Ascent by Chris Boningtion Book and Movie

ASCENT. A Life Spent Climbing on the Edge. By Chris Bonington. Pp. 423, 62 colour photographs, 7 maps and diagrams, 2017. (Simon and Schuster, London, GBP 20, Indian Rs 1600). Available on Kindle. Movie of the same name and contents, on DVD or for download, is also available.

CHRIS BONINGTON MOUNTAINEER. A Life Time of Climbing the Great Mountains of the World. By Chris Bonington. Pp. 256, illustrated, 2016. (Vertebrate Publishing, Sheffield, GBP 20). Revised and updated edition. First published in 1989 and reviewed in the HJ Vol. 46, p. 224).

When the editor suggested that I review the above books by Chris Bonington, I had to declare my interest: Bonington is one of my close friends, someone whom I call my mentor. But the editor clarified that, as a friend of Bonington, I was a suitable reviewer as I could relate to his experiences and my experiences shared with him. Moreover, Bonington a living legend that he is, is now above any criticism or praises.

Ascent is a tome which covers the life of almost seven decades. Like a train chugging across the Indian sub-continent towards the Himalaya it starts slowly, gathers remarkable speed and finally on nearing its destination, slows down. The course of this journey is marked by the usual halts, some tragedies, injuries involving both family and friends – in short, a full life. Through the above two books and a movie of the same name, sometimes you relax or while at the others you are at the edge of your seat. But the train powers on.

Like autobiographies by most western mountaineers, the narrative initially follows a similar pattern. He was introduced to local hills and had an intense desire to climb. There were mentors and companions like Hamish MacInnes, Tom Patey and Don Whillans. Cutting teeth with such legends, he naturally had a strong foundation. There was a great passion for climbing – for instance, the highly televised ascent of Old Man of Hoy and the first British ascent of the North Face of Eiger, with Ian Clough. He initially flirted with the thought of joining the army as a career and later took up a corporate job. Both did not suit him, and he opted for mountains.

He met Wendy, his wife for decades and it was love at first sight and both were made for each other. Then came all the high peaks, the climbs and various expeditions, all well recorded by him in individual books. Therefore, in this book, they only find abridged versions. It is well suited for modern day internet and Facebook generation for a quick read. Expeditions followed one after the other: Annapurna South Face, Everest Southwest Face, Nuptse, Ogre, K2, Sepu Kangri, Kongur, Menlungtse and Everest Northeast Ridge. Not only high peaks attracted him, he also climbed challenging peaks like Chagabang, Panch Chuli, Brammah and Rangrik Rang.

His major contribution to mountaineering was to make a paradigm shift in thinking – to attempt high peaks by the ‘Hard Way Up’, even though an easier route was available. Secondly, the challenging task of team management. The ability to lead teams with so many highly motivated and strong climbers, each with a high ambition to reach the summit, which at many times could lead to conflicts.

But my public persona left me open to a certain amount of mockery from my peers, and I could be oversensitive about that. Mike Thompson wrote a lauded satire of the Everest expedition for Mountain magazine called ‘Out With the Boys Again’. (‘One needs a leader who changes his mind a lot and has difficulty in remembering one day to the next what he has decided. We were very fortunate to have such a leader.’)

Mike’s ribbing hurt me more than it should have done, but it did feel unfair, coming from one of my oldest friends. The team on K2 had fun opening a book on whether they could persuade me to change my mind about something I had already decided.
(p.234)

There were losses and deaths. He lost his young son Conrad early and was deeply affected. For the 1970 Annapurna South Face expedition, Ian Clough was deputed to Mumbai (then Bombay) to clear the expedition baggage through restrictive Indian Customs. We had a chance to meet him, climb with him locally and know about Bonington personally. We even planed a joint expedition with Clough for the next year. But alas, he was killed on the mountain- shattering Bonington. Over the years he was to suffer more loses: Mick Burke, Nick Estcourt, Pete Boardman, Joe Tasker on his expeditions and other friends in separate accidents. On return, as a leader he had to face their young wives, their families and the community.

We went on an expedition in 1994. After much research, I could not find a single photo of the mountain we were to climb, Rangrik Rang in Kinnaur. Bonington replied: “The fact that we do not have a single photo of the mountain is a definite advantage. Harder it is, better it is”. What a spirit!

Once again, the expedition started in Mumbai, where Harish’s wife Geeta organized a puja for me at their apartment in honour of my imminent sixtieth birthday, a major milestone in Hindu culture. It is at sixty that some Hindu men renounce their worldly possessions and leave their families, to wander the land almost naked begging for alms. As Graham Little pointed out, I’d been doing something similar for most of my life already. Two priests came to Geeta’s house and I sat crossed-legged on the floor for two hours as they burned incense. I found it a deeply moving experience.
(p.333)

What he does not mention is that he had tears in his eyes during this puja, perhaps remembering friends he had lost on mountains, even though he called himself agnostic. Every time after a tragedy, he moved on and responded to his inner urges to love mountains even more. A new climb, a lecture or write another book to widen horizons.

My research for Quest for Adventure broadened my outlook and brought me new friends across the globe. For two years I was immersed in interviewing my subjects, flying round the world to meet them. It was intriguing to puzzle out similarities and differences in people with such widely different backgrounds, but the common factors were a taste for risk and a passionate curiosity.
(p.249)

His mix of exploratory climbs in new areas, and different challenges inspired many. He continued climbing, now, increasingly with younger set of climbers; Jim Fotheringham, Graham Little, Jim Lowther, Leo Holding and others. It was always challenging, but he was happy to match.

We walked round to the col overlooking the northern flank of the mountain but that was no better. Yet despite the frustration, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I still seemed capable of long days in the mountains.

‘The old war horse has stamina even if the joints are creaking,’ I wrote to Wendy. I’d suffered a skiing accident that winter and the bruising on my neck was giving me trouble. ‘Oh, my love, I do love the mountains, love feeling part of them, walking through them, climbing them, looking at them.’
(p.260)

Apart from climbing and writing about it, he was involved with many other associations too: Lepra Society, British Mountaineering Council, The Alpine Club, Outward Bound and National Parks – he served mostly as President of these organisations. For ten years, he was Chancellor of Lancaster University, though he hadn’t studied at any university before. And there was a plethora of awards, all well-deserved, several Hon. Doctorate degrees and C B E in 1975, which made him “Sir”, a title he rarely used. But he was most pleased to receive his “first formal recognition, by the Royal Geographical Society, the Founder’s Gold Medal, which is their foremost award ‘for mountain explorations.’”

Time to slow down? No, he had one task to complete- though not possessed by it. As opportunity arose, he went off to climb Everest, but with a balanced approach.

Friends have often remarked that climbing Everest changed me; that I was more at ease with myself afterwards, more fulfilled. I’ve sometime wondered about that. Walking back to Lukla, I certainly experienced profound contentment. Yet I hadn’t broken any records. I was the seventh Briton to reach the top and had taken full advantage of bottled oxygen. As George Greenfield observed, most people in Britain thought I’d done Everest several times over, and those that knew better didn’t care. So why did it mean so much?

There had been little physical pleasure in it at the time; none of the elation of rock climbing on a sunny day where the air is rich with oxygen and your limbs don’t feel as though they’re filled with lead. On Everest there was no journey into the unknown. It had been all I could manage to follow the others to the top.

Yet it had also been a profoundly moving experience. There had been awareness of the mountains slowly dropping away, the summit caught in the first golden glow of dawn, the north-east ridge with all its memories. That day on Everest wasn’t merely about reaching the top, it was for me the focal point of climbing life, a gathering of so many ambitions, dreams and memories that climaxed in that upwelling of joy and sorrow I experienced at the summit.
(p.283)

Life was soon taking turns for him. Wendy was sick for a long time and finally passed away leaving a huge void in his life. Family and friends supported him well and after days of inner wilderness he married Loreto. With grown up children and several grandchildren from both sides, he was literally the grandfather of the climbing world, nay a statesman and diplomate.

How far are we driven by ego? How much does the approval of our peers mean to us? Or fame in the wider world? I certainly had an ego and enjoyed recognition, but I don’t think I was ever consumed by it. In those early days, when I discovered my passion for climbing, there was a thrill in the risk, and a satisfaction in finding an activity I was good at, but above all I treasured the actual sensation of climbing for its own sake. I was ambitious, but only for those things just in front of me. My challenges were both measurable and attainable.
(p.373)

He hopefully is a satisfied man, with this “Ascent”, or is there still something up his sleeve? Has the quest with which he started been satiated? Has the train reached its destination?

HARISH KAPADIA