Page 53 - 2015 AMA Autumn

At 6 a.m. twenty-seven hours in to what was day two, but of course was now day three, my feet were blocks of ice – I had had enough, I needed to stop and warm them. Having reached the avalanche threatened slopes of the Cassin Ridge we found a flat spot behind a large boulder and crawled into the bag that should have been a tent, but the wind had made it impossible to thread the poles. Six hours later, in what had now become thigh deep snow, we set out again. Three thousand feet remained. Up and over the top in one final push, that’s what we wanted, but we were shut down at 18000 feet by gales. Holding the tent, Houseman threaded poles – it flapped like akite. I imagined it lifting and taking me with it and flying over Denali’s summit to join the streams of snow arcing from its highest ridge and then carrying me further until I was free from the constraints of the world.
Toughtags Poster_Toughtags Postcard 29/11/2009 10:04 Page 1
Sixteen hours passed, and in these sixteen hours, neither Houseman nor I talked about being pinned down until weakness had taken over. I lay in the little single skinned tent – it buckled. I thought of Al Rouse who died of exhaustion on K2 and Iñaki Ochoa de Olza who died high on Annapurna. This wasn’t a game we played, it wasn’t sport – mountaineering for me will never be about beating the clock or breaking records, my climbing was about personal experience, it was the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Twight, House and Backes single push of the Slovak was a ballsy leap – even though it was not the first time single push tactics had been brought to a major climb – it was about commitment and style and personal challenge, it was not about setting records for speed or making headlines. The experience on a testing, committing climb, the self- questioning, the ability to survive on the brink, no guarantees, this was what it was about for me and when I begin to race the clock or attempt to break records that will be the time to give up.
**** “Listen.”
I pulled my head from the frozen sleeping bag. The wind had dropped. It was now or maybe never.
Thigh deep, avalanche prone snow had made the ‘easy’ part of this climb anything but easy – but here we were, six days since leaving 14000, slowly balancing Denali’s summit ridge. Cloud filled the valleys. The afternoon sun, low in the sky,reflected from scallops. Denali was an untamed sea. Later, we found-out the weather had been so poor no-one had attempted to reach the summit for two days – and as I stepped onto that highest point in North America, I thought of something Ian Parnell once said to me, “We both know that the crux of any route in the mountains is the final step onto the summit.” And stepping onto that summit I knew he was right and it is often the ‘easy’ things in life which are the most challenging.
Easy to use.
Tough & waterproof.
Personalise your gear.
Tough Tags Gear Deal
Toughtags is a company that makes personalised, waterproof and tamperproof identification Tags for climbing gear. They are a great way of identifying your own gear or of labelling gear for centre use or PPE inspections, or for a variety of other uses.
The business is owned by Jonathan Cluett who is a full member of AMI and is keen to be able to offer something back to the AMA community.
For more info about Tough Tags, visit the Tough Tags Website www.toughtags.co.uk
The Deal
Toughtags is able to offer AMA members a discount of web price - 20% + postage. This discount is for personal use only (i.e. member’s name and address, or personal business name and address) but we will also be able to offer a reasonable discount to members who work at/run centres etc and need them for centre kit.
Ordering
To make an order, or to begin an enquiry please email us at tagit@toughtags.co.uk
www.toughtags.co.uk
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 51