BHAGIRATHI III, SW PILLAR

PHIL CASTLE

WE WERE FIRST attracted to the SW Pillar of Bhagirathi III by the excellent article and stunning photos in Mountain 91 of the first ascent by Scots Fyffe and Barton.¹ It seemed like the ideal climb—technically difficult without being extreme, a superb line, beautiful rock, moderate altitude and with an easy and relatively painless walk in. Little did we realise at the time that we would be lucky enough to climb the route ourselves several years later.

 

Our party of two, (Mr) Carol McDermott and myself, established base camp at Tapovan on 24 August 1988. Originally we had been six, but four had pulled out for various reasons not long before we left. Still, two is about the right number for this type of route and we had plenty of other expeditions around us for company, including the other New Zealand expedition to the area—the Bhagirathi I expedition led by Geoff Gabites.

The weather was beautiful for the first two weeks as we acclimatized around Tapovan; relaxing, bouldering and doing the odd walk. It always lakes me a while to acclimatize and while we were impatient at times to get onto the mountain, I always think that a reasonable amount of time spent acclimatizing is time well spent.

By 4 September we had established an advanced base camp (5000 m) on the jumbled moraine below Bhagirathi III. It was a very rugged spot, where a flat site and water were hard to find. But this was compensated for by the awesome location, surrounded on all sides by huge granite walls.

Gradually we ferried our gear to the base of the pillar. Our loads were huge — despite our normal preference for climbing lightweight, it just doesn't seem possible on a route like this. From our ABC our route led across to the rotten ridge which joins the pillar. We climbed an obvious scree slope to the right of the 'Brown Tower' then traversed mid sidled the ridge on the base of the pillar.

A spell of bad weather sent us back to BC for a short but welcome icst. By 12 September we were back at the base of the route. We organised our gear and biwied a short distance below the start of the rock, we had just settled in when we heard the frightening and all too Imniliar sound of rockfall—sparks flew all around us but fortunately we were relatively unscathed. We moved to another spot and spent a sleepless night with every slight noise sending the adrenalin rushing.

It was — 8°C the next morning, too cold to climb until the sun arrived, which it didn't do until 11 a.m. Our route followed that of Fyffe and Barton with only minor variations. We started up a broken corner which led to smooth slabs split by thin cracks. Mainly free but some aid was needed. We bivvied at the top of a prominent terraced area, a depressingly short distance up the climb. Our progress had been slowed by, among other things, the large amount of gear we had to haul and ferry. The climb was at an awkard angle — steep enough to be difficult but not steep enough to make hauling easy. The occasional low angled pitch made the logistics of transporting our gear very problematic.

On the second day a beautiful free pitch led to the prow of the ridge where two easier pitches took us to 'The Steps', the last bivvy for some distance. Above us lay the hardest part of the route, a high steep smooth wall leading to the top of a flake/pillar. We dumped our gear and went up to fix some pitches on this. We started up a steep, shady, snow-plastered corner. To our surprise it went entirely free but it was intricate, absorbing climbing the whole way. It got harder above here so we left our ropes in place and abseiled down to our bivvy in a light snow-storm.

Day three saw us climbing the shady wall. We hardly saw the sun as it clouded out before the sun reached us and some heavy snow showers set in later in the day. A mixture of free and aid took us to the crux pitch — a long thin aid crack up blank corners and slabs, just beautiful climbing on the perfect rock. Above this the climbing got easier but the time had flown and by now it was getting close to dark. Also due to the continuing snowfall, the rock was starting to get quite iced up. There were no bivvy sites close by so we had little option but to carry on. It was 9.30 p.m. by the time we reached flatter ground; we quickly levelled some sites and escaped out of the storm into the haven of our sleeping bags.

The weather was finer the next day but we couldn't climb until the snow had cleared off the rocks a bit. Unfortunately this didn't happen rapidly as it clouded out shortly after the sun hit us. We moved our bivvy 15 m higher to a more sheltered spot. Then around 3 p.m. when the snow had started to clear we went and fixed some pitches. We climbed a steep groove on our right, the easiest way through the big wall above our bivvy. Above this the rock eased off. We headed back left to the ridge to get to the ' Good Ledges' bivvy at the end of our third rope.

We slept well to wake covered with 3 or 4 inches of new snow. Through breaks in the clouds we could see that it had snowed down to the Gangotri glacier. The weather started to clear up but by the time we had jumped to 'Good Ledges' it was heavily overcast again. It snowed on and off all afternoon as we sat there, feeling depressed and pretty frustrated with the weather. We realised we have to keep moving despite the weather so late in the afternoon we headed off to fix some more pitches. The snow-showers eased and we enjoyed a couple of excellent pitches up a steep groove.

Another fine morning but it didn't last. From our high point we did another 2 rope-lengths to the top of the granite. We had now done a total of 19 pitches on granite, not a lot considering it had taken six days. Above here the black band of loose rock starts. Since the technical climbing was over we packed all the rock climbing gear into the haul bag ready for throwing off. It was now snowing heavily and we realised we weren't going to get much higher today. We biwied on a little knoll, a ludicrously small sloping spot, hardly big enough for two people to stand, but it was the only place we could find.

For once a reasonable day — by which I mean it didn' t snow too much and we even saw a bit of sun. We started the day by throwing off our haul bag,, which took an amazingly long time to get down. Unfortunately this is the last we saw of it — by the time we came to retrieve it, it had been covered by a monstrous rockfall and two metres of snow.

Climbing lightweight now, we did 5 pitches up the steep snow-covered dirt-very insecure and scary though fortunately not too difficult. Then we hit the icefield — a very tiring 5 pitches up this as the ice was rock-hard and covered with 4 inches of soft snow. It was a relief to exit left onto an easier snow-ridge. Four pitches of this took us to a notch at the top of the N ridge, tour descent route. We dropped our packs and went for the summit, a short distance away. It was two very tired but jubilant (limbers who stood there at 5.30 p.m. The conditions had been against us for most of the climb but we were now glad that we had persevered.

We biwied in the notch then descended the north ridge the next day. This was 10 pitches down steep and unconsolidated snow, though a good terrace on the eastern side gave some easy travel. However, the lower part of the ridge got slower and slower with some rock steps requiring abseils. Also the weather, which had started off fine, had by now closed in and the snow was just bucketting down. We were getting pretty fed up with this and just wanted to get off the mountain any way we could. Although still a bit short of the saddle we decided to abandon Ihe ridge and abseil off to the east. It was two abseils down steep dirt ,md shale overhangs to a point where we could make a long sidle north (o an easy slope. We had earlier done a recce to this side and seen that this route avoids further abseils and led to an easy valley which l>ypasses the glacier.

The snow was still falling thickly and the sidle was very unpleasant on the snow-covered rock and scree. No longer being driven by adrenalin we were starting to feel really exhausted. Just as it was beginning to look like we were going to have another uncomfortable bivvy we came across a tent. It had been left by a Polish Bhagirathi II expedition for their summiting party. Feeling only slightly guilty, we made ourselves fit home. What a relief it was to be somewhere flat, warm and dry, out of the snowstorm outside.

The next day we walked down to Nandanvan to be greeted by Geoff and Harish (our LO). It was great to catch up on news and hear that Geoff's group had succeeded on the west buttress of Bhagirathi I a great achievement.

The bad weather continued over the next week, grounding all expeditions and dropping a large amount of snow. We realised that we had been quite lucky to sneak our climb in.

From a technical viewpoint, the climbing had been mainly in the grade 14-16 (5.7-5.8) range, with the crux of 19 (5.9). Of the 19 pitches on granite, 5 had required aid though apart from one pitch none had more than 20 ft of aid. All the aid was Al or possible A2, on wires and RPs. Only one piton was placed.

A Scottish ascent of Bhagirathi HI (6454 m), SW Pillar by a two member team.

 

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