Weight
The porters or coolies are mainly recruited from the area around Kathmandu, where large numbers of men have made portering their profession. The wages here are considerably lower than in Pokhara, where local men may be hired by the day in between their other occupations. Loads of thirty to thirty-two kilograms are normal during expeditions, but the porters are capable of carrying more than twice that weight, if necessary from early morning till late at night.
It is by no means unusual for a porter to carry a load of seventy kilos and more over long distances into the mountains, although it is a very slow process. We saw the most astonishing demonstration of load-carrying at the airfield in Pokhara. Included in our equipment flown in from Kathmandu was a crate weighing one hundred and twenty-five kilos. None of the adult men volunteered, but a lad of about seventeen hoisted it on his back and carried it up the slope for about two hundred metres. Afterwards he was weighed by one of our doctors — thirty-seven kilos!
Setting out
As regards our ascent of Nilgiri, we can rely on trusty Sherpas such as Wongdhi, Dorjee, Danu and Mingma Tsiring putting on a good show when it comes to setting up high-altitude bivouacs, and more than likely at least one of them will accompany us to the summit.
Trusty Sherpas putting on a good show … I’ve had enough of reading the paper, so I lay it down on the seat beside me …
Sitting in a plane always gives me a sense of being conveyed somewhere without actually travelling. Out of the window I can’t see anything but the wing, nor is there much to be seen on the back of the seat in front of me. Where else but in Western civilisation would they invent a means of transport requiring no more than passing a couple of hours facing the back of a seat fitted with a little net containing sturdy paper bags in case of air sickness?
A far cry from the loyal Sherpa! The loyal, mountain-climbing Sherpa who is prepared to carry burdens four times his own weight for the convenience of his sahib! Who’s going to help me carry my burden?
Arne wants to borrow or hire a horse in Skoganvarre to carry our gear for us the first part of the way — twenty-five kilometres. That’s all, after twenty-five kilometres the horse will have to go back. There’s nothing for horses to eat where we’re going. So back it will have to go after just one day.
From then on we’ll be carrying several weeks’ worth of rations and all the other stuff we need on our own backs. No horse. No loyal Sherpa sleeping across the front of the tent in the pouring rain to protect his sahib. No Danu the chef, whose services are so much in demand. Danu of the extraordinary cooking skills and cheerful nature, Danu who doesn’t stop at house-breaking to get hold of a kettle of boiling water! Merely to serve his sahibs a nice cup of tea at the end of a weary day!
I have no idea how much weight I’m capable of carrying on my back, when it comes down to it. Twenty kilos strikes me as a fair weight. Twenty-five? Possibly. Stupid of me not to have done a dry run at home first. Loading my rucksack with as much as I think I can carry, then weighing it. Subtracting a percentage from the total weight to allow for the fact that I won’t be carrying it in short bursts, but for hours at a time over rough, rock-strewn terrain, up hill and down dale.
On the other hand, what good would it do to know exactly how much I think I can carry? The likelihood is that our combined baggage will be divided into three equal loads. And I wouldn’t want to carry less than my share, in any case.
I’ve never actually been on an expedition like this before. I’ve had some experience camping, but there was always some village nearby to buy food in the evening. There’s a first time for everything, Mama.
Of course, Alfred. No use blaming me for having missed out on sporting activities.
I was never one for sport, I have to say. Had I not chosen a career that obliges me to travel I’d have been a real scholar holed up in a study. As it is, I have no choice. What else can you do in a study besides study other people’s books?
I am not interested in finding the kind of rock samples everyone else has already put in little boxes. No, I’d go further and say: I am not interested in finding rocks that have always been on earth. What I really want to find is a meteorite, a lump of stone deriving from space, preferably composed of matter never hitherto encountered on earth. The philosopher’s stone, or, failing that, a mineral that would be named after me: Issendorfite.
What was the date of that newspaper? The day before yesterday. But the article could have been despatched from Nepal three weeks ago.
Brandel has never been a close friend of mine. He’s different in all sorts of ways. Likes a lot of action. Always eager to take a risk. The main reason he went to university was to give his love of sport an academic edge. Won medals for long-distance skating, a skilled alpinist by the age of seventeen. Did two hundred kilometres an hour on a motorbike: going so fast that the trees along the road blurred into a hoarding. Never read a book to the end if he didn’t have to.
It could be that Brandel is reaching the summit of Nilgiri at this very moment. Let’s see, my watch says five to nine. By my reckoning it must be about three p.m. in Nepal.
So It’s possible.
Brandel’s summers from the age of seven were spent in Switzerland. Scaling mountains like a chamois. Yodelling, too. Didn’t drink or smoke. Switzerland! I’ve never been there myself, unless you count the time I travelled through on a night train.
A load of thirty to thirty-two kilograms is normal. I suppose I should be able to manage that. I wonder what my daily food intake actually weighs. Would a sandwich weigh fifty grams or less? I haven’t a clue. Don’t reckon I can carry sixty kilos, though. I weigh just over seventy kilos myself. How much was it that young Sherpa weighed? Thirty-seven kilos. And he carried one hundred and twenty-five kilos uphill over a distance of two hundred metres. In excess of three times his own weight. In my terms that would work out at two hundred and twenty kilos. A pointless calculation. A three-tonne truck weighs something like ten thousand times as much as a Dinky toy, but that doesn’t make it ten thousand times stronger. If a man were, relatively speaking, as strong as a flea, he’d be capable of dragging a railway carriage behind him single-handed, but no-one can do that.
In my mind’s eye I see Sherpas filing past. Sixty kilos suspended from a wide band around the forehead, backs so bent their hands almost touch the ground. Crooked legs, incomprehensibly spindly like those of donkeys.
I could of course reduce my load by leaving behind my transistor radio. Saves three hundred grams.
Brandel is a friendly sort of chap, always ready for a laugh, never gets into arguments. An inveterate optimist. People like that are beyond me, but I believe they’re quite content. A bit like dogs, really. A dog’s life: proverbial misery. Yet most dogs are optimistic.
And why shouldn’t Brandel look on the bright side? He’s got Wongdhi the Sherpa-sirdar and one hundred porters to convey his toothbrush and pyjamas to the summit of Nilgiri.
As for me, I have just wasted a whole day trying to get some conceited, near-blind old codger to give me the aerial photographs I need.
9
Trondheim strikes me as the kind of place I could grow fond of.
Russet wooden warehouses along the waterfront.
All the buildings here are made of wood. It’s odd to see trams riding in the streets. There ought to be a law against trams in wooden towns. Not a real town. More like a replica, fashioned not by carpenters but by cabinet makers for display at some world fair.
But I have no time to lose. The plane to Tromsø leaves three hours from now, and I still have to lay my hands on those photographs.