Higher Ground E-Book

Martin Moran

• Herausgeber: Sandstone Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Martin Moran lived life in the mountains to the full. He climbed and guided in the Alps, Norway, and the Himalayas, sharing life-changing adventures along the way.

Leseprobe

Higher Ground

Martin Moran was one of Britain’s most experienced mountaineers and guides. Born in North Tyneside, he studied geography at Cambridge University before moving to Sheffield with his wife, Joy, to train as a chartered accountant. In 1985 he qualified as a British and International IFMGA Mountain Guide leaving city life behind to set up home in the North-West Highlands of Scotland with Joy, founding their climbing and guiding enterprise, Moran Mountain.

Martin’s career in the mountains included over 40 exploratory and pioneering expeditions in the Himalaya and over a hundred first ascents of new summer and winter routes in Scotland. His most notable achievements include the formidable and record-breaking winter journey over 277 Munros in just 83 days in 1984, and in 1993, the first self-propelled traverse of all the 4000m Alpine peaks in just 52 days with climbing partner Simon Jenkins. In that same year, closer to home, Martin broke the speed record for the 11km long Cuillin ridge traverse in a mere three hours and 33 minutes, which brought modern speed alpinism to Scotland.

In May 2019, Martin tragically lost his life in the Himalaya while on a pioneering expedition with seven other climbers. His legacy remains an inspiration to all those who seek out mountain exploration.

By the same author

The Munros in Winter

HIGHER GROUND

A Mountain Guide’s Life

Martin Moran

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

Sandstone Press Ltd

PO Box 41

Muir of Ord

IV6 7YX

Scotland

www.sandstonepress.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored or transmitted in any form without the express

written permission of the publisher.

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Sandstone Press. This edition published 2021.

© Martin Moran 2014

© Maps Ric Singleton 2014

Editor: Robert Davidson

The moral right of Martin Moran to be recognised as the

author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

ISBN: 978-1-913207-69-4

ISBNe: 978-1-913207-70-0

Cover design by Ryder Design

Ebook compilation by Iolaire, Newtonmore

To all my clients and colleagues inthe mountains, with thanks for enriching my life

CONTENTS

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Part One – FORMATIVE YEARS

1. Beginnings

2. Trial by Eiger

3. Tests and Traumas

4. North-West Frontier

5. The Learning Curve

6. Base Camp

Part Two – HOME GROUND: SCOTLAND

7. The Munro-baggers

8. From Sea to Summit

9. Cuillin Highs

10. Twenty-four Hours with the Godfather

11. Running the Ridge

12. The Saving of Andy

13. Sea Stack Tours

Part Three – ALPINE ADVENTURES

14. Mont Blanc Dreams

15. The Matterhorn World

16. Two Nights on the Grandes Jorasses

17. Piz Badile

18. The Grépon Traverse

Part Four – NORWEGIAN LIGHTS

19. In the Hall of the Mountain King

20. The Roughest Bound

21. Midnight Mountains

Part Five – INDIAN PIONEER: THE HIMALAYA

22. The Gateway of Winds

23. Shipton’s Lost Valley

24. Journey to the Edge of Tibet

25. Kamet – One Step Too Far

26. East of Nanda

27. A Walk into Nowhere

Part Six – REFLECTIONS

28. A Job for Life

Appendix I: Glossary of technical terms and climbing grades

Appendix II: Qualifications in Mountain Guiding and Instruction

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

1. Eiger North Face 1938 Route

2. Lochcarron, Wester Ross

3. Inner Hebrides, Sail and Climb Tours

4. The Cuillin Ridge

5. Mont Blanc

6. Matterhorn

7. Grandes Jorasses South Face

8. Aiguille du Grépon Traverse

9. Lyngen Alps and Tromsø

10. Kumaon Himalaya

11. Shipton’s Lost Valley

12. Tibet: Pilgrim Route to Mount Kailash

13. Kamet

14. Nanda Devi East

15. Himachal Pioneer Trek

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Martin climbing into The Ramp on the Eiger North Face 1938 Route (photo: Dave McDonald)

2. Dave McDonald at the bottom of the Eiger North Face

3. Andy Nisbet on the Hydnefossen (Hemsedal, Norway)

4. Paul Tattersall sets out on pitch two of The Godfather on the first ascent

5. Loch Carron from Stromeferry summit with Fuar Tholl and Sgorr Ruadh in the distance (photo: Clarrie Pashley)

6. Joy – eight months pregnant with Alex – inspects our new home at Achintee in November 1986

7. David Litherland descending from the Täschhorn on the Domgrat traverse – September 1989

8. David on the final climb to the Dom with the Domgrat behind

9. Martin at Montenvers after a solo ascent of the Aiguille Verte in September 1987

10. Ben the cook leads pitch one on the Emosson Dam

11. Joy on the Bossons Glacier during an attempt on Mont Blanc in 1984

12. Joy at the helm on the sea crossing from Knoydart to Rum

13. Martin guiding Eva Groenveld on the East Ridge of the Inaccessible Pinnacle in May 2013

14. Martin on Sgurr Dubh Mor looking to the northern half of the Cuillin Ridge during a November traverse

15. Alan Colley climbing the East Ridge of the Inaccessible Pinnacle during a two-day traverse

16. Our oldest client: Stan Dow at 74 on Aonach Mheadhoin in Glen Shiel

17. James Cox abseils into the T-D Gap – 5am 13 June 1988

18. Susan Hawkins at her final top – Meall Mor on the Loch Monar hills

19. The Old Man of Hoy emerges from the morning mists

20. Red Szell at the belay slings above the crux of The Old Man of Hoy

21. With daughter Hazel on the summit of Mont Blanc –15 July 2013

22. Martin and son Alex on belay during the second ascent of Genesis on Beinn Bhan (photo: Nick Carter)

23. Mont Blanc at dawn – the Brenva Face is directly under the summit

24. Descending the Three Monts route from Mont Blanc with Hazel

25. The Matterhorn from the east – Hörnli Ridge on the right , Italian Ridge on the left

26. Leading up the Moseley Slab on a quiet morning on the Hörnli Ridge

27. Reaching the summit of the Matterhorn looking east to Monte Rosa

28. The morning after the Grandes Jorasses – Martin and David outside the Boccalatte Hut

29. Jules Cartwright at the Sasc Fura Hut with the Badile and Trubinasca groups behind

30. Jules leads the Fiamma of the Spazzacaldeira in the Bregaglia Alps

31. Julie Colverd abseiling from the Punta Albigna

32. Martin makes an awkward diagonal abseil on the Grépon traverse

33. Des Winterbone follows the Fissure en Z to the summit of the Grépon

34. David Litherland on the West Ridge of the Grandes Jorasses with the Pointe Marguerite behind

35. Vettisfossen – Norway’s most-prized icefall

36. Russ Chapman topping out on Thorfossen 900m above our car

37. Martin Welch geared up for Vettisfossen

38. Martin Welch leads the traverse on pitch four of Vettisfossen

39. Lofoten’s lost citadel - Rulten from the Raftsund

40. Our 2010 Lyngen team prepare for battle: left to right: Robin Thomas, Neil Lindsey, Richard Hampshire, Keith Horner, Richard Ausden, Jonathan Preston, Katherine Henderson, David Sandham

41. Midnight return from the summit of Jiekkhevárri

42. Ullsfjord and the peaks of Troms county viewed on the descent from Jiekkhevárri

43. Panwali Dwar from Bauljuri – we climbed the right hand of the ridges

44. George Healey high on the South-East Ridge of Panwali Dwar

45. On the summit of Panwali Dwar with Nanda Devi behind

46. Martin with C.S. Pandey at Pindari base camp

47. The naked rishi of the Satopanth Glacier

48. John Shipton beneath his father’s fabled col

49. Brede Arkless on our ascent of Shipton’s Peak

50. Ben Lovett climbing out of Eric Shipton’s bamboo valley

51. The sacred peak of Adi Kailash in Kumaon Himalaya

52. The die-hards set out from Kuthi for the Nama Pass – left to right: John Allott, Martin, Hari Singh and Mike Freeman

53. John Lyall at summit camp on Kamet with Mana peak and Kumaon ranges behind

54. Kamet emerges from the mists on the morning of our departure

55. Changuch (6322m) from the base of Longstaff’s Col – we climbed the ridge between sun and shade

56. Rob Jarvis silhouetted on the final crest of Changuch

57. Martin leads his team along the final crest of Changuch with Nanda Devi’s twin peaks behind (photo: Rob Jarvis)

58. The “famous five” at Dhakuri Pass on the homeward trek from Traill’s Pass; left to right: Paul Guest, Martin, Ludar Singh, Rob Jarvis, Leon Winchester

59. Dave King and Allan Isherwood on the upper slopes of Eva’s Peak with peaks on the Lahaul-Zanskar divide behind

60. Marching down the Zanskar-Kanthang Glacier on our “walk into nowhere”

61. Dave King climbing the ice nose on the ascent of Eva’s Peak

FOREWORD

For our Dad, the pull of the mountains was an immense compulsion. He climbed them whenever he could and, when he wasn’t climbing them, he was writing about them, feverishly, at his desk. Reading this memoir of his life will no doubt leave you with the sense of a man who lived a bold and brave life on Higher Ground, but to me, these pages are full of shared humanity and the journey of a husband, father and friend who swung the pendulum between an extraordinary career in the high peaks and the conventions of life in the valley. Although the mountains were his first and his greatest love, the people who shared in his adventures fed his soul in equal measure.

Dad was one of the lucky few among us whose passion was his day job but, like most dreams that are realised, it came with unique challenges for us as a family. ‘Off the clock’ was far from a reality in the Moran household, when he was not scaling the Cuillins with clients, running an Alpine course or away for months at a time pioneering a new peak in the Himalaya, he was pursuing his own personal aspirations as a climber, for which he had an endless appetite.

He was not distracted by the frenetic hum of modern life. Often described as humble and unassuming, he had no real interest in self-promotion beyond what was necessary for his livelihood and, although he had a long list of mountaineering achievements that most would shout from the rooftops, his self-effacing nature was never more evident than when I suggested he take more ‘mountain selfies’ and set up his own Instagram page. His motivations in life ran much deeper, climbing, for him, was necessary to make sense of the world and his own place within it.

Growing up, we were unaware of what a unique Dad we had. It seemed completely normal to see him leave for a day of work with ropes, boots, axes and ten other cagoule-clad individuals in the back of his van, only to return to the dinner table that evening in his civilian clothes – a smart shirt, quality lambswool jumper, well-ironed chinos and not forgetting his infamous socks and sandals combination!

In the early years, we took it for granted that very few of our peers in school commenced their summer holiday each year tucked up in the back of a campervan that was packed to the brim with climbing and cooking equipment. Falling asleep in the Highlands of Scotland but waking to find we had travelled across Europe and arrived in the soaring Alps. We would spend our summer days running riot around campsites, mountain huts and quaint, remote alpine villages, high in the hills of Switzerland and France. Little did we appreciate that our parents were working around the clock to grow their mountaineering business – this was certainly no holiday for them!

My mother was on the frontline of parenting when we were small. However, despite long weeks of guiding in the mountains, or months away from home on expeditions, on his rare days off Dad would entice me away from the local ice cream shop to take us hiking and climbing. He showed us the same steady patience and eagerness to teach that he gave to his clients, even if we were his youngest and most testing clientele.

We each grew into life with such adventurous parents in our own way. Alex, my older brother, was a keen climber from the time he could fit into a harness. He shared many summits with Dad over the years and was inspired to become an instructor himself. In his teenage years, Alex would often return from a day in the mountains wide eyed and exhausted having been taken on an adventure which pushed him beyond his limits. This was commonplace on a day out with a father who was encouraging of his son’s advancement in the sport, but also had his own climbing aspirations for which he needed a partner. I know the mountains remain where Alex feels closest to Dad, having shared such intense moments of happiness, suffering, and elation together.

In stark comparison, the mountains did not capture my imagination in the same way until much later in life. Dad always encouraged me in whatever I chose to pursue, but a mutual understanding was not always easy: a rebellious teenage girl and a world-class mountaineer were hard pushed to find common ground at times! I felt the void of his long absences and, admittedly, wished that family life was a little more ‘mainstream’. Why did we live in such a remote place? Couldn’t we just go on a normal beach holiday like my friends instead of off-piste skiing in frozen Norway? However, with age and perspective, I grew to appreciate my wonderful and colourful childhood, full of adventure, culture, freedom, and fresh air, whether it was in the meadows and mountains of the Alps or the heathery hills of home.

Having watched my brother find quality time with Dad by joining some of his expeditions in the Himalaya and the Alps, I decided he must be onto something. No matter how far we stray from the conventions of our parents, we never stop seeking their approval. After some training and patience on Dad’s part, I attempted my highest mountain yet, Mont Blanc. He got me to the top (one he had climbed hundreds of times before), kept me warm and safe, and I felt completely at one with him for the first time. This was a bonding experience like no other, in his natural habitat, and his pride was unmissable. He had finally got his ice cream loving daughter to the top of a big mountain . . . and I could finally see life through his lens.

Despite his laid-back parenting style, his steady hand was there at all the pivotal points of my life, his long and thoughtful emails of advice and reassuring wisdom were always present as I found my way in the world. While he was not always the loudest or the most enthusiastic parent at the school gates, he always held space for us as we grew - a heart vast enough to hold unconditional love for the mountains . . . but also for us.

Watching a parent live a life full of wild aspirations and dedication was a privilege. Dad had a singular focus and ultimately this allowed him to return home as a more whole version of himself. However, the gift of freedom to live so boldly was afforded him by my mother, who nurtured a loving ‘base camp’ for him to return to and recuperate. Looking back, her unique ability to keep Dad’s feet firmly on solid ground was the most necessary of all of her supporting roles. She kept all the potential pitfalls of the ‘climber’s ego’ at bay, allowing life in the valley to remain an equal effort. Never once were his climbing aspirations limited by family life, a testament to Mum’s devotion and deep understanding of him. He had picked the right girl!

2019 was the year we lost Dad. He was killed in an avalanche on a pioneering expedition in the Nanda Devi region of the Himalaya. He had returned to this breath-taking amphitheatre of high mountains many times in his life, and it seemed to capture his imagination, more so than any other. It is now his final resting place.

We had spent our lives living under the shadow of risk inherent in his chosen profession, but nothing could have prepared us for the news that he would not be coming home this time. Although our future children will not know him as we hoped they would, we are lucky to be able to pass on the wonderful legacy he has left, to share the memories we hold dear, and take them to the high mountain places of our own childhood that remain full of his spirit.

Mountains run deep within our bones. Although I do not share the same drive to scale them as my father did, I feel at home surrounded by them and somehow reassured by their dominating presence. We are inextricably linked to Dad. I see him in my green eyes, in my brother’s strong hands and feel him in my mother’s warmth. His presence in my life is evident each time I step outside and feel the icy blast of Scottish air on my cheeks, or hear the familiar sound of Swiss cowbells, or smell pine and wet climbing gear in an alpine hut.

I hope this book will encourage you to do more of what you love and seek out those who can share in that with you. You do not have to scale the highest peaks to seek more meaning in your life. The simple act of stepping outside your comfort zone, finding connection and community with others, and doing more of what brings you joy, has the power to humble you and bring clarity and perspective to this beautiful but complex world we live in.

Enjoy these tales of companionship, adventure, and a life well-lived. I hope you will continue to make memories of your own great adventures, whatever they may be.

Hazel Moran

2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation to all who have contributed to the final text, in particular: Andy Nisbet for his contribution to Chapter 12; to Keith and Pru Cartwright, David Litherland, Fran McDonald and Des Winterbone and many others for checking and reviewing relevant parts of the script; Ric Singerton for his artwork for the maps and diagrams; Dave Ritchie for his work on scanning photographs; to Robert Davidson of Sandstone Press for his trust and editorial guidance; and finally to Joy, Alex and Hazel for their companionship, tolerance and inspiration through my long absences climbing mountains and writing about them.

Part One FORMATIVE YEARS

Chapter 1 BEGINNINGS

Only a hill; but all of life to me

Up there between the sunset and the sea.

Geoffrey Winthrop Young

I never especially wanted to be a mountain guide, but it was the hills that opened my soul to the wonders of existence. By the age of eight they had become a major part of my dreams and imaginings. I was born into an aspirational household that was making the post-war transition from working to middle-class status. Neither of my parents had the least inkling towards outdoor adventure. My mother was a dreamer, but was tied by the conventions of a housewife’s life. My father was provider and disciplinarian with scant time to spare from his career as financial accountant to a company in Wallsend on North Tyneside. Like so many of their generation both Mum and Dad sacrificed personal indulgence to give my brother and me the best possible starts in life, but their greatest contribution to my cause was unwitting.

Both parents had distaste for the conventional seaside holiday of the 1960s, and instead we were taken on touring trips in the Lake District and Scottish Highlands. My eyes were first opened to the hills through the back windows of a Vauxhall Victor. On Kirkstone Pass I saw grim crags rearing up into the mists on Red Screes. In Glen Lyon I marvelled at pencilled torrents which plunged from hidden heights. I urgently needed to find out what was where, to define and contain the world, and so became obsessed with maps. I accumulated a collection of Ordnance Survey One Inch sheets and became a devotee of Wainwright’s guidebooks. The strange Gaelic names of the Highlands – Sgurr nan Clach Geala, An Teallach, Bidean nam Bian – evoked a mix of fear and enticement.

Soon I was scampering up hillocks and hummocks during Sunday picnics in the Cheviot Hills. Langlee Crags and Humbleton Hill briefly meant all the world to me, but by now I had found the mountain bookshelf in North Shields library and my horizon widened. On a family drive to Devon the billowing masses of summer cumulus became my own Himalaya, every cloud cap a new and unfathomable summit, and with excitement came fear. One night in bed my imagination passed from the hills to the whole of the Earth and up to the sky. The stars stretched into a yawning and terrible abyss. Suddenly I sensed the ultimate truth and in a spasm of panic rushed downstairs to the arms of my mother. I now knew that a search for the absolute was futile, but I was not deterred from the quest.

From fell-walks and camps to rock faces and bivouacs, the hills gave me solace and inspiration through my teenage years. All else in life seemed dull by compare and I won revelations of a life beyond the plain.

By December 1978 I was married and living in Sheffield. So far the magic of Scottish winter mountaineering had eluded me. I was steeped in the works of Bill Murray and the legends of Tom Patey1, Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith2. The sublime experiences described by Murray in Mountaineering in Scotland convinced me that it was in this genre that the true force lay. Yet my previous trips north had all ended in storm or retreat through want of courage.

Lacking a ready partner I resolved to make a weekend visit to the Cairngorms alone and absconded from a tedious accountancy audit in the early afternoon. We owned a seventeen-year-old Ford Anglia, inherited from my late grandfather. I dropped Joy, my wife, with her family in Durham and drove north through torrential rain, battling self-doubt and loneliness. The 350-mile journey seemed interminable but the rain petered out to be replaced by snow showers, which fired mesmerising volleys of white daggers across the headlight beams. On the climb from Glen Shee to the Cairnwell thick banks of powder snow defeated the car. I parked and bedded down on the back seat, my mood morose but still determined.

A snow-plough appeared at 7.00 am and, tucking in behind, I surmounted the pass in triumph. My perseverance had paid off. Remembering the joys of a summer crossing as a fifteen-year-old Scout I was drawn to the Cairn Toul-Braeriach massif. The hike up Glen Dee was a soulless trudge and the hills were shrouded behind the veils of falling snow, but I kept my head down and climbed Cairn Toul from Corrour bothy without a stop. On the summit the visibility was less than twenty-five metres, so I took a direct descent past Lochan Uaine and cramponned delicately down the frozen water-slide of its outflow stream. Just before darkness I found the squat stone-clad Garbh Choire bothy, and settled in for the sixteen-hour night. Tomorrow’s likely outcome would be another dull trudge back to the car and yet another disappointment, but at least I was secure and warm.

In such expectancy I overslept my alarm by an hour. The bothy door opened to a morning of absolute clarity. The mountains shone under a white blanket of fresh snow. I couldn’t get packed quick enough. The snow was dry and aerated making the 600m climb to Braeriach an exhausting struggle, but what recompense there was in the views of the snow-plastered corrie walls around me. On reaching the summit, my sight ranged westward across the upper Spey valley to the white rump of Ben Nevis, which sailed on the skyline sixty miles away.

Anxious to squeeze every moment of pleasure out of this precious day, I ploughed down to the Pools of Dee in the jaws of the Lairig Ghru, straight up the east side, and on to Ben Macdui. Already the sun was slipping from my grasp. I pounded over the summit and descended towards the Luibeg Burn. Midday’s glare faded to a pale pink alpenglow, which flushed the high tops for a magical half-hour until the heavens turned to indigo, leaving only the western horizons with a fringe of light. The immensity of the vision moved me close to tears. A blanket of freezing fog gathered in the glen as I jogged down the icy track. Once more I saw the Universe for what it is, infinite and pitiless; I could feel the sting of death in the barren frost, and yet was utterly happy. The paradox is inexplicable. Back at Linn of Dee the Ford Anglia’s engine fired first time and a wind of elation carried me home.

Notes

1. Tom Patey was one of the great characters of post-war Scottish climbing – raconteur, musician, satirist and formidable pioneer. He died in 1970 in a fall while abseiling from the Maiden sea-stack off Scotland’s north coast. The anthology of his writings One Man’s Mountains was an inspiration to the new generation of the 1970s.

2. Edinburgh climbers Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith took Scottish ice-climbing to a new level. In a single week in February 1960 they put out five new routes on Ben Nevis including the magnificent Orion Face Direct, establishing grade V as the high-water mark of aspiration for the next generation. Smith’s mercurial career and untimely death at the age of twenty-three added to the aura of his climbs.

Chapter 2 TRIAL BY EIGER

Dave McDonald sat wedged between rucksacks in the back seat of our Renault 6 throughout the drive to the Alps. The fields of France baked in late-summer heat. There was no discussion of an acclimatisation route, no agonised dissection of weather forecasts. Our Eiger pact was already sealed. We turned east into Switzerland through Bern and Interlaken and camped in Lauterbrunnen. While Joy resigned herself to a few days of solo walking, Dave and I packed the kit and took the train to Kleine Scheidegg. At 12.30 pm on 30 August 1981, thirty-six hours after leaving Sheffield, I saw the Eiger and its fearsome north face for the first time. An hour later Dave was leading me across the screes and meadows under the huge limestone walls bounding the face.

For Dave, the North Face of the Eiger was something of an obsession. Through the 1960s he had climbed many of the hardest rock faces in the Dolomites and the Western Alps, including the Philip-Flamm route on the Civetta and the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses. Dave grew up in poverty in Felling on the south bank of the Tyne. He trained as a toolmaker, developed uncompromising socialist politics and found in climbing the outlet he needed to express his energy, anger and creative talent. He had tried the Eigerwand in both summer and winter. Now in his mid thirties and settling down with his wife Fran, Dave wanted the Eiger albatross off his back.

I hardly considered myself the sort of chap that Dave would court as a partner. In fact, I was more than a little shy of him. By reputation he was hard-climbing, hard-drinking and ferociously argumentative. Earlier in August we had met for a preparatory weekend of rock climbing in the Lake District. I was taken aback that, far from putting me through a psychological trial, he treated me with warmth and considerable respect, yet his broad balding brow, tapered jaw and cropped moustache betrayed a man on a mission. He was decisive in action and razor-sharp with quips and observational humour.

Under the centre of the north wall he stopped, craned his neck back and scanned the maze of shattered pillars and terracing above. I could rely on Dave to master the complexities of the lower face. He set off climbing solo at a formidable pace. There was no suggestion to use the rope. The first significant difficulty of the route is the Difficult Crack which sits under the massive rock shield of the Rote Fluh. Dave found a route to avoid this on the left and forged on, still without a rope. The limestone rock was variously brittle or sloping. Climbing in big boots with a heavy sack I felt terribly insecure.

We moved left along a ledge under the Rote Fluh. Dave stopped and ferreted in a rock cleft, producing a bag of gas cylinders and food.

“We stashed these when we retreated in winter.”

We added a gas cylinder and some powdered drinks to stretch our resources to three nights. At the infamous Hinterstoisser Traverse our rope was summoned into service. This was the pitch where, in 1936, Andreas Hinterstoisser’s party burned its bridges by failing to leave a rope in place, not realising that the traverse was irreversible. When forced to retreat they were trapped on the face in line of falling stones and in a gathering storm. Their only option was to abseil straight downwards over rock overhangs. Hinterstoisser and Angerer fell. Rainer froze to death, jammed by his rope against a karabiner. The last survivor, Toni Kurz, spent a night hanging free from his rope and perished just a few metres above a rescue party.

Old fixed lines offered a handrail on the traverse and the waterworn rock offered vague flutes and pockets for the toes. We performed a delicate dance poised two thousand feet above the sunny meadows of Alpiglen. A little higher we found the overhung niche of the Swallow’s Nest and set up a bivouac. We were now on the edge of the central amphitheatre of the face and I spent much of the evening attuning myself to the scale of tomorrow’s challenge.

I snuggled in my new goretex-covered sleeping bag while Dave assembled his self-made tower stove, which he hung from a piton in the roof of the cave. Dawn came chill but clear. Dave led on to the First Icefield at 5.20 am and yesterday’s dynamics were repeated. Dave forced the pace with an intent that bordered on aggressive while I struggled to follow. In 1981 the effects of global warming were not yet apparent and it was still quite normal to attempt the Eigerwand in summer in expectancy of a good cover of ice on the crucial links. However, we now faced bare rock slabs covered in verglas on the Ice Hose. Dave hauled on an old piece of rope, then disappeared up the slabs above. Suddenly, there was a scraping and a clatter. I braced on my anchors expecting a fall, but instead one of Dave’s axes flew down and disappeared into the abyss. We could continue with three axes between us but our comfort margins had significantly narrowed.

I tried to second this pitch with style to save energy but couldn’t find any purchase for my crampon points. There was a runnel of ice to the right but the ropes forced me ever leftwards. When I fell Dave yelled at me to climb the rope. There was no pause, no mercy shown. Was it me being timid or was Dave unduly anxious to get this climb over and done?

My turn to lead came on the Second Icefield. Here there was a cover of snow on top of a sheet of old ice. To save time we dispensed with belaying and moved together, keeping a couple of ice screws between us for running protection. We noticed two parties on the face above us, one at the top of the Ramp and the other in the Exit Cracks. Traversing along the top of the ice field we reached the crest of the Flatiron where Mehringer and Sedlmayer perished on the first attempt on the face in 1935, their ledge ever since known as Death Bivouac.

From here the commitment was total, the feasibility of retreat diminishing with every leftward stride that we made across the central bowl. The tiny Third Icefield was sheet ice and I felt vulnerable traversing across with just one ice axe. The exposure was giddy. The ice slipped into a void that led the eye straight down to the clustered hotels of Kleine Scheidegg. We gained the protection of the Ramp soon after midday, leaving the open expanses of the icefields for the enclosure of a gully. The morning’s urgency lifted. When we looked back we were dismayed to see two other climbers setting out across the Second Icefield where there was now a serious risk of stonefall as the upper face loosened its ammunition in the sun.

Halfway up the Ramp we found an anorak and sleeping bag embedded in the ice, and wondered how or why these had been abandoned. Throughout the climb there were grisly reminders of past epics and tragedies. The number of twisted old pitons was bewildering. We led through to the top of the Ramp and at 2.00 pm stopped at a ledge to make a brew of tea. All was going well. An afternoon mist had gathered around the face, rendering a distinctly spooky ambience but this was not a particular cause for concern. The Eiger usually draws its curtain in the afternoon hours.

We continued from the Brittle Ledge up a steep rock wall to the Traverse of the Gods. This tiny balcony leads back right into the centre of the face and makes the crucial linkage with the White Spider. The Traverse was dry and easy. Despite the exposure we romped across in twenty minutes, but were brought to an abrupt halt at the sight of small stones fizzing down the Spider. The temptation to tackle the last thousand feet of the face that evening was considerable, but we played a prudent game. Besides, there was nothing to suggest any change in the weather. We retreated back over the Traverse to a three-foot wide ledge that offered some shelter for a bivouac.

As we prepared for the night the mists parted, but instead of the anticipated sunset, we saw an armada of thunderstacks sailing straight towards us from the north-west. For a minute we stood transfixed. Dave broke our silence.

“Why does it always happen to the good guys?”

The air became charged with humidity. With malign stealth the cumulo-nimbus towers enveloped the foothills, ridge by ridge, and marched into the Grindelwald valley. The storm hit the face just as we clambered into our tent sack. All hell let loose. Vicious cracks of lightning were instantaneously followed by heart-thumping peals of thunder. Within seconds, volleys of hailstones hammered against our nylon bag. For thirty minutes the hailstorm raged and then snowfall commenced. The lightning flashes and thunder growls were now muffled by a thickening blanket of swirling snowflakes. The first sloughs of powder snow trickled over our heads, then intensified into regular avalanches that built up cones of snow behind our necks.

Ensconced in my new sleeping bag and securely tied to belays I let my feet dangle over the edge and eventually drifted off to sleep. Whenever I stirred I heard Dave fidgeting, tossing and turning. His old down sleeping bag and threadbare underwear were no match for the creeping chill. Morning brought a mournful grey light and the gentle patter of dry snowfall. We were pinned by a foot of fresh snow. Powder avalanches swept the face on both sides. Progress seemed unlikely. Starved of sleep, Dave commenced a soliloquy of wry Geordie humour.

“I’ve just worked out,” he piped up, “it’ll take us forty-four abseils to get back down the face.”

On this point I thought he might be serious. I clung to the hope that we could climb out as soon as the storm abated. The Exit Cracks posed a formidable technical obstacle but seemed preferable to making a traumatic series of abseils from rotten pegs. If we went down the avalanches would increase in volume. We would have to climb back across the ice fields with a significant chance of being swept off the face. In 1981 helicopter rescue was only possible at a few points on the face. The bottom of the White Spider was one such place, but without a clearance we couldn’t signal for help.

At midday the snow turned to rain and fleetingly the clouds parted to reveal a tormented sky. The air masses were in perpetual motion and we watched their display with keen eyes, knowing that they held our destiny. We were fortunate that we had picked up the extra gas at the start of the route. We could brew up every three hours. While I still nurtured dreams of success Dave became despondent. The composure that enabled our rapid climb the previous day had gone. Even his wit deserted him. Re-organising his sitting position he dropped a mitten. I let my temper fly before telling him that I had a spare.

At nightfall another set of cloud stacks drifted in from the west while dense grey stratus obscured the northward view. Only the westerly breeze gave any hope of improvement. Food and gas were virtually exhausted. My optimism was beginning to falter but again I slept for long intervals while Dave fretted in a damp gloom. We had to get out the next day or most likely we’d perish.

At 4.00 am I peered out of the frosted vent of our bag. Joy of joys; a mass of stars shone over us and the Eiger was perched above a sea of white cloud. We agreed to go on. At 6.20 am I led off across the Traverse. Every ledge and cranny was choked with powder snow and the protection pegs were obscured. The twenty-minute romp of two days ago now took us two hours. Protection was so scant that a slip would probably have been fatal. The Spider was silent. We abandoned any lingering thoughts of rescue and climbed three ice pitches to the start of the Exit Cracks.

With the vigorous hacking of ice, tingling warmth returned to fingers and toes. A sense of wellbeing and normality returned. We had only to use our climbing skills and master the last quarter of the face. There were no longer any “ifs” or “buts”. High in the Exit Cracks a steeper cleft posed a serious test of my new philosophy. This was the famous crack where, after a similar storm in 1952, the legendary alpinist Hermann Buhl had made the climb of his life to lead a corde européenne of French, German and Austrian climbers to safety. His clothes and ropes were frozen and he had already spent two nights bivouacked without liquid. For four hours Buhl teetered on the edge of exhaustion in leading the twenty-five-metre pitch. An iced fixed rope of uncertain vintage now hung down to the left of the corner.

Many times I had read the account of Buhl’s feat in Heinrich Harrer’s history of the Eiger nordwand, The White Spider. Now I felt awed to be faced with the challenge. I ignored the rope and started up the crack, climbing cautiously from one bridged resting place to another. Dave glared up from the belay. My purist approach was irking him.

“Climb the f**king rope, will you,” he snapped.

“You can’t trust old ropes; I think the crack is safer,” I replied.

While Dave fulminated I made a couple of aid moves on jammed nuts and rested just a couple of metres from the top.

“For Christ’s sake will you climb that f**king rope?!” he screamed.

“You keep your opinions until you’ve followed it,” I yelled back, but I was sufficiently ruffled to grab the rope for the last moves. Dave seconded in humble silence and immediately admitted that it was hard. He followed another fixed line diagonally downwards to the bottom of the exit chute. Again, it was my lead. Fog had rolled in and light snowfall sent an endless stream of spindrift down this glassy half-pipe. Rarely able to look up, I braced my cramponned feet on either side and with alternate pressing on my outstretched palms I bridged up the gully. Once embarked there was no possibility of reversing the moves. For a hundred and twenty feet I monkeyed up the cleft without any sign of respite. My only protection consisted of two dubious nuts. Teetering on the edge of self-control and now some forty-five metres out from the belay I peered through the sifting powder and spotted a ledge and piton out to the right. The day was saved.

Dave led through up tiled slabs towards the summit icefield. As I followed, the pick on my axe snapped. We were now reduced to one working axe apiece. Our nerves were taut, the climbing delicate and protection imaginary. With a final effort of concentration we climbed the ice slope and emerged in thick mist on the final section of the Mittellegi Ridge. The moment we raised our axes above the crest their metal heads emitted a buzz of static electricity. Another thunderstorm was imminent. Propelled by fear we staggered along the ridge and reached the summit in thick mist at 5.10 pm. We paused only to take a compass bearing for the West Flank descent.

The relief to get off the ridge and into the shelter and gentle angles of the West Flank was short-lived. Dry slabs which offer easy scrambling in summer were now banked with powder snow. The angle was just sufficient to guarantee a slide if we slipped. Hopes of getting off the mountain dwindled in the evening gloom. We stopped by a large boulder and made our fourth bivouac. With no liquid and just a couple of sweeties each this would be a long night.

My own sleeping bag was now sodden and I began to worry for Joy. What would she be thinking sitting alone in our tent in the deluge? We’d said we would take two days and now we had been out for four. With sleep improbable Dave recovered his old swagger and began a long tirade against the evils of Thatcherism. I made sufficient response to ensure that Dave maintained the heat of dialectical argument, until he too fell to silent shivering.

Wet snowfall was succeeded by rain at dawn. We packed and left at 6.00 am. My ventile jacket and lambswool sweater were now saturated. Dave was rejuvenated and I slipped behind as he threaded a line over dicey slabs and down snowy couloirs. Finally, we reached an overlap where we could not climb down. By abseiling the impasse we were committed to the outcome. The ropes ended in a big snow gully. Surely this was the end of the difficulty. We ploughed down and then, to our immeasurable joy, the cloud lifted and we saw the roof of Eigergletscher Station a couple of hundred metres below.

At the station we shook hands with sincerity and mutual gratitude. Wherever one of us had faltered the other had been strong. Without that interdependence we might not have come through. On the train the uniformed ticket collector gravely stamped our tickets and looked unkindly on the seeping mass of ropes and sacks on the carriage floor. Dapper businessmen with newspapers under their arms got on at Wengen, shrugged imperiously and sat as far away from us as they could. We had landed from a different planet.

Meanwhile, Joy could no longer stave off her fears for our safety. That morning she drove to Grindelwald police station and reported us missing on the Eiger.

“Yes,” said the officer. “I think there are two men who have fallen there.”

He took a note of our names and went through to the back-office. There was an excruciating delay of several minutes before he wandered back out.

“No, these men were from New Zealand. We recovered their bodies yesterday.”

They could only have been the pair that was following us across the Icefields on the first day. While Dave squatted in his tent porch and cooked a fry-up I waited pensively for Joy’s return. We didn’t betray our feelings but dropped straight into the minutiae of domestic life as though nothing had happened in the last four days.

Next morning Dave marched into Grindelwald rail station. He knew that we’d had a close escape and was sensible to all that Joy had been through. Emotionally shaken and pining for Fran, he headed straight for the ticket counter.

“A single ticket to Besançon, please,” he demanded.

“But Dave, why do you want to go to Besançon?” I queried.

“Once I’m at Besançon, I’m in France, and once I’m in France I know my way home.” The logic was incontestable. In an hour he had gone. I little guessed that the Eiger would be his last big alpine climb.1

In contrast I was buoyed by our success. I had proved myself equal to the Eiger. Had I done enough to be worthy of a career in the mountains? On returning home I battled inner doubts then steeled myself to phone the secretary of an organisation of which I had recently become aware, the Association of British Mountain Guides.

“How do you become a mountain guide?” I asked, and with those words my fate was sealed.

Notes

1. Dave McDonald was killed in December 1985 in a collision on the A69 near Brampton while returning from a weekend working on his house in Keswick. His wife Fran, eight months pregnant with Jeff, and three-year-old daughter Jenny, escaped unhurt. His obituary in the Newcastle Journal described him as “Super-Geordie”.

Chapter 3 TESTS AND TRAUMAS

In 1982 the Association of British Mountain Guides (BMG) was establishing its reputation as the premier body of mountaineering professionals in Britain. The BMG was accepted as a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides’ Associations (IFMGA) in 1979, so that British Mountain Guides carried the same badge, status and working rights as their French or Swiss counterparts. The BMG would only accept applicants who had extensive experience of technical climbing, mountaineering and ski-touring. The training scheme was rigorous, involving several courses and two major assessments over a three-year period. At that time the BMG President was Pete Boardman, the leading Himalayan activist1, and the sixty-strong membership of qualified Guides included many of the country’s best-performing climbers as well as leading instructors from the national outdoor centres.

Faced with such a reputation my trepidation was understandable. Not only did I question my worthiness as a climber, but I was also acutely aware that I was entirely self-taught. While many applicants to the BMG were already qualified mountain instructors I had never coached or led anyone in the mountains in my life. I felt as though I was jumping from the ranks of mediocrity into the realm of the elite, but Secretary Colin Firth was both approachable and helpful. I submitted a four-page list of my mountaineering experience together with references from my best-known climbing partners and my application was accepted. I was as much surprised as thrilled.

The commitment to doing the Guides’ training scheme was clearly incompatible with a full-time accountancy job, but I managed to secure three months’ unpaid leave a year from my employers. Colin suggested that I get some experience working as a voluntary or apprentice guide before presenting myself for the summer test in North Wales. The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) ran a series of subsidised courses in both Scotland and the Alps, aimed at giving young people a structured introduction to the mountains. The BMC Training Officer, Chris Dodd, was a fell-running friend and he arranged two weeks of work for me in the French Ecrins massif in August. Along with fellow-apprentice Kevin Flint I travelled to the village of Ailefroide at the head of the Vallouise where a woodland campground housed several hundred trekkers and alpinists. The 4102m Barre des Ecrins sits at the head of the valley. The courses were directed by John Brailsford, an outdoor pursuits lecturer at Bangor University and a notoriously ebullient character. He was mad-keen on cycling and biked from Wales to the Alps each summer with his students. John took his guiding skills straight from the French template. When Kevin and I produced our rock-worn crampons for inspection John took one look and snapped:

“Get them sharpened; all twelve points.”

After a gruelling late-night filing session we followed John to the Glacier Blanc for what he described as an école de glace. We were amazed by the precision and discipline of John’s école. For several hours the course students were grilled on every form of footwork on crampons and then inducted into the techniques for crevasse rescue. By the end of the day we were hoisting each other out of crevasses by a system of prusik knots and pulleys. John supervised proceedings wearing corduroy breeches, checked shirt and white cap. Our dishevelled attire and self-conscious shufflings on the ice looked pathetic by compare. Clearly, there was a great deal to learn in this guiding game.

John was assisted by a second guide, Harold Edwards, who worked in the Lake District. Harold was relaxed, affable and completely free of hauteur. We youngsters felt sufficiently comfortable with him to assume a primacy in our fitness and technical prowess. On the walk up to the Ecrins hut the path takes a serpentine course, tackling a 500m high slope in a series of long zigzags. The tedium of the ascent demanded some action.

“Let’s see how fast we can do it,” I said to Kevin.

We dashed off, jogging the gentle inclines and thrusting hands down on knees to power round the steeper bends. Harold quickly disappeared from view. Soon my heart was pounding to its maximum and I deeply regretted my indulgence over a lunch which churned half-digested in a tightening gut. We arrived in a state of near-collapse at the top of the path only to find Harold lounging on a boulder.

“Did you go up the long way?” he laughed. He had quietly nipped up a direct route cutting out the zigzags. I never again made the mistake of underestimating an older guide.

Throughout the Ecrins fortnight I enjoyed the company of the students. Instructing and guiding seemed natural and I could not deny a certain pleasure in my status as an expert. Many on the course were tousled university students, but each had some chink of individual charm. Others were plainly eccentric. Two Oxbridge graduates turned up wearing tweed jackets, white shirts and ties. Contrary to our advice they insisted on maintaining this attire on all ascents. We nicknamed them Whymper and Winthrop2. Whymper described himself as a “mathematical modeller”. Winthrop possessed a naïve geniality and was full of bright ideas. As we plodded up the glacier towards the Barre in the moonlight his quivering voice perked up from behind:

“I’m sure we’re going wrong; I can see the path across the glacier over there.”

We turned to see that Winthrop’s “path” was actually the deep black slit of a crevasse. There was reassurance to realise that many folk, while personally competent, actually need guides to find the way. Perhaps guiding really would be a worthwhile career.

In preparation for the summer assessment I spent long evenings puzzling over Bill March’s textbook Modern Rope Techniques in Mountaineering. The most intimidating part of the test consisted of a demonstration of improvised rescue techniques using only rope, slings, karabiners and 5mm prusik cord. I was not intuitively adept at knots and pulleys. There seemed to be dozens of different systems. Without real practice I remained utterly confused so I badgered Joy to overcome her aversion to heights and subjected her to a couple of evenings hanging in a harness off Burbage Edge while I performed rescue manoeuvres.

On 22 May 1983 six of us assembled for the assessment at Plas y Brenin outdoor centre to be informed that the rescue test would take place on day one at Tremadog crags. We worked in pairs, each with an assessor. I lashed myself to belays on the cliff-top. My companion, Dave, was then lowered off an overhang. Assessor Nigel Shepherd allowed me twenty minutes to secure Dave, abseil down to him, administer first aid, put him in a chest harness and then hoist him to the cliff-top, with the assumption that he was unconscious all the while! Knots such as the autobloc, klemheist and sheetbend were to be employed. No university or accountancy exam was ever like this!

I successfully secured the loaded rope with a releasable autobloc and prusiked down to Dave. I glanced across to the other teams. Another candidate, John, had turned out in a stylish Swiss ski sweater complete with white chest bands in an attempt to seduce his assessor, but was now running back and forwards from his belays to the edge of the crag completely unable to work out a plan of rescue. While John went into meltdown, I crudely harnessed my man, prusiked back to the top and yanked him five metres up the cliff on a 3:1 pulley hoist. At this point Nigel commanded me to stop. I had cleared the first hurdle.

After a day climbing HVS and E-grade rock routes at Gogarth we were sent straight to the Glyders for a night navigation and bivouac exercise. The night was clear and we worked our way by moonlight to a sheltered bivouac spot near the Bwlch Tryfan. My new assessor, Dave Walsh, maintained a dour countenance despite our ministration of hot stew. The pressure level rose further with the gathering of a thick damp mist at dawn. We were asked to find and climb the Very Severe Direct Route on Glyder Fach in boots and with rucksacks. Dave was meticulously critical throughout the approach and I began to resent his pernickety attitude. Direct Route was a good climb. “We should be enjoying this!” I thought. I led the crux chimney with angry determination and was delighted when Dave slipped off while seconding the crux. This brought a temporary relaxation of tension, and Dave allowed me a brief smile as we finished the route.

The fourth day tested our general mountain sense and environmental knowledge. Ski-sweater John and I were assessed by Rob Collister, who said he would pretend to be an eccentric botanist in search of rare plants on the crags of Cwm Glas. John got us lost on the approach and then we displayed our embarrassing lack of knowledge of mountain flora. Asked to identify lady’s mantle, roseroot and saxifraga oppositfolia we offered only blank stares and suggested that anything purple might be saxifrage, but we kept Rob safely roped while he taught us some elementary botany.

I took an icy pre-breakfast dip in the Brenin lake to freshen me for the final trial, the rock-coaching day. We went back to Tremadog. My “mock” students were a teacher and pupil from St David’s College. They were hardly the novices I had expected. Both seconded Hard Very Severe routes with ease. My assessor Bill Wayman directed me to a climb which was appropriately called Grim Wall. Having acquitted myself on this I choose an E1-grade route called First Slip as a finale, thinking this would delight my team and secure me a pass. This was not a wise selection. I had never done the route, the crux was 5c in technical difficulty and I hadn’t bargained that Bill would climb up the route behind me. With Bill scrutinising every move I tackled the crux groove facing the wrong way and ended up stretching my hamstrings in an unlikely bridged position. My calf muscles commenced the involuntary shake, known as “disco-legs”, that often plagues the novice climber. An urgent repositioning and desperate finger-fight got me back into balance, but both Bill and students had seen me struggle.

We abseiled off and I felt a dizzying wave of relief. The test was over. The teacher shook my hand and with crushing condescension he said:

“Well, it’s obvious you haven’t done much instructing but perhaps you’d like to get some experience helping the school from time to time.”

The real verdict came back at Plas y Brenin. I was given a clear pass and my joy was unbounded.

In June I drove out to Chamonix to further my guiding apprenticeship with Terry Taylor, a well-known guide from North Wales. Terry was hampered by fused ankle joints, the result of injuries sustained in a terrible fall on Clogwyn Du’r Arddu in the 1960s, but his zeal and enthusiasm still burned bright. In those days there were no rules about non-qualified staff taking groups on the alpine peaks3. Although I had passed the summer rock test I had taken no assessment in the Alps. The judgement of competence lay with the supervising guide, and Terry was willing to trust me with a bunch of school students from a college in Leicestershire. For a trainee this was a wonderful opportunity to gain genuine experience.

The course was run from a wild camp in the woods behind the Grands Montets lift station in Argentière. Terry pitched a large frame tent as his base for the summer and the students camped nearby. The ski-station toilet solved our sanitary needs and we lived in harmony with the mountains. In that spirit Terry took us all on an open bivouac on the Glacier des Rognons on the second day. A storm arrived as we were bedding down behind a snow-wall and we were treated to a night-long display of pyrotechnics. The kids slept undisturbed and awoke covered in ten centimetres of fresh snow. Terry’s operation was often described as “cheap and cheerful”, but he promoted the ethos of simple mountain living that was to be slowly submerged by the subsequent boom in commercial climbing.

After a week of training and acclimatisation the weather became very hot4 and I was tasked with the oldest and most able trio of students to make a traverse of the 3824m Aiguille du Chardonnet via the Forbes Arête. This classic assez difficile (AD) route starts from the Albert Premier Hut and gains the beautiful turreted arête by a snow bulge known as La Bosse. At that time the hut guardian was a surly disciplinarian by the name of Nicholas.