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Tagne 2001 |
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Dan's DiaryDay 29 - Thursday 26th July 2001see also Alan's Diary for today
My 2am alarm rang out simultaneously with Jon's and Andy's. I hadn't slept that well. In fact I felt that I hadn't slept at all but I knew I had drifted in and out of various levels of consciousness. I threw on my warm clothes in the small amount of space I could find. Jon undid the tent zip and looked outside. He said the cloud was low, but there was no suggestion of calling it off. Can you imagine the three of us spending a day squashed into our tent waiting for the weather to clear? No thank you. I drank my hot chocolate from my flask, spilling some in the tent. I then put on my waterproofs, boots and gaiters, all by the illumination of my head torch. I undid my end of the tent and freshly fallen snow fell off the roof and down my neck. I struggled to get out of the low porch. I came to the conclusion the tent was either designed for the Japanese or for children, as the entrances were ridiculously low. Outside was a world of blackness. I stood on the ice and put my harness and crampons on. I wasted time tying my prussik loops (again). Alan, Jon and Steve were tied onto one of the ropes and were ready to go. I tied onto the other end of Andy's rope and took some coils. I put my gloves on and picked up my axe, and at 3:20am we headed up the glacier into a world of darkness. Alan lead the way, with Steve some ten metres behind in the middle of the rope and Jon at the back. At the head of the second rope, Andy kept close to Jon, and I was some twelve metres behind Andy, keeping the rope between us taut. We soon reached the first incline and our pace slowed. Silence was all around apart from the crunching of ice as our crampons pierced the fresh snow and penetrated the ice below. The glacier flattened out again as got higher and again we were able to pick up speed. We soon came to a series of crevasses though, causing us to stop frequently while Alan wandered about in the dark searching for a suitable place to cross. It was pitch black and I had no idea how far we'd gone or how far we had to go. The cloud blocked out any stars that shone and all we had was our head torches for guidance. I soon got into a monotonous rhythm of planting one foot in front of the other looking for small cracks in the snow that might indicate the presence of a crevasse. The crevasses started off small, about a foot wide with open icy walls that were easy to spot and cross but as we got higher up the glacier the crevasses were several metres wide and snow bridges had to be used to cross them. The gaping black cracks in the ice swallowed up the beam from my head torch when I stopped to peer in. Some had icicles, which descended down into he darkness.
Jon was the first to go knee-deep into a crevasse when the snow bridge he was on gave way beneath his feet. When I came to the same spot seconds later all I could see was a massive bottomless void through the small hole his foot had created when it slipped through the snow bridge, which was over a foot thick. I trod to the side of the hole, hoping to find more stable snow. My foot sank in, and kept on sinking up to my knee. My right foot dangled out the bottom of the hole into the top of the void. I told Andy to keep the rope tight in case the whole lot gave way, I didn't want to follow it. I exchanged my walking pole for an ice axe and tried to stand up on my left foot, but found it was trapping my right foot by trying to fit down the same hole. After a lot of frantic wriggling I managed to lift my left foot out and stand up on it, pulling my right leg out of the hole. The incident had served as a wake up call and warned me of things to come. I paused for a moment to regain my composure and get my breathing back to normal before continuing. We had crossed the main crevasse field when I requested a toilet stop. My stomach had been churning like a washing machine and every five minutes it wanted to empty its load. I tried to convince it this wasn't a good idea but after hanging on for so long I decided it was better out than in. Major time-wasting ensued as I battled to take off my coils, slings, gloves and jacket. My salopettes and trousers soon followed. Five minutes later the deed was done and I felt marginally better. Steve had taken the opportunity to do likewise. In my attempt to be ultra-lightweight I had left my toilet paper in my tent. Andy let me use some of his, saving the precious pages of my notebook for a more worthwhile cause. I put everything back on, and then shouted to the others that they could continue. The skies had started to lighten. Black silhouettes became colourful figures and before long we were turning our head torches off. A huge bergschrund could be seen looming in the distance, stretching from one side of the valley to the other. We had no choice but to go over it. Alan went first, gingerly edging over the snow bridge before taking a large step up over the ice lip. Above the crevasse the gradient was steep. Alan slowed made his way up, stopping to catch his breath every few steps. Steve, Jon and Andy all followed one at a time keeping the rope tight at all times. By the time I came to the huge crevasse theirs was a well-trodden route. I crossed the snow bridge, but being fairly short and not very subtle I couldn't get my foot up on top of the overhanging lip. I planted my axe and tried to pull myself up, but without a second axe or a firm footing I was going nowhere. I got frustrated. Here was I holding everyone up. Everyone else had got across; how come I was finding it so difficult? I planted the points of my crampons on my left foot into the ice lip. I put weight on them to see if they held. They did hold but I knew they weren't very secure. I hoped they would hold long enough for me to get my right foot up over the ice lip. I planted my axe and on the count of three stood up on my left foot. My left foot slipped as my right leg came up. A sharp pin prick sensation stopped the rise of my right knee under my left foot. I had no option but to drop back down onto the snow bridge having lost all momentum. Pain bolted through my right leg sending it into a kind of numbness. I looked down at my knee and knew exactly what had happened. A spike from my left crampon had gone into my leg just above the knee. I wasn't bothered about my injury, but I was distraught about the slit I had put in my new salopettes. I ignored my injury thinking it was one of those that hurt a lot but in fact did very little damage. I waited for the warm sensation of blood trickling down my leg but there was nothing. I kidded myself into thinking it was nothing serious. Frustrated and annoyed with myself at putting a hole in my salopettes I repeated the move taking care not to impale my knee again. I pulled my self up and stood up on top of the ice lip. Andy and I then plodded slowly on up the steep ice towards the col, which the others were just reaching. We had to stop several times to catch our breath and regain our energy.
We reached the col at 5:45am. It felt a lot later than this as the early morning darkness had disappeared. Cloud covered the route up from the col and hung low in the valley covering the glacier we'd just ascended. The others were sitting on the small mounds of scree next to the ice ridge, resting and eating. My feet were numb with cold and I had begun to wonder if I had been a bit foolish in only wearing one pair of liner socks. I sat on the snow and forced a mars bar down before I put on my waterproof mitts to dry and warm my hands up. They had got wet and subsequently cold as I tried to pull myself up over the crevasse. I had difficulty in getting them on and then when I had, I couldn't get the leash of my ice axe over my bulky mitts. By the time I had wriggled the leash over my mitt Alan, Steve and Jon were disappearing slowly up the slope and into the cloud. Andy and I followed their footprints in the snow, up the ridge line. The cloud occasionally lifted enough for us to catch glimpses of the others ahead, and of a nice cornice to the left of the ridge. The steep icy slope got steeper as we ascended, making progress harder and more tiring. It was a case of taking one step at a time, concentrating on keeping some sort of rhythm going. After every ten steps or so we would stop for a breather, before repeating the cycle. At the top of the icy slope lay a patch of loose small rocks. We crossed over the scree and dropped down the other side for a couple of metres before continuing on up the icy ridge. The broad face of the ridge that we ascended slowly, narrowed into a pointed ridge line. The right hand side was incredibly steep and dropped away into the cloud. We stayed on the left-hand side where there was a flat icy ledge just below the ridge. Unsure just how much of it, if not all, was a cornice we stuck close to the ridge. Andy and I waited on a flat area of snow surrounded by walls of ice that made it into a natural shelter. We were waiting for Jon, Alan and Steve to move on, for they were taking their time over the next section. My stomach and bowels were giving me more grief. I emptied them again repeating all the hassle of removing the necessary clothes and equipment. I took some Imodium and sat on the snow feeling weak. Alan had struggled to find a way up the ridge. A rock band stood in his way on the left-hand side of the ridge. He tried to cross on to the other side of the ridge but the cornice and steep ice made that side even more difficult. Eventually he got to the top of what looked like a difficult rocky scramble and set up what looked like a belay. Steve was having difficulty ascending the rock and Jon was still waiting below him, when the cloud cleared for a brief second showing us how much further we had to go, and that it didn't get any easier. I didn't feel any better and the next cloud deposited fine snow on us. This along with the fact the route was proving to be harder than we had anticipated prompted me to voice my concerns to Andy, saying it might be best to descend. Andy said he wasn't fussed either way. He had completed his first Himalayan ascent and that was all that mattered to him.
Alan, Jon and Steve all reached the top of the rocky pitch at 7:30am. Andy and I had to decide what to do. I was still in doubt about continuing, what with the weather, my health and the difficulty the others had experienced. When in doubt I knew it was best and safest to descend so this is what we did, but not before taking some photos for our various sponsors. Andy shouted across to the others and told them that we were turning around. We took some photos before the cloud came in again and then headed down. The descent was fast, but the snow kept balling up my crampons. Our feet also dislodged small slabs of snow, which cascaded down the slope ever increasing in speed. A brief rest was taken at the rocks. When we started to go again, Andy had become disorientated and started to head down the wrong way. I pointed him back on the right tracks and before we knew it we were at the col. The snowfall had worsened and I believed that Alan, Jon and Steve would soon be following us down. The descent back down the glacier was into the wind and driving snow. We stopped to put on our goggles before descending the steep snow slope onto the glacier below. Every step I would have to tap my boot with my axe to clear my crampon of snow. I soon got into a rhythm; lift foot, tap boot, step forward, lift other foot, tap boot, step forward and so the cycle continued. I soon got fed up of bending down to bang the snow out of my crampons and foolishly gave up doing it. I soon found myself slipping down the steep slope with no grip, on what felt like two inch thick heels. It was slightly disconcerting and from then on I kept banging my axe against my feet to remove the balls of snow.
We jumped down over the large bergschrund, which marked the start of the flat glacier section and then followed our footprints back across the glacier, over and around the many crevasses. Our tents could be seen in the distance, on the lower glacier, as we dropped out of the cloud. Some of the snow bridges were too soft to support our weight so we had to take some detours. Andy went in up to his knees while crossing one crevasse and I did likewise. Both of us managed to wriggle and crawl out to more stable ground. A quick glance back into the hole made me thankful I had stopped where I had! We took a brief stop to remove clothing as it had warmed considerably and then continueddown over less snowy but icier ground to the tents. Snow was still falling but it was now more like sleet. We took our gear off and untied the rope, before scampering into the tent to shelter from the foul weather. It was 9:30am. We took our wet waterproofs off, and lay under our sleeping bags snoozing. The next time I looked at my watch it was 12pm. It was still snowing. I lay there in a daze. I was awoken sharply at 1pm by a large rock fall, which echoed around the valley. I undid the tent zip and looked outside. The snow was even heavier than before. Our tracks had been covered by fresh snow, as had the equipment we'd left outside. I glanced up the glacier to see if I could see them returning. There was nothing but cloud. I did the zip back up and hid under my sleeping bag once more.
On several occasions either I or Andy thought we could hear the others returning but it turned out to be either the tent flapping or some rocks falling or just our imagination. Andy ate his lunch of two cereal bars, some nuts and sweets, while I tucked into a pepperami and some winegums. Afterwards Andy passed the time by playing cards and I did some word puzzles. There was a brief respite in the snowfall at 2:45pm. Andy and I used the opportunity to venture outside and empty our bladders. We re-pegged the tents, as the outers had fallen in onto the inners. We collected the stoves and food from Steve and Alan's tent in case the weather came in again. The cloud had lifted sufficiently to allow us to see the col but there was no sign of life.
All afternoon I had the feeling of a lump in my throat, as if I had swallowed a chestnut and it had become lodged in the back of my throat. I wondered what it was. Was it swollen glands? Had I overdosed on the iodine? Who knew? It made swallowing painful and fortunately thus prevented me from nibbling away at my supplies. At 4:37pm the sun poked through the clearing cloud and turned the tent into a sauna. It had stopped snowing for the past hour. I stuck my head out of the tent and glanced up the glacier and along the ridge for any sign of movement. There was none. Andy finished playing patience.
We both lay there in silence. Thoughts raced through my mind. What if they had fallen into a crevasse? What if they had been on a cornice that had collapsed? What should we do? Should we go down as planned or should we go and search for them? We had no extra food. Thousands of questions and thoughts raced through my mind at alarming speed, each one popping up before I had time to answer the previous ones. At 5pm I decided to get up and cook tea. We boiled the water outside on the glacier but a biting cold wind forced us back in to our tent to eat our instant mash with beef oxo, cheese and peanuts mixed in. I managed to bite my lip while eating. I cursed myself. It was the same spot that I had bitten the previous evening while eating. Andy went off to empty his system and I cooked another pot of mash for him. The whole mountain could be seen now, but again nothing moved.
Then at 6:15pm as I conducted my routine search of the path they would have taken, I spotted a black dot on the ridge. I watched closely as it appeared to move down the ridge. My eyes never left the black dot. I watched it for minutes, maybe more, until I was certain that it had definitely moved. I looked back up the ridge and there was another black dot. Two of them. "It's got to be them. What else would it be?" I thought. I noticed a third dot back on the ridge. It was a long way behind and I thought there was no way that it could be them after all, for their rope wasn't that long. Were they just bits of the exposed rock under the ice? Were my eyes playing with me? Lots of questions and no definite answers. I told Andy what I had seen as he returned. We stood and stared. The dots spent ages standing still, with only one dot moving tediously slowly at a time. If they were Alan, Jon and Steve they must be belaying each other, as sometimes they'd be all together and other times they would be far apart. Then one by one they disappeared. Had they dropped down the far side of the ridge? Or was my dream over? Andy ate the rest of his mash and rested in his sleeping bag. I had a hot chocolate and a packet of biscuits.
By 7:10pm the black dots had re-emerged below the rock band where Andy and I had left them that morning. They were still at least two hours away and probably more as they were moving desperately slowly and it would soon be dark. They were moving so slowly I thought someone was injured and they were having to drag or pull them down. I went to make a flask of hot chocolate for them when they returned but the pot of water had frozen over. I had only filled it half an hour previously. I took some photos of the sunset as the water in the pan boiled. I made a flask of hot chocolate and then filled the pans with water ready in case they wanted a meal when they returned. By 7:40pm they had moved only metres along the ridge. Why were they going so slow? They got lost in the darkness and I retreated to the warmth of my tent. I put my torch on and left it under the fly sheet so that Alan, Jon and Steve would be able to find the tents. I set my alarm for 9pm so I could put the water onto boil before they arrived back and then tried to get some sleep.
My 9pm alarm went off. I unzipped the tent eager to see three yellow beams flickering in the darkness. I looked up the glacier. There was nothing. It was eerily silent. Darkness filled the air. There wasn't even a wind. The sky was clear and I could see the col, so why couldn't I see any head torches? Again a thousand and one possibilities ran through my head. Maybe they had fallen into a crevasse. Maybe my eyes had been deceiving me or maybe they were behind one of the undulations in the glacier, out of view. Yes that was right, they were just over the lip of the first undulation and any minute I'd see their head torches. I waited. I waited and waited. Nothing came. I gave up thinking realising there was little I could do until the morning and did the tent zip back up. I drifted into a deep sleep.
I woke up to find Andy doing likewise. He looked at his watch horrified to discover it was 10pm. We had agreed to get up and cook tea for them at 9pm but I hadn't woken him, because there was no one to cook for. I filled him in and took another look outside. Nothing. The thoughts returned. Would they bivi? Why would they bivi? No they wouldn't bivi. Would they? I turned my head torch off believing they wouldn't be back that night and went back to sleep trying not to think the worst.
I next awoke at 11pm. There was the unmistakable crunch, crunch of crampons piercing the ice. I unzipped the tent like a child opening his first Christmas present. I woke Andy up in doing so, but didn't care because there in the darkness, some two hundred metres away were three head torches. I had waited a long time for that sight and at last it had come. It was the happiest image that even I had given up hope of seeing. They dumped their stuff on the ice looking exhausted. The rope was frozen solid, their ice axes mashed, their feet cold and their hands warm. They drank the hot chocolate and nibbled biscuits as they sorted themselves out. Thankfully they wanted sleep and not food so I was able to stay inside the tent. As Alan and Steve went to their tent and Jon clambered in ours, the cloud descended once more and visibility, even with a head torch reduced to zero. They had got back just in the nick of time.
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© Copyright Steve Jolly 2001. |
