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Tagne 2001 |
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Dan's DiaryDay 21 - Wednesday 18th July 2001see also Andy's Diary for today
My 4:30am alarm went off. I lay there waiting for Jon to make the first move. I didn't want to get up to find that I'd got the wrong time or the itinerary for the day had changed. Alan came and opened the tent porch to get the stoves out. That was good enough for me. I got and dressed quickly in the cold dark tent. Jon soon followed suit. I exited the tent after lacing up my boots to find a clear starlit sky with a crescent moon facing me. The three of us got the porridge going and put the tea on. Steve appeared from his tent at 5am and Andy didn't emerge until 5:30am when he heard us say tea was ready. I sorted out rotis and cheese for lunch before packing my rucksack, "visiting the large rock" and filling my bottle up with water. Alan left ABC at 6:50am and I followed him. Steve and Andy came on behind me and Jon left last. Narinder wasn't too well. He was itching and thought he had an allergy from something so he remained at ABC. We ascended the scree and piles of rocky moraine, before descending down the other side to the stream. We crossed the river at the same point as the previous day and then followed the river up to the glacier. Jon soon caught Alan and I up while Steve and Andy had dropped back, unable to keep up with the pace. We decided not to wait for them on the off chance that there might be something climbable up there. We had lost enough time at ABC because they had got up late and hadn't helped with breakfast.
On reaching the snout of the glacier we decided to go straight up the snout rather than up the rocky side as we had done the previous day. We stopped to put crampons on, take out our ice axes, and put another layer of clothes on. Jon and Alan ascended slowly up the snout of the glacier while I finished doing my boots up properly and putting my gaiters on. Andy and Steve arrived just as I was about to set off, Steve a couple of minutes behind Andy. Andy was not happy at being left behind. He thought that it was rude of us to go on without him. I pointed out his lack of enthusiasm and help at breakfast, which he put down to not feeling well. I wanted to say "Well if you're feeling that bad, what the hell are you doing climbing up here?" but I refrained, not wanting to enter into a big argument. Andy asked me to tell Alan and Jon to wait for him and Steve. I started to front point up the snout of the glacier at far to fast a pace. Before long I was huffing and puffing, gasping for air as I forgot how hard it would be. I slowed down and continued to climb at a steady pace. The gradient decreased and I lost sight of Andy and Steve fastening their crampons at the foot of the ice slope. I soon entered the flat plain, weaving between ice toadstools and frozen water channels. I stopped midway across the flat section of ice as the sun came up to put on my glacier glasses and apply some sun cream. Jon and Alan had stopped at the foot of the incline that led up and around the rocky buttress in the centre of the glacier. I joined them and told them what Andy had asked me to. We had already decided we would carry on once before and no one saw any reason to change this so we started up the slope. The ice lay at that inconvenient angle; too steep to walk up normally and at too low an angle to use front points. The pace was slow but continuous. At the lip of the incline we stopped and put on harnesses so that we could rope up. I faffed over taking my coils and then realised I hadn't tied the cord I'd cut into prussik loops!
By the time we were ready to move, Andy had arrived and Steve was following up the slope behind him. He thanked us for waiting for him. I had to stop and think whether he was being sincere or sarcastic. When I realised he meant what he had said I wanted laugh at how he had misinterpreted the situation. I refrained, realising it wasn't worth explaining the truth of the situation. Andy asked us to wait for Steve to arrive, which he had by the time we'd finished taking coils. Andy checked to see if he had an ice screw before we left him to rope up with Steve and headed up across the ice. Jon set a slow but steady pace that was welcome after the slog around the rocky buttress. The rope was kept taut in case someone should inadvertently fall in a crevasse. Alan was second on the rope and I followed on behind. The ice was inclined at about 40°, but this was the most obvious line of attack, so we decided to take a look at it. We zigzagged up on the ice between some scree to our left and some steeper ice to our right. The surface was slushy while underneath a thin slab of ice lay on top of rock. Jon was finding it fairly exposed up the top and had planted a couple of ice screws, which he clipped the rope into. A combination of the condition of the ice and the gradient started to put doubt in Jon's mind and Alan didn't seem that keen, so we did what any climber should do when they have doubts and decided to turn around. We stood still while Alan took some photos before starting our descent at 9:40am. We paused twice on the descent so Jon could retrieve the two ice screws he'd placed. Steve and Andy saw us descending back to the glacier and went to look for another route up. We descended down to a col in the hope of being able to look down into the Spiti valley. A snowy bulge on the far side of the wide col was in the way so the view eluded us. We headed down and across to the top of the rocky buttress in the centre of the glacier avoiding the larger crevasses.
We untied from the rope and sat down to eat some more oatmeal bars and have a drink. Andy and Steve returned and we caught up on each other's findings. We also studied Tagne, since the summit could be seen through the cloud. The lower glacier was heavily seracced and was a no go area, but the scree slopes and rocky ridges on either side looked like possible routes to the glacier in the upper cwm. From here it looked like an easy ascent up to the col and then along the ridge, over a rock band and onto the snowy summit ridge. I started to descend the snow slope back to the snout of the glacier at 10:40am. Alan and Jon followed not far behind. Steve and Andy elected to have a longer rest before following us down. I descended the snout of the glacier, jumping across the deep channels carved out by the melt water rushing off the surface of the glacier. At the snout I stopped and removed my crampons. I watched Jon and Alan come down the glacier snout and waited for them as they removed their crampons. We decided to head down the left hand side of the river as it would be high and difficult to cross downstream.
We kept close to the river as we descended down over the rocks. Two tributaries soon blocked our route. We all got across with dry feet after searching for a suitable place to cross and clambered up the loose scree bank on the far side of the tributaries. Before we knew it we were back down in amongst the piles of moraine. The decision was unanimously made not to follow the river after the previous day's experiences! We walked along the line where the scree slope met the piles of moraine. It was far less undulating than walking through the boulder fields and far more stable than the scree slope, so all in all it was rather good. We arrived back at Advanced Base Camp at 12:50pm where Narinder greeted us, eager to know how we'd got on. The descent had made me hot and I was pleased to be able to remove my waterproof salopettes, gaiters and boots. I ate the rest of my lunch; a pepperami, a honey and almond bar and some peanuts. Narinder made tea for us. Steve and Andy arrived back some forty-five minutes after us and immediately sought the shade of their tents. Narinder and I played chess and Narinder narrowly won. By narrowly I mean I could have got him in checkmate the very next move if he hadn't done it to me first.
At 3pm Steve and Alan moved their tent because they couldn't stand the smell of Andy's tent. This wasn't really the reason. It was so they could turn the tent around to get air into it and because they were frightened of getting buried under falling scree so they said. There was no sound basis for this second reason as we'd not seen or heard any rocks falling down the scree slope since we'd been there. Their tent was twenty metres or so from the foot of the scree slope and the little scree that had fallen hadn't travelled more than two metres on to the river terrace that we camped on. Hence I was sceptical if these were the real reasons why they were moving their tent. We discussed the various routes up Tagne and Narinder pointed out that he'd left his ascenders at Base Camp. "Don't worry. We can pretend" I said. He looked at me blankly not understanding the sarcastic response. I read my book and did a word puzzle. Andy challenged Narinder to a game of chess while the others rested in their tents. I started to cook tea at 5:15pm. We cooked and ate golden chicken and vegetable soup with couscous. I had the rice that was left over from the previous day's meal as well. Then we had a big discussion over what we were going to do the following day. We eventually decided that two people should take the technical equipment and try Tagne via the south glacier, two should descend to Base Camp to save food, and two should go and see if Pt.6250 was climbable. Complications arose when some people couldn't decide what they wanted to do and others changed their minds as to what they wanted to do. Some other options were proposed, such as everyone going back to Base Camp and getting more equipment so that we could all attempt Tagne together. We needed to decide quickly so that people with early starts could get themselves sorted out. First we decided who would attempt Tagne. Jon and Narinder definitely wanted to, and Andy possibly wanted to. Although no one said it out loud, Narinder had one of the two places, as we couldn't really tell him he couldn't go! We just had to decide who went up with him. Fortunately Steve preferred to recce Pt.6250, so he was out of the equation, and I wasn't going to make the situation more difficult so I said I didn't want to go. Alan was quite happy going to recce peak 6250. However Jon thought Alan should go - I think he was a bit unsure about Narinder's climbing capabilities, but Alan said he didn't mind. Just a minute ago Alan didn't want to. Then Andy thought Jon should go with Narinder. At 7:30pm, just as the light was fading there was a U-turn. Andy decided he would climb Tagne with Narinder. There was no debate or discussion. That was it. Settled. The leader had spoken. Andy and Narinder got their things together making sure they had a rope, a stove, two axes each and everything else. Steve and Alan had effectively bagged the recce, so Jon and I were left to head back to Base Camp, not that either of us minded. I had my doubts that anyone would summit on either of the two peaks and even if they did it wouldn't be such a bad thing because then we'd know that the route was doable and that we wouldn't be wasting our time attempting a second ascent! "Have you got belay plates" Andy called from inside his tent. He had forgotten his and Narinder didn't have one either. Jon and I went and got ours and gave them to him. I also gave him some more prussik loops and the altimeter watch. Narinder requested my Leatherman, so I gave them that too. Steve took my brand new axe, since his had been taken as a second axe by Narinder. This hurt me because I knew it would return all scratched. I also gave him some more slide film and the GPS. I got to go to sleep finally at around 8:30pm.
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© Copyright Steve Jolly 2001. |
