County Climber Magazine of the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club WAY BACK IN THE DAY COUNTY CLIMBER RELAUNCHES JACOB AND THE AMAZING LEVITATING KARABINER A TALE OF TWO MOUNTAINS Spring 2015 NOTES FROM A HIMALAYAN DIARY 8000 METRES HANGING ON THE KALYMNOS TRAIL EASTERN GRIT
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County Climber
Magazine of the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club
WAY BACK IN THE DAY
COUNTY CLIMBER RELAUNCHES
JACOB AND THE AMAZING LEVITATING
KARABINER
A TALE OF TWO MOUNTAINS
Spring 2015
NOTES FROM A HIMALAYAN DIARY
8000 METRES HANGING ON
THE KALYMNOS TRAIL
EASTERN GRIT
2
REGULARS
6 EDITORIALJohn Spencer gives us the background info
on all the latest and greatest articles.
8 WEEKEND MEETSA look forward at what’s coming up on our
events calendar. Get your diarys read.
10 LOCAL NEWSSome more detailed information about the
recent rock fall at Bowden Doors.
Cover Shot: John Vaughan leading ‘Pinky and Perky’ (HVS, 5a) on Adrar Iffran, Morocco Photo : John Spencer
About the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club
The NMC is a meeting point for climbers, fell walkers and mountaineers of all abilities. Our activities centre on rock-climbing and bouldering in summer, snow and ice climbing in winter and hill-walking in both.Meets are held regularly throughout the year.
The NMC is not, however, a commercial organization and does not provide instructional courses.
Copyright
The contents of this magazine are copyright and may not be reproduced without permission of the NMC.The views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Editor or the NMC.
Background: The club celebrates another successful meet at Peel Crag Photo : Ian Birtwistle
CONTENTS
36 BOOK REVIEWSWe take a look at some of the latest and
greatest publications.
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14 JACOB AND THE AMAZING LEVITATING KARABINERPete Hubbard tells a tale with Biblical
overtones.
18 WAY BACK IN THE DAYSteve Blake tells an epic tale about a first
ascent on Baffin Island.
28 A TALE OF TWO MOUNTAINSUrsula grapples with her first two moun-
tains in Peru.
32 NOTES FROM A HIMALAYAN DIARY Bryn Roberts offers diary extracts from his
46 THE KALYMNOS TRAIL John Spencer reviews the recently pub-
lished guide to a new walking route on
Kalymnos
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NMC Meets
The NMC Members’ handbook (available to all members) and the NMC website list the dates and locations of all meets.This magazine lists the meets arranged for the next few months.
Non-members are always welcome to attend meets.
Join the NMC
You can now subscribe online which is easier and faster. More information is available at: thenmc.org.uk
Membership Fees• Full £23• Prospective £15 Payment Payment of fees by GoCardlessDirect Debit is pre-ferred; it’s easy to set up, just click here.
Photographs by author of article unless otherwise stated.
Here it is at last, the late, new-look Spring issue (or, as Adrian Wilson put it in the May News-letter, the ‘Sprummer’ issue!), and the first thing to say is that it simply would not (and probably could not) have happened without the help of El Presidente Birtwistle. He came to the rescue in my darkest hour as I struggled to get to grips with Adobe InDesign to use with
the new template - doubtless a fabulous piece of design software, but not an easy one to learn from scratch. Well I think so.
Anyway, thanks to Ian, you have before you the new issue and a completely new design. It’s not nec-essarily the final version we will use, so this should be considered ‘work in progress’, but it’s a great start. I rarely get any feedback about the magazine, other than the occasional cheery comment or email. However, in light of this being a new venture, we would particularly like to know what you think, whether positive or negative (but do be constructive!). Email me at: [email protected]
The other thing to say, not so much a moan as a lament, is that it’s been really difficult getting material this time round; I won’t use it as an excuse for the lateness of the Spring issue, but had it actually been published on time (i.e. around the end of March/beginning of April) there would not have been very much for you to read. Thankfully, there was a late surge of interest and we now have ‘an issue’ which I hope you will find interesting and entertaining.
So what do we have for you?
In Local News, Steve Blake explains what’s been happening in the wake of the dry stone wall collapse at Bowden Doors – it’s not just an informative piece, but a heartening tale of collaboration and coop-eration between club and landowner.
Meanwhile, Pete Hubbard, a relatively new member of the Club, tells a tale with Biblical overtones set in Coire an’t’Sneachda on the highly successful Feshiebridge winter meet in January.
On page 18 Steve Blake tells a story from his youth, a truly epic tale about a first ascent on Baffin Island forty - yes forty - years ago. His story resonates particularly in light of the awful recent events in Nepal.
In a more light-hearted vein, Ursula grapples on page 28 with her first two mountains, in Peru where she’s doing field-work for her PhD (and climbing a lot!). Despite the discomforts she’s not completely given up on mountaineering, apparently.
EDITORIAL
7
Staying in the higher ranges, NMC stalwart Bryn Roberts (now domiciled in Wales) offers diary extracts and some fetching B&W photos from his trip to Nepal last year, part of the time spent with Graham Wil-liams. Both of them (see below) exhort us to dip into our pockets and make a donation to the disaster appeal.
Martin Cooper compares and contrasts two books by British mountain greats, Martin Boysen, one of the great, understated heroes of British rock-climbing, and the first Briton to reach the summit of all 8000 metre peaks, NMC member Alan Hinkes. On page 38 EX-NMC member (indeed former president) Andy Birtwistle enthusiastically reviews the latest Rockfax guide to ‘Eastern Grit’.
Sadly there are two obituaries, of Tony Griffiths, former Club President and gentleman, and Gordon Thompson, former County activist and, by all accounts, general hell-raiser. RIP.
Finally, I review the recently published guide to a new walking route on Kalymnos, the Kalymnos (!) Trail which should provide some interesting and by no means soft-touch alternatives to clipping those bolts.
Three further things.
First, as stated above, Graham Williams writes: ‘In a previous issue of County Climber I wrote an article about my trip to Nepal last November. I mentioned in the article that we stayed twice in Langtang village and about the warm welcome we received there. That village has now been destroyed by a landslide with considerable loss of life. Nepal is a wonderful country but also very poor, it urgently needs help. The Di-sasters and Emergency Committee is collecting donations and spreading the money between some of the larger charities. Alternatively you could send a donation to Community Action Nepal, the charity set up by Doug Scott. Somebody on ukclimbing suggested that everybody who has visted Nepal should donate 1% of the money they spent on the trip. Perhaps we could all think about how much money we spend going climbing every year and how much difference donating a small proportion of that could make.’ Secondly, an apology. In my editing of John Vaughan’s excellent ‘tale of hubris’ (‘Trials and Tribulations in the High Pyrenees’) in the Winter edition of County Climber, I correctly attributed a quotation – ‘‘almost but not quite, entirely unlike what was originally intended’ – to Douglas Adams, but stated it was from a book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe’. Mr Vaughan was incandescent with rage, not just because he’s a stickler for detail and wants you, dear reader, to have the correct information, but mainly lest you think it was his error. Adams’ seminal book is, of course, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, and the editor takes full responsibility for the mistake, humbly begs forgiveness and hopes that John’s reputation remains intact.
Lastly I liked this reflection about our wonderful sport from Neil Gresham that was circulating on Face-book a few weeks ago: “I can’t think of many other sports where girls in their early teens and men in their mid forties have equal chances of leading the field...... Nor can I think of other sports where respect and good will are so prevalent amongst participants at all levels. Where the whole game relies on honesty and trust. Where there are few, if any drug cheats. Where there are so few dickheads. Where there’s a rich creative scene with photogra-phy, film making and writing. Where the winter version packs such a punch. Where the party scene is as ferocious as the training scene. Where you can play in some of the most beautiful, natural places on earth yet have just as much fun at an indoor facility. Where you can travel the world in search of nirvana and return to find it on your doorstep. In fact I can’t think of any other sports that come close and every day I thank the stars that thirty years ago I found climbing.”
I like to think that County Climber reflects the diversity described in Gresham’s quote. Enjoy the read!
- John Spencer
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Saturday 6th June - Sandy Crag day meet - Ian Birtwistle Friday 19th-21st June - Wasdale Head, Keswick - Martin Cooper
Saturday 27th June - Rumbling Kern BBQ - Alastair BoardmanFriday 3rd-5th July - Annual Dinner at Langdale - Adrian Wilson/Ian Birtwistle
Friday 24th-26th July - Meikle Ross, Galloway - John DalrympleSaturday 2nd August - Wild West Meet, Padda crag - John Dalrymple
Friday 21st August - Peak District, Stony Middleton - Alastair BoardmanSaturday 12 September - Navigation Skills (TBC) - Peter Hubbard
WEEKEND MEETS
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AS WE APPROACH THE SUMMER MONTHS A FEW EXCELLENT MEETS APPEAR
ON THE HORIZON. AFTER OUR FIRST NEW MEMBERS MEET IN LANGDALE WAS
A FULL HOUSE WE’VE DECIDED TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN AND HAVE A PARTY
ON TOP...
ANNUAL DINNER, LANGDALE
3-5 JULY 2015
This year the NMC’s Annual Dinner is
being combined with a Langdale meet!
The Annual Dinner will take place on
Saturday 4th July 2015 in the Stickle-
barn in Langdale.
All 24 beds have been reserved in
Raven Crag Cottage (behind ODG);
cost is £27 per person which covers
Friday and Saturday night. Book early
to avoid disappointment, as places
are strictly limited for this excellent
weekend!
To book for cottage: Adrian Wilson
To book for dinner: Ian Birtwistle
Camping: DIY
WASDALE & GABLE, WEST LAKES
19-21 JUNE 2015
Venue will be National Trust campsite
in Wasdale.
Weather will be marvellous!
Contact Martin Cooper for details
GALLOWAY SEA CLIFFS
24-26 JULY 2015
Camping at the excellent Solway View
site, cost is £13 for 2 nights camping.
This is a good location for sea cliff nov-
ices, there are two sectors which aren’t
very high and have stuff up to HVS.
There are other harder sectors too as
well as inland cragging at Clifton.
Contact John Dalrymple for details
The NMC Members’ Handbook (available to all members) and the NMC Facebook Page list the dates and locations of all meets. Or check out our Google Calendar.
“CLIFFS-OF-MOHER-OBRIENS-FROM-SOUTH” BY BJØRN CHRISTIAN TØRRIS-SEN. LICENSED UNDER CC BY-SA 3.0
IAIN JOHNSON ON ORIGINAL ROUTE (SEVERE 4A), RAVEN CRAG PHOTO BY JDAL
JOE SPOOR LOOKING OUTWARDS FROM NAPES NEEDLE, PHOTO BY IAN BIRTWISTLE
Most people who climb in Nor-thumberland will be aware of the collapse of the old wall above Tri-
ple Cracks at Bowden Doors. This was first noticed on the 14th February by some NMC members (Steve Blake and Bob Smith) who removed some precarious blocks.
The club then broadcasted the incident on so-
cial media to make the wider climbing communi-
ty aware of the hazard posed by the remaining
debris. There was no evidence that the collapse
was related to climbing; it appeared that the nat-
ural pediment the wall’s buttress was built on col-
lapsed, precipitating a progressive catastrophic
failure. It would have been impressive to witness!
Clearly the landowner needed to be made aware,
and efforts were made to identify who was respon-
sible for the wall. About ten days after the event
a meeting was arranged with the Land Agent for
the estate who was keen to meet and discuss the
wall and some other issues. Steve Blake, John Dal-
rymple and John Vaughan (in his role as BMC Ac-
cess Representative) met with the Agent and his
Manager. In the meeting it became apparent that
a key issue for them was ensuring access for farm
vehicles through the Back Bowden gate - it has
been blocked in the past by thoughtless parking.
The club offered to provide appropriate signage
for the parking, and where necessary some
stiles at Bowden and Back Bowden. Overall the
meeting was a success with the Agent and Manager
supportive of our activities. At the conclusion of the
meeting Steve went back to the wall and removed some
more material, then made another visit, reducing the
remaining debris to the non-existent foundations -
several tons of masonry were manhandled to the plateau.
A further visit took place to discuss the positioning of
the fence that will replace the wall, John Dalrymple
and Steve attended. The walling team had decided the
remaining large blocks were a hazard and had sent
them over the edge! The positioning of the fenceline
was agreed - it will terminate in the corner between
Harvest Bug and Triple Cracks; there are still nut
placements for belaying above Triple Cracks. In the
end the Land Manager has decided that he will con-
struct the two stiles, one to be at the fence wall junc-
tion above Triple Cracks, and one over the wall below.
While the base is a now a (spectacular) mess, it will
weather out, and those boulders on the path are easi-
ly moved. Overall our interaction with the Land Agent
and Manager was a success, and they are satisfied with
the signage we’ll be posting up about parking and crag
care, and were grateful of the offer to provide stiles.
So, to conclude, Steve made three visits to the site and did
‘manual labour’, John Dalrymple two, John Vaughan one.
Research into the access status of the land, associated
Open Access legislation, and liaison with the BMC was
undertaken, along with a bundle of emails calls and texts.
DRY STONE WALL COLLAPSE AT BOWDEN DOORS
LOCAL NEWS
11
Bowden Doors rockfall [Ian Birtwistle]
12
Busy. That’s the word i’d have to use to sum up the year so far. Lots of outdoor meets, a very successful new members meet, access issues to deal with (and very well dealt with, thanks team!), website changes, t-shirts,
talks, socials, beer, facebook chat. Oh and lots of climbing too. We seem to be on something of a roll at the moment
All that leads me on nicely to the new version of County Climber! Well we hope you enjoy it.. it’s taken us long enough. Hopefully a change for the better? If you spot John Spencer rocking in the corner at the bottom of the crag tap him on the shoulder and say thanks. It’s the decent thing to do after all.
El Presidente
COMMITTEE
13
Steve Blake
John Spencer
Vice President
Magazine Editor
Andrew Shanks Eva Diran
Edward Sciberras
General Secretary Treasurer
Dr Social
Peter Flegg Alastair Boardman Dan LeadbitterSonia ByersPeter Hubbard
John DalyrmpleSarah Follmann
Adrian WilsonMembersip Secretary
Committee Members
Before Joseph had started a career in dream interpretation, his father, Jacob, dreamt of an immense staircase that stretched up to the heavens. He saw many angels coming up and down and heard the voice of God from above. It’s commonly known as Jacob’s Ladder. Climbers seem to like the image and there is a Jacob’s Ladder in Snowdonia which is a V Diff, on Table Mountain there is a three pitch climb called Jacob’s Ladder (South African Grade 16), it’s also a 5a sport climb
14
Jacob and the Amazing
L e v i tat i n g Karabiner
Author : Pete Hubbard
Photos : Conrad Onhuki
15
in Dorset, an HVS at Almscliff and a moun-tain bike route in the Peak district. The one we’re on is on the Mess of Pottage crag (also named for a Genesis reference) up to the left of Coire an t’Sneachda (Coire of the snow) in the Cairngorms.
On this particular Jacob’s Ladder the an-gels in question were members of the NMC. If God was saying anything, he didn’t speak up loudly enough to be heard over the din of 50 mph winds. After walking in to the coire with the others, Conrad and I reached the crag and climbed the Slant, a straightforward enough Grade II. The snow was fairly soft and axes were main-ly for balance. There was a frozen bit
“Of all the people to climb the route.
Tom was the only one to climb it with Grace.”
of turf, though, so I got to bash in my new bit of kit, a BD Sceptre ice piton. We descended back to the base of the crag and ate lunch. Then we looked up and decided we’d romp up Jacob’s Ladder. The romping went fairly well to begin with and the snow was much harder. We passed Adrian, Dana and, following their rope, met Ed. Further ahead we passed Tom and his daughter Grace. More easy snow-plodding led to the bottom of a cor-nice where Paul had found a comfortable stance and seemed to be pondering what to do next.When I got up to him, and had a look at the cornice, I joined in with the pondering. The small notch in the cornice, where previous parties had presumably hacked a way through, was now re-corniced. It didn’t look easy. The other options were a traverse out right on easy ground, but
Pete Hubbard climbs into the cornice
Into the cornice
Pete Hubbard pondering the cornice
Pondering
above an exposed cliff, or an equally sketchy looking notch on the left. Or of course we could down-climb the route. Con-rad arrived and we got out the rope.
Paul threw some chocks in a crack for a be-lay and I tied in. I climbed up under the cor-nice and started bashing through snow with my right arm. With a few rests to let the arm recharge I finally bashed through to some firmer stuff and found an axe placement that held. Then with some delicate footwork I got high enough to slam in my left axe too. The moment my head poked over the top of the climb a roar of spindrift started batter-ing my face. Now it was time to pedal with the feet and do my best “beached whale” im-
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ADRIAN AND DANA FINISHING THE CLIMB
pression. With a belay on a boulder I brought up Conrad and Paul. They each confirmed the not-particularly-happy-with-this-on-a-Grade-1 nature of the climb with plenty of huffing, puffing and choice language. Tom led up next and brought up Grace, an exciting experience for her first winter climb. Ed was next bringing up both Dana (her first time in crampons) and Adrian.
While Adrian was on the edge he offered a belay to a couple of climbers be-hind him. Attaching a karabiner to the end of the rope he threw it down to them. The karabiner and rope were promptly flown back up to him by the wind. He attached something heavier.
Once we’d all arrived in heaven (in this case the Cairngorm Plateau) we were fairly keen to go back down again. On the way down Ed came out with a quip: “Of all the people to climb the route. Tom was the only one to climb it with Grace.”
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SHow OFF your tRUE COLOuRs
Club T-shirts and hoodies are available in a range of sizes. T-shirts are yellow, hoodies are red.
In 1975 I was lucky enough as a callow 19 year old youth to take part in a trip to the Weasel Valley on Baffin Island, what follows is a somewhat hazy account based on some fuzzy recollections.
Back in 1974 I managed to put a journalist friend in touch with a local, tight knit group of climbers in Newcastle, the Border Climbing Club, a feisty bunch of blokes with a slew of hard alpine climbs behind them. My journo mate (Dick Godfrey) wasn’t much of a climber, but had a yen for organi-sation and was keen to organise an expedition. The climbers, while as hard as nails, couldn’t get much beyond organising the odd piss-up and argument, and so I played matchmaker. The chemistry worked and after a flurry of debates, some arguments, a lot of drinking and bullshitting, a tornado of paper-work, fundraising, and radio interviews followed. All with the goal of getting the group to the Nirva-na of the day – the Weasel Valley of Baffin Island. I believe the area had its first real climbing visit in 1953 when Asgard was climbed by a team of Swiss scientists led by Canadian Pat Baird, an influen-tial climber and explorer of the region for nearly 30 years. In 1961 a Cambridge University team explored the Pangnirtun Peninsular and several other trips followed, often with Pat Baird along. Some credible alpine climbing was done. But the place and its magnificent peaks remained largely unknown until a number of trips were carried out by Doug Scott, Dennis Henneck and others and written about in Mountain Magazine. The place was clearly a wonderland. And most importantly it looked like there was still a lot left to do.
WAY BACK IN THE DAY
Entry in ‘Mountain Info’ section of Mountain magazine
(November 1975)
THE CLIMBERS, WHILE AS HARD
AS NAILS, COULDN’T GET MUCH
BEYOND ORGANISING THE ODD
PISS-UP AND ARGUMENT.
Overlord [Mark Piche]
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I’d guess it all took around a year for the planning to turn into a reality. We had identified a suitable team objective, Ulu Peak, a little up from the head of the fjord, but in early summer 1975 only two of the team had any contemporary US Big Wall experience: Kevin McClane, who had several seasons in the Valley and recently had done the Salathe Wall, and his contemporary and competitor, Dave MacDonald who had done the NW Face of Half Dome. The rest of the team (bar me) all had CVs of difficult Western and East-ern Alpine climbs. Seven other parties were to climb on the Cumberland Peninsular that year, among them Pete Livesey and Jill Law rence from the UK, a team of Japanese climbers and Charlie Porter who was to solo an audacious line on Asgard. We eventually got off the DC3 at Pangnirtung, having languished for a while in Gander, being put up by a teacher from Sunderland on a VSO tour with the Inuit. We had had an interesting couple of days
Northumbria
Weasel River Panorama Panorama over the Weasel River Valley in Auyuittuq National Park including Mts. Breideblik, Thor, Northumbria, and Odin.[Dave Hodge - SummitPost]
flow-hopping in the bay outside his prefab butler house before the weather let us move on. In Pang we met up with our freight which had been shipped ahead to the Hudson Bay store and arranged for some canoes to take us and our kit up the fjord. Kevin and Dave (I think) took the manly option of hiking in over a couple of days, with the required ‘super heavy’ loads.
We set up camp at the head of the fjord, the scenery was unreal, huge walls shot up from the alluvial bed of the valley, the huge tongue of a hanging glacier curled out of a cwm opposite the camp, while just to our south Overlord’s three pillars stood guard over the fjord. The base of Ulu, the team’s objective, was tucked away in a cwm above us, but the steep upper wall could be seen, and it did look impressively steep. I recall we spent a day sorting out the freight and stores and then the ‘A Team’, which did not include
Overlord Route [Rich Prohaska]
Weasel River Panorama Panorama over the Weasel River Valley in Auyuittuq National Park including Mts. Breideblik, Thor, Northumbria, and Odin.[Dave Hodge - SummitPost]
“THE LEDGE WAS SHAKING VIOLENTLY AND IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE CLIFF WAS BEING RENT APART.”
23
me, assembled for a poke at Ulu. We all assisted in ferrying gear up to the base of the wall, an impressive hike with some steep scrambling, and then the ‘punters’ – Dick (my journo friend) and I - headed back to the main camp. A few days later the others returned, all a bit crestfallen, having got so far up the wall, when the cracks that would link the lower wall to the upper chimney system stopped. The prospect of a substantial bolt ladder dissuaded them from continuing, and they had bailed.So a somewhat dejected group hung around the campsite for a day or so. One of the ‘senior members’, Ken Rawlinson, had sensed I was itching to go at something and generously suggested we should have a go at the Central Pillar of Overlord. This peak towered above the camp area and com-prised of three distinct and huge pillars-come buttresses. The left hand one, the least steep of the three, had been climbed by a Japanese party the year before. The central pillar had been attempted earlier by Doug Scott, but we were aware that they had retreated when Dennis Henneck (?) had been hit by stonefall. The right hand pillar was, as far as we were aware, virgin.
We opted for the central pillar, Ken pulled together the rack, which I recall was memorably light, ‘You’ve got to give it (the mountain) a chance Steve’ he said with a wink. So with a few nuts, sling pegs and krabs, off we went. We set off up the pillar and the climbing naturally drew you to a line on the right hand side. There, after a few pitches of stepping climbing up slabs and grooves, we found the first of a number of pegs and nuts, marking the descent route used by Scott’s party the year before
Being summertime we just climbed until we started to get weary, pitch followed pitch and at about 1/3 height we came across a generous rub-ble-covered ledge that was suitable for a bivi. I think it even had some moss! We cleared space for our bags ate some grub and crashed out, pretty exhausted.
At some point however, I was awoken by a strange sensation, accompa-nied by the loudest noise I’d ever heard. The ledge was shaking violently and it was clear that the cliff was being rent apart. There was little to do and nowhere to hide, I curled up in my bag making myself as small as possible, while for what seemed an eternity the mountain shook, the vibrations interspersed with what were clearly massive impacts close to our ledge. Eventually the roar subsided, what followed was a smattering of large, but modest in comparison crashes and explosive bangs. I even-tually plucked up the courage to poke my head out of my sleeping bag to see two huge columns of dust rising up the couloirs either side of our pillar. The air was thick with the smell of sulphur and almost felt electric, quite possibly static in the dust. Ken too had surfaced and was out of his bag, wide-eyed looking at what had passed. We stood gawping at the clouds of dust, slowly rising up the full height of the south couloir. He had just started to gabble something, when the relative silence was broken by a noise even louder that the one we had just experienced. Snapping our heads to the right we saw that the tip of the hanging glacier opposite had broken away and was crashing to the valley floor. I’m guessing multiple thousands of tons of ice ended up in a huge cone below the fracture. This was spectacle heaped on spectacle! A second or so later we felt the blast of displaced air followed by a relative silence.
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I can't recall what we said, probably some-thing very English like 'That was loud'. We had been very lucky in the selection of our bivi ledge, it was on the crest of the pillar and a vertical wall above us gave some protection, I don't think any stonefall hit the ledge, a miracle given what had bro-ken away.
It took most of the day for the dust to settle, and for us to gather our wits about us and continue. We concluded that there must have been an earthquake to have dislodged materials on both sides of the valley. Later in the trip we met a Japanese party who had been on Thor when it hit, they had been lucky to get off the wall unscathed.
We were on the route for another two days with another bivi two thirds of the way up; throughout Ken was in charge, pointing me in the right direction. The quality of the climbing was outstanding, sustained VS (5.6) interspersed with occasional E1/2 (5.9/10). The main diffi-culties culminated at the top of the pillar. A hanging belay at the base of a slender ramp that cut up the face for a hundred feet or so. The junction between the ramp and wall was fractured by a good finger crack which guaranteed success. This was important, as by now, 40 odd pitches up, we didn't have enough kit to reach the first of Scott's abseil gear. Up was the only option.
So with great relief we cleared this ob-stacle, then the brêche beyond, and the penultimate pitches which brought us to the summit snowfield. From the valley this sliver of white looked tiny. Up close it transformed into a 200' 45 degree slope of granular ice. However we had neither axes nor crampons! So I set up a rudimen-tary belay, sitting on a perfect edge of dry granite, with my legs dangling above a 4000' cavernous drop, with the small of my back pressed into the ice. We tied both 9mm ropes together, I gave Ken my Stubai hammer, and with two of these
(and in EBs) off he shot. Cutting buck-ets for his feet as he went, he carefully worked his way up. Eventually cresting the slope he rolled over the lip and disap-peared. It was a nerve-wracking half hour to say the least. I took my socks off and put them on over my EBs, and with him walking down the glacier I set of up the line of holds.........
The walk down the glacier in EBs wasn't sooo bad, but lordy, had we cut it pretty fine! Ken had been phenomenal; unflap-pable, good humoured and never less than 100% certain we would make it. That said, the relief in his eyes when he saw the crack in the back of the ramp pitch was pretty apparent.
After a couple of days recovering we began shuttling loads up the Weasel Valley with the aim of establishing a camp at Summit Lake. In the interim Dave and Kevin climbed and named Mt Northum-bria, and Dennis Lee, and Kevin (I think) did a new line on Turnweather which I can’t find documented anywhere. As we shuttled loads up the valley we passed un-derneath Thor and met the rather shaken Japanese party who had been trying the face when the earthquake struck. Already stressed by the scale of what they had taken on, the poor rock they were en-countering and the difficulty of the climb-ing, the earthquake had become an un-derstandable ‘last straw’ and they bailed.
Some endless shuttling of loads followed, with extended rest days waiting out heavy rain and sleet. There was enough time, and daylight to get through Woody Guthrie’s biography and Lord of the Rings. The latter was made all the easier to read given we were on the edge, so it seemed, of Mordor. There was much crossing the braided steam that dissected the valley, always exciting as you could hear, and feel, the deadening thud of leg breaking boulders being pushed down stream by the force of the water. After sorting myself out after one such crossing I was
25
picking up my rucksack, a Karrimor haulbag, when, with an audible phhhhhhht, the yoke holding the straps on separated from the pack. Leaving me with a large, very heavy, red tube – a rucksack no more! Thankfully someone had a sailmaker’s awl and some hefty waxed thread, and after a few hours of work the pack was functional once again.
After a lot of laborious shuttling we eventually got ourselves established at Summit Lake and began to explore. I teamed up with Dennis Lee and we headed up the glacier, dry that year, that led to the base of Asgard. I recall a series of towering walls and buttresses opposite Asgard and we walked along looking for a likely line. Eventually we settled on a pillar with a crack, which led to another crackline in a steep wall and thus to a chimney system, then the clouds and who knows what.
Access to the pillar was protected by a steep slope of neve, perhaps 50 degrees and a couple of hundred feet. We short-roped and moved together up this, kicking steps as we went. I eventu-ally met the junction of ice and rock about 100 feet to the left of the pillar. Nature had conve-niently left a six inch gap down which I stuck my arm and waited for Dennis, (who was hot on my heels) to join me. With my arm down the back of the gap I began kicking steps across to the corner, which I had just about reached when, with a loud crack, everything I was standing on gave way, and off I went, down the slope holding on to a large shield of ice.
A second later I came onto the rope and Dennis joined me (with our rudimentary belay) and we shot off down the slope. I managed to get my axe out from between my shoulder blades and began to brake, as Dennis accelerated past me and took the lead in our unwanted race to the glacier. My braking was having some effect at slowing us, but couldn’t stop Dennis going over the final, short vertical wall that led directly to the glacier. It did however, provide him with a soft catch and as I slid down to the lip I found him standing, shaken, if not stirred. Relieved, I slid to the edge of the wall and jumped down beside him and neatly punched a hole through into a crevasse he was standing on! Doh!
I don’t recall how I got out, I do recall the small hole I was heading for. Anyways, eventually I did get out and we sorted ourselves out, put our crampons on and headed up the slope to the base of the corner. Despite what had gone before, what followed was pure delight, several pitches of
“Uptown” neighbourhood of Pangnirtung [Technicalglitch]
perfect hands on a vertical wall led up towards a chimney system, little edges outside the crack were made for boots, all at about VS/HVS (5.8/9).However we eventually made it to the base of the chimney system only to discover our dénoue-ment. It was a horribly flared ‘bomb-bay’ leading to an off-width system. The largest piece we had was one No 9 Hex – it just wasn’t going to happen. So we set up the first of several abseils and beat a retreat.
As is usually the case, what had taken several hours to get up seemed to take minutes to get down and before we knew it we were back on the glacier heading back to the Summit lake camp. More bad weather followed, days of rain and sleet, and we generally sat under a tarp trying to stay dry. I fell into an extended torpor in the tent, which didn’t go down well with the rest of the team. These tortured group dynamics are traditionally skimmed over in British climbing literature, and I will follow that line here, other than to say nearly 40 years later that some of them were right tw#ts!Anyhow when I came out of hibernation Dennis and I attempted a quick ascent of the Scott Hen-neck route on Killabuk which was behind the camp, a storm unfortunately stopping us several pitches from the top. We endured a miserable, wet bivi in a shallow cave below the corner chim-neys which led to the top and eventually bailed.
Soon afterwards we began the long slog out, and on the way met a bloke walking in who had a big reputation, and an even bigger beard – Charlie Porter, shuttling loads en route to Asgard. Now there’s a story. The rest was by comparison an uneventful journey home.
(This is an edited version of a piece originally published on the Supertopo website at: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1961019&msg=1975016#msg1975016 Note the Central Pillar was repeated by a Canadian Team in 1998 in a continuous 24 hour push)
Taken from Doug Scott's Big Wall Climb-ing. We reached a recess about half way up the headwall. The retreat involved some hairy abseils to reach the slabs, where an easy escape was possible down the right hand side.
John asked me if I could summarise the impact the climb and the trip had on me as a young man, and of course hindsight is a marvellous thing. I think in reality it had less impact than would have been the case had the rock climbing world not been on the cusp of its revolution. A lot was happening in the world of climbing then and our eyes were being opened to a lot of possibilities. While both the process and facilities that supported ‘training’ for climbing were rudimentary they had a huge impact on what we thought was, and what actually was possible. Which, combined with the discovery of the Verdon,made specialising in rock climbing an irresistible lure.
I had two more ‘traditional’ seasons, in ‘76 in the Western Alps followed by the Dolomites, then in 77 with Dennis Lee, the Dollies followed by the Verdon, where we pretty much did most of the estab-lished harder climbs. Back home I was improving rapidly and was fencing for the big lines in the County with John Earl and Bob Hutchinson, Bob and Tommy Smith, Paul Stewart, Bill Wayman and others. It was a very exciting time. This local activity was demanding and drew me away from other aspects of the sport - I pretty much stopped winter climbing to continue rock climbing through the winter; trips abroad were exclusively rock climbing in Europe, the draw of the US being stemmed by the rock climb-ing possibilities in Europe.
I left the area in 1980 and joined the Army. For a couple of years I didn’t do much, being based in the South East, but eventually got going again and got involved in ‘Adventurous Training’. This culminated in myself and a buddy taking a mixed bag of Army climbers to Yosemite. It was a great success with parties doing the Nose, Muir Wall, Regular Route on Half Dome, Washington Column, Lurking Fear and a long list of hard cragging.
At home I set myself the goal of doing at least one grit E5 a year, which I pretty much managed, with a few repeats! Summer holidays with my wife Bron on the continent were invariably motorcycling combined with climbing. Not much that was really hard was done, but we had some real adventures. We managed a few more trips to Yosemite, and the North West. Late in my military career we spent 18 months in Arizona, living in the lee of the Cochise Stronghold, a fantastic place that’s not well known to UK climbers. I would recommend a visit, it’s unforgettable.
I retired in 2004 and came back to the North East, and pretty much picked up where I left off, mostly developing bouldering venues. But some are very ‘high’ in typical County style - thank god for mats! I also have the challenge of staying in front of my son - not that we are competitive you understand. I fear that I will eventually lose out to a ruthless combination of gravity, injury and youthful exuberance (But not quite yet, if I have anything to do with it). I suppose I’d finish by saying 1975 was a long time ago - what I’m really excited about is now!
Post-Postscript Hi John,I’ve just been doing some vacuuming and something occurred while lost in the task which is more pertinent to the question you posed originally. As I said in the aritcle, when we were sorting the gear out prior to embarking on the route, Ken weeded it down to a bear minimum, a handful of Hexes, some stoppers, slings and a couple of pegs. He looked at me with a grin and said ‘We’ve got to give it (the mountain) a chance Steve’........ It was a very thin rack. Ken’s words have stayed with me and have under-pinned my attitude to both routing and problems, here and outside the County. Our crags are tiny and to get a meaningful adventure we have to give them a chance as well, so no top roping and no beating a problem to death. This has the added benefit of preserving the rock!
Regards, Steve
28
A Tale of Two Mountains
I lived in Huaraz for 8 months in 2007 and when I left my greatest regret was not having climbed any of the very impressive peaks that surround the town. Fast forward 9 years and I’m back there, doing research for a PhD on mining conflicts. Huaraz is at 3100m al-titude and is ringed by two mountain ranges, the Cor-dillera Blanca is the higher range, most of the moun-tains are snow-capped. No prizes for guessing how it got its name. In mid-February I got a call from a friend, Rommel, a mountain guide who now lives in Lima and misses the mountains he used to climb dozens of times each year. He asked if I wanted to accompany him on some training trips. Well how could I say no?! So first, off we went up Vallunaraju, an easy moun-
Author : Ursula
Photos : Ursula collection
This is the story of two mountains. The first two mountains, well my first 2 anyway...
The lower of the twin peaks on Vallunaraju
Looking up towards the summit and potential trad
route on Urus
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Location: Peru, South America
Lat/Lon: 9.4221°S / 77.45642°W
Object Title: Vallunaraju
Elevation: 18963 ft / 5780 m
Vallunaraju is one of the most
predominant mountains that
can be seen directly from Hua-
raz as well from Cordillera Ne-
gra. It can be easily identified
and distinguished from other
mountains for its double - head-
ed summit from which the north-
ern summit is the highest one.
Vallunaraju
tain that is 5780m high. Rommel’s friend Lolo and his 8 year old son were to accompa-ny us up to base camp at 5000m and to keep an eye on the stuff whilst we went up to the summit. Arriving at base camp was easy, a 3 hour steep trot up from where the taxi left us in Llaca Valley. Mission Lunatica, a 6 pitch 6a/b route, touted as the highest sport climb in the world, and put up by the Hot Rock tour in 2012 (?) was visible across the val-ley as we ascended, as was the bright blue Llaca Lake. I crunched one half of my sunglass-es immediately after stepping out of the taxi so was wandering around squint-eyed. At base camp we sunned ourselves barefooted until it started to snow at 4pm and we retreated into the tents until tea time. For me it was a loooonnngg night. I’ve never had altitude sickness before but had only drunk 1 litre of water on the climb up and developed a banging, BANGING headache. I was awake ALL night. My herbal valerian did not so much as half droop an eyelid, plus who gets sleepy at 7pm in the eve? I can go two days without sleep if I need to, which is lucky, as that’s exactly what I did. We almost called the plan off, thinking my head might ex-
30
plode if I went higher, but in the end some combination of pride, curiosity and stupidity got me out of the tent at 2am and we were away by 3. It was my first attempt at a mountain after all. We slogged higher and higher up the glacier; it wasn’t technical but we were roped together in case of a crevasse fall. Not that I’d be much help in an emergency, the pulley rescue system remains implausible and mysterious to me. We made quite good progress, I was slowish in the grim and sleep-deprived night, but once the sun came up I woke up too and the views were amazing. On leaving base camp the plan had been to just go up a little bit and see how I felt, however once I started moving and getting myself out of breath, I breathed much deeper and my headache all but disappeared. In the end we only went as far as the col which is about 50m below the summit. The mountain has twin peaks and getting to the summit would’ve involved crossing an ice bridge that looked like it might collapse. With hindsight I regret not cutting a path through the pristine snow that led to the slightly lower of the 2 peaks, just so I could fully experience the feeling of getting to the top. However, down we stomped via a few photo opportunities, and after a 40 min lie down we packed up the stuff and lugged our heavy packs back down to where the taxi picked us up.
Rommel had grand plans for the coming season so the following week we headed out again, this time the target was Urus, a lower (5495m) but slightly more difficult peak due to the much lower location of the base camp and mixed climbing (ie basic scrambling) that was involved. The plan was to rent donkeys but as we were climbing out of season this proved tricky so in the end we did the 12km walk in carrying the packs ourselves.
The approach follows the Ishinca Valley which also boasts excellent sport climbing on what are known as the Ishinca Towers. The walk-in is flat, pretty and with a burbling brook to fol-low. After a few hours amble we arrived at base camp where the Ishinca Lodge is located at 4300m. Tomato pasta for tea (I’d like to hear about a trip that didn’t involve copious amount of this classic camping foodstuff - where is the creativity in the climbing community?!) No
The view down Llaca Vally on the climb to base camp
The view at the start of the glacier on Urus
31
“ You’ll get your name in a book if you do that, I’ll help you. Great I thought, and off went the daydream machine. ”
headache this time but daytime sleeping doesn’t suit me so off we marched with me once again sleep-deprived. The ascent to the glacier is long and hard, and after the first couple of hours I was slooooooooowwwww. Rommel had flattered me early on telling me I climbed fast and calling me a machine. Ooooops! That quickly changed as we got higher and my pace slowed to a crawl!
There was no way I was giving up before we got to the summit though! It took me 7 hours. The climbing was a touch more technical than Vallunaraju as there were some scram-bly sections as we went through the (seem-ingly endless) moraine. However, the glaciat-ed part was quite short, with no crevasses to worry about. We went up the central massif which is less frequently climbed than Urus Este and Oeste, arriving in a total white-out, so despite all that effort there was absolute-ly no view! We also passed an enticing look-ing mini-crag at about 5250m and I started to wonder about the possibility of climbing a trad route there; the gear looked multitudi-nous, although somewhat unstable. I asked Rommel if it had been done before. ‘Never’ he said, ‘You’ll get your name in a book if you do that, I’ll help you.’ Great I thought, and off went the daydream machine. A few weeks later I asked a friend who is a rock climber and mountaineer as well (Rommel climbs mountains but not rock) if he knew of any
ascents there. Sure he said, loads of people have been up, there’s no clear line but it’s been done plenty times before. First ascent dreams crushed, I still intend to give it a go if I ever make it above the strength-sapping hills that lie below it.
Returning from Urus was the most complete exhaustion I’ve felt in my life. I kept sitting down and zoning out and wondering if I could be bothered to get up and start walk-ing again. It took 11 hours for the round trip; Rommel says he’s done it before in 5! To be honest I’m not totally convinced I’m cut out for mountaineering, it seems mainly to con-sist of Hard Slog. I’ll probably give it a few more tries though, maybe after some run-ning for training and I also think I needed to eat more food. A few handfuls of apricots, 12 almonds and a Twix was probably not suffi-cient for the energy expended. So the plan isdrink more, eat more, do some running and maybe it will seem like fun… Mountains theoretically have romantic charm that is for sure.
The village of Namche Bazaar is the gateway to the upper Khubu
and occupies a south-facing bowl in the muntains, overlooked by
Mt Kongde
Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam seen from Tengboche, where Ev-
erest expeditions have traditionally stopped to receive the blessing
of the head lama
The village of Gokyo from the slopes of Gokyo Ri, at 5360m a high
point of the trip. The rubble-strewn Ngozumba Glacier is the larg-
est in Nepal, descending from Cho Oyu on the Tibetan border
Looking towards the snout of the Khumbu glacier with the
prominent peaks of Taboche and Cholatse
32
Author : Bryn Roberts
Photos : Bryn Roberts
Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam seen from Tengboche, where Ev-
erest expeditions have traditionally stopped to receive the blessing
of the head lama
Looking towards the snout of the Khumbu glacier with the
prominent peaks of Taboche and Cholatse
33
26/11 - Up at 4 for 6a.m. flight to Lukla. Cloud delayed flight
until 8.30a.m. 16-seater twin-prop aircraft – cosy! Spectacular
flight skimming hilltops, with views of Himalayan giants and then
landing at Lukla airstrip, only 450m long and on an incline of 12%
on side of mountain. Late breakfast at Lukla then easy trek up to
Phakding en route to Namche Bazaar.
29/11 - Another amazing day! Cold start as we ascended steep
path above Namche and took superb path which traverses
around hillside, with panoramic views – Everest, Lhotse, Ama
Dablam, Tamserku. Lost height as we descended through trees to
the river, then gruelling 600m ascent to Tengboche. Tremendous
position, with mountain views, stupas, mani walls and a superb
gompa. A lama showed me round, including rooms not normally
open to foreigners. Very impressive Buddha in main hall; deities,
religious scrolls and thankas. Reluctantly left Tengboche and de-
scended to the more sheltered area at Deboche and comfy lodge.
1/12 – Dengboche, 4,200m. First day of December – cold, crisp
morning and blue skies. I was out early but photo-opportunities
were limited as the sun took ages to rise from behind Ama Dab-
lam and illuminate the valley and surrounding mountains. After
late breakfast , set off in warm sun up ridge above the village.
Numerous stops en route at cairns and prayer flags as I gained
In Kathmandu November 2014 I reluctantly said
goodbye to Graham after a month’s trekking in
the Annapurna and Langtang regions (see pre-
vious article), and made plans with our guide,
Gyaljin Sherpa, to trek in the Everest and Gokyo
area in the wonderful Khumbu region of Nepal.
The following are extracts from the diary and a
selection of photos taken on the trek.
Notes from a Himalayan diary
Nepal, Autumn 2014
The south-west face of Everest, flanked by Nupse and Lhotse from Gokyo Ri
34
300m in altitude. Views of tomorrow’s route towards Lobuche with the spectacular Taboche peak and Cholatse and to-
wards the Cho La, and in the other direction the valley of the Imjo Khola leading up to Island Peak, a good objective in
itself but dwarfed by the awesome south face of Lhotse. Descended to village and sat in the sun at the bakery with friends
met on the trail. It doesn’t come much better than this! Refreshed and looking forward to high-altitude days to come.
2/12 - The days are warm but the nights are long and cold. After two virtually sleepless nights at altitude I’ve decided to
miss out Everest base camp and head directly for my main aim of the trek – Gokyo via the Cho La. At Dughla, under the
bleak terminal moraine of the Khumbu glacier I wished others luck and headed with Gyaljin towards Dzongla, at 4,800m
our last stop before the pass. With a combination of sleep deprivation and altitude I was pretty tired today, but happy with
revised plan.
3/12 – Slightly better sleep but still awake much of the time after 2a.m. Warmed up walking up open valley towards the Cho
La. Exhausting hour clambering up through boulder field at around the 5000m mark. The gradient mercifully eased off as we
put on Kahtoola spikes and crossed a snowfield to reach the Cho La at 5430m – highest point yet. Descended screes and
boulder fields to Dragnag, squeezed in between the mountainside and lateral moraine of the Ngozumba glacier. Not much
to recommend it except for providing a welcome bed for the night.
4/12 - After really poor night’s sleep decided to take Diamox. Headed across glacier to Gokyo – took an hour and
half to find tortuous route through moraines, rubble heaps and glacial lakes. Arrived at Gokyo late morning; fan-
tastic position between glacier and lake. Light lunch, then headed up Gokyo Ri, 5360m. Much easier ascent than
yesterday, but still hard breathing at over 5000m. Rewarded with the most amazing panorama from the sum-
mit – Everest, Nupse, Lhotse, Makalu and Cholatse to the east; Cho Oyu and Tibet to the north; the Ngozum-
ba glacier and Gokyo way below. Blue skies, light breeze, no snow on top! A real high point of the trip, in many ways...
5/12 – Horrendous night, much of it spent on the toilet! Possible reaction to the Diamox. Exhausted, and decided to miss
out Renjo La and lose altitude as fast as possible. Struggled all morning and slept in sun for an hour at Machermo. Much
improved in afternoon and we made steady progress along a superb trail with views across the valley, then down through
steep woods past lots of ice falls to arrive at Phortse Tenga at 3600m, 1200m lower than Gokyo. Rewarded with the best
nights sleep for ages – 9 hours – to wake refreshed and pretty elated after the hard nights at altitude.
“ The valley of the Imjo Khola leading up to Island Peak, a good objective in itself but dwarfed by the awesome south face of Lhotse. ”
Buddhist inscription on mani wall at Tengboche
35
The above extracts maybe give some idea of the ups and downs, both emotionally and physically, of high-altitude
trekking. On arrival back in Namche at 3400m it felt like the lowlands. I stayed in Namche for 3 days with some
interesting side trips before another spectacular flight back from Lukla. I enjoyed the hospitality of Gyaljin and his
family in Kathmandu and in return took them out for a meal.
I’m writing this in the comfort of my house in North Wales. On the television and radio are continuous reports of
the worst earthquake in Nepal for 80 years which appears to have wiped out complete villages and sent avalanch-
es through Everest base camp, as well as causing devastation in Kathmandu. Lodges and mountain settlements we
stayed in and monuments and temples we visited are ruined. I wonder how the wonderful, resilient and resource-
ful people we met in the mountains are coping and especially our guide, Gyaljin, who was due to go with a Spanish
expedition to Everest at this time. The reconstruction effort will take years in a poor country like Nepal, where
transport infrastructure, standards of building construction and sanitary conditions were poor before this disaster
struck. The least we can do is make a financial contribution, however small, towards the continuing aid effort.
Knackered, hairy and happy! In Lukla, awaiting
flight to Kathmandu and home after 7 weeks
trekking amongst the high mountains of the
Nepal Himalaya.
36
8000 Metres by Alan Hinkes Reviewed by Martin Cooper
On October 16th 1986 Reinhold Messner became the first person to
successfully climb all of the world’s 8000 metre mountains. In the same
year Al Rouse and Julie Tullis died near the summit of K2 and Alan Hinkes
made his fourth visit to the Himalaya, climbing Kishtwar, Alpine style.
Alan Hinkes climbed his first 8000 metre peak, Shishapnangma, in 1987.
By 1986 Martin Boysen had given up big mountain expeditions.
In February 2005 I talked to Alan Hinkes for an hour or so at Waters Cot-
tage, the Fell and Rock hut near Fort William. He was in the Highlands to
do some work for a sponsor. At that stage Alan had just one 8000 metre
peak left to climb, Kanchenjunga. He had already made one attempt on
the mountain. He had made no secret of his ambition to become the first
British climber to do all of the 8000ers; it had become an obsession. On
that day, however he was giving nothing away about the date or timing
of his next attempt. By then he must have been pretty fed up with all of
the speculation about whether he could complete the fourteen 8000
metre mountains or not.
In fact, it was only a month later that Alan set off for Kanchenjunga. This
time he made the summit, achieving his ambition on May 30th, following
which his descent “Became an epic – I sensed that I was slipping into
what I term the ‘incident pit’, a dangerous crater that leads to the point
of no return – death.” He had been made to work hard right to the end.
BOOK REVIEWS
37
Alan’s book about his achievement was a long time coming. Years before, when he contributed to the NMC’s
book No Nobler County, he had said he wasn’t interested in a biography or autobiography. He has always been
a man of relatively few words in print. He lets his exploits speak for him. His book on the 8000 metre mountains
of the world was to be mainly based on photography with only a few thousand words of text. So what kind of
job has he made of it?
I will admit to being biased. I have known Alan, albeit not very well, since the 1990s and I couldn’t wait for
the book to come out. As you turn the pages you cannot but be impressed with the scale of the mountaineer-
ing achievement. Photograph after photograph convey the utterly stunning landscape of the world’s highest
mountains and the incredible feat of climbing them all. That is almost enough. You will look at these pictures
again and again. From this point of view, the book is pure inspiration.
Interspersed in each chapter is a brief account of the ascent of each peak, as you would expect. There is enough
here to let the reader know that Alan Hinkes had faced adversity over and over again and that, by his own
admission, he cheated death on these mountains more than once. Alan also gives us short snippets on, among
other things, ‘the death zone’, Mallory and Irvine, photography, equipment and two other Himalayan greats,
Kurt Diemberger and Messner himself.
Some readers would probably want more from the writing than Hinkes has given us. His key philosophies do
come through (No mountain is worth losing even a digit. Returning safe is the goal; a summit is a bonus.) But
he doesn’t enlarge very much on his main ideas or put his own personal achievement into a particularly broad
mountaineering or historical context. It certainly isn’t his autobiography. That wasn’t the intention. I’m sure he
would say that the visual aspect of the book obviates the need for many words. I think I agree. I do wonder if,
at some point, Alan will write at greater length on what drove him to commit so much time, energy and risk to
fourteen mountains, how that drive connects to his earlier life and experiences. He has chosen not to do that
in this book. For me, that is no weakness but a choice he had the rig ht to make, given the scale of his achieve-
ment. I know not everyone will agree. Track him down over a pint in Yorkshire. I’m sure he’ll tell you more.
38
39
Why Martin Boysen? There is a connection to Alan Hinkes,
which I will come to later. I received Boysen’s book, Hanging
On, as a Christmas present, started reading it immediately
and really enjoyed it, for very different reasons.
Martin Boysen is a well known name in British climbing but,
these days, not that well known. What this book demon-
strates, however, is that in the 1970s and early 1980s Boy-
sen was around and involved in many of the major British
expeditions in various parts of the world. He seemed to be
a climber that you would definitely want on your team al-
though he was never the expedition leader or the guy who
got to the summit first. I had read a lot about expeditions
in these years in the books of Bonington, Boardman, Tasker
and others. It was good to get a different perspective from
somebody who was not one of the superstar climbers.
In many ways Martin Boysen gives the impression that he
is just an ordinary climber, like your own friends at the wall.
It is just that he hung out with some big names. Who else
has climbed on the Eiger with Clint Eastwood? He started
as a Kent teenager, discovering climbing at Harrison’s and
Bowles Rocks (these places still sound gruesome), travelled
to North Wales and then went to Manchester University
and was now positioned in exactly the right place to attack
(mainly) the cliffs of North Wales where he put up routes
like Nexus and The Garotte, as well as new routes in the
Peak and the Lakes. From here Boysen made the transition
to the Dolomites and the Alps, got married and survived a
horrendous car accident on the way home from a party one
night. Oh, yes I nearly forgot, he just happened to team up
with Joe Brown as a teenager on his second visit to Wales
and found himself climbing with Tom Patey almost as soon
as he arrived in the Alps. He must have been pretty good
in his youth.
One of the things I liked about this book was the human
element. This is not a book which obsesses about climbing
and nothing else. It is quite a personal read. Not everything
went well. Boysen’s reactions to being ignored by Bon-
ington for an expedition he fully expected to take part in
are dealt with honestly. Boysen was hurt. Equally, he does
not gloss over losing friends and climbing partners to early
deaths. The death of Mick Burke on Everest in 1975 hit
him hard. He had lost a climbing friend who had been with
him for fifteen years. One thing Boysen does seem to deal
with very briefly is why he actually stopped going on ex-
peditions after his trip to Latok with John Yates and Choe
Brooks in 1983. However, he didn’t stop climbing then.
Which brings me back to a link with Alan Hinkes. On the
day when I met Alan in February 2005 in Scotland, Mar-
tin Boysen was in the hut too. He had arrived with Rab
Carrington, hoping to do some ice climbing. The conditions
were pretty foul, strong wind and low cloud. Boysen and
Carrington set off nonetheless and returned later having
nearly made it to the top of a Grade 4 route on Anoch Mor.
Boysen backed off halfway up the final pitch. I was im-
pressed. Do the maths yourself. Boysen was born in 1941.
Later in the evening, after Mr. Hinkes had gone there were
some scathing comments from the other two climbers. I
just listened. Now having had the chance to reflect on their
books as well, I still refuse to pass judgement, except to
say, same sport: different ball games. Both books are worth
a read.
Reviewed by Martin Cooper
VIEW A SAMPLE OF THE GUIDEBOOK HERE
40
My first forays onto Peak Grit were back in 1982 a number
of years after I started climbing. Living in Newcastle in those
days, Northumbrian fell sandstone was the canvas of rock I
learned to climb on and journeys further afield were to the
mountain crags of the Lakes, Wales and Scotland.
In those days the only compilation guide was Paul Nunn’s Rock climbing in the Peak District, a hard-back mish-mash of limestone and grit with grades such as XS 5c and black and white photo-topos of dubious use, where finding the buttress never mind the route line was a major expedition. How things have changed.
Peak Gritstone East published in 2001 was the first Rockfax guide to cover this popular area and, as mentioned in the introduction to this guide, it proved to be a sea change in the way climbing guides were produced. By dispensing with traditional layouts, and focusing on photo diagrams and lots of colour photo-graphs, the ‘Rockfax style’ has become an extremely popular way of finding ones way around the crags. The 2006 guide upped the ante but now, if Stanage and the outlying escarpments are the Promised Land for grit addicts, then this new publication is surely their Bible.
This truly is a monstrous tome and my only gripe would be that you need a bigger sack simply to carry it, but thankfully most of the walk-ins are short. So what is it that’s new in this latest offering? We are all now familiar with the Rockfax format and every climber probably has at least one in their library. Clean, colourful and user-friendly, they are great to browse through at home and their simplicity of lay-out makes finding your route a doddle. What stands out in the latest book is the sheer quality of crag and action photographs. This has been achieved by using a 24 megapixel camera (the first book was 3) and boy does it show! Each crag has been re-photographed and all bar two photo-topos are new providing stun-ning detail. Layout has been enhanced to an extent that now it would be extremely difficult not to find a line on any section of the crags.
The quality and diversity of action photographs is inspiring with a few flyers frozen in mid-air provid-ing heart stopping moments. I’m tempted, tongue in cheek, to favour the one of Left Unconquerable on P211 but 70 year old Gordon MacNair cruising Cave Arete gives us all hope and the intense concentration of Neil Kershaw gripping the pebble on Beau Geste provides the spice. In truth there are a few mediocre shots and in my copy the photo-topo of Baslow P447 is slightly out of focus but, hey, this is nit picking, as the only way they stand out is that the others are so good. The real show stealer though is Dan Arkle demonstrating a sequence of unlikely hands off rests on The Rasp at Higgar Tor, so no excuses for pumping out from now on.
The guide, as expected, follows the tried and trusted Rockfax formula, working its way from Wharncliffe in the north to the outlying Shining Cliff in the south. Tick lists abound for the trainspotters amongst us, with a top 50/ 500, Peaks and Pinnacles and many more, (28 altogether) with even a graded list of ticklists!
In the past I have had a problem or two with the Rockfax commercial professionalism competing with small voluntary Club-based guide production in a certain area. In this case all the definitive guides by the BMC have been out for a while and like many I tend to buy both. Either way a compromise appears to have been reached where both now live quite hap-pily side by side, which can only benefit the climber. For the local or visitor this is a welcome addition and upgrade, raising the bar even further in quality, detail and layout. Chris Craggs the author and his team have to be thoroughly congratulated for a superb piece of work.
Whether about rock-climbing (trad or sport), bouldering, winter climbing or hill-walking, or indeed anything to do with ‘the great outdoors’, especially Northumberland. Contribu-tions from new members are particularly welcome.
It doesn’t have to be a ‘story’ either, so for example a report about a visit to a new location, or a new take on an old one would fit the bill. Reviews of guides or books, films or festivals are welcome. From time to time people submit mainly photographs (see below) accompanied by only the briefest of text, and these can be published as a ‘photo-essay’. And don’t limit yourself to prose in responding to your inner muse - poems are also welcome.
The Editor would be happy to discuss ideas for articles, comment on rough drafts, or work with you to produce the finished article.
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