Inside Eileen’s tent he finds a heated discussion in progress. Marie Whillans says, “Look, Dougal and I have already gone nearly a thousand meters up these so-called blank slabs. There are cracks all over the place.”
“As far as you’ve gone there are,” Eileen says. “But the true slabs are supposed to be above those first cracks. Four hundred meters of smooth rock. We could be stopped outright.”
“So we could, but there’s got to be some cracks. And we can bolt our way up any really blank sections if we have to. That way we’d have a completely new route.”
Hans Boethe shakes his head. “Putting bolts in some of this basalt won’t be any fun.”
“I hate bolts anyway,” Eileen says. “The point is, if we take the Gully up to the first amphitheater, we know we’ve got a good route to the top, and all the upper pitches will be new.”
Stephan nods, Hans nods, Frances nods. Roger sips a cup of tea and watches with interest. Marie says, “The point is, what kind of climb do we want to have?”
“We want to get to the top,” Eileen says, glancing at Stephan, who nods. Stephan has paid for most of this expedition, and so in a sense it’s his choice.
“Wait a second,” Marie says sharply, eyeing each of them in turn. “That’s not what it’s about. We’re not here just to repeat the Gully route, are we?” Her voice is accusing and no one meets her eye. “That wasn’t what I was told, anyway. I was told we were taking a new route, and that’s why I’m here.”
“It will inevitably be a new route,” Eileen says. “You know that, Marie. We trend right at the top of the Gully and we’re on new ground. We only avoid the blank slabs that flank the Gully to the right!”
“I think we should try those slabs,” Marie says, “because Dougal and I have found they’ll go.” She argues for this route, and Eileen listens patiently. Stephan looks worried; Marie is persuasive, and it seems possible that her forceful personality will overwhelm Eileen’s, leading them onto a route rumored to be impossible.
But Eileen says, “Climbing any route on this wall with only eleven people will be doing something. Look, we’re only talking about the first twelve hundred meters of the climb. Above that we’ll trend to the right whenever possible, and be on new ground above those slabs.”
“I don’t believe in the slabs,” Marie says. And after a few more exchanges: “Well, that being the case, I don’t see why you sent Dougal and me up the slabs these last few days.”
“I didn’t send you up,” Eileen says, a bit exasperated. “You two choose the leads, you know that. But this is a fundamental choice, and I think the Gully is the opening pitch we came to make. We do want to make the top, you know. Not just of the wall, but the whole mountain.”
After more discussion Marie shrugs. “Okay. You’re the boss. But it makes me wonder. Why are we making this climb?”
On the way to his tent Roger remembers the question. Breathing the cold air, he looks around. In Camp One the world seems a place creased and folded: horizontal half stretching away into darkness—back down into the dead past; vertical half stretching up to the stars—into the unknown. Only two tents lit from within now, two soft blobs of yellow in the gloom. Roger stops outside his darkened tent to look at them, feeling they say something to him; the eyes of the mountain, looking. Why is he making this climb?
Up the Great Gully they go. Dougal and Marie lead pitch after pitch up the rough unstable rock, hammering in pitons and leaving fixed ropes behind. The ropes tend to stay in close to the right wall of the Gully, to avoid the falling rock that shoots down it all too frequently. The other climbers follow from pitch to pitch in teams of two and three. As they ascend they can see the four Sherpas, tiny animals winding their way down the talus again.
Roger has been teamed with Hans for the day. They clip themselves onto the fixed rope with jumars, metal clasps that will slide up the rope but not down. They are carrying heavy packs up to Camp Two, and even though the slope of the Gully is only fifty degrees here, and its dark rock knobby and easy to climb, they both find the work hard. The sun is hot and their faces are quickly bathed with sweat.
“I’m not in the best of shape for this,” Hans puffs. “It may take me a few days to get my rhythm.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Roger says. “We’re going about as fast as I like.”
“I wonder how far above Camp Two is?”
“Not too far. Too many carries to make, without the power reels.”
“I look forward to the vertical pitches. If we’re going to climb we might as well climb, eh?”
“Especially since the power reels will pull our stuff up.”
“Yes.” Breathless laugh.
Steep, deep ravine. Medium gray andesite, an igneous volcanic rock, speckled with crystals of dark minerals, knobbed with hard protrusions. Pitons hammered into small vertical cracks.
Midday they meet with Eileen, Arthur, and Frances, the team above, who are sitting on a narrow ledge in the wall of the Gully, jamming down a quick lunch. The sun is nearly overhead; in an hour they will lose it. Roger and Hans are happy to sit on the ledge. Lunch is lemonade and several handfuls of the trail mix Frances has made. The others discuss the Gully and the day’s climb, and Roger eats and listens. He becomes aware of Eileen sitting on the ledge beside him. Her feet kick the wall casually, and the quadriceps on the tops of her thighs, big exaggerated muscles, bunch and relax, bunch and relax, stretching the fabric of her climbing pants. She is following Hans’s description of the rock and appears not to notice Roger’s discreet observation. Could she really not remember him? Roger breathes a soundless sigh. It’s been a long life. And all his effort—
“Let’s get up to Camp Two,” Eileen says, looking at him curiously.
Early in the afternoon they find Marie and Dougal on a broad shelf sticking out of the steep slabs to the right of the Great Gully. Here they make Camp Two: four large box tents, made to withstand rockfalls of some severity.
Now the verticality of the escarpment becomes something immediate and tangible. They can only see the wall for a few hundred meters above them; beyond that it is hidden, except up the steep trough in the wall that is the Great Gully, etching the vertical face just next to their shelf. Looking up this giant couloir, they can see more of the endless cliff above them, dark and foreboding against the pink sky.
Roger spends an hour of the cold afternoon sitting at the Gully edge of their shelf, looking up. They have a long way to go; his hands in their thick pile mittens are sore, his shoulders and legs tired, his feet cold. He wishes more than anything that he could shake the depression that fills him; but thinking that only makes it worse.
Eileen Monday sits beside him. “So we were friends once, you say.”
“Yeah.” Roger looks her in the eye. “You don’t remember at all?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Yes. I was twenty-six, you were about twenty-three.”
“You really remember that long ago?”
“Some of it, yes.”
Eileen shakes her head. She has good features, Roger thinks. Fine eyes. “I wish I did. But as I get older my memory gets even worse. Now I think for every year I live I lose at least that much in memories. It’s sad. My whole life before I was seventy or eighty—all gone.” She sighs. “I know most people are like that, though. You’re an exception.”
“Some things seem to be stuck in my mind for good,” says Roger. He can’t believe it isn’t true of everyone! But that’s what they all say. It makes him melancholy. Why live at all? “Have you hit your three hundredth yet?”