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 ascent of K2 and had summited several other 8000ers, openly 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