First published in Montagnes Magazine, France. 

Pleasure beyond the mind.

Piss flowed under the two-inch thick steel door. Groaning and puking emanated from behind. Other doors shook with the pounding. I crept along the landing, slow and careful, tottering, a drunk late at night. The whole building buckled like a flyover in an earthquake. I was the only member of staff on a wing of seventy inmates, I.R.A. P.L.O. Mafia, gangsters, drug barons, rapists, Hells Angels, full time criminals and evil bastards. Infamous Street-fighter and hard-man Charles Bronson, a.k.a. Metal Mickey, shouted and smashed his door with more force than the other inmates. New Years Eve had been and gone. All inmates were safely locked behind their doors for the night? Fuelled on hooch, class A’s and dope, celebrations had been feisty; the day shift scurried from behind the walls, relieved that another one was done, one nearer retirement. Celebrations with loved ones to look forward too and celebrations in the pub, where comfort came in the bottom of a glass. The night-shift took charge, and I was the night-shift on A Wing.

Stumbling on another ice covered boulder, forcing myself on, trepidation, excitement and fear reminded me of that New Year. The steel grey of the early morning, eerie light, and the solitude, were similar to the 40-watt illumination of the long-leg in a high security gaol. My imagination ran riot, the smell of sweat; shit, and wasted life filled my mind. Maybe witnessing the waste, the ruin and the pain was what fuelled my drive. Maybe fifteen years as a Physical Education Instructor in the prison Service had made me appreciate life and take what I can from the remains. Bracey was in front picking his way toward the latest challenge. Everest was behind, a massive dark bulk, intimidating like Charles Bronson, but with strings of fixed rope, vanity, litter and oxygen, the street fighting days of Everest had been tamed long ago.

Bracey kicked steps into the snow-cone leading to a chandelier of ice. Overhanging, stepped and steep, the ice was pressed between the rock, an eruption of icicles. I started on the climb, it felt like entering the large wooden double-doors of a prison for the first time, outcome uncertain, life on hold. Never quite knowing how things will turn out, that what I liked about my climbing. A sharp breeze threatened winter, stinging like a punch. Not a sound. No one else shared our permit, our mountain, our fixation.

Jon Bracey and I had landed in Lukla on the 6^th of October. Four days later we arrived at B.C. which was Gokyo Resort Lodge, situated at 4800m. Day five was spent stashing gear beneath the face and on day six we thought acclimatising to a height of 5500m would be advisable, so that’s what we did.

The following day, Friday the 13^th! Bracey and myself bivvied beneath the stunning gully leading directly to the unclimbed west summit of Phari Lapcha. A truly fantastic line, sporting water ice plastered to the back of a deep cleft promising similar climbing to the Super Couloir on the Mont Blanc de Tacul in France which led to an independent pointy summit. This was what we had travelled to Nepal for. This was what both Bracey and I were about. Twice I had attempted bigger, more technical lines that involved load carrying, camps, fixed rope and monotony, I hated that style of climbing. I prefer to climb something technically easier that can be attempted free, quick and in good style. The life I live and the miles I run on a daily basis suited this quick fix type of climb.    

Crash, ice splintered. Brittle. I had boasted my rucksack was light as we started walking, but already it weighed heavy, like the memories. Lungs sucked wanting more. Crash, another placement, crash, I imagined my stave breaking bone. Crash, one hit is self defence, the second is assault. Stalking the landing that New Year I was convinced at any moment, a fifteen stone drugged psychopath would break through steel; I held my stave aloft ready to strike. Crash, kick-kick, nose, ice, shoulder, ice, skull, brittle, swing, show no fear, crash.

“Safe…”

Bracey joined me, collected gear and continued. A steep corner disguised as powder but with soft and malleable beneath, gave way to quick passage.

I took the lead, traversing beneath a massive roof, above the roof, a wall of loose, dangerous and smooth. Icicle draped black and orange surged, lost to the eye, the top of the wall plunged, like a knife into the massive blue sky. I revelled now I had escaped from the Prison Service, the space and light, freedom and fresh air. Imprisonment was a punishment I could not have handled. Some inmates were locked away in their twenties destined to die of old age having only spent an hour a day outside. Some didn’t see the sun at all. Inmates on rule 43, separated from the general population, sex offenders, had a walled courtyard that remained shaded and dark, their lives were neon and sterile, wax-white, translucent, deep sea creatures destined to dwell in the dark.

Moving together for a while, the suck-it-and-see pitch was rapidly approaching. We didn’t know if the route would go, as it had been impossible to see into the corner that Bracey was about to look around.

“It should go but it looks hard.” Bracey’s shout floated from his hidden position.

I followed with excitement and anticipation, was he joking, was it easy after all?  ‘It should go,’ was good, but I wondered what the Bracey version of hard would entail. Bracey and I had not been on a climb together since I broke my ankle, falling from Omega on the Petites Jorasses in the French Alps. That had been in 2003 and his skill had improved since then and honed him into one of the best. We shared a lengthy history brought together for the first time by our late, and close mutual friend Jules Cartwright. Bracey had grown-up, once the homeless climbing and skiing bum, he was settled now in Chamonix working as a mountain guide. I was a climbing hobo, homeless, poor, but rich with experience. I was sponsored by several companies but received a wage from none. Extra cash would be nice, but I felt more relaxed with this situation. I wondered about some climbs and the style used to climb them. Does the extra pressure of money lead to a certain style that will give a better chance of success on bigger hills, harder climbs?  

Britain had become the land of consumerism and arrogance. Wealth was the gateway to adventure and brought about an attitude of, ‘I have the money, so everything is possible’. It sickened me that behind our wild and exposed, lonely situation the biggest circus in the name of mountaineering was occurring. Greed and the western way demanded success, and if success did not happen, or something went wrong, the lawyers would be called. I despised the whole Everest scenario, I despised some lawyers. My faith in the system had dissolved long ago since being involved in several episodes inside prison. The worst travesty of justice I was involved with was an inmate spinning and smashing an officer’s cheek in front of me knocking him unconscious. The inmate had originally entered prison serving three and a half years. The time I had the misfortune to deal with him his sentence had increased to twenty-eight years from offences in prison.       

After paying a ludicrous amount of money, people were being dragged by guides onto a crowded summit because it’s another tick, one more thing to boast about at the dinner party. No-wonder the values of mountaineering are forgotten on Everest. What is the achievement in climbing a route that was climbed for the first time in 1953 and in better style?   

Stomping, panting, I peered up. Bracey stood, hidden, belayed in a cave beneath a flowing cascade of icicles. To the left a fluted, ice-mushroom-covered-conical lead to a steep, mixed corner, relieved I grabbed the gear.

“And now zee crux.”

I had wanted to shout that ever since watching the DVD of Sébastien Constant and Jérôme Mercader climbing Bonfire of the Vanities on the face to the left of our present position. Twisted ropes, feeling the altitude and ready to dump my rucksack, I felt nothing like a French hotshot.

“With rope-work like that you should be a guide.” Bracey yawped, laughing.

            “Fuck being a guide!”

Breathing deep, I forced myself on. Masochism is a trait all alpinists must have flowing through their bodies, that, and the scary consequences of living ‘normal’. Squeezing into the back of the corner-crack, utching higher, pressing, bridging. The corner was vertical, hard like the crux of the Charlet/Ghallini on the Pre de Bar in the Alps, but placements stuck like chewing gum to the sole of a shoe. The debilitating rucksack hung from an ice-screw at the beginning of the corner, and would be pulled as Bracey seconded. Telling myself I had to leave the rucksack because of the constriction, worked for a while until I thought of Scottish climbing, thrutch, grovel and grimace, and all with a rucksack. I always felt disgust at myself when compromise was made in whatever form. Aid was the most hated of compromises. Aid climbing on an Alpine style route really gave me a feeling of not being good enough.

Bracey disappeared traversing right and down-climbing over thin ice-covered slabs, cunning took the form of esoteric protection, a thread, a stubby screw and faith. At the foot of a vertical off-width, a hex was persuaded into the crack before venturing into the corner/off-width. Fortunately, good hooks, torques and technique helped with upward momentum.

At the top of the snow-field and about to enter the couloir we thought it prudent to consider options. Floundering and digging a bivvy in the dark, confined and covered with spindrift belching from above, did not appeal. A tactical talk took place. It was decided that an early finish was called for, even if a feeling of being useless and slacking ran through both our heads. A bucket seat was cut and the long night endured.

Starting at 6.30am, Bracey’s early morning wake up was a fantastic and sustained entry into the narrow confines of the couloir.

            “Ten metres left Jon.”

The rope moved up until there was no-more to give. Perturbed, a voice called,

            “Strip the belay and move up, I’m on some pretty steep ground.”

Moving together for ten metres enabled Bracey to find a belay, which in turn enabled me to discover the delights of WI 5 with a sack at 5700m.

The gully was magnificent, a meandering river, iron hard, rippled, vertical. The search for slightly more forgiving ice as calves and shoulders, fatigued with the constant bash and crash, balance and teeter, proved fruitless. Deep unconsolidated snow, loose blocks, crumbling rocks, all lead to the crest, running between Phari Lapcha main summit and the west summit. The views were spectacular and the belay non-existent.

At 12.38 pm both Bracey and I stand on the pointed, rocky summit trying hard not to overbalance and fall. I wave to the crowds of climbers on Everest jumaring ropes and as normal the feeling of anti-climax with the summit overwhelm. For me the journey is always better than arriving.