Touching the Void (5 page)

‘It looks hard.’

‘Yes. I’d prefer to attempt the rock first.’

‘It’s loose as hell.’

‘I know, but it might go. I’ll give it a try anyway.’

He moved some pitons, a few wires, and a couple of ‘Friends’ round to the front of his harness before edging left to the start of the rock wall. I was anchored firmly, just below and to the right of the cascade. The rock, yellow and crumbly, bordered the vertical powdery snow between the cascade and the rocky side of the ramp. I watched Simon carefully, for I knew that if he fell it would be with the sudden violence of handor foot-holds breaking away and not the gradual surrender to waning strength. He placed the camming device in a crack as high up the wall as he could. It expanded evenly into the crack with each of its four cams pressed hard against the rock. I guessed that it would be the rock which would break away, and not the ‘Friend’, if Simon fell.

He stepped up cautiously, testing his foot-holds with light kicks, and hitting the holds above his head to check their looseness. He hesitated a moment, stretched against the wall, gripping the rock above him at full reach, and then began to pull himself up slowly. I tensed, holding the ropes locked in the sticht plate, so that I could hold his fall immediately.

Suddenly, the holds tore loose from the wall, and for a second Simon held his poise, his hands still outstretched but now gripping two lumps of loose rock. Then he was off, falling backwards into the gully below. I braced myself, expecting the ‘Friend’ to rip out as well, but it held firm, and I stopped his short tumble with ease.

‘Brilliant!’ I said, laughing at the surprise on his face.

‘Shit!…I was sure those were solid.’

When he had got back to me he looked at the cascade again.

‘I don’t fancy doing it directly, but if I can get past the right side I should be able to crack it.’ ‘The ice looks mushy there.’

‘We’ll see.’

He launched himself up the right side of the cascade, avoiding the steep wall but attempting to make a slight traverse to the right before climbing back left above the icicles. Unfortunately the ice gave way to honeycombed snow and sugary ice crystals. He managed to reach a point parallel with the top of the icicles before the conditions became impossible and he could go no higher. He was twenty feet above me, and for a while it seemed as if he was stuck: reversing what he had just climbed would be to invite a nasty fall. Eventually he succeeded in fixing a sling around a thick icicle which had rejoined the cascade to form a loop, and he abseiled off this down to my stance. ‘I’m knackered. You have a go.’

‘Okay, but I’d move further to the side if I were you. I’ll have to knock most of those icicles away.’ Many of them were as thick as a man’s arm and nearly five feet long. Some even bigger. I started up the ice wall, which pushed me back off balance, and at once I felt the strain on my arms. The sack on my back pulled me away from the ice. I bunny-hopped my crampons quickly up the wall, smashing my axes hard into the brittle ice above, pulling up, hopping again—all the time trying to save my strength by climbing fast. As I neared the icicles I realised that I would be unable to hold on for very much longer; already I was too tired to break away the icicles while holding on to the wall with one axe. I swung as hard as I could until my axe bit in deeply, and was firm enough to hold me. I then clipped my harness into the wrist-loop on the axe and hung wearily from it. I kept a wary eye on the axe tip embedded in the ice, and only when I was sure it was holding my full weight safely did I extract my hammer axe from the wall and, reaching above me, hammer an ice screw into the wall.

I clipped the rope through the screw and breathed a sigh of relief. At least there was no longer a danger of falling more than five or six feet. The icicles were within easy reach. Without thinking I swung my hammer through the fringe of ice and, even more stupidly, looked up at what I was doing. The best part of a hundredweight of icicles smashed down on to my head and shoulders and clattered away down on to Simon. We both started swearing. I cursed myself and the sharp pain of a split lip and cracked tooth, and Simon cursed me.

‘Sorry…didn’t think.’

‘Yeah. I noticed.’

When I looked up again I saw that although it was painful the hammer had done the trick and there was now a way clear through to the easier-angled ice above. It didn’t take long to swarm up the top of the wall and run the remainder of the rope to a belay in the wide shallow gully above. Simon came up covered in ice particles and frosted white by the powder snow which had swept down the cascade. He carried on past me to a slight ridge which marked the end of the ramp and the start of the summit slopes. He had lit the gas stove and cleared a place to sit in comfort by the time I joined him.

‘Your mouth is bleeding,’ he said flatly.

‘It’s nothing. It was my fault anyway.’

It was noticeably colder now that we were away from the shelter of the ice gullies and exposed to a steady breeze. For the first time we could see the summit, formed from a huge overhanging cornice which bulged out over the slopes 800 feet above us. The ridge sweeping off to the left would be our line of descent, but we couldn’t see it very well in the swirling clouds which were steadily spilling over from the east. It looked as if bad weather was on the way.

Simon passed me a hot drink and then huddled deeper into his jacket with his back to the bitter wind. He was looking at the summit slopes, searching for the best line of ascent. It was the state of the snow on this last part of the route that worried us more than the angle or the technical difficulties. The whole slope was corrugated by powder flutings which had gradually built up as fresh snow had sloughed down the face. We had heard all about Peruvian flutings and hadn’t liked the stories; it was best not to attempt them. The weather patterns in Europe never produced such horrors. South American mountains were renowned for these spectacular snow and ice creations, where powder snow seemed to defy gravity and form 70% even 8o° slopes, and ridges developed into tortured unstable cornices of huge size, built up one on top of the other. On any other mountains the powder would have swept on down and only formed on much easier-angled slopes. Above us a rock band cut across the whole slope. It was not steep, but was powdered with a treacherous coating of snow. After 100 feet it merged back into the snow slope, which grew steeper as it climbed up. The flutings started shortly above the rock band and continued without break to the summit. Once we had established ourselves in the gully formed between two flutings we would have to force a way to the top, for it would be impossible to traverse out by crossing a fluting and getting into the neighbouring gully. It would be vitally important to choose the right gully, and we could see that many of them closed down into dead-ends as two flutings merged together. If I looked carefully I could make out a few gullies which did not close down, but as soon as I tried to look at the whole slope these became lost in the maze of gullies and flutings streaming down the face.

‘Christ! It looks desperate!’ Simon said. ‘I can’t work out a way up at all.’

‘I can’t see us getting to the top today.’ ‘Not if those clouds unload, that’s for sure. What time is it?’ ‘Four o’clock. Two hours’ light left. Better get moving.’ I wasted valuable time trying to cross the rock band. It was tilted like a steep roof, but unlike the rock in the ramp it was black and compact with only a few small holds mostly hidden beneath the snow. I knew it wasn’t difficult, but I was standing on an open face with a drop of nearly 4,000 feet below me and felt very unnerved by the exposure. There was also a long gap of unprotected rope between me and Simon who was belaying me from our resting place. His only anchor was his axes buried in the snow, and I knew all too well how useless these would be if I made a mistake.

My left foot slipped and the crampon points skittered on the rock. I hated this sort of delicate balance climbing, but I was committed to it now; no going back. As I balanced on two small edges of rock, front points teetering on the verge of slipping, my legs began to tremble and I shouted a warning to Simon. I could hear the fear in my voice and cursed myself for letting Simon know it. I tried moving up again, but my nerve failed me and I couldn’t complete the move. I knew it would take just a couple of moves to reach easier ground, and tried convincing myself that if this wasn’t so terrifyingly exposed I would walk up it, hands in pockets, but I couldn’t shake off the fear. I was gripped.

Gradually, I calmed down and carefully thought out the few moves I needed to make. When I tried again I was surprised at how easy it seemed. I was above the difficulty and climbing quickly up easy ground before I realised it. The belay was little better than Simon’s and I warned him of this before he started after me. The sudden fright still had me breathing hard and it annoyed me to see Simon climb easily over the difficulties and know that I had lost control and let fear get the better of me.

‘God! I was gripped stupid on that,’ I said.

‘I noticed.’

‘Which gully should we go for?’ I had looked for a likely one but found it impossible to see, when close up to them, whether they closed off or not.

‘I don’t know. That one is the widest. I’ll have a look at that.’

Simon entered the gully and immediately began floundering in deep powder. The sides of the flutings rose up fifteen feet on either side of him. There was no chance of changing line. Spindrift avalanches poured down on to his struggling figure so that sometimes he disappeared from sight. The light was going rapidly, and I noticed that it had begun to snow, the spindrift getting heavier. I was directly beneath Simon and, after sitting still for two hours, I was chilled to the bone. Simon was excavating huge quantities of snow down on to me and I could do nothing to avoid it. I switched my head-torch on and was surprised to see that it was eight o’clock. Four hours to climb 300 feet. I seriously doubted whether we would be able to get up these flutings. At last, a distant, muffled shout from the snow-filled clouds told me to follow on. I was dangerously cold, despite having put on my polar jacket and windproof. We would have to bivouac somewhere on these horrendous slopes because sitting still for such a long time while belaying was out of the question. I couldn’t believe what Simon had done to climb that rope length up the gully. He had dug a trench four feet deep by four wide all the way up it; his exhausting search for more solid snow yielding a weak layer of crusted ice which barely held his weight. Most of this had been broken away as he had climbed, so that I had great difficulty following his lead. It had taken him three hours to climb, and when I reached him I could see that it had tired him out. I felt very tired, too, and cold, and it was important we bivouacked soon.

‘I can’t believe this snow!’

‘Bloody terrifying. I thought I was falling off all the way up.’

‘We have to bivi. I was freezing down there.’

‘Yeah, but not here. The fluting has got too small.’

‘Okay. You may as well lead up again.’

I knew it would be easier and avoid rope tangles, but I regretted not being able to keep moving. Two freezing and interminable hours later I joined Simon 100 feet higher up. He was belayed in a large hole he had dug into the base of the gully.

‘I’ve found some ice.’

‘Good enough for an ice screw?’

‘Well it’s better than nothing. If you get in here we can enlarge this sideways.’

I squeezed in beside him, fully expecting the floor of the cave to collapse down the gully at any moment. We began digging into the sides of the flutings, slowly enlarging the cave into a long rectangular snow hole set across the gully, with the entrance partially filled up by our excavations. By eleven o’clock we had settled into our sleeping bags, eaten the last freeze-dried meal, and were savouring a last hot drink of the day.

‘Three hundred feet to go. I just hope it isn’t worse than what we’ve just done.’

‘At least the storm has stopped. But it’s damned cold. I think my little finger is frostbitten. It’s white down to the hand.’

It must have been close to minus twenty when we had been exposed to the spindrift in the gullies, and the wind had brought the wind chill temperature down nearer to minus forty. We were lucky to have found a place for a snow-hole.

I hoped we would have clear sunny weather tomorrow.

The base of the gas canister was coated in a thick layer of ice. I knocked it against my helmet and managed to remove most of it, then I stuffed it deep into my sleeping bag, feeling the icy metal against my thighs. Five minutes later I was snuggled in again with only my nose sticking out of the bag, and one eye keeping a sleepy watch on the stove. It roared busily, but it was dangerously close to my bag. Blue light shone through the cave walls. It had been a long and bitterly cold night at 20,000 feet, perhaps nearer 21,000.

When the water was boiling I sat up and hurriedly donned my polar jacket, windproof and gloves. I fumbled in the snow wall of the cave looking for the sachet of fruit juice and the chocolate. ‘Brew’s ready.’

‘God’s teeth! I’m bloody freezing.’

Simon uncurled from his cramped foetal position, took the steaming mug and disappeared back into his bag. I drank slowly, hugging the hot cup to my chest, watching the second lot of snow melt down in the pan. The gas flame was not so strong.

‘How much gas have we got left?’ I asked.

‘One tin. Is that one empty?’

‘Not quite. We may as well drink as much as it will produce and save the other for the descent.’ ‘Yeah. We haven’t got much fruit juice left either. Just one packet.’

‘We’ll have judged it right, then. Enough for one more bivi, that’s all we need.’

It was a long, cold business gearing up, but that was the least of my worries. The flutings lay ahead and it was my turn to lead. To make things more difficult I had to exit the cave and somehow climb over the roof, which stretched the full width of the gully. I succeeded, but not without destroying most of the cave and burying Simon, who had belayed me from inside. Once on to the slope of the gully I looked back down to where we had climbed the previous night. All traces of the trench dug by Simon had disappeared. It had been swept clean and refilled by the incessant waves of spindrift which had poured down the gully during the snowstorm. I was disappointed to see that the gully ended about 100 feet above me. The flutings on each side joined together to form a single razorsharp ribbon of powder. I would have to try to cross over into another fluting after all. The sky was clear and there was no wind. It was Simon’s turn to sit stoically under the deluge of snow I was forced to kick down, but daylight had dubious advantages. It made the climbing easier and allowed me to see whether I was about to slip; on the other hand it provided unnerving glimpses between my legs of 4,500 feet of emptiness. Knowing that our belays were anything but secure and that any fall would be disastrous made me concentrate on the way ahead. As I approached the deadend in the gully the angle steadily increased, and it became obvious that I would have to traverse out through the side fluting soon; but…which one? I couldn’t see over the sides of the fluttings and had no idea what I would be traversing into. I looked down and saw Simon watching me intently. Only his head and chest stuck out from the roof of the cave, and the huge drop framed behind him emphasised the precariousness of our position. I could see that the flutings were not as high near the cave, and that Simon might be able to see more of the way ahead than I could.