Hanging on: A Life Inside British Climbing's Golden Age

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Not such an easy question; the answer is fairly vague. We probably first "met" 45 years ago in Buenos Aires. We were both on separate trips to Patagonia and our paths intersected in the apartment of Edouardo Rodriguez, that may be the first time we met. However, 45 years ago the climbing community was considerably smaller than it is now and so everyone congregated in the same Pubs. So I possibly met him in the Moon or the Padarn. Though I may have "met" Martin all those years ago in no way did it mean that I knew him or climbed with him. In 1976 they were members of a joint British-Nepalese army expedition led by Lt Col Tony Streather (who had reached the summit of Kangchenjunga in 1955 the day after Joe Brown and George Band made the first ascent). As was the practice at the time, it was another siege-style expedition. Like Scott and Haston the previous year, Stokes and Lane proved to be the expedition’s strongest climbers and were nominated to form the first summit party.

Two years later Scott was proposing a lightweight expedition to The Ogre in the Karakoram that was to include Bonington (as a team member) and Haston. While it was being planned, news came through that Haston had been killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Alps. The expedition went ahead and in fact Scott and Bonington became the first people to reach the summit. [81] Estcourt was killed on the 1978 Bonington-led K2 West Ridge expedition. [82] Boardman died together with Joe Tasker on Bonington's 1982 Everest Northeast Ridge expedition. [83]I was watching him approach the area of crevasses when he suddenly went in up to his waist and I was just about to say, ‘found one then?’ when he disappeared. I looked down the hole about 80ft and all I could see were shiny walls and I thought, ‘Christ Almighty - he’s disappeared into the centre of the f***ing mountain’”

I had a natural talent for climbing which I discovered early on, it was quite a relief to discover something I could actually do! I’m not particularly strong, nor blessed with the right physique which some people have, but I’m pretty tough and quite determined. And I’m quite creative when it comes to the way of doing things. These days I can tell people how to do things without being able to do it myself. I suppose it’s a body awareness which you either have to a lesser or greater degree. Taking about three days, hundreds of locally hired porters carried 24 tonnes of equipment and 12 tonnes of food from Khunde to Base Camp arriving by 23 August. It was at this stage that one of the porters went missing. He was a young boy who had been on the 1972 expedition and who Doug Scott in particular had taken under his wing. A search party found him dead in a stream just below Base Camp. [37] Khumbu Icefall and Western Cwm [ edit ]In December 1973 Bonington heard that a team had withdrawn from its 1975 time slot. It was for post-monsoon so when he applied for the slot he was again intending to attempt his lightweight South Col—Southeast Ridge scheme. Permission was given in April 1974 when he, Haston and Scott were starting on a Changabang expedition (which was to be another first ascent) and Haston and Scott were able to persuade Bonington to try the Southwest Face again, despite it having to be in the autumn. [16] The scheme eventually turned into what has been described as "the apotheosis of the big, military-style expeditions". [17] Preparations [ edit ] Boardman and Pertemba waited on the South Summit for an hour and a half as ‘all the winds of Asia’ (in the poetic words of Boardman) threatened to blow them off the ridge. When Pertemba said he could no longer feel his fingers and toes, they decided it was time to descend for their own safety.

The post-monsoon Japanese expedition in autumn 1973 had attempted both the Southwest Face and the normal route. The face party had failed in much the same way as the British had the year before but the South Col team had managed what turned out to be a very significant achievement. In the post-monsoon season they had reached the summit by climbing directly from the South Col without stopping overnight. By the time they had reached the summit they were out of oxygen but despite that, and having to bivouac overnight without food, drink or a tent, they had returned safely to the South Col. [15]

Lane lost ten toes and the tips of all the fingers of his right hand. Stokes lost all his toes and a part of each foot. In contrast to Maurice Herzog, who left his toes on a station platform in India after losing them to frostbite on the first ascent of Annapurna, Bronco Lane had his toes preserved in formaldehyde and kept them in his garage. He eventually donated them to the National Army Museum when they approached him for Everest memorabilia a few years later. 7 – Chris Bonington (176 overall) a b "Everest the Hard Way (1975)". BFI. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 24 April 2023. Bonington, Christian; Scott, Doug; Haston, Dougal (1976). "Everest Southwest face" (PDF). American Alpine Journal. 20 (2): 345–358. Toda, Naoki (1977). "Changabang, Southwest Ridge". American Alpine Journal. New York, New York, US: American Alpine Club. 21 (51): 248. As I said previously, we never planned ahead, so I couldn't be disappointed. In recent years, I have done a lot more sport climbing in the UK, a genre that Martin is not so keen on. I've tended to pursue that midweek when I am not with Martin.

Much has been written about the Whillans, including Jim Perrin’s recent detailed biography. But now Don, as always, is having the last word, being the subject of my posthumous film. The film, supported by the BMC, and to be premiered at the Kendal Film Festival, features some of the many epics in Don’s climbing career - spanning the Alps to Patagonia, Annapurna to Everest. It also brings out some of Don’s tremendous humour and devastating wit.This road is now the Araniko Highway and it carries on further north to cross into China at the Sino-Nepal Friendship Bridge at Kodari.