Mountains

Night High 

At dusk, the darker part of twilight,
I stride joyously up on the hill. 
Venus swings high, glitteringly bright,
Awaiting the new moon’s arrival. 
The air is pure, the wind almost slight,
And the dark comes on like a welcoming shroud. 


Mallory’s Reply

When asked why he wanted to climb Everest,
George Mallory famously said, ’Because it’s there’.
A profound thought aptly mined by the theorist?
Or a deft Delphic fob-off, as empty as air?


A Sadness
 
Noble Everest, since Hillary and Tenzing
‘Knocked the bastard off’, has become a charnel-house,
A magnet for egos unengaged by mountains,
Seeking entry to the Guinness Book of Records.


Nadia Peak

 
 

























Though scarcely deserving of ‘mountain’,
Its mien is not quite that of ‘hill’.
For valleys, to the north and the south, 
Are deep and enough to instil
A sense of superiority.

And an absence of vying summits,
For miles about, strengthens that sense.
It also boasts slopes that, uplifted,
Might well make an ice-climber tense.
There’s even a climb-worthy rock rib.

Eagles approaching high overhead,
Much closer than ever before,
Bespeak of grandeur, of majesty,
As they calmly circle and soar.
And the cairn’s a presentable crown. 

Always, one must climb to the summit
(To gaze at the valleys around,
Place a carried-up stone on her cairn,
And recall it’s her burial mound)
As if it might be for the last time. 

Lament

Once there was this lissom lad 

Bounding gaily from crag to crag,

Happy as the day was long.

Betimes, ‘tis true, in circumstance

Of cold, dark, storm and danger, 

He’d lornly ask Mac’s midnight hags,

‘Why am I here, when I could

Be making love, or sipping beer?’

But the crags held fast (despite 

Such doubts) until, at last, alas,

He was no longer lissom.

Then they let him go.

Everest’s Ghosts
 
A living man lies on
The deeply-plugged snow track.  
Others, two score and more,
Step over him, careful
Of their balance, as they
Press on to that summit. 
There’s no point in pausing.
The poor bastard’s done for.

So much was invested 
In getting this high: hope,
Cash, effort; enduring 
A grisly frozen world
Of tattered tents, empty
Oxygen bottles, the
Shit of hundreds, and scores
Of half-hidden corpses.

And, too, turning aside
Meant forgoing boasting 
Rights to this mightiest
Of summits – assuming,
Of course, that unlike the 
Ghost you stepped over as
You waded up the track,
You in fact made it back. 

Last Man Standing
 

News of a mountain friend: 
Throat cancer has killed him.
Of my old climbing mates,
He’s the last to cark it.
Avalanches took two,  
‘Natural  causes’ the rest.

Of Mountain Memory
 
I can’t know the thoughts of gun climbers
Who forge new routes, top great foreign peaks,
Have famous adventures, and recount
All their exploits in lectures and books.

But I do know something about that
Moment of glory on a summit 
(Modest maybe, but won against odds), 
About the thrill of deadly danger
Come through, of a crux move surmounted,
And of mountain beauty crescendos.

I know, too, about the sober side:
Glacier trudges, strained lungs, exhaustion;
The fright of a held fall or close-by
Avalanche; the dull wait through a storm;
The discomfort of burnt lips, blisters,
Icy loos, and the dried sweat of weeks. 

But my guess, when it’s all totted up,
Is that Joe Grunts like me are pretty
Level with the guns in recalling,
And nursing, our ‘kingly’ and tough times
(Though fewer and not at all famous)
As clearly, and fondly, as they theirs. 

As Favoured Knight
 

Bandanna some might call it
But, in truth, ’twas my lady’s
Kerchief she gifted me one 
Time I bounded mountainwards.

Ever after, on all climbs,
My throat it sweet embraced and,
I swear, brought fairest fortune
In the shelter of her love. 

On the Curtain Route: Mt Hicks

 
Sharp crack! High overhead.
Andrew shouts in warning; 
I dive into the slope;
Both axes bite the ice;
Momentary silence;
Stunning crash on helmet;
Sudden bloodied knuckles
(Uncommonly gloveless)
But the grip’s unbroken.

Andrew, on belay, watched
The cornice icicle
Spear down, and land ten feet
Direct above my head.
Saw its base split in halves
And hurtle down each side.
Only debris hit me.
That was when my lady’s
Kerchief passed its first test. 

On the Hill Today

Conditions on my puny

Murrindindi summits 

Sometimes shift me back in time,

Blotting out the years, gifting 

Memories of golden days

On rock-buttressed icy heights. 

The wind on top was fierce

And chill enough today to

Transport gales and flying sleet

On elegant Tasman’s ridge,

And Dent Blanche’s rearing peak,

To an old man’s dreaming mind. 

Ruapehu Memory
 
I spent two nights in a volcano,
In a cave carved into a snow-slope
Just yards from a steaming crater lake. 
One night the volcano erupted,
And the lake spilled out with the lava. 
But, luckily, that was years later.
 

A Marlborough Sounds Memory

A rare holiday we shared 

With my father when he was

Finally let out of jail.

Halcyon time for me and

My sister (perhaps mother, 

Though he left us soon after).

In boat-dependent country

We dwelt blissfully lonely,

Hunting chestnuts and hens’ eggs.

One day my sister and I

Conspired to climb the mountain

Towering behind the house.

Scampering up the paddock 

(Fearing a call to come back), 

Plunging into dark unknown. 

The bush was less gentle, the

Slope less forgiving, and the

Top further off than fancied.

But sister, ten years tender,

Dauntless, little legs pumping,

Stuck it out to the summit. 

And seventy years later,

Recalls vivid the vista  

From this, her first and last peak.  

My memory is dimmer; 

Greater summits intervene.

Still, that wee hill was the first. 

 

The Candle in the Window
            (21 February 1988)

Plodding, darkness deepens, 
The thought slowly slithers 
Into my weary mind:
Maybe, this is the time. 

Like all ageing climbers,
I have dabbled with death
(End-risk of the great sport) 
In momentary ways.

Avalanche, dropping rock,
Ice-slips; breaking handholds,
Crevasse falls: surviving 
By rope, skill, speed and luck.

This time is different:
The threat sly, lingering,
Creeping under my guard,
By hunger abetted.

Food is the magnet that
Drew us into the storm,
From a cosy ice-cave,  
In hunt of a haven.

An ice-field lies between,
Trackless, crevasse-riven,
Scoured by day-killing sleet
And a rampaging wind.

Dull trudging, Paul in front, 
Beyond sight and hearing. 
A snaking rope, snow-filled
Boot prints: that’s all I know.

Each of us takes a fall: 
Different crevasses. 
Both rescues deep drain
The remains of our strength.      

Foodless, parched (acute thirst   
Is not quenched by raw snow),  
My spirit slumps lower 
Than I ever recall.

Night begins to clamp down;
A starved bivouac looms,
In lean hope of the storm’s   
Overnight petering.

Then, sudden joy, the dark
Is pierced by the light
Of a candle; the wind
By a chorus of shouts!  

The sought haven is ours:
Its hut-folk, aware we
Were out on the mountain,
Have kept faithful vigil.

Paul, against all the odds,
Leads me to their embrace. 

 

 


































Too High to Bring Them  Down

Of course, it was never a ‘normal’ mountain.
How could it be as the tallest in the world?
But now it towers for the ugly reason
That it’s littered with unrecovered corpses.

They do not rot, nor will crumble into dust.
Avalanche, crevasse decent bury many;
The others sprawl, snow-hid humps or grisly worse, 
While summit-lusting hundreds toil heedless by. 

And they will mount so long as this noble peak
Fascinates the gaping crowd - converting it, 
According to taste, into the grandest of 
All graveyards or a squalid mausoleum. 

Imaginary Response to a Prospective
      Client Inquiring about Safety

Fixed ropes span every inch
Of steep, exposed or crevassed
Terrain – up to twenty-five
Metres short of the summit. 

While you’re clipped on to the rope,   
We can guarantee you that
Slips and trips and fainting fits 
Will not put you in peril.  

Sadly, we can’t guarantee 
Against frostbitten toes or 
Fingers while you queue for your
Turn to clip on to the rope. 

Nor can we guarantee that
Old cerebral edema, 
The subtlest killer of all, 
Will in no way afflict you. 

And if you get to free-climb
That golden top pitch, we can’t 
Guarantee against deadly
Exhaustion on the descent.  

Otherwise, see our brochure:
‘The Fun Way up Everest’.
Our luxury package is
A steal at $100K! 

      

A Creagh Dhu Enchantment
Once, oh, long ago when
I was spry and hearty,
I shared in a grogless,
Lonely, magic party. 

We were three Kiwi mates, 
A long way short of gents; 
They were four rougher lads 
With thick Glasgow accents.

Their names I can’t recall,
Which now I truly rue; 
But I remember well 
That they were from ‘Creagh Dhu.’ 

(’Twas a Scottish club with
Fearsome reputation
For bravura climbs, a
Source of admiration.)

’Neath Mount Cook’s tow’ring cliffs 
In Hooker Hut that night, 
We ate and lively talked 
And in late song took flight. 

Ours were trifles, often
Bawdy: less so with theirs,
Some dwelling gentle on 
Old Celtic joys and tears.

In contrast, too, they were 
In truth a choir: a bass,
Baritone, two tenors, 
Attuned in total grace. 

One song they sang, so sweet
To my untutored ears,
Like a limpet’s stuck to
Me these last sixty years.

Oh, those Creagh Dhu hard-men! 
Their lovely ‘Isle of Mull’, 
Lilting, wistful, haunting, 
I hear their voices still. 


The Isle of Mull is of Isles the fairest,
Of ocean's gems 'tis the first and rarest;
Green grassy island of sparkling fountains,
Of waving woods and high tow'ring mountains.

How pleasant 'twas in the sweet May morning,
The rising sun thy gay fields adorning;
The feather'd songsters their lays were singing,
While rocks and woods were with echoes ringing.

But gone are now all those joys for ever,
Like bubbles bursting on yonder river.
Farewell, farewell, to thy sparkling fountains,
Thy waving woods and high tow'ring mountains.

Requiem for Six

Over a long career,
At need I’ve shared my rope 
With a multitude, from  
Paid pros to stray tyros.

But only six full shared,
As well, my feeling for
Mountains, and for the pains  
And joys of high climbing.

Now, all of them have died: 
Two in avalanches,  
Sudden and without pain;
The rest in slower beds. 

Stan, Casey, Tom, Ron, Paul
And wise Dave, I recall
With affection and mourn, 
Almost like family.  

 

The Sensual Thing

From olden golden days,
When I was young and taut,
One simple pleasure stays 
In cherished memory. 

Hand on my thigh, feeling    
The muscle hard, straining,  
Heaving, a step further
Towards a sought summit.  

 







The Sherpas of Everest
  Stand Up
2014

Base Camp numbers swelling 
(Season set to begin),
The first Sherpa team of
The year sets off up the 
Troubling Khumbu ice-fall. 

Twenty-five gear-laden
Men plying the risky 
Trade that’s won their forbears 
A century of praise,
If less lavish reward.

Their task, installing fixed
Ropes and ladders to ease
The way of rich foreign 
Clients lusting after 
Holy Chomolungma.

All of them had passed through
Khumbu’s ever-shifting
Tangle of teetering 
Ice-towers and yawning
Crevasses: some often.

But on this fair morning,
As they threaded around  
Huge blocks of fallen ice   
Littering ‘Popcorn Field’,
Their gods deserted them

A sound like a cannon-
Shot, high overhead, would
First have told them of that;
Next, the avalanche, swift,  
Massive and thunderous.  

Quiet descends at last. 
Rescuers clamber up 
To tally sixteen dead
(Some buried forever)
And nine mangled living.
 
*****

Soon enough, wannabe
Summiteers and milking
Bureaucrats trumpet deep
Sorrow - and shrill claims of  
The season proceeding. 

But the Sherpas, for once,   
Speak against with one voice:
‘We will not work this year,
‘As the Goddess does not 
‘Intend to welcome us.’

And then further startle,
Laying formal claim to
Higher pay-rates, better
Terms of insurance and  
Compensation for death.

So at last, Everest’s
Sherpas have taken a  
Stand, fighting for respect
And fair valuation
Of their dangerous trade!  

Ode to My Knees

2014

Betimes, in my dotage,
Thou bring me some anguish.

Yet ne’er can I forget
Those forty mountain years
I took thee for granted,
And thou rewarded me
Golden days of challenge,
Fun and sometimes glory.

So how could I now not
Both praise and pardon thee?

 

The Enchantment of Risk

2015

High over his belovèd Yosemite 
(Rolling the dice once again in a wingsuit
BASE-jump[1], and soaring like an eagle through a 
Slim ridge-cleft), Dean Potter erred - for the first time 
In his life - hit the wall, and dropped like a stone. 

‘Crazy,’ some called his devotion to hazard.
Yet that never squared with his grave eloquence, 
Or with the outstanding skill, the nerves of steel,
The trained endurance that allowed him to climb
(All solo, all ropeless) great mountains, sheer cliffs. .

Fame and profit (he won both) were no doubt part
Of his motive; but they on their own cannot
Explain his patent pleasure in the game, and
Why he kept upping the ante, heightening
The risk, throughout all of his forty-three years. 
 

 














[1] BASE jumping mainly involves jumping with a parachute from a Building, Antenna (tower), Span (bridge) or Earth (cliff). A later development involves the use of  a ‘wingsuit’ as well, which gives greater support to the body of the jumper, allowing her or him to glide independent of a parachute. But there is always the parachute in reserve. In the case of Dean Potter’s accident, he had no time to activate his parachute.













On Climbing Too Soon
2015

Storm ends: old-man moon slides 
Up, blots the stars, dazzles
On new snow and permits
A hard freeze to clamp down.  

Later, debate in the
Hut: ‘Wait,’ oldies caution;
‘Worth a go,’ say others, 
While strapping on crampons.

They step into a world 
Where snow clings lightly to  
Steep slopes, masks small ice-holes  
And creaks loud under-boot.   

Most return deterred by 
Oft-breaking crusts, perhaps 
A thigh-deep plunge or a
Too-early avalanche.

But now and then some press
On, hungry for a peak
That they may indeed bag - 
Though, often, that’s not known!

 I Have Tasted Glory

2015

In the storm years of my strength,[1]
When I was young and headstrong,
I mingled with high mountains 
And first discovered glory.

It locked on my tongue so tight
That I perforce pursued it 
Through more prudent years; and in
The mountains sometimes found it.

But age-diminished strength put 
An end to all that; and in 
The world I now inhabit  
There is no glimpse of glory.

[1] With an acknowledgement to Geoffrey Winthrop Young.

The  Crux
2016

In a multitude of mountain 
Memories that every now
And then flood my old head, there’s one 
That has long loomed larger than most,
Though I’ve not told of it before.

Mount Haidinger, west face, right-hand
Buttress: only once before climbed.  
On a ledge at the foot of a
Bland rock bulge that tall Andrew, guide 
And friend, had spent much time over. 

Two handholds (no footholds) in sight:
One to the right, gettable, the  
Other high-left, well beyond reach.
So, clamp on the right hold, lift and 
Lunge for the left - miss by a hair.

Rest, lift, lunge and just fail again. 
Try hard once more: but this time my
Bicep tendon tears on the lift.
Drop hasty back down to the ledge. 
No more high lifting with that arm.

As I wear the pain, curse my luck,
The morning sun slants in, picks 
Out my eyrie, dispels the last
Of dawn’s lingering shadows, but
Brings no warmth; and gets no welcome.

Defeat tasting sour in my mouth,
I dither, reluctant to share 
My failure with Andrew who waits
Above on his patient belay.
Then the sun sets my world to rights!  

Wandering eyes sudden espy,
Unmasked from shadow, a foothold. 
Undercut, low-down, it accepts
The toe of my boot; I stretch high, 
And at last own that left handhold!

An arm-heave, a little scrambling, 
And I’ve made the top of the bulge.
A breather, then a routine shout
 (‘Climbing!’) telling Andrew to take
In the rope as I come up to him. 

Later, we make good time in a
Final snow-romp to the summit.  




 

 

On the Need to Climb

2018
 

I met Emile in a 
Hut by the Mer de Glace,   
Each seeking a partner 
In country where only
Fools or top guns soloed.

He was Swiss, young, intense,
With passable English,  
All the right gear and a
Fixation on Mont Blanc,
Which was not my first choice.  

The climb started on a  
Well-worn snow-mantled track 
Up easy slopes: oddly,
He took the lead without 
Asking me if he might.

After a while, the wind
Rose a bit, cloud drifted
About us and I could 
See broken slopes above:
It was time for the rope.  

Emile was ten paces 
Ahead: I called to him:
No response. I shouted
Again and again in 
Eerie bafflement.      

Only when I scrambled 
Up and hit his pack with
My ice-axe did he halt, 
Turned his face to me, and 
We were able to talk. 

I told him I wanted  
To abandon the climb
Because of the weather.
He rightly disputed  
My view of the weather.  

But I was adamant,
Without explaining to 
Him that he was much too  
Dangerous to climb with   
In serious country. 

Perhaps I should have been  
Frank; but I felt for him.
I had an inkling of   
The depth of his misery.      
For I shared his hunger. 

Chomolungma Subdued?

2018  

On the standard ascent route from Nepal,
The climbing season for years has started
With Sherpas toiling (and sometimes dying)
To ease the way for rich foreigners by
Constructing a fixed-rope handrail that snakes
Over snow and rock right to the summit.

This year another handrail was installed
For the first time up the route from Tibet.
This means, for well-heeled would-be celebs, that
The crowning Everest-boast is up for grabs.
Who’s for the first (or any) Grand Traverse
Of the Goddess Mother of Mountains?

 

On Climbing Mountains
2018


Many think that, as a frolic, 
’Twas invented by sporty Brits   
In young Victoria’s time with
The help of some tough Swiss farmers
Who were following the money.  

But other Continentals had  
Played the game long before then -
Edward Whymper of Matterhorn
Fame was not even born at the
Times two French ladies climbed Mont Blanc! 

The bold ladies were part of an  
Enlightenment-spurred movement in 
Praise of Nature, but the record 
(If sparse) goes back four centuries  
More to Francesco Petrarch.

Renaissance man, first humanist,
Celebrated sonneteer who   
Sang so often, so lornly of 
The lovely Laura - and the first 
To write about climbing for fun.

With ‘only my pleasure in view,’
He spent a day accompanied  
By his brother and two porters 
Scrambling among the ridges and 
Gullies of stony Mount Ventoux  

Like thousands since, he stood on top   
And gazed around ‘as if stunned’ 
By ‘the wide-spreading view’, the sense   
Of ‘rare’ air and the wondrous sight  
Of the clouds floating ‘far below’. 

Then, man of his time, consulted
His pocket-copy of Augustine’s 
Confessions and found a passage
That led him to ponder the state
Of his soul during the descent! 

   

Humbled on Tasman’s East Face
2019

We had to reach and cross the  
Avalanche zone before dawn. 
Obsessed with the need for speed, 
I broke the iron rule that   
The ice-axe should be in my
Right hand when I stepped, left foot  
First, across a fissure on 
The margin of a crevasse.

The snow-step had held others, 
But collapsed under my boot. 
I sprawled face-down on the slope
With my left leg and left arm,
Plus ice-axe, dangling over
The crevasse; and the pack on    
On my back, stuffed with bivvy
Gear, leaning hard left as well.   

All that kept me out of the 
Crevasse was my right arm. 
As I fell I had plunged it  
(Like the ice-axe would have been)
Deep in the snow, an anchor. 
As I fell, too, I had called
‘Hold!’ and Andrew, in darkness  
Above, had drawn in the rope.

But the rope was now useless.
A further fall would either
Pull him off his perch or leave 
Me hanging in the crevasse.   
I changed the call to a wild    
‘Come down to me!’ Slight movement 
Caused the pack to swing harder
Left: discomfort became pain. 

Time froze as the dark blankly
Swallowed my shouts, arm muscles
Screamed at me, despair circled.
Then - oh, glory - a torch beam 
Stabbed out from the night,
Found me, a strong hand dragged me 
Back from the brink and, at last, 
Exquisitely, the pain hushed. 

Short rest, plough up and on to
The shelf spanning the great face, 
Trudge through fallen ice and clear
It as ice-cliffs go aglow. 
But then a wry truth spills out:  
Our zest has fled with the night.
So we surrender the heights     
And abseil off the mountain.  

 

The Broad Church of Modern Climbing

2019

Alone and unroped, for just short     
Of four unremitting hours, Alex   
Honnold scaled the massive wall of  
El Capitan in an epic  
Feat of daring and endurance.  
A close-up film of it, shot from   
Nearby ropes and drones, has since been    
Watched by awe-struck thousands.  

This, the acme of ‘sport climbing’ 
(Graded rock routes and speed records), 
Was the work of a superbly
Trained and clinically nerveless  
Professional who undertook  
Countless roped rehearsals before   
Making a film which, in effect, 
Presents climbing as theatre.  

Others (drones now so handy) are     
Sure to follow suit at a less  
Epic level; and so, with the  
Help of television, climbing   
Rock walls, boulders or ice (frozen 
Waterfalls) might even enter  
The ever-expanding world of 
Competitive spectator-sport!  

For while the game of climbing in 
General was once distinguished  
By the highest hazard of all,    
That is now true only of alpine
Climbing – owing to its shifting 
Surfaces, improvised anchors,   
And threats from avalanche, rockfall,  
Crevasse and fickle mountain weather.

In all shorter forms of the game,   
The feared fall of the past (to be   
Avoided at all costs) has been   
Transformed into a virtually  
Acceptable excitement by  
Bolts pre-fixed in both rock and ice,  
Sophisticated ‘dynamic’  
Ropes and bouldering ‘crash pads’. 

Curbing high hazard by these means
Has underpinned the radical 
Conversion of climbing from a
Game whose players came mainly from 
The social elite to a highly 
Popular sport, part of the thriving  
Fitness industry, marketing smart  
Gear and suburban ‘climbing walls’. 

 

 

A Singular Himalayan Tragedy

(May 2019)

2019

Eight climbers die on a virgin 
Peak near mighty Nanda Devi.
Seven bodies and a video
Of their last two minutes are found  
In the debris of an avalanche  
Presumed to have overwhelmed them.
The film tells a different story.

The front six walk on a flat ridge,
The last two (one a shadow) climb
A snow slope with no safe-guarding
Belay: all, astonishingly,
Are clipped on to a single rope;
And all are moving forward
Slowly when the picture blacks out.

The camera-man, most likely,   
Slipped on the well-trodden snow track,
His shout as he fell the early
Warning before that deadly rope 
Plucked the rest, one by one, off the
Ridge - their linked bodies setting off  
The avalanche that buried them..

Their leader, seasoned and famous,
Would have turned and seen some of this
Before being dragged off himself.  
He should, too, have had enough time
To curse the vanity that led
Him (against all alpine wisdom) 
To insist on one rope for eight. 

to see video of Nanda Devi tragedy, click here

A New Kind of Mountaineering
2020

Something as ubiquitous as boots,
In mountaineering photos, is  
Missing from that celebrated  
Shot of climbers waiting in queue 
To step on to the summit of 
The highest mountain on Earth.    

It is the fact that no-one in  
That crushing crowd holds an ice-axe! 
This happens on Everest because
Each year Sherpas now install a  
Fixed-rope handrail that runs all the 
Way up to that mighty summit. 

Once clipped on to the rope, climbers
Do not need an axe for safety;
And the rope also becomes a
Means of progression because, both 
Hands free, they can haul themselves up
It - like climbing a ship’s rigging.  

Reflecting on the Times my Spirit Soared:

A Confession

2020

For a while (in the days of hemp 

Ropes and hobnail boots), I tramped on  

Bush tracks and climbed rock walls for fun.  

Then I ventured into mountains. 

They became the only game that

Mattered for the next forty years.

Cautious and risk-averse to a 

Fault in daily life, I was drawn   

Time and again back to them and

Their foreseen dangers - the only

Slight hesitations from casual   

Concern for a mother’s worry. 

Some close calls and frequent pain scarred  

Those years; but I cannot recall 

Ever seriously thinking of   

Giving the game away before 

Wonky knees and a punishing 

Descent on Dampier forced me to. 

Now, looking back in my dotage,

I understand my feeling as  

An unreasoned obsession 

With the breath-taking grandeur of  

Mountains and their promise of  

Supreme physical achievement.    

It was an obsession that gave

Me intense joy in their presence   

And rapture from their hazards. 

But those memories are now tinged 

With regret: for at last, I’ve faced

Up to the cost to beloveds.