Survivors

Most climbing accidents happen suddenly, progress quickly, and they’re soon over. A stone falls, a piece pulls, a leg is broken. A rescue begins. Very few climbs result in true survival situations, in which the misery and uncertainty are prolonged for days or even weeks. Because of their rarity and inherent drama, many such incidents become legendary tales. Others remain private experiences, known only to family and friends.

For this issue, we surveyed readers and more than a dozen climbing historians and writers in North America and Europe to collect 25 stories of stamina, ingenuity, and human will, some well-known, others not. Our hope is to remind readers to take care and prevent accidents—to “do nothing in haste, look well to each step,” as Whymper famously said after the Matterhorn tragedy.

But we also hope to inspire, for survival stories reveal the hidden capacity within many of us. Recounting their accidents, several of the climbers featured here said they drew strength by recalling Doug Scott’s epic crawl down the Ogre. And if any reader should someday find himself in such a desperate situation, we hope he too will remember how others endured, living to climb another day.

CRAWLING OFF THE OGRE

• Mo Anthoine, Chris Bonington, Clive Rowland, Doug Scott
• Baintha Brakk, Pakistan; 1977
• Scenario: Two bone-breaking falls above 21,000’
• Injuries: Broken legs, ribs
• Elapsed time: 16 days

On July 13, 1977, British mountaineers Chris Bonington and Doug Scott summited Baintha Brakk (aka The Ogre), a 23,901-foot rock and ice tower in Pakistan’s Karakoram. The two men and their four teammates had spent more than a month attempting various routes up the complex peak. But any joy they felt after finally reaching the top was erased when Scott slipped on ice during the first rappel and pendulumed violently into a rock wall, breaking both legs above the ankles.

Bonington and Scott were 9,000 feet above base camp, and the sun had set. Though they had fixed ropes up the first part of the climb, descending the upper mountain would require a long traverse over the Ogre’s west summit. Just below the accident site, Bonington and Scott improvised a bivouac at over 23,000 feet without food, a stove, or even down parkas. The next morning, they continued rappelling and then were joined by Mo Anthoine and Clive Rowland, who had spent the night in a snow cave below the west summit. The three men helped Scott crawl back to the cave, where a storm pinned them for two nights.

On the third morning after the accident, despite the continuing storm, the team forced its way to the west summit, with Scott manhandling his way up ropes with jumars. It took him six hours to climb several hundred feet. After a night in another snow cave on the far side of the west peak, they continued downward, still in the storm, with Scott belayed between two partners as he crawled along the ridge. Later that day, Bonington rappelled off the end of two ropes of unequal length, plunged about 20 feet, and broke two ribs.

That night, they reached their tents, but the storm intensified once again, and they feared they’d never find the fixed ropes in the whiteout. They were forced to spend a second night at this high saddle—the sixth night since the accident—still above 21,000 feet. Their sleeping bags were soaked, and they hadn’t eaten solid food for days.

Finally, the weather broke. Bonington couldn’t use one hand and could not speak; he feared he was developing pneumonia. But after one more night in their tents, the team started down the fixed ropes. Rappelling was easier than crawling for Scott, and they all made it down to the glacier that day.

Next blow: Anthoine arrived at base camp only to find it had been abandoned. Fearing their partners were dead, the team’s other climbers had sent the porters ahead and left for town hours before Anthoine arrived. One left a note: “In the unlikely event of your reading this, I have gone down for help.” Now Scott had to keep crawling, across nearly five miles of glacier and moraine. Ice and dirt wore through four layers of clothing and rubbed his knees raw.

And it wasn’t over. Anthoine had run ahead to catch the other climbers, but Scott and Bonington had to wait five days at base camp until one of the climbers returned with a dozen porters, who ferried Scott for three days down the glacier on a homemade litter. A small helicopter finally arrived to pick up Scott, but it crash-landed in Skardu. Scott and the other passengers were unharmed, but Bonington had to wait another week before he could escape the mountains.

Bonington wrote: “It was certainly the most harrowing experience that either Doug or I have ever had, and yet throughout the long drawn-out retreat, there was never a sense of despair. This was largely due to the quality of support we had from Mo and Clive, and the fact that none of us lost his will to survive or showed the doubts that we might secretly have had.”

The Ogre was not climbed again for 24 years.

• LESSONS: Scott later explained how he managed to keep going for so many days, despite so many obstacles: “Take it one feature at a time. A nub of rock, a pinnacle. Get there and then think about the next bit. Because to think about the whole thing was a bit mind-boggling.” Focus on the immediate tasks at hand, he tells us, instead of wasting time and energy worrying about your plight.
• READ IT: None of the climbers wrote a book about this expedition, but there are good accounts in the American Alpine Journal (1978), High Drama by Hamish MacInnes, and Himalayan Climber by Doug Scott.