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.
Manaslu Base Camp after heavy snowfall had damaged some of the tents.
The South Face of Manaslu is a Himalayan ‘big wall’, involving steep rock climbing at high altitude. Pushing out the route on the huge rock face, I found the lead climbing challenging and satisfying. It was certainly no snow plod. We had to fix ropes and, at one point, we rigged up a cableway, like a mini téléphérique, to transport the team’s equipment up the steep rock barrier to the Upper Manaslu South Glacier, nicknamed the Butterfly Valley. This 5km-long glacier-filled valley is like the Western Cwm on Everest, it is exposed to avalanches from surrounding peaks on both sides and leads up to the final summit slopes of Manaslu.
Big wall climbing – 600m of serious technical rock climbing on the South Face of Manaslu.
Just crossing the glacier to the bottom of the big wall from Base Camp was like a giant game of Russian roulette, with massive avalanches frequently scouring the route. It was a scary two-hour trek to the relative safety of the rock face. We had to gauge the threat and decide when the next avalanche was likely before moving; if we had been caught out in the open we would have been wiped out. Once an avalanche goes airborne, you can be killed by the pressure wave, a huge blast of air that forges ahead of the roaring snow like an explosion; large avalanches can completely wipe out villages and flatten forests.
During that two-hour approach to the shelter of the wall, I often felt as though I was on a military patrol, constantly looking for the nearest cover of a big boulder or crevasse in case we came under ‘effective enemy fire’. In that scenario, the enemy was the constant threat of avalanche and rock fall, which was as lethal as any gunfire or mortar attack. It was always a relief to reach the cover and safety of the South Face. Climbing the vertical and overhanging 600m rock face was the key to the ascent, but not easy at this altitude. Overcoming it took nearly three weeks of effort, determined teamwork and technical rock climbing. Higher up in the Butterfly Valley between 5800m and 6000m the steepness eased and the climbing was back on snow and ice, where in addition to the avalanche danger there were hidden crevasses to cope with. As we made our way up the hanging glacier towards the steep snow and ice slope which led to the summit, the atmosphere was excitably amicable. In a curiously masochistic way, we all relished the challenge of ferrying heavy loads higher up the mountain and setting up a camp ready for the summit push. Our training sessions had instilled in us the ‘all for one and one for all’ ethic and we worked together well. Originally Himalayan expeditions had involved a team of many climbers pushing higher and higher up a mountain, establishing and stocking camps with equipment and food. When all the tents were in place, usually only two climbers from the group would make the final summit push. The ethos of L’Esprit d’Equipe, to which Benoit and all of us were dedicated, was to get every member to the top, not only as an obligation to our sponsors but also as an illustration of teamwork. Eventually an assault camp was established at about 7400m, leaving a 750m final ascent to the top.
The Butterfly Valley (Upper Manaslu’s South Glacier). The route went well to the left to the col, avoiding avalanches from the hanging glaciers and seracs on the peak’s summit slopes.
Benoit nabbed a good weather window and reached the summit first, bagging another 8000er for his collection. I was acclimatised, fit and ready for a summit bid with one of the Italians, but we had to retreat as his feet were numb with cold and he was concerned that frostbite was setting in – so we climbed down to warm his toes in the tent. We spent the night keeping as warm as possible, melting snow for water and fuelling up with fluid and calories before making another bid for the top.
Benoit Chamoux and Pierre Royer in Base Camp, satisfied