Page 28 - 2016 AMA Spring

towards Point John and up through striking boulders, moraines and scree slopes. It took a few hours of fighting up through the boulders to finally pass the ever shrinking Lewis Glacier on our right and find ourselves staring at the base of the ‘Normal Route’. Reality kicked in. The weather was changeable of every ten minutes and the steep silent lure of the rock seemed almost imposing. We sat and discussed where we thought the route lie and my concerns of route finding were pretty evident. Still we were here. It was early afternoon and we decided to strike camp in the rocks 20 meters below. The wind was noticeably fresh and there were flurries of snow from time to time. Now remember we came to Kenya on exercise so were not massively equipped. Tony set straight to melting snow for water whilst I had a chance to crow it and build up the walls of our bivi at 4,700 meters. It didn’t take long before it was raining then pelting us with snow. By now both of us were zoned out like we were on our first ever exercise in training. The act of doing anything seemed pointless now. Plus every ten paces we took had us blowing out our backsides. Early that evening we had laid the ropes out to give us some insulation from the freezing rock. A couple of paracetamol, a mouth full of water and a fight to get undressed and into our bivi bags in Olympic timings saw us get 12 hours of fairly comfortable rest despite the snow ice and wind doing its best to disturb us. At this stage the weather was making it doubtful as to would we even tie on to ropes tomorrow.
The faint glow of daylight creeping over Point Lenana gave way to an incredible change in the weather. We were on. We hurriedly packed and raced to the base of the route. Helmet on. Gear up and away we went. By 0715 we had already completed the first three pitches. Fairly straight forward and pleasant climbing across jug fested holds gave way to the odd slightly more trickier move. Never more than about HS in grade. Despite many saying the route was difficult to find I have to disagree. The route just when in doubt always seems to have tat or a rusty peg tucked away giving you onsight to the next pitch. Then all of a sudden the hut on the ridge at about halfway jumps out of nowhere. We hit it on our 8th pitch. Immediately above the hut stands Mackinder’s Gendarme. It’s from here the route gets a bit trickier. You cross over the ridge and into the lee of the North side of the Nelion. There are substantial snow patches here that need to be manoeuvred around. Of course now the temperature drops, the snow kicks in again and our friend the wind has a go to. The crux pitch goes apparently
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at about VS and I have to agree when you can’t feel your fingers. A steep section involving some good foot movement (not my best as an amputee) up some thin cracks now leaves you high up and exposed to the traverse. This section is reported to freak a lot of unwary climbers out as they stare straight down to the base of the amphitheatre. Fortunately now it was raining consistently and our view was obscured by dense cloud. Tony made light work of what I would say was another VS pitch on wet rock around 5,000 meters. This time as I swung into the belay to lead off the rock became friable and somewhat chossy in places. Still despite the wet we pressed on and ran it out. It took just another 2 pitches to reach the summit of Nelion at 5,188 meters. It had taken us just over 5 hours to climb the route and the only disappointment was we had no view from our achievement. It had warmed up but the cloud had not dissipated. No quicker had we taken a few snaps at the bivi shelter we were off back climbing the last pitch to the first of many abseil stations.
Stepping off the ledge into the cloud over a huge headwall whilst attached by a single bolt at well over 5,000 meters is not something I have done before. This one made my bum flinch. It also set the president for more of the remaining abseils. A point to note now is that it is very easy to lose the ab stations which we did. We scrambled around a fair bit and even did some down climbing before using some tat. Then all of a sudden we hit the stations again and painfully continued to the ground.
We hit the ground at about 1600 hours that day and were ecstatic about the achievement. A slow and painfully achy walk back down to Mackinder’s Hut allowed us both to reflect on where we had been. Neither of us had bivied that high before and certainly never climbed that high before. I had been struggling with the lack of appetite at altitude but found myself tucking into a host of ORP. The realisation as well that I am an amputee and that great adventure can still be had overwhelmed me that night. Although not for long as the exhaustion kicked in I soon found myself fast asleep with no headache any more. Sometimes you just need to go and have these adventures. Tony and I are very grateful to 2 Rifles who without the support in Kenya would have meant we would not have had the opportunity to climb an African Giant!!!!
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01/07/2016
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