Page 13 - 2018 AMA Summer

headlines already. I wanted the attention that climbing this mountain would bring. “I don’t need to look any further” I said. “If we don’t do it you can’t publish its picture anywhere.” That’s what Paul said... But we had to do it... I had decided this was my final expedition to the Greater Ranges, yet here I was, standing there amongst boulders and moraine and grassy hillsides and snow and my mind had gone from climbing, to writing, to awards and failure all in one flip. And already my mind was plotting a return. I was a failed addict; I had fallen from the waggon even before the waggon had been put into gear.
Over the next three days of acclimatisa- tion, Paul and I studied the buttress and decided on a line to the left of the more direct gully. It looked more doable and less likely to flush us should something fall down the face above. I liked the look of the line, it covered more open, interesting ground that would give perspective and a view.
Just before leaving for Tibet, Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson had gone missing while attempting to climb a new route on Ogre II. I did not know Scott, but I had rock climbed with Kyle when we first met in Italy and we had continued to bump into each other around the world, always laughing and chatting and bullshitting. Canada, France and the States, always laughs and jokes. I liked Kyle, he was rough and raw and obvious. I couldn’t get the image of him out of my mind, or at least the image of where he once was. It was a large empty shape. As I caught the
plane to Tibet, I still clung to the belief that both Kyle and Scott would stagger in to their basecamp with another story. Sadly, I was wrong.
It snowed through the night as we camped beneath the buttress on the first attempt to climb, so we returned to basecamp. Three-days later, we sat again beneath the buttress waiting to start. And it was at this point, while lying in the little tent pondering that question... why I climb that I came clean with myself. Possibly my first honest answer to my questioning mind in over twenty years. ‘Life affirmation, the challenge, live life to the full’... it was true
‘Life affirmation, the challenge, live life to the full’
at some point and is for some still but it was now clichéd, marketing bullshit from the folk who peddle themselves and their wares and fill their bank accounts living from the ignorance of others. The most honest answer I can come up with is to know what you are and what you have to do when you wake in the morning. Plain and simple. Today I will walk to the foot of something that intimidates and begin to climb, but even this is untrue, even this is my minds marketing, the real reason is for the after, the adulation and acceptance and slap on the back, I’m getting mine, how about you? Immature? Definitely. But at least I’m being honest, and possibly this is my answer, this is why I do it. Honesty is easy, honesty is open. Honesty
is a weight off. Honesty is no secrets and once discovered, honesty is peace.
Maybe it was the picture that got me thinking this way. Luca Signorelli took the photo six years ago at the 2010 Piolets d’Or outside Le Majestic hotel, Chamonix. Andy Houseman laughs while placing a flower in Kei Taniguchi’s hair. I wrap one arm around Kei and one arm around Kyle Dempster. Alexander Ruchkin and Vitaly Gorelik crouch at the front. Everyone is smiling. Now, Kei, Kyle, Alexander and Vitaly are all dead.
After the heavy snow from three days earlier we were post holing from the word go, at times the unconsolidated snow was waist deep. A slightly inauspi- cious start given the 1600m left to climb to the summit. I plunged and waded remembering the butterfly. Two days earlier a Red Admiral, with one slightly dried and faded section of wing, had stuttered into the basecamp tent and landed on my sleeping bag. I carefully cupped it in both hands and returned it to the outside, but as it took off a gust of wind sent it to the fresh snow. I offered the back of one hand. The butterfly with its damp wings took hold and crawled aboard before I placed it in the sun, on top of a brown boulder inside a fold free from snow. Half an hour later I looked up and watched the butterfly take to the air.
“I can get down from any mountain in any condition.” That was how Paul put it. I didn’t doubt Paul was strong, he was strong, you can tell he was strong, it was
Myself, day two, the crux day... about to traverse right to the crux runnels. Photo: Paul Ramsden
Myself approaching the buttress the night before the start of climbing. Photo: Paul Ramsden
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 13