended into the Miristi Khola gorge, which would take us to Base Camp. I handed my ice axe to a porter who was struggling on the slippery track and kept my fingers crossed that it would survive longer than the axe I’d lent to our porter on Nanga Parbat, as I needed it for the climb ahead. The following day we arrived at Base Camp and paid our porters, rewarding them for their efforts with a fat tip. They were a tough bunch and deserved every rupee. In a perfect world they wouldn’t have had to labour in this way to earn their living, but it isn’t a perfect world and they needed the employment. The least we could do was pay them top dollar.
Ed Viesturs was already at Base Camp, having arrived a couple of days earlier from Cho Oyu. Annapurna was the final peak in his own quest to climb all the 8000ers. To summit it, he had partnered with his long-time climbing buddy, Veikka Gustafsson of Finland. Climbing the big peaks is such a tense and dangerous game that few people wish to expose themselves to the risks year after year. Those who do frequently end up dead. Finding a like-minded climbing partner in this game is a rare gift, but Ed and Veikka had established just that rapport.
Annapurna is a peak whose deadly reputation sees seasons come and go without a single expedition daring to test her temper, so it was unusual that we found a couple of Italian expeditions there as well. One included the two Italians with whom I’d climbed on the Gasherbrums in 1999, Abele Blanc and Christian Kuntner. The other comprised the outstanding mountaineer Silvio Mondinelli, probably the strongest mountaineer I’ve seen after Anatoli Bukreev. His teammates included Mario Merrelli, whom I’d met with Silvio on Kanchenjunga and Shishapangma in 2003.
Silvio, the elite alpinist, was a picture of health, while Mario had a permanent cigarette hanging from his lips. He’d look me in the eye and, with a wry smile, mutter, ‘Oxygen, Andre’. Both were incredibly friendly, and I spent many a meal at their Base Camp tucking into their drums of cryovacked pork knuckles and other delicacies that, unlike their countryman Kuntner, they were more than happy to share. They were great people to spend time with.
Charley, Brendan and I were the last team to arrive at the mountain, but the hard pass-crossing trek had aided our acclimatisation and we were able to start climbing after a couple of days’ rest and preparation. The route up to Camp 1 followed an easy grassy trail from Base Camp before dropping over a 40-metre wall of lateral moraine that had been exposed by the slowly advancing glacier below. After crossing that same glacier, we picked our way up a headwall of ice and rock. This brought us to a steep and crumbling rock ridge interspersed with loose scree slopes and snow patches, the top of which led out to a broad glacier, surrounded on all sides by threatening, avalanche-prone mountain faces. Our first attempt up the ridge was thwarted by ice seracs, which collapsed around and in front of us, so close as to cover us in ice dust, followed by constant rockfall on the ridge. We returned to Base Camp, determined to make an earlier start on our next attempt. This proved more successful and we reached Camp 1 after a solid push of five and a half hours’ constant climbing.
To reach Camp 2, we crossed the glacier roped together for safety against hidden crevasses, then slogged our way up easy but deep snow slopes for several hours. We placed our tent underneath some ice cliffs that we hoped would protect us from miscreant avalanches above. Although we’d already had to overcome rockfall, crevasses, avalanche danger and altitude, the hazards to this point had been no greater than those on most other high mountains. Above Camp 2, however, the game changed considerably.
To assist with our acclimatisation and to get a better look at the route, we climbed up from Camp 2, crossed the plateau above the tent site and approached the bottom of the north face. Just to access the face we had to cross terrain that was threatened by some of the biggest seracs I’d ever seen, which clearly avalanched every day. I wrote at the time:
This part of the route is absolutely deadly. There are huge seracs that overhang the plateau on the left as you head up, not to mention the sickle serac above. Our track crossed some avalanche debris but it is quite clear that any big serac avalanche would sweep the entire plateau clean. There would be no hope.
We climbed a ramp of snow and ice that was hundreds of metres wide, hundreds more long and whose depth could only be imagined. The ramp was completely out of place until we realised that it had been formed by the debris of the continual avalanches that crashed down from the hundreds of seracs on the face above, which itself was crowned by an astonishingly enormous ice cliff known as The Sickle. The Sickle’s exposed bluff was easily a hundred metres of sheer, crumbling ice. It curved right across the top of the face in the manner of its namesake for more than a kilometre. Just standing on the debris below the face was enough to make my palms clammy. The route we planned to take to Camp 3 climbed over that avalanche debris, up through the entire serac-filled north face, and through that deadly ice cliff at the top. Gulp!
Having intimidated ourselves sufficiently, we retreated to Base Camp to fortify our courage with a few nights’ sleep and proper food. In the interim, Ed and Veikka launched their summit bid, as did the Italian team with Silvio and Mario. They were all a couple of weeks ahead of us on the mountain. They climbed through the dangers to Camp 3, their highest camp, but were caught there for three nights in strong wind. Silvio descended to Base Camp, having suffered very cold feet and not wanting to incur more frostbite on top of his Kanchenjunga injury. The others made a desperate lunge for the top in a lull in the conditions.
That break in the weather was short-lived, though, and the ascent became a battle against strong winds and deep snow. While they successfully summitted, they were separated on descent. Two of the Italians spent the night after the summit sheltering in a crevasse, unable to find their way back to the tents. Thankfully, they all survived, and a couple of days later we greeted them back at Base Camp. With that ascent, Ed had completed his project to climb all the 8000ers, becoming the first American to do so. After a grand party, he was helicoptered out to great acclaim back in the United States.
A week later it was our turn. For the first time, I’d taken a satellite phone to Base Camp, which had allowed me to ring Julie every few days. It was great having contact with her, particularly given that I was climbing with people I didn’t know well. Julie was also able to give me regular weather information, and told me that a good spell was forecast. My team and the second Italian team, which included Blanc and Kuntner, were joined by Silvio Mondinelli, whose feet were feeling better and who’d stayed on at Base Camp to try again. We agreed to climb as a single group and share the work of breaking trail in fresh snow. We would also provide each other with support on this most dangerous of mountains.
We were delayed at Camp 2 for a day due to high winds, but the next morning we faced our fears and set off for the shooting gallery that was the climb up to Camp 3. Kuntner and his team were a little slow off the mark, but Brendan, Charley, Silvio and I crossed the plateau and ascended the field of avalanche ‘runout’ at the base of the face. Above us was a gully that clearly channelled much of the avalanche debris that came down the face. It was only a 50-metre climb until it fanned out above and we could move to the side out of the firing line, but for those 50 metres our hearts were in our mouths. We knew with absolute certainty that an avalanche at that moment would be fed straight on top of us, and we’d have little hope of survival. I climbed rather quickly.
As I went, I scanned continuously for a safe place to hide should an avalanche fall. Sure enough, as I emerged from the couloir about 7.25 a.m. there was a massive roar from above and the ground beneath my feet shook. A serac had collapsed somewhere on the face above and was sweeping down towards us. Simultaneously, we all yelled, ‘Avalanche!’ and sprang for cover.
I’d spotted some large seracs about 20 metres away that would provide excellent shelter, but I hadn’t time to reach them. The only possible protection at that moment was a small serac of ice about 1.5 metres high and 2 metres long. I dived onto the slope below it. I could hear the avalanche thundering down the face, and wondered whether my backpack might be sticking out above the top of the block. If so, it would be hit by the avalanche and I would be dragged off the mountain. I considered ripping it off, but that would mean rolling away from the block for a few seconds, exposing myself even further. I decided not to risk it but forced myself as flat as possible into the snow.
Time passes rather slowly in this situation, perhaps because your every sense is heightened with the expectation of instant oblivion. There was time to ponder my fate. It seemed likely that I was about to die, and for a brief second my stomach tightened. But it felt hypocritical to panic about dying, given that I’d known and rather carelessly accepted that risk on all these mountains over so many years. I put my head down and accepted my fate, whatever it was going to be, writing later:
It’s an eerie feeling lying helplessly, waiting for such a powerful natural force to run its course. If my serac didn’t offer enough protection, or if the debris or wind blast caught me, I’d be pulled in an instant from my hiding place and literally thrown down the mountain, with about 1000 tonnes of ice and snow following.
If that happened, I would probably only have a few seconds of terror and would then be killed. How to describe the expectation of death within a few seconds, but not knowing for sure? A feeling of dread, an acceptance that this was always possible; not so much regret, but certainly a question: ‘Is this how it all ends?’
As I lay there, I couldn’t tell if it was going over me or not, but the sound was deafening and the ground shook. It seemed to last a long while—my guess would be around twenty seconds—before it passed.
Gradually, the deluge lessened and the noise faded. I raised my head. The gods had been kind and I had survived. My teammates above me were also okay. But Kuntner and three of his team—Stephan, Marco and Abele Blanc—had been below me, right in the neck of the couloir, when the ice hit. The four of them had been swept back down the couloir and about 300 metres out onto the football field of debris.
We raced back down the slope, our hearts full of dread at what we’d find. Overall, the injuries were surprisingly light. Stephan had a broken arm, cuts and bruises, while Marco, battered and bloody, had a face wound that was open to the bone. Blanc was in total shock and not aware of his surroundings, but physically he was relatively unharmed. Kuntner, however, was badly injured. He had a massive wound to his head and a dislocated shoulder. Most troubling of all, though, was that he preferred to lie on his injured shoulder rather than on his other side, which he clutched constantly, moaning, ‘Malo, malo.’ He had obviously sustained a significant internal injury.
After some emergency first aid, the walking wounded descended to Camp 2. We bandaged Christian’s gaping head wound and gave him a shot of dexamethasone for his concussion, but we then had to consider our next move. He’d been lucid when we first reached him but had deteriorated quickly. Now he was writhing on the snow, unable to walk. He needed urgent hospitalisation.
Ideally we’d have stabilised him and organised a Nepali helicopter to evacuate him, but we were at too high an altitude for one to land. In any case, we couldn’t stay in that location because it was beneath another massive ice serac, nearly a thousand metres above us, that avalanched daily. We were standing right on its debris. We used our sleeping pads and a sleeping bag to make a sledge, into which we zipped Christian. Silvio, Brendan and I then dragged him down the mountain.
At Camp 2 Silvio tried to contact the Nepali authorities with his satellite phone but couldn’t get a connection. It actually proved easier to ring his wife in Italy and have her ring Nepal, and she successfully organised the chopper. Brendan, a trained medic, attended to the walking wounded while I stayed with Christian. He was in extreme pain from the internal injury—so much so that he was waving both arms around, including the one with the dislocated shoulder. My attempts to calm and reassure him achieved nothing. It was frustrating beyond words not to be able to do anything more.
Gradually, he stopped writhing and lay still. I hoped his pain was starting to ease. His tight grip on my hands slackened, though, and when I looked into his eyes I could see the life in them literally disappearing. Brendan did a quick check of his vital signs and immediately commenced cardio pulmonary resuscitation for some minutes, but it didn’t help. Christian was dead.
I turned my head away and looked up to the mountain’s summit. Another life lost. Are mountains really worth this price? As I looked up, both to avert my eyes from a team member who’d died in my arms and also to seek some divine reasoning for this loss, the most incredible thing happened. At 5600 metres, on the side of one of the highest mountains in the world, a butterfly flew past me. Right in front of me. Amid the tragedy of Christian’s death, this beautiful, gentle life form fluttered by.
It sounds crazy, and perhaps I was desperately clutching at some kind of spiritual hope, but my first thought was that it was Christian’s soul. I was moved and inspired beyond words. It was uplifting. I felt almost joyful. Here was life, completely out of place, in the midst of death. I shall never forget that feeling.
*
There were still three other injured climbers who needed to be evacuated, so we covered Christian with a sleeping bag and escorted them down to the glacier. The helicopter arrived soon after. With the walking wounded on board, the pilot also managed quite a daring flight up to Camp 2 to retrieve Christian’s body.
The rest of us descended to Base Camp. All the others decided to cancel their expeditions and return home; the only dissenter was me. While I was saddened by Christian’s death, and all the more aware of my own mortality as a result of it, I wasn’t traumatised by it. He was another victim in an ever-growing list of climbers who’d paid the price for their passion, but he’d known the risks, particularly on this brutally savage peak. I’m also sure that I was feeling more settled than the others because of my encounter with the butterfly. More than anything, though, I was still committed to my goal and wanted to continue.
I pointed out that nothing would be gained from quitting. Christian’s death would seem all the more pointless if we just gave up. I also argued that there was now one less avalanche that would come down the mountain. Some might see my attitude as callous, but for me it was practical, given that we were there to climb the mountain. To quit at that point would just mean we’d have to return another time and face all those risks again, not to mention the expense and the time commitment. But the others were too depressed to continue.
I rang Julie and told her about the accident before it hit the press. She wanted me to come home with the others, but I couldn’t get over the feeling that I’d be throwing away a perfectly good chance to climb this mountain. Sure, it was dangerous, but it would always be dangerous. I just couldn’t see any reason to give up when so much work had already been done. I decided to make an attempt by myself.
After one day’s rest, I set off alone back up to Camp 1 and continued climbing up to Camp 2. In the short time since we’d been there, though, there’d been a heavy dump of fresh snow and I needed help to break through it. By the time I reached Camp 2, I was wading in deep, wet snow. Without the physical support of the others, I couldn’t continue in those conditions. Reluctantly, I accepted that the expedition was over, ending my first attempt on Annapurna. The experience made me think extremely hard about how I would attempt the mountain again—who I would climb with and which route I would choose. The French route on which we’d been avalanched had truly been death’s bowling alley, and I had no desire to experience that again. But I knew I would return to Annapurna.
The positive lesson I took away from this expedition was in relation to butterflies. I have never deliberately hurt animals, but ever since my experience when Christian died, I have taken the utmost care not to harm butterflies, even when driving. I wonder what the Police will say if I one day have to tell them that I ran off the road to avoid a butterfly?
*
By 2005, having long since left full-time employment, I had quite a varied existence. I was consulting in risk and crisis management, leading treks to remote areas around the world, lecturing and guiding on small Antarctic tourist vessels, and taking on interesting mountaineering projects. I was also delivering keynote leadership and motivational presentations around the country, which I really enjoyed. In the post-monsoon season of 2005, I took a job to guide a Spanish climber, Inigo de Pineda, on both Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.
There were several other climbers in our team at Cho Oyu. They climbed independently, but all were under my oversight. One of the climbers was Billi Bierling, a public-relations professional who has worked for many Himalayan climbing seasons in Kathmandu as an assistant to Elizabeth Hawley, the 8000-metre expedition chronicler. Ms Hawley has long been revered by climbers for her almost mystic ability to know exactly when they have arrived in Kathmandu both before and at the end of their expeditions, and in which hotel they’re staying. She then ambushes them in the foyer, requiring them to fill out her information sheets. Billi has now taken on that role with gusto and is regularly seen cycling around Kathmandu, preparing her own ambushes of unsuspecting climbers to elicit the expedition details.
On the mountain that season, although on a different expedition, was one of world’s leading 8000-metre climbers, Iñaki Ochoa de Olza from the Basque country in the western Pyrenees of Europe. I’d met Iñaki in Pakistan in the 1990s and had bumped into him from time to time since then. He had a reputation as a very strong and capable climber, and a man with an easygoing, relaxed nature. Over several conversations we agreed to look for opportunities to climb together in the future.
Silvio Mondinelli and Mario Merelli were also there. This was the third time I’d shared a mountain with them. My circle of friends and social scene were becoming more and more populated with high-altitude mountaineers. It seemed perfectly natural, though, and reinforced my feeling that the mountains had become my real home.
At Cho Oyu’s Base Camp our food was the usual fare—buffalo meat, local vegetables, dahl and rice—but to our delight Inigo produced a great quantity of beautifully cured, ever so finely sliced, melt-in-your-mouth Spanish jamón. He worked as a salesman for a company that produced the cured ham. I doubt he achieved significant sales in the backblocks of Tibet, but he certainly won our appreciation. Reinforced by our diet of wafer-thin pork slivers, and inspired to get up the mountain and back to Base Camp as quickly as possible so we could enjoy more carnivorous delights, Inigo and I soon summitted Cho Oyu and moved on to Shishapangma.
While the two base camps were only 50 or so kilometres from each other, they were worlds apart. Cho Oyu’s is on a glacier with rocks, ice and dust everywhere, whereas Shishapangma’s is on grass with a bubbling brook nearby. The psychological revitalisation we experienced from this link to life and warmth was tangible, and it made the expedition infinitely more enjoyable.
Shortly after we arrived, however, a sad procession passed us by. Two Tibetans were leading a donkey with a body strapped over its back to the road head, followed by the dead climber’s teammates, their expedition over in tragic circumstances. We were told that the climber had developed pulmonary oedema but that his inexperienced friends had failed to recognise the symptoms. He’d died alone in his tent during the night. They were a small team with limited experience and had engaged a company to deliver base-camp logistics only—meaning they had no guide or expedition manager. While I’m an ardent supporter of learning to climb and developing altitude skills over many years rather than being guided, I also think that, if you choose to shortcut that process and go with a commercial group, you should spend the money that will buy the leadership and experience you lack. A body wrapped in rice bags and trussed with rope was a high price to pay to save a few dollars.
It was a timely reminder for me, also, not to be tempted to push Inigo too hard in pursuit of Shishapangma’s true summit, despite my personal ambition to reach it. Inigo was very keen to reach the real summit, but I knew I had to balance his enthusiasm with sound leadership. Small and softly spoken but surprisingly strong at altitude, he intended to take up climbing as a profession after this expedition. At the time, however, he lacked significant experience, so I wasn’t prepared to lead him up anything other than the normal route on Shisha’s north side. Guiding a client is quite different from climbing with an experienced partner, and I took very seriously my responsibility to keep him as safe as possible. It would not have been appropriate to put him into a technical climbing situation where we had to rely on each other.
We hoped that the snow on the North Face would be firm enough that we could traverse from the north ridge over to the main summit but, as in most seasons, it was dangerously unstable. As we climbed, I stepped out onto the face several times to assess whether a traverse to the true summit was feasible, only for the slope to crack and threaten to avalanche. Inigo had to be satisfied with the lower Central Summit, the usual end point for guided clients on that mountain.
During our walk out to the road head, we spoke at length about the risks inherent in mountaineering. Inigo had performed strongly on both peaks and had gained a good understanding of the skills and experience he’d need to take on other 8000ers, but I impressed upon him that he was entering what I considered to be the most dangerous game in town. Already I’d lost many friends over the years, either on my own expeditions or on others, and we’d seen the tragic end to another climber’s dreams on this expedition. I encouraged Inigo to consolidate his experience on less technical peaks, and at lower altitude, in order to develop his climbing and risk-management skills. Sure, you need luck in the hills, but without sound skills you are a dead man climbing. With them, you just might survive. And the mountains only reveal their incredible secrets to survivors.
*
Back in Kathmandu, I caught up with my many mountaineering friends in downtown Thamel, the tourist region of ‘K-town’. Some had been successful in their projects, others not. We congratulated, commiserated, laughed, mourned, ate and drank. Hard. More than anything, we bonded, as only comrades who’ve shared adversity can bond. I was happy to be in their company.
I’d just as happily have stayed there, but I’d planned a climbing holiday with Julie to the Wadi Rum in Jordan and needed to get back to reality. As much as the mountains felt like home, I had another, semi-normal, life back in Australia. But as the plane climbed steeply out of the Kathmandu valley and the distant Himalayan giants stood above the clouds, as though to bid me farewell, or perhaps taunt me, I was already planning my return. I had four peaks left before I would be finished with the project: Shishapangma, Makalu, Kanchenjunga and Annapurna.
It seemed Shishapangma was becoming my nemesis. I’d been unsuccessful on my first attempt, broke my bum before I even reached the mountain on my second go, and was unsuccessful with Inigo on this last expedition. I needed to finish it off, to find an achievable route and do it.
Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, and Kanchenjunga, the third-highest, would both be tough. But the real thorn was Annapurna. I had unfinished business there. While my teammates had been perfectly within their rights to abandon the mountain, I felt that the effort, the expense and the risks we’d taken on that expedition had been wasted when we were so close to summiting.. As much as my stomach tightened and my jaw clenched when I thought of the almost unjustifiable dangers there, I would return. It was the jewel in the crown and I had to climb it. I would find the strongest, most motivated climbing partners, and I would return.
Christian Kuntner died after having summitted thirteen of the world’s fourteen 8000-metre peaks. Annapurna was to have been his last 8000er.
Mario Merelli, having successfully reached the summit of the world’s most dangerous mountain, continued expeditioning to other 8000ers but died in a rock-climbing accident in Italy in 2012.
Inigo de Pineda, having achieved his first 8000-metre summit on Cho Oyu and having had a near miss on Shishapangma, was inspired to climb more of the world’s highest mountains. Despite my strongest advice to consolidate his experience, in 2007 Inigo joined a Spanish team to Kanchenjunga, one of the toughest peaks in the world. He was killed in a fall during the expedition.
Despite meeting Marty Schmidt many times in the mountains over the years, I didn’t ever get to climb with him. In 2013, having been unsuccessful in an earlier attempt on K2 with Hector Ponce de Leon, Marty returned to the mountain with his son, Denali. They were both killed by an avalanche at Camp 3.