Touching The Void Page #5

that was shaped like a big hourglass.

To the ceiling, was probably about 50m.

I think it's as big as the

St. Paul's dome in scale.

I remember looking down, and

there was just solid snow.

And I thought, "this is

the bottom of the crevice!"

About 15m away from me,

there was a slope leading up.

Right at the top, there was the

sun coming through this hole.

And it was shining, just this

big beam of sunlight coming in.

This was the way out

I'd been looking for!

I remember thinking, "Whoo, I can climb that

slope, I bloody well will climb that slope!"

I crawled across this flat floor, and

I started crawling across on my stomach.

Then I heard things

breaking away underneath me.

I realized that this wasn't a solid floor,

it seemed to be hollow underneath it.

I was absolutely horrified.

It was suddenly, as if

I was on an egg shell.

If I break through, I'll never be

able to get across to this slope,

and that was my way out.

Alright, I'm on it, this is solid now.

I started to get my axe in and hop up.

That is extremely painful, as your legs

hopped up, they both came down together.

I was trying to get into a better

position, so that my left foot ain't first.

But I inevitably went

onto my broken leg.

I feel the displacement

go, the bone move,

so every hop I nearly faint.

It was just excruciatingly painful.

And it was a bright sunny day.

Wow, the whole world has come back.

I was Iying on the snow, just laughing.

That was the relief of

getting out that place.

And I then looked at the

glacier and I thought,

"Well, you haven't even started, mate".

It's kilometers and kilometers

and on really bad ground.

But I think I was contemplating just

sitting there, because I was coming at this,

having done the most

serious climb in my life.

You come down safe from a climb like

that, you'd be exhausted for days.

You'd just eat and drink and sleep.

I'd just come out of that, I'd badly

broken a leg, I was in great pain,

highly dehydrated, I had no food, and

I was looking at trying to do that.

Just no way, just no way

you're physically gonna do that.

And then it occurred to me that

I should set definite targets.

I started to look at things and think,

"right, if I can get to that

crevice over there in 20 minutes",

"that's what I'm gonna do".

If I got there in 18 minutes I

was hysterically happy about it,

and if I'd gotten 22 or 24 minutes, I

was upset almost to the point of tears,

and it became obsessive.

I don't know why I did it, I think I knew

the big picture of what had happened to me,

and what I had to do was so

big I couldn't deal with it.

I stayed on Simon's tracks, and

they were weaving around over humps,

and past obvious crevices and stuff.

I thought, "Well, unless I come to a

hole with his body in the bottom of it,"

"these tracks will lead me

through the minefield of crevices".

All these huge mountains

around you, big mountain walls.

And they do make you

feel small and vulnerable.

And you wonder whether there's

some malign presence out to get you.

It was like somebody

was just teasing an ant,

and putting something

in its way all the time,

and eventually gonna stand on it.

I could see Simon's

tracks were filling in.

They were my lifeline off the glacier.

And I started to get very desperate.

I carried on crawling in the dark, a stupid

thing to do on the slope of the glacier.

But I was frightened and I was

just trying to see Simon's tracks.

In the morning, it was a bright,

sunny day, all the tracks had gone.

I started quite early,

and every now and then I had to stand

up on one leg to try see the way,

and then sit down again, and shuffle on.

There was one very horrendous

crevice bit right near the edge,

and I got into a maze of them.

I suddenly came to a point where I could

see ice running down, then I could see rocks.

It was probably me, who brought

up the subject of leaving.

Partly 'cause I was worried about Simon.

I just felt it was best to get as far away

as possible from where it had happened.

I didn't want to leave immediately,

I felt I needed a day or two

just to collect my thoughts,

and to regain some strength.

Spend a long time washing myself.

That felt good, to wash my hair and

to wash my face, to have a shave, to...

get the...

get the remnants, the

mountain out of my system.

I was desperately thirsty, because it

doesn't matter how much snow you eat,

you just can't get enough

water into your system.

And I saw the rocks, I knew how big these

boulders would be and how far it was,

and that was the first time

that I really thought about,

whether I could get the distance.

I got rid of all my gear.

I knew that I couldn't crawl over these

rocks, they were just too big and jumbled,

and that the only way to

do it was to try and hop.

I knew I was gonna fall a lot.

I'd fallen virtually every hop,

and it's just like having your leg

broken about every time, and I remember

looking back where I'd come

from, it was just over 20m,

and it had taken me ages. And

the pain, just of the 20+m...

I can be insanely stubborn.

And I do like to have things my way.

And things were seriously not

going my way over these days.

I'd look at a rock and then I'd go,

"Right, I get there in 20 minutes".

Once I decided I was going to

get that distance in 20 minutes,

I bloody well was gonna do it.

And it would help me, because I'd

get halfway through the distance,

and I'd be in such pain,

I just couldn't bear the thought

of getting up and falling on again,

but I'd look at the target and

think "I've got to get there".

And I'd think, when I was

Iying a bit long, and I think,

"no, you gotta get there. You only got

It seemed like there was a very cold,

pragmatic part of me that was saying,

"You have to do this, this and

this, if you're gonna get there".

"Come on, keep moving, keep moving"

"Right, get up, and do it again"

It was quite insistent, and quite clear.

It was almost like a voice or a separate

part of me, telling me to do something.

Very uncaring. No sympathy,

no acknowledgement of the fact

that I might be tired or hurt.

It was very, very odd.

That part of me kept saying, "Keep

moving, stop resting, keep moving",

and the other part of me, my

mind, anyway, just was, "Alright.",

looking around and absorbing things.

And as the hours went, and

certainly as the days started to go,

it became weirder and weirder.

So I was very, very, very

thirsty. Very dehydrated.

And the agonizing thing is, all

these boulders, these meringues,

are on top of the glacier. And

you could hear water running.

All the time.

I'd fall over a lot and I'd hear water and

I'd start digging around searching for it.

Couldn't find it, couldn't get it.

And it was driving me mad,

to be able to hear water.

I was worried about Simon.

About his health, 'cause his fingertips

were still quite bad from frostbite.

And I just felt it wasn't

a place to be lingering in.

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