Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We saw each other briefly at the interview. He was going in as I was coming out.
Halfway through the interview with Dennis Gray and Bob Pettigrew, I decided I
did not want to leave the Lake District. That came over in the interview. Alex
phoned me next day ecstatic that he had got the job, which served us both well. He
would now have an income and time off to climb.
1. When we arrived back in Termez, a young Russian guard wielding a semi-automatic extracted a book of American poetry from an inside pocket
of my jacket and looked menacingly at me. I smiled and nodded, and moved my right-hand palm down below my waist. He understood the ges-
ture and quickly slipped the topic inside his own jacket before anyone noticed.
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2. Voytek climbed 'the Shining Wall' - the west face of G4 - with Robert Schauer in the summer of 1985. The extremely difficult mixed route took
nine days and has yet to be repeated. They were caught in a very bad storm just below the summit and after several days barely surviving, they
were forced to traverse to the north ridge and had a near miraculous escape in a continuous storm. Despite the fact that the summit was not
gained, the route remains for many the finest achievement ever in the Greater Himalaya.
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