Steve Dean writes about Pete and Joe’s first ascent of The West Wall of Changabang, fifty years ago, a hugely significant event in mountaineering history.
“Sitting huddled beneath a down jacket, sheltering
from the sun, my back against a rock, I drank some
liquid for the first time in four days. I was going to
live. The photographs I took were purely a conditioned reflex;
I would want one picture of this view,
just as a reminder of the ordeal I had endured. The
glacier, spread about before me like a white desert,
was peopled by my imagination and over it hung
the massive West Wall of Changabang,
a great cinema screen which would never have figures on it.”
Joe Tasker quoted by Pete Boardman in the opening chapter of his book, The Shining Mountain.
In October 1975, Joe was looking across to the stunning west wall of Changabang from Dunagiri. At the time it looked impossible to climb, but just a year later, he and Pete made the first ascent.
Following are my thoughts on this highly significant event in mountaineering history, fifty years on. Steve Dean
The West Face of Changabang
Fifty Years On
To my mind the two finest achievements of Pete and Joe were very different in character. One was the creation of a very bold route on Kangchenjunga (the third highest mountain in the world) when together with Doug Scott they climbed the mountain’s North Ridge in May 1979.
In total contrast, in October 1976, having not known each other for very long, they made a very bold and difficult first ascent of the West Face of Changabang in the Garhwal Himalaya. This ascent was the first true ‘alpine-style’ climb in the Greater Ranges. 2026 is the fiftieth anniversary of that ascent, an event that established Pete and Joe as part of the world’s elite mountaineers. Their ascent of this superb granite wall garnered worldwide interest, and remains to this day, one of the finest achievements by British climbers. To quote John Porter “A tremendous climb which demonstrated that big-wall tactics applied by a determined and skilful two-man team could succeed on a truly high mountain.”
Changabang was first climbed, by its South-East Ridge, in 1974 by a team led by Chris Bonington. Two years later a Japanese team climbed the South-East Ridge of this strikingly beautiful mountain. However, to most observers, the superb West Face looked impossible to climb. Whilst climbing Dunagiri with Dick Renshaw in October 1975, Joe had seen the face and was resolved to make an attempt on it. Sadly, Dick was out of action the following year having got frost bitten on the Dunagiri ascent, so Joe was in need of another partner to make an attempt on the West Face.
Joe approached Pete to return with him the following year. Their story is one of spending three nights, acclimatising and testing the bivvy gear by sleeping in a Salford warehouse deep freeze and progresses through three nights of hell, marooned in hammocks during a vicious storm, to moments of exultation at the variety and intricacy of the superb but punishingly difficult climbing on the face. In total. The boys were virtually isolated together for more than forty days. Their joy at reaching the summit and then descending safely to base camp would have been augmented by the knowledge that they had made one of the most difficult and significant ascents in the history of Himalayan climbing.
Sadly, their personal joy was to be tragically interrupted. A nearby American expedition had just lost four members on Dunagiri. Pete and Joe later climbed up to 20,000ft on the mountain to bury the four bodies. A terrible reminder of the dangers ever present in the high mountains.
Both Pete and Joe wrote excellent accounts of the climb, revealing not only the harsh physical demands of the expedition but also the stresses on their own relationship in such a demanding environment. Joe wrote a long chapter about Changabang in his book Savage Arena, while Pete devoted a whole book, The Shining Mountain, the story of what was a superb achievement and a milestone in high altitude climbing. Both books are, in my opinion, two of the best ever written about mountaineering leaving the reader in no doubt just how hard and dangerous high-altitude climbing is at the top level.