MOUNTAINEERING IS AN apex sport and as Hemingway apparently put it, ‘all the others are merely games’. So where do mountaineers go to reach the pinnacle of their sport? The incomparable Himalayas.
The world’s fourteen highest mountains all exceed the 8000-metre mark (or just over 26 000 feet) and they are all in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges of Pakistan, China and Nepal. They are by far the tallest mountains on the planet. Shards of stone pushed higher than all the rest by extraordinary tectonic forces. Everest leads the pack by a commanding 250 metres over K2. (By comparison North America’s highest mountain, Mount McKinley, is 6194 metres and 2600 metres lower than Everest.) For mountaineers these huge Himalayan peaks—Kanchenjunga, Nanga Parbat, K2, Annapurna—are the stage where much dramatic history is acted out; they are the battle grounds of the ‘conquistadors of the useless’, as Lionel Terray aptly described his chosen pursuit.
By a strange quirk these great peaks that penetrate into the jetstream also coincide with the maximum physiological altitude that we humans can attain. In 1953 when my father and Tenzing first climbed Everest, the physiologists of the day debated whether it was even possible for humans to reach 8800 metres. So why take the risk? George Mallory put it most simply—and perhaps most memorably—when asked in 1924 during a press conference and a succession of mind-numbing questions about his motivations for why he would attempt to climb Mount Everest. ‘Because it is there,’ he said. And while climbing it may be a human contrivance, its presence is as genuine and beckoning as the Atlantic was to Columbus. And now we all know we can achieve these goals and this knowledge opens the doors to individual possibility. You can go there too! If you have the grit and the blinkered focus.
Mountaineering in the modern era tackled issues to do with style and philosophy. ‘Alpine style’ changed the mode of ascent more than anything before. Bold and purist teams of unsupported climbers pushed elegant lines up the great mountains without oxygen and logistical support. The great exponents of this development were people like Hermann Buhl, Reinhold Messner, Jerzy Kukuczka, Jean Troillet and Doug Scott, who made numerous astonishing climbs that changed the way mountaineers saw what was possible.
Interestingly, the current era in mountaineering has transformed substantially into everything from media stunts, commercially guided groups enabling ambitious CEOs to tag the top, speed ascents up prepared routes strung with rope, capsule style climbing, alpine style and bold solos by outstanding practitioners of Himalayan alpinism. You shouldn’t judge the media reports from Mount Everest today as being typical of Himalayan climbing, as they are not and Andrew’s story illustrates this well. Today all these expeditions are equipped with satellite telephones and internet connections. These distractions have made Himalayan mountaineering more complex and less focused; more summit-driven and less interested in climbing excellence. There is nothing wrong with it but the media soap operas are not the leading edge of the sport.
The popular ‘seven summits’ (the highest peak on each continent) campaigns are, with the exception of Everest, more of an exciting adventure travelogue than a climbing-fest (and I completed the seven as a consolation prize when I couldn’t complete all the 8000ers I wanted to climb). By comparison the small number of mountaineers who have climbed all the fourteen 8000-metre peaks are the ‘real thing.’ The leaders in this quest climbed their mountains by establishing new routes and pushed frontiers like no one had before. They were armed with superb technical skills, extensive alpine experience and an astonishing determination—Reinhold Messner of Italy, Jerzy Kukuczka of Poland and Erhard Loretan of Switzerland. They showed us, on their separate expeditions, what could be accomplished. They are to mountaineers what the 8000-metre peaks are to the Appalachian Mountains or the hills of Ben Nevis. They are giants.
You never conquer an 8000-metre mountain giant. At best, you thread a line through its hazards to the summit where you simply turn around, for this is half way. The technicalities of descent are bedeviled by fatigue and wandering concentration. Gravity prowls the flanks of the peak; it neither holds dear nor respects innocence or reputation. But this is why we come, to tread the line of jeopardy and to assume responsibility for our own actions.
This game is about commitment. Once in, you must go the distance. As Rob Hall told me once: ‘To summit an 8000-metre peak you must be pushy. Even on a good day. But if you are too pushy you won’t come home.’
Andrew’s ambitions have been as steeply inclined as the peaks themselves. Because when you are out there—tired, frightened, thirsty—the only real companion you have is you. ‘You are all you have!’ That’s a very fundamental realisation and not many of us want to go there.
When you see this man’s eyes … you know he has.
Peter Hillary
May 2014
www.peterhillary.com
Peter has climbed Mount Everest twice and his father Edmund Hillary
made the first ascent with Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
Peter is on the board of the Australian Himalayan Foundation.