days it ain’t enough to climb, you’ve got to get it down on celluloid.’ Mal and I had bumped into Kurt Diemberger and Julie Tullis on a warm, black night in Skardu, Baltistan. They had come from four months of climbing and filming, first on K2 with an expedition that eventually had to capitulate after sustained bad weather. Kurt and Julie went on to Broad Peak, where they both reached the summit and narrowly survived after being swept tumbling in an avalanche down the mountain during the descent. (‘It was very frightening,’ Julie said simply, ‘I thought, this is it.’)
‘Haven’t you been on Broad Peak before?’ I’d asked this balding, tubby, bumbly looking man in his fifties. ‘Yes,’ he replied in heavily accented English, ‘I first climbed it in 1957 with Herman Buhl.’ Only then did I realize who I was talking to. This was the man who made the first ascent of Broad Peak with Buhl, then went on to Chogolisa with him. As they descended from near the summit in a white-out, Buhl strayed over a cornice and disappeared forever. Kurt’s photo of the diverging lines of footprints, one weaving on and the other ending in nothing, is one of the most famous and haunting in all mountaineering.
Later Kurt climbed Dhaulagiri, making him the only man to make the first ascents of two 8,000 metre peaks – and then Makalu, Everest and Gasherbrum II. Latterly he’d become more involved in filming and general exploration expeditions, though his astonishing repeat of Broad Peak 27 years later showed that he was far from being over the hill. Julie Tullis had become his regular partner and sound-recordist on filming trips, and now she had just become the first British woman to do a 8,000 metre peak. She looked weathered, lean, calm and strong, giving an impression of great physical and psychological toughness – which she thinks derives in part from her training in karate and aikido; she has a black belt in both. We were considerably impressed by them, and spent more time with them at Mrs Davies’s Rawalpindi.
Our chance meeting seemed fated in retrospect, one of those things that had to happen. Now we needed a TV film to raise more money for the Expedition. So Mal found Julie’s card and phoned to ask if they’d like to come along as a film team. She in turn phoned Kurt in Italy, where he was happily putting on lost weight with pasta, and quarter of an hour later got back to Mal: ‘We’re coming.’
Like everyone else, they found the lure of Everest from the Tibet side irresistible, near-legendary to all of us who had grown up with stories of the exploits of Shipton, Tilman, Odell, Norton, Mallory and Irvine. After all the pre-war attempts on Everest, the Tibetan side had been closed for nearly 40 years. Pilks’ Company Secretary, David Bricknell, could scarcely believe what was happening to him as he made arrangements with Malcolm to fit in an introduction to snow/ice climbing before he too went to Everest. There was little time for training now, as the company agreed to give him six weeks’ leave to accompany the Expedition as Base Camp and Advance Base Camp Manager for the initial phase. From now on every minute of his spare time was spent co-ordinating between Pilkington’s, Terry and Malcolm as, buoyed up by money, the Expedition rose like a sunken liner from the depths of Malcolm’s dream to the unlikely light of day …
The Team. The climbing team was augmented. Rick Allen, a quiet, wiry, thin-faced Texaco chemical engineer based in Aberdeen, had heard about the Expedition when he was climbing in Nepal on Ganesh II with Nick Kekus. With the confidence of the first ascent of the South Face behind him (‘the hardest climbing I’ve ever done’), Rick wrote to Mal saying if there was a place for him, he’d be interested. He went to ask if there was a chance of somehow getting three months’ leave. Once again the magic word ‘Everest’ opened the door. ‘If you’ve got a once in a lifetime chance, the company should support you,’ he was told. That meant a lot, because while some of the climbers worked purely for cash between expeditions, Rick derived considerable satisfaction from his job. He was glad it hadn’t come to a choice between Everest and Texaco. After Pilkington’s made their offer, Mal phoned him up. ‘You’re in.’
‘Everest’, ‘Tibet’, the ‘Unclimbed Ridge’ – these proved to be the Open Sesame words that over and over made the unlikely possible and the possible actual. Liz Duff works for Scottish Life Assurance, and on impulse went to ask if she could add her various holiday periods past and future together to take six weeks off. Not only did they say yes, but they gave her extra unpaid holiday to cover the entire Expedition. She was very happy to be coming – partly for the adventure and partly because she was saved from the difficult position of staying at home waiting for news from the hill, which even when it comes is always out of date. ‘I’m not a great worrier about Malcolm,’ she said to me one evening in December, ‘because I’ve great faith he’ll be alright. Though this trip worries me a bit … It’s more that my being there saves him worrying about me and whether I’m paying the bills!’ It would be good having her there for her trenchant commonsense – and to keep up standards at Base and Advance Base. She’d done some rock and winter climbing in Britain, went with Mal to Nuptse, and hoped to do some load carrying on Everest if time and circumstance permitted.
We hadn’t at first considered Tony Brindle for the trip. He’d been Mal’s partner on the Mustagh Tower and they’d developed a good mocking father-and-son relationship there – but Tony was going into his final year in Outdoor Activities at Bangor College and didn’t want to jeopardize that. But Mal wrote directly to the Principal saying that this diminutive youth was indispensable, a star, and could he possibly be granted the chance to defer the last of his courses? He could, so Tony was in.
Tony is a small, compact Lancastrian born with an innocent butter-wouldn’t-melt face that belies his exceptional stamina. A few months older than Jon, because of his size, innocent appearance and open nature, he inevitably becomes the butt of much teasing – which as a rule he accepts with remarkable patience, though at the same time strengthening his resolve to prove himself as fast and fit as anybody. Unlike some of the climbers he never learned to hide his enthusiasm for climbing, hill-walking, fell-running, canoeing; he doesn’t go in for the customary pose of self-mockery and diffidence – which throws him open to more teasing. He was openly jubilant at having the chance to go to Everest, and Mal now had the satisfaction of having reunited the successful Mustagh team.
Our search for a doctor was becoming pressing when Julie suggested Urs Wiget, the Swiss doctor on the 1984 K2 expedition. He had been to 7,500 metres, had a lot of Alpine climbing behind him, and was knowledgeable about all aspects of the theory and practice of mountain medicine. Conscientious without fussing, he inspired confidence and trust from climbers. He was the best they’d known.
And so one day in late November Urs opened Mal’s letter in the surgery of an isolated village in Switzerland. ‘Merde!’ He beamed, frowned, then with a loud ‘Yahoo!’ rushed next door to see his wife Madeleine to ask if she could possibly once again handle the practice and the children alone for three months …
Allen Fyffe I’m writing this in Peking but this is how it started. In September or October ’84 Eileen and I were driving home from Inverness; at about Slocht a green car passed and in the back was this madly waving figure – Sandy Allan. Sandy got out and we chatted for a while about his last trip, routes, etc., and eventually he announced he was going to the North-East Ridge with Mal, etc., and Bob. He then asked me if I wanted to go. I prevaricated and said that I might see him in the Tavern for a pint that evening.
Eileen and I then talked about it and she said she wouldn’t mind if I went, so later that night I saw Sandy, had a few pints and said yes, I was on for it if I could get off work and the money was found. Then nothing happened for a long time so I eventually phoned Malcolm to see if I was in or out – I apparently was 1st reserve depending on money. Then I asked for time off and was to my surprise told that it should be no problem. Then eventually I was told I was included, the money was found from Pilkington’s and the trip was on.
I went to one team photocall in Glencoe which was good as for the first time I met the rest of the team and we had a chance to chat and discuss things. Only then did I get a vague feeling that it
