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up, removed my sack, got out a rope and waited for Mick. He arrived a couple of
minutes later, long hair matted with Rastafarian-like beads of snow, a woeful ex-
pression on his pale, thoughtful face.
'Where's Pete?'
'Somewhere ahead. He was out of sight well before I got here. He's really travel-
ling.'
We looked down into the beckoning void and then along the white towers shin-
ing ahead of us in the morning sunlight. With no sign of Pete, Mick took off his
sack and lit a fag.
'What's got into him?'
This came from one of the leading mixed climbers on the Scottish scene. If Mick
wasn't happy soloing ground like this then no one should be. His question required
a careful and diplomatic response. Adrian appeared behind and climbed over to
join us.
'I've been wondering that myself Mick. You know, I think maybe he's still coming
down from the summit of Everest.'
I was referring to Pete and Pertemba's near miss descending to the top of the
fixed ropes on the south-west face in the previous post-monsoon season. Having
reached the summit late in deteriorating weather, they just managed to find their
way back to the top of the ropes in a blizzard at dusk. It had been a seminal experi-
ence for Pete, something all high-altitude climbers dread but inevitably almost all
experience, the feeling of being a zombie, the walking dead, caught in an inescap-
able situation. Even when you think all is lost, you draw on an inner strength, a life
force that wakens strength and skill that lie so deep they only emerge in the most
desperate circumstances. Afterwards, the experience can create a false sense of im-
mortality and invincibility. Pete had survived that descent from Everest and it
seemed to me he was still motoring on that experience. He was, after all, the fore-
most young star in Britain, national officer of the British Mountaineering Council
and a member of the professional climbers' front rank.
Mick finished his fag and tied on to a proffered end of rope I had dug from my
rucksack.
'That's it, you're right. He's still a mad bastard in his head. He's climbing like a
demon.' With that, I set off on the traverse. We remained roped for the next two
hours and finally caught Pete at the base of another vertical tower, stopped at last
and looking a bit cold after his long wait.
'You mad bastard,' Mick grinned at him. The three of us continued roped togeth-
er, enjoying the exhilarating mixed climbing on snow-plastered gendarmes and
knife-edged crests. The camaraderie and climbing were some of the best any of us
