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  Someone my dad worked with once told me a story about his team getting called out for a crashed jet. Its fuselage lay intact in a field and the team set up a cordon so no one could approach the wreckage until crash investigators could be flown up there. It was a big deal. The investigators had a huge responsibility to check for anything that might explain why the aircraft had come down. When they turned up, my dad, as team leader, escorted them to the site and then moved aside to let them begin their investigation. After a while there seemed to be a bit of a commotion. Dad was called over, the experts standing and rubbing their chins while perusing a metal cylinder about four inches high and three inches wide, balanced on top of a piece of the fuselage. They were clueless as to what it was, and wondering if it had any bearing on the crash.

  ‘Do you know what this is flight sergeant?’ they asked my dad.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s the lid off my flask.’

  That night, not wanting to sleep in the drizzle in a car park, we dossed with a friend of Dad’s from his RAF days, a guy called Tom Jones, who although not being the Tom Jones, was just about as loud and full of life – and Welsh. We sat in his kitchen drinking tea and talking, more stories coming out about my dad, including him getting hit on the head by a rock in the Dolomites, and how, on seeing the state of him, with blood pouring from the wound, his partner had fainted on the belay, and my dad had to look after him instead.

  Tom’s son had been in a bad car crash and suffered a brain injury, leaving him partly paralysed down one side of his body. As a former physical training instructor like my dad, Tom had decided he had to keep his son active, and so bought a tandem. He fixed his son’s paralysed foot to the pedal, and the pair went off on epic bike journeys. ‘The one thing you have to do, when you stop, is put your foot down on the right side, otherwise he’ll just face plant,’ said Tom, laughing.

  Sitting there in Tom’s warm kitchen, listening to the stories, I felt like my father’s son, especially as most of their tales turned on how my dad would make some fuck-up, then save the day by his willingness to not accept the fact that he was screwed. Next morning we headed back up to Fallout Corner but a warm front had passed through during the night, and our climb had defrosted, the ropes hanging lank and damp. The only thing to do was climb up them, get the gear, and abseil off. We drove south that night – the chances for winter climbing being zero – dropping Dad off in the Lakes, where he worked.

  The roads were quiet as we continued on to Sheffield, and we talked nonstop, more to stay awake than for conversation.

  ‘What you got planned next year?’ I asked Ian, although not wanting to suffer the envy of knowing.

  ‘I’m off to Alaska with Kenton Cool in the spring, and the Himalaya in the autumn. What about you?’

  ‘I’ve started to think about going to Chamonix and trying to solo the Lafaille route on the Dru,’ I said sheepishly, ready to rein back on my boast with a dismissive remark.

  Ian nodded his head as if to prove he understood the gravity of what I had planned, while pulling the type of face that signified I had an evens chance of dying in the undertaking – to attempt a second ascent solo of the hardest wall in Europe. But I knew I had climbed harder routes in Yosemite, and that technically I could match Lafaille, the best all-round climber in the world, on that route at least. What I didn’t know was if I had the balls to hang out on a frozen face for a week or two.

  ‘I’m not sure about soloing though, it’s just an idea,’ I added. ‘It would be much better to do it as a pair.’

  ‘I’d be up for it,’ said Ian.

  And that was it.

  ONE

  Dru

  February 2002

  ‘Deux… tickets… to… la… summit. Un way,’ Ian said slowly to the woman behind the thick glass. She looked confused. ‘Un way,’ he repeated, pointing up with his forefinger, towards some imagined summit in the sky. ‘One… way… We go to climb the Dru.’

  The woman sighed at his poor grasp of French and shook her head slowly, as only a French ticket woman who has spent a lifetime listening to her language being abused can. She waited for him to have another go, but thankfully he said no more. They both looked at each other. Ian pointed up again, which was really of no help, as most people at the bottom of a cable car in a ski resort want to go up not down.

  Losing patience, as the queue built up behind him, she gave an unhappy slow shake of her head, pressed some unseen button, and two small tickets appeared. Ian grabbed them: ‘Mercy!’

  ‘That’s the hardest part over with,’ I said as he walked back, tickets in hand, and we hoisted our huge haul-bags onto our backs, each weighing almost as much as we did, making us stand out among the bustle of early morning skiers.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Ian.

  The Lafaille route was perhaps the biggest available objective in Europe at the time, said to be the hardest big route on its hardest big wall – the Petit Dru’s West Face. There were plenty of other hard climbs around, to repeat or put up, but the great thing about the Lafaille for us was none could be done so relatively cheaply, with Chamonix being only a day’s drive from home an important consideration.

  Jean-Christophe Lafaille, France’s premier mountaineer, had finished the route the previous winter, pieced together both with partners and alone up the blankest section of the wall, a grey skyscraper towering over the Chamonix valley. He started off on the bottom section climbing with others, before continuing solo as the project dragged on, finally completing it over nine days. The final push had been made under the gaze of the media, with helicopters flying overhead. Lafaille was a poster-boy for French alpinism, a mystical figure – a survivor – and the French press followed his career closely. The route ended with a dash to the summit as a storm closed in, an added urgency being the fact his wife was expecting a baby. Once down he declared his new creation to be perhaps the hardest big-wall route in Europe, daft really, seeing as he hadn’t done all the others. But since this was Lafaille speaking, most people took his words to mean that even if it weren’t the hardest, it would be very hard indeed.

  Most hard routes in the Alps wait many years, sometimes decades for a second ascent, the mystique of the hard men, or man, who climbed them too much for most to overcome. Most climbers view those at the forefront of alpinism as being superhuman, and it takes a long time to build up the group confidence necessary to attempt to follow in their footsteps. It’s often young tigers, looking to build a reputation, that repeat the biggest climbs, rather than established heroes, who fear failure on their rivals’ routes more than death itself.

  Yet once a climb is repeated, there is invariably a rush to make further ascents. The mystique is gone. Overnight, a climb can go from something that is only whispered about, a project that everyone imagines doing sometime, to being a trade route, guided, soloed and diminished in the minds of all, with that god of a climber suffering the same fate.

  We too were young tigers of a sort, eager to make a mark, and overcoming such a route was more than just an act of climbing. Like most such efforts it was a statement. Chamonix contained the highest proportion of top alpinists on the planet and for me and Ian – two nobodies – to get the second ascent would be quite something.

  Shuffling through the echoing concrete corridor in a long queue of skiers towards the cable car, my shoulders ached under the huge load of gear. My haul-bag was bigger than a dustbin. I made a mental checklist of everything we needed to climb tomorrow: bivouac kit, climbing gear, ten days’ food, fuel and portaledge. The one thing we didn’t have was a first-aid kit. Such things always seemed a little defeatist.

  I knew getting to the bottom of the face would be a nightmare with this kind of load; a real exercise in toil, made worse by the fact this was our second trip up, and we knew just what we were in for. Nevertheless the weight on my back felt great. It meant I was doing something positive towards something amazing.

  A few days before, we’d taken the same route with equ
ally heavy loads: up the cable car to the top of the Grands Montets, a peak that stands beside the Dru down which people ski to the valley. From there it was a short traverse to a band of cliffs, which we descended to the Nant Blanc Glacier. Crossing that put us at the bottom of the Dru. Only in the Alps could you walk downhill to your mountaineering objective.

  On that first trip it hadn’t seemed quite as easy as it sounds. We found ourselves trawling through deep snow and around big crevasses before we could dump our loads in a rock cave close to the bottom of the face. Each step was made worse from knowing we’d have to make it again in a few days’ time. It had been dark and growing cold as we stashed our gear, and I’d been glad not to be setting off just yet. Going down for a few more days would help top up my psyche for the toughest challenge of my life. In winter, everything takes twice as long and requires ten times more energy, and so, on that first trip, it had been two in the morning by the time we made it back to Chamonix. Just getting our gear to the foot of the mountain had felt like a route. It was clear why it had taken Lafaille so long to complete his climb.

  The cable car door slid open and people began to file in, the guard giving us puzzled looks, having seen us heading up with the same sized load only two days before. I assumed such people were used to seeing climbers doing the oddest things in the Alps, a playground for the unhinged.

  The door shut and we began to ascend, the tiny cabin filled with excited voices, everyone looking forward to the coming day’s skiing, the quality of the powder, which lines were ‘in’, who was doing what. Ian and I kept quiet, staring out of the scratched plastic window and bracing ourselves for the hard work to come.

  For some reason I had no sense of fear about the climb, which was unusual. I felt instead a calm confidence that I had the skills, the gear, and the partner to do it. Like climbing El Capitan this route would be brought down by a thousand little cuts, not a single blow. Some would have said the route was out of our league. If you wrote up a list of heavy hitters who should have been trying to make this second ascent – professional climbers and guides living in the mountain’s shadow – we’d be several hundred entries down. Yet here we were.

  Success sometimes comes down to just giving things a try.

  I thought back to Ian’s assertion that I was the most ambitious climber he’d met, and that he must have been right, and that maybe instead of feeling embarrassed about it, I should embrace it and accept it was true.

  The cable car reached the halfway station and we piled out, half the skiers shuffling out to the slopes, the other half queuing again to go up to the top, where only the best skiers dared to venture. A gentle wind permeated the building as we took our place within a maze of steel barriers, like cattle in a slaughterhouse, waiting for our turn to go. It was nothing more than a breeze, yet it cut into us, everyone zipping up their jackets and pulling down their hats. I wondered how much colder it would be ‘up there,’ how this would seem tropical on the wall.

  Ian took shots with his heavy Nikon, looking like someone’s dad with his glasses falling down his nose, not your typical super-alpinist, except maybe a British one. I doubt there had ever been a less cool climbing team. Neither of us looked ripped or skinny. We’re both short-sighted and everything we wore, no matter how expensive, became lumpy and dishevelled. Ian looked like a tramp. I looked like a garbage man.

  On our first trip up, Ian had me model some clothes for a catalogue he was illustrating, trying to kill two birds with one stone. The problem was I was too fat, and nothing fitted, requiring him to find angles which hid zippers that couldn’t be shut and seams that were fit to burst. I was always envious of climbers who looked like climbers, who looked the part, irrespective of whether they could climb or not. I’d probably be just as happy looking like a good climber than actually being one. Maybe what I really wanted was a life that gave you that kind of body, a life of just climbing, to become a thoroughbred of rock and ice, rather than a donkey, useful enough, but stubborn and plodding.

  The queue jostled forward and we entered the upper cable car. Inside it was quieter now, many of the skiers psyching themselves up for some hard runs, the odd one or two with axes strapped to their packs, heading down to the Argentière glacier to climb, to tick off a route that day and be back home for supper. There is nothing more satisfying than climbing a big route and reaching the pub that evening. Especially in winter when no one wants to spend the night out, because of the obvious misery, and the need to carry lots of extra kit. Seeing them standing there, comparing their tiny daypacks with our gigantic haul-bags, I thought about the reality of spending so long on a winter wall, hauling up everything we needed to survive, sleeping in our folding portaledge with nothing more substantial between us and the Arctic cold than a sheet of nylon.

  Most climbs are completed at speed to avoid exposure to the elements, but on a big wall it generally comes down to grinding it out, literally inch by inch, one hard pitch potentially taking as long as a thousand metres on a mixed face. I’d never spent that long in such harsh conditions. How would I cope? Could my fingers survive climbing such a technical route in the cold? Would we be able to remain strong partners? All I knew was that if others had done so, then so could I.

  The cable car lifted out of the mid station, out over the glistening pistes dotted with skiers, and up towards the summit of the Grands Montets, the top station looking like a Bond villain’s lair. I thought back to a story an engineer told us in the station one winter, about being trapped there for a week in a huge storm, and how the roof blew off. They hid deep inside the building’s bunker-like foundations, only daring to venture into the upper levels to piss out of the door. I guessed such storms were rare, but wondered how our tiny folding portaledge would cope, its narrow alloy tubing and nylon our only hiding place on the wall.

  The Alps opened up before me as we rose. Watching familiar landmarks float by beneath, nose pressed against the plexiglass window, I thought about all those fruitless trips taken in this very same aluminium cabin, a space soaked in the ambition of so many, my own often ending in nothing more glorious than a slow stagger back down to the valley. But then there were times when my ambition had been realised. It seemed so long ago though – a lifetime. What was it that kept me coming back, and trying harder and harder climbs? Why not just come and enjoy it, climb those day routes, learn to ski and make climbing fun?

  The cabin slid between the steel arms of the top station, the doors slid open for the last time, the passengers clattering out, their clunky ski boots dully bashing their way down more concrete corridors and out into the dazzling light. Standing on the viewing platform, they gasped as they took in the view, breathing air so cold it stung.

  The Dru came into focus, a tower of rock, sharp and forbidding, its North Face almost black, the only detail picked out by a spider’s web of ice. The West Face lay on the other side, a grey canvas of walls and slabs, scarred by rock falls, many so big they created mini-earthquakes that made needles jitter on distant seismographs. When you told people you were going to climb the Dru they invariably asked if it was still standing.

  The Dru had captivated me from the very start of my climbing career, and only a decade ago I’d stood on a frozen street in Chamonix, a proto-alpinist with zero experience, and gazed up at it, that grey tower block, in the cold light of dawn, wondering what it would take to climb such a thing in winter. Now I knew, having climbed it once before via the Dru Couloir. The route took two tough days, and the answer to my question was simple: it took everything. Imagining myself back then, standing in the street without a clue that one day I’d be back to try the Dru’s hardest route in winter, seemed outlandish. It had taken more than just a leap of faith, but a leap of reason too. I marvelled at what life could bring you. That alone seemed reason enough to try what seemed impossible. Climbing is not about winning, or reaching the summit. If it were, no one would climb. It’s about having the self-belief to try.

  The skiers descended awkwardly down a fl
ight of metal stairs and began clipping on skis for the descent, while we walked up to the high viewing platform to take a few last pictures, and put off the grim walk for a few more minutes. We only had to reach the bottom of the Dru that day. There was no rush.

  Walking up the stairs I could feel my heart beating faster from the altitude, leaving me breathless at the top. The Argentière glacier spread out below us. I looked over at the North Face of Les Droites, tracing the kilometre-high face, which I’d soloed a few years before, and its twelve hundred metre Northeast Spur, my second winter alpine route. Each was like a test, the solo teaching me the value of self-belief – you won’t fall – the Spur illustrating the value of simply being stubborn and not giving in – you WILL make it – climbing the route over four days with a broken stove, and consequently almost no food or water. I imagined all the climbs that led up to this one, climbs in the Alps, Patagonia and Yosemite, each teaching me another lesson. The Lafaille felt like the final test, but experience showed it would slip in along with all the rest, just another step towards something I couldn’t see yet, just over the horizon.

  ‘Right. Let’s go,’ said Ian, and down he went, boots clanking on the metalwork, while I followed. We picked up our haul-bags and our old tracks leading to the Dru.

  The route down involved dragging ourselves through deep powder to the edge of some high cliffs, then climbing and abseiling down these to a jumbled glacier. With a normal rucksack it would have been a simple walk, but with our monstrous bags the whole thing was an act of endurance, each little way-mark – the first abseil, reaching the glacier, the toe of the Nant Blanc Face – an objective in itself. The trip was too exhausting to comprehend as a whole, but each chunk put us closer to our goal.

  Crevasses on the glacier dwarfed us as we took turns ploughing our route towards the Dru, following our old tracks mostly. Mindful of the extra weight in our haul-bags, we shuffled along unsure if we were on solid ground or some slender snow bridge. The bags, which we’d haul up behind us on the wall as our life-support system, were made from slick vinyl fabric, designed to slide up walls without catching. But if you fell on snow you’d take off like a rocket, strapped to your very own bobsled.