Читать книгу Up: My Life’s Journey to the Top of Everest - Ben Fogle, Ben Fogle - Страница 18

CHAPTER FOUR

Baggage

I would describe Kathmandu airport as organised chaos. We navigated around huge piles of grain sacks and boxes being loaded onto the aptly named ‘Yeti’ Airlines plane. Bags and passengers were weighed. Vast piles of identical, tough North Face kit bags soared like a mini mountain range. It seemed every hiker, trekker, traveller and mountaineer had packed the equipment. And it also seemed impossible that each bag would arrive at the correct destination.

Not that it would be a problem for me, because I didn’t have any bags.

Ahead of our expedition, I had spent the best part of six months assembling the best kit and equipment I could. It began when Victoria and I had visited the Manchester factory of PHD, a company that has been making cold-weather expedition gear for years – and which I first came across when I walked across Antarctica to the South Pole. PHD provided a pair of their thick down mitts, which were the best kit on that whole trip, and I had vowed that if ever I was to return to a polar region or to high altitude, I would use their bespoke services.

Victoria and I had caught the train up from London and together crossed the city that had been the home of British Cycling and therefore also her home for many years. PHD still occupies one of the old mills that dominated this part of Northern England. On the factory floor, half a dozen women, who all seemed to be called Margaret, worked on sewing machines, making individual bespoke sleeping bags, jackets and the all-important ‘summit suits’.

Jacob, the manager, showed us around the small factory and took us into the ‘down’ room. It was only after I watched Victoria squirm when she was offered a handful of down feathers that I remembered she is vegan. Despite her animal welfare sentiments, Victoria had agreed, on the advice of high-altitude experts, to use down rather than synthetic filling.

While synthetic filling is a perfectly good substitute in normal life, up in the death zone (anywhere above 7,600 metres) temperatures regularly plunge below minus 40 ˚C, and a good quality down-filled jacket can mean the difference between life and death.

Victoria had consistently struggled with the cold during our training climbs and we knew that she needed the best insulation in both her sleeping bag and her clothing. We decided to opt for full-down summit suits and sleeping bags which we would then complement with a range of kit and equipment that could be worn underneath.

Before Marina, the children and I set off for our holiday in Sri Lanka, I filled two giant duffle kit bags with all my gear including climbing boots, crampons, harness, ice axe, jumar, summit boots, climbing helmet, summit gloves, pee bottle – everything you need to climb Everest.

I filled a third bag with enough food, treats and snacks to last me the eight weeks on the mountain. One of the side effects of altitude is a loss of appetite. Without food, climbers quickly lose weight, muscle and energy. I knew I had to pack as many things to pique my appetite as possible or risk failure in our summit bid. So, I packed fresh coffee and chocolates, Jelly Babies and kimchee to add to our food. I also bought tins of sardines and packets of salami just in case.

The bags were all carefully packed, labelled and shipped to Nepal weeks before I was due to arrive.

Only they hadn’t arrived. Or if they had, no one was sure where they were. I was stuck in Kathmandu, about to climb the tallest mountain on earth, with just the clothes on my back – which amounted to a thin shirt, shorts, a thin jacket and a pair of sandals. To be absolutely honest, I also had a tiny carry-on bag that contained a spare pair of shorts, and my walking boots which I always take in my hand luggage just in case, but that was it.

To make matters worse, we were on a tight timeframe. Most of the climbers had arrived at the beginning of April to give them enough time to walk to Base Camp and acclimatise before their summit acclimatisation climbs – or rotations as they are known.

It was 13 April and we had to be at Base Camp by 20 April if we stood any chance of getting to the summit. Climbing on Everest is only possible in a window of relative calm, just before the monsoon season arrives and with it hurricane-force winds on the summit. This means most attempts happen from mid to late May every year. We had left little margin for error and certainly no time to hang around in Kathmandu waiting for my missing bags to turn up.

We had one day to track the bags before leaving for Lukla on 14 April. They were tracked to customs. It was Friday, a national holiday and the offices would be closed until the following Monday. We had no time to wait. I took a gamble that my bags would catch me up somewhere along the trail.

There is something rather liberating about turning up at the airport with nothing. So often in my job, I travel with a crew and dozens of boxes and bags of equipment. This flight was no different; between Kenton and Victoria there were nearly 20 bags.

This count had been substantially increased by the addition of a new member to our team. I had briefly asked a couple of broadcasters whether they might be interested in our expedition and the lukewarm response had cemented my resolve to climb the mountain without a film crew.

I have a love–hate relationship with the camera. On the one hand, it is my profession, it is essential to my livelihood and it’s my day-to-day workmate, but on the other hand it also has the power to dominate. Let’s be clear, I owe my entire career to the camera. It is the TV lens that has opened the world to me, but I suppose, like anything in life, it can become a little overwhelming. The camera can be empowering, but it can also do the reverse. At times, I find it has the power to soak up everything in its lens. Great for the viewer, but not so great for the subject.

This happens in a number of ways. Sometimes people reserve and conserve all their energy for the camera – they literally switch themselves on and off – which can be deeply confusing for the people they’re working with.

The camera can also become the unintentional ‘leader’, particularly where a team is involved. People still seem to have a slightly unhealthy reverence for the film camera. I see it all the time. They get star-struck and go all strange whenever a TV crew is about.

When we filmed Castaway for the BBC, it was decided that to ensure a more honest, real film, we would film most of the year ourselves. The act of observing will always affect those that are being observed. It is a well-documented truth of psychology, which is why I’d argue that much of modern ‘reality’ TV is no longer real. It is inhabited by a cast of subjects who are painfully aware of the cameras, often modifying their behaviour for the lens. They simply become caricatures of themselves while they play up for the cameras.

So, after nearly 20 years in front of the camera, I was looking for a break from its prying lens. I saw Everest as a very personal goal and ambition and one I was happy to undertake without the interruption of a camera, because one of the strange side effects of working in front of the lens for so many years is that any type of camera always feels like work, even a stills camera. I know it sounds daft, but I find myself almost allergic to any kind of camera when I’m not working.

But about two weeks before we were due to depart, I had an email from CNN. They knew about our climb and wanted to know if we would make a film. I am very easily swayed, and besides, I thought, it would be a beautiful record of our climb for my children and grandchildren. Agreeing to make a film of the expedition is one thing; making it happen is another. Above all, we had to find a cameraman who was capable of climbing Everest at such short notice. There were only two candidates.

The first was Ed Wardle, a brilliant Scottish cameraman who has climbed Everest with a camera multiple times as well as making his own Channel 4 TV series, Alone in the Wild, in which he had spent 12 weeks alone, foraging in the Yukon. Most recently, he had filmed a re-creation of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s open boat journey with the explorer Tim Jarvis. In short, Ed was hard as nails and easily up to the task.

The other candidate was more of a wild card. Mark Fisher, a former mountaineering guide from the USA, had filmed with Kenton Cool on a number of climbs. Although he had never climbed Everest, he had filmed at over 8,000 metres and Kenton was sure he was up for the job.

I sent e-mails to both. Ed was busy, but Mark was available and within days he had been signed up as our fourth teammate. Looking back, it was quite a big gamble. I had never met him before. I had no idea what he was like as a person. I didn’t know his filming style. Nothing. It was all based on trusting Kenton’s references.