mountain. And after filming on the summit of K2, proving I could handle a camera at 8000m, I was then invited on Everest as a cameraman.
Eventually, in 1996, I realised that I had climbed eight 8000ers including the hardest, K2, and the highest, Everest. The following year I decided that, as I was more than half way, I might as well attempt the remaining six. The decision was not as casual as that makes it sound; it was more a gradual dawning that, with tremendous effort and determination, ascending them all would be a worthy and achievable goal.
It is a quantifiable challenge in mountaineering, just as the four-minute mile is a quantifiable challenge in athletics.
From then on I generally organised my own lightweight, Alpine-style expeditions, including several solo climbs. It took me another eight years to summit all 14 of the 8000m peaks. Some I climbed on my first attempt; on others I backed off and tried another year. Just surviving an attempt on an 8000m peak is a success and my view has always been that there is no failure in retreat as the mountain will always be there. I can always return. Geoffrey Winthrop Young wrote in his classic 1920s book Mountain Craft: ‘In climbing mountains, danger is a constant element, not remote as in other sports: it is always with us behind the veil of pleasant circumstances, and it can be upon us before we are aware.’
In the end it took 27 expeditions before I had climbed all 14 and I class them all as successes. Pushing on regardless and getting killed, or suffering severe frostbite that results in amputation, is failure. No mountain is worth a digit and I have so far kept all mine. Many high-altitude mountaineers and 8000m summiteers have had toes or fingers amputated after frostbite. I learnt a lot from Polish climbing friends on some of my early expeditions. Quite a few had toes missing and they encouraged me to look after mine as they wished they had done theirs. It was poignant and salutary advice. Attention to detail is very important when climbing any mountain, rock or ice face, especially if you are to stay alive and avoid frostbite.
At that time, much of my life was spent away on expeditions. An 8000m peak attempt can last three months UK-to-UK; one trip to the remote north side of K2 took five months. Usually I would spend a week in Kathmandu or Islamabad obtaining a permit from the Ministry of Tourism, clearing the expedition cargo through customs, organising equipment, food, porters and generally planning the next several weeks. The trek in to Base Camp often lasts between 10 and 12 days, after which it’s best to spend three weeks acclimatising by climbing higher on the mountain and returning to Base Camp to recover. Once you have acclimatised it may still be two or more weeks’ wait for a clear weather window in which to climb safely. The summit climb itself might only take between one and four days, depending on difficulty, with another day or two to descend. Then, when you leave Base Camp, the trek out could take five days, unless you can afford a helicopter.
Finding British mountaineers willing to commit the time necessary for an 8000m expedition became difficult. On my final 8000m climbs I was joined by one of my Nepalese friends, Pasang Gelu, a great character with the kind of relaxed personality that is essential for coping with the strains of extreme altitude. Pasang had a genuine desire to climb big Himalayan peaks, was easy to get along with and we made a good team.
Climbing is a way of life for me; I am addicted. If you were to cut me in half, you would find ‘mountain climber’ written all the way through. I love being in the hills and the biggest hills of the Himalaya and Karakoram, being the most dangerous, offer the greatest challenge. But I do not climb to die. I climb to live – and climbing enhances my life.
Over my 18-year quest to climb the 8000m peaks, I have always stuck to my motto: ‘No mountain is worth a life, coming back is a success and the summit is only a bonus.’
Early morning, setting off from the Shoulder at over 8000m on K2. A Dutch climber follows me up towards the Bottleneck.
A Twin Otter and a Russian Mi-17 heli at Lukla airstrip, the start of the Everest and Lhotse Base Camp treks through Nepal’s Khumbu region. It is an exciting landing and take-off; the airstrip is not much bigger than an aircraft carrier, perched on the mountainside.
1 SHISHA PANGMA
8046m, 1987
Snow was melting in a small pan over a mini gas burner. Steve Untch, my 6'5" American climbing mate, was doing his best to relax, despite being crammed into the little space remaining in our tiny bivvy tent. Close by in another tent, Jerzy ‘Jurek’ Kukuczka and Artur ‘Słon’ Hajzer were also brewing up. We were at around 6500m on Shisha Pangma and the purring stoves and steaming water heralded refreshment. I was in my element and where I wanted to be, in the Himalaya on an 8000m peak. As I contemplated the warm mug of tea, all thought of danger was washed to the back of my mind.
Abruptly, I was snapped out of this blissful reverie by an ominous, alarmingly loud thud and portentous rumble. Suddenly it was ‘action stations’. There was a great cacophony of yelling in both English and Polish, and I heard Artur and Jurek screaming, ‘Avalanche! Run! Get Out! Avalanche! Come On! Avalanche!’
I pushed the stove out of the door and the precious water spilled over the snowy ground as I frantically yanked my boots on.
In the ensuing chaotic melée I felt Steve clambering over me as he desperately tried to squeeze his huge body out of the constriction of the tent door at the same time as Jurek was gallantly trying to drag me out. It would have been comical if it had not been so terrifyingly serious. It felt like being ambushed and having to scramble and dive for cover, yet in a jubilant, mock-heroic way I was enjoying the drama. Gasping in the icy cold thin air, we tumbled down the easy-angled snow slope below the tent as the soft slab avalanche slithered down towards us.
Fortunately the avalanche ground to a halt before reaching our tents and we literally gulped sighs of relief in the rarefied air; it had been a near miss. When we had all recovered enough to stop blaspheming, I thanked Jurek for his selfless bravery in helping me out of my tent when he could have scurried away. It was a brutal baptism and a great revelation. I now clearly understood that I was not just out for a jolly jaunt with the mountaineering legend Jerzy Kukuczka. Escaping the avalanche heightened my senses and reminded me that I was in a highly hazardous, unforgiving environment. I learned a lot about how to stay alive in the Himalaya on this expedition, especially from Jurek and Artur, and it was to stand me in good stead on many future trips. Ironically, and to my great sadness, Jurek was killed only two years later on the South Face of Lhotse.
The North Face of Shisha Pangma, from the Tibetan Plateau at 4500m. My new route in 1987 took the central gully line, slanting right-to-left up the face, to the notch in the ridge before the prominent central summit.
We had travelled out to Tibet – a mystical, elusive country – and Shisha Pangma seemed an obscure and enigmatic mountain. I was part of a post-monsoon Polish international expedition, organised by the Katowice Mountain Club. I had effectively served an ‘apprenticeship’ climbing and learning how to survive on 5000m and 6000m peaks in both the Andes and the Himalaya and was now embarking on an adventure to tackle this giant peak with some of the best high-altitude mountaineers in the world. The audacious plan was to attempt two 8000m peaks in succession – first a new route on Shisha Pangma and then the unclimbed South Face of Lhotse, a technical, steep Himalayan ‘big wall’.
We left Kathmandu in late August and headed up the Friendship Highway to Tibet, in the People’s Republic of China. As well as Jurek and Artur, other team members included Wanda Rutkiewicz (Poland), Christine de
