Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [90]
Beckoning. Silent, apart from a gentle breeze blowing across the ice.
The leap we were making in altitude – some three thousand, three hundred feet – was huge, considering the altitude we were at. Even on our trek into base camp we had only ever ascended around nine hundred feet a day.
We knew the risks in pushing through this invisible altitude boundary, but because of the severity of the gradient we were forced to take it. There were simply so few places where we could level out a small ice shelf to pitch a camp up there.
As soon as we could complete our trip to camp three we would return to base camp for one last time. From then on, it would all be weather-driven.
For the next five hours we continued up the sheer, blue ice. Crampon points in, calf muscles burning, lungs heaving – yet finding no relief.
The air was now very thin, and the exposure and drop increased with every faltering step we took up the ice.
Look only in front, never down.
The Sherpas had reached camp three the previous day, and had spent the afternoon putting the two tents in. Their bodies still coped much better than ours up here. How grateful I was for their strength!
As we clawed our way up the final patch of glistening sheer blue ice, I could see the tents wedged under an overhanging serac above us.
Precarious, I thought.
But I knew that the serac would also offer some protection from avalanches above.
The tents were flapping in the now-stronger wind – alluring yet so elusive – and the cold had set in ready for the coming night.
It was now also snowing hard and the light was fading fast.
The wind swept the snow across the dark ice and up into our bodies.
Mick was a little behind Neil and me, and as we both rolled over the ledge of camp three we looked down to see him stationary. Another weary step, then another rest.
Eventually he staggered on to the ledge.
A cold smile swept across his half-obscured face.
We were at camp three.
Alive and together.
CHAPTER 83
The headache that I had hoped I had left behind at camp two was with me again – but stronger now.
I swallowed an aspirin without letting anyone see. For the first time I didn’t want the others to think I might be suffering. Not at this decision-point stage.
The tent we were in was better suited to one man with a minimum of kit, rather than three bodies, booted and spurred against the coldest, windiest place on earth.
Such close quarters require a huge degree of tolerance, when you are tired and thirsty, with a splitting headache – either huddled over a stove melting ice, or cramped against the cold ice wall next to the tent.
It was at this sort of time that having good friends with you really mattered.
Good friends who you can rely on – the sort of people who smile when it is grim.
If ever friendships were to be tested and forged, it was now.
Quietly, we got on and did all the necessary chores that living at such extreme altitude entails.
Once your outer boots were off you didn’t leave the tent. Several lives had been lost because climbers had gone outside their tents wearing only their inner boots.
One small, altitude-induced slip on the blue ice had been their last conscious act before finding themselves hurtling down the five-thousand-foot glassy face to their deaths.
Instead, you peed in your pee-bottle, which you then held tight against your chest for warmth.
And as for pooing – always a nightmare – that involved half an hour of getting everyone to move over so you could get re-dressed, before putting your crampons and boots back on, to venture outside.
Then you would squat, butt out from the face, hold on to a sling and ice screw, pull your trousers down, lean out and aim.
Oh, and make sure there were no other climbers coming up from below.
When dawn finally arrived and I manoeuvred myself from the tent, the fresh crisp air filled my nostrils. The heavy snow and driving wind of the previous day had been replaced