Patrick Woodhead - The Cloud Maker (2010)

Two and a half thousand metres above him, the summit ridge finally came into view; the last stretch of ground between him and the top of Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth and Luca’s second eight-thousand-metre peak.

Normally the sight would have given him a jolt of pure excitement but this morning Luca felt distinctly unsettled, a jittery unease that seemed to seep from his stomach into his bones. Flicking the rest of his coffee on to the ground, he watched it steam for a moment before striding back to the tents.

Getting to that ridge was going to be the most dangerous part of the climb.

‘You planning on sleeping the whole day, princess?’ Luca called, banging on the frame of one of the tents.

The snoring inside stopped and there was a shuffling noise, then the sound of a throat being cleared.

‘Christ, that has to be one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had. My damn’ Therma-rest deflated halfway through the night.’

Luca grinned. ‘How about some coffee to celebrate your good mood?’

More shuffling, then the tent’s zip peeled open to reveal the square-jawed face of Bill Taylor. A few days’ worth of stubble darkened his chin, and his normally amused-looking pale blue eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. Above his sunburned forehead, thinning hair stuck straight up from his head as if he’d just received some kind of electrical shock.

‘I’ll stick to tea, thanks, mate,’ he said, the words swallowed up by another cavernous yawn. ‘It beats me how you mainline that filthy stuff.’

Luca leaned down to put the saucepan of water on the tiny portable stove and turned the nozzle. A gentle roaring sound filled the campsite. He watched Bill slowly unfurl his large frame from inside his sleeping bag.

‘You look like shit,’ Luca said softly. ‘You sure you’re up to starting the climb today?’

‘Are you kidding? I’ll be fine.’

Bill stretched his arms high above his head before lumbering over to the same rock as Luca had done to relieve himself. ‘But I’m relying on you to have found us the perfect route up.’

Luca’s eyes shifted back to the mountain face, his jaw clenching.

‘It’s quite simple on the first section, pretty much all the way up to where we’ll set up camp two. After that, there’s the long stretch through that vertical ice field. Of course, that’s going to be more hairy. But once we make it on to the summit ridge, it’s no more than two hours to the top.’

Bill had wandered back and now crouched down beside him, his gaze also fixed on the mountain. Luca handed him a mug and poured in some boiling water. As Bill took the steaming tea their eyes met for a second and, before he had even opened his mouth, Luca knew what he was going to say.

‘Piece of piss.’

Luca grinned.

An hour and forty-five minutes later, they were on their way.

Chapter 2

They had been climbing for nine hours with barely a word exchanged. The dull ache of exhausted muscles made their movements clumsy and unco-ordinated.

Luca led up a long, curving arête, plodding through the deep snow and breaking trail. From his waist harness, two eight-millimetre climbing ropes trailed down, snaking over the snow and outcrops of ice to where Bill was climbing, fifty feet below. They had been taking it in turns to lead, but as the hours passed the sinking snow had sapped every ounce of their strength. Both moved at the same unrelenting pace, an ice axe held loosely in their leading hand.

Trying to steady his breathing, Luca forced himself to slow his movements as he kicked down in the snow: once . . . twice . . . Only on the third attempt did he manage to stamp down enough powder to step forward. But every few minutes he would puncture through the crust, sinking down past his thighs. At the sudden jarring, his heavy rucksack would wrench him off-balance, jerking his body round painfully and Bill would simply wait, unable to help, while Luca wasted yet more energy trying to right himself again.

The morning’s clear skies had been replaced by a thick belt of dark cloud that loomed over the higher reaches of the mountain. With this came a strong wind that funnelled up the ridge and both climbers were forced to crook their necks to one side, sheltering under their hooded Gore-Tex jackets.

Just up ahead, the ridge hit the main vertical wall of ice that they had seen from base camp. They needed to camp further back from the wall, far enough away from falling rocks and ice. Checking his watch, Luca swung off his rucksack and began untying the shovel strapped to the back. As he began digging, Bill slowly closed up the remaining distance, arriving out of breath and leaning his hands on his knees, while he recovered.

‘What do you think of that cloud?’ he asked, breathing still laboured. ‘The forecasts said it was going to get worse tomorrow.’

Luca paused, a shovelful of snow sliding to the ground. He lifted his goggles off his face and wiped the sweat out of his eyes.

‘It’ll pass,’ he said, and carried on digging.

Bill nodded. He had climbed with Luca long enough to know not to question him about the weather. Whatever the forecast said, somehow Luca always seemed to get it right. It had become a standard joke between them. Whenever Luca lay down, everyone thought it was going to rain.

Unstrapping his own shovel, Bill started digging alongside him. In thirty minutes they had completed the snow hole and soon both of them were lying exhausted in their sleeping bags inside it, the soft roar of the MSR stove blocking out the noise of the outside world.

As soon as day broke, Luca punched through the thin wall of snow by his sleeping bag, letting the fierce morning light flood in. Cold air rushed through the gap, dispelling the stale air from the previous night. It had been a long, fitful night, neither man sleeping properly from the altitude.

Bill unzipped his sleeping bag and sat up, groaning as a headache split along the back of his skull. He stayed still, waiting for the pain to pass, while Luca shuffled forward, keeping his head bent under the low ceiling of ice. Reaching into the top of his rucksack, he handed across one of the granola bars and the tube of condensed milk. Sugar was the only way to get a climber’s body moving again in the morning.

‘Pass the water will you?’ Bill muttered, gesturing to the plastic bottle by the stove. ‘Must have got dehydrated during the night.’

‘Headache?’

‘Bitch of a one.’

After a few mouthfuls of water, Bill turned to look through the open hole in the snow, inspecting the sky outside.

‘You were right about one thing at least.’

‘The weather’s not the problem,’ Luca replied, stuffing his gear into his rucksack. ‘It’s the ice field. Did you hear the rocks coming down during the night?’

Bill nodded. Every few hours throughout the night, they had heard rocks ricocheting down the face and smacking into the hard ice of the glacier below. Both had woken with a start each time it had happened, but there was nothing to be said. They knew it was the most dangerous part of climbing Makalu’s western pillar.

They packed up in silence, methodically going through the process of striking camp, their minds on the climb ahead. They were over six and a half thousand metres up already and the ice wall was going to require some serious technical climbing. No more easy snow ridges or easy retreats.

‘You’ve planned the route,’ Bill remarked. ‘Why don’t you lead today?’

Luca didn’t look up from clipping the straps on his rucksack. ‘Sure,’ he said, hoping the nonchalance in his voice didn’t sound forced. ‘No worries.’

Twenty minutes later they stood out on the ridge, feeling the warmth of the morning sun. Luca had uncoiled the ropes and passed two of the ends over to Bill. He, in turn, swung a heavy sling filled with friends, ice screws and nuts off his shoulder and handed it over to Luca, who begun clipping them into his harness in a well-practised and deliberate order.