declaring his intention to be the first Frenchman to climb all 14. He was developing quite a reputation among the international mountaineering community and was fast becoming a household name in France. My first reaction to his French-accented voice inviting me to the Himalaya was that it was a hoax call, so I told him where to go and put the phone down. It sounded too good to be true.
Luckily Benoit rang back and persuaded me it really was him. He wanted me to join his L’Esprit d’Equipe team of European mountaineers sponsored by Bull, a French multi-national computer company. Loosely translated, L’Esprit d’Equipe means ‘team spirit’. This was a unique and well-funded Himalayan climbing team, with the main aim of climbing 8000m peaks.
High on the summit slopes of Manaslu, heading for the top.
I met Benoit on Christmas Eve 1988 at Bull’s Paris headquarters. It was soon clear that Benoit’s lucrative sponsorship deal was unlike anything I had come across before. Earlier that year I had been on a Chris Bonington-led expedition in Nepal and Tibet, to ‘Search for the Yeti’. That was a well-sponsored trip with backing from The Mail on Sunday, William Hill Bookmakers, and the Safeway supermarket chain (now Morrisons). It also involved a BBC film crew making a documentary and hoping we might find the Yeti. Along with Andy Fanshawe, I made the first ascent of Menlungtse West, a 7000m peak. Even that well-underwritten, relatively well-heeled expedition seemed impecunious compared to Benoit’s lavish budget. The L’Esprit d’Equipe team members even got a small fee and summit bonus, in addition to all their expenses and expedition costs. Normally I only managed to get a little subsidy and help towards my overall costs for an expedition, in the form of small grants from the Mount Everest Foundation (MEF) and the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). Just occasionally, I was lucky enough to attract sponsorship from a company hoping for some PR, marketing or advertising return. It is more usual for an expedition to demand that your own money be earned, saved and then spent on the trip.
I liked Benoit. He was a professional mountain guide like me and we seemed to click and got on well together. I sensed that we shared a deep passion for mountains and I happily and eagerly signed up as the token Anglo Saxon, or as the French would have it, ‘le rosbif’.
As soon as the Paris meeting ended, I set off to catch the last flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport back to Britain. What a great Christmas present, I thought. I could hardly believe it. I now had several fully-funded expeditions to look forward to. And to think I had initially put the phone down on Benoit, thinking it was a mate having a laugh.
I was in a joyful, Happy Christmas frame of mind as I boarded the British Airways aeroplane. The pilot cheered me up even more when he announced his name over the intercom: ‘Good evening, everyone. This is Captain Kirk speaking.’ Everyone expected him to maintain the Star Trek theme and announce that the First Officer was Mr Spock. The roar of laughter must have reached him on the flight deck as he continued his pre-flight spiel, but I suppose he was used to it – he really was Captain Kirk.
L’Esprit d’Equipe required regular commitment. I would travel to France every month, usually to Paris, Chamonix or the Alps. The idea was to keep the team close-knit, train together and bond as well as setting an example for the Bull company employees. Previously Bull had sponsored an ocean-going yacht in the Round the World Race. Benoit decided that a two-day team-building and bonding trip on a racing yacht into the Atlantic from St Malo was a good idea. This was a new and different experience for me, more used to the mountains and terra firma. I had done several sea kayak trips off the British coast, but this was much further out on the ocean. It required teamwork and commitment in an unforgiving environment and I quickly realised that if I went overboard I would be as dead as if I had fallen down an 8000m mountain face.
Porters heading for Manaslu Base Camp pass through the lowland villages of the Marsyandi Valley, during the trek’s early stages. Their loads are suspended on tumplines, or bands, which distribute weight across the forehead. Most carry 25kg loads which are in blue or green waterproof barrels or wicker baskets called dhokos.
The rest of the climbing team was a great bunch of experienced French, Dutch, Italian and Czech mountaineers. It was good to make new friends and practise European harmony. Contrary to many people’s expectations, we all got on very well and enjoyed climbing together as well as our bonding and team-building exercises. English was the common language (or the lowest common denominator?) for everyone. In Nepal, English was spoken rather than French or Italian and, apart from the odd curse, very little Czech was uttered. French was generally spoken in Bull meetings in France and I became reasonably competent at speaking and understanding French, which was a useful bonus.
I felt fortunate to be visiting France nearly every month. I made some great French friends and got to know many delightful, amazing places. France has a wealth of varied climbing areas, and as a team we also canoed, hiked and skied together. I enjoyed the French culture – their food, wine and the French way of life. In the 1980s I did not need to be as politically correct as now and the rosbif’s quips about Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo and Dien Bien Phu were taken in the light-hearted spirit in which they were intended.
The South Face of Manaslu, seen from inside an ice cave on the Thulagi glacier at Base Camp.
Benoit set the agenda for the team, which was all about him becoming the first French climber to bag all 14 of the 8000m mountains (something that would never happen – he disappeared on Kangchenjunga in 1995). At the time, I was just happy to be part of a great team, make new friends and climb some big Himalayan hills. At that point Benoit had eight 8000ers under his belt and had decided that Manaslu would be next, which was lucky for me, as, if we were successful, I would be the first Brit to climb it. However, it was not just a matter of Benoit getting to the top; part of the ethos of L’Esprit d’Equipe was to get everyone in the team up to the summit as a conspicuous display of teamwork.
In March 1989 we set off for the south side of the mountain, which very few people attempt to climb even today, not least because of the difficulties in getting there. Once we had left the last village, we had to hack our way through jungle undergrowth, cutting a trekking path with khukris and machetes. It took several days of hard labour rather than the usual bimble along a well-trodden trekking path before we reached the more open glacial area above the tree line. The arduous journey felt eerie, as we were all alone, well off the beaten track. There were no local villagers, teashops or trekking lodges, no other expeditions and no trekkers. There did not even appear to be any wildlife about – we had probably scared it off as we crashed and chopped our way through the pathless forest. Reinhold Messner had made the first ascent of this route with a Tyrolean expedition in 1972. Since then very few people had passed this way. It was almost virgin territory.
A huge airborne avalanche roaring off Peak 29 towards Manaslu Base Camp. The air blast reached us like a severe blizzard, covering the tents in snow.
Base Camp was a barren spot on the moraine-covered Thulagi Glacier. We cleared and built flat areas like patios for our tents on the rock-strewn ice; some of the platforms had to be quite spacious as we had the latest, luxurious two-metre dome tents to erect. The south face of Manaslu, a massive 600m rock wall, towered above Base Camp and huge avalanches poured off the mountain and its neighbour P29 virtually every day. They would often reach Base Camp as blizzards, dusting the area with a layer of fine snow. It was impressive but also somewhat unnerving, as we knew it would only take a slightly bigger avalanche to wipe us all out.
