The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 35
The Soviet Mountaineering Federation had made a huge effort of organisation in drawing together climbers from many nations in a huge meet in the Achik Tash valley of Kirghizia. Under the great domes of Peak Lenin and her neighbours they built a tented village for more than 150 foreign climbers and many more from the Soviet Mountaineering Federation. The climbers came in relays from Moscow after meeting there in early July. While they flew in from all over the globe, our contingent chugged across Europe on the London to Moscow express, drinking endless glasses of chat (tea). After only a day or so in the hurly burly of the capital, a whirl of circuses, meals, intense conversations and meeting both our hosts and other national groups, we flew south-east from the great plains to the dry lands of Central Asia, to Osh on the old trade route to Peking and at last to the Alai Valley. As the climbers spilled from the plane into Asian heat and the red dust there shimmered a dazzling wall of mountains which spanned the whole horizon to the south. A few hours jolting by lorry led us to Base Camp at over 10,000 feet, tired and yet elated by the journey from Moscow in less than twenty-four hours. Dinner came in a great military tent only twenty miles or so as the crow flies from Sinkiang, China.
The Base Camp was run by the Moscow psychiatrist, Michael Monastyrski, a small weather-beaten individual who could put on a stern look of disapproval if things went badly. In practice he proved a sympathetic and likeable man, for whom the International Meet held many trials in store. Michael organised the logistics of the camp and was responsible for the smooth running of the establishment and of supplies which had to be ferried either from the Alai airfield or from Osh, a twelve-hour dusty road journey.
Mountaineering was arranged in liaison with a small group of prominent officials of the Soviet Mountaineering Federation, including the veteran of numerous first ascents, Vitali Abalakov, and the urbane one-time secretary of the Federation, Eugene Gippenreiter. Both Eugene and Michael spoke excellent English, making our visit far easier. Also, each group was asked to develop a special relationship with an adviser, a prominent Master of Sport who would comment upon plans made and volunteer as much help as possible. There were a few days settling in, medicals of a simple nature, waiting for gear to arrive and checking on plans. This was all to the good for acclimatisation aided by short walks towards Peak Lenin across grassy meadows or to the yurts of the Kirghizian shepherds tending their flocks of sheep and goats.
Eventually all the formalities were complete, the various climbing groups moved off towards a variety of objectives and we drew our food from the stores, packed our sacks and set off for the Krylenko Pass, 19,095 feet, which had to be crossed to reach the base of the East Face of Peak Lenin. There was quite a crowd on the 5,000-foot north slope of the pass. Apart from the British, who broke the trail up through deep snow in three days, eleven American, three or four Soviet climbers and a team of Japanese were moving in the same direction. Though there had been negotiations about precisely which objectives the various groups were to try once the pass was crossed, the eventual outcome appears to have been left to fate and the relative speeds at which the parties moved. Doug and Tut were first up the slope, unsurprisingly as Doug had only recently returned from over 27,000 feet on Everest Southwest Face, while Tut generally goes well at altitude. In contrast Speedy and I found 19,000 feet for the first time a terrible graft, but eventually we all made it over and down to a camp on the Saukdhara Glacier at about 17,000 feet.
It was a marvellous but remote spot, ringed in by a line of major peaks and opening up vast views of glacial wastes and more distant and little explored snow mountains. Like a huge Brenva Face of Mont Blanc, the East Face of Peak Lenin looms across the head of the glacier, a mass of hanging séracs and soaring ice ridges. Ever energetic and impatient, Doug and Clive set off late in the afternoon of our arrival on the Saukdhara, to plod out a path through the deep snow towards the face. Doug was some hundred yards from the tent and unroped when he suddenly disappeared from sight. Clive cautiously peered into the crevasse to find him ensconced on a bridge of snow less than twenty feet below. He fed down a rope and Doug emerged snow covered but fortunately unharmed. The plan was that we should push straight on to the face the next morning, moving lock, stock and barrel up the mountain. It was very ambitious and in retrospect likely to succeed for only a couple of members of the party who were better acclimatised. In any case it was not to be.
That evening two Estonian climbers who had come up via the Saukdhara in support of an attempt on the Hiebeler Route on the East Face distracted me from some serious thoughts as we fed them tea and tried to converse. Soon after dark, snow pattered on the tunnel tents, each crowded with three inmates and already white rimed in frozen condensation.
As the third day of the blizzard dawned in the tiny gauze window of the tent, my head ached and my guts seemed wrenched with exhaustion. A pervasive and nauseous chill crept into every cell of my body. Despite excellent equipment, prolonged inactivity and increased dampness was clogging my system and destroying bit by bit the indispensable insulation upon which all depended. The aches from continued overcrowding in the tent were abominable, while deep and constantly falling snow pressed in the walls and roof. An incessant wind depressed the spirits and was isolating in the extreme. Even Guy’s endless fund of wit froze, while Speedy had long stopped speaking. Only Doug and Tut remained in adequate physical condition, while everyone else had some form of altitude headache. Our nights were disturbed by the jolting of the glaciers, as huge earth tremors twisted the geological substructures through which they carved. Through the black nights and driving snow great echoing roars thundered all too near. Though we saw nothing, the shaking earth hurled off slabs of snow, sweeping the Estonians from the Hiebeler Spur to their deaths and burying an American party on a new route on Peak 19.
I peered out of the tent, moving slowly in the logistics of high altitude brew-making, into a third morning of complete white out. There was no sign of the high peaks, or of anything more than a few yards away. Ambitious plans had dropped us into a trap, as Abalokov had feared. The way up was barred, food was becoming slender and we had to get out. To go downhill would lead via the Saukdhara, close to China, though how close or how far it was we did not know. After some shouted deliberation it had to be the Krylenko again, two miles away and 2,000 feet above. Some of the equipment would stay behind for the next attempt, so the crossing had to be as fast as possible to avoid a tentless night out.
Unhappily, we had assembled in the driving snow outside the tents. Doug and Tut shared the lead, plodding in calf-deep snow at the front of the long rope of six. As we set off into the opaque haze, painfully tramping towards the Krylenko, the Estonians were dead or dying a mile or two away and Jon Gary Ullin was deep under the snow of Peak 19.
After a couple of hours of glacial tramping the caravan stopped for the fortieth time. Through the murk ice cliffs barred the way. “We’ve missed the upper glacier, have to go back, youth,” came from Doug. So down it was, and then up at last into the ice corridor leading between Lenin’s East Ridge and its eastern neighbour. Mercifully, the snow abated and about midday the sun shone for a little while, but the snow softened and dehydrated bodies protested. Doug and Tut still went well, but everyone else suffered headaches. Guy plodded on self-contained but tired, Speedy lost psychological clarity so that urgings made no impact, while I remained mentally lucid but found my knees folding frequently. Clive took up an effective rearguard position and chaperoned us to the Krylenko and a view of the Achik Tash as massive black clouds swept up the valley and boiled into the basin of the descent route. It was six or seven hours after leaving camp with only five more hours of daylight.
From the col the rope split, and while the others sped ahead I remained roped to Speedy, and Clive kept us company on the descent. Only a few hundred feet below the col a great wind-slab avalanche had broken away to a thickness of four feet and several hundred yards wide. Vast areas of slab remained hanging on all sides of the upper basin and, tired as we
were, we moved down as fast as possible, so that our enthusiasm led us to go too low at one point, and there followed a painful pull back uphill to reach the crevasse in which we had left eleven Americans, four Russian climbers and a tent a few days earlier. The site of the camp at 17,400 feet had seemed protected, or at least more nearly so than anywhere else on the 5,000 feet of climbing to the col. The overhanging lip had proved only just sufficient defence. From mounds of snow only a few broken tent poles and tattered rags emerged. Speculation about the fate of the residents seemed pointless. Doug scraped around for morsels of food and found Molly Higgins’ diary. There was little knowing whether this tough little blonde was alive or dead with her companions under the compacted avalanche debris. After more despondent pokings around there was no alternative but to continue down, as our cooking equipment, tent and food had shared the fate of the Americans.
With very few hours to darkness the urgency became the greater as we lacked tents and even down jackets or sleeping bags in some cases. The bank of battleship-grey clouds enveloped everything and in premature dusk we fled very fast as altitude diminished, hopping crevasses and sliding through avalanche debris with manic energy, with no time for ropes or delay. In only minutes I slid down a huge avalanche runnel a thousand feet to the edge of a steepening in the slope, every moment conscious of the recent high temperatures above, ears cocked for a roaring in the mist as the Krylenko discharged its next bombardment. As I peered down, Clive shot out of sight down another avalanche runnel into the gloom. Speedy was close behind, so I did the same, sacrificing caution to speed. Once I turned upside down in the massive careering swoop down the icebacked runnel, but so much deep snow abounded below that the eventual landing was deep and soft. In the mist I could hear voices and, staggering with fatigue, I joined the others as the snow blew in and the temperature began to plummet. Speedy was still to come and there was a small icefall to negotiate before the glacier which led to a place where we hoped some French tents remained.
The minutes ticked by and our bodies froze. We cursed and muttered at the delay and eventually Tut, earliest down and thinly clad, preferred to go back on to the slope to find our companion. In not too long he returned with Speedy. We had gravely miscalculated in leaving him alone as he, unlike everyone else, had not regained mental clarity as descent proceeded. Only a little way up the slope, after making the slide, he had stopped, at a loss as to what to do next. We roped and in the last light negotiated the icefall and in a black night groped down the lower glacier. To my relief as the site of the old camp on Krylenko moraine came in view there was a light, and soon we found ourselves in an American pyramid tent eagerly swilling brews.
Al Steck and Mike Yokell were resting there after escaping the avalanche in the Crevasse Camp above, at the cost of cracked ribs and a battered knee. From them we learned that all seven Americans there had survived, though it had been a close call. Bruce Carson, Fred Stanley, John Evans and Al Steck had been hit by the same avalanche as they fled the Crevasse Camp, and Steck had almost been buried, while all were lucky not to die. Sleep came with the deadness of relief. Masses of snow fell overnight and even the interminable moraine heaps leading to the Pass of the Travellers and Base were heavy going next day.
An earth tremor had started the great avalanche. The Americans had been prevented from crossing the pass on their second carry by the bad weather and were left to the mercy of the Krylenko slope. It almost caught them. The Japanese party had not yet committed themselves to the slope and merely lost gear dumps low down. In the same earthquake a four-man party on Peak 19’s North Face was hit by a similar avalanche and despite frantic efforts to dig him out Jon Gary Ullin died.
After that storm no one dared enter the jaws of the Krylenko, as avalanches streamed down in procession. A mountain of valuable equipment was lost on the slope while we could not get back to the East Face. All subsequent planning was conditioned by tent shortage and by dreadful snow conditions. The Soviet advisers were now acutely worried and understandably anxious there should be no more accidents. At Base Camp there was an atmosphere of pessimism and exhaustion as we rather frantically tried to get permission to get back by a low level route to our equipment, and the camp directorate concealed their grief and preoccupation at the loss of the Estonians. The weather was very bad and a little multi-national group could only ease into black nights with the aid of the national beverages of Scotland and Russia. It seemed justifiable, despite the health rules.
After days of bad weather the shortness of our month long visit pressed, the routines and food of Base palled, and we persuaded our adviser to let us look at the Krylenko again. There was just a possibility of reaching it by the traverse of a 20,000-foot peak to the east and by that circuitous route reaching the camp on the Saukdhara Glacier. It boded ill as we plodded the Pass of the Travellers in driving rain and crossed the miserable and characterless moraines to Moraine Camp.
Early next morning Doug and I tramped up the glacier, but the avalanches on the Krylenko proved no more attractive at close quarters, while the crossing via the spur of Peak Lenin’s outlier was a major venture in itself. Time was short and we needed action, which fortunately suggested itself in an elegant snow ridge of no great difficulty which eventually merged with the East Ridge of Peak Lenin itself. Three Scots, Bruce Barclay, Alan North and Greg Strange, had intended to join us in crossing the Krylenko and now, as a nine-man British party, we changed our plan. The ridge provided a route from below 16,000 feet to the summit of Peak Lenin. It had not been climbed, but ran parallel to a narrower ridge which a French party had ascended while we were on the Krylenko, eventually joining it and the classic Lipkin Route up the main summit. A baking day was spent in making the few preparations, for we had little equipment and only two tents for nine climbers, though we were lacking in neither food nor fuel.
The crocodile of climbers set out early next morning, climbing solo across initial ice slopes on to the ridge and then beginning the most formidable soft ridge plod that I have ever encountered. Almost everyone took turns to make steps, knee-or thigh-deep in the crusted snow. One thought only of the next ridge top, which might be reached in a three- or four-man lead, or of the next few steps upwards, firmly placing the ice axe, no rope, no insurance. At least there was not too much to carry. Gradually the ice jumble of the upper Achik Tash fell below, the sun rose higher in the sky and by late morning a small tower loomed ahead. Doug and Tut ploughed an insecure route direct, while Clive and I also used a rope to outflank its steep section. In such a large group there seemed scope for variation. Above, Clive took the lead on the deepest snow yet, waist deep, softened by late morning sun. No one could sustain more than a couple of hundred feet leading in such stuff.
At last, as the subsidiary peak of Lenin began to look nearer, everybody stopped for a brew, a few sweets, and a slice of smoked sturgeon from the yellow fillet which hung from my rucksack lid. After plodding in front lower down, Clive, Bruce Barclay and I spent about an hour in the afternoon in semi-slumber, while Alan North, Greg Strange and the others pressed on up the upper ridge. As the sun slipped behind the peaks to the west the snow solidified a little and we followed the tracks up small steep steps and round crevasses serrating the upper peak to a shoulder which offered a safe camping place.
The caravan had kept going from dawn to dusk, through morning frost and midday sun, gaining over 3,000 feet and considerable distance in bad snow conditions. It was reason for satisfaction as Doug, Guy, Clive and I all hacked away at the snow cave in which two of us would reside to relieve the tent shortage. There was a bitter wind which urged on the outdoor activities and Clive and I were glad to slide gingerly inside, trying to avoid the tendency to knock crusts of snow on to down gear. Clive snuggled into his duvet, with only a blue hat and hooked nose emerging from the down cocoon, as I resuscitated fingers frozen in the efforts with a snow shovel. With all hands on deck the five-foot cave had taken two hours of breathless effort and it was almost dark when a hot brew
attached to a long arm emerged from the tent.
Overnight it was fine, bitter cold and deep frosty, and the dawn a brilliant blue, with magnificent views east into Sinkiang and north across the arid yellow foothills of Central Asia. A cup of tea again emerged and eventually we struggled from the powdery hole. As always it was difficult to get going. It took an hour to get rigid boots on to cold feet, frozen gaiters on to stiff boots. Speedy poked a nose from the tent he shared with big Bruce Barclay, Greg Strange and Alan North. People just wandered off up the ridge, knee-deep and breathless still, as they were ready. After a few hours a minor summit found the whole party sitting thawing in the sun, brewing and gnawing without conviction at the salted sturgeon.
A few steep little gendarmes of rotten rock decorated the crest of the continuation ridge which would lead to the Lipkin Route up Peak Lenin. The tottering pinnacles looked difficult and time-consuming, and Clive, with a quick eye for a feasible route, led on to a long evasive traverse across unstable slopes of snow. We crossed them before the sun destroyed their cohesion by the same techniques as before, with those out in front who had the energy to gasp and plough through deep snow. At last the ridge broad-ended and the whaleback leading onto the Lipkin stretched ahead. Leaders changed more frequently as fatigue took its toll and midday haze and heat wore down our tired bodies, but still the weather held. There was more tea and a long stop after an especially tiresome rise, while the site of the camping place on the Lipkin was visible a mile or so away. Most people were feeling the altitude and each progressed at his own pace through the deep snow and patches of afternoon mist.
I stopped hurrying on this relatively safe ground, as there was no tent to arrive at on the spur. Tired and in a reverie I looked across the séracs of the North Face of Lenin, above which the Lipkin Route threads a traverse of almost two miles. It was all very big, but curiously rounded and superficially inocuous, deep plastered in new snow everywhere except where avalanches had already swept down after the recent bad weather. Apart from ourselves almost all the climbers in the Achik Tash had been channelled onto the Razdelny and Lipkin Routes up Peak Lenin. It had not appealed to our group at all, and I was pleased with our variant which twinned admirably with the Eastern Rib ascended the previous week by Vincent and Benoir Renard and their friends.