Authors: Bear Grylls
Bear Grylls (17 page)
‘Don’t listen to it, Bear, okay? It’s just talk,’ he insisted.
After his experiences on the mountain in 1996, Neil had now shown the courage to come back and try again – but openly he said that it was now or never; he never wanted to be scared by this
mountain again. His face showed his determination to do it; it is what made him Neil. Although we were so different in temperament on the surface, we both shared a hidden something underneath. I
understood him.
Tomorrow at 5.00 a.m. we would be together as a team at the foot of the Icefall. We needed a good sleep, so the four of us left the mess tent early.
DIARY, 6 APRIL:
We will be climbing tomorrow for the first time as a team. The four of us will go with Andy, Ilgvar and Nasu – all of whom have climbed Everest before. I feel under
pressure to climb well and live up to their standards; it frightens me. All these guys are the top climbers in their countries, and in the top group in the world. I feel rather like a
seven-year-old who has been substituted, due to a flu epidemic, to play in the under 13’s rugby team.
I suppose that I’ve got to forget about what they’ve done, and concentrate on what I’m doing. This is also the first time back in the Icefall since my fall. I find it
really hard to talk to anyone and say that I’m frightened of it. Luckily Jokey has been sweet and we sat and talked about it in my tent. I can say things to her without feeling I’m
being weak.
She’s just gone back to her tent and left me a note to say everything will be fine. I hope she’s right. She also left me Byron’s
Don Juan
, a tiny miniature book to
read, which is kind of her – if I can’t get to sleep I can read myself into a slumber.
I want to talk some more but she’ll probably be snoozing by now, and anyway I must get some good rest; tomorrow I need all my strength.
Henry has managed to wangle the use of a satellite phone for us, as ours was fused on the way out. Someone plugged it in at Namche Bazaar and the place almost exploded like a firework. The
phone was a jumble of burnt out fuses. Emotionally, it was one of the more expensive firework displays.
Everyone else has called home today. Part of me held back though – I don’t know how helpful it would be to speak to my family. My feelings for them are going berserk and I just
want to get up to Camp One and down safely before I call. I hope I don’t regret that decision.
As ever I pray for your protection Jesus. Night, night.
Adrenalin surged round our bodies those hours that we climbed together before dawn. It was our first time as a team in the Icefall and the synergy of this made me feel strong. I
was loving the dawn chill and focus of energy that I was experiencing, as we cautiously made our way through the jumble of ice above us. The moon reflected off the ice in strange silhouettes. Our
lungs heaved continuously in the thinner air; our earlier acclimatization trip didn’t seem to have made it any easier.
Clip off one rope and on to the next, check the lock of the karabiner, then move on. It was routine now. We passed the spot where Mick and I had been forced to turn back last time. Nima and
Pasang had found another route through that area of collapsed ice. It was 7.30 a.m., the sun would be getting strong soon. I thought that I could see the lip of the Icefall that would eventually
bring us to Camp One, but I wasn’t sure; it was probably another false horizon.
The long, slow, worrying hours in the Icefall were relieved somewhat by the hope of Camp One – somewhere above us. On the lip of the Icefall, where the first slabs of the glacier begin to
peel off into the tumbling frozen river below, we would be safe. From there we would have our first sight of the vast Western Cwm Glacier that leads to the approach walls of Everest in the
distance. I longed to see this hidden valley, and to be safely out of the Icefall. It can’t be far now, I thought.
Only 100 feet below Camp One, the route through the ice had crumbled. The ground had opened up during the night and swallowed the ropes; the remains of these hung like threads above the gaping
chasms that seemed to disappear into the darkness below. There was no way we could cross these crevasses. We would have to find a new route through, but that would take time; precious time that at
this height in the Icefall we didn’t have. If we could not reach the relative security of Camp One soon, we would have to retreat. The Icefall was no place to be trapped in the full strength
of the sun. We had experienced that before.
A decision had to be made quickly. We all squatted and considered the options. To construct a lengthy three-ladder bridge over the chasms was the only one available. Finding another route round
the crevasses always tended just to reveal more obstacles and lengthen the time spent in the Icefall; the bridge was agreed, but it could not be done today in the heat. Depressingly, we were being
forced again to return to Base Camp.
The journey back was tiring; we were drained by the climb. We had channelled all our strength into reaching the lip, in the hope of staying at Camp One a night to acclimatize. Now, though, we
had been forced to retreat, doubling the time spent amongst the ice; we hungered for relief from the heaving of our lungs and the burning heat of the sun.
Mick was slowing down as the descent dragged on, and was wobbling between sections of rope. He didn’t look at us or speak.
‘Come on, Mick, the Icefall gets more and more dangerous from now on, we’ve got to keep going. Remember let “fear be your guide”,’ Andy hollered. These words would
become a catchphrase for us throughout the rest of the expedition: ‘Just let fear be your guide.’
Mick pushed on down, treading carelessly now over the ladders. Tiredness at altitude does this; you become dangerously nonchalant about your actions. Things that would terrify you when you were
thinking normally are treated with wistful disregard as exhaustion sweeps through your body. The temptation to ignore a rope and not clip into it was strong. It was easier just to loop it through
your gloves and shift lazily across the ladders. I tried to resist this temptation; after all, last time it had saved my life. Still, our minds got tired, and haste often took precedence over
safety. This is why accidents happen up high, we all knew the routine yet often still ignored it – such is the desire for relief from the fatigue. The prospect of Base Camp took on a meaning
that is almost impossible to explain.
During the next few days that we spent at Base Camp resting and recovering, Geoffrey began to look ill. The colour faded from his cheeks, and his guardsman banter waned. As he
sipped tentatively at his noodle soup, we knew that something was wrong. He hardly emerged from his tent, and would only appear for one meal each day. He was getting weaker, yet stubbornly tried to
hide it. By the third day it was obvious that this wasn’t just a passing bout of food poisoning; he was weak and ill.
Scott, our team doctor, soon diagnosed it. Giardia. Immune to all but the strongest dosage of antibiotics, this Asian illness is carried by the spreading of germs found in faeces. Resulting in
severe vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and dehydration, a bout of giardia is curable but is deeply debilitating; and what is more – it was spreading.
Maintaining peak health is crucial for exerting this sort of energy. The height we were at, even at Base Camp, meant that the body was already significantly weaker and less resilient. Getting
giardia weakened the body drastically. Geoffrey took the medication and began the frustrating road to recovery at 17,450 feet.
Those early weeks of April, the conditions were perfect for climbing. We had to try and reach the height of Camp Three as soon as possible – if we were to have even a chance of the summit
later. We couldn’t wait for Geoffrey to get better, and had to carry on. We all knew the situation, yet when it happens to you it is hard to stomach. Geoffrey never baulked, and like the
gentleman he is, he encouraged us to continue without him. We had no choice.
The next trip through the Icefall we were a depleted team. An early start ensured we had time to spare if we encountered another major collapse in the ice; but this time the route was okay. The
bridge-ladder at the lip of the Icefall was now in place, as a few of the other teams had passed through. As the three of us started across the last ladders that we knew led to Camp One, our
excitement grew. It had taken so long just to reach here; we longed to be out of the Icefall like never before.
The ladders creaked and groaned as Neil shuffled across in front of me. They swayed with each step he took. I followed on, and in the middle, as the ladders sagged, I noticed the knots that
leashed the ladders together beneath me. I hoped that not too many crampons had stood on these, and tried not to look down.
Soon the three of us were squatting, tucked into an ice ledge under a twenty-foot overhang that led to Camp One, now only a stone’s throw away. We were panting heavily, and spent two
minutes getting our breath back. We looked at each other excitedly, we knew that once over this lip, a whole new world would open up. We would be able, for the first time, to see the great Western
Cwm, hidden from Base Camp, and only visible to those who have survived the Icefall. I yearned to see, in the flesh, the sight that I had only seen in photographs. It was only feet away. Neil
cleared the lip swiftly, leaving a lingering silence behind him. He stared at a land that held tragic memories for him; two years on, he was again at the foot of the mountain.
Tucked into the ledge below, I found myself panting frantically; I hadn’t even started. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to clear the lip. I dug the tips of my crampons into the
ice, and leant in close to the ice wall, still breathing heavily. The ice felt cold against my face, and I looked down between my feet into the crevasse below.
Look up, come on, never look down, I thought to myself.
I swung my ice-axe into the wall above, stepped twice up the face and rested, hanging on my jumar. It seemed to hold my weight securely as the teeth gripped into the rope. I moved on slowly up
the wall. Another swing of the axe and several more steps up, and I was lying on the snow at the top. As I squatted on the lip, undoing my jumar from the rope and recovering my breath, I looked out
behind at the Icefall. It tumbled away beneath me in this jumble of giant ice blocks; I could no longer see Mick below. I flicked the rope to tell him that I was off the line. He clipped in and the
rope went taut under his weight.
I turned round slowly and stared in amazement at the sight ahead. The scale of this giant land in front mesmerized me. Walls of rock and ice, thousands of feet high, swept up from the glacier
sides and the valley meandered away to the east in a haze of silver and white. Behind us and far below, the tiny speckles of orange tents showed where we had come from, five hours earlier; Base
Camp now seemed an age away from this vast land we were seeing before us. Neil smiled at me.
‘Not bad, eh?’ he said.
‘It’s why we climb, Neil. This is why,’ I slowly replied.
The sun was rising as Mick scrambled safely over the ledge to join us. He grabbed our hands, and we gave him a haul to his feet. He shook the snow from his windsuit, tied off to the top rope and
knelt, leaning on his ice-axe as he looked in awe at the valley ahead.
Hidden from the telescopes that would be peering up from Base Camp, we walked tentatively around on the flat ice, feeling, as Hillary had once said, ‘like ants in a world made for
giants’. The plateau we were on was eerily silent, apart from the wind blowing softly down towards us through the Cwm. In the stillness of early morning we stood breathing deeply in the thin
air and surveying the destruction of the Icefall below us. My imagination had never assumed this new land to be so beautiful. Camp One had now been reached. It was 8.30 a.m. on 10 April.
CHAPTER TEN
‘No gentleman ever takes exercise.’
Oscar Wilde
‘Himalayan Hotel’ was the name given to the tents we were now using – yet it was misleading. The name to me had always conjured up images of some sort of
luxurious, spacious affair with a comfy en-suite bathroom and soft, fluffy towels. But I had been mistaken in these assumptions. The so-called ‘Himalayan Hotel’ was about five feet by
four feet, hardly high enough to kneel up in, and full of four hairy, tired and irritated men. Camp One was . . . different.
Neil, Mick, Andy and I shuffled all our equipment around trying to dig out enough room for our bodies to recline in some vague resemblance of comfort. It wasn’t easy. Using our rucksacks
to lean on, and our weighty high-altitude boots as foot rests, we tried to get settled.
‘Bear and Mick, stop humming ruddy Cat Stevens and go and fill this sack with ice; we’ve got to get drinking soon, we’re all dehydrated,’ Neil said sternly.
He was right, the headaches confirmed this. These are a discomfort that you have to endure when climbing up high; they are the first symptoms of a lack of oxygen in your body and are almost
impossible to avoid at these heights. Four men squashed together in a tiny tent, recycling the same stale air, with all the flaps sealed to keep the never-abating wind out, hardly helped to relieve
these headaches.