Shishapangma E-Book

Doug Scott

• Herausgeber: Vertebrate Digital
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

In 1982, following the relaxation of access restrictions to Tibet, six climbers set off for the Himalaya to explore the little-known Shishapangma massif in Tibet. Dealing with a chaotic build-up and bureaucratic obstacles so huge they verged on comical, the mountaineers gained access to Shishapangma's unclimbed South-West Face where Doug Scott, Alex MacIntyre and Roger Baxter-Jones made one of the most audacious and stylish Himalayan climbs ever. First published in 1984 as The Shishapangma Expedition, Shishapangma won the first ever Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Told through a series of diary-style entries from all the climbers involved, Shishapangma reveals the difficult nature of Himalayan decision-making, mountaineering tacti and climbing relationships. Tense and candid, the six writers see every event differently, reacting in different ways and pulling no punches in their opinions of the other mountaineers – quite literally at one point. Nonetheless, the climbers, at the peak of their considerable powers and experience, completed an extremely committing enterprise. The example set by their fine climb survives and several new routes (all done in alpine style) have now been added to this magnificent face. For well-trained climbers, such ascents are fast and efficient, but the consequences of error, misjudgement or bad luck can be terminal and, sadly, soon afterwards two of the participants were struck down in mountaineering accidents – MacIntyre hit by stonefall on Annapurna's South Face and Baxter-Jones being caught by an ice avalanche on the Aiguille du Triolet. In addition their support climber, Nick Prescott, died in a Chamonix hospital from an altitude-induced ailment. Shishapangma is a gripping first-hand account of the intense reality of high-altitiude alpinism.

Leseprobe

Shishapangma

Shishapangma

The alpine-style first ascent of the South-West Face

Doug Scott and Alex MacIntyre

www.v-publishing.co.uk

To Jean and Sarah.

— Contents —

Publisher’s Note

Author’s Note

Diary of Events

Chapter One Preparations

Chapter Two Peking to Nyalam

Chapter Three Nyalam to Base Camp

Chapter Four Trouble at Base Camp

Chapter Five Acclimization Climb

Chapter Six Pungpa Ri

Chapter Seven The Climb – Lower Half

Chapter Eight To the Summit

Chapter Nine Return

Postscript

Appendix One Early Buddhism in Tibet and Milarepa

Appendix Two European Advances into Tibet

Appendix Three Early Expeditions to Shishapangma

Appendix Four Chronology of Climbing Around Shishapangma

Appendix Five Expedition Medicine – A Personal View

A Note on Mapping

Bibliography

Ascents on Shishapangma and Associated Peaks

Summit Climbs on Shishapangma

Fatalities on Shishapangma

Central Summit Ascents

Other Noteworthy Climbs

Photography

— Publisher’s Note —

Shishapangma – The alpine-style first ascent of the South-West Face is a retitled and adapted version of The Shishapangma Expedition (Granada, London, 1984). The book was the first winner of the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature[1], and has since been an invaluable reference source for those visiting the mountain. It was reprinted privately in 1994.

Shishapangma – variously named Gosainthan, Shisha Pangma, Xixabangma – is one of the most interesting and accessible of the 8,000-metre peaks. Its popularity as a mountaineering objective has greatly increased in recent years with the introduction of direct access from Nepal to Tibet, eliminating the expensive approach via Beijing. Most expeditions concentrate on the routes using the original Chinese approach from the north but a growing number of climbers are opting for the safer (albeit more technically demanding) southern routes. The first expedition to the southern side, which penetrated an unexplored valley and completed three major new climbs (including a route of descent), forms the exciting subject matter of this book.

In the earlier years there was some confusion about the heights, naming and positions of the various summits of the mountain. MacIntyre and Scott, on reaching the summit, and with clear conditions and time and energy to spare, crossed most of the ridge between the Main and Central summits and took valuable photographs, some of which are reproduced in this volume. The uncertainties about the summits have now been resolved but their legacy may have been that many climbers who considered that they were ascending Shishapangma actually headed for Central Summit and settled for this lower top when confronted with the difficulty of continuing to the true summit. Recently Central Summit has become the main target for northern ascents and it is understood that the Chinese authorities are issuing certificates to Central Summit climbers stating that they have climbed the mountain – an unfortunate development. That these trends are linked to the increased commercialisation of the Northern Route is a further matter of concern.

The minority interest in such matters dictates that the original, monochrome book is reprinted rather than a more elaborate new edition. However some critical improvements have been made for this edition. A chronicle of important expeditions to Shishapangma has been added, along with comprehensive lists of summit climbers, fatalities and an updated bibliography. Some maps have been adapted and there are new diagrams as well as eight pages of colour photos depicting the facets of the peak and its summits.[2]

Taken together these additions should add greatly to the understanding of this fascinating mountain, its topography, its difficulties and its dangers. They may also counteract the growing ‘obfuscation tendency’ by some of those claiming ascents of this and other 8,000-metre peaks (e.g. Cho Oyu and Broad Peak) where the final section of an ascent presents awkward problems that are convenient to ignore. The summit of a mountain is its highest point and, though the ascent of an individual route can quite properly be noted and respected, to claim a summit ascent when the party has stopped short of the highest point (often for sensible reasons) is both disruptive and unnecessarily misleading. A major attempt on a high peak is usually an achievement in itself, even in the event of failure. Sometimes a failure in difficult conditions is more memorable than a routine success. The greatest success of all is to return unscathed after skilfully negotiating the ascent and descent.

Acknowledgements

The original edition of the book made note of the numerous companies and organisations that gave the expedition greatly appreciated support. Help, advice and services linked to the production of the book were provided by: Michael Aris, Joan Barson, Anders Bolinder, John Cleare, Dr Jim Duff, Norman Dyhrenfurth, John Everard, George Greenfield, Dennis Hennek, Pamela Hopkinson, Tsunemichi Ikeda, K. Ishihara, Reinhold Messner, Nick Prescott, Rhona Prescott, Audrey Salkeld, George Scott, Jan Scott and Keiichi Yamada.

In this new version of the book Doug Scott, Jean MacIntyre and the publisher wish to record their thanks to the following: Xavier Eguskitza for bringing his encyclopaedic knowledge of Himalayan facts to assist with the new appendices and the bibliography; Lindsay Griffin for further historical and technical advice; Pavle Kozjek for photographs and information; Warwick Anderson, Tony Charlton, Frances Daltrey, Geoff Gabites, Lindsay Griffin, Brian Hall, Rhona Prescott and Keiichi Yamada for new photographs and other photographic help; Margaret Ecclestone, Ruth Ennemoser, Elizabeth Hawley, Sigi Hupfauer, Norbert Joos, Karl Kobler, Hajo Netzer, Renato Moro, Marcus Schmuck, Susi Steckbauer and Reinhold Messner for additional mountaineering information; Mountain, High, The Iwa to Yuki, The Alpine Journal, The American Alpine Journal, Desnivel and The Himalayan Journal as consistent and reliable sources of information.

To all of these people, companies and institutions, we offer our humble thanks. For the 2004 edition: Doug Scott, Jean MacIntyre and the publisher wish to thank Eberhard Jurgalski for the use of his scrupulously prepared recent ascent listings and Charlie Fowler, Christian Beckwith and Lindsay Griffin for other important information and advice.

1. In 1983 no prize was awarded. In 1984 the prize (to its full value) was awarded to the authors of two books The Shishapangma Expedition and Living High by Linda Gill.[back]

2. Many of the photographs from the original book have since appeared in colour and in larger format in Doug Scott’s Himalayan Climber (Diadem, 1992, reprinted by Bâton Wicks, 1997, also published in North America, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan.)[back]

— Author’s Note —

DOUG: On the Friday before leaving for Tibet Alex MacIntyre and I signed a contract to write a book about our forthcoming expedition. On the Saturday we boarded the plane, secure in the knowledge that, with the publisher’s advance on royalties, we had finally raised the funds for our estimated budget.

Here is the book, but first a brief explanation as this is, in some ways, an unusual expedition account. We had decided that the book should include contributions from all members of the team – Roger Baxter-Jones, Paul Braithwaite, Elaine Brook and Nick Prescott, but with Alex and myself writing the bulk of it. I opted to write something about the people who have lived around Shishapangma and the travellers, missionaries and mountaineers who have been in the vicinity of our mountain. Alex would write an account of the actual doings of our group, on the journey and on the mountain itself. On our return Alex gathered together his extensive diaries of the trip with several taped interviews with members of the team and went off to his little farmhouse on the flanks of Kinder Scout, just above the village of Hayfield in Derbyshire. More or less continuously, for two months, he wrote his account of our two-and-a-half-month trip.

This expedition was a hard one. We were for ever worried about an escalating budget, frustrated by red tape in Peking and again in Lhasa, exhausted by the journey across the plateau in an open truck which proceeded in its own dust cloud – in fact we could hardly relax at all until the last yakman had turned his back on us at Base Camp. The team itself was an interesting mixture of people with, at one extreme, Alex – ambitiously directing his energies to ever-steeper Himalayan Faces with Tibet, for him, very much a secondary consideration – and, at the other, Elaine – whose reason for coming with us was to see Tibet and to spend time with the inhabitants, and with no ambition to climb high. The rest of us fell into place between.

It is incredible really that there are not more times of tension and displays of negative emotion on expeditions, considering that members spend two and a half months very much in one another’s company, unable to walk away from any conflicts that may ensue and with no distractions to take the heat off. And as regards the mountaineering, as Alex joked, we would be hard-pressed to write an article for Mountain magazine because on summit day everything went so well.

At 28 years of age Alex was either the young upstart of the expedition or a breath of fresh energy; whichever he was, or was perceived to have been, he held strong views and, with his lawyer’s logic and intelligence and his basic honesty, he could put them over well. It is no surprise that Alex has written provocatively – and deliberately so, to provoke the rest of us into adding our own comments.

Briefly, when Alex had completed his first draft of the manuscript he left for Nepal, where he lost his life on the huge South Face of Annapurna. Elaine’s commentary was written before he died. Nick and Roger added theirs afterwards. I remember feeling indignation and injured pride at some of his statements and at first I hoped to persuade him to alter some of what he had said. But the more I read and the more I thought deeply of what he had written, the more I understood and the more I liked it. This was fortunate because, with his passing, it is now impossible to alter his text, apart from editing by Alex’s friend Terry Mooney and by Mark Barty – King of Granada Publishing. My own comments are substantially those I noted immediately after first reading Alex’s account and although, with different feelings for him now, my love and respect have moderated what I wrote earlier, I have tried not to eulogize; he would have hated that.

— Diary of Events —

1979

Mar – Nick Prescott first wrote to CMA general query on climbing in ‘Chinese Himalays’

Aug – Approaches made through Thomas Cook’s to CMA in Peking by Doug Scott (unaware of approaches made by N.J. P.)

1980

25 Mar – Reply sent with application forms and first edn of regs (N.J.P.)

27 Apr – Application sent for Shishapangma for spring 1982 (asked for route from north but offered to try south if north booked up) (N.J.P.)

24 June – Application accepted for ‘South Ridge’ (?) route (Protocol set for summer 1981) (N.J.P.)

25 Aug – Application for Everest and Shishapangma both in 1983, spring (D.S.) 26 August

26 Aug – Peak fee paid to confirm booking (N.J.P.)

1981

Apr – Doug takes over Nick’s application for Shishapangma (Doug, Georges Bettembourg, Paul Braithwaite and Jim Duff with Nick and Dr John Minors in support)

27 Apr – Chinese agree to negotiate with Al Rouse when he is in Peking on Kongur Expedition

25 July – Protocol signed in Peking (Al Rouse representing us)

2 Nov – Deposit paid (20 per cent of estimated costs to CMA as agreed in Protocol)

1982

2 Apr – Finally have enough money to go!

3 Apr – Depart Heathrow

4 Apr – Arrive in Peking (via Rawalpindi)

5-7 Apr – Negotiations with CMA over costs

8 Apr – Fly to Cheng Dhu and buy most of food

9 Apr – Fly to Lhasa

10 Apr – Drive Lhasa to Shigatse

12 Apr – Drive Shigatse to Zegar

14 Apr – Drive Zegar to Nyalam

17 Apr – Yaks arrive in Nyalam

21 Apr – Alex and Doug reach site for Base Camp

22 Apr – Doug descends to Nyalam to sort out food and liaison officer

24 Apr – Gear and full party (excluding LO) arrive in Base Camp

28 Apr – Advance Base set up by Paul, Alex and Roger

1 May – Doug and Alex have to go down valley to argue with LO

4 May – Full party leave Advance Base to climb on Nyanang Ri (Nick and Paul retreat)

5 May – Elaine retreats from 19,000 feet

1 May – Paul leaves for Britain; storm

12 May – Storm

13 May – Storm

14 May – Storm

15 May – Doug, Roger, Alex and Nick to Advance Base; high winds

16 May – Same party on up to establish ‘Castle Camp’ on ridge beneath Pungpa Ri couloir; Elaine leaves for Dingri

17-19 May – Doug, Roger and Alex climb Pungpa Ri May (First Ascent)

22-23 May – Nick goes up to Advance Base and tries to May Solo Ice Tooth on the second day - gets part way up and retreats back to Advance Base where Doug and Wu arrive

24 May – Doug, Roger, Alex and Nick to Castle CampShishapangma to bottom of route and go up to first bivouac at 19,500 feet

26 May – Nick back to Castle Camp and Doug, Roger and Alex on up S.W. Face; bivouac at 23,000 feet, bottom of snow pod

27 May – Bivouac at 25,000 feet part way up snow pod

28 May – Up to couloir and along S.E. Ridge to reach the summit at 2 p.m.; bivouacked at 24,900 feet part way down S.E. Ridge

29 May – Descent to Castle Camp, met by Nick

30 May – Cleared Castle Camp and down to Base Camp; yaks waiting to take us down to village

31 May – Nick and Nyima dismantle Advance Base; packing up Base Camp

1 June – Leave Base Camp at 1.30; reach Smaug’s Lair at 6 p.m.

2 June – Nyalam: Communist Youth Fete in progress

3 June – Drive to Shigatse, lunching at Zegar on the way (meet Adrian Gordon and Charlie Clarke and hear about accident on Everest)

4 June – Rest day; telegrams sent to UK

5 June – Drive to Lhasa via Gyangtse

6 June – Visit Sera Monastery and Jo Khang Temple (Dalai Lama’s birthday)

7 June – Lhasa-Cheng Dhu flight

8 June – Cheng Dhu-Peking flight

9 June – Negotiations with Chinese

11 June – Leave Peking for home

12 June – London

Doug Scott

Photo: Chris Bonington

Alex MacIntyre

Photo: Nick Prescott

Roger Baxter-Jones

Photo: Brian Hall

— Chapter One —

Preparations

ALEX: In the spring of 1982 I managed to inveigle my way on to an expedition. It was going to Tibet, with permission to climb a mountain called Shishapangma, but I would have as readily gone to Harlem for what that expedition had to offer!

On its southern flanks this largely unknown, elusive, barely pronounceable mountain of uncertain altitude boasts a huge, spectacular, visually formidable (and consequently tantalizingly attractive) mountain wall over two and a half kilometres high and twice as broad – an unclimbed, unvisited Alpine playground. To climb it became an ambition, but not just to climb it, we had to make the ascent with style, as light, as fast, as uncluttered as we dared, free from umbilical cords and logistics, with none of the traditional trappings of a Himalayan climb. The wall was the ambition; the style became the obsession.

The tale properly begins in the more obscure regions of the mind of a young man from Belfast. Nicholas John Prescott is a tall, eager, agitated Irishman possessed of fair, aquiline features, an irrepressible buoyancy, eyes framed in gold-rimmed spectacles, a brash and sometimes misplaced confidence and a method of speech that can reduce all but the most hard-nosed listener to a confused resignation. It was in the summer of 1979 that Nick formed the opinion that he would like to climb in China.

In the accessible big mountain ranges of the world, climbing is currently undergoing something of a mid-life crisis. The problem is that almost all mountains worth their salt have been climbed, sometimes by a whole handful of different routes. Virginity has fallen out of vogue with the virtual extinction of the unclimbed summit. It is increasingly difficult to maintain the pioneering spirit in the face of instant information, the need to book a peak well in advance of a projected expedition, the probable presence of a couple of other expeditions at the base camp (and more than likely swarming all over your mountain), and the multifarious trekking groups, cake shops, hotels and hippies on the approach routes. The mountaineer observes himself as part of an industry and, incongruously, it is the tourist industry he is a part of. He may be a somewhat more independent, long-term, purposeful tourist perhaps, but a tourist he is nevertheless. There, is, of course, much to be said for the newly-evolving order. The mountains are readily and frequently accessible without the need for big sponsors or ‘independent means’. Any number of interesting, inspiring and demanding climbs are there to be tackled and the skills synthesized from ever-increasing familiarity with high mountains allow the mountaineer, should he choose, even greater freedom to roam in an exhilarating environment. The possibility for adventure is no less – indeed for the individual the opportunity is probably greater than ever and, if you have forgotten the tin opener, there is a good chance of borrowing one from the expedition next door!

However, even the most hardened socialite can occasionally entertain a feeling of nostalgia for the pioneering spirit and a desire, just once, to avoid the queues and practise his sport amongst rarely climbed, uncluttered mountains in unmapped, infrequently visited valleys. Such promise was perceived in China. Add to that the sense of mystery, the attraction of the forbidden, almost mystical atmosphere engendered by the revolution and subsequent self-imposed isolation of that country, then the excitement generated by the possibility of this slumbering giant’s unbolting a few of her doors is obvious. A billion untapped consumers, a thousand unclimbed summits – the mountaineering world took its place alongside the radio manufacturers, the watchmakers, the fridge salesmen, and pushed. China became the property of the world’s climbing establishments, of politics and contracts, through businesses and meetings with Vice-Premiers – facts to which Nick Prescott remained blissfully ignorant.

Possessed of the commendably futuristic notion that – as Nick put it – ‘it seemed possible that if they had built this highway [the Nepal Highway between Lhasa and Kathmandu] they were going to do something with it’, in 1979 Nick wrote to the relevant Chinese authorities to enquire whether he and some friends might drive over and attempt a couple of modest mountaineering objectives in Xinjiang. An Iranian expedition had recently been granted permission to climb in China, which did seem to confirm the general sense of expectancy regarding her emerging accessibility, but no reply to Nick’s letter was forthcoming, no more permits were being issued and so the project was forgotten.

The following Easter a large envelope arrived on Nick’s Welwyn Garden City doorstep from an organization called the Chinese Mountaineering Association. It contained an address in Peking, a schedule of charges, details of those areas where foreigners would be permitted to climb and an invitation to make an application for a mountain. China had, indeed, opened up though not quite in the way Nick had envisaged. Climbing in China was going to be very expensive; the rates being charged were – and are – prohibitively high. Nick had never been on an expedition in his life, but notwithstanding this fact he decided to head for Tibet. If you were only going to be able to go to China once, then the opportunity to see Tibet had to be seized!

In Tibet two mountain massifs were being made available to the foreign climber – the Everest Massif and the Shishapangma Massif.

NICK: Of the two, Shishapangma looked the most reasonable. The route from the north appeared to be straightforward and, of course, it was lower than Everest. The original application form required that you list three alternatives. There are two glaciers which flow from Shishapangma’s northern side, so one can put down two routes from the north. Probably the best thing would have been to have left the third alternative blank, but we looked at the map and there seemed to be a big valley going up the south side, so we put that down as our third option … we never seriously thought about climbing it from the south.

ALEX: That, however, is exactly what Nick received permission to attempt. The permit was for the spring of 1982. What had begun as a boozy conversation amongst friends from the Bristol area, regarding a possible overland adventure culminating in a modest mountaineering objective, was now an expedition to one of the world’s highest mountains, to tackle one of the world’s outstanding Himalayan Faces, all on the dubious merit that the mountain was lower than Everest and had been climbed once, from the north, without too much difficulty by a Chinese expedition of 165 members! Nick’s sense of optimism was even further underscored by the fact that, in spite of all his good intentions and commendably entrepreneurial instinct, his Alpine climbing experience was scant. Facing a budget in excess of 50 thousand pounds, Nick had now moved into the rarefied world of high altitude and high finance for which his best qualification was an impressive faith in himself.

For a while plans revolved around the possibility of making a film with the Bristol-based climber and film-maker, Jim Curran, and an experienced team began to assemble from amongst Jim’s climbing friends and acquaintances, but as it became apparent that Nick was no monetary alchemist, these melted away. By the end of March he was on his own again. In the first week of April 1981 Nick rang Doug Scott and offered to hand over the permission. Doug accepted immediately.

DOUG: With an average elevation of 15,000 feet, Tibet has aptly been called the ‘roof of the world’. As the rainfall is on the low side and evaporation high, there are numerous puddles in the form of lakes both great and small, mostly without outlet, this being a somewhat flattish roof. In the south precipitation is heavier and melting Himalayan snows all help to form river systems such as the Indus and Sutlej in the west and the Arun and Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) to the south and east. All these rivers break through the main Himalayan divide, pouring their waters on to the plains of the Indian subcontinent. There are many other lesser rivers spilling off the edge of the plateau; these plunge down deep gorges, through rhododendron thickets and coniferous forests to the more humid south. Thus, the Himalaya is carved up into blocks of mountains grouped together under local labels.

At about the centre of the Himalayan chain are the Langtang Himal and Jugal Himal. The highest peak in this area is Shishapangma, 10 miles north of the Jugal. It is separated from the Ganesh Himal to the west by the Trisuli/Gandaki River which flows by the town of Kyirong, and from the Kosi section of the Himalaya – which includes Gauri Sankar, Cho Oyu, Everest, etc. – by the Po Chu/Bhote or Sun Kosi Valley, passing by the town of Nyalam. It is along these valleys and their well-established trade routes that travellers have always approached Shishapangma in the past, and 20th-century mountaineering expeditions also followed these lines of communication, probing the defences of this ‘mystery mountain’.

The naming of Shishapangma reflects the cultural and religious influences of this region. At first there was no debate. It was simply given a number, 23, by the Survey of India during the 1850s. A few of these survey figures survive, principally K2 (K for Karakoram), but the Survey Department did try to find local names for their maps. Until recently the Sanskrit Gosainthan had been used on most Western maps, ‘Gosain’ meaning ‘God’ and ‘than’ meaning place or abode. Obviously, there is a connection between this name and that of the venerated Hindu pilgrim centre, Gosainkund, some 32 miles to the south-west in Nepal and only four days’ walk from Kathmandu. Gosainkund is also the name given to the foothills to the south of the shrine and the holy lakes to which pilgrims go in large numbers. It was (and still is), according to Perceval Landon in his monumental book Nepal (1928), ‘the most important religious centre outside the Kathmandu Valley’. In a footnote he mentions that ‘the frontier line, as traced on Nepalese maps includes access to the summit of the mountain’, i.e. Gosainthan. However, the mountain itself is several miles north of the main Himalayan divide and wholly in Buddhist Tibet. There it is known as Shishapangma, which would seem to be the most appropriate appellation, and the one used in this book.

According to Toni Hagen,[1] Shisha or Chisa is the word for comb or range and Pangma the feminine for grassy plain or meadow. This is exactly how it looks when travelling to it from the north, the ‘range above the grassy plain’ of Southern Tibet. The Chinese have recently used several different spellings, including Hsi-hsia-pang-Ma Feng[2] and now, in the 1980s, Xixabangma, which makes it more difficult to pronounce than to climb. Ji Zixiu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whilst ‘unravelling the mysteries of Mount Xixabangma’, interpreted the Tibetan meaning as ‘the mountain with the severe climate’. He writes that it was known to explorers and mountaineers as the ‘Black Virgin’.[3]

After carrying out triangulations during the period from 1846 to 1855, the Survey of India gave Number 23 a height of 8,013 metres (26,291 feet), which made it the lowest of the 14 8,000-metre peaks. Further survey work by the tireless Indian surveyors during 1925 established that Shishapangma stood well to the north of the Himalayan watershed. The Chinese give a height of 8,012 metres. They have a reputation for very accurate survey work and the fact that they were taking off a metre says a great deal for their trust in their calculations. After re-calculating Shishapangma in 1978, the Survey of India put it at 8,046 metres (26,398 feet).

During our visit the Chinese mentioned that the peak was being re-calculated and have now informed Erwin Schneider that, by their reckoning, the height is 8,027 metres but none of this matters very much in relation to the actual climbing of the peak, nor has it anything to do with the fact that the Himalaya are still imperceptibly isostatically uplifting, due to the erosion and perhaps the recession of ice from their flanks.

I had Shishapangma very much in mind when I first met Alex MacIntyre in the autumn of 1981 at the Base Camp of Makalu in Nepal. Alex was attempting a new route on the West Face of Makalu, in my opinion one of the most technically difficult and demanding faces in the world. With two Polish companions he nearly pulled it off, but was defeated by sheer technical difficulty at 7,700 metres and had to retreat; but what an attempt it had been, on a new route in Alpine style, climbing steep rock, battling with powder snow and then safely retreating down some 1,800 metres of 50-degree snow and ice! I had already voiced the opinion to my wife, Jan, that it would be good to have Alex on our Shishapangma expedition when Alex told me I should take him. I told him that I thought so too, providing it was OK with the rest of the team.

In the summer of 1976 Alex had done two new routes on the Grandes Jorasses, one of them a fine line right of the Walker Spur which had been previously attempted unsuccessfully by Chris Bonington and Dougal Haston in winter. During the following autumn Alex made the first Alpine-style ascent of the direct route on the Eiger with Tobin Sorenson and, in so doing, established himself as one of Europe’s foremost Alpinists. So he had already had a taste of high standard Alpine climbing when he made a six-day Alpine-style first ascent of the North-East Face of Koh-e-Bandaka (c. 22,500 feet) with an Anglo-Polish expedition in the summer of 1977. After climbing the South Face of Koh-e-Bandaka in 1967, I had had a look at the North-East Face and given it ‘short shrift’, knowing then that I was not up to tackling 2,000 metres of what looked to be unstable snow and rotten rock. In 1978 Alex joined an Anglo-Polish expedition to put up a new direct route on the South Face of Changabang. It still is the most technically difficult route ever climbed on that mountain. Again, this ascent was in impeccable Alpine style. In 1980 he was back in the Himalaya, this time in Nepal climbing a route as steep as the North Face of the Courtes in the Mont Blanc Massif, but here 8,167 metres high on Dhaulagiri’s huge East Face.

By now Alex had earned for himself a fine reputation as a young and innovative Himalayan Face climber, but his contribution to climbing was also seen in other departments, principally in helping to establish a solid connection between Polish climbers and ourselves. He had also brought a touch of realism to the bureaucratic procedures of the British Mountaineering Council, of which he had been National Officer for three years. Alex was educated at a Jesuit school outside Sheffield, arguing one day a point and the next day counterpoint, good training for the study of Law he took up at Leeds University.

Alex was ‘all out front’, forthright in his opinions on matters which concerned him and about which he had given much thought; then again, when he was not sure of his ground he knew when to keep quiet, to watch and to learn until he was sure. He was of the punk generation with that devastating honesty and lack of hypocrisy. I see Alex as a bit like Monkey, the hero in the exciting Chinese mythological novel The Pilgrimage to the West, he, too, has a clear definition of what is right and what is not and acts accordingly for the most part. Alex had a reputation for being abrasive and very ambitious, saying that he wanted to achieve the status of Chris Bonington now, not when he was 40 – and there is nothing wrong with that, providing he could reconcile himself to the competition. Problems of ambition only seem to arise when climbers seven years younger are snapping at the heels of those in the way. There is no real difficulty between those who are two generations apart, and with Alex I felt no threat, for it was obvious that he would soon outstrip my climbing record – if he had not already done so. And I hoped that I would be no opposition to him either.

Roger Baxter-Jones was climbing with me and Georges Bettembourg on Makalu that autumn of 1980; we climbed three small peaks of 6,000–6,800 metres with our friend Arianne Giobellina, and then went on to Kangchungtse (7,640 metres), five days up and down, before setting out on the six-mile-long South-East Ridge of Makalu with the intention of traversing over the summit (8,475 metres) and down the North-West Ridge. We almost pulled it off, but a four-day storm had us pinned down at 8,000 metres for two nights, where Georges developed a pulmonary embolism forcing our retreat. It had been a marvellous expedition with us all supporting one another and in agreement on the ways and means of our climbing. We had been out nine days on the ridge, in and out of storms and high winds – a big breath of fresh air.

Roger lives in Chamonix, guiding when he can and working on the roads when he cannot. He made a strong impression amongst the Himalayan climbing fraternity by his ascent of Jannu with Rab Carrington, Brian Hall and Al Rouse via the French Route, but in a 12-day Alpine push as opposed to the two-and-a-half months needed by the French 20 years ago. He can carry his load and more, if necessary, which is essential when pushing on up in Alpine style. In fact, he is one of the strongest Himalayan climbers I have been with, and one of the more modest. He read philosophy at Sheffield University and has a philosophical bent, for it hardly troubles him that his exploits do not always hit the headlines. His abiding interest is for the ‘Inner Game’ approach to sport, particularly skiing, which he applies also to life. Through the Inner Game discipline he is able to step back from the complexities of the daily round and see what is actually going on from a radically altered perspective. To those of us locked in the frenzy of organizing an expedition, comments from Roger can be quite shattering. Living in Chamonix, oblivious to the ever-present worry of trying to tie up too many loose ends, phone ringing, letters to write, family to care for, Roger’s lackadaisical approach and sometimes critical statements on the preparations have irritated me at times. However, having been shocked out of my normal routines, I see on reflection that his comments usually help me to move in a better direction.

Roger’s ready smile and good humour, coupled with his natural exuberance in the pub or on the mountain are renowned. He is a true cavalier of the mountains.

When I came back from Makalu, Alan Rouse invited me to join him and a team he was getting together for the North Side of Everest. He had booked Everest with the Chinese whilst in Peking. The leadership of that expedition, however, went to Chris Bonington and subsequently Alan was excluded, which was unfortunate for I had seen a way to revive the plan which Paul Braithwaite and I had hatched two years earlier and to which Al had given his tacit approval – for us to go ahead with Shishapangma and combine it later in the same season with a lightning Alpine-style climb on either the Kangshung Face or North-East Ridge of Everest.

Paul Braithwaite shared my enthusiasm for this approach to the big mountains. He, too, had found the big, siege-style expeditions lacking in the fundamentals of climbing, namely to be involved in all stages of the climb from early preparations and planning and to have the freedom to move fast once the climbing is under way.

Paul had excelled in the Alps, notching up most of the grandes courses in spectacular time by travelling light, moving together and sometimes solo, particularly in the Mont Blanc Massif but also up the Matterhorn and Eiger North Faces amongst others in Switzerland. He and I had climbed continuously for 36 hours up the 1,200-metre East Pillar of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island in 1972 with Paul Nunn and Denis Hennek. We were back again to Baffin Island in 1973 and then, in 1974, went up the unclimbed North-East Ridge of Peak Lenin in the Pamirs with Clive Rowland and Guy Lee. Paul had been a key member of the 1975 Everest South-West Face Expedition, for it was he and Nick Estcourt who first climbed through the gullies of the Rock Band to 8,200 metres, paving the way to the summit. He and Nick would have repeated our climb to the summit had the expedition not been abandoned after Mick Burke’s disappearance.

I first realized what a fine ice climber Paul was during a visit to Mount Kenya in 1976. He always excelled on rock, winding his gangly body up, even after long absences, to climb the hardest routes of the late 1960s and early 1970s. On ice he was in a class all his own, as on the vertical head wall of Mount Kenya’s Diamond Couloir, where he and I did an early ascent with him out in front on the crux, like a giant tarantula, back arched, head up, picking away through icicles and overhanging ice with his ‘terrordactyls’ and front points constantly in motion – as smooth as the glistening green ice he moved over.

On the Saturday night we had been bemoaning the fact that the Japanese had refused to allow us into the Western Cwm to try Nuptse that autumn and so decided to go to Kenya and left the following Wednesday. It all fell together beautifully, climbing new routes in Hell’s Gorge and a new route on the steep East Face of Mount Kenya before going north to Tanzania to attempt the Big Icicle on Hell’s Gate of Kilimanjaro. This was weeping wet due to the heat of the still partially active volcano, and so we had to abandon that one and instead walked on scree and cinder to the summit.

Paul has a natural talent for business. From his base at Delph in Greater Manchester he operates three climbing equipment stores and at the same time helps his wife run a dressage shop. In recent years he has found the same excitement from taking part in eventing that he has always got from hard rock climbing. After contracting a lung allergy during the ill-fated 1978 K2 Expedition, he had been out of high-altitude climbing, channelling his energies into his business enterprises and into eventing, where he seems to enjoy the contrast in social life – Cliff Phillips on Saturday, Mark Phillips on Sunday!

During the summer of 1979 Paul and I had decided to approach the Chinese Government to allow us on Shishapangma and Everest in the same season. He hoped that by the time all the preliminaries had been arranged his lungs would be completely cured. John Hunt had agreed, as always, to be our patron whilst letters of support were kindly written by the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society – John Hemming; the Mount Everest Foundation – David Edmundson; and the British Mountaineering Council – Dennis Grey. Lord Rhodes of Delph, a neighbour of Paul’s, agreed to help through his business connection with China. We had applied for access to Shishapangma South-West Face for March and April 1983, and Everest’s East Face for May and June – a grandiose plan.

Now, during our annual visit to the Alps over Christmas and New Year 1981-2 we had an expedition meeting in Georges Bettembourg’s flat in Chamonix, at which Paul, Roger Baxter-Jones, Alan Rouse, Georges and myself discussed our plans for Shishapangma. The meeting centred on our need to raise a vast amount of money, and we hoped that Nick Prescott, whom no one knew then, would wave a magic wand and produce it. We agreed that if anyone dropped out Alex could join us, and indeed early in 1982 our doctor, Jim Duff, had to drop out as his wife was expecting their first child. Whilst we all welcomed Alex it was sad to be losing Jimmy, for me in particular as I always valued his company both on and off the mountains.

Over the next few weeks Georges and Paul wrote off to the manufacturers for climbing equipment whilst I amassed general equipment and all the food that we could take with us, and attempted to help raise the necessary funds. Whilst food and equipment was generously donated, money in Britain was very tight and the list of charges issued by the Chinese clearly indicated any expedition to a peak above 7,000 metres in China would cost at least five times the amount needed for a comparable peak in Nepal. Yet to approach the Himalaya from the south is much longer and more arduous than the journey to Everest from the north, where the wide open valleys of the Tibetan Plateau allow for easy road communications even right up to Everest Base Camp. Hotel charges, we learned, would be a hundred times more expensive for foreigners than they are for the indigenous population.

However, Nick Prescott accepted the challenge and at the end of the day was responsible for about half the donations to the expedition from sources that had never been approached before, using his connections in the world of construction and big business, as well as his Irish contacts, to good effect.

One setback during the early spring was Alan’s resignation from the team; he had decided to cut down on some of the climbs he was planning for 1982 because, having already been to China and knowing how expensive it would be, he preferred to go to the Karakoram and to Nepal instead. Another body blow occurred when Georges dropped out because of domestic and financial difficulties only 10 days before departure. By then Nick, who was handling all the negotiations in China through John Everard in the British Embassy in Peking, had put down six members on the list. At the British Mountaineering Council Conference at Buxton we went around some of our climbing friends, touting for another member, but it was just too late. No one could raise the £1,500 minimum contribution.

There was, however, one person I knew of who had an abiding interest in Tibet and its people and religion – Elaine Brook who, although from Britain, is a naturalized citizen of Canada. She had just returned to North America and was in Colorado when I sounded her out about the trip. Without a moment’s hesitation, she agreed that she should go, but then stopped to enquire what role she would play on the expedition. I told her that Roger, Alex, Paul and myself were very keen to climb the South-West Face of Shishapangma in Alpine style, but that during our acclimatizing period I had expected to be climbing with Nick. If Elaine wanted to climb then she could join Nick and myself and maybe the others, as they wished. Whilst we were on the South-West Face I thought it would be possible for her to spend time with the Tibetans, put into practice the Tibetan that she had learnt and find out all she could about them. After only a week back in North America, she caught a plane home again and joined the expedition a few days before departure.

Back in 1976 Elaine had been on one of our expeditions to Baffin Island, and she had walked in with Reinhold Messner and my family to Makalu in 1981. Often we found ourselves locked in combat – she being a fellow Geminian, I think I saw mirrored in Elaine my own faults – but in general I valued her company and many of her attitudes to the mountains. She had, in fact, been a very good rock climber and for a time in the early 1970s foremost amongst the small group of women rock climbers in the country. Latterly she has turned to climbing and trekking in the Andes and in Nepal. During the spring she climbed Mount McKinley as a member of a medical research programme. Primarily though, it was her fascination for Tibet and leanings towards Buddhism that made me think of asking her to come along. On this expedition my own interest was divided equally between Tibet and Shishapangma. Also, going off with the boys again is all very well, but with two expeditions a year six months of all-male company can be a bit wearing, so I hoped that the presence of Elaine would help soften the atmosphere. Her involvement with this expedition would, of course, be subject to the approval of the rest of the team. Alex said he had no objection, in fact he always found female company in the mountains an advantage. Roger, too, was positive, but with a reservation that Elaine should not get in the way of his climbing the South-West Face. Nick saw in Elaine the possibility of a partner for various excursions he hoped to make whilst the hard-core were climbing routes from which he would probably be excluded, this being his first visit to the Himalaya. Paul said that if it was all right with the others it was all right with him, and so we had a team of six.

Nick and I now went flat out to raise the rest of our projected budget. The Mount Everest Foundation and British Mountaineering Council gave us grants totalling £2,000, and we also received the Bass Charrington Award from the Mount Everest Foundation. I had negotiated to write articles for the Doctor magazine and the Illustrated London News but we were still a long way short of our target.

ALEX: Seventy-two hours prior to our scheduled boarding of the plane the expedition started to fall together. It happened as Doug had always promised it would but could never quite explain and as Nick, for all his explanations, could never quite promise. Indeed, explanations had been a bit thin on the ground of late. Whether we went or not was now down to Doug; everyone else was clean out of ideas. Doug was holding the trip together; he wanted to go. The rest of the team hung on, hoping his optimism and his name could bridge the gap. The whole of Nottingham knew that Doug was off to Tibet. My phone calls to Nick elicited the information that we were £10,000 short. Doug swore blind it was ‘only’ £4,200. Neither could reconcile the other’s figures.

‘Don’t worry, youth, something’s bound to come up.’

Questions. I had acquired the nasty habit of asking questions. How much something? … from where? … what notional sums of money had slipped into the accounting which were not guaranteed? Doug seemed perturbed. After all, he had been on enough expeditions. Where was the optimism … the faith you needed to live this life to the full? Why wouldn’t I devote my energy to phoning up other people and asking them for money? Why wasn’t I helping? We were not particularly helpful. The budget had been slimmed beyond recognition. Experienced China hands told us, quite reasonably, being no spendthrifts themselves, that we would be doing well to get away with 12 per cent over the original budget, which had in any case been agreed for only five people. We were now six, and looking at the prospect of a personally crippling debt.

The expedition was due to fly on the Saturday. On the Wednesday I delivered a car-load of equipment to Paul’s house in Delph and then we found ourselves discussing Alaska. Could we arrange to get off to Alaska if the trip fell through, which seemed at least 50 per cent possible even in our most optimistic moods. Everything had focused on the possibility of a book contract with a cash advance. Trying to synchronize revenue and potential expedition was fast becoming a hopeless task, but with a book we would, just, have the barest conceivable minimum to enable us to depart. Now, with two and a half days to go, despite the occasional tentative nibble, we had nothing. The book contract was our emotional traffic light, and it had stuck on stop.

That morning I had left Karrimor with some equipment for the expedition and a parting shot to Mike Parsons, the Managing Director: ‘If I don’t phone on Monday, you’ll know I’m in Peking.’

For the last few weeks my life had resolved into a familiar, hectic dash around the equipment companies, pleading and cajoling:

‘Can you make?’

‘For when?’

‘Next week.’

‘Alex, you’re crazy!’

Phoenix produced windsuits with inspiration – when asked for our measurements over the telephone we suggested they could perhaps just remember what we looked like! The suits were Red-Starred to Nottingham on the Friday.

Troll produced bivouac tents from a detailed technical specification to ‘imagine you have to sleep in it’.

As the date for departure approached and the uncertainty increased Doug’s admonishments no longer sounded so comforting; the nightmare thought of driving back up the motorway with a car-load of gear to return and a restless soul adrift in the spring was depressing.

On Friday lunchtime Paul told his wife Jane he was not going. At about the same time I arrived at the office of the literary agent, George Greenfield, situated off Fleet Street. Down in the small, spartan, cream-coloured basement I found Nick in his element, knee-deep in papers and plans, photographs and projections, the attention of two journalists in the flesh and any number of inquisitive people telephoning. The immediate impression was that we were conducting the Battle of Britain all over again. I readily joined in the fray.

It was apparent that the trip had undergone a metamorphosis. George had clinched a book deal, the Illustrated London News would buy two articles, the Daily Express would chip in a little, a medical magazine wanted to know how we performed at altitude. Doug Scott was going to Tibet, and people wanted to know. Doug’s and Nick’s figures finally added up to the same thing: we might just possibly have enough – we were on our way.

Roger arrived in the office, having driven over from Chamonix on hope and faith, when we were still bankrupt.

ROGER: In Chamonix, the French contingent wavered. Both Georges and I had recently committed ourselves in new relationships. We both knew well that expeditions are paid for not only in cash and risk but also in broken affairs. Georges talked himself out of the expedition and I talked myself in. The news from England was confusing: ‘It’s on’, ‘It’s off’, ‘It’s on’. So, with the gas, the rope, the axes and head lamps plus 17,000 borrowed francs, I arrived early on April Fool’s Day to help Nick in his telephone begging. I had already been on one of Doug’s trips. You know you’re going when the plane takes off, not before.

ALEX: Now on the phone again, Roger was speaking to Doug.

‘It’s feeling much better today, it’s feeling good.’

Paul phoned – how was it?

‘It’s on. We’ve got enough, kid. It’s all on.’

Finally it all became a little overwhelming and we repaired to the pub to re-run the calculations before going our separate ways to settle last-minute chores. At my mother’s house the afternoon’s packing dissolved into a million tangents. That evening my girlfriend Sarah arrived from Manchester. We bought some wine, and chaos reigned. Up in Saddleworth Paul told Jane he was going after all.