Page 14 - 2023 AMA Spring

GUESTWRITER
That third night was pretty scary as we knew that if our tent failed, we had nowhere to go and no way of calling for help. The rest of the camp was now buried, and the screaming wind and snow persisted unabated. It was not until about five o’clock that it started to ease off, and by seven o’clock the air was eerily still. We climbed out of the tent to review the wreckage and, looking up through the shifting mist, we could discern some tiny figures on the ridge high above, silhouetted by the rising sun; we knew they were coming down. Then the cloud closed in again and nothing was visible. Again, we began an archaeological dig of the campsite.
About four hours later we heard voices through the mist, apparently only a couple of hundred metres away. Then there was a shout and the roar of an avalanche – very close! Seconds later a huge blast wave swept over the camp, but the main fall had missed us. Grabbing shovels and wands we headed out into the void, and after just 100m we hit the edge of the avalanche track. For a while the cloud lifted enough to reveal a vast area of debris, perhaps half a mile wide. It was huge. For an hour we hunted desperately for any trace of Mike’s party but found nothing. So, with no means of communicating, we decided to make our way down to advanced base camp with the news.
That journey was an experience. The new powder snow was now chest deep and normal pedestrian progress was impossible. In the end we developed a technique of rolling our packs in front of us as “buoyancy”, and leopard crawling behind them. It took seven hours to cover the mile to the camp. Only when we got there did we discover that, despite hearing their voices, Mike’s party had still been at the top of the ridge. They had taken four hours to cover something over 300m, excavating the fixed rope from under two metres of new snow, and they had triggered the avalanche from above. They were in great trepidation that they’d obliterated us down below! That camp was well sited!
And so, we all survived what turned out to have been the tail of a cyclone that came in off the Bay of Bengal. Given the destruction and the lateness of the season, that was
the end of the expedition, but it was an interesting experience and it provided an unexpected training opportunity! Some thoughts to take away.
• An obviously dangerous slope may still be a legitimate way to go, and experience is needed to make that judgement on site. Our slope only failed under the additional two metres of snow dumped by the storm. The fact that up to that point we’d made many transits of the route, showed it was a properly calculated risk.
• It’s quite possible to operate safely out on the mountain in horrendous conditions, again, subject to judgement based on experience.
• Siting of camps is a fine art. Fortunately, we foresaw the avalanche risk and chose our site accordingly, though in hindsight a slightly less snug position in the snow bowl might have kept us out of the path of that drift. We had little choice in siting camp two, and it did well to survive.
• Weather forecasting has improved immeasurably in the intervening 37 years but be prepared psychologically to cope with the rogue event. 72 hours in a tent in a hurricane is challenging.
• Climbing in the Himalayas is the ultimate in mountaineering, in terms of scale, beauty and remoteness. It’s a wonderful experience. I hope that AMA members will long continue to engage in this glorious arena.
MERYON BRIDGES OBE
Meryon Bridges is an Honorary Vice President of the AMA, and his active
mountaineering career spanned nearly 40 years, starting with the second Exercise Monte Bianco in 1968. During this period, in addition to several Alpine seasons, Meryon took part in numerous AMA and Joint Services expeditions, including West Greenland (1971), Himachal Pradesh (1973) including the first ascent of a 6200m peak, RAF Dhaulagiri IV (7661m, 1974), Everest (8848m, South Col 1976 and West Ridge 1992), a new route on ApI South Face (7132m, 1980) and Gasherbrum 1 (8080m, 1996 which he planned and led). Meryon also climbed Mt Kenya (Batian and Nelion from the Lewis Glacier) in 1972, and climbed in New Zealand in 1978.
After leaving the Army in 1996 he remained active, mentoring Dave Bunting in preparing the Everest West Ridge expedition in 2006, and took part in the preceding recce in 2005. He similarly mentored Geordie Taylor in his Xishapangma expedition in 2007. Since then, Meryon has reverted to sailing, and has circumnavi- gated the globe, and sailed both to the Antarctic and to 80-degrees North in the Arctic, covering more than 38,000 miles under sail.
14 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER
Camp 2 from above, with the ridge beyond