Page 37 - 2020 AMA Winter

and difficult traverse across to Camp 6 and the descent through the Rock Band.
We waited all day. It continued to snow heavily. Again our tent was buried by a snow slide that took several hours to clear. Once it got dark, we took it in turns to go out onto the slope above the camp, show lights and call. At last we heard an answering call and Brummie and Bronco staggered into the camp, frozen to the bone and completely done in. We stripped them of their outer clothing, put them into sleeping bags and proceeded to pour water into them. Brummie drank so much he had terrible stomach cramps and Bronco had frostbitten toes but at least they were both alive. We kept calling for the other two but got no reply that night. We hoped that they had taken shelter at Camp 6 and would join us in the morning.
The next morning Brummie and Bronco insisted that they were OK to go down. We continued to wait for David and Pasang. Another worrying day passed. Our patience wore out that afternoon and we decided to go up towards the Rock Band and do a search. We found nothing but the trip made us realise how bad the climbing conditions had become. On the radio call that evening Jon asked us if we would go up to Camp 6 the following day and check to see if David and Pasang were there. We were horrified at the prospect but there was no-one else to do it.
That night we prepared extra-carefully for what might be a whole day of climbing and as soon as it began to get light we set off. Straight away we could see what the journey would cost us in time and effort but we were determined to climb as safely as possible. It had stopped snowing but the new snow was too deep and unstable for us to move together so we belayed each other as best we could. It all took so long, especially as we were now nearing the 7,500 metre mark and both breathing and thinking were becoming harder.
It was a relief to reach the Rock Band but we had not anticipated that it would be plastered in wind-frozen snow. The fixed ropes were encased in ice and we could not afford the time to make them usable. We struggled up; pitch after pitch, then started the traverse. This was the worst
Walshaw at Camp 6
bit. The fixed ropes, iced up and weighed down with snow, had begun to loosen many of their anchorages and we could not trust them. We had planned to move together on this section but were forced to accept the safer and slower option of belaying each other across it.
At last Charlie, who had done all the hard leading, gave a shout that he could see Camp 6 and in a few minutes we were there. It was a forlorn sight. The tents had collapsed and were almost completely buried. Charlie inspected the ties and found them done up on the outside. Clearly no one had reached the Camp after Bronco and Brummie had
passed through it. I had brought a snow shovel but after 20 minutes of prodding and scraping around the tents we found nothing.
We slumped down in the snow and discussed whether we should risk the steep ice traverse out to Camp 7. Could we survive without bivuac gear if the tents had been wrecked? Would there be a working stove and some food there? How would we get an injured climber back across the traverse? There were so many unknowns. We called Base. After we explained the position, Jon said that they thought that a new ‘dot’ had appeared on the face about 700 metres below us and
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 37