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We climbed 'cause it's fun.
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And mainly it was fun.
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That's all we ever did.
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And we were fairly anarchic
and fairly irresponsible,
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and we didn't give a damn about
anyone else or anything else,
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and we just wanted to climb
the world. And it was fun.
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It was just brilliant fun.
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And every now and then it went
wildly wrong. And then it wasn't.
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Got into Peru when I was 25, Simon 21.
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But we had done a lot
of climbing in the Alps.
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To climb mountains that have not been
climbed before, or a new route at a mountain
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is what my climbing life
had been moving towards.
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A friend of us, who'd done an amazing
amount of climbing in South-America
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had seen this face in the mid-70's.
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I think he said it would
be a challenging day out.
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It was the last big mountain
face in this range of mountains,
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that hadn't been climbed.
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There's a great unknown there.
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What's so compelling is
stepping into that unknown.
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It was an isolated spot, a 2
- days walk from a road.
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The mountains all around seemed very big,
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compared to the mountains
I'd seen in the Alps.
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We eventually reached a spot,
on the approach to Siula Grande.
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You couldn't really take the
donkeys any further than this point.
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I guess it would be 7-8 km from
the bottom of the mountains.
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We knew Siula Grande was at
the back, but we didn't see it.
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We'd met this lad called Richard Hawking
in Lima. He'd been travelling on his own.
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And I think we said, "Why don't
you just join us on our trip?"
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I think he said that he didn't
know anything about mountaineering.
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I didn't really know
what pot of brew I was in.
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or quite, what I was
letting myself in for.
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We wanted Richard because
when we were on the mountain,
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if he were at base camp he
could look after our kit.
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I got to know Simon quite well.
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I don't know whether it was
because of his personality,
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or whether it was because he
was more forgiving towards me,
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being a non-climber
in that environment.
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But I found it very
hard to get to know Joe.
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I was much more ambitious
about doing it than Simon was.
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Siula Grande meant a lot.
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We knew, a number of
expeditions had failed on it.
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If no one had tried, it
wouldn't be quite the same.
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It was the the fact that people had
tried and failed, so we knew it was hard.
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And my feeling was, "Well, we'll
just do it. We're better than them."
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00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:40,600
Since the 1970s people
have been trying to climb
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mountains in the great ranges
in what's called "Alpine style".
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And essentially, Alpine style
means you pack a rucksack
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full of all your clothing, your
food and your climbing equipment,
49
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and you start off from a base camp
and you try and climb the mountain
50
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you're gonna climb in a single push.
51
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You don't fix the line of
ropes uphill beforehand,
52
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you don't have a set of camps
that you stock and come down from.
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That's the purest style and that's the style
that Joe and I had climbed Siula Grande.
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It's a very committing way of climbing,
because you have no line of retreat.
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If something goes wrong,
it can be very very serious.
56
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There's no rescue, there's no helicopter
rescue and there's no other people.
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There's no margin for error.
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If you get badly hurt,
you'I probably die.
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I hadn't seen it from this
angle, and it looked steep.
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I sort of thought, you
know, "Christ, that's big".
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Looks harder than I
thought and than I expected.
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But I was excited.
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Starting doing it was brilliant.
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This is what we live for.
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I love the actual movement of climbing.
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When you're climbing well
it just feels brilliant.
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It's like a combination
between ballet and gymnastics.
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It's that mixture of power and grace.
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For me, mountains are the most
beautiful places in the world.
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When I go into these places I
feel an amazing sense of space,
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an amazing sense of
freedom, when I get away
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from all of the clutter
that we have in the world.
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I think we surprised ourselves as
we got up the icefield about 300m,
74
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and got up to a point where the
ice is running through rock bands,
75
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and you've got vertical cascades.
76
00:09:14,300 --> 00:09:18,300
We started intricately
climbing through these.
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00:09:31,700 --> 00:09:34,000
The fact, that you are
tied to your partner,
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means that you put an immense amount of
trust in someone else's skill and ability.
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But at some point, you may be thinking,
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"For god's sake, Simon, don't fall
here, for god's sake, don't fall here"
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00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:57,000
The rope can be something that rather
than save your life, could kill you.
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If your mate falls off then all
this gear rips out, you're dead,
83
00:10:00,300 --> 00:10:04,000
you're gonna go with him.
84
00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:08,200
If you're gonna do that sort of climbing
at some point you're gonna have to rely
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wholly on your partner.
86
00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:23,400
I think we were very pleased
at the end of that first day.
87
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We had done a lot of
climbing, good climbing.
88
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And we were very confident at
that point that we should make it.
89
00:10:34,700 --> 00:10:38,300
That altitude, you dehydrate enormously.
90
00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:41,500
You have to drink a lot
of fluid, 4-5 liters a day.
91
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:45,600
And the only way you can
get it, is by melting snow.
92
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Everything is so time-consuming.
93
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To make a single brew at that
altitude takes a very long time,
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You're perhaps looking at an hour
just to make a couple of cups.
95
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For that reason, we perhaps didn't
brew up as much as we should have done
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but we didn't have an awful lot
of spare gas with us, either.
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There's not a lot of risk
in our lives normally now.
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And to put an element of risk back
into it takes us out of the humdrum.
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In that sense, it makes
you feel more alive.
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I've never been that
high before, and it's
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very very strenuous
to climb ice like that.
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Not only is it technically difficult
and unstable and frightening,
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but your heart is going like
crazy because of the altitude.
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It would now go very cold indeed.
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And we were up
5800-6000m, it was windy.
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Then it started snowing, and it meant
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that the whole face was pooring
with powdersnow avalanches.
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The snow would actually stick
on the outside of your clothing.
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It would then freeze on top of you,
like you're wearing a suit of armor.
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The last section on the face
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was about 100m of the
most nightmarish climbing.
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Completely unstable powder snow.
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No anchors at any point.
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It was physically very, very
tiring, full-body climbing really.
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It took us the best part of 5 or
6 hours to climb about 65 meters.
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Carried on way after it got dark.
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I was getting extremely cold,
'cause I was sitting still
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while Simon was trying to climb.
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I was getting near hypothermic.
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You just knew that if you'd
just carried on, regardless,
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it was gonna go tits up.
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So we dug a snow cave.
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In the morning, in good weather,
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we actually saw what
we'd been trying to climb.
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It was this undeering nightmare of
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flutings of the finest powder
gouged out by snow falling down
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meringues, and mushrooms, and
cornices all over the place.
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We'd heard about these strange powder
snow conditions you get in the Andes,
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and we've never seen it before.
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I don't know the physics that explains why
powder snow can stay on such steep slopes.
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In the Alps it would just slide off
if the slope was about 40 degrees.
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It is some of the most precarious, unnerving
and dangerous climbing I've ever done.
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We were actually scared, that
we would get to an impass,
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where we couldn't climb any further up.
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Because we knew we wouldn't
be able to get back down,
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not what we've already climbed.
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We were climbing ourselves into a trap.
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And not only that, we could see this
150 meter drop that was waiting for us.
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And so it was with great
relief that by 14:00,
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we got onto the north
ridge and on the west face.
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And we vowed that we didn't want to
go near any of the flutings again.
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We were pretty tired, by the
time we got onto the ridge,
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I was knackered. And
I remember thinking,
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"Oh sod it, we've done the face,"
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"now I can't really be bothered
to go all the way up there"
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And then we thought, "Hang
on, we've come all this way,"
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"we might as well stand on the top"
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I don't particularly like summits,
because 80% of accidents happen on descent.
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We decided before we even climbed the
face that we were going to come down
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the north ridge of the
mountain, down to a cul
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between the mountain Siula Grande
and another mountain called Yerupaja.
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and then we'd be able to abseil
down the smaller section of the face.
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Already the clouds were coming
in from the east. Big clouds.
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We expected this ridge to
be quite straightforward,
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quite an easy way to descend.
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We were hoping, we would
be able to sort of walk.
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And it turned out to be very difficult.
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It was horrendous.
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Vertical on the west side, with the
cornices overhanging the west side,
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and on the east side steep
fleetings running down 100m below us.
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It was a shock. And
it was quite dangerous.
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It all got a bit out of
control. That stage of things.
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Half an hour to an hour after
leaving the summit, we were lost.
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We were in the wild now,
we couldn't see anything.
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Then we got like a little break
in the clouds and I saw the ridge,
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so I started climbing back up to it.
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I didn't know it was the side
of the ridge I was on, but
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it was actually an enormous
cornice, an overhang of snow and ice,
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and I was walking up over the top of it.
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I was left hanging, looking
down, as all this snow and ice
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then fell away from me, down the
west side of the Siula Grande.
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I got back up on the ridge
and shouted then to Joe
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that I'd found the
ridge, like that, I said,
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"I found the ridge, Joe!"
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We'd hoped to go down that day,
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but by the time it got dark,
we were still very high.
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Still at 6000m.
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And that night, as we made
a brew, the gas ran out.
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00:21:55,500 --> 00:21:57,200
It was pretty obvious
the following morning
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that we descended the
worst part of the ridge.
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And I was pretty confident that we'd
get back down to the base camp that day.
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I thought at that stage it was pretty
much in the bag I suppose, the whole climb.
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I was ahead of Simon,
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and suddenly there was this
vertical wall, bisecting the ridge.
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I then get on my hands and knees, and
hammer both my axes into the ice at the top
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and then lower myself off the ice cliff.
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When you hammer the axe in, you listen
to the sound it makes. And you look at it.
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Now I was hanging with both axes,
right. I took the hammer out, and
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what I wanted to do is now
place it in the vertical wall.
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And I swung, and the pick
went in, and it just made a...
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00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,600
just a strange sound.
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And I thought, "Well, I'll take
it out, make a good placement."
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So I just wanted to put bona... dead
solid axe placements in. All the way down.
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And I was about to
swing at the ice again
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The pain is... came
flooding down my thigh
196
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and my knee was very, very very painful
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The impact drove my lower leg
straight through my knee joint.
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As the bone went into my tibia it
split the tibial plateau straight off
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and carried on up.
200
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Quite wild, the pain now. I
couldn't cope with it at first.
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I just breathed on and it started to
go and I can remember looking across
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to the west and seeing that we
were level with the summit of Rasac,
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so I had a height gauge, where we were.
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and I just thought, "fuck,
I can't have broken my leg",
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"If I have broken my leg I'm dead."
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And then the rope went slack.
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I knew that meant that
Simon was coming towards me.
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I couldn't feel any bone under anything.
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I brought my hand down,
there's no blood on it,
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and the pain had gone down a little bit.
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And I thought, maybe I
was being a bit whacked,
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I'd just torn a ligament or something.
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I tried to stand on it
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I felt all the bone go, all grating and
everything and I knew it was broken then.
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00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,100
The look that he gave
to me sticks in my mind
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A look of shock and desperation
and a sort of terror.
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Lots of things in a single look.
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And he said, "Are you ok?"
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I think it did occur to me to say,
"Yeah, I'm fine". That was stupid.
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I think I said, "No,
I've broken my leg".
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Immediately, just doom. I
thought "god, we're stuffed".
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We're gonna be doing well if
either of us gets out of this now.
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It did come into my mind, just thinking,
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00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,000
"If he slips off the side of the
mountain now, then I can just clear off,"
225
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:35,600
"and leave him and get myself down and
I don't have to have all the hassle,"
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00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,800
"of trying to deal with him and
with the situation we're in".
227
00:26:45,100 --> 00:26:48,100
He gave me these painkillers which
were effectively headache tablets.
228
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:52,200
And he didn't really
talk about anything.
229
00:26:53,500 --> 00:26:57,300
It was almost as if he...
He knew, what this meant.
230
00:26:57,500 --> 00:27:01,500
He knew, and I knew, that he
was going to have to leave me.
231
00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:06,900
He could have said something like
"I'm just going to get some help"
232
00:27:07,100 --> 00:27:10,900
and I'd gone "right, yeah"
233
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,100
'Cause I knew there wasn't any help.
234
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,700
That'd been an easy
way for him to say it.
235
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,000
I didn't think we really seriously
thought that there was any choice
236
00:27:30,700 --> 00:27:34,700
I couldn't put my finger on it, why
I thought something had happened.
237
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,600
And I started to think "Is one of
them dead, or are both of them dead?"
238
00:27:42,300 --> 00:27:45,700
Even "If one of them is dead", not
"which one do I want to be dead", but
239
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,800
"if one comes back,
who do I want it to be?"
240
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:53,200
It's kind of, quite cold
to say it, but I guess
241
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:57,200
I would rather have it
would have been Simon.
242
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,400
I thought, "oh, he's not leaving"
243
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,600
I calmed down a bit and
managed to focus myself again
244
00:28:12,900 --> 00:28:16,900
to think how I was going to
get him down the mountain.
245
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:24,300
We discussed, between us, what
we were going to have to do.
246
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,200
We thought, well, we got
2 ropes that are 50m long.
247
00:28:27,300 --> 00:28:31,300
And if we tie them together we have a
100m rope with a knot in the middle of it.
248
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,000
So I tied to one end and
Simon tied to the other,
249
00:28:35,100 --> 00:28:39,100
in theory he could lower me down 100m.
250
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,100
To really get anchors to
lower him from that do matter,
251
00:28:45,300 --> 00:28:49,300
what I did was cut a bucket in the
snow, sit in there and brace myself.
252
00:28:49,700 --> 00:28:53,700
And I sort of lay down between his legs.
253
00:28:55,300 --> 00:28:59,300
And Simon started lowering then.
254
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:07,000
I'd lower him one rope length, 50m,
255
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:09,900
and then the knot would come
up between the two ropes.
256
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,100
Now the knot would not go
through the belay plates.
257
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,000
So he would stop me.
258
00:29:15,100 --> 00:29:16,900
I would stand on my
left leg, my good leg,
259
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,900
so that I could get
the weight off the rope.
260
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,000
I gave him enough slack to
be able to unclip the rope
261
00:29:23,100 --> 00:29:27,100
thread the rope back through the lowering
device, with the knot on the other side
262
00:29:27,900 --> 00:29:31,900
clip it back to himself and
lower me the remaining 50m.
263
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,600
He'd make himself reasonably secure,
and I down climbed to join him.
264
00:29:44,300 --> 00:29:48,300
And we'd repeat the process again.
265
00:29:50,700 --> 00:29:52,600
Simon was trying to lower me fast,
266
00:29:52,700 --> 00:29:56,700
and it meant that my foot kept jabbing
in and jabbing in and bending the knee.
267
00:29:58,700 --> 00:30:01,000
Excruciatingly painful.
268
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,500
I can remember feeling angry with
him because he was hurting me,
269
00:30:04,700 --> 00:30:06,000
and I was thinking "do it slow",
270
00:30:06,100 --> 00:30:10,100
and I also knew that he had to do
it this fast. He hadn't got a choice.
271
00:30:11,900 --> 00:30:15,900
And he was very grim faced,
I remember looking at him,
272
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,600
wondering if he was pissed
off with the whole thing.
273
00:30:22,500 --> 00:30:26,500
I couldn't take too much notice
unfortunately of these cries of pain,
274
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,200
because we got to go down.
275
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,600
We would dig these holes from
the sitting in the powder snow,
276
00:30:39,700 --> 00:30:43,700
and they would last about the length
of the time it took to lower me.
277
00:30:43,900 --> 00:30:46,400
And in fact they were
crumbling around him.
278
00:30:46,500 --> 00:30:50,400
And he was lowering me on a 9mm,
well 8.8mm rope. That's that thick.
279
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,500
But hands sort of frozen.
280
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:55,200
What he did was quite extraordinary,
281
00:30:55,300 --> 00:30:59,300
and I've never heard of any single
handed mountain rescue like that.
282
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,600
We were now lowering in a full storm. I
don't know what the wind chill factor was,
283
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,900
but it would be like -80
or something like that.
284
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,000
I lost a liter of blood in my leg,
I was in shock and severly dehydrated
285
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,300
It was a point where we should have
dug a snow cave and taken shelter,
286
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,400
got in our sleeping bags and
made a hot brew, and rehydrate.
287
00:31:36,700 --> 00:31:39,000
We couldn't, 'cause we'd run out of gas.
288
00:31:39,100 --> 00:31:42,900
And we just lost control at this point
because we couldn't dig a snow cave,
289
00:31:43,100 --> 00:31:47,100
and risk getting trapped by
a storm that didn't break.
290
00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:47,700
It was all starting to look up in many ways
at that point, as we were virtually down.
291
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,100
And I started to slowly think,
292
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,200
"maybe after this one we will have
one more, and we'll be on the glacier".
293
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,300
And suddenly all got hard
on my elbows, and icy,
294
00:33:05,500 --> 00:33:09,300
and it got steeper, going down a
slope and suddenly it's steeper,
295
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:13,400
and I just was full of alarm.
296
00:33:16,300 --> 00:33:20,300
I was screaming at Simon to stop as loud
as I could, and he just couldn't hear me.
297
00:33:33,900 --> 00:33:37,700
I did notice that more
weight came onto the rope,
298
00:33:37,900 --> 00:33:40,900
but didn't really think a lot
about this. And I just thought,
299
00:33:41,100 --> 00:33:44,500
"Well, he's going over
some steeper ground"
300
00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:48,700
When I looked down, and I glimpsed
'cause there was a big drop underneath me,
301
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:54,800
I was horrified to
discover what I'd gone over.
302
00:33:55,300 --> 00:33:59,300
And I could clearly see that there was
a large crevice directly under the cliff,
303
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,600
about 25m below me.
304
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,800
I was trying to get my axes to see if I
could reach this wall that was out there,
305
00:34:08,900 --> 00:34:12,900
I think, almost as I start and try to
do that, I started being lowered again.
306
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:16,700
And I was thinking, "Christ,
don't do it, don't do it",
307
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,800
'cause I knew, that there wasn't
enough rope to get me to the bottom.
308
00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:23,300
And if I couldn't get
my weight off the rope,
309
00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:25,300
he couldn't disconnect the
rope, to get on the other side.
310
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,700
And I knew all this, and I was
screaming again, not to lower me.
311
00:34:28,900 --> 00:34:32,900
I carried on lowering him, until I
reached the knot, then shook the rope.
312
00:34:34,100 --> 00:34:38,100
My signal to him, to take
the weight off the rope.
313
00:34:39,900 --> 00:34:43,100
And nothing happened.
314
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:47,200
And nothing continued to happen.
315
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,800
I knew, that the only way out of
this is if I could climb up the rope.
316
00:35:33,100 --> 00:35:37,100
I had two prusik loops. Prusik
loops are thin cords of rope.
317
00:35:39,100 --> 00:35:43,100
And if you use a special twisting knot
on the rope, you can slide it up the rope,
318
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:46,200
and pull on it, and
the knot grips the rope.
319
00:35:46,300 --> 00:35:49,400
Clip a snapping to it and then a
sling to it, and you can stand up.
320
00:35:49,500 --> 00:35:53,300
And if you got another one, tied
above it, you slide that one up,
321
00:35:53,500 --> 00:35:57,500
Standing this loop is now higher.
322
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:10,400
I was trying to hold myself
upright, to keep the rope in place.
323
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,400
And then trying to put this knot
through itself, and through itself,
324
00:36:13,500 --> 00:36:17,500
and this fiddly bloody rope... it is just
hard to describe how I couldn't do it.
325
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,400
Because my fingers, I just
couldn't feel the fingers at all.
326
00:36:20,500 --> 00:36:24,100
And I'd be looking and trying to
push the thing in, and using my teeth,
327
00:36:24,300 --> 00:36:28,300
and getting it round,
and getting it round.
328
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,400
My hands were cold, my feet
were... I was very very cold.
329
00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:44,100
It was a desperate position, made worse
by the fact that that I had no idea
330
00:36:44,300 --> 00:36:48,300
what Joe was doing, or
what position he was in.
331
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,800
I just couldn't figure out why it was taking
him so long to get his weight off the rope,
332
00:36:55,100 --> 00:36:59,100
there was no sensible
explanation for it.
333
00:37:03,900 --> 00:37:07,900
I got one on, and I clipped it to my
chest, because that would keep me upright.
334
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:13,200
And I tried to put the other one on,
and I had real trouble with my hands.
335
00:37:21,900 --> 00:37:25,900
And I dropped the bloody
thing, and I watched it fall.
336
00:37:27,100 --> 00:37:31,100
And I knew that I was stuffed then.
337
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,900
I just thought, "Well,
I can't climb the rope",
338
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:36,600
this idea that you can climb a
rope hand over hand, you can't,
339
00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:40,700
especially when your hands are
frozen. You just can't do it.
340
00:37:50,300 --> 00:37:54,300
Nothing I can do, and I
felt completely helpless.
341
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,800
And really angry.
342
00:38:08,300 --> 00:38:12,100
There was nothing I could do. I
couldn't get the weight off the rope,
343
00:38:12,300 --> 00:38:16,300
I was just there, and this went
on for maybe an hour and a half,
344
00:38:16,900 --> 00:38:20,300
during which time my position
became more and more desperate.
345
00:38:20,500 --> 00:38:24,500
I was struggling to maintain the,
sort of shivery seat that I sat in,
346
00:38:26,700 --> 00:38:30,700
and the snow was gradually
sliding away from under me.
347
00:38:33,500 --> 00:38:37,500
So my position was getting desperate.
348
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:49,400
I think psychologically I was beaten.
349
00:38:49,900 --> 00:38:51,700
'Cause there was nothing I could do,
350
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,800
so I just hung on the
rope and waited to die.
351
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,200
And I think I would have died pretty soon,
actually. The wind chill was very low.
352
00:39:15,300 --> 00:39:19,300
I was literally going down the
mountain in little, jerky stages.
353
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:24,200
'Cause this soft, sugary snow
collapsed away underneath me.
354
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,400
I was expecting him to come off,
and couldn't do anything about it.
355
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,500
He was gonna fall about 100m.
356
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:38,600
50m away from me, he was gonna
fall double that, he was gonna die.
357
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,800
And he really didn't know, whether I was
meters off the ground, or centimeters,
358
00:39:44,900 --> 00:39:48,900
he just didn't know. But he knew, I
think, pretty sadly, that he was gonna die.
359
00:39:54,500 --> 00:39:58,500
Then I remembered that I've got a
pen knife in the top of my rucksack.
360
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,600
I took the decision pretty quickly.
361
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,000
To me, it just seemed like the right
thing to do under the circumstances.
362
00:40:14,900 --> 00:40:18,900
Because there was no way that
I could maintain where I was,
363
00:40:19,100 --> 00:40:23,100
sooner or later, I was going
to be pulled from the mountain.
364
00:40:26,300 --> 00:40:29,700
I took the rucksack off, and then
unzipped the top pocket with one hand,
365
00:40:29,900 --> 00:40:33,900
and got the pen knife out.
366
00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:53,900
Boof!
367
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:29,900
It was an awful night.
368
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,900
My mind was plagued with the
thoughts of what had happened to Joe.
369
00:41:34,100 --> 00:41:38,100
It took a long time to warm myself
up. And I didn't properly, I guess.
370
00:41:39,500 --> 00:41:43,500
Had a very, very cold night.
371
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,700
The overriding memory is just feeling
desperately, desperately thirsty.
372
00:41:50,900 --> 00:41:54,900
To the point where I felt I could
smell the water in the snow around me.
373
00:41:56,700 --> 00:41:59,100
I felt that very strongly.
374
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:03,200
It was quite a strange thing.
375
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:57,200
I didn't know what had happened.
376
00:42:57,300 --> 00:43:00,300
What I landed on wasn't flat,
it was sloped on each side.
377
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:04,400
And I was sliding, in the dark.
378
00:43:08,900 --> 00:43:12,800
I think I must have
fallen about 50m in total.
379
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,000
I was pretty surprised to be alive.
380
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,000
The head torch beam just
went down, and down, and down,
381
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:38,200
and the darkness just ate it, just gone.
382
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,200
I felt very unnerved,
very very vulnerable.
383
00:43:42,300 --> 00:43:46,300
If I had landed less than
1m further to the right,
384
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:51,000
I would have just gone
down this huge hole.
385
00:43:52,700 --> 00:43:56,700
I got this ice screw in, pretty quickly.
386
00:44:04,500 --> 00:44:07,900
And then looked around, and thinking,
387
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,000
"Jezus, it's gonna be nearly
impossible to get out of"
388
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:25,000
My rope was going all the way up,
25m, up to this small entry hall.
389
00:44:25,300 --> 00:44:29,300
And I thought, Simon
is on the end of that.
390
00:44:31,500 --> 00:44:35,500
But I felt sure he was dead.
And it didn't mean anything.
391
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:39,300
I just thought, "If I pull on this
rope, it will come tight on his body".
392
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:43,400
Because he would have flown off the
cliff, on to the downside of the crevice,
393
00:44:43,900 --> 00:44:46,700
and then, Iying dead
there, like a counterweight,
394
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,700
the rope would have come back up
and then dropped into the crevice.
395
00:44:50,900 --> 00:44:54,900
So I thought, if I pull on this
rope it will come tight on his body".
396
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,200
And it just kept coming,
and coming, and coming,
397
00:45:28,900 --> 00:45:32,900
As soon as I saw it,
I knew it had been cut.
398
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,200
I thought, "you're gonna die in here".
399
00:45:46,900 --> 00:45:50,900
I had a pleased feeling, that
it meant that Simon was alive.
400
00:45:54,700 --> 00:45:58,700
Simon!
401
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:13,000
Looking where I was
was an awful prospect.
402
00:46:13,300 --> 00:46:17,300
You don't die of a broken leg.
403
00:46:27,300 --> 00:46:31,300
I think I did turn my head
torch off to save the batteries.
404
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:49,800
It was dark, and it began to get to me.
405
00:46:58,900 --> 00:47:02,000
There is something about crevices,
406
00:47:02,100 --> 00:47:06,100
they have a dread feel, not
the place for the living.
407
00:47:14,300 --> 00:47:18,300
I could hear the ice cracking,
and wind noises in the ice.
408
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:27,200
I turned the light on again,
'cause I didn't like it in the dark.
409
00:47:40,500 --> 00:47:44,500
I felt very, very alone.
410
00:47:46,100 --> 00:47:50,100
And I was very scared.
411
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:54,600
I was 25, I was fit,
I was super ambitious.
412
00:47:58,300 --> 00:48:02,300
And this was the first trip I've
been on. I wanted to climb the world,
413
00:48:03,100 --> 00:48:07,100
and it just didn't seem... this
hadn't been part of our game plan.
414
00:48:14,300 --> 00:48:16,300
It must have been quite late.
415
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,400
I think that I pretty much was
thinking that I wasn't gonna get out.
416
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:28,400
Fuck. Stupid, stupid...
417
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,000
As a climber you should always be in
control, you have to be in control.
418
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:14,600
So doing that, you could be seen
as half a failure. You lost it.
419
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,400
This is childish. I
just cried and cried.
420
00:49:41,500 --> 00:49:45,500
I thought,
421
00:49:47,100 --> 00:49:51,100
I'd be tougher than that.
422
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:24,200
It was getting light, as it was 5 or 6.
423
00:50:25,300 --> 00:50:29,300
And I started screaming
Simon's name again.
424
00:50:34,500 --> 00:50:38,500
I got myself up, got dressed inside the
snow home and packed everything away,
425
00:50:45,100 --> 00:50:46,800
Just a horrible feeling of dread.
426
00:50:46,900 --> 00:50:50,900
By this stage, I strongly felt that
Joe had been killed the previous day.
427
00:50:51,700 --> 00:50:55,700
And that now I was going to
die, as some form of retribution.
428
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:04,000
But rather than just sit here,
feeling sorry for myself or whatever,
429
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:09,000
"I'll get on with it and
I'll die on the way down".
430
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,500
Very quickly, the ground
dropped away steeply.
431
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:19,600
So I skirted around this
area of steeper ground.
432
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:30,000
As I abseiled down, I could
see this overhanging ice cliff,
433
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:32,400
which was what I had lowered him over,
434
00:51:32,700 --> 00:51:35,500
so I knew that he'd had
actually been hanging in space,
435
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:39,600
which is the reason he couldn't
get his weight off the rope.
436
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,100
And as I went down lower,
I could see to my horror,
437
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:48,200
that the base of this ice cliff
was an absolutely enormous crevice,
438
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,400
that's 12m wide and just bottomless
from where I was looking at it.
439
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:04,800
SIMON!
440
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:06,900
He would have been up with
first light, I thought.
441
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,300
'Cause I was desperately,
desperately thirsty.
442
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:13,400
And he would have been. And he would
have wanted to get down, and get water.
443
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:17,000
And he would have wanted to find me.
444
00:52:17,100 --> 00:52:20,600
Now I did stop and pause, and I
shouted across into the crevice,
445
00:52:20,700 --> 00:52:24,700
and I yelled and yelled, "Joe, Joe".
446
00:52:25,100 --> 00:52:29,100
And I suppose again, with
the benefit of hindsight,
447
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,400
after I got off the rope, I
should have gone and looked,
448
00:52:33,500 --> 00:52:36,800
into the crevice, to see where he was.
449
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:41,000
But to be quite honest, the thought
didn't occur to me at that time.
450
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,600
I was just convinced he was dead.
451
00:52:54,300 --> 00:52:58,300
Absolutely convinced, by 10, totally
convinced, that I was on my own.
452
00:53:00,700 --> 00:53:04,700
That no one was coming to get me.
453
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:12,600
I was brought up as a devout Catholic.
454
00:53:12,700 --> 00:53:15,500
I had long since
stopped believing in God.
455
00:53:15,700 --> 00:53:19,700
I always wondered, if things really hit
the fan, whether I would, under pressure,
456
00:53:20,900 --> 00:53:24,900
turn around and say a few Hail
Mary's, and say "get me out of here".
457
00:53:27,500 --> 00:53:31,000
It never once occurred to me.
458
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:33,600
It meant that I really don't believe.
459
00:53:33,700 --> 00:53:37,700
And I really do think that when you die,
you die. That's it, there's no afterlife.
460
00:53:38,500 --> 00:53:42,500
There's nothing.
461
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,600
And I was thinking, "Could
I climb out of here?"
462
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:40,200
25 meter of overhanging ice. No way,
I couldn't do it with a good leg.
463
00:54:44,300 --> 00:54:48,300
I knew that they were both dead. But I
couldn't just clear off and leave the camp.
464
00:54:50,900 --> 00:54:53,900
For one thing, I didn't
know anything about them,
465
00:54:54,100 --> 00:54:56,800
except for their first
names, Joe and Simon.
466
00:54:56,900 --> 00:55:00,900
I didn't know their family names,
I really knew nothing about them.
467
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,700
And I had this bizarre idea, that
if they'd fallen off the mountain,
468
00:55:04,900 --> 00:55:08,200
they would have just
landed at the bottom of it.
469
00:55:08,300 --> 00:55:12,300
And I thought, perhaps from the bottom
of the glacier, I'd be able to see them.
470
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:18,200
And set off with the aim
of going as far as I could.
471
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:24,200
I started to go down
the glacier on my own.
472
00:55:24,300 --> 00:55:28,300
In this stage I was still certain
that I was gonna die myself.
473
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,100
Crossing a glacier is very
very dangerous on your own,
474
00:55:33,300 --> 00:55:37,300
because there are crevices in
the ice, and the snow covers them.
475
00:55:38,900 --> 00:55:42,300
Fortunately I managed to find
a faint outline of our tracks,
476
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,400
from when we walked in.
477
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:49,600
It was only when I got off the glacier,
I realized that I was going to get down,
478
00:55:51,900 --> 00:55:54,100
I was going to get out of it,
479
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:58,200
I was gonna live.
480
00:56:08,900 --> 00:56:12,900
I can't really describe how
scary the night had been.
481
00:56:18,300 --> 00:56:22,300
I thought, it would
be like that, for days.
482
00:56:25,100 --> 00:56:28,300
You gotta make decisions, you
gotta keep making decisions,
483
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:32,400
even if they're wrong decisions.
484
00:56:33,500 --> 00:56:37,500
If you don't make
decisions you're stuffed.
485
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:58,400
Short of dying on the
ledge, my only chance was to
486
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,600
lower myself deeper into the crevice.
487
00:57:03,700 --> 00:57:06,900
I didn't what I would find down there.
488
00:57:07,100 --> 00:57:11,100
I was just hoping there might be some
way out of the labyrinth of ice and snow.
489
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:20,800
And I really struggled to make that
decision, I was so scared of going deeper.
490
00:57:32,300 --> 00:57:35,200
The other option was
to just to sit there,
491
00:57:35,300 --> 00:57:37,500
blindly hoping that
somehow it might get better,
492
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:41,600
and I just knew it wasn't
going to get better.
493
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,700
I didn't want to look down,
494
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:15,800
I was horrified at the thought
that it was just empty down there.
495
00:58:33,900 --> 00:58:36,800
I didn't put a knot
near the end of the rope,
496
00:58:36,900 --> 00:58:40,600
and if there was nothing down there
I wouldn't be able to hold the rope,
497
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:44,800
and then I would fall,
and it would be quick.
498
00:59:06,100 --> 00:59:10,100
And I thought "Jesus, this is big!"
499
00:59:20,300 --> 00:59:24,300
By this stage I was
completely physically done in,
500
00:59:25,400 --> 00:59:29,400
staggering back down these
meringues, still desperately thirsty.
501
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:33,200
There werre all these sort of
thoughts swirling around in my mind,
502
00:59:33,300 --> 00:59:37,300
guilt, worry, thinking about how on earth
am I going to explain this to Joe's parents,
503
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:43,600
my friends, to Richard.
504
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:48,800
The thought did cross my mind that
maybe I could think up a decent story,
505
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:53,000
that would make me look better.
506
00:59:53,500 --> 00:59:57,500
And I did quite think about
that, for quite a while.
507
01:00:04,100 --> 01:00:08,100
Really the only image that sticks
in my mind from all the time in Peru,
508
01:00:09,200 --> 01:00:12,600
is seeing this figure.
509
01:00:12,900 --> 01:00:16,900
And it was fairly close
before I could see who it was.
510
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:24,100
But he looked absolutely horrendous.
511
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:28,200
You wouldn't recognize him.
512
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:34,000
And I said, "Where is Joe?"
513
01:00:34,100 --> 01:00:36,700
And he just said, "Joe is dead".
514
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:40,800
I told him the whole story,
as we walked back to the camp,
515
01:00:41,100 --> 01:00:45,100
I told him the whole
story of what had happened.
516
01:00:45,500 --> 01:00:49,500
He wasn't in the slightest bit
judgemental about me or what I'd done,
517
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:58,000
he took it very well.
518
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,600
I must have lowered myself about 25m from
where the ice screw was at the bridge.
519
01:01:25,100 --> 01:01:28,700
I was now in what seemed to
be the base of the crevice,
520
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:31,900
that was shaped like a big hourglass.
521
01:01:32,100 --> 01:01:35,000
To the ceiling, was probably about 50m.
522
01:01:35,100 --> 01:01:39,100
I think it's as big as the
St. Paul's dome in scale.
523
01:01:41,900 --> 01:01:45,900
I remember looking down, and
there was just solid snow.
524
01:01:46,300 --> 01:01:50,300
And I thought, "this is
the bottom of the crevice!"
525
01:01:55,700 --> 01:01:59,700
About 15m away from me,
there was a slope leading up.
526
01:02:01,300 --> 01:02:05,300
Right at the top, there was the
sun coming through this hole.
527
01:02:06,900 --> 01:02:10,900
And it was shining, just this
big beam of sunlight coming in.
528
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:18,600
This was the way out
I'd been looking for!
529
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:24,400
I remember thinking, "Whoo, I can climb that
slope, I bloody well will climb that slope!"
530
01:02:27,300 --> 01:02:31,300
I crawled across this flat floor, and
I started crawling across on my stomach.
531
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:47,400
Then I heard things
breaking away underneath me.
532
01:02:48,700 --> 01:02:52,700
I realized that this wasn't a solid floor,
it seemed to be hollow underneath it.
533
01:02:56,800 --> 01:03:00,800
I was absolutely horrified.
534
01:03:02,800 --> 01:03:06,800
It was suddenly, as if
I was on an egg shell.
535
01:03:08,500 --> 01:03:12,500
If I break through, I'll never be
able to get across to this slope,
536
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:17,000
and that was my way out.
537
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:37,000
Alright, I'm on it, this is solid now.
538
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:46,600
I started to get my axe in and hop up.
539
01:03:50,700 --> 01:03:54,700
That is extremely painful, as your legs
hopped up, they both came down together.
540
01:03:58,500 --> 01:04:02,500
I was trying to get into a better
position, so that my left foot ain't first.
541
01:04:03,900 --> 01:04:07,900
But I inevitably went
onto my broken leg.
542
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:12,100
I feel the displacement
go, the bone move,
543
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:16,000
so every hop I nearly faint.
544
01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:20,200
It was just excruciatingly painful.
545
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:18,000
And it was a bright sunny day.
546
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:22,200
Wow, the whole world has come back.
547
01:05:24,900 --> 01:05:28,900
I was Iying on the snow, just laughing.
548
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:41,600
That was the relief of
getting out that place.
549
01:06:16,400 --> 01:06:19,400
And I then looked at the
glacier and I thought,
550
01:06:19,500 --> 01:06:21,600
"Well, you haven't even started, mate".
551
01:06:21,700 --> 01:06:25,700
It's kilometers and kilometers
and on really bad ground.
552
01:06:45,100 --> 01:06:49,100
But I think I was contemplating just
sitting there, because I was coming at this,
553
01:06:49,900 --> 01:06:53,900
having done the most
serious climb in my life.
554
01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:57,800
You come down safe from a climb like
that, you'd be exhausted for days.
555
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:01,500
You'd just eat and drink and sleep.
556
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:05,600
I'd just come out of that, I'd badly
broken a leg, I was in great pain,
557
01:07:07,500 --> 01:07:11,500
highly dehydrated, I had no food, and
I was looking at trying to do that.
558
01:07:12,100 --> 01:07:16,100
Just no way, just no way
you're physically gonna do that.
559
01:07:17,100 --> 01:07:21,100
And then it occurred to me that
I should set definite targets.
560
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:26,700
I started to look at things and think,
561
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:30,200
"right, if I can get to that
crevice over there in 20 minutes",
562
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:33,700
"that's what I'm gonna do".
563
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:37,800
If I got there in 18 minutes I
was hysterically happy about it,
564
01:07:38,300 --> 01:07:42,300
and if I'd gotten 22 or 24 minutes, I
was upset almost to the point of tears,
565
01:07:42,900 --> 01:07:46,900
and it became obsessive.
566
01:07:48,500 --> 01:07:52,500
I don't know why I did it, I think I knew
the big picture of what had happened to me,
567
01:07:53,500 --> 01:07:57,500
and what I had to do was so
big I couldn't deal with it.
568
01:08:41,700 --> 01:08:45,100
I stayed on Simon's tracks, and
they were weaving around over humps,
569
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:47,500
and past obvious crevices and stuff.
570
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:51,100
I thought, "Well, unless I come to a
hole with his body in the bottom of it,"
571
01:08:51,300 --> 01:08:55,300
"these tracks will lead me
through the minefield of crevices".
572
01:09:04,900 --> 01:09:08,900
All these huge mountains
around you, big mountain walls.
573
01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:13,600
And they do make you
feel small and vulnerable.
574
01:09:13,700 --> 01:09:17,700
And you wonder whether there's
some malign presence out to get you.
575
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:34,500
It was like somebody
was just teasing an ant,
576
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:36,200
and putting something
in its way all the time,
577
01:09:36,300 --> 01:09:40,300
and eventually gonna stand on it.
578
01:10:41,200 --> 01:10:44,800
I could see Simon's
tracks were filling in.
579
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:49,000
They were my lifeline off the glacier.
580
01:10:49,700 --> 01:10:53,700
And I started to get very desperate.
581
01:11:08,600 --> 01:11:12,300
I carried on crawling in the dark, a stupid
thing to do on the slope of the glacier.
582
01:11:12,400 --> 01:11:16,400
But I was frightened and I was
just trying to see Simon's tracks.
583
01:11:39,900 --> 01:11:43,900
In the morning, it was a bright,
sunny day, all the tracks had gone.
584
01:11:54,100 --> 01:11:56,500
I started quite early,
585
01:11:56,600 --> 01:12:00,600
and every now and then I had to stand
up on one leg to try see the way,
586
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:04,800
and then sit down again, and shuffle on.
587
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:38,200
There was one very horrendous
crevice bit right near the edge,
588
01:12:38,300 --> 01:12:42,300
and I got into a maze of them.
589
01:13:08,100 --> 01:13:12,100
I suddenly came to a point where I could
see ice running down, then I could see rocks.
590
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:28,800
It was probably me, who brought
up the subject of leaving.
591
01:13:29,600 --> 01:13:31,600
Partly 'cause I was worried about Simon.
592
01:13:31,700 --> 01:13:35,700
I just felt it was best to get as far away
as possible from where it had happened.
593
01:13:39,800 --> 01:13:42,300
I didn't want to leave immediately,
594
01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:46,400
I felt I needed a day or two
just to collect my thoughts,
595
01:13:48,200 --> 01:13:52,200
and to regain some strength.
596
01:13:57,500 --> 01:14:01,500
Spend a long time washing myself.
597
01:14:06,100 --> 01:14:10,100
That felt good, to wash my hair and
to wash my face, to have a shave, to...
598
01:14:13,600 --> 01:14:16,900
get the...
599
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:21,000
get the remnants, the
mountain out of my system.
600
01:14:54,100 --> 01:14:57,500
I was desperately thirsty, because it
doesn't matter how much snow you eat,
601
01:14:57,700 --> 01:15:01,700
you just can't get enough
water into your system.
602
01:15:02,100 --> 01:15:06,100
And I saw the rocks, I knew how big these
boulders would be and how far it was,
603
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:09,400
and that was the first time
that I really thought about,
604
01:15:09,600 --> 01:15:13,600
whether I could get the distance.
605
01:15:18,200 --> 01:15:22,200
I got rid of all my gear.
606
01:15:36,000 --> 01:15:39,800
I knew that I couldn't crawl over these
rocks, they were just too big and jumbled,
607
01:15:39,900 --> 01:15:43,900
and that the only way to
do it was to try and hop.
608
01:15:45,100 --> 01:15:49,100
I knew I was gonna fall a lot.
609
01:16:45,300 --> 01:16:47,300
I'd fallen virtually every hop,
610
01:16:47,400 --> 01:16:50,700
and it's just like having your leg
broken about every time, and I remember
611
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:54,700
looking back where I'd come
from, it was just over 20m,
612
01:16:54,900 --> 01:16:58,900
and it had taken me ages. And
the pain, just of the 20+m...
613
01:17:11,900 --> 01:17:15,000
I can be insanely stubborn.
614
01:17:15,100 --> 01:17:19,000
And I do like to have things my way.
615
01:17:19,200 --> 01:17:23,200
And things were seriously not
going my way over these days.
616
01:17:29,800 --> 01:17:33,800
I'd look at a rock and then I'd go,
"Right, I get there in 20 minutes".
617
01:17:35,100 --> 01:17:39,100
Once I decided I was going to
get that distance in 20 minutes,
618
01:17:39,300 --> 01:17:43,300
I bloody well was gonna do it.
619
01:17:44,700 --> 01:17:47,700
And it would help me, because I'd
get halfway through the distance,
620
01:17:47,800 --> 01:17:49,100
and I'd be in such pain,
621
01:17:49,200 --> 01:17:52,600
I just couldn't bear the thought
of getting up and falling on again,
622
01:17:52,700 --> 01:17:56,700
but I'd look at the target and
think "I've got to get there".
623
01:18:07,400 --> 01:18:09,900
And I'd think, when I was
Iying a bit long, and I think,
624
01:18:10,000 --> 01:18:14,000
"no, you gotta get there. You only got
10 minutes left, only 10 minutes left!"
625
01:18:16,500 --> 01:18:20,500
It seemed like there was a very cold,
pragmatic part of me that was saying,
626
01:18:21,500 --> 01:18:25,500
"You have to do this, this and
this, if you're gonna get there".
627
01:18:41,500 --> 01:18:45,500
"Come on, keep moving, keep moving"
628
01:18:51,900 --> 01:18:55,900
"Right, get up, and do it again"
629
01:19:00,800 --> 01:19:04,800
It was quite insistent, and quite clear.
630
01:19:05,900 --> 01:19:09,900
It was almost like a voice or a separate
part of me, telling me to do something.
631
01:19:14,500 --> 01:19:17,900
Very uncaring. No sympathy,
632
01:19:18,000 --> 01:19:22,000
no acknowledgement of the fact
that I might be tired or hurt.
633
01:19:23,300 --> 01:19:27,300
It was very, very odd.
634
01:19:36,100 --> 01:19:40,100
That part of me kept saying, "Keep
moving, stop resting, keep moving",
635
01:19:41,300 --> 01:19:45,300
and the other part of me, my
mind, anyway, just was, "Alright.",
636
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:48,500
looking around and absorbing things.
637
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:51,600
And as the hours went, and
certainly as the days started to go,
638
01:19:51,800 --> 01:19:55,800
it became weirder and weirder.
639
01:20:42,900 --> 01:20:46,900
So I was very, very, very
thirsty. Very dehydrated.
640
01:20:50,500 --> 01:20:54,000
And the agonizing thing is, all
these boulders, these meringues,
641
01:20:54,100 --> 01:20:58,100
are on top of the glacier. And
you could hear water running.
642
01:20:58,700 --> 01:21:02,700
All the time.
643
01:21:08,600 --> 01:21:12,600
I'd fall over a lot and I'd hear water and
I'd start digging around searching for it.
644
01:21:36,900 --> 01:21:39,000
Couldn't find it, couldn't get it.
645
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:43,000
And it was driving me mad,
to be able to hear water.
646
01:22:08,200 --> 01:22:10,300
I was worried about Simon.
647
01:22:10,400 --> 01:22:14,400
About his health, 'cause his fingertips
were still quite bad from frostbite.
648
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:20,400
And I just felt it wasn't
a place to be lingering in.
649
01:22:21,500 --> 01:22:25,500
We just started getting
ready to leave in the morning.
650
01:22:32,300 --> 01:22:36,300
I did eventually collapse amidst the
rocks, and I didn't sleep very well.
651
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:40,600
My leg was very painful. It was agony.
652
01:22:40,800 --> 01:22:43,600
It was the first night, I
think, it hadn't stormed.
653
01:22:43,700 --> 01:22:47,700
It didn't snow on me, and it didn't
rain. And I could see the stars.
654
01:22:48,200 --> 01:22:52,200
I can remember Iying on my back for
what seemed endless periods of time,
655
01:22:52,800 --> 01:22:56,800
staring at the stars.
656
01:22:57,300 --> 01:23:01,000
At one point I had this weird sensation
that I had been lain there, conscious,
657
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:03,900
for centuries, for lifetimes.
658
01:23:04,000 --> 01:23:08,000
Becoming part of the rocks, and part
of where I was never gonna move from.
659
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:33,700
The sun came up, and
it started to warm me.
660
01:23:33,800 --> 01:23:37,800
And I thought it'd be just so nice to
just lie there, don't move, and never hurt,
661
01:23:38,700 --> 01:23:42,700
and christ, I got so,
so close to doing that.
662
01:23:50,800 --> 01:23:53,800
I genuinely believed that I
wouldn't make the distance,
663
01:23:53,900 --> 01:23:55,900
and I also believed
that I was going to die,
664
01:23:56,000 --> 01:24:00,000
and I sort of acknowledged it
in a very matter-of-fact way.
665
01:24:03,400 --> 01:24:05,400
And it seemed very rational
to keep on crawling,
666
01:24:05,500 --> 01:24:09,500
if you didn't think it
was gonna be of any good.
667
01:24:11,500 --> 01:24:15,500
I think that it was that loneliness,
that sense of being abandoned.
668
01:24:16,300 --> 01:24:20,300
It was there all the time.
669
01:24:22,300 --> 01:24:25,600
I didn't crawl, because
I thought I would survive,
670
01:24:25,700 --> 01:24:29,700
I think I wanted to be
with somebody when I died.
671
01:24:58,600 --> 01:25:02,600
Probably just a symbolic act to
say goodbye to him, in my own mind,
672
01:25:05,700 --> 01:25:09,700
by doing that.
673
01:26:13,700 --> 01:26:17,700
I drank liters and liters of it.
674
01:26:20,500 --> 01:26:23,100
And it was just like putting fuel in,
675
01:26:23,200 --> 01:26:27,200
I could feel myself immediately
just getting stronger.
676
01:27:34,500 --> 01:27:35,900
I kept wetting myself.
677
01:27:36,000 --> 01:27:40,000
And I can remember actually quite
liking the sensation, the warmth of it.
678
01:27:46,400 --> 01:27:50,400
It was just a slow, steady reduction.
679
01:27:51,900 --> 01:27:54,900
Not just physically.
Physically is very obvious,
680
01:27:55,100 --> 01:27:58,000
but you, everything, yourself.
681
01:27:58,100 --> 01:28:01,300
I felt left with nothing.
682
01:28:01,400 --> 01:28:05,400
And I didn't care anymore.
683
01:28:05,700 --> 01:28:09,700
Didn't have any dignity, you didn't care
whether you're brave or weak or anything.
684
01:28:11,200 --> 01:28:15,200
You just became almost
nothing. It was strange.
685
01:28:25,100 --> 01:28:29,100
I was still doing these test 20
minutes things, get here, get there.
686
01:28:31,200 --> 01:28:35,200
And then I saw these footprints.
687
01:28:36,300 --> 01:28:40,100
Then I got convinced, that
it was Simon and Richard.
688
01:28:40,300 --> 01:28:43,300
They were up above me, and
they were just following on,
689
01:28:43,400 --> 01:28:46,900
and I carried on crawling down,
690
01:28:47,100 --> 01:28:51,100
utterly convinced that they
were wandering along behind me.
691
01:28:53,000 --> 01:28:57,000
And I can remember thinking, "that is
really stupid, they would come and help you",
692
01:28:58,400 --> 01:29:01,100
and I think I persuaded myself
that they were just following on,
693
01:29:01,300 --> 01:29:05,300
because they didn't want to embarass me
'cause I peed myself and I was crying.
694
01:29:08,000 --> 01:29:12,000
I don't know how long it
lasted, maybe about an hour.
695
01:29:13,800 --> 01:29:17,800
I totally believed it, and then
suddenly it was like popping a bubble.
696
01:29:21,400 --> 01:29:25,400
And then I realized that they weren't
there, and I felt utterly shattered.
697
01:29:39,600 --> 01:29:43,600
It was about 4 o'clock
when I reached the lake.
698
01:29:45,600 --> 01:29:49,500
And I that at the far end of
it, there was a meringue dam.
699
01:29:49,600 --> 01:29:51,000
And from the top of that meringue dam,
700
01:29:51,100 --> 01:29:55,100
I would be able to look down into
the valley where the base camp was.
701
01:29:55,700 --> 01:29:59,400
In fact, I would be
able to see the tents.
702
01:29:59,500 --> 01:30:01,000
This was the first time I thought it,
703
01:30:01,100 --> 01:30:05,100
I thought, "I'm gonna make the distance,
I can actually make the distance".
704
01:30:08,500 --> 01:30:12,500
Almost as soon I thought it, the next
thought that popped into my head was,
705
01:30:12,900 --> 01:30:16,800
"Will there be anyone there?"
706
01:30:16,900 --> 01:30:20,900
I thought, "Christ, this is the
fourth day since I saw Simon",
707
01:30:23,700 --> 01:30:27,700
and as I worked it out, I thought,
"Why on earth would they be there?"
708
01:30:31,100 --> 01:30:34,700
I knew it got dark at six, and thought
"I got to get there, I got to get there",
709
01:30:34,900 --> 01:30:38,900
and I was trying to do
it as fast as possible.
710
01:30:44,300 --> 01:30:45,900
The rest of that afternoon,
711
01:30:45,900 --> 01:30:49,900
I was plagued by this dreadful
feeling that they would have gone.
712
01:30:54,400 --> 01:30:58,400
I hadn't paid attention to what
was happening with the weather.
713
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:02,300
Between leaving at four and getting
to the top of the meringues, about six,
714
01:31:02,400 --> 01:31:05,200
the weather had changed.
715
01:31:05,300 --> 01:31:09,300
So when I looked down at the
valley, it was just full of clouds.
716
01:31:14,400 --> 01:31:18,400
I listened intently, hoping to hear a
whistle or an answer, a cry back, something,
717
01:31:19,800 --> 01:31:23,800
and I didn't hear anything at all.
718
01:31:30,300 --> 01:31:34,300
and I spend a long time, sat
there, crying, not sure what to do.
719
01:31:36,400 --> 01:31:40,000
I thought about getting
in my sleeping bag.
720
01:31:40,100 --> 01:31:43,200
For some reason it just seemed a
bit of a pathetic way to end things,
721
01:31:43,400 --> 01:31:47,400
just in a sleeping bag.
722
01:31:47,800 --> 01:31:51,800
I thought, "Well, nice but just keep
going, you'll end it down there, somewhere".
723
01:32:03,300 --> 01:32:07,300
I don't know entirely what
happened for the rest of that night.
724
01:32:11,300 --> 01:32:15,300
I stopped looking at the watch, and
everything just started to go apart.
725
01:32:36,100 --> 01:32:39,100
And I think I just got lost.
726
01:32:39,200 --> 01:32:43,200
And I didn't know what
I was doing anymore.
727
01:32:45,100 --> 01:32:49,100
I don't remember thinking of anyone,
728
01:32:49,800 --> 01:32:53,800
anybody I loved or any of that.
729
01:32:56,900 --> 01:33:00,500
I did have one time, when I got
a song going through my head.
730
01:33:00,700 --> 01:33:03,900
And it was by a band called Boney M.
731
01:33:04,000 --> 01:33:08,000
And I don't really like Boney M's music.
732
01:33:36,000 --> 01:33:39,700
Brown girl in the ring,
733
01:33:39,900 --> 01:33:43,900
there's a brown girl in the ring,
734
01:33:45,400 --> 01:33:49,200
brown girl in the ring,
735
01:33:49,400 --> 01:33:52,800
she looks like a sugar in a plum,
736
01:33:52,900 --> 01:33:54,700
plum, plum!
737
01:33:54,800 --> 01:33:58,800
Show me your motion,
738
01:34:00,300 --> 01:34:04,300
come on show me your motion,
739
01:34:05,100 --> 01:34:07,600
show me your motion,
740
01:34:07,700 --> 01:34:11,700
And it just went on and
on and on, for hours.
741
01:34:13,700 --> 01:34:17,500
I found it very upsetting, 'cause I
wanted to try and get it out of my head.
742
01:34:17,600 --> 01:34:21,600
And I wanted to think of other things.
743
01:34:28,000 --> 01:34:32,000
I was thinking, "Bloody hell,
I'm gonna die to Boney M".
744
01:34:48,000 --> 01:34:50,800
I remember sometimes not waking up,
745
01:34:50,900 --> 01:34:54,900
I think I was awake all the time,
but coming to, it was like waking up,
746
01:34:55,300 --> 01:34:58,500
and sort of find myself sitting there,
747
01:34:58,600 --> 01:35:02,000
I didn't know where I was.
748
01:35:02,200 --> 01:35:05,400
It was pitch black and snowing, and
I'd think I was back on the glacier,
749
01:35:05,500 --> 01:35:08,900
or I'd think I was in a public car
park, and had been beaten up again,
750
01:35:09,000 --> 01:35:13,000
and then I'd just drift off again.
751
01:35:24,800 --> 01:35:28,700
I remember smelling something.
752
01:35:28,800 --> 01:35:32,000
It was a really strong smell.
753
01:35:32,200 --> 01:35:36,200
And it acted like a smelling salt,
to cut through all this delerium.
754
01:35:39,900 --> 01:35:42,900
And I remember being really confused,
I couldn't understand what it meant.
755
01:35:43,000 --> 01:35:46,100
It took me ages to to try
and work out what it meant.
756
01:35:46,300 --> 01:35:49,700
I thought it was me.
757
01:35:49,800 --> 01:35:52,000
And very slowly, I worked
it out, and I thought,
758
01:35:52,100 --> 01:35:56,100
"I've crawled through the
latrine area of our camp site".
759
01:35:58,800 --> 01:36:02,800
And I realized then, that
I was close to the tents.
760
01:36:12,900 --> 01:36:16,900
As I was shouting it, I thought, "This
is it, this is as far as this game goes".
761
01:36:22,500 --> 01:36:26,500
I'm not capable of going any further.
762
01:36:31,500 --> 01:36:35,500
I made the mistake of having a little
bit of hope, that they'd still be there.
763
01:36:37,400 --> 01:36:40,800
And when I shouted,
and they weren't there,
764
01:36:41,000 --> 01:36:45,000
I sort of knew I was dead then.
765
01:36:58,100 --> 01:37:02,100
That moment, when no
one answered the call,
766
01:37:13,000 --> 01:37:17,000
it was... I lost something.
767
01:37:20,200 --> 01:37:24,200
I lost me.
768
01:37:26,900 --> 01:37:30,200
I woke up, not knowing why.
769
01:37:30,300 --> 01:37:33,600
And was aware of this
kind of strange atmosphere,
770
01:37:33,700 --> 01:37:37,000
I could hear the wind
howling outside the tent.
771
01:37:37,200 --> 01:37:41,200
And started hearing something.
772
01:37:44,400 --> 01:37:46,400
It did slowly dawn on me,
773
01:37:46,500 --> 01:37:49,200
that really the only thing it could be,
774
01:37:49,300 --> 01:37:53,000
would be Joe outside shouting.
775
01:37:53,100 --> 01:37:57,100
But that was completely
impossible, because he was dead,
776
01:37:57,700 --> 01:38:01,700
and he died 3 or 4 days ago.
777
01:38:02,300 --> 01:38:06,300
And then head it again, much sharper,
778
01:38:06,900 --> 01:38:10,900
and it really sounded like
somebody shouting. Simon.
779
01:38:15,700 --> 01:38:19,000
I can have gotten into a panic,
but first, it couldn't be Joe,
780
01:38:19,200 --> 01:38:22,100
because Joe's dead.
781
01:38:22,300 --> 01:38:26,300
And then, if he is out there,
it's gonna be this horrible thing,
782
01:38:28,600 --> 01:38:31,100
it can't be a human being, because,
783
01:38:31,200 --> 01:38:35,200
no human being can possibly go
through that, and be outside the tent.
784
01:38:41,300 --> 01:38:45,300
I was just kind of Iying there,
really not knowing what to do.
785
01:38:46,200 --> 01:38:48,700
And then Simon woke up.
786
01:38:48,800 --> 01:38:52,800
"Simon!", it was quite
clearly a shout of my name.
787
01:38:53,900 --> 01:38:57,900
I knew it was Joe actually,
I knew immediately.
788
01:38:59,100 --> 01:39:03,100
I was looking around, and then
I saw this thing, floating.
789
01:39:07,800 --> 01:39:11,800
Of course Simon exploded into action.
790
01:39:14,200 --> 01:39:18,200
Suddenly I heard voices.
791
01:39:19,100 --> 01:39:20,600
Is that you?
792
01:39:20,700 --> 01:39:24,700
I was holding back, because I didn't
feel that was a human being out there.
793
01:39:41,600 --> 01:39:45,600
And we went back up the stream, right
from where these cries had come from,
794
01:39:45,800 --> 01:39:49,800
about maybe 60-80 m outside
the camp, and there was Joe.
795
01:39:56,900 --> 01:40:00,900
I couldn't completely believe
it, until I actually saw him,
796
01:40:01,500 --> 01:40:04,500
but then it was still a little
difficult to believe that,
797
01:40:04,600 --> 01:40:08,600
because of the eerie night
and the state he was in.
798
01:40:09,300 --> 01:40:11,500
Absolutely awful state.
799
01:40:11,600 --> 01:40:15,100
It was almost like he was
a sort of ghost-like figure.
800
01:40:15,200 --> 01:40:19,200
It was like I had to sort of pinch
myself almost to believe this was true,
801
01:40:21,800 --> 01:40:24,800
that this was really happening.
802
01:40:24,900 --> 01:40:28,900
Help me!
- Oh fuck, Joe!
803
01:40:30,700 --> 01:40:33,500
Simon,
804
01:40:33,700 --> 01:40:37,700
he was swearing a lot. Swearing a lot.
805
01:40:39,400 --> 01:40:41,200
Richard, lift him!
806
01:40:41,300 --> 01:40:45,300
Richard, hold him, you
stupid bastard! Lift him!
807
01:40:46,100 --> 01:40:50,100
I remember Simon grabbing my shoulders,
808
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:54,800
and holding me.
809
01:40:54,900 --> 01:40:57,600
I remember that.
810
01:40:57,700 --> 01:41:01,700
That feeling of being held.
811
01:41:24,800 --> 01:41:28,800
He thanked me for trying to
get him down the mountain,
812
01:41:31,800 --> 01:41:35,800
for all that I'd done up to the point,
813
01:41:36,500 --> 01:41:39,800
where I cut the rope,
814
01:41:40,000 --> 01:41:44,000
and he said to me, "I'd
have done the same".
815
01:41:47,000 --> 01:41:51,000
Those were the first
words he uttered to me.
816
01:42:02,000 --> 01:42:05,700
And I remember, before we'd done anything
to him, before we'd even close the door,
817
01:42:05,800 --> 01:42:08,300
he said, "Where are my trousers?"
818
01:42:08,400 --> 01:42:12,400
We had to explain, that we burned his
trousers, which made him quite angry.
819
01:42:14,700 --> 01:42:18,700
And I think that kind of brought
me back into life, to some extend.
820
01:42:19,000 --> 01:42:23,000
realizing it was the
same old Joe, back again.