Shishapangma by Scott Doug; MacIntyre Alex;

Author:Scott, Doug; MacIntyre, Alex;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2014-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

ALEX: Roger and I persevered and soon reached snow, up which height was quickly gained, while Doug, now facing more compact rock, re-emerged to enquire the nature of our future prospects – a bearded, bonneted, icy, Carringtonesque face grinning at us from round a corner and enquiring, ‘What’s it like, youth?’

‘Snow for another 50 metres, then more ice for about a hundred metres to the ridge behind the last tower. It looks good from there to the rock band.’

Doug, suspicious of metres, let alone ice, was unhappy. Hard ice imposes tremendous strain on the lower joints of the leg and Doug now had pinned joints following an abseiling accident on the Ogre. ‘Why don’t you two come over here for a change, instead of climbing that bloody boring stuff.’

A certain contempt for the ice, and by implication the people who chose to climb it, was unmistakably evident. Perhaps intended to jar or embarrass us into joining him, it had the opposite effect on me. Not at all unsympathetic to a change of rhythm and the idea of rock climbing, I was, however, personally unsympathetic to the tone which became more apparent as I grew increasingly reluctant – a reluctance I believed to be well-founded. From my vantage point it appeared that, in a short while, anyone who wished to make progress would be forced by the compact nature of the towers above to move back on to the ice, and no time would be saved – in fact it might well be lost. But Doug was now harping determinedly, in an almost talking-down fashion that had no place in a team like ours on a Face such as this.

Why couldn’t he just say his legs hurt and ask, the bloody old fool? ‘Quit talking to me like a child, Doug.’

‘Why not, that’s the way you talk to Nick.’

What! Is he serious, does he really want to get into a personality clash here? I started to boil. ‘Bloody hell, Doug. Nick is a child in this terrain; at least I don’t treat him like a puppy!’

Another 30 metres or so higher I could see clearly that Doug would be back on ice – and harder, more polished-looking ice than I would be climbing. Why couldn’t he just accept my judgement? Why distrust me?

Roger was starting to move over to his left to oblige the insistent Doug. I shouted down to him as he began to negotiate thin snow over rubbery ice.

‘I don’t think there is any point, Roger, the last pillar is detached from your rock by an icy col, and it’s not worth climbing, or even easy if he does want to climb it.’

Meanwhile Doug, secure in the knowledge that he had at least one rock partner, was firing questions at me vis à vis his possibility of progress.

‘Well, I reckon you can move around the right side of that pillar if you want, but there’s nothing doing above. ‘And with that I changed a mental gear and continued my

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