Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Alex took over. 'The contraption being my responsibility, I was summoned to make
a second attempt. With no backing wall of ice or rock to suspend it against, the
tent had a mind of its own. The remaining, half-erected fibreglass poles flailed
around the tent and disappeared like crossbow bolts. With all the doors closed, the
thing was finally tamed with the remaining poles and pinned to the floor and
slopes with ice screws and ice axes.
[5]
'Next morning we remained cocooned, awaiting the sun. It is hard to grasp the
splendour of this life-giving force unless you have sat frozen, waiting for the first
light of the far horizon and that triumphant blaze of gold as the topmost part of the
orb comes into view … Now that we were through the rock band, we decided to
abandon even more equipment and stake all on speed. A couple of pitons, three ice
screws, and our one and only helmet were abandoned, carefully tied to one of the
ice screws in case we should need to have recourse to them in the unforeseen
emergency of descent down this route.'
They made excellent progress on easier ground and bivouacked that night at
around 7,800 metres. There was a worrying build-up of clouds on the horizon but
the next day dawned clear and soon they were soloing up the final few hundred
metres in the freezing thin air of early morning. As they neared the top, Alex saw
Doug suddenly stopped up ahead.
'What's up, Doug?'
'We're there, youth,' came the reply. The trio were up but, as is often the case,
there was little outward elation. 'The face was done,' Alex wrote, 'we were just a
couple of minutes from the ridge. I sat beside them in the bitter wind, emotions
numbed. So many barriers, so much work, protocol and precipice. If only Paul
could have shared this with us today!'
They traversed both summits to make sure they had climbed the highest and
then began the long descent down the east ridge. They had one more bivvy as a
storm threatened, but next day, apart from a ferocious wind, the weather was still
clear. They descended the far eastern flank of the face from the col below Pungpa
Ri, abseiling down the last steep ice slopes. 'Our last ice screw took us to snow
deep enough and adherent enough to allow us to turn out and continue unroped,
almost leaping now, down to a gap that led us simply over the serac rampart before
making a last bounding dash through the snow to a place where a small trail of
footprints, days old and wilting in the sun, passed across us rising left-to-right,
heading toward Shisha Pangma. They were our own tracks. We had squared the
circle!'
At the beginning of June they were on their way home, exhausted but tri-
umphant. At Shigatse they were delighted to suddenly see two familiar figures,
