With a shuddering sob Helen collapsed on the ridge and
\nburst into tears.“I cannot take another step,”
\nshe sobbed. “Oh, I know it’s all vanity and
\npride!”<\/p>\n
She was referring to the summit, looming in full
\ninfuriating view an hour’s slog above us. “You go
\non,” she said with quivering lip, “I’ll wait
\nfor you here”.<\/p>\n
“Forget it, I’m not going up without you and
\nfrankly I’m not that bothered about the summit. And for
\ngoodness sake stop crying. You’ll need that energy for the
\ndescent”.<\/p>\n
So that drew a line under our climb of Stok Kangri in
\nLadakh, surely one of the Himalayas most accessible 20,000
\nfoot peaks. The error that day was to have taken the summit
\nhead on across the moraine from our advanced base camp,
\nwhich was set up on the wrong side of the glacier. Had we
\ncrossed the glacier and pitched our tent on a platform
\nbelow the start of the climb, and then headed off
\ndiagonally left across the moraine towards the
\nridge… who knows?<\/p>\n
It doesn’t matter: I repeated the mantra to myself on
\nthe silent trek back to base camp and down the trail to
\nStok village at the road head, the last stop before picking
\nup the jeep to Leh. Success, failure – every mountaineer
\nknows these are mere words, devoid of significance. The
\nsummit is a trap cunningly laid by our ego, designed to
\nkeep us bound to the wheel of samsara.<\/p>\n
What’s that, you failed to summit Stok Kangri? There it
\nis, the very word of shame and humiliation, enslaving us to
\nour egos. It’s all rubbish, of course, we reassure
\nourselves. What really matters is the camaraderie, the days
\nspent with good companions in the inspiring environment of
\nthe high mountains. The summit is a bit of icing on the
\ncake. It adds nothing to the experience apart from a false
\nsense of prestige, derived from the Latin praestagium,
\nmeaning illusion. The summit, in fact, is a mere
\nillusion.<\/p>\n
Oh yes.<\/p>\n
So it was that the following August found us starting
\noff once more from advanced base, this time camp properly
\nsited on the far side of the glacier, plodding manfully
\nacross the moraine straight towards the summit ridge.<\/p>\n
Two hours into the climb and “Oh, God,”
\nHelen moaned, collapsing once more on the ridge, in fact
\nthe very same spot as the previous year. “It’s such a
\nlong way…”<\/p>\n
Not again, I thought with inner rage, an eye fixed on
\nthe beckoning summit.<\/p>\n
“All right, have a little rest. Have a drink of
\nwater, catch your breath, count to ten – but we’ve got to
\ncarry on because the weather is looking pretty naff.”
\nBands of mist rolled up from the valley, intermittently
\nobscuring the snow-capped summit. It was obvious we would
\nhave to move smartly if we were to enjoy any view at all
\nfrom the top. Helen began rummaging in her day sack and
\nwhat happened next left me gaping in stunned disbelief.<\/p>\n
“What on earth do you think you’re doing with
\nthat?” “It’s all right,” she smiled.
\n“It’ll boost my morale”. But – lipstick! We’re
\nnearly twenty thousand feet up in the Himalayas and
\nyou… “There we are.” She zipped up her
\nsack, smacking her brightly rouged lips. “Let’s
\ngo.”.<\/p>\n
Helen is six feet tall and she is maddeningly unaffected
\nby altitude. Once suitably made-up off she marched at a
\nsprightly quip, unheeding of my protests about the
\nimportance of keeping a slow and steady pace. We negotiated
\nthe handful of slightly exposed spots on the ridge and
\nthree and a half hours after leaving out tents we found
\nourselves on the top of Stok Kangri, with just enough
\nsunlight left for a couple of snapshots of K-2 on the
\nhorizon, before the mist billowed over the summit.<\/p>\n