Paths of Desire by Nick

Picture: Paths of Desire from Base Camp

And…

…once again, I'm sat in the orange gloom of the BC tent. I'm drinking coffee out of a steel mug, coffee that was brewed in my old Buletti Italian aluminium stove top. The tent fabrique flutters. Santosh, Buddhi's brother-in-law, sings a gentle Nepali song while cleaning dishes outside. I shiver thinking of numb fingers. But the stove purrs inside the cook tent. Instant relief.

I look at the sharp light stealing from beneath the BC tent's valance. White stinging light, it pushes into the orange gloom. The brightness signifies snow laying on the dark earth outside. The weather has thrown a curve ball.

I finish my Nepali organic coffee, a rich brew. Then I ease from the broken camp chair. The coffee runs through my body speeding my heart. Unzipping the door of the BC tent, I step outside. Snow flows over the side of my sandal and wets my sock. Socks and sandals. Not so cool Bullock!

A white windy world embraces me. Small frozen pellets fall and twist and spin on the ground. The pellets remind me of hay seeds from a summer meadow while haymaking as a kid on the edge of Huntley Wood in Staffordshire. The seeds would blow and collect in the stubble and highlight the tracks of animals. Buddhi joins in with Santosh's singing, and I'm back surrounded by the mountains. Mountains covered in winter.

Once untouched, our BC camp now shows signs of ware. The ground is rough, its like a million rag worms have slithered beneath the surface of our earth beach, but now there are faint paths. The paths, usually difficult to pick-out, are highlighted and stand proud as they collect the snow like felt-fuzz.

A well trodden white walkway to the veg pit. A white weaving line towards the water source. A large white square in the middle of our personal tents, once the bed of the vomiting trip hazard David, and the whitest line, the deepest walkway, is the one toward the shit tent.

Outside the swaying cook tent, three hessian sacks full of rubbish bow. White weight bends the sacks. I imagine they each need a wooden walking stick. Empty bean, pineapple, mushroom tins fill with snow. An empty Scotch bottle collects snow around its broad shoulder, although its thin neck remains proud. It saddens me to think of the fiery contents we finished off last night while laughing and piss taking and bullshitting. While and planning of the climb ahead. The snow was not imagined then. The snow was not imagined as the four of us, in the dark, stumbled into the frosted star lit night with dreams and emotions and excitement. Tomorrow is Monday, the day before we go.

And as I stand, looking out from BC, looking toward A3, or what would be A3 if it wasn't clouded in, I watch our well worn path grow faint.

Sparring amongst the mountains.

Pictures: Descending into the clouds; Matt quests out onto the east ridge; Pete cutting a snow bollard.

Crunch, my boot punches through the top-layer of snow revealing the fleshy powder beneath. A jagged mountain crest blocks as the sun ducks low. Yellow, red, brown and blue hues reflect from the cloud while the hips, legs and ankles of the mountains are covered with a cumulous skirt, modesty to cover their beautiful curves. The evening breeze shifts the cloud, stings our skin and waters our wide eyes. BC tents glow in the valley below, then they are hidden once more by cumulous. Stars show themselves and compete to outshine each other in a massive sky. The thin white mist of the Milky Way stretches. And we are so filled with the scene, even the glow of BC and the thought of Buddhi's cooking is placed on hold …

Matt, Pete and I have spent two nights in a snow cave at 5900m. We left BC at 1.45 am on Monday morning and reached the ridge at 1.30pm later that afternoon. The ridge was a different world: a world of blasted, freeze dried skin. The searing wind wanted us out of there. This world had minus fifteen and when the wind joined in with the bullying, the chill took on a force as hard as the Tyson hook connecting to the chin of Fat Jesus*.

A hole was dug into the ridge top, which turned out to be the top of a massive serac, a balancing clotted ice monster teetering on the crest. "It will do." It will have to do as the three of us spent five hours digging on day one, and four hours digging on day two. Also on day two, we found our little single skinned tent. Stupidly we had left it on the ridge on our first soiree without marking the position. An avalanche probe search, like looking for a body, eventually located our little tent. In the wind though, I wonder its worth for higher up?

Waking, in our hole, day three, shuffling, turning, stamping, feet are frozen blocks in the bottom of our sleeping bags. The sky, a clear blue frozen pond can be seen through the door, but the wind can not. Pete, the first to brave the minus 10 reports, "FECKIN FREEZING," in a Franky Boyle Scottish guttural. I wish I could laugh like I do at Boyle's hard cutting humour, but I can't.

At last we set off in an upward direction. The wind jabs. Ridge climbing is not the most sensible. We have ropes, but they are not the type that run along each side of the ridge ready to catch us and spring us back. Our ropes lie and flap and twist along the ridge crest. We do need to gain altitude though, so we continue. Climbing, aiming for the massive face on the far left of the ridge, we are half way up the gendarme looking down onto our overhanging serac snow hole, but because of the poor rock, and the howling wind, we decide to traverse the steep fluted snow face we can see from our BC approximately 1500m above.

Fingers are wooden, the wind tears at clothing, it whips spindrift into soft exposed skin, it chafes and blisters lips but we are stood on the ridge now, to the left of the gendarme. We shout at each other just to be heard, "LETS GET DOWN, lets get down, yes, down…" Enough is enough, it is, after all, only an acclimatisation trip!

Crunch, my boot punches through the top-layer of snow revealing the fleshy powder beneath. Pete and Matt are dark tiny outlines silhouetted below. They stand close, and on the tip of the snow-spur where we will stash the ropes. Mountains shimmer in the evening alpen glow and the trauma from the last three days of chilling effort pails when compared to what we now look at. The summit of A3 is far away in every aspect, but here we are, fixated and mesmerised and surrounded by savage beauty. And I know this is the reason we climb mountains.

Nick

*Fat Jesus is a character in the film Hangover who steals Mike Tyson's tiger and receives the painful consequences for his actions. Hangover is a film we have been fortunate to watch twice now, here at BC. Thanks Samsung for the download, Hangover has made a big impression on the team.

Coming Back to BC early.

Picture: Headtorches on the mountain.

 

About 3 hours ago we got a call from Nick to let us know that they would not be staying in the Snow Cave Tonight. They will be coming down to BC (which I think has a lot to do with the amazing food) but it might also have to do with a bit of frost bite.

 

Nick did mention that they managed to go along the Ridge but I will let them tell you all about that.

 

I just thought I would drop you all a line as I am sure, by the time they get back to BC they will not be to keen to write a blog entry. Probably will get something posted tomorrow.

 

But for now I have included a photo of them coming down the mountain with their head torches.... It is absolutely pitch black outside (no moon)

 

David.

 

News from the Boys

Picture1: Nick on a Stroll (kinda Abbey Road like)

Picture2: Experimental Product shot.

Picture3: After dropping my camera during a night shoot, my next shot looked like this.

 

I spotted a figure on the ridge this morning around 08h00. I had assumed that they have opted to leave the "lost tent" search for their return journey and advanced along the ridge to the base of the main Pillar. Probably traversing the 2,5km along the Northern side of the East Ridge ( based on the fact that I had not seen them since this morning.)

But like they say, never assume! I received word from Matt at 18h00 with a more cheery vibe from the group than I received yesterday. Nick and Pete where shouting out in the background, and although they had built their cave to small and had woken up to -15deg C, 60km/h winds and where all badly craving salty food. You could easily pick away at the moans to find a very happy team (they are a tough bunch). They where shouting out " steak, chips, salty......., deep fried....., avocado, wine, Woman" their wish list went on and on..... They all insisted I find out what Buddhi was preparing for dinner in BC and after a brief rundown including. Mushroom soup, prawn crackers, spicy vegetable pasta and apple fritters for desert.... the moment I released my finger off the radios button...I heard shouting and laughing as if I had intercepted a call coming from a rowdy bachelor party.

Further enquiries into the day's events revealed that they did go back to the stash point and find their missing tent and a number of other missing gas bottles. They stayed at ABC for the rest of the day and pimped up their snow hole, which apparently is now a lovely, spacious, warm and comfy home. Just after coms, they started sending a series of flashes from their torches down to BC which was a welcomed greeting for Buddhi and Santosh who where both returning the favour, accompanied with their warm and friendly laughing and cheers. Apparently this tradition between Nick and Buddhi of flashing the torch goes back a couple years to previous expeditions.

Tomorrow they will be climbing the tower directly beside ABC (a tower which appears to be a little pimple of a hill from down in BC) and then continue towards the big 1000m high Pillar at the end of a 2,5km ridge traverse.  They will be coming back to ABC for tomorrow night and will then make their way back to BC on Thursday for some R&R (with specific instructions to Buddhi on a their wish list dinner menu )

From my side, while the guys are up on the hill, I have had to find things to do to keep busy. Besides attempting to film Matt's rock weight training area in a stylised "Top Gear" kinda way, I have also been grovelling around on the ground filming tufts of grass blowing in the breeze with rather tantalising and sexy backdrops.

I also caught my second glimpse of a pair of large Eagles above BC. Was rather brief compared to the last 45min display of their majestic manoeuvres and flight patterns, but also a reminder as to how incredibly isolated we are up here. We of course have a daily visit from our local Raven (aka. That Bird ) scavenging away in our compost heap. Other than him I have not even seen an insect.

Looking forward to hearing back from the boys tomorrow, missing the banter and constant quirky surprises.

 

David

Snow Cave at ABC

Picture: My MS Paint Skills

So the team are out on the mountain today. They left BC at 01h45 this morning. Pete had made a nice brew for the boys and spent the rest of the freezing morning prep time trying to fix his troublesome boot laces. Matt was happily sipping away on his mug of tea while talking to the camera. Nick,mmmm..cameras really do bring out the very best and the very worst in him. This morning might be considered the latter. During the usual "stick the camera in your face routine" out popped a cleaver and a rather unexpected bottle of 2% American Style Maple Syrup...mmmmm... I was out that mess tent pretty quickly!

The boys left in a positive and cheery"ish" mood, head torches weaving a path through the frosty dark landscape. I filmed the bobbing head torches disappearing into the distance and then went straight back to my warm sleeping bag to wait out the arrival of those warm highly anticipated shafts of sunlight.

This morning at a more forgiving hour I started looking for the team on the mountain and it was not until 09h00 I spotted them making their way up a large snow face. I was able to track their movements until 11h30 before clouds block my view, by which time they were about 100m below their first main objective (the start of the East Ridge, ABC).

200m below their current position they had stashed some kit from previous attempts onto the ridge. Their plan (I am sure you know how fixed those are) was get to the ridge early and then spend the rest of the day digging a snow hole and ferry the rest of their kit from the stash point. Hopefully having enough time to watch the sunset with a warm brew and bunking down for night in their homely snow cave.

At 17h20, I spotted the boys again on the start of the ridge and at 18h15 I received word from them. They are all very tired and have had a slight setback by losing their lightweight tent that was left at the stash point previously. The afternoon winds up there are apparently a total nightmare, but for now the guys are settling down for dinner in their snow cave and having an early night. Tomorrow, they intend digging up the mountain side looking for their tent. It has been a long day for them and could sense the exhaustion so didn't want to ask too much. Will keep you all posted but for now I am sure  Grandad, Woof Woof and Piglet can all do with a bit of luck, Fingers crossed everyone they can find their tent.

 

David  aka. The Trip Hazard.

Sat phone text update

Pete has just texted to say that the weather is good but cold.  They are deploying at midnight onto the east ridge to ABC and beyond to 6500m then back to BC.  They'll be out for 3 nights?

Laura

More snow ... and a bit oif sunshine.

Pictures: Night time snow, The Big Avalanche, The Elixir of Life

This morning I wake in a dark, ice encrusted tent.  This is not how it was meant to be; we had the snow storm and the bad weather yesterday. It was suppose to be all good from the moment we closed our eyes, right until the end of our trip. That's what we were telling ourselves anyway.

I wait for 8am, for the sun to warm the tent and for my cold body to feel able enough to exit. I unzip the door and force the fresh snow back. There is much more snow than the night before and there is even more than night before that. This isn't good.

Buddhi calls us for breakfast. "ooh, ooh". We all sit outside the BC tent in the bright warm sun, watching the snow melt. We enjoy our coffee, the sun dazzles. Buddhi calls "avalanche!" We scramble to our feet and stare.  A massive airborne avalanche erupts down the 2500m face of A3, travelling at over 200mph, 1km wide, and 500m high, and who knows how deep. We watch, wait and wonder, is BC far enough away? Amazed by its beauty and power, this was truly the biggest avalanche any of us has ever seen. We were at a safe distance, about 1km away, but at the time we all had our doubts. All of this reminds us why we are not climbing now; this is why we are waiting. Its painful, we want to climb, but in these big mountains you can't push it out in marginal conditions, it's a waiting game, but it's a game you need to play, and play well.

After the morning's excitements, the three of us have been out getting some exercise, trying to stay fit, trying to stay healthy for when the time comes that the weather decides to give us a break. We do after all have the time, food, and loads of motivation to wait this bad weather out until our time comes.

Many thanks to everyone who has been sending us emails and text messages, it's nice to receive friendly mails and to hear what's happening in the big world outside of our tiny one.

Email us: britishannapurna3@googlemail.com

Matt