Touching the Void Read Online Free Page B

it, we began to see just how big it was—a respectable 1,000-foot-high wall which would have been a mountain in itself in the Dolomites. Stones had whirred down from the upper reaches all day, smacking into the right side of the icefield, then bouncing and wheeling down to the glacier. Thank God we hadn’t climbed any nearer to the buttress! From a distance the stones seemed small and harmless, but the smallest, falling free from many hundreds of feet above, would have hurt us as surely as any rifle bullet.
    We had to find the steep ice couloir which ran up through the side of this buttress, and would eventually lead us into the wide hanging gully we had seen from Seria Norte. This would be the key to the climb. We had under six hours to find it, climb it, and dig a comfortable snow cave in the gully above. A large ice cliff hung out from the edge of the hanging gully, streaming twenty- to thirty-foot icicles—free-hanging above the 200-foot wall below. That was what we wanted to get into, but it would be impossible to go directly up the wall through the fringe of icicles. ‘How much higher do you reckon the couloir is?’ I asked, seeing that Simon was examining the rocks intently.
    ‘We’ll have to go higher,’ he said. ‘It can’t be that one.’ He pointed to an extremely steep cascade of icicles just left of the ice cliff.
    ‘It might go, but it isn’t the one we saw. You’re right, it’s above that mixed ground.’ We wasted no more time. I put the stove away, and sorted out ice screws and axes before I led off, crossing the ramp, and then front-pointing up steepening water ice. The ice was harder and more brittle. I could see Simon, when I looked between my feet, ducking away from large chunks of ice that were breaking away from my axes. I heard his curses as some big pieces made painful direct hits.
    Simon joined me at the belay and told me what he thought of my bombardment.
    ‘Well, it’s my turn now.’
    He carried on up, following a slanting line to the right over bulges and areas of thin ice which showed the rock bared in places. I ducked away from some heavy ice fall, then more, before a warning doubt clicked in my head. Simon was above me, but off to the right! I looked up to see where the ice was coming from and saw the corniced summit ridge far above me. Some of the cornices overhung the West Face by as much as forty feet, and we were directly under their fallline. Suddenly the day seemed less casual and relaxed. I watched Simon’s progress, now agonisingly slow and hunched up, my hair bristling at the thought of a cornice collapse. I followed him as fast as I could. He too had realised the danger.
    ‘Christ! Let’s get out of here,’ he said, passing me the ice screws.
    I set off hurriedly. A cascade of ice dropped over steep underlying rocks in a fifty-foot step. I could see it was steep, 80° maybe, and hammered in a screw when I reached its base. I would climb it in one push, then move right.
    Water was running under the ice, and in places the rock sparked as my axe hit it. I slowed down, climbing carefully, cautious of rushing into a mistake. Holding on to my left axe near the top of the cascade, I tiptoed out on my front points. Halfway into swinging my right axe, a sudden dark object rushed at me.
    ‘Rocks!’ I yelled, ducking down and away. Heavy blows thudded into my shoulder, whacking against my sack, and then it was past, and I watched Simon looking straight up at my warning. The boulder, about four-foot square, swept below me directly at him. It seemed an age before he reacted, and when he did it was with a slow-motion casualness which I found hard to believe. He leaned to his left and dropped his head as the heavy stone seemed to hit him full-on. I shut my eyes, and hunched harder as more stones hit me. When I looked again, Simon was all but hidden beneath the sack which he had swept up over his head.
    ‘You okay?’
    ‘Yes!’ he shouted from behind his sack.
    ‘I thought