Page 16 - 2013 AMA Spring

the wind was still just strong enough to pick up snow and deposit it in my foot holes – I would have to break trail back to camp 2. My planned hour, turned in to almost double that and I was more tired than I expected to be once back at camp 2. Kit was packed as quickly as the situation allowed and I trudged off. A steep, almost vertical slope barred the way to the flatter ground that rose to a broad, rounded ridge crest. The snow was deep and soft and foot- step saw me sink to my knees or slide a little backwards, only the ascender on the fixed rope keeping me steady. Using a combo of ice axe and ascender I made it up the pitch, only to be greeted by Furtemba leering over the edge and shouting angrily, “What are you doing!?” He had come back to fetch me, as due to topography, our radios had ceased to be of any use. He was frustrated with me, but I was defiant and continued slowly on. As the first hour passed, the naivety of my decision to get my skis became clear. I had tired myself unnecessarily and now my pace was unsteady and slow. I gritted my teeth and carried on for a few more hours, but ultimately, with every rest to catch my breath, I felt my energy sapping away and I came to the conclusion that I could not continue with the skis – summit descent over. I begrudgingly left them at the top of a slope I thought looked skiable and continued on along the ridge. A large hump took us difficultly over 6400 m and dropping down the other side, the plateau chosen for camp 3 came in to view. Also coming in to view, was a monstrous bank of cloud rolling over a ridge and filling the basin between the summit ridge and next near- est peaks – a warning of what was to come.
Camp 3 seemed to be getting no closer, as we descended towards it. The clouds, however, were thickening and darkening, continuing their steady march to our camp. The wind started to pick up and the temperature dropped, forcing me to stop and don the down jacket. Hood up and face mask on, the going was slow and the
snow a horrid mix of wind crust that didn’t support one’s weight and firmer more consolidated wind-scoured nev each footstep a lottery. Our race with the clouds to camp 3 was lost, they envel- oped us and Dormae and Angdou already at camp 3 became ghostly figures in the gloom. The wind continued to strengthen, making doing anything at camp very difficult. Things were swiftly sorted out and we all crawled in to our tents, where, though we didn’t know it at that point, we were to remain for the next 14 hours. Fighting the urge to merely curl up inside the sleeping bag was hard, we were completely drained and with the wind forcing its way in to every nook and cranny, even melting snow became a onerous task. The business of eating was performed as quickly as we could manage and the tent doors tightened down as firmly as possible. The prospect of getting up in a few hours to go for the summit was not one that excited me much as I bedded down. The night was punctuated by the coldest temperatures we had experienced so far, everything not in the sleeping bags froze solid, ice formed on the inside of the tent and we slept with face masks on to take the bite out of the frigid air. The wind was savage, gusts increased in power, waking us periodically with fears that out fly- sheet had torn or been ripped away. Snow was flying around in all directions, getting under the bottom of the flysheet and filling the space between that and the inner. We took it in turns to bash snow off the inner, as it built up, trying to turn us in to some sort of igloo. Our cooking equipment, left in the tent porch, was buried by blown-in snow. We knew by now that any hope of setting off for the summit that morning had gone, our attention instead turned to getting out of the storm intact.
Morning came and though the clouds had cleared, the wind still raged. The temperature seemed to have barely increased despite the sunshine and full down kit was adopted by all for the breaking of camp and slow descent to camp 2. Looking back at the summit, the slopes up to it looked leaden with fresh, wind-loaded snow – despite the harsh cold, it would have been foolhardy to climb on with that snow pack.
The descent was desperately slow, all of us feeling the effects of a sleepless night at 6350 m. This slow pace made it nigh on impos- sible to warm up sufficiently, Olan suffering particularly with numb- ness in his fingers. Frequent stops were required, as we struggled to breathe in the harsh wind and low temperatures. Breathless- ness never seemed to leave us and nausea forced me to my knees numerous times. I was struggling, thinking that, as we were roped up, I was a burden on the team – little did I know at the point everyone felt similarly horrendous and not one of us could move especially quicker than we were.
14 ARMY MOUNTAINEER