Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 2
PUBLIC IMAGE
In the middle of the afternoon on 15 October 1982, Alex MacIntyre and the
French/Italian climber René Ghilini reached a steep rock band at around 7,200
metres on the south face of Annapurna. The south face is one of the great walls of
the Himalaya, a complex assortment of buttresses and steep couloirs three miles
wide and a mile and a half high. Of the fourteen peaks over 8,000 metres, An-
napurna has claimed the most lives for each attempt. Alex and René were trying a
new route, a diagonal line starting from the right side of the face that would even-
tually lead them to the central summit. If successful, it would be the fourth route
on the face. The three main buttresses had already been climbed by large 'national'
expeditions. In 1970, a British team led by Chris Bonington climbed what was then
the most difficult route on an eight-thousander. It went directly up the far left but-
tress to the highest of Annapurna's three summits. The Japanese climbed the cent-
ral buttress in 1976 and the Poles the right pillar in 1980. All three of these expedi-
tions comprised many members and climbing the mountain took months with
fixed ropes and permanent camps. Alex and René planned to climb the face in
three days with two more in descent, just the two of them. If they failed on this at-
tempt, they would be back to try again.
Together they surveyed the possibilities for climbing the thirty-metre wall that
now blocked their progress. From base camp it seemed inconsequential, the width
of a pencil set against a two-storey house. A tempting snow ramp led left, perhaps
all the way to open snow slopes on the other side, but after sixty metres, the ramp
narrowed to a thin smear of ice and then there was just a sweep of compact rock. It
was impossible. They retreated to a crevasse at the start of the ramp and prepared
to bivouac. Climbing safely down the 800-metre couloir to the foot of the face,
they would have to start at dawn, while the mountain was still frozen. Brewing
drinks, they discussed what equipment they would need to get past this band of
rock on the next attempt.
It was after dawn by the time they started down. They were slowed by the initial
difficult descent into the couloir. The sun reached the top of the face and slowly
descended in a yellow veil toward them, growing stronger. At around 10 a.m., the
two men were about halfway down the couloir. From below, where I sat watching
them, they were two tiny specks in a sea of snow and rock. Then, in a moment, fate
