Seven
Climbs by Charles Sherwood. With 192 pages, including 2x16 pages of
colour plates plus black/white photographs. A Perfect bound
paper-back, £14.95.
‘The
whole thing is little more than a delightful ruse for having a very
good time’ The Author.
The
quote above is I found on reading this book, the real raison d’etre
of the quest it follows, an attempt to find the best climb on each
Continent, eschewing the traditional seven summits challenge which is
to simply reach the highest point on every one of them. This round
was first completed by the American mountaineers, Dick Bass and Frank
Wells in April 1985. But ever since, climbers being climbers there is
some dispute about which are actually the ‘real?’ seven highest
peaks, particularly in Australasia/Oceania. Books have been written
about this quest, starting with its originators, and one by Reinhold
Messner, and there is a comprehensive web site with companies queuing
up to help you make your travel and climbing/guiding arrangements to
carry this out, but you might need access to big bucks to take this
on !
The
author is having nothing to do with that list which includes of
course Mount Everest and tramps up such as Kilimanjaro and Elbrus and
the very difficult to reach, Mount Vinson(16, 050ft) in Antarctica.
No; Charles Sherwood decided to put his own stamp on summit
collecting, beginning with the North Face of the Eiger by the 1938
route. It was on that ascent he decided to undertake his particular
seven summits challenge, which he somehow achieved in a five star
way, and in keeping with having a good time throughout.
The
author began to climb as a student at Cambridge, including the
traditional night ascents of its buildings. He has subsequently
climbed widely in the UK, the Alps and Himalaya, ski-toured avidly
and participated in a range of other outdoor adventure sports,
including paragliding, diving (he is a qualified PADI dive master)
and cave diving which in view of his responsibilities, with a wife,
three children and as a senior executive in a City finance house he
has now retired from. Somehow he has combined a thirty year career in
the risk capital industry, becoming over qualified with Master’s
degrees from Cambridge, Harvard and the LSE with taking part in some
high risk activities. Later in this review I will try to return to
that subject.
His
first ‘fine’ climb was as previously noted the 1938 route on the
North Face of the Eiger. This took two attempts to be successful for
him, and ten such for his guide Mark Seaton, who has lived and worked
out of Chamonix for over two decades, and who is also a Children’s
author, writing as ‘Mark the Guide’.
Traverse of the Gods
Their first attempt ended
somewhat embarrassingly when Mark, desperate for a pee relieved
himself but in oncoming bad weather and caught in a spindrift
avalanche did not replace his privates and suffered frost nip in this
most sensitive region. It was an education to me that Charles and his
guide could keep in contact with each other by way of a two way
radio, and how easy it was to summon a helicopter rescue, simply with
a mobile call. It was however with typical British reserve that once
deposited safely in Alpiglen, and confronted with a charming young
Swiss female paramedic, Mark opted to be flown directly on to
hospital in Interlaken rather than an on the spot examination of his
frost bitten parts. A year later they were back (September 2007) and
on this occasion with four days of struggle, and hard but stable
conditions they completed the route. But I guess few who have done
this spent a night in a bivouac high on the face, discussing Sartre
and existentialism, moving onto Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and
Dostoyevsky. To be fair to the author he does put into context the
history of the climb, and we ascend with them up the Difficult Crack,
across the Hinsterstoisser traverse, up the first and second ice
fields and on upwards to success.
His
second climb, the south-west ridge of Ama Dablam (6856 metres) reads
as a client on a well organised commercial ascent, embracing all the
cultural wonder of Nepal; Sherpas, Tibetan Buddhism, Om Mani Padme
Hum etc. In the 1990’s I led three commercial trips in the
Karakoram Himalaya, and I had previously climbed and trekked in Nepal
and India, but never experienced on these outings such luxuries as
warm showers at Base Camp, wifi and mobile connections. Ama Dablam is
a beautiful mountain but remains for me the resting place of two
climbers that Joe Smith and I met and climbed with in Britain, the
weekend before they set out for that then unclimbed peak in 1959,
George Fraser and Mike Harris who disappeared high on that peak.
Number
three of his climbs, The Nose of El Capitan is so well known, with
the Stoveleg Crack, The King Swing, The Great Roof etc so written
about that maybe it is best for me to remember some of the characters
that are a part of its story as does Sherwood.
Warren Harding who
pioneered the first ascent I did know and even climbed with on
Yorkshire Gritstone, Royal Robbins likewise, and its first British
ascent was by Mick Burke and Rob Wood, the latter from Leeds and
another old rope mate. In ‘Seven Climbs’ the leader on the route
is Andy Kirkpatrick who perhaps we might refer to as ‘Mr El Cap’
for he has made so many ascents of that Big Wall he might be worthy
of such a pseudonym? Surprisingly though this climb was his first of
The Nose. Andy is from Hull and there must be something in the water
there for producing iconoclasts? Joe Tasker was also born there and
John Redhead, whilst the poet Philip Larkin might not have been born
there but his creative life was mostly spent there, and certainly he
does seem to have caught the local’s lingua franca with ‘They
fuck you up your mum and dad’.
Leaning Tower
Sherwood’s
fourth climb is set in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, via the
south-west face of Alpamayo, once voted in a 1966 poll of readers of
the German climber’s magazine Alpinismus , ‘The Most Beautiful
Mountain in the World’. He describes the mountains history and of
how it was first climbed in 1957 from the south by a German party led
by Gunter Hauser, who wrote a fine book ‘White Mountain Tawny
Plain’ about this ascent. And also attempts to climb the mountain
from the north and how a British party finally succeeded in 1966; a
party of which I was the leader. Our film of this climb won at Trento
in 1967. But back to the south-west face, this had seemed to us to be
impregnable in 1966 but an Italian team proved us wrong in 1975 and
now it is a classic ascent, on the itineraries of many of the
commercial operators. And the one the author joined, led by qualified
American guides, seems to have been well led, but something that is
another surprise for me is the range of participants now taking part
in such enterprises, for on Sherwood’s trip the youngest was 16
years old, whilst he was the senior at 54.
Besides his group there
were others on roughly the same route from similar commercial
organisations. It seems the hills are alive with well heeled clients,
who wish for low level risk, home comforts and to be fair, obviously
love the experience. The whole scene as described by the author is so
changed from 1966 and it is as Lao Tzu advised ‘the only certain
thing in life is change’.
The
author’s fifth climb is the traverse of Nelion (5,188m) and Batian
(5,199m) Mount Kenya, again in the company of Mark Seaton as his
guide. The author is intrigued by its unique flora, and as someone
who once lived in that country, and a former member of its mountain
club, so many of the names now associated with that mountain
highlighted by Sherwood; Ian Howell, Rusty Baillie, and Phil Snyder
who first ascended the Diamond Couloir (alas no more with global
warming) were once my rope mates. We would have been amazed by
someone turning up on the mountain, setting up a Base Camp, with a
cook and bearers. We used to drive up to Naro Moru after finishing
work on a Friday night, sleep there and go up through the Forest at
first light. I was on the mountain once with my wife, and met two
Germans at the end of the day who insisted on going down through the
forest that evening. Dangerous in the dark to do that and they were
trampled to death by elephants; if you get in between them and their
young they can be terminal. To return to the author and his guide
traversing Mount Kenya, this is a tremendous outing which to be
honest reading Sherwood’s account was carried out in exemplary
fashion over a long day.
Half Dome
His
sixth climb is Aoraki/ Mount Cook (3,754m), set in the Southern
Island of New Zealand. Initially he was not certain whether to climb
Titea/Mount Aspiring or the former for it boasts via its south west
ridge a classic ice climb. So he decided to ascend them both, and
Aoraki /Mount Cook by its equally classic Linda Glacier route. For
the first he teamed up with a Canadian guide Erich Ostopkevich, from
the Bugaboos and the latter local guide Dean Staples, a veteran of
more than twenty expeditions to peaks over 6,000 metres and including
nine ascents of Mount Everest. The author explains the naming that
is now prevalent in the South Island mountains- in that from 1998
Maori names must be placed alongside Europeanised one’s. The Linda
Glacier route is the original route up Aoraki achieved in 1894, and
two important factors about the ascents made by Sherwood are the
geographic situation of the Southern Alps, mean they are exposed to
highly variable weather conditions, and that the approaches to such
routes are now made by helicopter lifts.
One may ponder with global
warming what will be the attitude to such in the days ahead. The
reader may also wonder if they have never climbed with guides, how
easy it is to contact such and how to recognise their status; most
now hold the carnet, issued by the UIAGM (the international body of
mountain guides), but in the UK there is beside the guides, holders
of the MIC qualification, Mountaineering Instructor. Most
professionals have their own web sites.
The
author’s final pick was to travel to Antarctica to take part in a
sea voyage and coast-to-coast traverse of the Salveson Range in South
Georgia. This on a trip organised by Skip Novack and Stephen Venables
in 2018, and one that must be put into the historical context of
travelling so far to the south, and the famed names of previous
explorers; Cook, Weddell, Ross, Admundsen, Scott, and Shackleton etc.
This seventh choice was more about adventuring than peak bagging and
although I have never been to South Georgia, I heard from friends
such as Tom Price, and George Spenceley who had what an amazing
island it is.
Its wildlife, its mountains, and its demanding weather
conditions. On Sherwood’s journey, a couple of easy mountains were
climbed, but it was the twelve day journey across the island, which
made it so memorable as to be his final choice; number seven of the
world’s finest climbs.Throughout
the book’s emphasis it is always on having a good time, but however
one approaches rock climbs and mountains there is always the risk to
be calculated. In 1979 I was invited by UMIST, Manchester University
to give a public lecture on ‘Risk Taking’, a subject that
academics in the Psychological disciplines are forever investigating?
The driving of cars and accidents, investing money, Space
Exploration etc.
It seems to me reading Sherwood’s book that those
who take part in commercial, organised climbs and journeys do not
wish to escalate the risk beyond a level where they will be in any
real danger of being injured or dying? In order to keep risk below
this level they are prepared to engage expertise, which can now
shepherd them up climbs that were once ‘cutting edge’. When we
climbed Alpamayo in 1966 the idea that some years down the road, many
clients would be taken up its south west face each year, we would not
have believed it. But as with those still out in front, pioneering
the hardest new routes, with ever improving new equipment, perhaps
the level of risk taking will always stays the same?
Seven
Climbs is well ordered; it is illustrated by some outstanding colour,
and black white pictures plus some topos to orientate the reader. It
is a fun read, but maybe it will start a new craze for others to seek
out their seven favourite routes, one on each continent? If
mountaineers can ever travel freely again, hemmed in by the
coronavirus and from here onwards the need to meet and overcome the
challenges posted by global warming.
Andy Descending From Leaning Tower
The book is once again of the
standard we have come to expect from its publishers, Vertebrate and
it should be noted that the author’s gross proceeds from the sale
of the book will be donated to the Himalayan Trust UK, supporting the
mountain people of Nepal. So if you have ever climbed and trekked in
Nepal, or intend to do so in the future dig deep, lash out and
purchase this book to aid the deserving poor in the mountains of that
country.
Dennis Gray: 2020.
Images supplied by Vertebrate
