Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the game is acclimatisation. This is a process much assisted prior to departure for
your mountain by one of two mutually exclusive processes. The first and, to date, fin-
ancially more profitable tangent, involves the consumption of vast quantities of gar-
lic, making love for hours on end in a series of two knuckle press-ups and hopping
up big hills on one toe, to the strains of Wagner from your free, portable lead-
weighted Japanese micro-cassette. This conditions the body.
The alternative approach and one better founded in reason, if not in medical opin-
ion, concentrates on the brain. Brain training should not be undertaken lightly. I
have even heard it said by cynics that the only people who benefit are the breweries.
Not so, sir! Climbing at altitude is somewhat akin to going to work with a monster
hangover. Once the art of operating under such conditions has been mastered, the
problem is licked. Otherwise known as Mooney's Law, this approach carries other
benefits. The mass destruction of brain cells prior to one's arrival in the Zone of
Death leaves less for the non-atmosphere to work on and the general state of ill
health attained throughout the year ensures that the body is well accustomed to the
notion of oxygen deficiency, bordering on asphyxiation. Brain training is, unfortu-
nately, expensive.
In order to evaluate our various theories we needed something to get high on. As
the only thing sufficiently large enough to be of any consequent benefit - meaning
'ill health' - was Dhaulagiri itself, we approached our neighbourhood Swiss who had
had the foresight to come the sensible way and had set up town a couple of minutes
down the glacier. They had come to climb the north-east ridge and we had obtained
clearance from the ministry to approach them and ask for permission to acclimatise
on the ridge. At first, and understandably, a little reluctant, they subsequently accep-
ted our presence on their ridge and for this we owe them a big debt of gratitude.
Our plan, in the best of tradition, was simple. We would place the two natty pieces
of nylon acquired for the purpose in downtown Kathmandu up on the North-east Col
and designate the spot 'advance base'. Always a good move this. The presence of a
Camp I on an alpine-style ascent can be embarrassing. (However, by dint of imagin-
ative use of nomenclature quite a bit of ground can be gained: Rest and Recreation
Camp, Operations Logistical HQ, Glacier Camp, Advanced Mountain Base etc.) From
our 'advance base' we would make forays up the ridge above until such a time as we
had had sufficient rare air to be declared fit, whereupon we could belt up the face
and go home.
Base camp life made the best of a good job, with the kitchen sandwiched between
East and West Blocs. A brisk trade in détente ensued while we plotted against our
common enemy, generally from a horizontal, static position, one eye on the progress
of the Swiss, and the other on the cherry brandy.
The period of static acclimatisation ended, as chance would have it, about the same
time as the Swiss lads managed to wade up to the col. The col is the wrong end of a
nasty icefall and a long avalanche-threatened glacier valley. It is a wide, flat, feature-
less spot where one can wander around for hours in a whiteout looking for the tent.
Needless to say no one had brought a compass and consequently we did. Due per-
haps to our scorn for traditional logistical pyramid concepts our first spell at the col
