The Blue Nile marked a boundary in my life. We had found a house in Bowdon, Cheshire, just before I had set out for the Blue Nile and Wendy was left with all the worry and hard work entailed in the removal, together with undoubted sadness at leaving the Lake District. We had lived there for five years and she, especially, had come to love the area where we had known carefree happiness, had met day-to-day worries and in which we had experienced a total, overwhelming grief. It was she, not I, who needed the real courage while I was away on the Blue Nile.
I came back to find a sharp knife had been cut through a section of our lives. For a time we were in limbo, for the house we had bought in Bowdon was still in the hands of the builders. We had snatched it in desperation, only a few weeks before my departure. It was an ugly, old Edwardian semi-detached in a cul-de-sac on the flat top of one of the few hills in that part of Cheshire – on top of a hill, but there was no view – we were surrounded by other houses. Although it was very different from Bank End Cottage, or even our house in Cockermouth, I was glad to be living in Bowdon; there were plenty of climbing friends around; also plenty of climbing within reasonable range, of a greater variety than is available in the Lake District – the Peak District, North Wales, Bristol and the Avon Gorge just down the motorway. I could get out climbing once a week in the evening, and become again a weekend climber, going off to Wales or the Lakes.
For a period of three months, while we waited for the builders to complete alterations to our house, we stayed with Nick and Carolyn Estcourt, still in their two-bedroomed flat in Alderley Edge. We arrived intending to stay for a few days and by some miracle we did not get on each other’s nerves, even though this time was extended so considerably – certainly this was a fine test of compatibility for any expedition. And it was here that the Annapurna South Face Expedition was conceived, or rather, was evolved, for it started out as something far less ambitious before it took its final shape.
Nick, Martin Boysen and I had been discussing expeditions for the past couple of years with little progress. That October we decided that come what may we should go on an expedition in 1970, but suitable objectives were limited. At that time all the mountains of Nepal and most of the better ranges in Pakistan and India were closed to climbers for political reasons, mainly the result of tension on the Tibetan border. It was possible to climb in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan, and in the outlying peaks of the Karakoram in Pakistan, but I found these unattractive, for they seemed overshadowed by the true Himalayan giants. We considered Alaska, where there are still hundreds of unclimbed walls and the mountains are even more empty and desolate than those in the Himalaya, though of course very much lower.
I had known Martin for about eight years. One of Britain’s finest rock-climbers, at ground level his limbs seem uncoordinated, but once poised on a stretch of rock he drifts up effortlessly, a smoothly functioning climbing-machine. He is like a huge intelligent sloth, conditioned to a vertical environment. We had climbed together extensively in this country, but never in the Alps or farther ranges. For a brilliant climber he was remarkably uncompetitive, secure perhaps in his own natural ability and too lazy to enter into the rat-race that can dominate some aspects of British climbing. Even so, some of his new routes in Wales and Scotland are among the most difficult and dangerous ever put up in this country; he went on to climb at a very high standard in the Alps, making several first ascents and first British ascents.
Nick, on the other hand, was not a natural climber. Wiry, yet powerfully built, quite highly strung, very competitive, he had forced himself to a high standard of climbing. In some ways he had the traditional middle-class background of the pre-war climbers, and for that matter most of the Everest expeditions right up to the successful one of 1953. He was introduced to climbing by his father in the Alps, while still at school, and he gained a very broad mountaineering background in alpine climbing. Whilst at Cambridge he became President of the University Mountaineering Club, and also took part in an expedition to Arctic Greenland, his only experience of climbing outside Europe. He was sufficiently devoted to climbing to try to bend a conventional career in engineering to fit in with his sport, but finding engineering somewhat tying abandoned it for computers. Living in Alderley Edge, near Manchester, he was able to combine his new career with plenty of climbing.
As the fourth member of our team we chose Dougal Haston, whom Martin also knew well. Then, the news arrived – Nepal was allowing in climbers for the first time in four years. Immediately we forgot about Alaska and started to consider possible objectives. There were several unclimbed peaks of below 24,000 feet, which to me seemed unattractive, since they would have given me a lesser experience than I had received on my two previous expeditions to Annapurna II and Nuptse. The thought of a major face climb, however, did catch our enthusiasm – taut excitement and technical difficulty tempered with the slow snow-plodding that can turn Himalayan climbing into a featureless treadmill.
Then I remembered seeing a photograph of the South Face of Annapurna which had been sent to Jimmy Roberts.
‘Lets go for that,’ I suggested, with very little idea then of what ‘that’ entailed. The others, in their innocence, agreed. Another British expedition, to Machapuchare, immediately opposite the South Face of Annapurna, had included Jimmy Roberts and it was here that he had first seen the face. Having written to him, I telephoned two of the other members of that expedition.
‘South Face?’ said David Cox, a lecturer in Modern History at University College, Oxford. ‘I don’t remember much about it; looked huge; yes, there were a lot of avalanches coming down it, but I think they were going down the runnels.’
Roger Chorley, a London accountant, was even more discouraging. ‘Going for the South Face of Annapurna?’ in a voice of mild disbelief. ‘It’s swept by avalanches the whole time.’ By this time I had begun to think of other objectives, then Jimmy Roberts’ letter arrived:
‘The South Face of Annapurna is an exciting prospect – more difficult than Everest, although the approach problems are easier. Certainly it will be very difficult indeed, and although I am not an oxygen fan, it seems to me that the exertion of the severe climbing at over 24,000 feet may demand oxygen.’ I felt encouraged.
Then, a few days later, I received a colour slide of the face from David Cox. We projected it on to the wall of my living-room – a six-foot picture – and gazed and gazed – first excited and then frightened.
‘There’s a line all right,’ Martin said, ‘but it’s bloody big.’
It was. I had never seen a mountain photograph giving such an impression of huge size and steepness. It was like four different alpine faces piled one on top of the other – but what a line! Hard, uncompromising, positive all the way up. A squat snow ridge, like the buttress of a Gothic cathedral, leaned against the lower part of the wall. That was the start all right; perhaps it would be possible to bypass it, sneaking along the glacier at its foot – but what about avalanche risk? The buttress led to an ice arête which was obviously a genuine knife-edge. I had climbed something like this on Nuptse – in places we had been able to look straight through holes in the ridge a hundred feet below its crest. That had been frightening, but this would be worse. The knife-edge died below a band of ice cliffs.
‘I wonder how stable they are?’ asked Nick. I wondered too, and, with only partial confidence, traced a line through them leading to a rock wall.
‘Must be at least a thousand feet.’
‘But where the hell does it start? It could be twenty-three thousand. Do you fancy hard rock-climbing at that altitude?’
‘Yes, but look at that groove.’ It split the crest of the ridge, a huge gash, inviting, but undoubtedly more difficult and sustained than anything previously climbed at that altitude.
The rock band ended with what seemed to be a shoulder of snow leading to the summit.
‘But the picture must be foreshortened. That could be a long way below the top.’
Looking at some transparencies I had taken from Annapurna II in 1960, we saw that the top of the rock band was at around three-quarter height; there was another 3,000 feet to the top of a steep snow arête, with a rocky crest on which to finish.
Sobered by what we had seen, realising that this was something bigger and more difficult than anything that had ever been tackled before, we flashed a picture of the South Face of Nuptse. It was completely dwarfed by the huge South Face of Annapurna.
In spite of everything, I felt confident that with the right team we had a good chance of climbing it; that my own mountaineering background had perhaps built up towards this attempt. In a Himalayan environment we would use the techniques developed on the ascent of the Eiger Direct; in addition I had a yardstick of comparison from climbing the South Face of Nuptse, although that had been considerably more straightforward than Annapurna’s South Face. I had been to a height of 25,850 feet on Nuptse unaided by oxygen, but I had experience in the use of it from Annapurna II, and understood the tremendous difference it can make to one’s climbing potential.
Although attracted to the idea of a small, compact, four-man expedition uncluttered by the paraphernalia and complications of a larger expedition, it was obvious that the South Face of Annapurna would require a larger party. Six men also seemed insufficient and we went up to eight.
The next problem was the selection of the team from the numerous leading climbers of Britain. They would have to be the men who could climb at a very high standard on rock and ice, with plenty of endurance, and an ability to subordinate their own personal ambitions to the good of the expedition as a whole. Most important of all, they would have to get on together. Many top-class climbers, having a touch of the prima donna in their make-up, are often self-centred and are essentially individualists; in some ways the best expedition man is the steady plodder. On the South Face of Annapurna we were going to need a high proportion of hard lead climbers who would be able to take over the exacting front position as others slowed up and tired.
One can never be sure of anyone’s individual performance in the Himalaya, since people acclimatise to altitude at different rates and some never acclimatise at all. The safest bet, therefore, is to take out climbers who have already proved themselves at altitude, but because of the ban on climbing in Nepal and Pakistan in the late sixties, there was a distinct shortage of top-standard alpinists with Himalayan experience.
I approached Ian Clough first. I had done some of my best climbing with him and quite apart from being a capable mountaineer he was also the kindest and least selfish partner I had known. Certainly the perfect expedition man, he had very little personal ambition, but was always ready to do his best for the project as a whole.
Then I asked twenty-eight-year-old Mick Burke and, thirdly, Don Whillans. In some ways, Don was the most obvious choice of all, yet the one about whom I had the most doubts. Although certainly the finest all-round mountaineer that Britain had produced since the war, in the previous years he had allowed himself to slip into poor physical condition. He had lost interest in British rock-climbing, and even the Alps, preferring to go on expeditions to the farther ranges of the world. In spite of a strained relationship, which was ever-present, I had done some of my best climbing with him, each of us irritating the other, yet at the same time complementing each other’s weak points.
Up to that time Don had had an unlucky streak, having been three times to the Himalaya, each time performing magnificently but never reaching the top. On his first expedition to the Karakoram in 1957 he spent eight weeks above 23,000 feet and struggled to within 150 feet of the summit of Masherbrum but was forced to retreat when his companion collapsed. On his next expedition, to Trivor, another twenty-five thousander, he worked himself into the ground getting the party into position for the final assault, and as a result was unable himself to get to the top.
On Gaurishankar once again he was unlucky. After considerable trouble in finding a route to the foot of the mountain the expedition was then forced to make its way round the peak on to the Tibetan flanks to get a feasible route to the top. Its communications were over-extended and it was finally forced to turn back.
Whilst most of the team I had invited so far were comparatively inexperienced, Don’s particular qualities seemed ideally suited to the problem, but I was worried in case he had let himself slide too far into bad condition to function well on the mountain.
I suggested we had a weekend climbing together, without telling him of my plans. We were going up to Scotland one Friday night and, arriving at his house at about 10.30 p.m., I found he was out but would be back in half an hour. At 2.30 a.m. he returned, having downed eleven pints of beer, and we set off straightaway, with me in a slightly self-righteous bad temper. We arrived at Glencoe and the following day set out with Tom Patey to make the first ascent of the Great Gully of Ardgour. On the walk up to the climb Don lagged far behind, taking his time and in the gully he was happy to stay at the back, accepting a rope on all the difficult pitches. Then, on the last pitch, an evil chimney lined with ice and just too wide for comfortable bridging, he said, ‘I think I’ll have a try at this. It’s about my turn to go out in front.’
There was an icy wind blasting straight up the chimney; it was so wide he was almost doing the splits on the way up, and its top was blocked by ice-sheathed boulders which you had to swing on. Don went up incredibly quickly and smoothly without bothering to protect himself with running belays. Both Tom and I had a struggle when it was our turn to follow. It was then that I made up my mind and that evening invited him to join the expedition. He looked at the photograph I showed him and commented, ‘It’ll be hard, but it should go all right. I’ll come.’ He was the obvious person to be Deputy Leader, and I promptly offered him this position.
So far I had selected people with whom I had climbed in difficult circumstances and knew deeply, who knew me and knew each other. This seemed the soundest basis for a tight-knit group – all with weaknesses and strengths, knowing each other well enough to accept them, and having in the past put ourselves and our relationships to the test of physical and mental stress. But now the choice of an eighth member of the team was influenced by finance.
‘Couldn’t you get an American? It would make my job a lot easier in the States,’ asked George Greenfield, our agent, rather wistfully.
Not having any personal knowledge of any American who would be suitable, I had doubts, but we needed the money so I agreed finally. Various names came to mind, but one climber in particular interested me, and this was Tom Frost. Both Don and Dougal knew and spoke well of him.
Tom is a partner in a mountain hardware factory and is one of America’s outstanding rock-climbers. The rock walls of Yosemite in California present some of the smoothest and most compact mountain faces in the world. To climb these, Tom and a few others have developed new equipment and techniques and had since adapted these ideas to tackle even bigger problems throughout the breadth of the American continents. The approach has influenced climbers everywhere. His reply to my letter of invitation was characteristic:
‘I have just returned from Alaska where we succeeded in struggling up the tourist route on Mount McKinley. As a result of this experience I am somewhat confident in being able to ascend to 20,000 feet and on the basis of this credential hereby agree to come to Annapurna with you and will even attempt to climb.’
In fact, Tom had already been to the Himalaya and had climbed Kantega, a peak of 22,340 feet. He had also put up new routes in the Cordillera Blanca and the Alps. On learning that he was a practising Mormon, a faith which forbids strong drink, gambling, smoking, bad language, tea and coffee, I wondered how he would get on with us. Tom turned out to be not only a good Mormon, but also a splendidly tolerant one.
The party, now numbering eight, was certainly the strongest that had ever been assembled in Britain to tackle a Himalayan peak. In addition to the hard climbers it became evident we should need some men who would be prepared to concentrate on the more mundane but essential tasks of keeping open the lower part of the mountain and supervising the flow of supplies. Mike Thompson, one of my oldest friends, was not a brilliant high-standard climber, but had an easy, equable temperament coupled with single-minded individualism. He was ideally suited to the support role I offered.
We also needed a doctor; someone capable of reaching the upper part of a mountain yet content to remain in a support role. It is no use having the doctor out in front. Dave Lambert, a thirty-year-old registrar at a hospital in Newcastle, had heard of the expedition from a friend, and telephoned me. He called to see me the following weekend and I found him bouncy, talkative, and full of enthusiasm. He was even prepared to pay his own way to come on the expedition. Having climbed in the Alps, he was a competent all-rounder without being an ace climber and I invited him on the spot.
Having the right equipment and food flowing up the mountain, in the right order, would be one of the requisites for success and some kind of Base Camp Manager would be essential. Possibly an older, experienced mountaineer would have taken on this job, but he might well have had too many preconceived ideas. A member of the 1953 Everest Expedition, Lt-Col. Charles Wylie, a serving officer in the army, at my request, recommended Kelvin Kent, a Captain in the Gurkha Signals, then stationed in Hong Kong. Not only did he speak fluent Nepali, he was a wireless expert and had a sound practical knowledge of the logistic planning required on the mountain. An assault on a Himalayan peak is comparable with fighting a war – logistics and planning are the key to success. No matter how tough or courageous the men out in front, unless they are supplied with food and equipment they quickly come to a grinding halt.
It has been said that the ideal age for the Himalayan climber is around the mid-thirties and in this case we were slightly below, for the average age of our party was just over thirty. But at twenty-five I had acclimatised quite satisfactorily on my first trip to the Himalaya, and Don Whillans was only twenty-three on Masherbrum where he put up an outstanding performance.
Our team now numbered eleven climbers. We planned to supplement our numbers with six Sherpas – a small figure for an expedition of this size, but with the face so steep, it seemed unlikely that we should be able to use them for more than the lower slopes.
We had succeeded in selling our story to ITN and Thames Television and hoped to get away with taking a single cameraman/director, but understandably they insisted on our taking a complete film team of cameraman, sound recordist, reporter-director from Thames and finally, since this was a joint venture, a representative from ITN to look after their interests.
I was worried about taking such a large self-contained group along, since an expedition imposes a strain on personal relationships at the best of times and a group reporting on us, yet remaining uninvolved, could have increased this danger still further. However, we needed the money and after meeting John Edwards, the Thames Television director, and Alan Hankinson, the ITN representative, I felt reassured. John was a fast-talking extrovert who would obviously fit happily into any group. Alan had a slightly whimsical, yet diffident air, not at all the kind of person you would expect to find in television. He had an unconsummated passion for mountaineering and seemed to be looking forward to our trip for its own sake.
And so the total strength of the party would number twenty-one. On top of this we should have mail-runners, cook-boys and perhaps some local porters – more people than I had ever been responsible for in the past – twelve men and three tanks having been my biggest command in the army.
We considered the ways of sending our gear, having decided that the entire team could fly out to India. We chose the sea route but found the only reliable schedules are those of passenger liners. The only liner going out to India at the right time would be sailing too early for us to have ready the enormous amount of gear we should need. The only other possibility was a cargo ship and I booked the gear on to one sailing from Liverpool on the 23rd January. We were barely ready in time and many items we had had specially designed were still not finished.
Two days before sailing date I had a phone-call from the shipping agents: ‘I’m afraid your boat has gone into dry-dock with engine trouble. It won’t be ready to sail for another three weeks.’
‘Isn’t there another boat going out?’ I asked.
‘I’ll try,’ the shipping agent said, ‘but I very much doubt it.’
I was on tenterhooks for the next twenty-four hours. We had quite enough against us on the mountain without this kind of delay. Then next day there was good news; he had found another boat which was sailing from London on the 23rd, the same date as the original boat.
A frantic dash to the docks to get all the gear loaded in time; more worries that there might be a dock strike or any of the dozen delays that seem to affect cargo ships, but it sailed on time – first stop Bombay.
I felt we had overcome the biggest problem of all. Nothing very much could now go wrong. Don and Dave would meet the ship in Bombay and have an uncomfortable trip across India on the backs of lorries, and we should be ready to tackle our mountain.