The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 24

  A short way up the pass a life and death struggle was being enacted. It was about 9.15 am when Sid’s party, fighting their way up the glen, met John Bradburn and Jimmy Grieve coming back. This was at Lochan Allt Glas Choire. John Bradburn told them about the bivouac they had and how at six o’clock they had pressed on with the gale whipping the fresh snow into a frenzy. But they had found that they just couldn’t make it and had decided to come back. They all now turned into the wind and headed back towards Corrour Lodge.

  At about ten o’clock Jimmy decided to abandon his rucksack. Today, such irrational behaviour is recognised as a sign of impending exposure. So far he hadn’t appeared too bad, just a bit slower than the others. Presently it was John Bradburn’s turn to act strangely; he threw his torch away, complaining that it was too heavy! When they reached the bivouac site which Sid’s party had used the previous night the rest decided to abandon their rucksacks. Though the storm had been too bad for them to eat a meal, they did have some chocolate – probably about three ounces each – as well as some butterscotch. Ann, who had been sick earlier, had fortunately recovered.

  John Bradburn and John Black broke trail, always a soul destroying and energy absorbing task. Then Sid and Ann gave them a break. The wind was so strong now that they had to lean steeply into it and keep moving, otherwise they would have been blown backwards. Hailstones straffed them, projected by the worst storm for years in an area renowned for severe winter weather. Not long after this, only about half a mile beyond the bivouac site, Jimmy died. Half a mile further John Black and Sid collapsed. Vainly Ann tried to shelter them from the blast, but to no avail; they both died. John Bradburn was somewhere ahead. Ann left the boys about 1.30 pm and managed to reach the Lodge in under two hours.

  At the bothy the SMC party had made the most of the relative comfort; the previous night both Malcom Slesser and Dick Brown had produced chanters and there was a light-hearted competition in the intricacies of piping, with the pibroch (classical pipe music) being discussed and played by the log fire. Outside the storm raged. It created havoc throughout Scotland, bringing down trees and causing widespread structural damage. A short time after 1.30 pm the SMC group heard the heavy tread of keeper Andrew Tait’s boots outside the bothy. He opened the door and announced: “Look here, there’s a woman in my house. She tells me there’s four dead men in the glen. Can you come and give me a hand?”

  With the keeper and two of his men, the climbers found the bodies of John Bradburn, John Black and Sid in the fading light. Jimmy’s body was located the next day. During the night Andrew Tait had made up stretchers with saplings and jute sacks and with the help of the deer ponies the bodies were taken down to the Lodge.

  It is easy to appear complacent over the passage of years and say such things don’t happen to experienced mountaineers any more. Now we are aware of the dangers and the sudden onset of exposure. In 1951 exposure, if indeed anyone thought about it, was assumed to be a gradual process. Its symptoms are now well known to include faulty vision and irrational behaviour; manifest in this party as they abandoned their rucksacks and John Bradburn threw away his torch. Or was it? Certainly they must have been suffering from exposure, but leaving their packs might have just saved them by diverting their last straws of energy to locomotion rather than carrying a burden. One can hypothesise endlessly on the tragedy, but the fact is that they were reasonably well clad with windproof though not necessarily waterproof clothing, and of course damp soaks away vital body heat like a deadly wick, with a wind in excess of fifty mph and an actual air temperature of 32°F. The effective chilling temperature that day must have been in the region of –10°F.

  John Black suffered from asthma, and I remember Sid on some occasions lagging behind when we were climbing. It was only later, after I knew him better, that I discovered he suffered from a pelvic war wound. He had served in the Royal Artillery. These may have been contributory factors.

  The accident rocked the Scottish climbing fraternity to its roots. Here were four climbers, and I can personally vouch for their fitness, who were adequately equipped with plenty of food, who died on what is usually an easy mountain path. It just didn’t seem possible, yet it happened.

  Ann survived unscathed except for the terrible trauma of losing her husband and three friends. A short time later the Glencoe Club was disbanded.

  Death in the Giant Mountains

  Milo Vrba

  Milo Vrba, the Czech avalanche expert, relates another remarkable tale from the mountains of his homeland.

  “Attention! Warning by the Mountain Rescue Services: Heavy snow storm conditions in the mountains. Do not leave huts and chalets situated above one thousand metres! Abandon ski tour projects; evacuate downhill runs and ski slopes! All chair-lifts have been stopped.

  “I repeat: Warning by the Mountain Rescue Service . . .”

  The weather is invariably atrocious in the Giant Mountains over Christmas. Fine powder snow falls on Christmas Eve and turns soggy on Christmas Day. Then fog sets in and the thermometer doesn’t creep to zero till New Year. It’s an unpleasant time of low air pressure, with people irritable, quarrelsome and bored.

  The weather was no exception in 1959 and it was what sparked off a rescue operation that made a perfunctory few lines in the local newspaper. But for me it was something more. I took part in the rescue. What I experienced during the last two nights of 1959 and the first waking hours of 1960 forced me to ask myself the reasons for what happened. I tried to understand the physical and emotional motives of that poor boy. The official verdict was that he was himself to blame because he had ignored the warning of the Mountain Rescue Service and overestimated his physical capabilities. This was true. However, I also learned some background facts which, while they did not change the cause of the accident, at least enabled me to understand the behaviour of that unfortunate young man called Jan.

  The Meadow Chalet is reputedly the largest mountain hotel in Central Europe. At an altitude of 1,410 metres (4,626 feet) it is situated in the middle of an extensive plateau girdled by summits. However, with the exception of the highest peak in the Giant Mountains, Snezka (1,605 metres, 5,266 feet), the altitude between the foot and the top of the plateau fluctuates only between fifty and one hundred metres, so that the area is extremely exposed. Storms predominate throughout the year.

  In spite of such climatic conditions, people have built houses here since time immemorial. In the first half of the seventeenth century, after the battle of White Mountain near Prague, the persecuted evangelical Protestants found a safe refuge here when leaving the country. The Polish frontier is a short way from the Meadow Chalet. The reason why people choose to build on that windy, foggy and inhospitable plateau is because of the excellent pasture and a constant source of spring water. One tributary of the river Elbe, the White Elbe, has its source in the neighbourhood of Meadow Chalet. It descends as a torrent through the long, sheer avalanche-prone White Elbe Valley. Not far from a spot called Spindler’s Mill it joins the Black Elbe for the long journey to the North Sea.

  On 30 December 1959 few people skied, though there were over 400 guests staying at the Meadow Chalet. In spite of dense fog, four young men left the chalet at 9.30 am. They were university students spending their Christmas vacation in the mountains. They were fed up, and with good reason. Up until now it had been a week of bad weather, the usual continuous fog and heavy snow. In two days they would be returning without having even seen the place. Only one had visited the Giant Mountains in winter before, the other three boys were beginners. As well as this, Jan, who was one of the group, was extremely clumsy and held back the others who had quickly acquired the basic principles of skiing. That day, after having haggled about what to do, they agreed to attempt a ski tour as far as Spindler’s Mill, an ambitious plan for aspiring skiers. It’s a hard trip in heavy snow and at the end there’s a steep downhill section.

  They made it, arriving about noon at Spindler’s Mill saturated, after countless falls. What would
they do now, they wondered? Soon they got cold. The only thing they could agree on was to go to the snack bar, though they hadn’t much money. It seemed as if everybody in Spindler’s Mill had the same idea, for it was lunchtime and the snack bar was hopelessly overcrowded. Jan felt self-conscious and uncomfortable, for he was a country boy and his skiing clothes were baggy and makeshift. He didn’t feel he fitted in with the confident crowd in the snack bar and he was in a hurry to leave. Not so his three friends.

  At about one o’clock Jan’s patience ran out. He decided to return to the Meadow Chalet alone.

  “Hold on, Jan, we’re coming too.” His friends paid their bills and left with him. They walked as far as the main road without a word. There a quarrel developed because Jan wanted to turn left and the three boys to the right, to the valley station of the chair-lift.

  “Why to the chair-lift?” Jan asked petulantly.

  “That’s a stupid question! Upwards by the lift and, afterwards, we ski our same route back.”

  “No other possibility,” put in the one who had been to the Giant Mountains before.

  “I know another way to reach the Meadow Chalet,” Jan retorted. “I found it on the map: the White Elbe Valley! It’s longer, of course, no chairlift, no ski-tow. But I’m sure it won’t be crowded. I can’t bear those crowds on the plateau and all over your route.”

  “Don’t be silly. Do you want to climb six hundred metres in this snow and fog?”

  “Look, the fog’s gone!” Jan pointed towards the mountain with his ski pole.

  It was true, the fog had disappeared and the ridge above was clearly visible. But at the same time, the temperature must have dropped for the wind was now cold. Snow began to fall and envelop the mud and slush. Black clouds above the summits indicated more snow was coming.

  “Don’t be crazy, Jan! Come with us. Within three hours it’ll be dark and you don’t know the way. There’s not much daylight just now.”

  “Three hours! That’s plenty for me! I’ll go alone if none of you are up to it. I bet I’ll be there before you. You all ski like snails.”

  So Jan went off to the left. The others, after some head shaking, turned right and shuffled towards the chairlift. A long queue had formed but they decided to wait, though it meant hanging about in the now heavier snowfall and cold wind.

  Now, at last, Jan felt in a good mood. He whistled like a small boy, looking forward with pleasure to the coming battle with the elements. Here his old clothes didn’t matter. Unfortunately, it is often the case that the feeling of elation and satisfaction is of shorter duration than that of depression and disillusion. Fully occupied by his dreams of solo adventure, he didn’t notice a group of youths and girls from the university.

  He saw them too late to take evasive action round the corner of the post office for they had already spotted him. One of them was Vera. His newly regained composure was shattered. Vera was one of the most popular girls in the student skiing parties that season in the Giant Mountains, and Jan had long nursed a secret and fruitless passion for her. Secret because he did not know how to approach such a goddess. Fruitless because now, as always, she was accompanied by the handsome guitar-playing Vaclav who effortlessly managed to be all the things that Jan was not.

  To his surprise, however, Vera and Vaclav and their friends seemed perfectly happy to sweep Jan along with them to drink tea in their hut in the village of St Peter. Flattered and confused, Jan explained that he couldn’t stop as he had to get back to the Meadow Chalet before dark.

  “Then why are you going this way?”

  “I want to explore new country in White Elbe Valley on the way.”

  “What? Going all that way alone? It’s too far to solo,” one of them warned. “If you want a tour through a lonely region, why not go the shorter and simpler way through the Long Valley?”

  “Where’s that?”

  “On beyond St Peter. Then it leads direct to the Eagle Owl hut. You know where that is?”

  “Oh, yes. We passed it this morning.”

  “Then come with us to have a cup of tea and, afterwards, ski up the Long Valley, and you may meet your friends at Eagle Owl hut at the top.”

  It was snug and friendly in the village. Brew followed brew and Vaclav tuned his guitar for another song when the Mountain Rescue Services Tannoy system resounded through the wooden walls with the advice about worsening snow conditions. Do not leave huts and chalets above one thousand metres. Abandon ski tour projects.

  “Well, Jan, now you must stay here overnight!” Vera teased him.

  “No! No, I’ll not stay!”

  She turned to the guitarist. “I’m sure you’ll stay, Vaclav.”

  Vaclav smiled ironically and plucked a string.

  Jan spoke up. “I’m not scared! On the contrary, I’m glad that a blizzard is brewing; it’s to my taste. I’m leaving!”

  “Don’t be silly, Jan! It’s getting dark. Go down to the inn, ring them and tell them you’ll be up tomorrow.”

  Vaclav’s impatient advice was the soundest he would get, but the last person Jan was going to listen to was Vaclav. Watching him and Vera together had fed his self-pity and frustration. Now here was a chance to show he was somebody, somebody who could snap his fingers at warnings, somebody with the guts to risk his life and fight the blizzard. As they all watched him in silence he just wished he had something more stylish to put on than his old threadbare anorak and his leather motorcycle helmet, and that his skis weren’t made of ash with beak tips and with two long hazel ski poles.

  Perhaps Vera knew that a word from her could have changed Jan’s mind, but she was tired of him and thought he was behaving stupidly. However, on an impulse, as he opened the door on to the swirling snow, she grabbed a handful of biscuits and all the sugar lumps left in the food locker and pressed them on him.

  “It’s a long trip, Jan. You’ll be hungry.”

  The Meadow Chalet seems to be a world unto itself especially in bad weather, and is almost independent of the outside world. It has its own well, its own power station driven by the water energy of the Elbe stream; it has its own laundry, bakery and various workshops in the cellar. Upstairs that December night 450 young people, mostly university students, made the two dining halls reverberate with their boisterous high spirits. However, three young men, sitting at a table with one vacant chair, would have caught the attention of an attentive observer. They were evidently worried, speaking to each other in low, urgent voices.

  “Look, it’s gone too far. We must do something!”

  “What, for example?”

  “For a start, alert the mountain rescue!”

  “Wonderful suggestion, but it’s too expensive.”

  “Why expensive? Nothing’s charged for rescuing.”

  “Not unless you’ve been bloody stupid.”

  “Well, that’s his problem. He would go alone through that White Elbe Valley!”

  “Take it easy! It’s a long walk. Maybe he rested in some hut on the way . . .”

  “Don’t talk nonsense. There’s no hut in the White Elbe Valley according to the map. He hasn’t a torch and it’s been dark since four o’clock. Now, it’s half-past eight! Also, he doesn’t know the way. Something must have happened. I’m worried, very worried and I’m going to tell the rescue service.”

  A siren started, a terrible sound, bringing back to many the sleepless and fearful nights of the war; a sound which tells that human life is threatened.

  The engineer of the chairlift was the first one to leave his cottage on the hillside, and he ran down to the station to prepare the lift for the rescue teams.

  At the other end of Spindler’s Mill an attractive girl hurried out through the garden of her parents’ house, buttoning her short fur coat as she ran to the telephone exchange. She had to be at her post as the exchange was operated manually.

  The teacher put aside his red pen from correcting a pupil’s essay, and reached for the blue ski-trousers and orange anorak of his Mountain Rescu
e Service uniform.

  The waiter stopped gliding through the dining hall, put a tray of full beer glasses on a vacant table and disappeared in the direction of the staff quarters to get his gear.

  The joiner shuffling cards in the bar put the pack down beside his glass, pocketed his winnings and left without saying a word to his companions.

  The postman awoke from a heavy sleep. It took him a couple of minutes to realise what was wrong, then he sprang out of bed, dressed hurriedly, and grabbed his rescue rucksack from the corner of the bedroom.

  The doctor and the druggist, who were playing billiards in the tearoom, looked at each other, silently put their cues in the rack and left the inn. The head waiter didn’t say anything. They’d pay later. They had other things to think about right now.

  I help my wife run a private hotel for employees of a Prague factory not far from Eagle Owl hut. So I am well placed for my special snow and avalanche research and for lending a hand with rescues when Otan, our local leader, gives me a call, as he did the night of 30 December 1959. One of the hotel staff, a lad called Honza, is also in the team. I slipped along to his room where he was snoring loudly. I hesitated to wake him as he had had a hectic day. However, he wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t and I couldn’t go out alone in such a storm.

  “Honza, get up!” The snoring was uninterrupted.

  “Get up! Quickly!”

  “. . . What’s the matter?”

  “Call-out. We’ve not much time.”

  “To hell with all those idiots! Just before New Year’s Eve, just like last year, remember? Avalanche or broken leg?”

  “Nothing like that. It’s a missing man. Otan’s just phoned. It’s a young man who left the snack bar in Spindler’s Mill about one o’clock for the Meadow Chalet. He didn’t arrive.”