Page 45 - 20145 AMA Spring

Deliverance
By Nick Bullock
From high above comes a deep throaty growl. Instantly, I know its source, and I desperately look around for shelter, but the only option, a single rock immediately to my left, is too small.
The ropes snake down the gully, useless. I drive both tools into wet, melting ice and cower. When the heavy concrete snow hits me square on, I am plucked from the middle of the couloir and thrown down the face. I scream, deep, from the pit of my stomach. I know I am about to die.
Tumbling, hurtling down, I spin head over heels, smashing into rock upside-down with my left shoulder. My body collapses, concerti- naed. My knees crash into my face, splitting the soft skin and forcing the air from my lungs with the crushing impact. My ribs, chest and back feel as though they are tearing apart. I black out for a second, then regain consciousness, horrified to find I am still falling.
Let the next one end the pain, I plead. I’ve suffered enough now. Please.
I hit deep, soft snow hard. I’m alive! The joy of living gives way to panic as I crash another two hundred feet, down the ice-cone, spinning, twisting, pushed on by hundreds of tons of heavy, wet snow. Surfacing, I gulp air, pulling hard for the side of the avalanche. My legs are twisted into unnatural angles; my joints are forced the wrong way. Still I fight, clawing, flailing. My resolve strengthens: I refuse to be taken under.
The snow slows; I claw and swim. As it starts to set, I pull hard to get high, pushing an arm into the air in the hope of leaving some part of me visible, something for Powell to dig out.
It never enters my head that he could be buried as well.
I shook my head, attempting to clear it of the memory of our attempt on this god-forsaken mountain twelve months earlier. Any sane person would avoid repeating such an experience, so why was I now bivied on the same rock step, waiting to climb the same evil chimney with the same deadly face above? Powell, sitting at my side, also looked reflective, his intense, dark eyes set deep in a gaunt face. Did he question what had made us return to this face as well?
Jirishanca is an icy, towering skyscraper of a mountain in a remote corner of Peru’s Cordillera Huayhuash. Fringed, latticed icefalls, joined together by snowy ledges and steep compact rock, cover the upper three-quarters of its southeast face. The pointed summit is protected by mushrooms and fluted honeycomb snow that overhangs the concave face. Access to the unclimbed central area is via a massive snow cone and a tight, narrow chimney. As the sun strikes the face in the early morning it becomes a living entity. Everything falling from above is funneled down the face and flushed
through the chimney—the place where I had nearly died the year before.
The southeast face had seen only one ascent, in 1973 by a Japanese team that seiged their route over forty-five days. Several teams were coming to try their luck on the face this year. Al Powell and I comprised the second team. The first, Alex Fidi and Julian Neumayer, two young guides from Austria, didn’t make it beyond their warm-up climb. While attempting a new line on Jirishanca Chico in preparation for the main event on Jirishanca, they were caught in an avalanche. Both had been killed.
We started soloing at 1 a.m. on June 15 with two days food for the nine-hundred-meter line. My stomach was playing up; I felt terrible. As we approached the start of the chimney, my breathing grew labored. Entering the chimney, fighting the desire to run away, I started the sprint on perfect névé. It was freezing cold, a luxury not experienced the year before. The deathly dark in the confines constricted my swings and kicks. Lumps of snow flew past; the odd rock whirred by. I desperately wanted to escape.
A crashing rumble broke the silence. Driving both axes into the névé, I pulled in tight and waited. And waited. Nothing happened. I swore at myself for being so stupid: it was a serac collapsing on Yerupaja Chico. God, was I tense. I quickly continued until finally the rock surrounding me opened out to a wide expanse of snow.
A large overhanging buttress to the right promised a haven of safety. In my mind’s eye, I could see the picture of the face I had stared at longingly over the months. I could see the massive gargoyles of snow and ice stuck to soaring towers directly above. Why had Powell talked about earthquakes the day before? Where was he, anyway? I stopped and turned to look below. Yes, there he was: I could see the pin-prick of light still in the confines. He was still in danger, still plugging away as quickly as his body would allow.
A final sprint across the wide, right-leaning snow slope deposited me safely under the overhanging buttress, gasping for breath. Minutes later Powell caught up.
“Jesus, what were we thinking last year? This place must have been loaded with fresh snow,” he muttered, as much to himself as to me.
“It’ll be one of the best ice routes in the world if we do it,” I replied, trying to keep the fear from my voice while glancing above, to the left, to the right, below, behind.
“That chimney went on forever. I though you said you were nearly at the ramp last year?”
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