Heroes

The group wakes and gears up at midnight. Before long, I´m tethered to the guide in front of me and a Brazilian guy behind me, each with a couple of metres of slack. It was snowing when we went to sleep and now everything I recall from a few hours ago has a layer of anything upto a foot of extra powdery snow on it. We´re the first group to march off into the night. In the dark, with no more the head torch light, I´ve got no sense of direction, so it´s back to head down - left foot, right foot.

We start across another lateral upward traverse. The hill face we're traversing across is thirty or forty degrees, but as I point my torch down that slope, the view is just of a snowy decline that fades to quickly black. After just a few minutes, the burn sets in as I´m pushing my legs through the snow, trying to make the best of what the guide´s legs have cleared ahead. After what feels like only five or ten minutes, I´m desperately hoping the guide will call a short rest, but I don´t want to ask for it. I´m relieved when the Brazilian behind me calls out for a rest, sounding badly short of breath. I collapse on my arse, and laid back up onto the inclining side of the path, as does the Brazilian. The process repeats four of five times. We're stopping so often is hardly feels like we're making real progress. I´m glad that I won´t have to ask for the breaks, but at times, I´m desperately waiting for my Brazilian partner to ask for mercy.

Each time we stop, I can see the torch lights of the tethered groups following from our camp, and another train of distant lights from a lower camp. Each time we stop those lights are getting closer, until the figures of Paul, Keith and their guide overtake us. It´s not a race, but in my mind, I want to be the first to the top - it´s a race. I´m not happy being taken over, and my Brazilian´s breaks are getting longer and longer. I find that no matter long we stop for, thirty seconds after restarting, the acid burn is back in my legs in full force. I´m head down, focusing only on the rhythm of breathing and feet. Each time I feel like I´m finding a good rhythm, there´s a tug on the tether behind me. The Brazilian is really struggling. The guide lengthens the tether between the Brazilian and I.

We´re not far behind Paul and Keith and catch them at a longer rest spot. Checking my watch, I´m reckoning there´s still over three hours to the summit. I have an ingenius plan to power my way up the rest of this mountain. My Snickers bar is all but frozen. Breaking chunks off and chewing is more hardwork, but I´m convinced it will pay off.

The next section gets even more tough as the depth of the powdered snow surface becomes up to knee deep. Several times, my lead foot falls through snow and only eventually finds a solid surface much deeper than the back foot. My third leg, the ice axe, is often equally useless. I´ve fallen on my knees and am struggling to find solid footing to stand up. The guide is urging me to keep up, both in voice, and dragging me up by my tether. Thankfully, in my mind at least, the struggles of my Brazilian are even worse.

With my estimate of two hours to go, my rhythm is broken again. The Brazilian is in a heap in the snow. I happily take the opportunity to fall over too. Lying in the snow for more than twenty or thirty seconds starts to melt it, which soaks into my trousers. Each time, I´m now summoning the mental strength and my third leg to drag my arse up to standing as quickly as I can get over the minimum of floored huffing and puffing. The guide is urging my partner to get up, but with no repsonse. He asks me if I´m okay. When we stop, I can recover quickly, at least mentally, and joke "mas o menos" with a smile. After two minutes the Brazilian manages to pick himself up, but as we plough on, the last of his energy is only good for a few more seconds worth of ploughing.

"Mas o menos", Photo: Paul Bell

My guide and the Brazilian head back down. I´m sent ahead and soon with a new guide. I´m tethered behind him, ahead of Suzanne, then Paul. I´m not sure what´s become of Keith and Hilary. I'm quietly pleased with my new position. So long as keep a basic reasonable pace and don´t collapse like my former partner, I'll to be the first of our group to the top, winning the race - if only by pointless and meaningless couple of metres of tether. The new group and I keep a quick and steady pace. I´m now even more determined. I can´t be the one to stop or slow our new super group.

It´s still painfully difficult to keep moving. I find myself thinking that there´s a good chance I can´t do this, and that I´ll later have to explain my failure to friends and family with some reason or excuse. I´m thinking that the journey so far is already more than most have accomplished, and maybe that´s enough for me not to feel bad when explaining my failure. But I know it's not. I try to use a mental technique I developed to eek out extra laps when I was running around the BMX track. I imagine I´ve got 'alf Swiss along side me. Despite his being almost totally indecipherable and unpredictable, I have to concede to being impressed as he all but dragged me up Pen Y Fan in Wales. When that fails, I replace him with Thierry Henry. When Thierry and I run out of steam, out comes Mariusz "The Dominator" Pudzianowski, then finally, Schwarzenegger, yelling "Come on! I want to see two mwore! two mwore!". That sequence of heroes, is quickly exhausted. There's no one left to inspire me after Arnie, the ultimate action hero. Then, from nowhere, I find myself trying to use Robin Williams' patented "Happy Thought" technique, usually reserved for flying around Never Neverland. Between all of this, and the simple motivation of the competition of the race, I´m able to keep one foot moving after the other, slowly but surely.

We´re finally in view of the summit. The final ridge is long, dangerously narrow, and briefly, horrifically exposed on both sides with seventy degree descents of ice and rock. I wonder if my tethered group will save me if I fall. I wonder if I can save any of my group if they fall. I´m doubtful that either is possible. We move slowly across the ridge, and find ourselves behind a queue of about fifteen of the same train of torches I´d seen far below us at the beginning of the climb. All I want to do is get to the summit, and immediately start the climb back down.

When we finally reach the summit, I find no overawing sense of accomplishment. The view is cloudy, but the clouds are moving quickly, so epic view of the far and wide surrounding snow-capped mountain tops drifts in and out. The sun rises and sky is yellow. Oddly, I´m not all that interested. The task is complete and I want to get off this mountain as soon as possible. We´re there for five minutes, all of which annoy me, because I want to get off this mountain as soon as possible. My annoyance is briefly broken as I´m happy to recognise the figures of Keith and Hilary emerge from the ridge to the highly populated summit platform. I feign being more pleased than I am with the whole moment and pose for a photo. I´m told there´s icicles hanging off my nonsense of a beard.

Photo: Paul Bell

The way down is long and frustrating. The final hour or two is especially bad because the new snow and unpredictable rocky surface forces us to slow to a near crawl, and at times, a literal crawl. In my haste to get down, I slip twice and my wrist feels a pretty bad bang from one fall. I was expecting to take this as a first climb with more to come in Peru, if not more in Bolivia. As I´m carefully travsersing this painfully slow nightmare of snow and rock, I find myself thinking only about how much I absolutely hate, hate mountaineering. Spending hours and hours trapsing through thick snow, in the dark, with my legs burning is not in the least bit enjoyable. And for what reward? I found no sense of accomplishment of happiness whatsoever.

Photo: Paul Bell

It´s strange. Maybe enjoying this stuff requires one of those emotions that I don´t have a handle on. Fuck it. I'm down now.