Arrival, Day 1 - Eiger, Jungfraufirn glacier...
If you suspect that this essay will be about mountaineering you are right. If you think that I am just going to talk about spiritual lessons you are also right. I always felt that the two things can have much in common. And my Master is always obliged to find new ways of teaching me, or summarising whatever I have so far learnt. This is how I plunged deep into snow-white spaces for a couple of days and emerged (or was rather pulled out J from dark hollow crevasses, tied onto a 9 mm rope), utterly addicted to adventure.
To make readers’ life less miserable, I will try to avoid the technical jargon. I will try to explain things for those who have never tasted this kind of food.
Let’s just pretend it was a dream.
So, I see myself on a rainy, gloomy, dark grey, absolutely hopeless Thursday afternoon, sitting on the floor of my office, adjusting crampons onto my snow-proof boots...
I see myself running to catch a train the same evening, then interminably waiting for another train at midnight in the a deserted railway station of a not so well-known, albeit big west-German city, where only the local pub-fairy and local beggar find me to ask for sponsorship... an offer I generously refuse.
And I see poor me thereafter, pulling myself together before getting off a train and then again getting on two more trains in Switzerland. Quite a boring dream isn’t it? Imagine, I have seen this quite often in the recent past! Well, that’s the dark side of mountaineering: the distance you have to cover until you reach the mountain. Just like the multitude of lives we have to crawl through till the moment comes for us to see the point in all that.
So, I see myself again, leaning against the window of a narrow-railway mountain train, feeding myself on the exhilarating, spectacular view of some yet unknown, unsuffered three-four thousand meter high summits... and a glorious rainbow there, no, not up in the sky, but rather down, below our trail, in a blooming early-July valley!
I see myself gasping for air later on at 1900 meters when a determined wave of wind finally comes to my appeal and lifts several layers of fog and mist, unveiling what is known to the present day as the ‘cimborasso’ of alpine climbing, the uttermost challenge in Europe’s mountaineering, the culminating combination of danger and difficulty: EigerMORDwand, the Killing Northern Wall of Eiger, the Monster that claimed so many valuable lives and that destroyed so many flourishing climbing careers and success stories. A place of pilgrimage for me, the poor beginner who would never even venture risking my life at the sheer foot of this disastrously whimsical mountain god! I inwardly bow to the giant and try to get as far as possible before another flock of Japanese or Indian tourists invades every little accessible panorama-viewing corner. No wonder, the place is too popular for it is terribly spectacular, reachable without any physical effort (quite unusual for a place of pilgrimage) AND because Japanese climbers successfully conquered this notorious North Wall in 1969, what more is, they actually opened a new, direct route to the top. Therefore, without exception, every Nipponese visitor will have a picture or video-shot of it, plus one more of his/her own self with the mountain in the background – if the Monster condescends to show its face... Were this at the Scala of Milano or at Paris’ Eiffel Tower, I wouldn’t care at all J.
I am supposed to acclimatise a bit, to get higher and higher very gradually, but there are just toooooo many folks in here, attracted by the easy reach of the Top of Europe, the Jungfraujoch, the highest altitude railway station, post office and Bollywood style restaurant of our continent. So I rather put my gaiters, coat and hat on and rush into another small (and already packed!) train, rudely chasing away all conscience conflicts and emerging ideas about fair ways of reaching high on a mountain (ways that totally exclude vehicles!). I am doing exactly the same thing that these Tourists do –it hurts me, it is painful to the adolescent in me, who would rather die than spare an hour of ascension)!
Then I see myself mesmerised by the Eiger glacier yet a little higher at approx. 2800 meters altitude. It is neither an encouragement nor a hopeful perspective for me, concerned about the venture I am about to start...
I see myself exiting a tunnel at 3400 meters, quite released that the crowd of tourist slowly ceases to follow the same direction. Oh yes, there is cold and snow outside! They prefer to watch it from behind the huge glass walls of an amazingly well-designed infrastructure in the mainstream of the Swiss Alps.
And then I see myself no more! I actually see a big white blank-out, some patches of golden-white sky gently leaning against an immensity of half-vertical white field... Without my sunglasses in two hours I would go blind! Everything is white and you can literally bite into cosmic radiation and diffuse sunlight...
The last thermometer I saw at the meteorological station indicated minus 6 Celsius grades, but I actually feel like walking on an enormous hypocaust system, heated by reflected and direct light as well as plain, unobstructed radiation. I am bound to imagine myself now, as I cross an utterly unknown, mystic field hanging between a four thousand meter high ridge and a glacier with its upper curtain starting somewhat higher than 3500 m. I start walking into the unknown. It’s a walk into white light with a totally reduced physical visibility and cosmos-wide room for inner vision. Yes, the sphere of protons and helium nuclei penetrating this space from the wide and vast Universe. Unfortunately, I have to command halt to the inner vision that perceives now the Supreme being in diamond-shine shapes: all I must see now is but the next sign indicating that I am still heading in the right direction. God knows that I am here, anyway. He, well, for me, the weak but heavy-bodied brown-haired woman in her thirties and her water-proof jacket, he is “she” and this she knows that I am totally alone. Journeying into the unseen something that the marriage of a mountain saddle and a giant glacier can ever offer... “She” knows also that I am neither lonesome, nor unhappy. I am more than the contrary of these.
She takes good care of me. An inner voice knocks in, gently speaks my mother tongue and commands me: don’t err, don’t improvise. Just go on, without a meter of pacing off-tray. All improvised short-cuts take you to an abyss. I don’t see, but I feel and I remember from seeing the map that at my right is the mountain, the western wall of Moench and at my left there is the slope and crevasses of the Jungfraufirn glacier (which is my goal for tomorrow). And in between there is my shadowless shape wandering on, taking deep breaths of a rarified air and bright-white glow. Without the imminent danger, it would be a feeling I could call “trance”. But this is a rather conscious state of mind. Be sober, be reasonable, don’t make any stupidity. I walk on, trudging in the mildly falling snow and the light of a thousand suns behind its veil.
Unavoidably it comes. After four or five hours in the hut at approx. 3650 meters (11976 ft) it slowly downs on me that I actually have to throw up. Thank God, the hut-owner provided air-sickness bags everywhere. Let us not go more into details, I filled quite a few of them. In clear moments when I refill the eliminated waters of my body and wait for the next attack which doesn’t delay coming, I try to think of my Master and of what he said on altitude sickness. The remedy seems to be the joy of transcending the height-limits. If only my tightly constricted stomach would understand that I AM happy! With a totally emptied belly, no water (as nothing stays in me at this moment!) in my dried-out body and overworked head, what makes me then happy about the sheer fact that I can see nothing but snow and snow-white ridges all around, that I can imbibe this rarified air and densified radiation in minus 6 Celsius grades and in a mild 27 km/ hour wind? My dear unknown friend, who dare infiltrating into my diary, if you have not gotten the mountain virus, you will never understand this… Actually, I don’t understand it either.
True, a lotus is a kind of flower that likes difficulty, if you think that it grows with tightly, tensely gripped petals in the dirtiest waters, resists this medium all the way through, before it finally pushes its head above and then it doesn’t want to stop until it grows higher than any other water plant... But having this kind of a soul, does it really mean I can only be happy in hardship?
Yet, seemingly and realistically: I am happy here now while throwing up and on the other hand I have a hard fight trying to put things to the right place. Am I meant to do this at all? With my lack of physical capacities and unsportsmanly body how far can I drag myself just for the sake of this yearning for vastness and intensity?
If this nausea is the end, if this is what I had fought for...(if this is what I had run uphill for, tortured myself with push-ups for, if this is what I had walked through endless snow-fields for, if this is what I had worked and prayed for)... oh, well, then I guess I better walk down nicely, go home and start playing table tennis instead. I look deep inside myself. To my satisfaction, this glimpse is not limited by the walls of a gym hall and a ping-pong ball flying here and there. No! What lives in my inner eyes is an age-long yearning for distance within sight, for spaces below my feet, for ridges that lead me while I am balancing above a two-sided void. What lives in my inner heart is longing for vastness, for the picture of dozens of blue parallel ridgelines and the wind eternally lifting and dropping clouds. What abides in my inner mind is an unbreakable aspiration always to get higher and higher until one’s vision can encompass the rest of the world in its totality, from above.
All ailment will have to go away, I am not meant to collapse here, emptied of all physical contents with a pale face! Slowly by slowly I get better. The headache wouldn’t stop for a minute, but at least the next gulp of water doesn’t trigger any volcanic reaction. I am being pulled together, I can think normal, climb down the stairways and up again. It is just the pain in brain that tortures me relentlessly. God, where are you?
Then all of a sudden four Gods walk in. None of them less than six feet tall, the cream of British Lake District climbers makes an appearance here after having successfully climbed Moench, the brother mountain of Eiger. They were the four men in black – nearing the summit – I saw from the col of the mountain this afternoon! In seconds the deserted, empty entry hall becomes a warehouse of entangled ropes, ice axes, crampons, harnesses hanging from everywhere. A world I somehow feel more comfortable in.
I try to look less disgusting with all these full nausea bags around me, but they actually don’t seem to look down on me for that. Two of them happen to be doctors! And one of them happens to have the same kind of headache. In memory of this new British-Transsylvanian mountaineering friendship we share a couple of Aspirins. Later on a French climber lady tells us that this was the best thing we could have taken for altitude disease. She takes one a day each day she spends above a certain height and never has problems ever since she discovered this. Again I learned something. The time the remedy takes for healing me is quite long however. Basically the whole night! I use this time for praying for protection. Later on I will come to know that this was a very wise thing, I really needed what I asked for.
DAY 1
Next morning is the morning of a slow trek down to the other valley and also of the quest of a Master. I hope you don’t mind the metaphor, I just mean that it took me some time to find the mountain guide I was allotted to. We look at each other. I know at first sight that he is an old mountain bear, familiar with every little crack and every big gully labyrinth of the glacier, absolutely at ease at handling any equipment and danger situation should it come to a rescue operation. And he probably knows of me immediately that I work in an office, have overweight problems and am not very confident when it is a matter of physical skills. He probably also feels how badly I want yet to do this trip. To have the taste of the unknown. When I put the harness in, with a strong pull he tests whether I adjusted the clips well, closed the screw karabiner properly etc. He is satisfied and that gives me some confidence. But at the end, when we clip ourselves onto the rope, he makes the knot himself to be sure that I am safe. Now I (and the other rope-mates) have become his responsibility.
The strongest of the team is a 27 year old Swiss boy; none would contest his good endurance and strength. He is at the end of the rope. The weakest is actually me, so I am just next after the leader, that is: second to the guide. We keep a distance from each other, so that the rope is tight (or almost) for in case of a fall, closeness would mean that more than one person is pulled down by the bodyweight of the falling companion. And we start this comfortable descent into the very body and heart of the glacier. Silence invades, envelopes everything and everyone. For hours and hours we only speak when someone gets into trouble.
From the altitude of 3400 meters we will descend to 2600 and then climb up a laddered wall (an easy "via ferrata") back to 2800 to sleep there in a hut. But this is just the altitude difference. The distance we have to cover is, of course, much longer and it definitely is much less safer than merely walking five hours. Below our feet is a 900 meter deep ice cube, cut and ploughed a million times by the natural erosion, rich in cuts and abrasions and furrows and cracks and crevasses and holes and precipices and gullies and what not! And all these are covered with snow or are abridged by snow-plates to the point of being totally masked.
Sometimes one doesn’t walk on the glacier, but on a layer of thickened consistent snow with a hollow space under it! And sometimes these snow-bridges don’t resist man’s bodyweight. These are the moments when the soil (well, the snow carpet beneath) suddenly opens below your feet and in a second you find yourself hanging on a rope above a black emptiness of an unknown depth (anything from nine to almost nine hundred ! meters). In lucky cases one of your feet or at least your hands, arms still have something solid to hold onto, your upper body may be bent or leaning on snow with your lower body in the absolute nothing, but even then it is quite a manoeuvre to liberate yourself from the pull of dark depth and eventually of this porridge-like snow rim that may prevent your thigh from being lifted above the ground (quasi the other shore of the snow-crevasse).
It is hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced it yet, and I admit, to me it was a scary feeling. I just wonder how I could be so rational when it first happened. At an unfortunate step I found myself doubled with my stomach and two arms hugging the snow where fifteen seconds ago the guide had stepped, while one of my feet lost all ground, I could only see some dark distance below it. My other leg was entangled in the wet snow wall of the crevasse. In seconds interfered some sober mind that wasn’t probably the real mind: 'don’t look down into the bottom, do it fast, but do it gingerly'. It still took me some time to cautiously overcome the situation without further ruining my snow bridge (the part of it that didn’t break and fall down). It is like trying to climb up a hopper or a funnel that is turned upside down, or like coming up from a bottle through its tightening neck. And on top of this, this neck is so fragile, so vulnerable. A wrong movement would send my only (seemingly solid) support down into the hole and then I would loose all ground, all fixed spot, testing what it feels like to be a spider with only the rope holding my weight. So, without ruining the place where one has to step next, one gently forces oneself to the surface, sometimes even the people closest in the rope can give him a pull and one is up again. Until the next fall J.
At the second bad luck event, I was grateful to the rope, to the guide who held it and I fully agreed with my much more experienced climber friend D, who had told me well beforehand 'a glacier is always life-threatening if you cross it on your own'. The parallel is also very clear: without a master one should definitely not venture into the advanced mountaineering fields of spiritual life, unless one is tempting suicide. Without strong people around you in the same rope, falling into a crevasse like this can very easily turn into a fatal experience right from the beginning. And this is yet nothing compared to the higher glaciers of our earth, the ice-falls of the Himalayas where you don’t simply walk ON TOP of these fragile ice and snow bridges and features, but also, you are bound to risk going INTO and BELOW and BETWEEN them, sometimes on all fours, sometimes in vertical, sometimes balancing through precariously placed metal ladders spanning over giant gaps etc. But let mstay with my limited experience and capacities for the moment.
After a couple of hours of cautiously trudging in the snow and still before I had the first experience of loosing the ground beneath my feet we stopped for a few minutes. We got a little closer together to have a chocolate, an apple, whatever. At this point I decide to go near the only other girl in our group of eight adventurers. Since I don't want to entangle the rope I just unclip myself, put the rope down and walk towards her. In seconds I hear the reproaching voice of the guide: 'What are you doing? Where do you think you are?'
Uh, he is right, too right. I am on a glacier. I am above hollow spaces that - at places- only some fragile snow plates separate from me. And right now I am not even secured!
The two and half meters back to my knot in the rope have become a much longer distance. I make my way back sweating while the others look on, but - should I fall below- cannot help. A great lesson: never unclip yourself of the rope. You cannot leave just like that, or you expose yourself to danger.
During the next hour I come to appreciate this rope (and the boundedness it means) three times, for I experience three (thank God, minor) falls.
This night I know that I will have nightmares. If not nightmares than just vague movie clips right before falling asleep and all of them will end up with some black deep hole suddenly opening below my weight. No, I don't want that, anything but to revive these real pictures again. At this point my joy knows no bounds when I find my mp3-player in one of the pockets of the rucksack. How much I hesitated whether I should carry this little extra weight or leave it at home. Finally I squeezed it in the pocket "just in case". Nothing better can happen to me now. My Master's voice always helped me until now, whenever I was in a bad mood, low consciousness, prone to fear or tantrums. It does help this time also. Before the battery goes down due to the cold, I can listen to two poems at least. And my anxiety is gone along with those creepy pictures and scary feeling. His voice chases away my fear and my unpleasant memories of the day. I plunge in a healthy slumber for at least three hours. Then comes the predecessor of sunrise, the first dark purple ray of light cutting the Zulu night away from the snow-covered ridge above the hut. And it is no longer snowing. We might have a great day today. Four forty. The first climbers put their equipment on and set off. I stare at them, inwardly wish them safe tryouts and yearn to be like them one day: brave, daring, easy-hearted while pacing off in the dark daybreak.-by Kamalika