Don Whillans is now embarking on his ninth major expedition and his sixth visit to the Himalayas. The expedition, whose objective is the South West Face of Everest, promises to be one of the sternest tests in this redoubtable mountaineer's outstanding career. For more than twenty years Whillans' name has been synonymous with all that is roughest, toughest, canniest and bluntest in the mountaineering game.
An early gritstone apprenticeship, over-shadowed a little by that of his slightly earlier contemporary, Joe Brown, left a trail of distinctive test pieces that are still awesome: vicious cracks, brutish jutting nebs, and outrageous mantleshelves. His gritstone routes showed an early predilection for all that looks most fierce. Venturing further afield to the greater mountain crags of Britain, he picked as fine a selection of classic lines as anyone in the history of British climbing - Extol on Dove, Woubits, Taurus and Slanting Slab on Cloggy, and Centurion and Sassenach on the Ben. Turning from rock, Whillans applied his restless energy to the Alps and, for the first time, failure became the dominant theme. Beaten back on the Charmoz, he failed repeatedly on the Eigerwand, a climb almost tailored for the Whillans temperament, but a prize that has eluded him. His successes were eclipsed by his more glamorous companions: Brown on the West Face of the Dru, and Bonington on the Bonatti and Frêney Pillars. Even the prestigious first British ascent of the Walker Spur escaped him: while Robin Smith and Gunn Clark raced up it in sunshine, Whillans and his friends struggled a day later in the grips of a storm. Yet all the while less celebrated successes - the gruelling epic on the Marmolata with Steve Read, and his early exploits on the Lalidererwand - were strengthening his already considerable experience.
Bonington celebrated a successful book and received telegrams from the Prime Minister; Brown signed up for his umpteenth television programme; but Whillans, enigmatic as ever, downed his pints and nursed his rugged reputation in the valleys of his native Lancashire.
Legends grew up about him: brawls and battles up and down the country, across the continent, and even with customs officials on the wilder borders of Afghanistan, coupled with the savageness of his early climbs, lent substance to a myth willingly perpetuated by his admirers.
But as the years progressed, the failures mounted inexorably. On the Eiger Direct he was an also-ran, on Trivor he was ill, on Masherbrum he retreated just short of the top, on Gaurishankar avalanches defeated him, and on Huandoy Sur an early retreat was made. He was failing on the glamorous peaks, and the balance of his achievement was heading into the red. The only consolation prizes were his successes on the Paine and Poincenot. The 'sixties saw Whillans growing away from his old companions. There was little to keep him to them. A lonelier man, restless, unresolved, with deep frustrations and no crowning achievement, his physique a corpulent echo of its former glory, he was surrounded by whispers of his decline, his canniness being said to denote a lack of that final finishing power other climbers had.
As Whillans floated back down the Amazon from his failure on Huandoy Sur, many believed that his career was finished. Then came Annapurna. Even Whillans admitted privately that he expected to play a secondary role. A more unlikely candidate for the trials of high altitude would have been difficult to find. Grossly overweight from his prodigious intake of beer, he was considered hardly likely to put up a good performance. Yet he did. As the technical problems of the South Face emerged, Whillans was in the van dealing with them. His route-finding skill was acknowledged as superb. The years in the cold had not been wasted. The plump little Lancastrian had developed that most fickle of all mountaineering qualities - supreme mountain sense. It was called into play, time and again on Annapurna : while others groped, Whillans usually found a way.
But the expedition was not all sweetness and light. Whillans became the centre of controversy, as his pugnacious temperament and conservative life-style clashed markedly with those of his trendier companions. At the Rock Band, Whillans and his fellow Lancastrian, Burke, disagreed. Whillans and Haston emerged at the front, sat through vile blizzards, steeling themselves on iron rations, and eventually pushed their way, brilliantly, to the summit.
At last Whillans had clinched the success that had eluded him all those years. Any doubts about finishing power were blown into oblivion on Annapurna. It was the big breakthrough for him. A timely autobiography, some ecstatic lecture receptions, and the star role in the TV programme followed. He was becoming a national figure. Only the ubiquitous Bonington, so adept at gaining the limelight, vied with Whillans for popular acclaim.
Boosted by his success, Whillans left for Everest. Cruel weather and illness brought the expedition to its knees, and with the crisis came argument. In the centre of the controversy, Whillans stayed cool and stolid, a bastion of commonsense to some, a schemer to others. He took part in the attempt to rescue Bahaguna; his was the unenviable decision to abandon the dying climber when all was lost. Surrounded by sickness and despondency, Whillans, Haston and the Japanese pair, Ito and Uemura, battled on in poor weather. When retreat was called, it was Whillans' decision. He ignored the temptation to resort to the easier route which, although leaving the Face, would at least have given public success - but under false pretences. Whillans had proved a tower of strength amid a sea of dissent.
Disgruntled deserters from the expedition brought back a different story: 'selfish' was the word used to described him in nationwide banner headlines.
The expedition returned to a storm of recrimination, yet, unabashed, Whillans set to work revealing his side of the story in a series of lectures. Other more public laurels came his way: afternoon tea at the Palace, the star part in This is Your Life, a guest appearance on Jimmy Saville's Speak Easy. Whillans had become a public figure. But there remains the knowledge that he is still well behind on points in his battle with the Himalayas. His coming return bout with the world's biggest peak will probably be fought with bitter determination. Whillans is unlikely to rest until he has succeeded in this final test.
Mountain: You're rapidly becoming a national figure, increasingly in contact with the press and other media, and you are being called upon to comment more and more. Do you find this a strain?
Whillans: To a certain extent, yes. I know by now that reporters place their own interpretation on what I say, so when I see articles where I am completely misquoted, in which my views are given the wrong slant, it doesn't bother me any more. I have had blokes interview me about a certain climb, and when their piece has appeared they haven't even mentioned the peak - just talked about the wife looking out of the window and what she thought about while I was away.
It is said that you lost a lot of sympathy with Brown at one stage because you thought he had sold out to commercialism. Now that you are more involved in this yourself, are you more sympathetic with the problems he had to face?
Commercialism didn't exist when I climbed with Joe: that's why the memories are good ones. But as time went on it became apparent that we were aiming at different goals. If commercialism is inescapable, then the boys who do the deeds should get the benefits. If the benefits become a problem, you can opt out, after all.
I think Joe was a bit short-sighted though. He went on expeditions that were handed to him on a plate, and they were successful; but later, when he could have done more interesting climbs, he went into business. Actually, I realize now that we were never really on the same wavelength. I was always much more interested in the deeds, but Joe was never particularly keen to travel to different places. He always did a tremendous amount on one crag at one time, whereas I went to many different crags and just did the best lines, and then went off somewhere else. Joe was always most at home in Wales; for him to go to the Lakes, for instance, was a real event. He never seemed to enjoy the Alps much either.
Because of the unfamiliarity?
Partly, I think, but it was the discomfort that really put him off. Mind you, when he did go he did well. But if you don't enjoy something you don't do it so often, do you? I realized that he didn't want to do the climbs that I wanted to do, and most of the boys tended to do what he did. It got to the stage where they were going to Cornwall for their holidays and going fishing. Well, holidays meant the Alps for me; you can go to Cornwall any time. So I started climbing with different people, blokes like Bonington, Paul Ross and Pete Greenwood, reasonable blokes and good climbers.
Basically, your experience was the same as that of any good climber who is keen on the Alps. He is bound to shed his mates as he gets higher up the spectrum.
Yes, the longer he continues to climb, the less he'll see of his original mates. They'll get married, or lose interest. This is really because they are just not very keen. I think in any field you really have to want to do something if you are going to do it well. As a rule I like any climber's company. You can make plans to do something and straight away they'll say: "Yes, when do we go? How much will it cost?" I feel at home with them, because even in everyday things you can approach them more openly: you know they're not going to come up with what I call pathetic bloody excuses.
Don't you sometimes feel that there is something a bit abnormal about climbing and climbers? They have to go on playing while other men are content to lead more normal lives.
No, there is adventure in everybody I think. Look at the people who attend the lectures. They would like to have a bash at these things themselves, but they look at their position and feel they can't.
Through fear, or uncertainty?
Both. But fear of losing their future, losing what they have worked for, not fear in the physical sense.
What about your' future?
I've no idea. I can see a certain distance ahead, but I don't worry about when I'm sixty-five. Many people don't get that far anyway, and there's no guarantee that I will. I try to spend my life doing the things I want to do while I can, instead of worrying. I used to think quite a bit about it at one time, but not now. As long as you are doing something, doors keep opening. It's only when you stop doing things that life slows up. At one time I decided that climbing was irresponsible, and I thought of setting up in business. But I had no money and my heart wasn't in it, so I only wasted a couple of months. At the end of that time I looked at myself and I wasn't doing a thing. Nothing at all. Certainly nothing I wanted to be doing. Then an expedition offer came up, and I took it and things were back to normal again. Straight away things started to happen.
Yet you have been building and plumbing over the years. Did these activities just serve to fill in the time?
Yes, that's about it. I do quite a lot of things: to me the word fanatic means a bore. But if you're a climber you can never partake fully in anything else. You meet people who say they've done a bit of parachuting and a bit of climbing and skiing and all that, and you know they're no bloody good at any of them. Trying everything seems cock-eyed to me. You can only partake fully in one thing if you're going to be any good at it. The only people I can think of in British climbing who are remotely like you are Tilman and Shipton and one or two others - people who really sold out their futures to do exactly as they wanted. And look at the lives they've had - really interesting. Which just proves what I said before: when you do what you want to, you can make a really good job of it, but if you spend your whole life doing something you hate for £X, life must be bloody awful - every day a misery.
Play now, pay later!
That's the sort of thing one's mother and father used to say. They were always talking about having security. And the dangers are very real, let's face it, but not as bad as is made out. If you have a certain amount of ability and a certain amount of drive, there's a fair chance that you'll make out.
Things have changed a bit since you started climbing, and new techniques have developed. Have you any views about pegs and bolts and so on?
Not really. I overheard a bloke in a pub talking about Sassenach on the Ben, going on about pegs and etriers. I couldn't understand what he was on about: I said I thought it was supposed to be free. He turned round and said: "Oh, if you think you are Whillans or someone, you go and do it free." Somebody asked me whether I was bothered about this, but I couldn't care less. I went there, it was an unclimbed line, and I enjoyed it. If I'd used pegs that weren't necessary, I'd have felt a bit chicken; but if others put pegs in it, it doesn't really bother me. It was a bit of rock that I had some fun on, and that's the end of it.
That all sounds very simple, but you must appreciate the fact that some of your routes have sorted out a lot of people - routes like Forked Lightning Crack, Sentinel Crack, Grond and Erosion Direct.
I don't know. I'm right out of touch with British climbing now. So many people are doing hard climbs these days that I don't know what's still regarded as hard. The hard, poorly-protected gritstone routes still rank very high. Somebody fell off Sentinel Crack the other day and hurt himself. Yes, a mate of mine, Derek Walker, told me that the direct finish to Carnivore, which we did, has only just had a second ascent. I would have thought it would have been repeated stacks of times by now. I was very surprised because it was chucking down with rain when we did it, but because it was steep it stayed dry. When I came over the steep bit everything was soaked and slimy, so for me that was the hardest bit. I suppose it looks a wee bit boldish, and the other way looks easier; perhaps that's why it's lasted so long. But Cunningham used about six pegs going his way, and I only used one on that overhang.
When Cunningham and I tried the route first we aimed to do the overhang, but we failed. He wrote to me later, saying that he'd finished the route. I thought that was it - finished. But then he said he'd done a 70ft. traverse to the right and a 70ft. traverse back to the left and used all those pegs. I wondered what the hell it was all about, so I went back to finish the line, the direct line we originally chose.
You say you no longer have any link with the hurly-burly of British rock climbing. But when you go to a fine new crag like Gogarth don't you want to try some of those big lines?
If I see one that takes my fancy, yes. With me it's always got to be a straightforward route with an obvious line.
What do you mean by obvious?
Some lines are obvious but not straightforward - like Vector. Something like Wen Slab is obvious to me. They said it wasn't too hard, but that doesn't bother me. Vector.... well, that's the kind of route that Joe would have done, not me. I tend to look at something and say "Christ! That's impressive" and I want to do it.
Woubits, Taurus and so on?
Yes, and Sassenach, and things like that. Anything that hits you smack in the eye. But you won't find many climbs of mine that are devious.
Carnivore is hardly a direct line.
No, but that was a crag without a route on it. Didn't Vector present a similar sort of challenge? You did an early ascent of it. To me it's just a buttress sticking out of some trees. I did the third ascent. Brewster did the second in his bendy boots. I didn't know him, but when someone told me he had done Vector, I thought: "Oh aye, another little star coming over the horizon?"
You must have seen them come and go.
Aye, seems like a lot.
Is that why you talk about 'prima donnas' with barely veiled sarcasm?
Yes... the term implies a bloke who fancies himself. If he can back it up I'd have to hand it to him. But I don't have to like him.
Don't you think you're something of a prima donna yourself, in that you know you're good and expect everyone else to know it too?
No, I'm an individual, no more, no less. I know what I can and can't do, if that's what you mean. In forty years you should know that. But maybe I don't understand the term properly.
It implies the feeling that the world should fall at your feet.
After living the life I've lived, I know bloody well that nothing is ever going to fall at my feet. If something comes along I'm glad of it, but I don't expect it. Nor do I expect or think that anybody should do anything for me.
Some of your antagonism towards prima donnas seems to stem from the fact that they don't necessarily last long. But surely Mauri and some of those others who were so disappointing on Everest, and of whom the term has been used, have been on the scene for a long time and are very good.
I think they were a wee bit past it. They realized that. But Dyhrenfurth had to have established names in order to pull in the cash. He had to have reasonably mature people as well, of course, people who were prepared to compromise in order to make the expedition work. If we'd had a lot of star solo men it might never have worked at all.
Don't you think if you'd had a few more Messners or Desmaisons there'd have been more likelihood of success when the crunch came?
They probably wouldn't have got as far as the crunch. That's the point. I think they would have been a pain in the arse from the word go.
Do you think that on the same terms you are a pain in the arse too?
Maybe, but I don't think so. There's a reasonable way of tackling a job like this, and an unreasonable way. I think that my approach is a reasonable one that anyone could accept.
Let me put that question in another way. Do you think you would have got on with someone like Buhl or Messner?
With Buhl, yes. But that's only a feeling. I don't know enough about Messner to comment, but from what I do know I would say that he was a bit wet behind the ears. Look at that Nanga Parbat business: he certainly seems to have been a bit green doing a daft thing like that.
Would you have described Buhl as green when he made that solo push to the summit of Nanga Parbat?
I think so.
Surely the element of flair and panache about both these climbs cannot be denied.
I don't dispute that. I like reading about their incredible efforts; but such decisions are bound to be pricy. Both Buhl and Messner lost some toes. They knew what they were doing was a bit dodgy and that they might not make it. They got away quite cheaply in my view. They were lucky.
You were in the same position on Masherbrum weren't you?
Yes. If I'd carried on alone I could have got to the top easily. I was only 150ft. below the summit. But the bloke with me was at the end of his tether, and if anything had happened to me he would have been left sitting there. In a case like that you just have to weigh the job up and make a decision. I was only 23 then, but I was ultra-cautious.
It must be very difficult to be clear-headed about priorities in that sort of situation. And of course altitude - lack of oxygen - has a profound effect on clear-headedness, doesn't it?
Certainly it does. Look at Dougal on Everest. Once or twice, when we were going between Camps 5 and 6, my set was working perfectly while his wasn't. Sometimes the regulator stuck so that instead of mixing oxygen with the air, as it was supposed to do, it was only giving him air. At first he would carry on all right, but after a bit he'd begin to suffer. It happened a couple of times for two or three hours at a stretch. I had oxygen all the time, so I was always on the ball and was able to gauge his loss in performance when he couldn't see it himself. He would fumble about and take a hell of a time to make a move. He was so slow that I would take my belay off and solo up beside him. That night I said: "You didn't seem to be going too well today." But he thought he had been completely normal when really he had been bloody slow. Now usually he is very fast and leaves me far behind, yet he wasn't aware how much he had been messing about: he was at a sort of six-pint stage if you like. What I'm getting at is this: when you are up around 27,000ft. you have to be very careful about your oxygen; any higher must be really dodgy. You have to be very experienced in Himalayan climbing to spot the signs of any deterioration in your own performance. That's why it's very easy for people to disappear on Himalayan peaks: when they get starved of oxygen it affects their judgement. Somebody did some experiments on it, didn't they? They put some bloke into a room and got him to ride a bicycle while they gradually drained the room of oxygen. He did some really strange things. When they brought everything back to normal and told the bloke what he'd been doing he was really surprised because he thought he'd just been riding a bike all the time. So the extra few thousand feet can make all the difference. Once you start having hallucinations you're going to walk anywhere and think anything's possible. I think it's that kind of thing that took Messner down the other side of Nanga Parbat - he probably thought it was easy.
Of course Kuhn and Scholtz were taking Pervatin.
That's bloody dodgy as well. It works, sure, but your timing has got to be spot on. Even when you're using oxygen your timing has to be right. When you have a bottle that will last for eight hours, you just have to stick rigidly to your timing and turn back at the correct moment, even if you are near the top. There's another point about oxygen: it makes you feel a lot warmer. If you ran out of oxygen on a perfectly still, warm day, you would probably be all right, and would get down. But if the weather was at all bad, you might get down but there would be a good chance you'd get frostbite.
There are a lot of things to take into account: it seems to me that taking drugs is fantastically dangerous because you can't predict just when they are going to wear off on any particular individual.
Yes, but how much is this mountaineering and how much physiology? I mean did you regard your oxygen equipment on Everest just like any other piece of equipment - like placing a peg or getting a runner on?
Sure, it's all part of the job.
Didn't you feel that the scientific element was alien to your main purpose - to climb a mountain?
We failed even though we used these things so it's not as if by using them you're making it a piece of cake. It's just that by using oxygen you make the job possible. We couldn't get enough of it up the mountain, so the job wasn't possible.
McNaught-Davis has said that nobody doubts that with enough oxygen, enough blokes and enough good weather, any peak can be climbed.
That's all very well, but how the hell can you guarantee good weather?
You had a very bad season, certainly, but I think the point he was getting at is that the odds ought to be balanced a bit more as techniques and equipment improve, Dennis Gray has expressed a similar view.
They haven't been all that high, have they? Say 23,000-24,000ft. Once you get up around 26,000ft. it doesn't take much to stop you. You can climb 23,000ft. peaks in almost Alpine style. Add another 2,000ft. and, unless the going is very simple, you have a problem. Your blokes have to be physiologically fit and attuned to climbing at that height. Another 1,000ft. is pushing it a bit, and any higher is really beginning to get on to thin ice, particularly if there is any technical difficulty or the weather is dodgy. You have to have enough blokes who can not only reach that height but do a job when they get there. You can see from Annapurna that even on a 26,000ft. peak some bloody good climbers burn themselves out. On anything higher a bloke just has to have oxygen or he burns himself out before he can do any good.
This is evidently one of these questions of logistics that seem a great deal easier from the ground, so to speak. On any expedition situations seem to arise where you can argue about the possibilities, but the realities look different when you're on the spot.
Certainly! When you get back, people are always saying you could have done this or you could have done that. Take that Bahaguna accident. The situation there was perfectly clear. There was nothing we could do for that bloke: he was a goner, and it was as clear as a bell then. But when we got back we all started wondering whether there was anything else we could have done to get him out of it.
You sort out all the possibilities and perhaps some of them seem feasible - but by that time it's too late. But you know bloody well that when you're faced with similar situations again there will be nothing you can do. Being wise after the event - that's the way a lot of these blokes treat expeditions. At the time they admit that they aren't going too well, or they aren't interested, or that in a crisis there is nothing else to be done. But when they get down, they seem to get their knickers twisted, and they go round saying that they were going all right, that they could have got to the top, or that they wanted to have a crack. They claim that wrong decisions were taken, when often there was no decision at all because what needed to be done was so bloody obvious to everyone.
It is said that there was some discontent on Annapurna because you didn't carry as many loads as everyone else.
What amused me was that statistics list of Estcourt's, which showed that I didn't carry many loads between the lower camps. As far as I know there aren't many people who can be in two places at the same time, and if there are, they're a dying bloody race. All my statistics were from higher up the mountain: if I was high up, how the hell could I be low down? One thing that is often forgotten is that Dougal and I dug out the sites for every camp on Annapurna, and at that altitude that's very tiring. And when you're leading as I was most of the time - you have to carry loads, rope for fixing, pitons, stakes, dead men and tents. Early on, Dougal and I put in a lot of work breaking the route and establishing camps, while some of the others were being ill in Base Camp.
This business of being wise after the event is beginning to crop up more and more after expeditions. Most of mine, like Masherbrum or Trivor, have been no bother. On Trivor I didn't try for the summit because I was sick, and that was that. I missed out. But I've never said that I wasn't sick and that I could have gone on; and I've never tried to bend it or twist it afterwards.
What do you think has given rise to this attitude we've been talking about?
I think increased professionalism is tending to make people try to justify themselves if they don't do well on an expedition. Whenever you go on an expedition these days, particularly where personal glory and some money are involved, you'll find more and more of this twisting from people who feel they haven't had their fair share of the winnings. They might have done nothing at all-like Schlömmer and Axt on Everest, who didn't contribute anything to the Face climb - but they still feel they have to stick their oar in afterwards and get something out of it. This type of professionalism could tear an expedition apart in the future and nobody will get anywhere.
The highly commercial approach is a relatively new thing, of course, with TV and the mass media getting more interested in climbing.
Yes, it's happened in the last three years. But things move fast these days and I think it will reach its peak very quickly. Then you will have people stating their own terms for going on expeditions, drawing up contracts and big deals, instead of just a group of lads getting together as we used to do in the past.
That means there's a lot of pressure on you to justify an expedition. This caused a dilemma on Everest, didn't it?
The idea that you can justify an Everest expedition by reaching the summit is played out now. Dyhrenfurth did all that last time he was there. The only thing that would have justified our expedition would have been to have climbed the Face. That was the project we had raised all the brass for.
Is that why you didn't try to push to the summit by the easier way you found?
We'd stuck to our South West Face route all the time, right through all the squabbles about swapping routes and all that. All along we had said we would climb the Face or fail. When I found that it would be easy to walk across the slopes from our high point to the South Ridge, I knew it was a real possibility. But we weren't far enough up the Face for that way to be called the Face Route. If the traverse had appeared a few hundred feet higher, it would have been all right. On top of that there were one or two blokes who would have said that we'd intended to go that way all along, when things got difficult. So Dougal and I decided against it, and the same day we made about 300ft. up the Rock Band. That evening we discussed it again : we decided that if we couldn't climb the route we had been on for all those weeks it would be better to fail and leave it at that.
One would have thought that the B.B.C. would have liked you to go for the summit.
No, they were always very keen on the Face. They weren't interested in simply repeating what was done perfectly well in 1953.
Nevertheless, there was a feeling that at that late stage they would have liked you to clinch some sort of success.
They might have done, but I don't think so. I didn't really consider it anyway. I felt that we couldn't go that way, especially after all the problems we had had, with people wanting to go off and do things that weren't even planned, for their own personal gain. I might regret it slightly now: perhaps I should have said to myself, "Get lost! We know we have no further chances on the Face so we might as well go this way for our own satisfaction." I will say now that if the same situation develops next time, I'll definitely go that way. But I'll have said so first.
Of course the really idiotic word that was used about last year's Face climb was 'direttissima'.
It was just a bit of sensationalism; but by mentioning it in all the promotions and on all the notepaper, we were committed to it. We could never claim our route was ever going to be a direttissima once we veered off up to Camp 6. To me the word is meaningless but people still use it. If we had been on an expedition to Everest South West Face, we could have traversed a bit. I think it's all a farce: I can't take it seriously. At one stage, when it looked as though the previous Japanese expedition might get up, Dyhrenfurth sent out a newsletter saying that even if they climbed the Face we could still do the true direttissima.
Well, that was daft!
You're saying it was daft, and I was saying it was daft years ago, but people said I was old-fashioned. Once you start splitting hairs it never ends. They even said that Eiger Direct could be straightened out. All this direttissima business is a load of cobblers as far as I am concerned. If you have a route you want to do, get on and do it. Why hang labels on it?
You seem to have dedicated yourself to expedition climbing these days, to the exclusion of all other areas of the sport. I can't understand how a climber can be satisfied with this alone.
I think your tastes in climbing change as you get older. Mine did anyway. I climbed on Gritstone when I was young, but nowadays I can't be bothered to make the effort: it doesn't seem to have any challenge for me. When you have done a lot of one sort of climbing, the challenge goes out of it; you want to go farther afield and find another challenge on different mountains and in different situations.
But you hardly ever touch rock these days. even though you were so keen on it in the past.
Yes, that's true. Even when I go to the Alps I'm far more interested in the mixed routes. I still do some, but mainly free routes on good rock. You wouldn't catch me within a mile of those hard artificial routes on bad rock - I'm just not interested in that sort of struggle any more. A route with length, with good pitches, not desperately hard, but hardish, good belays, a good line - that's the sort of route I can still get keen on.
Do you ever push a route to the stage where you get gripped?
In the past I did, of course, but these days I usually try to avoid getting into those positions.
In other words, although you can act boldly you think you still have the necessary prudence which others lack. And which in Buhl's case eventually killed him.
That's it. People are different. Some people have romantic ideas. What amazes me is how hard quite ordinary climbers, who don't have much skill, will try. Sometimes you see blokes on hard climbs who are really pushing the boat out - far more than I ever would. A big margin of safety has always been part of my approach. To me, if you kill yourself climbing because of your own incompetence, that wipes out all your other achievements. All it means is that in the past you have just scraped through a lot of dodgy scenes.
There is always a lot of argument about the motives of top rock climbers, the ones who do new routes. Do you think it is competition that drives them?
No! I think that people do new climbs because of the interest in the climbs them- selves. Also, they want to test themselves against that piece of rock. There wasn't much. competitiveness among top-notch climbers in the past, though there may be a bit more now, just because the opportunities are getting less. There will always be competition for the plums - but it's competition for the route, not in order to score over the other bloke.
Another widely held view is that rock climbing has to be dangerous to count, and that all the new protection devices have made it very much safer. Would you agree?
We seem to have reached the brick wall stage. Many more people do the hard routes now it's a bit safer - but the balance remains because the routes themselves are harder. In the old days perhaps we didn't have the gadgets everyone has today, and perhaps it was more dangerous, but we did have a lot more rock. The main point then was adventuring - exploring a new crag with hardly a line on it. These days the idea of adventure is blurred by technology. A few years back people began trying to measure mountaineering achievements by Yosemite standards - standards of technicality. When you went there it was obvious that they weren't going to go much further. They might do a few more rurp moves, or a few more bat hook moves, stick their necks out a wee bit further, but it was clear that they were getting near the ceiling. They could only do more of the same sort of thing. I got bored with it. One climb was much the same as another. In a way, that's the position in rock climbing now. You can't get technically much harder before you bring in the aid... jammed knots, nuts. Then people start asking how many nuts you used. That's when I started to lose interest: to me there isn't enough incentive in trying to do a climb with one or two nuts less than the other bloke. But if that's all you've ever known, then obviously that's the sort of thing you are going to think is important.
But even now climbing is dangerous, at least in the Alps, and even on some British rock. There is still scope to kill yourself.
Oh, aye, nobody could doubt that. Of course the Himalayas are even more dangerous. Mind you, the Alps are a lot less serious now than they used to be, what with rescue teams and helicopters. There is a chance you might be saved now, but there wasn't much hope twenty years ago. Of course that doesn't apply in the Himalayas.
There's no doubt that climbing is a dangerous sport, and there's a long list of deaths every year to prove it. But once you accept that and start climbing in a way that accepts it, there is less chance of you getting killed. On the last expedition, for example, each time I took a few steps up a fixed rope, I rested and looked around to see that my position was the same. What a lot of people don't realize is that even by taking a few steps you might have moved into a dangerous situation. This sort of awareness only comes after you have done a lot of climbs and been in a lot of dangerous situations.
In that rescue on the Eiger, when you and Bonington helped Nally down you were forced into a pretty tight situation.
Yes, we were just on the point of turning back ourselves, because it was obvious that bad weather was on the way. Then we saw the guides coming up and they told us there was a bloke needing help. When we saw him at the other end of the second icefield i calculated we'd reach him just as the weather broke and that's what happened. We were going away from safety in that situation, rather like going the wrong way down a mctorway, knowing you can't turn round, and getting further and further away from the place you want to go. Our only alternative was to abandon the bloke, and we obviously couldn't do that. As it turned out, we were all right.
But it was quite close, wasn't it?
Yes, a bit unpleasant... stones falling all around, hail sweeping down the icefield and water streaming down the face. Was that one of your worst epics? One of them. There were others: the Marmolata, Gaurishankar, and a bit of a grip on the Charmoz with Joe - but the Eiger was probably the worst.
You have a reputation for being a 'hard case'. There seem to be lots of stories of punch-ups and so on. Why is that?
It's partly the fact that I'm small, and whenever there is an awkward bugger looking for trouble, unless he's brave - an honourable thug - he doesn't pick on a bloke bigger than himself. And anyone who picks on me won't find me backing off.
Are you short-tempered?
No, I wouldn't say that, but if someone picks me out I don't back off - and there's a potential punch-up. Often when it's like that I'm not really angry, just annoyed that anyone could have been stupid enough to make something out of nothing.
What if you are angry?
Like anyone else, I welcome it. You say: "Right, it's about time we had a sort out here." I remember one occasion when I smashed a bloke in the face with my fist with a glass in it. I never even thought about it. I couldn't get at him quick enough. But most of these situations are caused by a bloke being unreasonable. I don't like it, because often you find yourself going into a scene just to save face, and really you feel like telling the bloke to clear off.
What exactly happened after that club dinner a year or so ago? It sounded like a scene from a Western.
That again was a stupid thing - when somebody was unreasonable. When somebody makes a beeline at you, you never know what's bothering him. We went to the dinner and got pretty tanked up, and then went back to the pub we were staying at in a right good mood. When we got there they had a bit of a private party going themselves and they invited us in. They had a record player and dancing and it was pretty good. Anyway, while we were dancing I remember noticing the publican in the back of the bar supping by himself and I thought something was wrong. Suddenly he came in and said: "All right, everybody drink up!" We didn't like his attitude, so we just got up and started to walk upstairs. He shouted up behind us: "You can bring those glasses down here." So I just leaned over the banister and dropped mine. Well, he blew up, yelling, "You broke that deliberately." "Too true," I said. "You don't talk to me like that mate - I'm not a bloody school kid." "Well you can get out of the hotel," he shouted. "I wouldn't stay here for a bloody pension," I said. "Let's get our stuff," I said to the lads, and we went up to the bedroom and started packing. He came up after us and suddenly made a dive at me, carrying us both across the room and knocking a wash basin off the wall. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?" I said. "Just let us get our gear and we'll go."
That sobered him up a bit, and we finished packing. I was just about to go downstairs again when he made another lunge - and he was a big powerful bloke. We hit the banister and broke it, and I went flying down the hole to the floor below. So I said: "That's it - I'll wrap this bleeding joint." I was really mad by then. But he suddenly seemed to realize that things had gone too far and that the place was going to get wrecked. He quietened down and we left.
You are an older man now, and most of the active climbers are about ten years younger than you. The climbing scene is changing fast these days. What do you make of the recent invasion of drugs and hippies into it?
It's another part of climbing that has come from the States. All you have to do is see how they have fared - and how have they fared? Just look at some of those top American climbers and how they have finished up - and the state they were in. No names, but there are quite a few bent characters around. As for drugs, soft drugs or hard drugs, it seems to me that the blokes who use them are like the blokes who say climbing isn't dangerous. Drugs bloody well are dangerous - even the soft ones, which are the thin end of the wedge. I suppose if you're happy and secure, and you're just taking them socially with a bunch of friends, it would be all right. But if you keep at it when you get older, you're quite likely to turn to it when some misfortune overtakes you. In the end you won't want to come back to reality, you'll be stuck with it. I think that's playing with fire.
How did you feel about the situation that developed on Annapurna?
You know my answer to that. I said if I found anybody using the stuff I would kick his arse. In that kind of situation - on a big, dangerous Himalayan peak, when you're run down and succeptible to hallucinations anyway because of the altitude - to take drugs is ludicrous.
It was said there was quite a clash of attitudes on Annapurna. Not just about pot, but also about politics and life in general.
Well, the pot argument was really the result of one bloke trying to be clever. He hadn't been to the Himalayas before and he didn't realize the seriousness of it. But apart from that things were pretty good. There were only two minor incidents on a three-month expedition: that's a really good expedition. It's just that these things get talked about, and they have got out of proportion.
How long can you see yourself continuing in the expedition field?
Cassin is apparently still going strong in his sixties. Every year you think you are finished and you go out and do better than the blokes who are there. So you can't be that bad. Before Annapurna I thought I didn't stand much of a chance of getting to the top with all those fit blokes on the expedition, blokes who were doing good routes every weekend. When we got there, I was going better than most of them, and in the end I was going very well. When Everest came up I thought I might not do so well, but the same thing happened again, and I think I was going better at the finish than I was at the start. So, physically, you can obviously go on a long time - it's much more a question of whether your interest lasts. I think as long as I stay interested I will carry on.