The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 25

  “What time’s it now?”

  “Quarter past ten. We have to check the area both sides of the track from here to Eagle Owl Hut, then as far as Meadow Chalet. We rendezvous with the other groups at 1.00 am.”

  “Does Otan know where the man might have gone to?”

  “Yes. White Elbe Valley. That’s Otan’s patch. He’s taking most of the team there, but he’s also sending small groups to check all possible routes from Spindler’s Mill to Meadow Chalet.”

  Honza dressed and picked up his rucksack.

  “Do we need any other gear?”

  “Nothing special. I’ve a Very pistol and flares. You take the searchlight. Come on, Honza, get your finger out, it’s half-past ten already.”

  As soon as Honza and I slammed the outer door and turned the corner of our hotel, we caught the storm face on. Conversation was out of the question – the din was horrendous. But years of working together in the mountains meant we understood each other perfectly without speech.

  The ridge was marked by three-metre-high wooden posts at ten-metre intervals. Some of these hardly protruded above the afternoon snow cover. We quartered each side of the marked route, concentrating on hollows scooped out by the wind around stunted hill-pines. Visibility was good here, for both fog and falling snow had dispersed. The snow had stopped about six o’clock, but the wind was ferocious and seemed to be getting worse.

  From time to time we used the searchlight and I fired several white flares to illuminate larger areas and give an indication of our position to the missing man. We knew the hill region between us and Meadow Chalet intimately. I’m sure we would have detected any unusual object among the scattered pines.

  After about an hour’s thorough searching on our skis, we cut through corrugated hard-packed snowdrifts and reached Eagle Owl hut. At that time it was Eagle Owl hut in name only as it had burned down soon after the war and new premises had not yet been built. In place of the once luxurious hotel a shabby canteen and telephone had been installed at this point and simple meals were available, with a couple of emergency beds.

  Eagle Owl hut is at one of the most important and dangerous crossways in the Giant Mountains. The popular ridge route connecting Spindler’s Mill with the Meadow Chalet intersects here with the path from the ski villages of St Peter and Pec.

  It wasn’t until we dropped into the snow hollow where the hut is located that we caught a glimpse of a dim light behind frozen window panes. In our searchlight the ugly barracks of a canteen shone like a fairy cottage dipped in silver. We didn’t want to stop and take off our skis; so we knocked on the roof with our ski poles. The canteen keeper came out.

  “What’s the news?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Ring rescue control and tell them we are continuing.”

  “Right, boys. Good luck.”

  As far as this point the plateau is almost level, but beyond Eagle Owl hut it rises abruptly towards a saddle between two hills, a notorious funnel for the prevailing north-west winds to attain their greatest velocity.

  That night it must have been in excess of 100 kph! as we couldn’t breathe or even keep upright. We wrapped scarves over the lower part of our faces and pulled down our goggles. I headed to the edge of Broad Ridge above the Blue Valley. Honza followed using the searchlight from time to time. It was a difficult section.

  The black sky suddenly lightened. There was a glare behind us. A rescue group going up the Long Valley must have set off a white illuminator.

  A rescue team ascending the Blue Valley from the village of Pec replied with another flare. It was heartening to realise that we were not alone in this snow-filled wilderness. I replied by firing one against the wind to indicate that we were on Broad Ridge.

  As our comet-like flare was falling, I saw something strange to the left, quite a way off. I touched Honza with my ski pole and pointed. He understood immediately and without a word we headed for the spot.

  That quick decision to abandon the search on the Broad Ridge and investigate a strange object off our search area later caused me sleepless nights. At the moment of our diversion we were the first two rescuers anywhere near Jan, but we had no way of knowing this. Had we continued in our original direction of search we might have found him.

  Our diversion was abortive: the strange object was a freight sledge from Meadow Chalet, full of frozen meat. It was almost buried in a snowdrift. The tractor driver hauling the sledge up from Pec was probably caught by the snowstorm in the afternoon and decided to abandon the freight, rating personal safety above punctual delivery.

  Having investigated the sledge, we continued searching the area leading to the saddle. I forgot the section on Broad Ridge which we had missed by doing the diversionary search. We reached the saddle. This next section proved to be the worst. We had to lean against the wind like ski-jumpers, otherwise we could not have moved. The prevailing good visibility seemed strange. The light of the summit hut on Snezka looked like a star and we could see the dimly lit windows of Meadow Chalet. Far below across the ridge we recognised Polish towns and villages. Though it had stopped snowing, when we stood still our skis and boots were completely covered by a dense layer of snow crystals drifting in the hurricane close above snow level. It looked like a flying carpet.

  Three green flares appeared in the black sky. One o’clock. Time for the rendezvous at Meadow Chalet. We skied down the slope.

  For the rest of the night we searched through the White and Devil Meadows. Though there were about fifty of us we didn’t find anything.

  On 31 December 1959 it was foggy, damp and cold. The wind of the previous night had abated in the early hours to be replaced by fog. By three o’clock in the afternoon it was getting dark and people were preparing to see in the new year. The self-service grocery at Spindler’s Mill was chock-a-block with customers. Skiers forced off the slopes by the fog consoled themselves by stocking up with wine for the evening’s festivities, while the wives of the rescue team wondered whether they’d be greeting 1960 on their own again that year, as their menfolk were still up in the mountains hunting for the missing skier.

  One of the long-suffering wives was standing in the queue at the check-out behind a couple of students wrangling amicably over the rate of sugar consumption in their lodgings. The boy laughingly accused the girl of giving it all away to Jan yesterday, and she had rounded on him saying was she expected to let that ridiculously ill-equipped idiot set out into the blizzard without anything to chew on all the way up to Meadow Chalet.

  The village woman could contain herself no longer and broke into their romantic bickering to find out if they knew whether their Jan was the same man that her husband and many others were out looking for. “They were out all last night and today in the White Elbe Valley.”

  There was a pause while the young couple, sobered now, digested her information.

  “Why are they searching in White Elbe Valley?” Vaclav asked.

  “That’s where he told his friends he was going.”

  “No, he didn’t go that way. He went into Long Valley.”

  On the information gleaned from this chance encounter Otan re-briefed the rescue team and we prepared for another new year on the hill.

  We had only been skiing for a short time when we caught a glimpse of white flares in the foggy sky somewhere in the direction of Eagle Owl hut. As we approached we also saw green lights in the fog. This was a signal to meet up. We were annoyed as we had now to descend the steep zig-zag trail. There was quite a large group of rescuers already there. Otan was looking at something in the snow on the steep slope bordering the path. Footprints had been found, leading directly uphill, ignoring the winding path. All the rescue team now followed Otan. The prints were partly covered under a thin layer of fresh snow so that only faint indentations were visible. The covering of fresh snow indicated that they must have been made the day before, just before the snow stopped at about 6.00 pm. This would fit with the knowledge we now had that Jan had left
the St Peter hut at 4.00 pm. An inexperienced skier without a torch could take at least two hours to reach Eagle Owl hut. The climb was long and tiresome. After we finally left the wood and reached the open plateau, the footprints disappeared, covered no doubt by the drift in yesterday’s storm.

  Otan had now to decide what to do. Where had Jan gone? Straight ahead? Left or right? Such crucial questions usually occur during the course of a rescue operation. Further development of the rescue depends on sound psychological reasoning and, sometimes, good or bad luck. Discussion is often impossible because of the severe conditions. The leader must decide on his own which direction the operation will take.

  Otan later explained that he remembered the example of the Babes in the Wood. When they lost the way they looked for a light and went in its direction. Jan probably did the same. From the edge of the plateau he would only see the lights of Richter’s Chalet because the Eagle Owl canteen, though closer, was hidden in a hollow.

  “This way!” Otan pointed with his stick to the right. “Richter’s Chalet. Do a sweep search, check absolutely everything!”

  This was a sound decision. Within fifteen minutes we found one of Jan’s hazel sticks in a direct line between the last footprints and Richter’s Chalet. Jan couldn’t be far away. To be without a ski pole is like being minus a leg.

  Unfortunately, the stick was the last clue that night. Although we made various sweeps and cross-sweeps, checking every dwarf pine, we didn’t find anything. As the night progressed we became depressed and quarrelled about nothing. I’m sure that none of us knew the exact number of line searches we did to Eagle Owl canteen, then down as far as Richter’s Chalet, uphill again, downhill again, across, back. Nothing.

  The fog turned red.

  “Look, a red flare!”

  A red flare was the agreed signal to halt the rescue operation. But why stop it? Who would give such an order? The flare was a long way off and Jan couldn’t have gone as far as that.

  “It’s midnight!” One of our party looked at his wristwatch. “A New Year is just beginning!”

  “I strictly forbade anyone to shoot flares to celebrate tonight.” Otan was very angry.

  “They’re drunk, Otan,” I said. “They don’t know what they’re up to.”

  We started to search again across an icy face. We were all silent. I imagined the others shared the same thoughts: millions of people were wishing each other a Happy New Year at that moment. We just got on with the job.

  With dawn the fog seeped into the valleys. The dark blue, cloudless sky turned slowly lighter and the snow on the mountains glared like polished silver. Finally, the sun, that eternal wonder, rose and changed the angry dark mountains into an idyllic picture of tranquillity. We returned home depressed.

  I took little notice of the toy-like figures emerging from the forest far down the Blue Valley. They were in a long line on the steep snow-covered slopes. It was a rescue team from Pec taking over. Just then I was indifferent to the situation: I had no interest, no sentiment, no emotion. I was spiritually low. I was exhausted.

  Bohous, a skilled mountain guide and rescuer, was on the extreme left of that line in the bed of the Blue Stream. They had been detailed to go as far as the so-called Grave, a sheer gorge where the Blue Stream starts. During his long years of rescuing, Bohous had found several victims there. But there was nothing that day, other than fresh fox prints. Bohous was also a dedicated hunter and seeing the fresh spoor awakened primitive instincts. He forgot the search and followed the fox prints. The fox had gone straight uphill towards Broad Ridge. So did Bohous. But the rescue group continued through Blue Valley veering right so that the distance between them widened. Bohous did not even notice this, he was too absorbed. Out of breath and sweating, he felt a satisfaction in his choice of climbing wax. The skis did not slide back one millimetre.

  Cresting the steep slope the fox skirted round a stand of slender pines. It was at that moment that Bohous had his first glimpse of the animal, but it got scent of him and immediately took off as fast as the deep powder allowed.

  “Now it’s given up its scent,” Bohous thought, disappointed.

  “But what’s the reason for it coming up here? There’s bugger all here. Food? Its an icy desert. I wonder – could it have caught the scent of . . .?”

  Bohous felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He took out a cigarette. His hand trembled as he lit it because he felt he was being watched by somebody behind him. The feeling was so strong that he forced himself to turn his head. It was an involuntary action. He didn’t want to turn, but was compelled to do so. He knew exactly what he would see.

  His eyes locked on a pair of wide open light blue eyes. They stared at each other for a long time. Bohous’s living ones full of fear, the dead ones full of horror.

  Jan was sitting against a pine trunk. He had his leather helmet on and his face was sheathed in ice which reflected the cold New Year’s Day sun. The rest of his body was covered by the snow.

  Otan arrived at our hotel one afternoon in early January. It was an unexpected visit. Honza brought coffee and cigarettes and discreetly left the room immediately.

  Together we drank coffee and smoked, we didn’t talk. However, I felt something important would be said. After a long time Otan asked:

  “Are you sick? Your wife told me that you’re not right.”

  It was true that I didn’t feel well, but it wasn’t sickness. It was a mental state which had plagued me since New Year’s Day when Bohous had found Jan on the Broad Ridge. I just couldn’t find my previous peace of mind. The wide-open eyes of the dead man with that transfixed look of horror had made me blame myself for Jan’s tragic end. I told Otan about it and he listened in silence.

  “I led the search towards the Broad Ridge that first night. I shot a white flare and, seeing a strange object far to the left in front of us, I abandoned the Broad Ridge search. Jan must have seen us, he must have cried out when he saw us moving away. I am sure that he died from despair which was mirrored in his eyes even in death.”

  Otan looked steadily at me. “No, you’re wrong, Milo. The boy died between 7.00 and 8.00 pm that first day, due to exhaustion and shock. At least four hours before you reached that area. I received the result of the autopsy today.”

  “Are you sure, Otan?” I asked.

  “Quite sure, I had guilt pangs like you. I made a mistake, too, during the search the second night. As soon as we lost his footprints near Eagle Owl hut, I was sure that he went towards Richter’s Chalet, because he would have seen the lights. That was basically correct, and finding one of his hazel sticks convinced me. Do you know why we didn’t find anything more that night? Because when you go down towards Richter’s Chalet, the lights disappear again behind a snow bank. I went back in daylight and saw my mistake. After the boy lost the lights he must have turned left towards Broad Edge where he met his end. I’ll have to get to know my mountain again, Milo. I know nothing.”

  This was the longest speech I had ever heard Otan give and he had not finished.

  “In the end it was that fox hound, Bohous, who found him, and none of us could have helped him. He was dead before we knew that he was missing.”

  In January 1975 Honza Messner perished tragically on the icy mountainside of Snezka attempting to rescue an injured tourist, and Otan Stetka died nine months later, of a heart attack.

  Duel with An Teallach

  Hamish MacInnes and Iain Ogilvie

  Just occasionally one hears of an act of bravery which seems to go far beyond the bounds of rational action. It may be someone saved from drowning by a complete stranger or a child snatched from the teeth of a blazing inferno by a passing Samaritan, but usually such acts of mercy are of short duration, at least those which involve a single rescuer, though both lifeboat crews and various teams of rescuers can be exposed to danger for long periods.

  The striking thing about Iain Ogilvie’s attempt to save his friends on an ice-bound mountain in western Scotland is t
hat it was a protracted effort by one man. There was no other alternative, for to have left his friends and gone for help would have certainly sealed their fate. As it was they had a chance, however slim, if he stayed with them and moved them to a safer place on that hostile peak.

  First let me describe the mountain in question, An Teallach, which means the Forge in Gaelic. Heading north towards Ullapool in north-west Scotland, one first catches a glimpse of the castellated peaks of An Teallach from the Dundonnell Forest beyond Garve. It’s not a forest of trees, but a deer forest, squelchy bogs, bouncy heather and of course deer. The road to the doorstep of An Teallach forks left from the A835 to Ullapool. Skirting the Corrieshalloch Gorge, it weaves downhill on the Road of Destitution, a name inspired by starving natives of the area who built it during the potato famine of 1851 – payment was made in potatoes!

  This road gives the best tourist’s view of the mountain; few peaks in the British Isles can vie with its rugged profile, it looks as if it was carelessly built by a crazy architect. What one can’t see from the Road of Destitution is Toll an Lochain, an inkwell-like lochan huddled beneath the great cliffs. Around it for threequarters of its circumference An Teallach bends like a cross-cut saw. The highest peak is Bidean a’Ghlas Thuill (3,483 feet/1,062 metres). Eight further summits curl round the lochan to the west and south, the southerly aspect terminating in AnSail Liath, the Grey Heel.

  On 17 April 1966, three friends travelled north from London and parked their car in a lay-by off the Destitution Road. They were Iain Ogilvie, fifty-three, a member of the Alpine and Scottish Mountaineering Clubs; Charles Handley, fifty-nine, known as Tommy, who was of the Alpine Club and Climbers’ Club, Peter Francis at thirty was the youngest member, a good rock climber – but he didn’t have the snow or ice experience of the other two.

  Shouldering their packs they climbed to the col east of An Teallach and made a high camp. There was an unusually heavy covering of snow for the time of year – moreover, it was extremely hard; as hard as Iain Ogilvie, with his wide knowledge of Scottish conditions, had ever experienced in early spring.