Cold Wars Read online

  TWO

  Lafaille

  The conductor on the cable car raised his eyebrows as we walked up the stairs for the third time in a week. Ian and I shrugged our shoulders as if to say ‘Yes, it’s us again,’ and he led us into the cabin and slid the door shut. His eyes never left us as the car lifted from the station. Perhaps he thought he’d met the fastest big-wall climbers ever seen in Chamonix, knocking off two walls in only a few days. Or maybe he assumed we were carrying huge loads up his téléphérique for charity.

  After the bags fell and thumped into the snow below the wall, I had misled Ian when I told him things weren’t as bad as they looked. I’d simply recalled it was possible to traverse across the slope we were on to escape the face more easily than heading straight down. Apart from that, things really were as bad as they looked.

  Hauling up the remaining bag, I realised that the strap connecting it to those we’d lost had ripped from its stitching. I clipped it into the belay as Ian joined me. There was no question of going on. We’d lost the ledge and all the bivy kit. The remaining bag held mainly food and fuel. We had two choices: we could chuck this bag off too, meaning the trip was over; or we could leave the bag here, go down in the hope the ledge had somehow survived the drop and climb back up next day via the easier North Face to regain our highpoint.

  By stashing all our gear here we would be leaving a bond, forcing our future selves to return, something our future selves would probably not want to do at first, especially if the ledge was knackered, and we needed to go all the way back to the valley. But at least we would still be in the game. So we shoved all the ropes and rack into the remaining haul-bag and began our retreat.

  It was midnight by the time we’d traversed the slopes and abseiled down the North Face, leaving a rope behind over the steepest section to speed our next effort. I traversed back to the base of the wall and using the beam of my headtorch searched the area until I found the impact crater from the bags. Following the trail they’d made sliding down the slope, I found them a few hundred metres from the wall. The bags seemed intact, and the sleeping bags and bivy gear were okay, but a brief inspection of the ledge by torchlight confirmed that it was indeed knackered. Its aluminium frame was hopelessly bent and twisted. We would have to go down, meaning all the way down, and all the way back again, either to continue, or just to retrieve our bond.

  The cable car arrived at the Grands Montets and we walked out, me carrying a rucksack full of extra food and fuel, Ian carrying a replacement portaledge borrowed from Andy Parkin, an alpinist and artist who lived in the valley. It was a very generous thing to do considering, but that’s climbers for you. They wouldn’t lend you a fiver, but they would lend you a portaledge worth five hundred quid.

  As we clumped down the metal stairs, heading for our well worn tracks to the Dru, both of us knew that having invested so much, there was no way we’d be making this trip again. This time we would get to the top, no matter what.

  ‘Watch me’ called Ian, as he bridged up the corner, his ice axes twisted into a crack, muscling his way up to the belay, climbing the last ‘easy’ pitch. Now everything looked blank. And hard. And steep. We swapped free climbing for aid. I followed up on jumars attached to the lead rope, tugging at the haul-bags to keep them running free, those once fixed to the broken strap now attached with a stout loop of rope.

  ‘Got a surprise up here for you,’ said Ian, looking over the edge.

  Clipped to the belay was a coil of thin, nine-millimetre static rope, which would come in handy, as well as a fancy-looking rucksack, both left behind by Lafaille.

  ‘See if it’s got any food in it,’ I said, feeling ravenous, my hundred grams of Alpen twelve hours ago somehow not proving sufficient. Ian opened the rucksack and rummaged around, hoping like me to find and snaffle some booty. Inside we discovered: a locking pulley like ours; a pair of tiny rock boots; three toothbrushes; and lots of rubbish. Lafaille was famous for being very short, not much over five foot, and we guessed these child-sized boots could only be his. Plus, we could now add the fact that he obviously had very good teeth. We took the pulley, and threw off the rucksack, having no need for it, watching it tumble in space for a long time before disappearing.

  ‘Do you think a body would fall like that?’ I said.

  ‘I guess so,’ replied Ian.

  ‘I wonder why he didn’t throw it off himself. Maybe seeing stuff fall brought back bad memories.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ian.

  ‘Have you ever wondered what it would feel like?’ I asked, not taking my eyes from the spot where the sack had disappeared, waiting for it to appear on the snow slopes below.

  ‘To what?’ asked Ian.

  ‘To fall like that. Off a wall. Into space.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ said Ian. ‘Why? Do you?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘Oh, this is nice,’ said Ian, only his eyes visible as he lifted his head in his sleeping bag, finding that it, and everything else inside the portaledge, was now covered in snow. Bad weather had returned in the night, with snow pouring down the wall in vast showers, battering the fly. I’d lain there all night, feeling snug and smug, thinking we were invulnerable in the ledge, that the mountain couldn’t touch us. It seemed I was wrong, and that it wasn’t as secure as the one I’d dropped. Snow had forced its way upwards through two big holes at either end, covering everything. Pushing a hand out of his sleeping bag, Ian gave the flysheet a poke. Big flakes of ice, formed by our breath freezing on the fabric during the night, showered down on us both. ‘This could be interesting,’ Ian said.

  The weather outside was crap, so we spent a few hours trying to clear up our little home, brushing the snow down the same holes through which it had come and then blocking them off with spare clothes, fastidiously putting everything in stuff sacks. It seemed we’d made a good choice bringing big synthetic sleeping bags, which could cope with damp conditions, each with a thin down layer inside for a boost in warmth. It looked like staying dry was not going to be an option. We had a petrol stove that could be hung from the ledge’s suspension straps, and with this running the temperature rose above zero, giving a fair degree of comfort. The downside was that any ice or snow we’d failed to wipe or brush away would melt and drip onto us.

  Ian had spent a week on the North Face of Mount Hunter in Alaska sharing a portaledge with Jules Cartwright, climbing a new route they’d called The Knowledge. I’d only used them in California. On Hunter Jules and Ian shared a single-person ledge, which must have been very cosy, as even in a double, room was tight. We’d only spent three nights in it so far, but already ledge sickness had begun, the other person always in your space, pushing against you in the dark. As the sickness took hold you’d imagine they were selfishly taking up all the room, uncaring about your comfort, whereas in fact they were just as squashed as you.

  I had taken the inside, so I really did have less room, squashed between the wall on one side and Ian on the other. Ian had only me pressing against him. The downside for him was my berth tended to be the safest spot; any rocks falling down the wall would have a higher chance of hitting him. For this reason, every night, as well as sleeping in his harness, which was never removed, he also slept in his helmet. Just in case.

  By lunchtime the weather was no better, and feeling bored, I suggested that I might go out and solo the next pitch, self-belaying to save Ian suffering in the cold.

  ‘If you’re sure?’ said Ian, obviously impressed by my enthusiasm and thoughtfulness on his behalf. In reality, I felt sitting and waiting would just waste time, and that a little hard work in the storm might make the difference when the hard climbing came. We might get weather that made climbing impossible.

  As I geared up, putting on all my layers, and doing up my boots, I said: ‘You know what the Slovenians say when they’re climbing hard routes in Patagonia? Do a little bit every day. I think that’s what our approach is going to have to be.’

  Outside our little she
lter, with the snow pouring down in sheets, it did indeed feel very Patagonian, clipping on the gear I’d need and stacking my ropes, the idea being that I’d pay the rope out myself rather than have Ian do it. It sounded extreme, soloing on the Dru in winter, but in fact it was no big deal. I set off, climbing and hooking above the portaledge, heading for a thin crack.

  ‘Say cheese,’ said Ian, his head poking out of the bottom of the flysheet, camera pointed at me, the lens already picking up dots of snow. I made a thumbs-up sign and returned to the climbing, thinking that I must look pretty hardcore, like one of my heroes, the climber I aspired to be. It felt good making progress, and even a metre more was a metre less tomorrow. As is usually the case, the weather, which had sounded bad inside the portaledge, wasn’t so bad once you got out in it. In fact, when moving, it was quite pleasant.

  I knew the main crux pitch was somewhere above me, a hairline crack rated A5, meaning hard and dangerous, but it was impossible to see. The whole wall was covered in a layer of snow, which hid all but the biggest features. Our topo, the little diagram that guided our progress, was a photo of the face with a big green line up it, printed off the Internet the night before we left. It wasn’t up to the job. All I could do was try and imagine I was Lafaille and go where he would have gone. The only problem was he could see where he was.

  I’d never been much interested in climbing new routes, even though this seemed to obsess most climbers. For me climbing had never been about pandering to that part of the ego, to plant a flag. For me it was more about reaching new summits within myself. I needed to follow in the footsteps of my heroes and gods – to climb their routes, rather than my own. On the sharp end the mind is stripped bare, so what you see, what you touch, and what you think mirrors their experience. For a brief moment you glimpse what it is to be them.

  At the end of the rope’s length, I set up a belay and abseiled back down to the ledge, hoping Ian would have my tea on, knowing he’d probably just be reading his book. It was almost dark.

  ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ I said as my feet reached the ledge.

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Not bad, but I couldn’t see the crux with all the snow.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Ian as I dove back under the flysheet, trying to keep most of the weather outside, brushing myself down before I pulled out my sleeping bag.

  ‘I guess someone had to do it,’ I said, unzipping my gaiters and clipping my boots on to one of the ledge’s suspension straps.

  ‘That’s the thing, you didn’t,’ Ian laughed, shaking his head.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, smiling back. I guess I just wanted to show willing.

  The storm lasted for a week. Every day and every pitch was faced in full Scottish conditions. Each foot of rock was swept to find what lay beneath. Somehow we missed out the crux of the route, the A5 pitch, and only spotted it, a short crack, as we abseiled down to the portaledge. I wondered if the way we’d gone wasn’t just as hard. Both of us had climbed much more difficult big-wall routes than Lafaille had. Often we’d head up the harder sections, chosen to match our expectations of where the route should go, only to find we’d overlooked his line and climbed new ground instead.

  On the second stormy day our pulley had slipped out of my gloved fingers. It seemed a strange piece of luck that we could replace this crucial item of gear, without which we’d have needed to retreat, with the very same model of pulley we’d found in Lafaille’s rucksack.

  The rock was very compact and Lafaille had been forced to drill two bolts for each belay. For some reason we never discovered, he had unscrewed the nut and hanger from them, leaving either a small steel stud, or worse still, a tiny 5mm hole that was almost impossible to see. Several times we’d make a desperate move only to look down and see a bolt without its hanger; and those were the ones we spotted not covered with snow.

  I’d come prepared for this, bringing nuts and hangers that would fit these holes, only somehow we’d dropped them all. Now, at each belay, we would have to improvise, looping a wire over a stud and just trusting friction and the weight of the load to hold it in place, or else finding a peg or nut instead. Equipping these bolts became our biggest problem and belays were always a scary affair. Luckily we had Lafaille’s length of white static rope, and so we could leave the portaledge and all the heavy gear on a good belay, and skip the belays we thought might rip under the strain with an extra long haul. In effect we were climbing capsule-style, moving a camp up the wall. It was a great system, allowing us to rap down at the end of a cold day to the comparative comfort of our ledge.

  ‘Ian, have you checked your feet lately?’ I asked. My head lay a few inches from the end of his sleeping bag and the smell was almost too much to bear.

  ‘Why, do they smell bad?’ he replied from the other end of the ledge.

  ‘It’s like sleeping next to a cheese counter,’ I told him, pulling the edge of the sleeping bag up, so my own stink hid his, my bag smelling fusty and damp, having gotten wet, then frozen and thawed repeatedly since we started.

  ‘They don’t feel good; I think my old frostbite’s acting up. I think your boots are a lot warmer than mine.’

  Ian’s feet were one of my main preoccupations on the wall, along with hunger and cold, a little bit of cheesy spice that reminded me that there was no escape from the horror. Even when my stomach was full and I was toasty in my sleeping bag, there would always be that smell. Every night we would get back into the ledge, take off all our gear, light up the stove and defrost. Being warm and cosy was a bit of normality, and it was spoiled when Ian took off his socks to rub his feet back to life.

  Food was another big problem. Our diet was fine for a two-day alpine ascent but no good for a protracted climb. I could actually feel my body wasting away by the day, getting a sexual thrill from running my hands over my chest and abdomen. I no longer felt like me. Breakfast was a sad affair, and began with me picking out all the raisins from my eggcup portion of Alpen and giving them to Ian. This was a loss of calories, but preferable to puking the whole lot back up, my aversion to raisins trumping even my hunger. By the time we were climbing out of the ledge my stomach was empty again, and it was only being scared that seemed to make me feel full. During my belaying stints, all I could think about was food.

  There was no lunch. Teatime began with a cup of tea, then a diet portion of couscous. We’d brought single-portion packets of butter to boost the flavour of the couscous – one for each serving – but we gobbled them up like a piece of chocolate long before the water had boiled. I’d used Happy Shopper couscous to work out the portions, a hundred grams producing a good meal, but bought a fancy gourmet variety for the route, which wouldn’t have fed a mouse. Our biggest treat was the small packet of peanuts, which held forty or fifty nuts. This would be emptied into a depression in my sleeping bag and divvied fairly; one for me, one for Ian, until there were two small piles each. A portion that could be eaten in one mouthful was then savoured, each nut as valuable as a diamond.

  Eventually tea would be over, and everything would be packed away, the final act to put the piss bottle on top of the stove that hung between us. Unable to really move in the night, let alone pop out for a wizz, you’d just have to reach out, grab the bottle, take it into your bag and have a wee. The etiquette was if you used it, then you emptied it, as the contents would soon freeze, and no one wants the problem of having to thaw a bottle of piss.

  That job over with we would burrow down into our bags and Ian would stick on a CD, our portable CD player and single speaker being our one luxury, the player stuck inside Ian’s bag so the batteries didn’t die in the cold. I think every night we listened to the same album, mostly down to the fact it was the only album we had: Ian Brown’s Music of the Spheres. People say that music sounds good when you’re high on drugs, but when you’re high in a portaledge it’s also pretty amazing. Music can take your mind to extraordinary places, but being in such a place already, it just took us home.

  A wee
k and the wall stretched away below us, the top of the climb now close, perhaps just two days away, as I set off up an easy looking crack. Above this lay the route’s second crux, a jutting buttress of compact granite, like a ship’s prow, the pitch rated A4. We knew nothing else about it. Our topo had by now disintegrated into tiny lumps of frozen paper within the washing-machine wetness of our pockets. Now we were simply on autopilot, climbing straight up, whether it was where Lafaille had gone or not.

  Ian’s belay was hanging in space, two cams in a corner, so I set off as fast as I could, partly because it would be dark soon, but also because Ian wasn’t coping well with the cold. His feet were beginning to worry both of us, and not just because of the smell. On long belays he had to take off his boots and massage his feet to warm them. Often this would coincide with a mini-avalanche, making things worse, as the snow coated his socks and filled up his open boots. It seemed to me that other people’s suffering is just abstract, and although I could fake concern, my only worry was about whether or not his feet would force a retreat. They say it’s not worth losing your toes for a climb, but when they’re not your toes it seems worth the risk.

  The climbing was easy, probably the easiest yet, just a three-inch crack splitting the wall, and I leapfrogged the same two cams for protection, scary if you thought about it, but fine if you didn’t. I could see the belay, just at the base of the prow, but to reach it I had to cross a shattered section, a tombstone-shaped chunk of rock jutting from the crack. Placing a cam below this I tried to reach past, grabbing hold of the flake’s top edge to steady myself.

  At once, it made a grinding noise and began to slip from the crack on top of me, pressing down on me until all its weight rested on my shoulder, stopping it, but pinning me there. If it fell it would probably hit Ian. I held it for a second, judging its mass, unsure how big it actually was, just knowing it was heavy. Carefully I let go. It slid further and I held its weight again. I was stuck.