Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 27
HEART OF GLASS
We were back at base camp by noon next day. Alex had completely recovered and
was raring to go. We quickly threw together food and equipment for four days and
left early the next morning.
After slogging uphill for a couple of hours, the pleasant grassy slopes gave way to
outwash stream to the bottom of a shattered icefall and found a secure location be-
neath a solid wall of ice that was perfect for hanging the Mac Tent. Alex drew the
short straw for the doghouse that night. While melting snow for Tang, I did
something I'd never done before, I spilled a full pan of water just as it was warm
enough. None of us was amused. During the night, the sound of snow sliding down
the nylon woke us and by morning several inches had settled. We left everything in
a cache and bailed out for base camp.
The storm lasted two days but the third dawned cold and clear. At last the weath-
er seemed to be settling down. With light rucksacks, we climbed quickly to our
camp beneath the icefall and spent a second night there; early next morning we
entered the chaotic labyrinth of seracs and crevasses above. It was the worst icefall
any of us had encountered. We stopped for a mid-morning brew between two deep
crevasses, but the pan of snow had only just been placed on the stove when a huge
serac tumbled from above and crashed down onto the thin connecting ice bridge
we had crossed just minutes before. Forgetting tea, we hastily packed up and set
off up again. By the afternoon, we had negotiated the icefall and reached the upper
glacier. We ploughed through deep snow to the bottom of a couloir that led to Hi-
unchuli's east ridge and cut a second bivvy platform in secure surroundings.
It was another perfectly clear and still morning. Six pitches of steep ice, each of
us leading two pitches, brought us to a col on a dramatic, razor-sharp and heavily-
corniced ridge at about 6,200 metres. To our right, a three-kilometre ridge led to
Annapurna South, a thousand metres higher. To our left, and much nearer, was
Hiunchuli. The fantastic double and overlapping cornices reminded me of the
ridge on Huascarán Norte that had stopped Alex and me three years before. But,
with care, we traversed the ridge to the bottom of the final summit cone, ready at
any moment to jump down the opposite side of the ridge in the event of a leader
fall. We cut a precarious platform for the tent on the south side of the ridge and I
