by Alex Spence
Reproduced courtesy of Alex Spence and North & South Magazine, 2001.
Following the death of Rob Hall on Mt Everest in 1996, Wanaka mountaineer Guy Cotter vowed to continue his friend's legacy, guiding paying clients up some of the world's most spectacular peaks. ALEX SPENCE went climbing to find out why he does it.
"The thing I like about climbing is that it's an activity which is basically non-competitive," says the mountaineer Guy Cotter. "You can do it at your own pace. It's not a win or lose situation. Ernest Hemingway said there are three sports: bull fighting, motor racing, and mountain climbing. The rest are just games. What we in New Zealand call sports, what we put so much emphasis into - really they're just games. Doesn' matter if you win or lose. Okay, so a few people get upset. But in reality... Whereas in mountaineering, it really matters whether you make the correct decision or not. That's the beauty of sports like this. That's why I'm attracted to it. Because it's very realistic."
It's Monday. In Wanaka. A perfectly balmy summer evening. Cotter is sitting outside a lakefront cafe, sipping a Crown lager, with the ice-capped peaks of Mt Aspiring National Park towering on the horizon, waiting for his partner to pick him up. Tourists crowd the tables around him. Jazz plays in the background.
"You'll like Guy," the shuttle bus driver assured me on my way into town. "He's really down to earth, even after climbing Mt Everest. A lot of those guys, they get a big head after something like that."
Cotter is the type of guy everyone wanted to be friends with in high school: loud, friendly, good-looking, fond of a drink, athletic, adventuresome. He has tousled brown hair and dark eyes, a strong jaw, a wide smile. His booming voice could shout down a room full of people. He wears dark sunglasses; a white T-shirt that shows off his muscled, veiny arms, toned by hours of recreational rock-climbing; loose black pants; and sports sandals on his "fat Kiwi feet". A white baseball cap bears the logo of his mountain guiding company, Adventure Consultants.
A waitress brings a platter of antipasto. He takes another sip of beer: "You can't allow ego to make decisions for you. You've got to be very realistic about your skills and capabilities, and those of the people in your group, and also what the environment is telling you. This is where a lot of people get screwed up, especially when they're first getting into mountaineering. Say if there's a high avalanche risk and you ignore it because you're on the way to the summit and that's all that counts, then you'll get spanked. On the other hand if you're too humble, too cautious, you'll never reach the summit. There's a fine balance there. It's the ultimate test of self-discipline because no one's ever going to blow the whistle and say, "Halftime". No one's going to say, "You're off. We're bringing on a substitute."
"These days a lot of what we do is very artificial. Our lives are dictated by governments and paperwork - there's very little about actual survival. Going into the mountains and actually making a decision and doing something that's going to be the difference between you living and dying, on a daily basis - it's empowering for the soul. You finally feel like you've got some control over your destiny."
He has been a climber most of his life. Born in Gore, raised in Christchurch, with a mountaineer father: "The best gift I ever got from my parents was exposure to the outdoors," he says. "During my teenage years I could go into the outdoors, and I had a direction and a focus. Whereas a lot of my friends were probably a little directionless. I always knew where I wanted to be on the weekends. I'd disappear on Friday afternoons, catch a rail car up to Arthur's Pass from Christchurch, either with friends or by myself, even as a youngster."
He climbed his first mountain - Mt Rolleston (2271 metres), the highest peak in the Arthur's Pass region - at 11, with his father and younger brother Anton, nine. At 15 he and three friends, including the late Rob Hall, for whom he would in later years work as a professional guide, did a traverse from Arthur's Pass to Mt Cook. "Me and Rob kind of knew each other through the climbing fraternity. It was the first real expedition for both of us. Rob did a lot of the planning of the food, and that sort of thing. It was a really good learning experience, just having to research the trip."
He left school soon after - "There wasn't a whole lot in the education system that was working for me," he explains and moved to Mt Cook. He took odd jobs, working in kitchens and for the Ministry of Works to support his climbing habit, though many of the better climbers wouldnt take him as a partner because of his age. After several aborted attempts, he successfully summited Mt Cook (3763 metres) at 17, via the East Ridge. If Id done an instruction course at that stage, it wouldve got me a lot further ahead, he says. There were skills I just didnt have. I didnt know how to navigate. I didnt know the technical side of climbing. But I just didnt have the money to pay for one.
He moved around: Australia, the United States. He came back to New Zealand in 1984, and started his professional mountain guiding qualification. He based himself in Wanaka and started guiding for Harris Mountains Heliskiing in the winter, but the pay wasnt enough to live on; he was forced to work part-time as a stonemason. Its the big joke with mountain guiding, he says. In the New Zealand qualifications system, a fully certified mountain guide is about equivalent to a professor at university, yet the pay scales just dont reflect that. Even though youre having to look after peoples lives and wellbeing. (New Zealand Mountain Guides Association president Dave Crow says a fully-certified guide could expect to earn $35,000-$40,000 a year, increasing to $60,000 and above if youre also guiding overseas expeditions. But, he adds, its a hard road getting there. Its quite expensive and trainees dont earn much. Requirements are stringent: about five years training, including advanced first aid and avalanche rescue, and you must have climbed a significant number of 3000 metre peaks.)
In 1989 Cotter and two friends, Nick Cradock and Paul Rogers, attempted their first Himalayan ascent, a treacherously steep 6400 metre rock needle in Pakistans Karakoram range called Uli Biaho. It took months of planning, stretched his credit-card balance to its limit. But they became only the third group to reach the summit.[Uli Biaho] taught me a lot because it was actually very, very dangerous getting to the bottom of the mountain, he says. There was a big avalanche hazard at the time. Every time it snowed, huge avalanches would come down and wipe out the whole access route to the mountain. We would climb this long access gully to the mountain in the night-time, after the weather had cleared up after a storm, and arrive at this little protected ice-cave area. Sometimes only half an hour before the sun would come up and a big avalanche cycle would occur. We were pushing it close to the line.
Its fair to say mountaineering has taken him places a boy from Southland wouldnt have otherwise gone. Hes climbed in Alaska, Antarctica, Nepal, Pakistan, and China. Ive come to make some really good friends with people of different backgrounds and different religions, he says. You realise that two-thirds of the worlds population have different ideas about religion, life, and death. The more I go to these places the more I understand that theres no right and wrong. Theres no one way to do things, only differing perspectives.
Hes attempted the worlds highest peak, Mt Everest (8848 metres), four times, reaching the summit twice. In 1997 he was the first Westerner to guide clients to the summits of three 8000 metre peaks (there are 14 in the world, all in the Himalayas) in one year. In 1999 he consulted on the Hollywood climbing movie Vertical Limit, filmed in the Southern Alps; he has this week been interviewed by a film crew from the National Geographic Channel for a documentary theyre putting together regarding the practice of medicine in extreme environments.
Life is good. He lives with his partner, Tracy, and their two kids, Elmo, seven, and Lillian, four, on a lifestyle block about eight kilometres out of Wanaka, halfway to Lake Hawea. When not climbing he heads off in his dusty, beat-up Nissan Patrol to go rock climbing or mountain biking.
Demand for guiding services has been going through the roof over the past few seasons, says Dave Crow. Business for Cotter is going well enough to employ a full-time office manager, a project manager, a couple of part-time assistants, and about a dozen regular guides. Not to mention the fact he gets to travel to some of the worlds most spectacular locations several times a year. This weekend, for instance, hell fly to Mendoza, Argentina, to spend the next month guiding two clients up the difficult and relatively seldom-attempted eastern side of Aconcagua (6950 metres), the highest point in South America. For this they will pay him $US4400 ($NZ9800) each.
The background on Adventure Consultants: It begins as the brain-child of best mates and climbing partners Rob Hall and Gary Ball in 1991. Theyve already ascended Everest the previous year with Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund. Theyve already bagged the Seven Summits the highest peak on each of the worlds seven continents in a record seven months, for which they received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. Now, looking for a new mountaineering challenge, they establish an office in Christchurch, becoming one of the first operations offering guided ascents of the worlds highest peaks. They were pioneers in this new style of mountain guiding, says Guy Cotter. Till then it had hardly ever been done.
Their price for guiding Everest is steep initially $US35,000 per head but the two men figure anyone serious about climbing in such an extreme environment will happily pay a premium for their expertise. Their formula is based on a comfortable base camp, a quality menu, dedicated medical back-up, a communication system both on the mountain and by satellite to the world, Russian state-of-the-art aluminium/kevlar oxygen equipment, a realistic acclimatisation schedule and the all-important guide/Sherpa to client ratio, according to climber-photographer Colin Monteaths biography Hall And Ball: Kiwi Mountaineers.
Its an immediate success. On May 12 1992, Hall, Ball and Guy Cotter guiding in the Himalayas for the first time steer six paying clients (another four dont make it due to exhaustion) to the highest point on earth. Cotter, then 30, recalls he jumped at the chance to climb Mt Everest. Hall, he says, was keen on supporting New Zealand guides, and they felt I had the attributes to support them. It worked out really well. I learned a lot from them. It was a wonderful apprenticeship.
On summit day, Cotter actually leads the group to the top. On the way to the Hillary Step [a steep wall of rock and ice just below the summit] I was in front of the group, chopping steps with my ice axe, and I remember thinking to myself, Gee, Im actually going to make the summit. Until then I never had a real idea whether I was going to or not. And, um, I was giggling to myself. I thought Everest was the place for the real hard men that Id been reading about in these books, and I didnt consider myself one of them. It was an emotional time being on top because it was like, wow. Weve just put all this time and energy and risked everything to climb this one peak. And weve done it. Now we can go home.
Hall and Ball run another expedition to Everest in 1993, again employing Cotter. Among their clients is 29-year-old Frenchwoman Chantal Mauduit. A year earlier she made it to the top of K2, the worlds second highest mountain, without the aid of oxygen, and is aiming to do the same on Everest. Struggling with the cold and altitude, however, shes forced to turn back. Cotter, abandoning his own aspirations to reach the top, escorts her down. I cannot begin to express how glad I was to have you with me when Chantal flaked out on the South summit, Hall later writes in a personal letter thanking Cotter for his friendship as well as his climbing abilities.
Gary Ball, bleeding from his sinuses, is also forced to pull back. Worse is to come: in October 1993 he collapses and dies from pulmonary edema, a swelling of the lungs brought on by high altitude, on the way up Dhauligiri in Nepal. His body is buried by Hall in a crevasse at 6500 metres.
Though devastated, Rob Hall resolves to keep Adventure Consultants going, and successfully leads another expedition to Everest in 1994. Without either Ball, who is dead, or Cotter, who is unavailable, Hall turns to the well-known American Ed Viesturs recently rated by Outside magazine as Americas greatest climber to be his guiding partner. Together they herd six clients and three Sherpas to the top in smart time, making Hall the first westerner to claim four successful Everest ascents.
Halls reputation grows. He adds Lhotse (8511 metres) and Makalu (8463 metres) to his impressive tally of 8000 metre Himalayan peaks, which already includes the two highest, Everest and K2. And aside from the 39 climbers he guides up Everest from 1990-1995, his company takes clients to the top of Carstenz Pyramid (4884 metres) in Indonesia, Vinson Massif (4879 metres) in Antarctica, and Cho Oyu (8153 metres) in Nepal. Small wonder, then, that Adventure Consultants becomes the most highly sought-after guiding company in the mountaineering world. Though he bumps his price for Everest to $US65,000 a head three times as much as some of his competitors Hall has no trouble filling places on the expedition booked for May 1996. Eight clients sign up.
Halls group is one of three to set out for the summit of Everest on May 10 1996. All told there are more than 30 climbers making their way to the top. American journalist Jon Krakauer, a client of Hall whose best-selling account of the tragedy, Into Thin Air, will become an instant classic, looks down the Hillary Step shortly after beginning his descent from the summit and is greeted with an alarming sight. Thirty feet below, more than a dozen people were queued up at the base of the Step. Three climbers were already in the process of hauling themselves up the rope that I was preparing to descend. Exercising my only option, I unclipped from the communal safety line and stepped aside.
The traffic jam causes long delays, and results in some climbers running out of oxygen. For reasons unknown, Hall and the other expedition leaders allow their clients to continue pressing on for the summit until late in the afternoon. (Conventional wisdom dictates that to allow yourself enough daylight to descend in safety, one should turn around at 2pm, regardless of whether or not youve reached the summit.) Hall summits at 2.25pm, his fifth ascent. One of his clients, Doug Hansen, is still pushing steadily upwards. A Sherpa from another expedition later reports seeing Hall drop down and begin escorting Hansen by the arm towards the summit.
At 4.30pm, Colin Monteath reports in Hall And Ball, Rob was overheard by base camp staff radioing urgently for someone to bring fresh oxygen cylinders up to him from the South Summit depot. Something had gone badly wrong. Out of life-sustaining gas, yet still above the Hillary Step, Doug had collapsed.
The weather closes in a sudden storm, with hurricane gales and wind chill temperatures as low as minus 100 degrees. Hall and Hansen are forced to spend the night exposed just below the summit. Further down the mountain, several other climbers spend the night huddled together in the blizzard a mere hundred metres from camp, barely alive and unable to navigate their way in the whiteout.
At the same time, Guy Cotter guiding an expedition of his own up Pumori, a smaller nearby peak monitors Halls radio transmissions and grows increasingly concerned. Krakauer describes the situation:
At 2.15pm [Cotter] talked to Hall on the summit, and everything sounded fine. At 4.30 and 4.41, however, Hall called down to say that Doug was out of oxygen and unable to move, and Cotter became very alarmed. At 4.53 he got on the radio and strongly urged Hall to descend to the South Summit. The call was mostly to convince him to come down and get some gas, says Cotter, because we knew he wasnt going to be able to do anything for Doug without it. Rob said he could get himself down OK, but not with Doug.
But 40 minutes later, Hall was still with Hansen atop the Hillary Step, going nowhere. During radio calls from Hall at 5.36, and again at 5.57, Cotter implored his mate to leave Hansen and come down alone. I know I sound like a bastard for telling Rob to abandon his client, confessed Cotter, but by then it was obvious that leaving Doug was his only choice. Hall, however, wouldnt consider going down without Hansen.
Two of Halls Sherpas make a bold attempt to reach him, but are turned back by the weather. After hanging on for a day and a night, with his client Hansen already dead, Hall slips into a hypothermic coma and never awakes. Two other members of Halls expedition lose their lives: Japanese client Yasuko Namba, and Queenstown-based guide Andy Harris. By the end of 1996 Everest claims 12 people, the most fatalities ever recorded in a single season.
Halls widow, Dr Jan Arnold, sells Adventure Consultants to Cotter in June 1996. ([Arnold considered Guy the only person she would sell the company to, claims the Adventure Consultants website. Cotters partner Tracy says there is still quite frequent contact. Jans always remained quite interested in the business.)
The Everest tragedy hasnt diminished Cotters enthusiasm for climbing, it seems. Before the year is out, Adventure Consultants has put clients on top of Cho Oyu, guided by Ed Viesturs, and Nepals Ama Dablam (6828 metres), guided by Cotter. [Ama Dablam] was a thoroughly enjoyable climb, Cotter says. Very steep, with lots of exposure, very spectacular scenery, but without being too dangerous it just had all the elements of being a really fun climb.
Perversely, there seems to be no drop-off in parties interested in climbing Everest. Commercial operators report that inquiries about guided Everest ascents have risen by almost 20 per cent, entirely due to the crush of publicity, Greg Child writes in the May 1997 edition of Outside magazine.
Outside estimates 170 will attempt Everest from the Nepalese side in 1997, including expeditions from Japan, Canada, Sweden, the US, Bolivia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Britan and New Zealand; while another 150 will attempt to summit from the Tibetan side. The New Zealand expedition consists of Guy Cotter, Ed Viesturs, two Sherpas and three clients. They reach the summit on May 23, 1997.
We did it in great style, Cotter says. We reached the summit at 10 to seven in the morning, and were back at camp on the South Col by 11am.
Cotter is a personable, no-bullshit sort of guy, generally easy to converse with, but to interview him about the Everest disaster is frustrating. His demeanour noticeably shifts. Its old hat. Weve all moved on, he says. But its something I feel I have to press. The question of why, after standing helplessly by as Everest claimed one of his closest friends, hed ever want to return is one that strikes me as crucial to understanding the motivation behind high-altitude climbing.
He offers me three reasons for going back in 1997. First, he wanted to ensure Hall hadnt become some sort of macabre high-altitude museum exhibit. I wanted to go back in part to ensure Robs body wasnt left up there in the middle of the climbing trail for people to photograph continually, Cotter says. It was a relief, then, to find Hall had been well buried. Second, he wanted to continue his friends legacy. The reason I kept Adventure Consultants alive, he explains, was I think the philosophy of the company was good. I felt enough respect for what Id learned from Gary and Rob, and I think the clients we worked with felt the same way. A lot of people still wanted to come and do trips. This company gave a lot of people a great deal of satisfaction.
And the last reason: Hes a climber. Its what he does.
I could stop, he says. Im obviously a lot more conscious of risk [now he has a family]. At the same time, for me to stop what I enjoy doing I think would find me a less stimulated person. Whilst the tragedy of 96 was quite shocking, it wasnt as if Id just learned then that high altitude mountaineering is dangerous. You go into life knowing that death is inevitable. I think if you go into an extreme sport like this, and dont acknowledge the risks, then youre more likely to get spanked.
Extreme mountaineering kind of polarises life. Youre in a situation where sometimes you see death. You see a lot going on that most of us are insulated from in our normal lives. You become a lot more philosophical about living and dying and what its all about. I knew I still had my passion. I wanted to move forward rather than dwell on the past. Im a mountaineer. If I stopped doing that, Id have to start all over again. What would I do?
He seems to choose his words carefully, treading a delicate line. On one hand he wants to reassure clients there wont be a repeat of 1996, while on the other hand hes wary of saying anything to criticise a dead mate. Its very easy for people to draw conclusions about what went wrong, how it went wrong, what the motivations were, he says. I believe Rob and Gary were pioneers in this type of mountaineering. Pioneers often reach the limitations of their activity, allowing that next time that activity can be done in better style. I think what 96 proved was that whenever theres doubt in your mind about the capability of a climber, when youre going to higher altitudes and their actions are impacting on an entire group, then it reiterates the necessity for us to make a conservative decision. In other words, he has learned from his predecessors mistakes.
After several hours spent talking to Cotter, in spite of the danger, the sheer madness of it all, Im itching to start climbing myself. I first approached him with an interview request more than a year ago, knowing full well if I was ever to understand why he does what he does, Id have to get up there myself. After much negotiation, Cotter agreed to let me tag along on one of the week-long introductory courses Adventure Consultants run in the Southern Alps every season. They agreed to loan me all the gear. All I had to do was kick the cigarettes and booze, pull on a pair of running shoes, and whip myself into better 22-year-old shape.
So here I am at the Adventure Consultants office on McDougall Street in Wanaka, an unassuming one-level house, white, with a ranch-sliding entrance and pebbled driveway, ready to meet the people with whom Ill be spending the next seven days.
There are three clients besides myself: Greg Johnston, 27, a tall, unflappable Auckland geologist who gained limited alpine experience on Mt Ruapehu during his Auckland University student days and whos also done a bit of rock-climbing. Hes been saving for months to pay the course fees. Then theres Paul Guerin, a mid-20s software programmer from Wollongong, Australia, who became interested in learning to climb after a three-week trekking expedition in Tibet. Rounding out the group is Nan Baxter, 34, a straight-talking Canadian whos been travelling around the South Island for the past two months. She studied military history at Toronto University, but now works as a truck engineer. Having grown up in a cold-weather climate, Nan appears to be the most prepared of all of us, despite having been bed-ridden for a couple of weeks with a virus. Ill probably be sucking wind for the first few days, she warns.
The basic entry-level mountaineering course costs $1985, which covers food, helicopter flights and hut rentals, but not equipment. (Climbing is an expensive pastime: an ice axe, for instance, will set you back about $300, with crampons $250, pack $400, sleeping bag $600, harness $100, carabiners $35 each, overmitts $170, helmet $135, etcetera. At a rough guess I probably had about $5000 worth of equipment either on me or strapped to my back.) On this course you learn how to walk around wearing crampons (steel spikes that strap on to your climbing boots); how to put on a climbing harness; how to tie various knots; how to build a secure snow anchor; how to use an ice axe; how to dig a snow cave; how to pull your partner out of a crevasse; how to read the weather; how to tell when theres avalanche danger; and so on.
The instruction takes place in what is surely some of the most spectacular scenery in the country. While the Southern Alps arent particularly high by world standards our highest peak, Mt Cook, stands a full five kilometres lower than Mt Everest they nonetheless provide a variety of climbing challenges, and are an ideal training ground: you can learn the ropes without having to deal with the physiological difficulties of high altitude. The region also boasts, as far as Guy Cotter is concerned, some of the best mountain guides in the business.
Leading us is Will MacQueen, a level-two certified NZMGA instructor. Born in Blenheim into an outdoors-oriented family, Will, who with his fair skin and thinning red hair resembles a younger version of the film director Ron Howard, completed his first ascent of Mt Cook at 17. Hes worked in avalanche rescue at Mt Ruapehu and as a ski-instructor in Canada. He makes a comfortable living as an alpine guide, sometimes even has to turn work down, and also runs leadership seminars for an Otago polytechnic.
The next morning, when the weather clears, were elbow to elbow in one of those tiny, MASH-type helicopters on our way up to Bevan Col, our drop-off point. Its a 12-minute flight following the Matukituki River up the valley, gradually ascending to over 2000 metres, the wind battering us about. I step down from the chopper, ducking my head, holding my sunhat with both hands, and feel the first crunch of snow beneath my boots.
As the chopper departs we strap on our harnesses and tie ourselves together using a 50 metre rope. This is necessary in case your partner steps into a crevasse. Youre supposed to drop to the ground, dig the sharp end of your ice-axe into the snow, and arrest their fall. If you dont, well, youre going along for the ride. Weve got too much food to carry in our already overloaded packs, so we stuff the remainder into black plastic rubbish bags, intending to drag the parcels sled-like behind us. We shoulder our heavy packs. And then we begin a slow trudge across the Bonar Glacier to the Colin Todd Hut, our home for the next week, stopping a couple of times to step over narrow crevasses.
Mt Aspiring, standing a majestic 3020 metres, looms directly above us. The sun is so hot and bright I have to remove my fleece jacket, stripping down to my thermal layers. Theres no talking among us, just the hypnotic sound of boots going schooop-shooop in the soft snow.
I doubt Ive ever been anywhere so isolated as the Colin Todd Hut. A tiny red corrugated-iron barn perched on a rocky outcrop just below Aspirings northwest ridge, 1800 metres above sea level, it was built by the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1996. A tank collects rain from the roof. (The tap is often frozen in the morning.) There is, of course, no electricity and the one toilet is a longdrop, a short dash away across the rocks.
I can barely force my way inside the hut. The vestibule is about two metres wide; I have to step over backpacks, ropes, climbing boots, shell jackets, harnesses, and ice tools. The living area is no more than twice the size of your average suburban kitchen. There are 12 bunks, arranged in an L-shape, though over the next week well be sleeping many more people than that. I unfold my sleeping bag and claim the last empty space on the bottom row. Theres a heavy wooden table in the middle of the room, with a long bench on either side. It seats about six people; the rest have to eat on their bunks. And finally theres an aluminium benchtop, sans sink.
Though its designed to sleep no more than 12 people, the population of our cosy little hut on my first night is 19. And it will get busier. Mine is the only commercial group; the rest are here without the assistance of a professional guide.
I get talking to some of the other climbers. Theres Ed, a retired US Marine, who looks about 60. With his slicked-back silver hair, neatly trimmed moustache, impeccable khaki trousers and rectangular reading glasses, he looks too spotless, too meticulous to be a serious climber, though hes spent the last 10 years sailing the world solo, stopping to climb several mountains along the way. He keeps mostly to himself, wrapped up in his sleeping bag on the top bunk. Mike, his climbing partner they make an odd pairing is an affable, accommodating young guy from Morrinsville, notable for his guffawing laugh and bright blue woollen beanie. He learned to climb during a year-long outdoor skills course in Tongariro National Park. Im sort of between jobs right now, he tells me during a game of Last Card.
Theres a group of four 50-ish Australians, three from Sydney and one from Melbourne, who for some reason thought this would be a fun way to spend their annual leave. There are three Irishmen Al, Mark, and Simon who travel around the world picking up well-paid short-term telecommunications contracts, and then come down to New Zealand for a few months when theyre sick of working to trek, explore caves, and climb a handful of mountains. Theyre not vastly experienced climbers, but theyve done a lot of caving, so we knew all the technical side of things ropes and that sort of stuff, explains Al. Then last year we came across to Mt Cook, threw on a harness, and started climbing. Unlike most of the other climbers here, theyre planning to ascend Aspiring via the steeper, more exposed southwest ridge.
With them is Colin, a young, good-looking Englishman now based in Sydney, who has tried Aspiring twice before and been defeated by the weather. Hes hoping third time lucky, and has dragged his Aussie girlfriend, Rachel, with him. Short, blonde, quiet I cant help but feel sorry for her, having to wait around, cold and shivering, surrounded by all these men (Nan, from my group, will be the only other woman in the hut all week), while her boyfriend goes off to risk his life. I just hope he makes it up to her.
Wednesday night: each group takes a turn firing up their gas cookers to prepare dinner. Will cooks a generous helping of spaghetti bolognese. We bury the rest of our meat and vegetables in a hole in the snow to keep it fresh for the next day.
At eight oclock everyone huddles around the four-channel radio, waiting for the nightly weather forecast, broadcast by the Wanaka DOC office. Thursday sounds grim: rain, poor visibility, winds increasing throughout the day. Friday will be little better. It sounds like we wont get to climb anything until the weekend at least. Theres nothing to do but wait.
Outside, several of us huddle as we watch three tiny, ant-like figures descend Aspiring. One of the Irishmen pulls out his binoculars and passes them round. Theyre making good progress down the ramp, a steep bank of snow that sweeps up to join the northwest ridge; the mountains most popular route of ascent. They left their attempt rather late. Aspiring is a 12-14 hour climb, so most people leave the hut when its still dark, timing their run so theyll reach the bottom of the ramp as day breaks. That way, if theyre making good time and the weather holds up, they should reach the summit by midday and have more than enough daylight to make it safely back down. These guys, on the other hand, didnt leave until 10 oclock this morning. Theres some debate on the balcony as to whether they made the summit.
They didnt. It turned out to be a comedy of errors, one of them, Stuart, says when they stumble back into the hut. Turns out they started along the northwest ridge but, unhappy with their progress, they decided to drop back down and ascend the ramp. They overshot it, however, and ended up on the west face. This little detour sapped both their time and energy, and when they finally came within sight of the summit no more than 150 metres away they were too whipped to battle through the high winds. So that was it. Game over. They had to turn back.
Weather, I quickly learn, is everything.
I wake on Thursday morning shivering in my sleeping bag, my fingers and toes stinging. Theres a blizzard outside; the wind roaring by at gale force. The windows are iced over, visibility is almost zero, and those who have bothered to get out of bed are hunkered over mugs of hot soup or coffee. Somehow the hut seems smaller, less secure than last night.
Itll get worse. Were stuck inside for the next two days. Even getting out to the toilet is a risky proposition, requiring mitts and nylon storm proofs. The rocks are icy, slippery. You have to force the toilet door open, brushing away the ice crusted around the lock. The wind is so strong as I head back for the hut that I can barely stand up. My hood blows off. I nearly lose my fleece skullcap.
We play cards. Theres a scramble for the two or three snowboarding magazines lying around. I amuse myself by seeing how many words of three letters or more I can make out of Aspiring. I get to 45, lose interest, and fling my notepad against the wall.
Flicking through the Visitor Book, it seems this type of wait is typical. Some of those who have recently signed their names were stuck inside for five, six days on end. The comments get progressively more desperate: Still here Another day we didnt leave hut. Full storm gear and ice axe needed to get to toilet. Weather is utterly lousy. Weather still shit. Until finally: Its fucking snowing again!
Were bored, but safe. Outside in the storm, the four Australians are having no such luck. In a bold some would say foolhardy attempt to reach the next hut, French Ridge, they defied the weather forecast and left before dawn. I know because, banging noisily about, they woke me up. Come on, its not raining, one of them said, shaking his mate awake. Lets make a dash for it, eh?
Getting to French Ridge Hut requires a constant uphill grind to the top of the Bonar Glacier, following Aspiring from the west face to the south face. There, when you reach the point where the glacier falls away more than 1000 metres into Gloomy Gorge, ones only choice is to descend the Quarterdeck, a steep ridge no more than 50 metres wide, a sheer drop on either side. If one should step off the glacier at the wrong point, one would most certainly die.
The Australians, following their compass, make it close to the Quarterdeck, but cant see a thing. In a whiteout the ground becomes indistinguishable from the sky. You cant tell a slope from the flat; you cant tell gradient; you cant tell distance. The snow drives straight at them. Their goggles become crusted with ice. The wind is so harsh they can barely keep their footing. Dig in! one of them orders. So they slide into a shallow crevasse and begin using their ice axes to fashion a couple of snow caves, each of them barely wide enough for two men to sleep in. Already exhausted, it takes them three hours.
They huddle together, wet, shivering and scared, until the storm passes, a day and a half later. Then, rather than carry on down the Quarterdeck, they trudge back to Colin Todd Hut. They radio the chopper pilot, then walk for two hours to Bevan Col to get picked up. But by the time they get there, the winds have increased again, and the chopper pilot wont fly. They walk back to Colin Todd.
But by the time they get back, all the beds are taken. Five other climbers have arrived in the meantime, pushing numbers up to 24.
Looking 10 years older than when I last saw them haggard, scruffy, their eyes bloodshot they borrow dry blankets and sleep on the floor. In the next day or so, even when the weather clears up, even when its blue skies and glaring sunshine, they dont leave the hut. Not until the chopper comes.
Will uses their experience as an example for the rest of us. It just shows you how important it is, when you come into an environment like this, that you have the skills to get yourself out, he says, too polite to make a big deal of their ineptitude. For me its the first real reminder of what Ive gotten myself into. As Guy Cotter says, the consequences of your decisions are real. To screw up is to put yourself in danger. You could lose your life up here, and many have. A spokesperson from DOCs Wanaka office says they receive about 10 search and rescue call-outs to Aspiring each year people trapped by avalanches, crushed by rocks, falling in crevasses, falling off the mountain with one or two of them fatal. At the time of writing, there had been no deaths on Aspiring during the 2000-01 season.
Rolling Pin, 2246 metres above sea level, rises out of Aspirings northwestern flank, with a sudden drop to the Therma Glacier on one side and a slightly less stomach-churning drop to the Iso Glacier on the other. Its not until mid Saturday morning we finally get to leave the hut and begin our debut ascent, crossing the Iso Glacier in bitterly cold conditions. The snow is freshly frozen and crunchy underfoot. The howling wind stings and cracks my lips. I start to lose feeling in my toes.
An hour later, though, Im sweating as we ascend a 30 degree snow ridge from the southwest, making slow but steady progress. The skies are mostly clear, the wind has died down, and the sun shines bright. Paul leads, with Will and me attached to the same rope. Nan and Greg, on another rope, bring up the rear.
Cramponing a mellow slope such as this is hell on your calf muscles, but simple enough once you get used to it. You hold your ice axe in your uphill hand, using it like a walking stick (and also to stop yourself sliding if you should trip over). Then you take one step diagonally forward, ensuring your crampons get a firm purchase, so youre basically walking sideways up the hill, and staying as upright as possible. I try to remember Guy Cotters advice as Im doing this. Conserve your energy, he told me. Dont burn out early in the day. Go a little bit slower than the pace you think you can maintain.
Tacking to our right we head away from Rolling Pin and toward Aspiring in order to bisect two narrow crevasses and trace the shadow of a huge, impassable rock outcrop, then swing further around so were approaching the summit from the south. We stop at the ridge joining Rolling Pin to Aspiring, for the first time getting a good look at the Therma Glacier several hundred metres below; the ridge is flat and wide enough that we can sit on our packs and fix ourselves lunch.
Greg inadvertently steps onto a patch of thin snow and plunges up to his waist into a hidden crevasse. Its okay, Im just demonstrating, he jokes. Far below us, I can just make out three or four tiny figures gathered on the rocks outside the hut.
We push on, hiking up to and around a fat bulge of rock that looks like a Christmas pudding with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream on top. From there its a short walk across a narrow ridge before we come to the base of a towering protrusion of hard, dark rock, exposed to the west but covered on its eastern side by a thin slab of snow. The gradient looks sickeningly sharp, prompting Nan to pull out. Shes tired, barely slept last night. I just havent got it today, she says. If I go any further Im likely to be more of a hindrance than a help. We all nod in agreement.
One of climbings most important lessons is knowing when youve reached your limit; she made a brave call, and the right one. In truth, Im terrified of going any further and am tempted to join her. Nan is an outdoors person: she knows one day soon shell climb another mountain. I, on the other hand, may never get another crack at this. I know Ill hate myself if I back out now.
Our journey to this point has been little more than a strenuous trek. But here we have to start pitch-climbing. Thats where you ascend in stages: one climber moves ahead, chopping steps in the snow or ice until they come to a point a sturdy rock, say where they can fix an anchor and secure themselves. Then they slowly pull in the rope (this is called belaying) as their climbing partner follows their steps. The second climber pulls out a carabiner, or snap link, and clips into the anchor, and then the lead climber continues on to make the next one. And so on. If you slip, your partner, who is controlling the rope, can limit your fall. Thats how it works in theory at least.
Will drives a metal stake into the ground, to which he fixes the rope. Then he starts scrambling up a short but nearly vertical wall of snow in front of us, and disappears over the top. What seems like a long time later, he calls out that hes safe and Paul begins following his steps. Then Greg. If not the weakest climber in the group, Im at least the most vocally scared, so I go last. Moving slowly, careful to place my boots in Wills footholds, I ram the shaft of my ice axe into the snow with my left hand, use it to support my body weight, and take a step up. Then, doing the same with the ice hammer in my right hand, I take another step. Its almost like climbing a ladder.
At the top of this first wall theres a horizontal knife-edge ridge, too narrow to walk atop. We have to move along sideways, facing the slope, kicking steps. After about 20 metres of this I have to plant both my ice tools firmly in the snow and haul myself across to a 70-degree snow face. Dont outclimb the rope! Greg yells as he belays me. I look down and notice Ive let the rope go slack. In my nervous state Ive been moving much faster than he can pull me in.
Secured to a large outhanging rock about 30 metres from me, Greg leans casually back on the rope, both feet against the slope, seemingly unruffled by the sheer drop directly below him. I shuffle sideways, digging in both my ice tools with a white-knuckle grip, until I reach Greg and the tiny foot ledge hes kicked into the snow. He reaches across, grabs a carabiner from my harness, and clips me in. Then he moves up, and I start letting out the rope. Ten minutes later he hauls himself up onto a rocky ledge, where Will and Paul are already waiting, and moves out of sight.
I look down. My stomach flips. How strong is this anchor? What if the rope doesnt hold? Would they ever find my body?
I pull myself together and start untying myself from the anchor, ready to press on.
Dont unclip until Greg calls out that hes safe! Will shouts from above. Thats critical!
Jesus! I slap myself on the head. What the hell am I doing? Im one step away from pulling my climbing partner and myself off the mountain. From killing us both. Will must think Im the stupidest climber hes ever had.
Will. Five days ago he was a total stranger, and now he and a stretch of rope nine millimetres thick are the only things stopping me from free falling several hundred metres to my death. From taking the grand tour, as they say.
A good guide has got to be more than simply a good climber, says Guy Cotter they must also be teachers, leaders, motivators. Often [our clients] are experts in their own field, and yet they come along and theyre prepared to be a beginner again, and that takes guts, he says. Youve got to have empathy for people and where they come from. Will has empathy in spades. Patient, imperturbable; theres no way I wouldve made it this far without him. I wouldnt go to the bathroom without his say-so.
As soon as Gregs safely anchored, I start moving up. Nice to see you, the others laugh when I pull myself up onto the ledge.
I grab my drink bottle and swallow gulps of water. Its been a slow, painstaking climb to get here 90 minutes since we left Nan and Im out of breath, chest heaving. At least the worst is over. Although youd most certainly die if you lost your balance and fell to either side, the summit ridge is nothing especially tricky. Will shortens the rope between each of us; we leave behind all but one of our ice tools; and five minutes later were standing on top, shaking hands and snapping photographs.
Waaaaaaaaaahhhh! I scream a cry of pure, joyous relief. I momentarily forget about the physical discomfort the blistered feet; the aching legs; the dehydration; the sunburn and windburn; the sheer exhaustion from having barely slept in four days. Theres a lot of neat things to see up there, Cotter told me, and I see exactly what he means. Snow-capped mountain ranges in every direction. The summit of Aspiring above me. The tip of Mt Cook barely visible far, far to the north. Fiordlands Mt Tutuko peeking out from the south. Just then theres an almighty roar in the distance; the sound of ice breaking up in the afternoon sun. It echoes like thunder through the valley. Then nothing.
Two weeks later Im back at my desk in grey, drizzly Auckland, half-heartedly pecking away at the keyboard, coming down with a serious case of the post-expedition blues. When you do come down, its often to a great sense of relief, Cotter says. The fact that youve put yourself through this task which has required you to be on your toes the whole time; you completely lose everything else but what youre doing. Youre only thinking about surviving; youre completely focused. Its quite meditative in that respect, because you lose all the peripheral stuff that usually occupies your mind. So as you reintroduce yourself into normal life, you see everything with fresh eyes. You appreciate the simple things: a shower, nice, food, good company, a warm bed. All of thats true, certainly for the first week back at least. But now that the blisters have healed and I once more stand up straight, I can think of little else but getting myself back up a mountain.
On Monday February 12, Cotter and his two clients one Swiss, one English leave base camp at four oclock in the morning and reach the summit of Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America, at 1:30 pm. Initially they planned to ascend via the difficult eastern Polish Glacier route, but with his group struggling a little from the altitude, Cotter reverted to the more commonly climbed Normal route on the northwestern flank. He contacts the Adventure Consultants office in Wanaka by satellite phone when he gets back to base camp, and leaves a message on the answering machine: Good trip, good weather...
Back home his partner Tracy (who does not climb herself) is pleased to learn the expedition was successful. Its always a relief when theyre down, she says, but adds she wasnt all that worried about Aconcagua. I dont really get nervous a lot any more. Everest I do. Makalu I probably will. Its not easy sometimes, but Im used to it. Its always just the way its been.
Its the international trips that are more challenging. I dont mind him going away for a week or two weeks I can probably even cope pretty well when hes away for a month, because you have to but I cant say its easy all the time. You might have something going on that you really need to communicate with him about. Little things like that can be quite horrendous when Ive got no way of contacting him. Its a different sort of lifestyle. You have two lives, and you have to adjust between them all the time. The reality is when youre with somebody whos a mountain guide, it alters the normal routine of life. It is a different existence.
When I spoke with Cotter back in Wanaka, he made it sound as if he was consciously slowing down as he grew older understandable given that hes now got a family, and has lost several good friends. Ive reduced my exposure to the extreme hazards considerably since having a family, he says. These days I try to reduce the level of adventure. I want to know a couple of possible outcomes at the outset. Sure, have challenges, but make sure the risks are acceptable risks, and have a good idea where youre going to be at the end of it. And on top of that, hes responsible for the lives of others. Doing it as a profession youve got to think about other peoples survival and safety above your own ambitions. This whole thing about one-upmanship, about competition in mountaineering its got to the stage where to increase the standard of climb thats being undertaken often involves more risk, to the point where the risks arent worth it. I dont aspire to go that way.
He will not guide Everest again. Adventure Consultants will run another expedition there in May 2002, 10 years after Hall and Balls first commercial expedition. To commemorate, the company is offering a special price of $US50,000. But Cotter wont be on the hill. He says hell manage from base camp. I have no plans to climb Everest again, he explains. I dont want to push the boat out too far, if you know what I mean. Ive been up enough times. He says summiting in 1997 enabled me to reach closure.
This doesnt mean hes about to retire to a life of tending gardens and playing golf. Mountaineers are not wanting a mundane, routine life, says Tracy. I think there are certain things they dont worry about as much as some people probably do. They have a different appreciation when they come back home of people and life. They look at life with a different perspective. At 38, Cotter is in his prime still physically fit and strong, but wise and experienced enough to know when to step off the gas. I still see myself climbing mountains, albeit at a lower level, when Im older, he says, just because I love the outdoors, the freedom of the outdoors. I dont think Id handle at all well a sedentary lifestyle.
In a few days hell be back from South America. Hell probably have a few loose ends to take care of. Maybe hell work on the house, plant a few trees whatever it is that normal people are supposed to do. But it wont be long before the mountains start calling, and on March 29 he will leave for Nepal for nine weeks to climb Makalu, the worlds fifth highest mountain, regarded by many as even more challenging than Everest. Because that may be the hardest thing of all: standing still.
