Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
So we ambled up the ice slope to the right of the broken rock buttress that runs up
into the Whymper, just beside a stone-chute that hails from behind the first tower of
the Croz.
All's quiet … when to go?
'Now's as good a time as any, lads.'
But now was not as good a time as any.
They did not seem to be in any great hurry at first, lingering on ledges to pick up
friends, laughing and chattering, making merry little leaps, having a sort of jovial
frolic, and all in slow motion. We slammed the gear in, hung on tight and waited.
Then came general commotion: a din, whines and whirrs, a thud, a cry, and there he
was, hanging slumped over his terror, LBWed on the knee-cap by a fair sized brick.
('I think I've broken my leg!') Then convalescing, clipped to a convenient peg in a
handy rock island, while I hid elsewhere and mourned the impending loss of that ice-
screw I had so foolishly lent him.
Nothing else came down and, when the appendage was sufficiently numb, we
three-legged it along and carried on, in a curious canter up and across, but essen-
tially under and close. Bonatti has been up there. You can tell:
'The spell this route cast over me stemmed from the fact that it had all the qualities
that lend fascination to a route. The difficulties and dangers were very great, yet of a
traditional kind, proper to the character and atmosphere of the north face in general
… This time it yielded to my insistence, allowing me to make my way up its treacher-
ous armour of steep, brittle ice, though truly I was like the prey in the jaws of a mon-
ster.'
We felt a little like that, too. Mind you, the stones were not as big as railway car-
riages. About the size of an average dustbin, I'd say, but it was a veritable avalanche
of rubbish that bounced and leaped, ricocheted and crashed, and all so close, oh so
close. How close? Nine inches in 3,000 feet close. Thoughts of Brehm and Rittler.
We snuggled in below those walls but Gordon took a little one on the other leg. (By
little I mean only that it didn't actually take his leg off - more damaging to a Scot
than losing his head!) We limped to a halt.
In the meantime, the weather had deteriorated alarmingly. Despite the twilight,
the temperature was going through the roof. An enormous block, a veritable Pullman
special, screamed out of the Japanese Gully and raked the flanks of the Walker. The
effect of the rum omelettes was beginning to wear off. It began to hail.
So we aborted the mission and reversed the basic rhythm, diving down and sub-
merging, scuttling from one imaginary hiding hole to another, until at last we
reached the shattered pillar. But here we had to push the boat out and run the gaunt-
let, rappelling, tumbling down in the dark, the slopes on either side awash with white
slurry. Finally, we hung in harnesses suspended above the moat, with me craftily ar-
ranged so as to hang under Gordon, just in case. Then, with an ear-splitting bang,
night turned to day, and the whole spur was raked, strafed and peppered from end to
end - flashing, sparking, reeking of the devil, granite on granite at terminal velocity.
Unbelievingly, we slid into the moat and away, heat-seeking bloodhounds, craving
blankets and brews, heading back to our genial Frenchman who honestly believes
