How Not to Climb a Mountain

Mount Tandrin Gney, Bhutan

There didn’t seem to be much point to living in Bhutan and not trying a little bit of mountain climbing. At the very least, how would I look if I got home and said I’d been to the Himalayas?

‘And did you climb any?’

‘Um, no!’

Along with two friends, Roy and Teclu, we almost made it to the top of Mount Tandrin Gney, a mere hillock by Himalayan standards: Everest by mine.

Our first stop was at a tiny monastery hacked out of a cliff face. We inspected its paltry charms, donated a few ngultrum to the insistent, almost desperate resident monk, who rarely saw passing trade, then toiled on upwards.

A ridge alive with prayer flags flapping in the strong wind provided a raucous backdrop to the mournful sight of a village of abandoned houses, relics of a cholera epidemic decades earlier. That accounted for the plethora of flags, to drive away the evil that still lingered amongst the sad ruins.

A little further on, we lost the track altogether. We clambered valiantly on, hoping to find some faint track or other. No luck. A massive rampart of rock blocked our path. Teclu and I decided to climb round a ledge on the rock to see if we could find a way round. Roy valued his life too much, which, in retrospect, was sensible.

We inched around the rock. No luck. A huge chasm yawned before us. There was no way across. We clambered up a promising pinnacle of rock behind us, to find ourselves teetering over yet another sheer drop.

The valley spread out far below, Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, little more than a collection of miniature houses. We could have scooped it all up in the palm of our hand. Standing on the edge to take photos, I found myself swaying as I tried to focus the camera, so I sat down quickly. Hang gliding without a hang glider did not appeal.

We sat down to ponder our choices. Far below we could see a possible return path—a ledge along the face of the cliff—crossing to a ridge opposite. That would do. We went back to join Roy.

To reach the path we had chosen, we had to make our way down a steep slope. Said slope was covered in bark, leaves, small shrubs and moss. It dropped away alarmingly to a point beyond which it disappeared down a sheer cliff. That presented no problem to newly experienced mountaineers like us.

We were certain that we would have no problems. We would simply slide down on our backsides to the bottom of the slope. We could bring ourselves to a graceful halt on the ledge just before we plunged into oblivion. From that point, we assumed, there would be easy access to the route we had chosen. Being brave (?) I went first.

The truth is, being the heaviest, I went first, on the principle that if the slope, the bushes et al took my weight, it would be no problem for Teclu and Roy, both of whom looked as though they were from Ethiopia after a ten year drought, when in fact, only Teclu was! (He was actually from Eritrea, which is an important difference except for the point of this story.)

I grasped the first shrub and eased my weight down. It nonchalantly gave way and joined me crashing downwards. The shrub, to which I was still attached by fear, ended up against a large log wedged across two larger and rather more securely anchored rocks, fortuitously situated at the edge of the cliff!

I suffered no bruises or immediate injury apart from those to my mountaineering pride. What about my back? It seemed OK. It was one of those experiences which takes only seconds but lasts forever, during which various thoughts pass through your mind along the lines of: why did I ever stop teaching Sunday School?

Roy and Teclu appeared at the top of the slide.

‘Any problems?’

‘No,’ said I cheerily. ‘Just watch the first step’.

They came down more elegantly: with no mishaps.

The path we had seen from our pinnacle crossed to the adjoining ridge and then turned downhill. We reached a point where it branched, one track leading up to the summit. As we wanted to get back for the football final and had been wandering around for longer than we had planned, we decided to continue home.

Agronomist Teclu spent the descent darting to and fro collecting plants which he claimed made excellent fodder.

 He had a technique for going down steep hills which I abandoned after a four second trial.

He launched himself into a run, with quick, tiny steps working furiously to counter the effect of gravity as his body threatened to fall forward. It didn't work for me. Body size, perhaps? Misplaced center of gravity?

No way. The path down was extremely steep and my back was beginning to feel a little sore, in sympathy with my feet! The hillside was badly eroded from a combination of countless cattle hooves and bovine grazing habits which were destroying the vegetation. Rain had scoured the tracks into deep gutters. You could see the scars from Thimphu.

Cattle have little appreciation for the niceties of contoured ploughing. Nor do they seem to have the sense of goats, who have perfected the art of making ascents of hillsides easy by winding across and back, never straight up, unless the rate of ascent is minimal.

People who use goat as a derogatory term, have no understanding of the real nature of those quick witted and intelligent creatures. (It goes without saying of course that my Chinese horoscope is: goat.)

We arrived back in Thimphu more exhilarated than tired. We drank gallons of juice and I soaked in a hot tub, before leaving for the soccer final.

It wasn’t till the following day that my spine gave way. I ended up having to have major surgery three times over the following decade as the doctors inserted some rods and pins into my hip and vertebrae to it to keep it together.

‘So how long will this last?’ I asked

‘About four years,’ was the first surgeon’s reply.

He was right. Four years after the first operation I had to have it re done.

Each time they took the pins one notch further up the spine.

‘What happens when you reach the top of my spine?’ I asked.

He laughed.

‘Don’t worry about that! You will be dead by then’.