Except that the climber climbs the mountain not just to get to the top. He would try to climb it even if he knew he could never get there. He climbs it simply because he can have the solitary peace and contentment of knowing constantly that only his solitary nerve, will and courage stand between him and destruction.
William Faulkner (The Mansion).
I wrote these accounts largely from memory in December, 2021, and posted them online in January, 2022. Sometime, I'll add photos.
Huascaran (6768m, 22,205 feet) is situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes. It is the highest peak in Peru and the fourth highest in the Americas. The normal route climbs its glaciated west side to a saddle (Garganta) between its two peaks, and then follows the ridge to the higher south peak. It was first climbed in 1932, and is of only moderate difficulty.
By contrast, the east side of the mountain is a steep ice face guarded at the top by a vertical band of rock. At one point the rock band is almost breached by a sickle-shaped slope of ice that swoops up through it. The first party to climb the face followed the sickle of ice to reach the summit ridge not far from the top. It is an elegant route, and as soon as I read an account of the climb, I knew that it was something I wanted to do.
In 1974, I managed to find two people to climb with in Peru, but they didn't share my enthusiasm for the route --- "I'm not going to go all that way just to do something someone else has done," said one --- and so we spent four weeks climbing new routes and an unclimbed peak in the Pucahirca mountains before turning our attention to Huascaran.
After a short rest in Huaras, we hiked into the east side of Huascaran, and immediately set off up the face, even though it was late afternoon. As darkness fell, we found ourselves on a steep icy slope with nowhere to camp. Eventually, we found a flat spot on a filled-in crevasse, which was, however, menaced by a small chute. We decided that, as the face was frozen solid, it was unlikely that anything would come down in the night, and if it did the overhanging upper lip of the crevasse would protect us. And indeed, when a small avalanche did come down, it passed overhead, and we received only a light dusting of snow.
The next day we climbed straight up the ice slope and had the good fortune to find a comfortable ice cave not far below the rock wall. In the morning, we were able to enjoy a view of the sun rising over the Amazon basin as we breakfasted in our perch at 21,000 feet. From such a comfortable spot, it was difficult to step out onto a sixty-degree ice slope. We spent the day in a rising traverse towards the ice sickle, and then up the sickle to the rock. This we expected to be the crux of the climb.
Although we had scarcely known each other before the trip, the three of us had worked well together in six weeks of climbing. Each morning, without any discussion, one of us, always a different person, would take the lead for that day's climbing. Today it was Bill who led the rock section. Fortunately, this turned out to be a strenuous, but not too difficult, vertical chimney. There were occasional ledges where we could stop and catch our breath (we were at almost 22,000 feet).
On reaching the ridge, we were exposed to a very strong cold wind. As we trudged up the ridge towards the summit, we were able to watch the sun setting over the Pacific.
We arrived on the summit just as darkness fell, and spent a miserable night there. The wind was too powerful to pitch a tent, much less light a stove, and so we all piled into the shell of my little tent. This was made of waterproof nonbreathable nylon, but, after opening small vents at my head and foot, I was able to enjoy the jetstream whistling past my nose.
At first light, we were happy to get moving. While Bill and I got ready to leave, Mike stood on his pack and shivered. It bothered me later that I didn't realize at the time that he must have been suffering from hypothermia. Eventually, we were able to get organized and leave. Fortunately, the descent to the Garganta was easy, and there we were able to find a spot out of the wind and enjoy a late breakfast.
At this point, we realized that we would have to find our own way down the mountain. Several climbing parties had left before us on the normal route, and we had expected to be able to follow their tracks down, but there was no sign of other climbers.
Route finding on descent is difficult because the steep sections are hidden --- two snow slopes separated by an ice cliff may appear to be one. From above, the western side of the mountain was a jumble of crevasses and seracs. We picked out a likely route, and set off. We hadn't gone far when a large wind slab we were on, split away, and slid down the mountain. We were able to hop off onto the underlying snow, but it was an ominous sign. By nightfall, we had safely descended well down the mountain without, however, having found a clear route off it. That evening, our trusty stove expired as it burned our last ounce of fuel. From then on, we would be without water.
About noon the following day, on rounding a serac, we finally saw climbers near us across an easy snow slope.
The first climber we reached immediately began telling us of his plans for climbing Huascaran, where he would place his camps, where he would fix ropes, and on and on and on and on and on and on until finally, pausing with a puzzled look, he asked us where we were coming from. We pointed back at the summit, mumbled something about the east face, and headed on down. We weren't quite ready for civilization.
When Bill returned forty years later, the east face had been ravaged by global
warming, and the sickle of ice was gone. The local guides said
no one was climbing the face, and they didn't even know that it had
been climbed.
See, Bill Katra, Mountain Climber, A Memoir, Toplight,
Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020.
In the late 1970s, I took two trips to the Hindu Kush mountains in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border (formerly the North-West Frontier Province of British India). Since that time this has become a very dangerous area, but then it was considered safe. The people I met showed a greater affinity for their neighbours in Afghanistan than for the Pakistanis.
On my first trip, I planned to fly to Peshawar in Pakistan, changing planes in Kabul, but before I left, a dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan caused all flights between Kabul and Peshawar to be cancelled, and the airline told me that I would have to take a bus. On checking a map, I saw that there did appear to be a road between the two cities, and so I flew to Kabul and took a bus over the Khyber pass to Peshawar. At the time, Kabul was a beautiful and peaceful city.
I then flew north to Chitral. On my first walk in the mountains, one of the villagers gently told me that I was making the men nervous by walking through their villages displaying my knees while they were in the fields. Thereafter, I wore long pants and found the people uniformly friendly and helpful.
On my first trip, I spent a month hiking and climbing in the mountains, partly alone and partly with a friend.
On this trip, it came as a revelation to me that I was comfortable travelling alone in even the wildest of the mountain ranges. I had spent years trying to find people to accompany me to the mountains. Now I would go wherever and whenever I wanted to, alone if necessary.
Wherever I was in the mountains, I felt at home.
"What would you do," I asked the Pakistani official, "if I crossed the pass at the head of the valley into Afghanistan."
"Arrest you," he replied.
"But," I said, "the locals cross over and back all the time."
"Yes, but if I tried to stop them, they would start shooting and might not stop for several days."
So ended my dream of crossing into Afghanistan and climbing an "easy" 24,000 foot mountain there. Instead, I would walk up the valley and cross over a series of high passes, circling south of Tirich Mir (7,708m; 25,208ft), the highest mountain outside the Himalayas-Karakoram range, and descend to another valley further east. My only guide was the accounts of two earlier climbing parties to the region.
I took a jeep from Chitral to the teahouse at the bottom of the first valley with about forty kilograms of food and gear for a month's hiking and climbing. The temperature in the valley was 30C, and so, being a lazy type, I hired two villagers to carry it up the valley.
After a couple of days travel, I arrived at a small village (c 4000m) where four families spent their summers grazing sheep and goats. There I acclimatized before setting off up a side valley, where there were some small peaks (c 5500m), for a few days climbing. After two enjoyable days, I decided that on the third I would climb a steep ice couloir leading to another summit. Upon arriving at its base in the half-light of dawn, I decided that the danger of being hit by a falling rock in the couloir was too great and so, reluctantly, I switched to climbing the peak by easy snow slopes ..... where I was hit by a falling rock.
As I was climbing the snow slope, the sun hit a small rocky outcrop above me, releasing a shower of stones which bounded down the frozen snow slope towards me. I moved right and flattened myself against the slope. I scarcely had time to realize I'd moved the wrong way, as stones whistled past my right ear, before the stone landed on my lower back. After the pain had subsided somewhat, and I found, to my surprise, that I was able to stand, I saw that it had landed on the bottom of my pack, where there was a stuffed down jacket, and then slid off into the snow beside me. So I took a photo of it [I later estimated its weight to be about 50 lbs] and set off back down. Before reaching my camp, I met a villager who had come up looking for me under the mistaken impression that I was overdue (as I knew only a dozen words of the local language, the confusion was not surprising). We packed up my gear, and he carried it down. At this point, the pain in my back was bearable as long as I kept perfectly upright, but hopping over even a small creek was very painful.
When we got down, the villagers suggested I use a small hut, which served as a mosque (provided, of course, I slept with my head towards Mecca). While some of the villagers chatted in the hut, I sank into deeper and deeper gloom. My back was very swollen and painful. Before the trip, a friend with chronic back problems told me that, at my age, if I injured my back it would never heal. More immediately, I was not sure I'd be able to walk out, and if I had to be rescued, the Pakistanis would learn that I had been climbing, which would cause further problems.
Then one of the villagers, as old as the hills, hobbled over, examined my back, mumbled something, and left. When I asked a boy what he had said, he said "Ju bus, theek hai" --- two days, OK! And, indeed, after resting for two days, I was able to leave on the next stage of my trip.
With one of the villagers as a guide, I continued up the valley from the village and then up a dry glacier. There appeared to be an obvious pass at the head of the glacier, but instead my guide headed towards a steep rock wall, where he switched from his cheap plastic shoes to moccasins. As we climbed, I watched him, curious to see how he managed it, only to find that he was watching me, curious to see how I managed it. We both reached the top without difficulty, and on the other side there was indeed a long easy valley. We were caught by darkness as we descended it. My guide, having only a blanket, got to use my tent (which, of course, we had pitched pointing towards Mecca).
About noon the next day, we reached a village, where there was a polo game in progress. I was mobbed by the children, anxious to practise their English. My guide would return to his village by following the valleys, rather than crossing the pass; this would take him several days.
After spending the night in the village, I was ready to start the next stage of my trip. As mentioned, I was circling around to the south of Tirich Mir (7,708m). My goal was to climb an outlying peak called Little Tirich (6550m, 21,489ft), which was first attempted by a Pakistan-Karakoram Club expedition in 1951 and eventually climbed in 1969 by a British-Pakistani Mountaineering expedition.
According to their account, this last party climbed the peak by a fifty-degree ice couloir, which ran from 18,000 feet to 20,000 feet, making it similar to the classic (très difficile) Gervasutti couloir on Mont Blanc du Tacul. They had taken "all day to rise from the head of the bowl to the ridge at 20,000 feet" and, rather than descend the couloir, they had abseiled down the other side of the mountain.
After leaving the village, I followed a path across a pass, and then walked up a glacier towards Little Tirich, camping at a safe distance from the hanging glaciers at its head. The next day, very early, with some difficulty, I crossed the bergschrund at the bottom of the couloir, and set off up it. On the ascent, I was intensely focused on the climbing while at the same time being fully aware of the surroundings. Alone on such a slope and feeling strong, you soar. Only towards the top, with aching muscles, did I have doubts, but the slope soon eased. When I reached the easy snow at the top of the couloir, it was still early --- the climb of the couloir had taken less than three hours --- so I set up my tent and spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun and the view.
It was only a short climb the next day from my tent to the top of the peak and back. On top, I tried to take a selfie. While the delay of the self-timer on a camera normally seems to last for ever, at 6550m in deep snow it was too short, and I failed. I never again tried to take a selfie.
On the third day, I would have to make the first descent of the couloir, one way or the other. In the half-light of dawn, it was a frightening sight --- a river of green ice disappearing into the void. But once I began moving, my confidence returned, and I was down before the sun hit the face. I crossed the bergschrund, again with some difficulty. All that remained was the descent of the glacier.
As the sun beat down, the snow softened, and solo travel on the glacier became dangerous. Reluctantly, I camped, and spent the afternoon reading the Odyssey. Contrary to the conventional view that Odysseus was truly trying to get back to Ithaca but kept being blown off course, I decided that he was doing what he wanted to do. This was confirmed for me when, after getting back to Ithaca and taking care of some odds and ends, he again left.
Next morning, avoiding both Scylla and Charybdis, I did made it off the glacier. Then it was only a couple days of pleasant walking through apricot orchids down to the jeep road in the valley.
At a jeep stop on the way back to Chitral, I met some top French climbers on their way to attempt a new route on Tirich Mir. I must have got a bit carried away telling them about my trip because one, a professional mountain climber, asked me if I was a professional mountain climber. Eventually, I attracted the attention of their Pakistani liaison officer. When he asked me where I had been, I told him of the valleys and the villages I had passed through (the truth and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth). But then he said, "You are sunburnt. You must have been climbing." So I told him of the snow on the high pass. Just as things were starting to get ugly, the jeep driver (bless him) began honking his horn, and I was able to dash off.
On the drive back to Chitral, there was a jeep by the side of the road with policemen signalling for a ride. When the driver saw them, he began muttering under his breath, and not in a good way. He drove straight past them as if they weren't there, but then slammed on his brakes and allowed them to scramble onto the jeep. At the police station he again drove past the station before slamming on his brakes and allowing them off.
The winters in the mountains of Nepal can be cold and clear for weeks on end, but there are occasional fierce storms. Such a storm struck as I was starting my first trek, and I spent the first two days in a lodge watching the rain pour down. When the weather cleared, I set off up the Marsyangdi Khola (valley) towards the Thorong La (5416m, 17,769ft) on the Annapurna circuit.
The trekkers coming down the valley all told me that there were several metres of new snow on the Thorong La, and that crossing the pass was impossible. The more often I heard this, the more determined I became to make the crossing.
After a few days I reached Pisang village, on the way to Manang. During the afternoon of my arrival, I set off for Pisang Peak (6091m) and bivvied at about 4000m. The next morning, when I woke before dawn, the weather looked bad, and so I went back to sleep. At dawn, the weather had cleared and after a hurried breakfast, I set off for the summit.
Much of the snow that had fallen during the storm had been blown off the route, but it still slowed me, and with my late start, I began to run out of time. At first I promised myself that I would turn back, no matter what, in time to reach my bivvy before dark. When that deadline arrived and I was still far from the summit, I promised myself that I would turn back in time to make it down the one tricky section (about 5400m) before dark.
And, indeed, I did reach the summit, and make it down the tricky section (just) before dark. From there, I expected that I would be able to follow my tracks in the snow back to my bivvy, but, to my chagrin, I found that the wind had blown out the tracks. Still, I had confidence in my gear (down jacket, down pants, ...), and so I found a comfortable spot, and settled down for the night. Within a few minutes, I began shivering violently, and I realized that, to survive the night, I would have to keep moving. [A few days later, at the same altitude, I measured a temperature of -27C/-16F; also, there was a wind.] For the rest of night, I wandered down the mountain, taking care to avoid a tumble.
No one chooses to spend a night out in the mountains, but it can be a transcendent experience. The night was clear and moonless. By the light of the stars I could see across the valley and up to the great peaks of the Annapurna massif at its head. It was a night full of shooting stars as the earth passed through the debris field of a comet. One meteor appeared to streak by so close to the slope that I could hear the crackling sound it made.* Towards dawn, the moon rose, the wind died, and I was able to get some sleep.
On waking, I found that I was close to my uphill tracks, having descended several hundred metres during the night. After checking myself for hypothermia, I descended to Pisang village, collecting my bivvy gear on the way. At Pisang, I slept for a day and a night.
*Appearances to the contrary, the meteor was probably tens of kilometres away. The noise, although rarely heard, is real --- it has been detected by instruments. How it is possible to see and hear the meteor at the same time is unknown, although it is believed that radio waves are involved.
By the time I reached Manang, a few trekkers had made if over the Thorong La, and so I walked up to the lodge below the pass (at Phedi, 4468m, 14660ft). There were three other trekkers there planning to cross the pass the next day: an Australian, with no experience in snow, and an American climber with his girl friend.
It was bitterly cold, and the four of us were huddled around the stove in the lodge, when, long after dark, the outer door to the lodge suddenly burst open, and a trekker and his guide came in. They had crossed the Thorong La from Badrinath that day. Ominously, they told us that five other trekkers had left Badrinath that morning --- an English couple and three young Australasians --- and were still out there somewhere.
We said that we would keep an eye out for them.
Next morning, the four of us left very early up the snow slope behind the lodge leading to a ridge. Before reaching the ridge, we could see the English couple. To our relief, they were OK, having spent the night in their sleeping bags inside an improvised bivvy sac. We continued on over the ridge, and traversed into a valley on the other side. There we found the tracks of the missing trekkers.
The route down from the Thorong La follows a stream for a long way, but then traverses right over the ridge to the lodge. The stream itself continues down to an ugly gorge, which in winter was a jumble of rock and ice. The tracks of the three trekkers missed the turn-off to the ridge and continued down the stream towards the gorge.
While my companions continued on their way, hoping to reach Badrinath before dark, I followed the tracks down the stream. After descending several hundred metres, the tracks stopped. When I shouted, the trekkers popped out from under a rock where they had spent the night. They had their sleeping bags with them, but otherwise were very ill-equipped for crossing a high pass in winter, much less for spending nights out. One already had frostbite. Although it was already late morning when I found them, they hadn't moved from their sleeping place. They knew they were lost, but had no idea what to do.
I led them back up the slope to where they could follow our tracks over the ridge to the lodge, and continued on my way to the Thorong La, where I spent a very cold night (-27C/-16F). My plastic boots froze rigid, and I had trouble putting them on. My goal was to climb a peak south of the pass, popularly known as Thorong Peak and considered to be over 21,000 feet. To my disappointment, when I arrived on top after only a few hours climbing, I found it to be not much over 20,000 feet --- the peak marked 21,000 feet on some maps is further south. After the climb, I descended to Badrinath, and continued my trek.
On the way out, the trek passed through the village of Jomsom, which has a small landing strip. There I saw something that astonished me, although it has since become commonplace. A small plane landed, bringing some tourists, who I expected would take the time to appreciate the atmosphere of the place and its breathtaking scenery. Instead they did nothing but stand around taking photographs of each other. They left again without ever having been fully aware of being there.