Sea, Ice and Rock by Chris Bonington

Author:Chris Bonington [Chris Bonington and Robin Knox-Johnston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912560530
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2019-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

– CHAPTER 6 –

DECISION TIME

We had been back for nearly twenty-four hours and had spent most of that time in our sleeping bags, but Jim and I had discussed our plans for another climb. We were torn between making a further attempt on the Cathedral (Point 2,660 metres) and trying the mountain that we had originally perceived to be the Cathedral (Point 2,600 metres). We had therefore decided to investigate the right-hand fork of the glacier, skiing up to the top of the headwall we had stopped short of on our first reconnaissance.

Jim stirred, raring to go.

‘Come on, Chris, time to get up.’

I groaned and buried myself deeper into my sleeping bag.

‘I’m too bloody tired and my neck hurts. You won’t see anything anyway.’ Snow had been pattering on the tent walls for some time.

Another half hour went by, and I heard the purr of the stove.

‘Want a cup of tea, Chris? I think I’ll go and have a look anyway. I could do with the exercise.’

I envied the energy of youth. It’s the recovery time more than anything else that slows you down as you get older. At the age of twenty-six, twelve hours’ rest is sufficient to bounce you back to almost full efficiency, but at the age of fifty-seven you need quite a bit more time to recover from a gruelling day, so let Jim take up the story.

‘At about noon I started to feel restless. After all, you don’t come all the way out here just to lie like a maggot in a sleeping bag reading fourteenth-century history books all day. I took a peek outside and, although the mountains around us were clad in a thin plastering of fresh snow, I was encouraged to see that the visibility had improved. So, I thought, why not go for a relaxing ski with just a light sack and some lunch and take a look at the Nameless Glacier (as we had come to refer to it) which is at the top of the right-hand fork of the glacier leading to the Cathedral. In the back of my mind, and no doubt Chris’s, was the suspicion that, despite the map, the big mountain to the north was higher than the rocky Cathedral. What we needed to know was whether it was climbable from this side, in other words from the top of the Nameless Glacier. If so, we could consider having a crack at that, instead of a second attempt at the Cathedral, though, heaven knows, we would be running seriously short of time if we changed our objective at this late stage.

What I needed was someone to come with me on my recce, and I really wanted Chris to come to give his assessment of the climbing potential. I knew he was reluctant, so I thought I’d get other volunteers first and then he’d feel left out if we all went off without him and perhaps he’d change his mind. I asked Allen first, thinking that he usually says “yes”.

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