No Easy Way by Fowler Mick;

No Easy Way by Fowler Mick;

Author:Fowler, Mick; [Mick Fowler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 5510617
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2018-06-14T16:00:00+00:00


The squeaky, white ice could not have been better. The heavy monsoon must have sent thousands of tonnes of spindrift cascading into the narrow lower couloir of our chosen line and compacted it to give perfect climbing conditions. Dave, enjoying his first climb in the Himalaya, expressed surprise. This was a million miles away from the Himalayan snow plodding so often portrayed in the press. Clear skies dominated the horizon and spindrift was minimal. Desperate-looking pitches succumbed with relative ease and as the sun dipped in the sky we were only a couple of rope lengths below the easier-looking central section.

‘Where do you think?’ Dave looked at me quizzically as I suggested a bivouac on a steep patch of snow to one side. Soon a new experience for him was being savoured. Having cut two narrow ledges, I snuggled down on one in a bivouac sack and Dave on the other in the tent fabric. The weather was perfect, our one-portion-sized dehydrated food between two was almost pleasant and, after a couple of rehydrating brews, we settled down for a good night’s sleep.

Next morning dawned fine. Steep, thin ice and spectacular ice streaks led up to more open ice fields and by the end of our second day we were about halfway up the face. We were going a little slower than planned but all in all it couldn’t have been much better. It was at this point that I was to demonstrate that nearly thirty years of greater-range experience doesn’t make one immune to the most elementary mistakes. The decision to be made was how best to bivouac when faced with a uniform fifty-degree ice slope and intermittent waves of spindrift. I should have insisted that we cut a bum ledge and sat together shielded from the spindrift by the tent fabric. But the temptation of a lying-down bivouac was too much and so I suggested a nose-to-tail ledge. As this was Dave’s first Himalayan bivouac in such conditions he was happy to defer to my judgement. But the bivouac sack I was using was new to me and so claustrophobic that I was wary of suffocating if I zipped myself completely in. And so, after a night of increasing spindrift and much squirming, so much snow got into my sleeping bag that it became distinctly damp for the top twenty centimetres or so. Noting that this had happened when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky did make me feel particularly silly. In the morning, Dave – relatively snug and dry – marvelled quietly as I sheepishly packed my bedraggled sleeping bag away.

‘Just a little dampness. It will be fine,’ I mumbled unconvincingly.

Our third day on the face started easily but soon steepened into rock walls thinly covered with ice. The climbing was not too difficult but with the ice too thin to take screws it required concentration and a steady head. As dusk began to threaten we were in a similar bivouac predicament to the previous night.



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