Page 12 - 2018 AMA Summer

GUESTWRITER
THRESHOLD SHIFT
By Nick Bullock
Inever much thought of the danger when I started out all those years ago. I never imagined the pain, the grief. Heroic... I
was indestructible... I saw myself breaking the shackles, becoming free...
In my defence, it’s difficult to see the pain when you don’t really value what you have at the time, it’s easy to make light. Life is cheap and time is a giveaway. But of course, life is never cheap and time goes one way only.
Several miles uphill from basecamp, the river sprinted from the glacier. In the morning, the river was subdued – noisy, but the day’s sun had not yet melted the glacial ice, the volume was less. Later in the day, as the grey rushed, polishing the rocks, the noise increased. After a day or so, the noise became less invasive, obviously, our minds had decided it wasn’t important anymore. Threshold shift.
Two days passed before Paul Ramsden and I began our acclimatisation exploring the wilderness above basecamp. We were in Tibet to try and climb a new route on the North side of the Nyainqentangla West Range. To our knowledge we were the first Westerners to explore this valley on the North of the Nyainqentangla peaks.
“No that’s not the side to climb from. It’s too steep, no one has climbed from that side.” The locals said.
Truth be told, hardly anyone had climbed from either side, the small sub-range range, which holds the four highest mountains in the whole of the thou- sand-mile East and West Nyainqentangla was something of an enigma, a very-diffi- cult-to-get-permission, a magician’s trick. But the large Yorkshire man who was now sat on my right had somehow managed it.
Until now we had only seen a few long-dis- tance photos taken by Tom Nakamura, great shots that teased with possibilities,
“No that’s not the side to climb from. It’s too steep, no one has climbed from that side.” – The locals said
but we would need to walk the seven or eight miles to become involved and for this relationship to begin.
Walking. Following Paul’s pugilists frame into the unknown above basecamp. Into even thinner air. Following the river, that
was still grey, but growing shallow with its width. Yaks grazed on either bank. Boulders rubbed smooth by glaciation and the river randomly scattered along the wide valley base. Redstarts with feathers the colour of paprika perched on top of the larger snow covered boulders.
The mountains, their danger, their noise was similar to the noise of the river. There, always there, always roaring, much as it had been for over twenty years of my life. But my mind, its voice, its own roar had dumbed the danger. They can be made safe. It’s the same as when you are young and you see an older person push their glasses from in-front of their eyes before sitting them on the top of their head. That will never happen to me, the glasses thing. But of course it has, and like reading that newspaper with my glasses propped on the top of my head, I could now clearly see the mountain’s print and the text reads “risk”. My mountain threshold had gone full circle.
Paul and I continued our acclimatisation and on day two we walked around a corner and in-front of us, from no-where, there was what we thought was an unclimbed 7000m mountain that wore a 1600m north facing buttress. I was instantly beguiled and once again I fell head-over-heels and once again I was addicted and thrilled. What a pushover. No-one knew about this buttress, it was a rabbit from the hat, unseen by the mountaineering world and immediately my ego wanted to put a stamp on this unknown hill. I could read the climbing
12 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER
Selfie with me after the route. Photo: Paul Ramsden