LIVING WITH AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN

PARASH MONI DAS

THREE CUMBERS were seen going steadily for the summit of Bhagirathi II (6512 m) in central Garhwal. It was late in the day, by conventional standards, but they felt fit and strong and they aimed to finish their climb and get down to their Bivouac Camp below, by 7.30 p.m. when the summer light disappeared. The climbers were, Pratiman Singh, by profession a J.C.O. of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police with a string of big ascents to his credit including Hardeol and Panch Chuli, Nirmal Sah, a mushroom farmer from Nainital, also with considerable Himalayan experience, and P. M. Das_t an officer of the Indian Police Service with ten years of Himalayan experience. Pratiman, barely 30, was the eldest. The three of them were participating in a mountaineering camp in alpine-style climbing and for the last three weeks had been climbing together as a well-knit team. Each one knew of the capacities of the others and when they practised on the crags and slabs near the Tapovan base camp, caused a good deal of wonder amongst the rest of the camp with their confidence and understanding of each other.

Now, the three of them were trying out their skills on this technically simple mountain but for a 40-metre pitch of mixed rock-and-ice below the summit off the Chaturangi Bamak. On 1 June, accompanied by three others of the base camp at Tapovan, they crossed the troublesome moraine of the Gangotri glacier, went up the Chaturangi Bamak and turned southeastward, parallel to the Vasuki Bamak to set up an advanced base camp (ABC) at 5100 m. The next day, a reconnaissance was made and it was discovered that the peak was devoid of any glaciers on this side. Perhaps, because of this reason, the snow was found to be firm and the going to be effortless up to an altitude of 5700 m. The slopes, they noticed, were ideal ski-country. Above this point was the east face of Bhagirathi II stretching for 812 m on to the summit. The lower aspects however, were covered with avalanche debris but a feasible route up a line of rock and snow was clear. Das made a mental note that the east face came into shadow by 3.00 p.m. Thus it seemed reasonable to presume that even if the snow had softened earlier in the day, by the evening the process of hardening would begin. This opened the possibility of late climbing.

On 3 June, the clouds were down on the group and there had been light snowfall the previous night. It was only by 8.30 a.m. that they could get away. Pratiman, Nirmal and Das reached the previous day's high point by 10.30 a.m. and pushed on up the east face. The three others were to set up the bivouac tent at this point later in the day, occupy it and attempt the summit on the next day.

The snow was, as expected, firm along the easy gradient above the proposed Bivouac Camp (5700 m) and they made rapid progress, climbing unroped and using the points of their crampons. Between them, they carried a rucksack containing a bivvy sack, food, some ironmongery, cameras, coils of fixed rope and a nylon climbing rope. They were going strong and were enjoying the climbing, more so while tackling the rock along the hairline rib. At midday they halted and opened a can of fruit. At this point Nirmal noticed some rock pitons, those ugly long pitons which are a trademark of a certain Indian firm, and they concluded that an Indian expedition had been up this way in the past. Here they roped up. Pratiman and Das were on the ends and Nirmal roped into the middle. Pratiman, who was going strongest, broke trail, kicking steps straight up the steepening slope. Das noticed that Pratiman was climbing extremely confidently. Where the going was straightforward, he even saw him put his left hand into his pocket. The sun was still beating down on them but the time was drawing close to 3.00 p.m. They weighed the odds and decided to press on to the summit after leaving the rucksack containing all the vital survival gear, in a small site at c. 6200 m.

The snow now grew softer and at places they went in up to their knees and so they headed straight up for the summit ridge. They reached the same level as Bhagirathi H's twin (lower) summit and Satopanth could be seen in the east. On the ridge leading from the twin (lower) summit they spotted an old fixed rope but had no use for it on their route. Soon they found themselves at the base of the rock-and-ice section below the main summit and noticed another old fixed rope far to the right, left behind by an earlier expedition. They found that route to be dangerous as the rock was loose and so, belaying one another, traversed the tricky section to reach the summit at 6512 m.

The time was 6 p.m. and they decided not to linger on this snowy edge of the world. A quick, 'I was there' photograph, an exchange of handshakes, and they began retracing their steps, carefully belaying one another down the tricky 40 m section. From the summit, they had been denied the joys of a panoramic view by the mountain and instead, they noticed there were angry clouds boiling over in the southern sky; that Shivling and its neighbours were in a shroud of grey and that it was a steep and long drop to the Gangotri glacier from the western side of the mountain.

The clouds were spilling over on to the Bhagirathi massif by the time they had descended on to the snows of the summit ridge. Nirmal and Das were going cautiously and confidently, the latter leading and the former coming down as 'middle-man' on the rope. Pratiman was looking pleased with himself, and had good reason too, having broken trail most of the way, but his entire being seemed to betray his feelings and this was dangerous. This was a time for immense concentration in order to descend rapidly and safely. Das in fact mentioned this to the other two. Was it a premonition of impending happenings? Or was it merely a drill, a precautionary warning meant for himself as much as for the others, for all climbers know that most fatal accidents occur on the descent when minds are relaxed and there is euphoria of the summit having been 'done'.

Das led down from the ridge, kicking his heels into the soft snow until he reached an innocuous-looking rock of 3 m. He turned inward and continued the descent, belayed by Nirmal, and had barely reached the base of the rock when a sudden movement above him caught his eye. Pratiman had come down beside Nirmal to peer down and see for himself, why they had slowed down on the descent. Thereafter, what Das saw in the next few moments registered like a photograph in his memory and for weeks after that he would live through them afresh, often waking up in a cold sweat at night as though in a nightmare world.

Pratiman had one hand in his pocket and as Das watched, horrified, one of the former's crampons got entangled in a coil of fixed rope which was dangling from the rope which Nirmal was carrying on his back. In an effort to get his left foot free of the rope, Pratiman began hopping on his right leg and swinging the left. Nirmal, who like Das was now facing inward, did not know of the happenings behind him until Pratiman overbalanced and called out. Fascinated, Das saw him tilt over to the steeper side of the rock to his left in an upright position with his face towards the onlooker. Even as he shot down at tremendous speed he seemed to be smiling sheepishly as though he knew that he had made a climbing error (but hadn't we all made mistakes before ?), but that the others would soon arrest his fall. It was an expression of hope and trust in his companions.

Nirmal dug in his axe and crouched over it but was pulled off the slope in the same direction. There had been very little rope between the two and now they seemed to be hurtling down together, almost as one mass. Das took one look at Nirmal's face before he pushed down with all his weight on his ice-axe from his awkward stance. Nirmal's expression was, in contrast with that of Pratiman's, one of irritation at having come off, yet at the same time, he too seemed to look up at Das expectantly. All this happened within a fraction of a second but to Das it seemed as if a film was being screened in slow motion.

The rope distance was longer, about 10 m, between Nirmal and Das and it took some time before the full length was stretched out. The inevitable jerk came, the axe held for a brief second, before Das too was plucked out of the slope. However, that brief second was sufficient to deflect the line of fall away from the steep sections of the left and on to the relatively gentler side of the east face.

Before he came off the mountain, Das felt a searing pain on his chest and hips where the rope jerked on his sit harness. His ice- axe was twisted out from his left hand, his right having come off easily and then came the long moments of rolling, bumping, dropping. He recollects nothing beyond waiting for the interminable end of the fall and that he made conscious efforts to protect his face with his hands and that as the slope eased off a little, he instinctively made a self-arrest with his toes and fingers. After this, all was still. It had been a fall of an estimated 400 m and the end was above a windslab-avalanche zone, barely 300 m fnom the Bivouac Camp.

Das found himself still attached to the other two by the rope. He went through a drill of checking his body and found that there was a sharp pain on his hips and chest, and bruises all over his Body. His left hand was bleeding and the thumb was swollen as though it had been dislocated. Otherwise, he realized, he was intact and his mind was remarkably clear. No shock.

As he stood up, he found that he was breathing hard, panting. He turned to Pratiman who was lying to his right and groaning. As Das put a hand over him, he tried to roll himself further down the slope but Das stopped him. There was a black rock jutting out from the snow, a little below them, a drop below that and the clouds closing in beyond. This was no place for innovations.

Das somehow managed to untie the rope which was clipped on to his own harness and spoke to Pratiman : ⁴Any bones broken ? Any pain ? Pratiman seemed to be suffering from shock for he could not identify Das initially: 'Aap kaun hain? (Who are you?) he asked. He complained that his left leg was broken.

Having identified himself, Das had a closer look at Pratiman. There was blood on the snow which had turned muddy brown and a terrible wound on the forehead. Otherwise he seemed to be without any other apparent medical complications. The left leg did not seem broken but was badly entangled in the mess of rope still attached to Nirmal's back. In fact, both Nirmal and Pratiman seemed lashed together end to end. With numb fingers, Das tried to free Pratiman s right leg which was also entangled with the rope but could not. He used his teeth and managed to get it free. He then searched his pocket for his knife which he carried attached to a cord from his belt but found only the broken cord dangling from the waist. The knife had gone in the fall and with it all hope of cutting Pratiman's left foot free of the rope.

Das turned to the inert Nirmal who was lying above, with his face into the snow. There was no response from the figure and he grabbed it by the anorak hood and yanked him around. For a six-footer, Das recalls, Nirmal was surprising light.

The face was a horrible, disfigured mess. Blood from the gaping wounds lay in a huge brown patch on the snow. Whatever little of the face could be seen otherwise, was pale. The neck was broken, the rib carriage stuck out abnormally, or was Das only imagining it ? The body was enshrouded with the loose coils of fixed rope, the climbing rope, pitons, piton-hammer and the ice-axe stuck out unnaturally between the legs. Das tried to feel the pulse but it was a waste of time. It was evident that his friend had left the world already.

Both Pratiman and Nirmal's body had their crampons on but Das had lost his in the fall. Just as he had lost his ice-axe, gloves, knife, goggles, and camera. Perhaps it was his having lost the sharp items that saved his life. Yet, now he badly missed his gloves, spectacles, a torch, the ice-axe and crampons for he wished to drag Pratiman down. But a quick look at the black rock 5 m below and the windslab area made him decide not to risk the descent in the partial white-out which had now descended on them. Instead he yelled for help for he knew that there were others in the Bivouac Camp down below. Pratiman who was conscious of what had happened, now joined in the yelling. It was nothing coherent that came out of him but only cries— ones which were pathetic and anyone listening to them could not fail to note the desperation in the caller and the expectation of hope in the voice.

After a while Singh and Das saw flashlights come on outside the tent and answering yells from the inmates. The rescue seemed on its way and Das began to chat to Pratiman, reassuring him that help was on its way and that he would be saved. The injured man still suffered from shock but he slowly registered what Das was telling him and smiled, lifting one hand in relief and saying, ⁴Haath milao' (Shake on it). They shook hands and Das straightened out his companion as much as he could, by pulling the dead body to which Pratiman was stuck, across the slope so that there would be less strain on his legs.

Down below in the mist, Subedar Bisht, Sanjeev Saith and A. K. Hoy kept answering the shouts for help and_s with flashlights on, seemed to make rapid progress upward. It grew dark soon but the two above did not stop their yelling, in order to guide the rescue party. One flashlight came upward from their right and halted at what seemed barely a stone's throw distance away. After deliberating awhile Das realized that this was probably the windslab section, The flashlight slowly retraced its steps back to camp

A little while later another torchlight took a few steps in a line directly below the two of them. They gave directions to it before this too went down. Das heard Saith call 'Follow the torch light and come down'. (Later on the rescue party declared that they had not been able to make out that there had been an accident and assumed that the summit party were making a bivouac in the open.)

Up on the slope at 6000 m Das and Pratiman were depressed. The former kept talking to Pratiman in an effort to raise his morale and tried to straighten his body whenever possible until he grew tired.

Pratiman was stretched on his side with Nirmal's body on the slope above him and Das sat on the snow above all three, facing outward. Initially, with all hopes of a rescue gone, Das realized the hopelessness of the situation. A cold wind was whipping up the slope and he felt that Pratiman in his present state would not see the morning. It was a dark night but again he toyed with the idea of making an effort to go down and get help. He decided against it again because he knew that even if he reached the bottom alive, should Pratiman become unconscious he would never find him again in the night. The will to live had also gone. He decided to perish with his team on the slope, in the open.

As he sat on the snow, he continued to breathe hard as though he were running a cross-country race. At 8.30 p.m. his wrist-watch, which had worked loose, slid off his hand on to the dead man below him. He did not even bother to pick it up. It was then that he realized that his hands were uncovered and for some odd reason a chain reaction started in his mind, From the highest note of despair in the scale, his thoughts moved towards the highest note of hope and the task of survival.

He reached into his pockets for a spare pair of socks which he happened to be carrying and wore them over his hands. He stamped out a small platform with his numbed feet and sat down, pulling his anorak over his face and over his trousers seat. The corduroy trousers he had been wearing, it had been a warm day, were in shreds exposing his skin and on the upper part of the body, over a colourful cotton shirt he wore a woollen pullover and the anorak. Almost ready for a day on the beach, he thought. The 'toe-ends’ of the socks on his hands iced up and made little dog-ears and he was almost tempted to flap them around. He would often rub his hands and knees to get the circulation going. Within his boots he kept moving his toes, which were numb. He dared not open his boots to massage his feet for fear he would not be able to put them on again.

With the hood of the anorak pulled over his face, he sat crouched over his knees and shivered in the cold. As the merciless wind and spindrift lashed him he would turn his face in the opposite direction and like a boxer, try to dodge the impact. Once in a while he would stand up, stamp his feet and rub himself. Soon the anorak was caked with snow which froze the fabric, turning it into cardboard as it were. Because of the heat from the body the seat would stick to the snow and would make a ripping noise when he stood up and he would be reminded of a slapstick movie where people would sit on wet paint and left their trouser seats behind when they stood up.

In his mind he determined not to doze off or fall asleep, that would be fatal. He thought of his near and dear ones, and decided that he would like to see them again. He thought of his job and realized that he had much to do in the world still. He wanted to survive and would! A little after midnight he began to feel as though someone, a friend, was sitting beside him on his right. It may have been a high-altitude effect but it gave him great comfort as he chatted with this 'person'. (In retrospect, Das finds that even though he was going through this high-altitude effect of having company beside him, his mind was sufficiently detached as to register the fact that he was involuntarily going through these hallucinations over which he had no control.)

The night thus passed and a little before sunrise, with the skies lighting up, he was able to focus his mind back to the present and rediscover his surroundings. Even though his eyesight was not perfectly normal he could make out Vasuki Parbat in front of him and the black blob that was the bivouac tent in the basin down below. He gave a full-throated yell — he was surprised by the power in it himself — which produced the desired effect amongst the sleeping inmates of the bivouac tent. A flashlight went on inside it for a brief moment and Das was able to get his line of direction. Pratiman, who was still alive and groaning, had worked himself into a position below the dead body and there was not much that could be done immediately. So, muttering in general to his 'friend' and Pratiman that he was off to get help, he began to climb down. He passed the black rock from the right and descended by an avalanche chute till he was barely an estimated 20 to 30 m from the camp. Here he sat down on the snow and began to communicate with the 'friend' who seemed to have descended with him and was sitting safe, out of avalanche danger, on the right. At this stage of his descent, he was spotted by the three below and he could see two of them coming towards him. Bisht reached him first and helped him out of the chute. Saith came up also and parted with a slab of chocolate, a, swig of| water and his duvet jacket. Roy too came up and Das informed Bisht that Pratiman was still alive and that he ought to try and get him down immediately. It was tacitly understood that Nirmal was not alive and Das was not even asked about him.

While Roy and Bisht proceeded upward to retrieve Pratiman, Saith tried to help Das down by giving him the end of a piece of string on an easy slope. Irritated by this ridiculous mode of descent, Das sat down on the snow and waved Saith on, he was in any case going down to Tapovan for more help, and completed the descent to the tent on his own.

He had barely got into the tent when Bisht and Roy brought down Pratiman, wrapped in a sleeping-bag. Within half an hour, he died. Das gave him an external cardiac massage for fifteen minutes but could not revive him.

Between the Bivouac Camp and the ABC, Das was carried in makeshift stretchers or pulled along the snow because he was now in no condition to walk. From ABC to the base camp he was partly carried by the porters on their backs and partly travelled in a stretcher from where, he confesses, the view is good! At base camp, the doctor diagnosed him for second-degree frostbite of the left thumb, first- degree frostbite of the left knee (swollen and immobilized), a twisted ankle and abrasions all over the body. On 9 June, Nirmal was cremated at the base camp area and a section of the ITBP carried down Pratiman's body to Uttarkashi for his last rites.

By 11 June, Das was strong enough to tackle the moraine of the glacier using his ski-sticks for support. He thus evacuated himself on foot up to the road-head, 9 days after the accident. From here he travelled in local buses with pilgrims to Uttarkashi. Here he got into a truck and persuaded the driver with the help of the local police officials, to drive him straight to the military hospital at Dehra Dim instead of making frequent steps en route. There he was admitted with the same diagnosis as what the camp doctor had made out as well as for multiple injuries. Within fifteen days he took a voluntary discharge and reported back for duty in Jullundur. The thumb and knee are both back to normal, completing his successful survival on the mountain.

 

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