8000m, we knew that we would have to retrace our steps in order to descend; yet it never crossed our minds to cut down early and forgo the summit. We had to reach the highest point of Shisha Pangma. It is what mountaineers do.
When I reached the top I remember sitting down in the soft snow as Steve came up. The evening light was turning the snow a shade of orange, and one side of the ridge was already in shade. After a few photos Steve set off down and I soon caught him up. As we dropped down off the ridge, descending onto the open face of the original 1964 route, the light was fading and we had to struggle down in the dark with dim head torches whose batteries were fading fast. This was in the days before modern lithium batteries and LED head torches. Later that night we found our bivi-tent and I managed to melt some snow for water. It had been a debilitating 48-hour push. Steve removed his boots to find that his feet were swollen and dark purple. I recognised it as deep frostbite, but tried not to alarm him. There was no point in warming his feet at this altitude, which would cause extreme pain and make it even more difficult for him to climb down. Nevertheless, I knew that he had to get down quickly, as this was serious frostbite, needing intensive medical attention.
At 6800m, carrying a huge rucksack that weighs over 20kg. I am moving up to the final bivouac, ready for an Alpine-style first ascent of the Central Couloir on the North Face. The line of the route is visible behind. My head is covered to prevent sunburn.
With some effort we made it to Base Camp 20 hours later, where the experienced Polish doctor Lech Korniszewski expertly tended to Steve’s now blackened toes and purple feet. Steve was a big strong 6'5" ex-US Army Master Sergeant but he cried in pain unashamedly as his feet were re-warmed. There was no helicopter to get Steve back to Kathmandu, he had to suffer the ordeal of being carried part of the way, and at times hobble agonisingly on his heels. Once back in the US he had several toes amputated from each foot.
My feet and toes were unscathed. Perhaps I had put more effort into rubbing my feet on the comfortless bivouac ledge, when we had slept out in the open at nearly 8000m. My motto is that no mountain is worth a life, coming back is a success, and the summit is only a bonus. Neither is any mountain worth a digit and I still have all my fingers and toes. Maybe Steve was just unlucky; he did have size 14 feet.
Steve was one of the finest people I have been on a mountain with. He was gallant, selfless and good humoured, all qualities that are essential when you feel exhausted and need to find the inner strength to carry on. Seven years later Steve was courageously helping an injured climber down K2 when a rope snapped and he fell to his death. He was an unsung hero and always ready to help others. Tragically it cost him his life.
Steve Untch awaits a brew in a precarious bivouac on a tiny ledge, scraped and dug into the snow slope above 7800m. I was using the stove to melt snow for drinks. A night in the open at such an altitude is a harrowing experience, and this is probably where Steve started to get frostbite. Later, back in the US, his toes were amputated.
The expedition to Shisha Pangma was a great success. Most of the team climbed the original 1964 route to the top, including Wanda Rutkiewicz, Ramiro Navarette, the first Ecuadorian to climb an 8000er, and Carlos Carsolio, who went on to climb all 14. Steve and I had climbed a new route, perhaps innocently using 6000m peak tactics, but we had got away with it, albeit with Steve’s frostbite. But more importantly, ‘Jurek’ Jerzy Kukuczka climbed his last 8000m peak in fine style, by a new route, with Artur Hajzer. We had a celebration in Base Camp, fuelled by Polish vodka, and then celebrated again back in Kathmandu. Jurek went back to Poland as a national hero, the second person after Reinhold Messner to climb all 14 8000m peaks.
It never entered my head that one day I too might climb them all. At that time only two mountaineers had ever achieved this ‘grand slam’. More people had walked on the moon, so it seemed almost unattainable. I just wanted to continue climbing and experience the challenge of giant Himalayan peaks.
After a few days in Kathmandu most of the Shisha Pangma team went home, and I set off with Artur Hajzer and Carlos Carsolio to attempt the huge unclimbed 3000m Big Wall of Lhotse South Face.
JERZY KUKUCZKA & THE POLISH CLIMBERS
We had run out of vodka. Unfazed, the Polish expedition doctor made cocktails with medicinal alcohol and orange juice powder.
Jerzy Kukuczka had just climbed his 14th 8000m peak and we were celebrating in Shisha Pangma Base Camp, Tibet. Having climbed only one 8000er at that time, I was in awe of his achievement. To climb all 14 seemed like going to the Moon.
Artur Hajzer, Wanda Rutkiewicz and Jerzy Kukuczka at Shisha Pangma Base Camp, sorting loads for higher up the mountain. The T-shirt slogan has a misprint: it should read 8046m.
The breathtaking summit ridge of Shisha Pangma, looking to the main summit at 8046m. The tracks made by Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer the day before are still in the snow for Steve and me to follow to the summit.
Kukuczka was unassuming and quietly spoken. In Kathmandu he would smoke and drink whisky every night but stopped smoking on the walk-in to Base Camp. He ate speck (pork) every day and paced himself carefully, acclimatising slowly but surely. He did not rush around or try to make a summit bid before he felt properly acclimatised. I learned a lot from him.
Over the course of the expedition I had got to know and tune in to the Polish attitude. Kukuczka’s wicked sense of humour was similar to mine so I could not resist asking him whether he had been to the top of Kangchenjunga. Many climbers stop short of the summit out of respect for the people of Sikkim, who regard the mountain as sacred. His answer in broken, Polish-accented English was emphatic: ‘Oh yes! I stomped all over f***ing summit!’ I remember wondering what I would do if I ever climbed Kangchenjunga.
My first meeting with Jurek, as his friends called him, was in his Polish hometown of Katowice, in 1987, when Poland was still in the Soviet Bloc. I was visiting as a guest of the High Mountain Club of Katowice and we were heading off to the Tatra Mountains for some winter climbing. Jurek, already a legend, had just returned from the winter ascent of Annapurna, his 13th 8000m peak. Other well-known Polish climbers joined the Anglo-Polish Tatra climbing meet, including Voytek Kurtyka, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Artur Hajzer, Janusz Majer and Krzysztof Wielicki. It was -15°C and the snow was black with Katowice’s coal dust and pollution. I could see how the bleak harsh landscape and lifestyle had toughened up these gnarly mountaineers. I enjoyed a couple of winter trips to the Tatra and two Himalayan expeditions with the Poles. I always felt we were on the same wavelength. It seemed as if the British and Polish understood each other. Sadly, Jurek died while attempting a new route on Lhotse in 1989, and Artur died on Gasherbrum I in 2013.
Janusz Majer, Carlos Carsolio, Krzysztof Wielicki and Jerzy Kukuczka prepare loads in a Kathmandu hotel room in August 1987. I planned to go directly from the Shisha Pangma expedition to join Wielicki on Lhotse South Face.
2 MANASLU
8163m, 1989
In December 1988 my telephone rang. I lifted the handset and a man speaking with a Gallic accent introduced himself as Benoit Chamoux. I was aware of this well-known French mountaineer; he had made his name with a very fast
