Tides: A climber's voyage

By Nick Bullock

Winner: Mountain Literature Award, Banff Mountain Book Festival 2018
Shortlisted for the 2018 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature
Nick Bullock is a climber who lives in a small green van, flitting between Llanberis, Wales, and Chamonix in the French Alps. Tides, Nick's second book, is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Echoes.
Now retired from the strain of work as a prison officer, Nick is free to climb. A lot. Tides is a treasury of his antics and adventures with some of the world's leading climbers, including Steve House, Kenton Cool, Nico Favresse, Andy Houseman and James McHaffie. Follow Nick and his partners as they push the limits on some of the world's most serious routes: The Bells! The Bells! on Gogarth's North Stack Wall; the Slovak Direct on Denali; Guerdon Grooves on Buachaille Etive Mor; and the north faces of Chang Himal and Mount Alberta, among countless others.
Nick's life can be equated to the rhythm of the sea. At high tide, he climbs, he loves it, he is good at it; he laughs and jokes, scares himself, falls, gets back up and climbs some more. Then the tide goes out and he finds himself alone, exposed, all questions and no answers. Self-doubt, grieving for friends or family, fearful, sometimes opinionated, occasionally angry – his writing more honest and exposed than in any account of a climb. Only when the tide turns is he able to forget once more.
Tides is a gripping memoir that captures the very essence of what it means to dedicate one's life to climbing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vertebrate Digital
• Release date: May 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781911342892

Nick Bullock

Nick Bullock was born on Christmas Day in 1965. After leaving school aged sixteen he worked variously as a gamekeeper, a self-employed labourer and at Alton Towers (less exciting than it sounds) before joining Her Majesty’s Prison Service in 1987 where he was posted to the high-security Gartree Prison as a wing officer, then a punishment block officer. In 1992 he was introduced to climbing at Plas y Brenin while training as a physical education instructor: Nick left the prison service in 2003 and has been a full-time climber and part-time writer ever since. Nick is one of the UK’s leading climbers, making bold repeats of many of the country’s most renowned traditional summer rock climbs. In Scottish winter he has climbed hundreds of routes and many new ones including Nevermore on Lochnagar – with a grade of X/10 it is one of the hardest routes ever climbed ground up. In the European Alps he has climbed approximately forty routes, both established classics and new lines, and he is a veteran of over twenty-three expeditions to the greater ranges. It is possibly in the big hills where Nick has truly demonstrated his imagination and abilities, making significant ascents and failing on some audacious attempts around the world with partners such as Jules Cartwright, Al Powell, Kenton Cool, Andy Houseman, Matt Helliker and Paul Ramsden. In September 2017, alongside Ramsden, he climbed the first ascent of the North Buttress on Nyainqentangla South East in Tibet, for which they were awarded a prestigious Piolet d’Or. An accomplished writer, his work has been published frequently in Alpinist, Climb, Rock and Ice, Climber, Vertical, UKClimbing.com, Desnivel, Climbing, the Alpine Journal, the American Alpine Journal, and in 2017 he won the award for Best Mountaineering Article of the Year at the Banff Mountain Book Competition. When not on expedition or extended climbing trips, Nick lives in Llanberis, North Wales. Tides is his second book, following the critically acclaimed Echoes.

Book preview

– prologue –

living scared

December 2014

Stoke Bruerne, England

‘I’ve lived too long.’

My parents, now retired, live on a canal boat moored permanently at Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire. When I visited on my way south from Llanberis to Chamonix for the winter, I walked the towpath. The day was washed out. Grit clung to the soles of my shoes, rotting leaves floated on the dark surface of the canal. The canal museum was closed for the winter. A mallard stirred the water. I bent and stepped into the crouch of the boat. It rocked as I opened one of the small wooden doors leading into the overheated living room.

‘I’ve lived too long’ were my dad’s opening words. Paddy, the Jack Russell terrier, skittered across the wooden floor to jump and claw at me. I pushed him away. Dad sat in his wooden-framed chair with a cup of tea in one hand and a roll-up clamped between yellow-stained fingers of the other. The oil from years of manual labour that used to line Dad’s crevassed finger skin had long gone. Wisps of smoke belly-danced toward the discoloured ceiling. I sat surrounded by paperback books, china figurines, glass paperweights and photographs of my sister’s grown-up children. A birdcage stood on an old oak table. Barney, the African Grey parrot, was perched on top of the cage, pulling out her feathers.

It’s easy to listen to something like my dad’s statement and not fully take it in.

‘I’ve lived too long.’

What’s too long? Do many of us take life for granted, treat it as something that may be frittered away? Is there really such a thing as ‘I’ve lived too long’?

Recently, I’ve been waking up at 4 a.m. The wind shakes my van, and the rain plays a xylophone on the metal roof. I turn on the light. Perfect almonds of condensation have formed on the red ceiling. The wind grasps the van and an individual drop clings – clings and hangs, hangs and stretches. Stretches … and finally lets go … falling, falling, stretching, falling … the drop holds together. Until after just a second … it thuds on to my sleeping bag. I lie and worry about not having a fixed abode, a career, a partner or enough money to last until I die. As I lie staring, I see homeless people sleeping in doorways. I see buskers, beggars, the unemployed, the lonely.

Later, walking through the long grass of the clifftop, I watch shafts of sunlight penetrate the cumulus, illuminating the dark sea and embracing an oystercatcher that silently skims the waves. I see the wind catch the curling leaves of an ash tree and the trickle of water weaving a course along the dusty surface of yellow limestone. And all this reminds me that life, at whatever level, whatever frailty, has to be worth living.

The sun dips for another day, quenched by the green Irish Sea. High in the distance, a pair of gannets rise on a spiralling thermal.

– Chapter 1 –

love and hate

October 2003

Leicester, England

I stepped out through the small prison door and every sound changed. There was the distant rumble of a lorry, a snatch of a faraway police siren. Cars swished down Leicester city centre’s Welford Road. I could hear the dull whine of planes descending into East Midlands Airport. A few pigeons huddled in the shadow of a prison turret were briefly mumbling to each other. I turned my face upward to feel the rain, and imagined the stars beyond the sodium street lights. The acidity of the rain felt cleansing. The exhaust fumes in the air smelled of freedom. I inhaled deeply. I listened to the air enter my body.

I breathed out, turned, and walked away.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of aggression, violence and stress. Fifteen years of learning bitterness, prejudice, loneliness. Fifteen years of building walls. Fifteen years. The prison service had given me all of these things, but in some way it also had given me parole: I now had health, fitness and climbing. It had given me the money to pay off my mortgage. I was grateful for these things.

Looking over my shoulder, I followed the straight line of red brick. The prison wall stretched above with a thousand uniform bricks. Rain soaked my shoulders. High-level lights lit the street. Shadows hid, clinging to the corners as though scared.

I had done it. I was thirty-seven years old and I had resigned from my job as a PE instructor in the prison service. I had walked away from a job guaranteed for life. The job which earlier in my life was everything I desired: security, pension, stability, a regular wage, a profession. I had walked. And as I walked, the water beneath my feet squelched, and the stars – hidden behind the clouds – were burning bright. They were close enough to grab and take hold of. Close enough for me to grab and lock away. Lock away like some of the people that were no longer a part of my life, some of the people still serving a sentence: Reggie Kray, Hate-Em-All Harry Roberts, Bobby Dew, Rookie Lee, Houston, Charlie Bronson. I felt free.

Almost.

At the age of sixteen, I had taken out a loan to buy a motorbike. Each time I stamped on the kick-start, the engine screamed and my nose filled with the unburned tang of an oily two-stroke; the inches became miles. Cheadle, the town in Staffordshire where I was born and where I grew up, with its red brick, factories and fumes, gave way to verges stuffed with wildflower blurs. Red, green, yellow, pink; hedgerows that were home to pink-breasted bullfinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch. In those boundless times, the miles turned to days and the days to weeks. That 50cc engine was a time machine, and our time was infinite.

Now, at the age of thirty-seven, I was sitting on the brand new carpet in the empty and newly decorated living room of my beloved house in the village of Burton Overy, in Leicestershire. Burton Overy had been my bolthole for fifteen years; it had been my escape, sanctuary and therapist. My treasured place. Mature oak and horse chestnut, tawny owls, the thatched post office, the pub, the house with warped walls and a tin roof, the grazing sheep, the telephone box, the humble medieval church built from ironstone, and the rabbits, rooks and lapwings. I didn’t feel at all like a focused projectile, I felt more like a piece of wood careering down a river. What had I done? I was scared of what the future held, but the excitement of not really knowing where or how my life would move forward was simultaneously intoxicating.

Since walking from the prison I had felt my heart beat. Tomorrow I would leave Leicestershire, the day after catch a plane heading east for Nepal, and the day after that someone would move in to my home and start paying rent.

December 2003

Kathmandu, Nepal

The motorbike accelerated over the Kathmandu cobbles, speeding through dust and shit. White knuckles, wide eyes, hair on the back of my neck standing erect. It was going to be close. Why did I repeatedly find myself in these life-threatening situations? One move was hopefully all it would take to get us into a position of safety. One move, that was all, but the constriction we were now aiming to squeeze through was getting smaller by the second. Gripping hard. Squeezing. Knuckles white. The situation was out of my control.

All swinging hip bones, a black cow nearly finished us as she lurched into the gap. A passer-by whacked it, shooing it away. The atmosphere was overflowing with heat and dust and humanity. I could almost feel the warmth of the brightly clothed, sweating bodies packed into the narrow street as we passed. The gap grew bigger. Dawa twisted the throttle, and we hurtled through a human corridor of arms, legs, jeans, rags, robes. Silver-coloured metal boxes, stacked and shining; barking dogs; green, blue, red, a pile of blurred plastic buckets. Leaning to the right, to the left, the Nepali climbing agent handled the Honda with the skill of someone used to dealing with the chaos of daily life in Kathmandu. I, on the other hand, had only just returned from a month in the mountains, and it had been a long time since I had owned that white Yamaha.

It had been six weeks since leaving my home and my job, and it had been about six hours since the stomach-stressing flight from Lukla – famous for its terrifying runway and plane crashes. When I walked away from the prison, I had left behind everything that I grew up believing would make my life solid. This still had not sunk in, because if it had, I would have found it almost as terrifying as the flight.

Five weeks earlier, Al Powell, Jules Cartwright and I had landed and walked down the steps of the plane together in Nepal. We were stubborn, determined and ambitious. Powell was laid-back, stoic, quiet, gaunt and rangy, super fit with a reputation for going lightweight and speed in the hills. He was also down to earth, working class, straight talking, no frills. Cartwright was blonde, good looking, and the up-and-coming superstar of British alpinism. He was also the youngster at twenty-eight. On the surface Jules was very sure of himself – chain smoking, hard drinking, hard climbing, no nonsense, no bullshit. To the point and then straight to the pub. I had always surmised that his confidence, or at least some of it, came from being brought up in a relatively privileged, close-knit family. He appeared to ooze self-assurance, strength, immortality – the type of confidence that people without money or a private education often have difficulty expressing.

I felt old and intolerant. Intolerance was a hand-me-down from the prison service and my dad, but as we landed in a country new to me, a country with vibrancy, I could feel the shadows begin to lighten a little. I had begun climbing late in life at twenty-eight, after discovering the activity as part of PE officer training in the service. Finding climbing was an epiphany, and for most of the time, a life-enhancing activity that had almost immediately made me a better person and given me focus; climbing tested me both physically and mentally. Since becoming a climber, everything in my life had been steered towards becoming better and more experienced. I wanted to see how far I could take the activity and where it would lead me. Rock, ice, mountains; climbing had become my sole focus and I knew at some point I would have to dedicate myself completely, no matter the perceived risks and the sacrifice, and at times the physical and mental bruising that come as part of that package.

Landing in a tiny plane on that very steep, short runway in Lukla for the first time was shocking. The air – thin of oxygen but thick with glacial dust – scratched at my lungs. Wood smoke lingered in the streets above the heads of men and women with strings and hessian sacking hanging around their necks – tools of the trade for porters, people who appeared to live a life of punishing hardship. Lukla reminded me of a ramshackle frontier town from a cowboy film, a town catering to the needs of thousands of trekkers and climbers. Transients: guides, porters, boxes of beer, climbers, building materials, trekkers. On the move daylight or darkness, dry or wet, snow or heatwave. Fabled Lukla, the town and airport I had often read about and, until now, only imagined. Chickens and cows. Steam rising from the thick, tangled coats of yaks. People with almond eyes, red robes, shaved heads. Engraved golden prayer wheels, men and women bent over, weighed with loads to be carried up the valley.

I sat in a white plastic chair alongside Powell. We both sipped sweet milky tea while sunbathing on the veranda of Paradise Lodge near the airport. I had been transported to a different life, a parallel life to the one of walls and hate and oppression. The wildflower hedgerow blur from my teenage years felt almost within reach.

We had no official guide or helper. Loben Sherpa, a smiling, larger-thanlife character and friend of Cartwright’s – who lived in Kathmandu in the climbing and trekking season, but whose family and home were still in Darjeeling – sorted the bureaucratic details of the trip, between regular beers after cigarettes. I could see why he and Jules hit it off. Loben had fingers and thumbs in pies all over the place, and appeared to be able to fix problems with just a smile. I had realised the greasing of palms was an everyday part of bureaucracy in Kathmandu.

Jules had already visited Nepal nine times and had arranged the employment of three porters. As I revelled in the sun, the realisation that I was never returning to the prison service made me glow.

The three of us began walking, heading for Namche Bazaar. For some reason Cartwright was insistent we complete the walk in one day. The altitude of Kathmandu – where we had been in the morning – is 1,440 metres; Lukla is 2,860 metres. Namche is 3,440 metres. Why we had to get to Namche in a day baffled and surprised both Al and me. Around 9 p.m. the three of us, dehydrated and with thumping headaches, staggered into Namche Bazaar in the dark.

We were in Nepal to attempt a new route on the 1,600-metre north-west face of Teng Kang Poche above Thame, a small Sherpa village higher up the valley from Namche and the childhood home of Tenzing Norgay. It came as no surprise this face was unclimbed: ice streaked with loose limestone and threatening séracs made up the most part of it. Cartwright pushed for the big-bag, seven-day-up-three-day-off-the-back approach. I suspected that his ten-day epic on Ama Dablam in 2001 had affected his mental state. I, on the other hand, plumped for a slightly different line and a slightly different approach: four days up, one day down. Down the same side, reasonably fast and light, but not without suffering and risk. Having known Cartwright for a long time, I knew I was on to a loser trying to persuade him of the virtues of my approach, even though the trip was my brainchild from the beginning and he had jumped on board last minute. Cartwright had a lifetime of experience packed into his twenty-eight-year-old head, and I had an almost reverential belief in him. But I wondered what was driving my friend’s decisions. Something different was happening inside that blonde head. My guess was self-induced pressure to perform and please sponsors. He was also attempting to become a mountain guide and everything this involves, and to keep his relationship in Sheffield going. Basically, life and the complexities of life that come from being successful and driven but still wanting more were starting to shake my friend and his once carefree attitude.

Leaving the half-built lodge at Thyangboche, a three-house settlement beneath our cliff, I struggled under the weight of my huge rucksack. As Cartwright forced the pace again, I was forced to keep quiet. Due to the other two’s late arrival at Thame we had missed our chance the previous afternoon to stash kit beneath the face. I had walked up to the hamlet a day earlier. In an attempt at an explanation for their late arrival, Powell complained about feeling ‘powered down’. I substituted ‘powered down’ for ‘pissed up’. Partying in Namche the evening before had been too good an opportunity for the pair to miss; Powell’s strong and gnarly temperament was no match for Cartwright’s thirst.

With a huge sigh of relief, we realised the initial snow cone at the base of the face was solid. Solid enough to support bag and bodyweight. Cartwright set the pace, Powell followed and I moaned. The giant, compact north pillar to the left twisted airily into the sky. A massive crumbling wall of rock running from the pillar hemmed the three of us in, teetering blocks threatened, séracs miles above intimidated. Easier-angled fields of loose rock, ice and snow were spread out in front of us. More bands of séracs stretched across the wall to the right. A Droites north wall on top of a Droites north wall.

Free from the constrictions and concerns of people, bills, work, worries and rope, we slowly left behind the daily grind; the unknown concerns affecting Cartwright and his decisions just beneath the surface were simmering away and in turn affecting my mood. The runnel walls drew in around us. The face steepened and we continued to solo. Occasionally the heavy rucksack stuffed with seven days’ food and gear twisted and lurched, but still we soloed. Cartwright was in front, powering through unconsolidated snow. Powell was behind, competitive, refusing to compromise, refusing to give in by allowing the gap between himself and Cartwright to grow. I was at the rear and, recognising my weakness in this big-bag approach, I allowed the gap to grow. Guilt coursed through my mind: Cartwright had been breaking trail for so long, but my bag was so heavy because of his estimate of time and his choice of line and his refusal to return down the north side of the mountain. So it was with a sense of justice that I clung to my dignity.

‘What the hell is this?!’ I yelled.

The first roped climbing came as a shock as Cartwright and Powell were a lot taller than me and had been able to step down to reach a horizontal crack, ready to accept a crampon point easily. I, on the other hand, found the whole procedure desperate. I needed an intermediate placement, but none was forthcoming. Gently lowering myself, the parasitic sack drained my strength. I used a pick placement in a blob of ice to support myself. The ropes running horizontally left around a corner rubbed on a sharp edge of rock. What if I fell now? Would just one rope fail, or would both ropes cut? Powell, out of sight, pulled. The rope drag left no feeling for sensitive belaying. I swayed. Powell pulled. I resisted and carefully pulled against the rope. A tug of war was not in my script. I stretched, full body length hanging from the pick hooked in the blob of ice. I was straight-arm hanging and still I was six inches short. ‘Commit, come on! Decide to commit!’ The ice blob made the decision for me as it broke off. Ice splinters spun into the thin air. My left front point screeched as it slid and then snagged in the crack. I stopped. Powell tugged again. This time I moved with tenacity. More projectile-like, not just driftwood. I moved and left behind my thoughts of ‘what if?’ We had too far to go to waste time on ‘what ifs’.

It was only day one and already I detested the rucksack, the soft snow, Cartwright’s drive and determination, his fitness, and his lack of years. At that moment I hated him … but I hated myself more. I hated that I was getting old. At one time I would have been fighting for the front, fighting to break trail. The competitive, driven streak running through my veins wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to do all the work.

Reaching the top of the snowfield, a perfect tent spot presented itself and Powell volunteered to stay and dig. Ahead, the runnel had turned into a perfect two-pitch, seventy-five-degree ice gully. Cartwright asked if I wanted to lead it, and to address the balance in some way, and to ease my evening of self-doubt, I jumped at the chance. The rucksack could be left behind, as the plan was to climb two pitches, fix the rope and return to the tent spot ready for the following day.

Climbing the first pitch, the old feeling of being engaged in the ebb and flow of the vertical returned. Cartwright joined me and I set off again to lead the second pitch of the Himalayan Ben Nevis Green Gully. At the top I fixed the ropes ready for a session of jumaring in the morning and slid back to the yellow tent 120 metres below. The mountains across the valley from us turned into huge vermilion Victorian ladies’ dresses and in the far distance, Everest, Lhotse and Cho Oyu blushed with their girth.

While Cartwright and Powell attempted to make a tiny two-man, single-skin tent into a home big enough for three, I patiently sat on my rucksack and leant against the overhanging rock the tent was beneath, contemplating the day.

I remember Dad, covered in dust and sweat, appearing from the side exit of the Cheadle cotton mill where he worked the night shift. Mum would give him his packed dinner, while my sister and I waited in the back of the car. I wonder what he had dreamt of when he was the same age as me.

When the mill closed down and was replaced by a supermarket, Dad rescued the old carp from its pond and dug a new pool for it in the garden. The large grey fish, held in his cracked and oil-stained hands, curved its thick body into a sickle-moon shape. Dark, bottomless eyes. Yawning mouth. Glistening scales. It entered the water with a plop, and after a second or two, it swam slowly into the reeds.

Powell, Cartwright and I crammed into the tent. The night was one of the worst I had spent on a mountain. I had drawn the short straw, which meant lying between the others – unable to move or even turn to lie on my side. The morning arrived and I was wrecked. Grey, Gore-Tex-filtered light spread into the tent and I lay awake, much as I had throughout the whole night. I waited for one of the others to start the stove and begin the arduous task of melting snow. An alpine start this was not, but eventually, breakfasted and packed, we were ready to move.

Cartwright approached the ropes fixed the day before intending to climb them alongside Powell and me who were going to lead and second.

‘Are you going to take these ice screws, Jules?’ I asked, wondering what other gear was going to be left for the last one up the hill to carry. I remembered the time he and Jamie Fisher had left me to retrieve everything when I followed. This was on my first expedition in 1997 when we had attempted the Shark’s Fin on Meru Central in India.

‘No!’

‘Oh, why’s that then?’ I asked, a little taken aback by his shortness.

‘I’ll just do everything, shall I? Yesterday I broke trail, carried all the gear, and cooked,’ Cartwright continued. ‘This morning I even melted the snow while you and Al lay there. How the fuck are we going to climb this thing if there is only one of us doing the work?’

Age had mellowed me a little but I still wore the effects of prison and some of the early-morning rant was unfair.

‘Oh, so of the three pitches led yesterday I’m wrong to say I led two of them?’ I snapped back.

Powell being Powell said nothing and took Cartwright’s rant while sorting gear. Cartwright, in full flow by this time, continued.

‘Hey, I know if we continue finishing at three o’clock and starting at eight we’re never going to climb this thing.’

Cartwright climbed alongside the fixed rope, kicking hell out of the snow, still angry and obviously replaying the argument with each step. He would thank me later. He didn’t notice the early morning strain of climbing – the sting of freezing air sucked into a heaving chest. I also replayed the disagreement in my mind and I vowed to push myself harder.

The runnel twisted and turned. Cartwright apologised for the argument. I accepted the apology and we both accepted that we all needed a kick up the backside. For hours we moved together, pitched, soloed and cajoled, until the final pitch of the day: a beautiful steep ice overhang, which I led and fixed the rope upon, ready for the morning. Our progress was good. Cartwright’s words had done the job. Shadows lengthened, colours deepened, breath froze, the darkness beckoned, and a ledge for the tent was excavated.

Returning from fixing our high point I could feel something was not right. As Powell and Cartwright dug, I milled around trying to sort myself out. For two days my stomach had seized and I felt bloated. The cold penetrated my bones and my head felt light. Stamping a ledge into the steep snow I ripped at clothes until my bottom half was naked. Gaining a crouching position was difficult. I really didn’t want to tumble down the slope, but the snow was not solid, there was nothing to hold on to and lean back from. Eventually, stance assumed, my bowels decided I had frozen my backside enough and the feeling of release was fantastic. I pulled my clothes back on quickly, causing snow that was blown into my underwear to melt and wet my legs. Finally, half an hour from starting the procedure, I rejoined the others.

Crawling into the pitched tent, I forced myself into a corner. Wrapped in all my clothes, I slid into the normally comforting down sleeping bag, but still I felt cold. Then sick, then light-headed.

‘Give me the pan,’ I yelled.

Powell passed the cooking pot over quickly.

Throwing up, head stuffed into the pan, I felt proud that I hadn’t missed – that would have been a disaster at 5,400 metres in a small tent.

‘Hey, bet you were worried I’d miss and throw up all over the tent, weren’t you?’

‘You mean like you did half an hour ago?’ Powell whispered.

‘What do you mean, like I did half an hour ago?’

Looking at Powell I could see the worry in his face and the obvious relief.

‘You’ve been unconscious; we’ve been planning how to get you down.’

‘Oh, well … no need to worry now as I feel fine … just give me that pan again, will you?’

The throwing up continued for the rest of the night.

Retreat and run away was opted for in the morning, which added to my guilt that I had not pulled my weight, and several hours later Cartwright and Powell crashed through the door of the lodge at Thame. I arrived half an hour later, completely drained.

The Everest Summiteer Lodge, owned by Apa Sherpa, holder of the most Everest summits, was dark and quiet. The three of us were sitting on our own on large cushions surrounded by colourful posters of Buddhist deities and Everest, when the door swung open and a slim German woman with red hair and a big smile walked in and took over the conversation. I was immediately intrigued and attracted to this intelligent and confident woman. She introduced herself as Brita – ‘like the water filter,’ she explained – and instantly our leaving for Namche was delayed by an hour.

After a few days, Cartwright and I prepared to attempt the peak once more. Powell, on a three-week time schedule, had to return to Britain. Saying farewell in Namche, we hugged before heading in opposite directions. The feeling of loss I felt with Powell’s departure was huge. Powell and I had become close over the last few years, sharing some very intense times together while climbing in Peru. I enjoyed spending time with him: the mutual understanding and respect; the closeness; the feeling of being able to tackle anything, no matter how difficult; and the deep trust that can only be built with time and shared experiences.

The face had been blasted and a high wind was cause for concern. The summit ridge had extended further and great plumes of spindrift stretched into the sky as snow-powdered fingers grabbed at the speeding clouds. Avalanches poured from above. Rocks whirred and flew off the cliff bouncing down, down, down on to the snow cone. Five days had passed since the previous effort and unseasonably warm weather had stripped the snow, revealing loose rock. As insignificant dots – dots lost amongst powder – we picked a way following the same line as before. We were lost in the maelstrom. A rowing boat fighting a crashing sea of white. As we hid behind a pillar of rock, straws were drawn for who should push out into the open ground ahead.

‘I don’t want to go out there; it’s an artillery range,’ Cartwright said.

‘I agree, this is madness.’

So we waited. We waited for a lull but eventually we had to force the issue. I led sixty metres and then another sixty as Cartwright followed. Tied to the same ropes, we moved together with an occasional piece of gear between us and no belays – speed was our friend. I was still smarting from my poor show on the first attempt, so I forced the pace; my nerves jangled at the likelihood of being hit by debris, but this forced me harder. Yet, I was actually more nervous of the sensible option of retreating;