UK / Polar Challenges / Expeditions / The Wall

DISPATCHE 4 : 19 - 23 December

Saturday Decembre 23rd : They won't climb the North pillar...

The decision came through yesterday : the plan to climb the north pillar of the Holtanna Peak is abandoned. Too risked, also too dangerous. On December 20th, Daniel and Ralph were frightened quite a lot. At the time they attempted to find a safe way to the top, they met on the climbing one huge inverted rock as large as a car which threatened to come off the cliff and to cut the rope belaying them. No way to go no, both climbers came back to the base camp.

Then a briefing took place before they a ll return to the mountain, trying to discover a safer itinerary towards summit. During these tasks, Hubert and Georges who want to recover a part of the ropes still in place on the wall, found the way so beautiful that they tried one more to progress. For the gesture : "There is a beautiful candle which reaches up to half height of the pillar", wrote Hubert in one of his messages send from the base camp. "It would indeed be possible to climb up to the right, but we leave that out until later…" Then coming down again, a small disaster : one of the batteries of the drill slips from the chef's fingers and crash 400 meter down.

The day after, December 21st, the decision was taken to climb the pillar along the normal way, (itinerary followed by the Norwegians 7 years ago), actually over the hollow tooth, much easier.
That is how, in a few hours climbing barely, all the climbers met again on the summit. Fantastic panorama no need to say : the alpinists could perceive in the distance Blue One station ! Hubert and Georges decide than to bivouac up there, so as to attempt to come down the day after, descending along the dangerous side and to asses the state of the rock. Another small incident during this climbing : the loss of one of the drill bits and the break of the other one. So come the expedition to the point of being reduced to bore holes in the cliff by hand !

The other ones descended without any problem and arrived at the base camp around midnight. The morning after, Georges and Hubert tried to descent over the rotten way with 40 kg in the rucksack. Alain Launched 100 meters rope. But as it fell all over when he was slowly progressing, he had to climb back up full speed ahead.

That's why they decided to abandon the idea of climbing the North summit and to go and try the South summit. This climbing is maybe less dangerous and easier technically, but this summit is also 200 m higher and much more exposed to the wind. Another disadvantage results from its geographical position : the south pillar is exposed to the sun only during evening and night time. The climbers will thus be obliged to inverse their daily rhythm and start climbing at 5 or 6 in the evening. Before they move to the south summit, the climbers went back a last time to Holtanna North face in order to recover the equipment left in the cliff. "I will nevertheless leave 250 meter rope on this face", said Alain. "One never knows if Georges and I, after having reached our new goal, wouldn't be tempted to come back to this rotten rock and see what we could do about it…"

Friday, 22 December : What's Happening at the Foot of the Holtanna ?

Although it could be true that all the great polar expeditions can be divided into episodes, the one that is in the process of taking place at the foot of the Holtanna could be called : The Mystery of the Great Pyramid.

What is rotten Granite?

The granite of the Orvin Mountains (where the Holtanna is) is essentially an extremely hard rock. But, given the severe conditions (cold, wind, and freezing) to which these nunataks are exposed, their external envelope has slowly become exfoliated with the passage of time. The tangible effect of this on the ground (and this is visible in the photograph published on the opposite page) are surface sheets of rock which break away easily. We do not have any more detailed information about the depth and size of these crumbly slabs of rock; one does however realise much more clearly that climbing on such a degraded surface requires considerable thought. Which is undoubtedly what the men of The Wall are giving it.

Tuesday : the big names made an initial brief assault on the Holtanna and, instead of returning at around 16.00 for tea as envisaged, they were seen to return to the base camp at about noon. The reason? The same as the day before, but studied on a far greater scale - no doubt they had climbed higher than their team-mates had the day before. The rock is so rotten that a serious meeting was called for.

A project briefing, in a way; in the big tent (see the photograph in the report below). We are still not fully aware of what was said that day, the Tuesday afternoon. But what is certain, is that the next day several scouts were sent by the one who adores the word "boss" to other places at the foot of the rock face.
The Holtanna, as perhaps you have read in the presentation of the expedition, is in the shape of a hollow tooth (like a tooth with caries): the ascent was envisaged on the outside.
On Wednesday, they went to look at the inside cirque to assess the health of the rock there. They were talking, yesterday Thursday, even of quickly climbing on that side (far easier), and coming down again by abseiling along the rock face to study it in detail and at their ease…

Since then, no further news. Bidart has just sent us an interesting paper on collecting lichen (see below). But from the climbing point of view, this is not exactly the kind of information that catches the imagination. Therefore, on this Friday, 22 December, early in the morning, despite my searching the horizon for e-mails, we are in neutral…

Other news later, no doubt.

Wednesday December 20th : "I did not feel entirely safe sleeping in my tent on my own"...
from Kahtelijne Van Heukelom (As Van Heukelom is not quite fluent in English, this following text has still to be checked by our translator, sorry...)

Description of our tents in the base camp. There are 7 small tents and 2 big dome-tents (in the middle there is an igloo (see thje photo) which houses the latrine). They have room for 2 persons to sleep. All the tents are next to each other with their openings facing north. Away from the direction of the wind. The katabatic winds are coming from southeast which is why we had to put the opening of our tents facing the opposite direction.

The tents of course have to be protected as much as possible. First of all there is the strengthening of the tentropes. At the end of these ropes we hang an little bamboo pole. When the ropes are taut we put this bamboo-stick horizontally into the snow. We covered it with snow and ice. Because of the low temperature here, everything is frozen quickly and there is no chance that these tentropes will come loose with in storms or heavy winds.
For protecting the tents for katabatic storms and winds, yesterday we have built ice-walls for every tent. They are about half a metre high.

Alain Hubert has the biggest tent but he's the boss. He's sleeping alone and has a lot of space to spread out all his papers. To his left, you can see the tent of Ronald Ross, our specialist - a rescuer in need. His tent looks like a technical laboratory. In between René, André and Jorge have built a pyramid of ice ; this piece of Egyptian culture is necessary for the solar panels. To the right of Alain' s tent is the tent of André and René. René's tent is easily recognizable because there is a tripod for his camera at tis entrance. He always goes to sleep with his camera and wakes up with it. The next tent is the one for Ralf and myself. Alain Hubert had planned, for the only female in the group, a single tent. When thinking of the katabatic winds, the storms and my minimal polar experience, I didn't feel very safe, alone in a tent. So an experienced old man - Ralf - made the sacrifice. In the neighbouring tent, sleep Bidart and Mercier. Do not walk too close at night, because Daniel goes to bed quite early ! Jorge has a tent that is a little bit bigger than the others : but he has to cope with all his camera material. As far as Fabrizzio is concerned, he is sleeping alone, dreaming every night of the most beautiful girl in the world : a blond aerobic teacher.

Ronald Ross is responsible for charging the batteries. A very important job because without the energy of the batteries we can't do a thing. And we have as you may guess numerous needs : for the computers, for the satellite, for sending our information, for the camera. He has prepared a meticulous schedule and so far till now everything is fine.works ok but I must mention that every day we have had a beautiful weather and the sun was always there to recharge the solar panels.

This morning all the climbers - except Alain - went to the Holtanna to prepare for the climb. Daniel and Ralf already start with a little climbing experience. But they don't seem that happy. At noon they all came back to the basecamp again, a bit discourageds. The Holtanna seems to be more precarious than they had thought. Ralf, Daniel and André are convinced that it would be dangerous to climb on this side of the mountain. While drinking tea, the whole climbing team discussed the situation. This afternoon they all went together with Alain to search for another way to reach the top.