Alan Hinkes Interviewed On OUTDOORSmagic

Yorkshireman Alan Hinkes is one of Britain's best known high altitude mountaineers. A regular contributor to Trail magazine, he is sponsored by Berghaus and is now just two climbs away from becoming the first Briton to summit all 14 8,000-metre peaks.

Right now Alan's walking into Kangchenjunga base camp, a 14-day trek that will take him to the bottom of the world's third-highest mountain, but before he left, he chatted to OUTDOORSmagic about his life and climbing and answered some of the questions you posed on the forum.

I'm asked that a lot - I'm not apprehensive, I broke my arm two years ago, but it's an old friend waiting for me. A couple of people have said what will you do when you get to that spot. Well, crevasses move, but I probably will recognise the spot, and I'll get my video camera out, as I'm doing a documentary for Tyne Tees, and do a piece to camera, saying this is where I broke my arm two years ago. It'll make a nice little bit for the film.

Yeah, there are times when I get scared, like on Annapurna, coming down from the summit, it had snowed and there was a white out and I was aware the slope was overloaded with fresh snow and I couldn't find my way back, but I tend to push that anxiety to the back of my mind.

It's not going to do you any good being scared. You can't just curl up in a ball and cry really, can you? It won't do you any good.

It has happened, it was the north side of K2 and I got caught in an avalanche and I was nearly wiped out. I was buried on a ledge up to my thighs in wet snow and I couldn't move and some of the guys dug me out, from the other side of the ledge that didn't get avalanched. My tent was flattened, if I hadn't got out of it, I'd have been killed.

I had to go back down that night into base camp, this was at about 6,000 metres, and I got back down to base camp and into me tent and I was shaking. It came on a few hours later, once I was safe. It was like post traumatic stress or delayed shock, I was shivering, thinking "bloody hell, what's going on here". It was a long time ago, but I remember: it was a very traumatic incident.

Coming down from Annapurna last year, nothing happened, but for five hours I was in a state of deep anxiety thinking the slope might avalanche. The K2 incident was a sharp, acute incident. I heard the roar of the avalanche, bits of ice starting hitting the tent, I dived out of the tent, then the tent was buried in a huge avalanche. I was buried up to my thighs in my underpants, because I'd dived out of my sleeping bag and thought, well, I'm going to die anyway because I'm set in wet concrete now at 20,000 feet - I'm going to freeze to death. But prior to that, there'd been the very acute bit, the loud, dramatic avalanche that I'd escaped from. That was a different sort of fear to the experience on Annapurna.

I think it helps. I've backed off a lot of these mountains, particularly on K2, I backed off twice [Alan finally climbed the mountain just before Alison Hargreaves was killed there] so I'd like to think that's the case, but you have to be a bit pushy, you are pushing the envelope up there. I always say, no mountain's worth a life. Coming back's a success and the summit is only a bonus.

I get asked that a lot, but no, I want to do it, genuinely for myself, just like people who are doing the Munroes, which are what? 277 or 283. That takes ten years or more, so they must be equally asked that though obviously they aren't as dangerous. I'm still motivated, I want to do it. I'm saying to people now I might even do 15, I might go back and repeat one.

Just so they can't say, oh, he only did the 14, he was just trying to get the challenge, to be the first Brit. Well, so what, but if I go back and do 15, they'll just say I'm mad I suppose.

I didn't get any publicity at first, I just decided I'd do it. Obviously publicity helps and at the end of the day it's a quantifiable achievement within mountaineering, just as the Munroes are, or the Wainwrights. Or you can be Martin Moran and do all the Munroes in winter and you get publicity. And if you wanted to be cynical about it, you could say why did Martin do it? Because he wanted to set his business up on the back of it. But he genuinely wanted to do those winter Munroes - and he's a friend, I did some of them with him - but it's a double-edge sword. You can want to do something, but you can also do something with that achievement. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

If I won 40 million quid on the lottery - and I don't actually do the lottery - I would do the 8,000s anyway and I wouldn't bother with publicity. I'm not really interested in the publicity and the general media. I genuinely would still do it.

Probably Orion Face Direct on Ben Nevis in winter, I think it's one of the finest routes in the world.

There is a chance, never say never, but it's highly unlikely. It's 99.9 per-cent certain I won't do both in the spring. I haven't bought a permit for Dhaualagiri yet and I haven't got the financial backing to do both. But it's not impossible I could go for it in the autumn, it's unlikely, but not impossible.

I usually do most of it myself, on this trip I have some help from a Swiss friend, but I usually do it myself with a lot of help from Vikram Pandy in Kathmandu, he organises a lot of the Nepal administration for me. He has his own web site, does a lot of my admin and is a friend as well. I couldn't do it without Vikram.

Yeah, I have a bit of stuff out there so I don't have to freight too much. And I get a lot of help from a company called Britannia Appleyards based in Hull. I send all my stuff to them and then they repack it for me into air freight cartons and fly it out for me. The boss, Andy Dickinson, he's a hillwalker himself.
That's the UK end, then out there Vikram helps, does all the coordination to get me to base camp.

I wish I could climb alpine style, cos that would mean I could use hotels and cable cars, have helicopter cover. Don't get me on to what 'alpine style' means. It's probably easier to say yes, 'alpine style', but what is it? Alpine style means I could use telepheriques and helicopters to get me off the summit.

So alpine style in the Himalaya is the biggest misnomer going, it's a load of dog shit, it doesn't exist. I'm doing it in 'lightweight style', it's the only way to describe it. People who go on about alpine style in the Himalaya, they haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Yeah, that's right, lightweight style. Once I'm acclimatised, it shouldn't take longer than two to three days to get to the summit from base camp. It depends on how I do it. I'll probably go up to acclimatise and leave a cache of stuff, like a bivouac tent, at say 6,100 metres, and it depends on whether I use that on the way up or not.

If I blast straight to 7,000 metres, I can do it in two days. But it's a very long walk in, about 14 days from the roadhead so I'm not going to get to base camp before about the 16th of April anyway. And then I'm going to need three to five week acclimatising, going high on the mountain and coming down again. I didn't do that on Annapurna, I risked it going straight up to the summit if you remember, but that's because Annapurna is only just over 8,000 anyway, so it was just about possible to do that.

Yeah, it was pushing the boat out going straight up like that. I pushed straight up to 7,000, which was the last bivouac I had on Annapurna. Normally you'd say, well that's fantastic, let's drop back down, have a rest and then go for the top. I realised next day that I would have to either drop back down on carry on, I couldn't hang around there. Whereas when you're acclimatised you might be able to stay a couple of nights at 7,000, if you're lucky...

But I can't see myself doing that on Kangch', you're up to 8,500 there. I don't think I'll be making any record ascents like I did on Annapurna.

Oh yeah, definitely, they're arranged through Vikram and he makes sure they're well looked after.

Porters are always well looked after, most of mine even have a uniform. They work for Vikram and he always looks after his porters. These articles you see about porters being badly paid or mistreated, it annoys me because I've never personally seen any that have been badly paid or mistreated. Reputable trekking companies - he names several - are not going to allow their porters to be abused or people simply aren't going to book with them again, are they?

None of my porters are abused or maltreated. If they weren't working for me they'd be carrying bags of salt and flour between villages and they'd be getting less money for that.

I try to have as little impact as possible. The fact that I have a small expedition, not like the expeditions were 50 years ago, means that it's low impact. Usually it's just me and one friend, either Nepalese or Swiss. I take away all the rubbish I can, carry it back, and other rubbish will be burned at base camp.

I might take a sac with me, but if I did, there wouldn't be much in in. Just a couple of bottles of water, spare mitts, spare goggles in case I drop my goggles - if you lose them you'll go snowblind and if you drop your gloves, you can lose your fingers. I'd also take a little bit of food, perhaps a High 5 energy bar, something like that.

I'd have some spare Fuki still film, a still camera - people always ask me what I use, it's a Ricoh GR-1 and Fuji film I prefer. I use 100 ASA slide film for the speed, (I don't bother with Velvia, 50 ASA film) I'd have a video camera - for the documentaries I'll be making for Tyne Tees Television - and spare batteries too.

Quite often I'll just carry it all in my jacket. A sac will weigh, say, one and half to two kilos, depending on what sac it is.

Yeah, and you can't really carry more than two litres.

I sometimes try to set off with three, but you know, it's quite hard to carry any more than that, though ideally you'd need about ten...

That's a tricky one, just enjoy it really. I'm tempted to say don't take them too seriously, but that's wrong, you do have to take them seriously, they can be a dangerous environment, but the main thing is to enjoy them in all weathers. But don't underestimate them. Don't be too serious, you need to have fun, but don't under-estimate them either.

Bloody hell, perhaps I should just say I've never done anything stupid. I'm a sensible sort of guy...

Well, because they asked me to I suppose. I thought it was a good idea, it was about layering. It was a centrefold, I thought it was a bit of a jape, I mean, not many people get the chance to be a centrefold do they?

No, definitely not. When I did my first, Shisha Pangma in 1987, I was with Jerzy Kukuczka. He was the second man to complete all the 8,000s, he was doing his 14th and I did my first and I never thought then, 'I hope I'm finishing all 14 one day', I never thought that, I just thought, hey, there's loads more climbing I need to do.

The following year I went to Melungtse, a 7,000-metre peak, with Chris Bonington and climbed a new route. The same year I went and tried Makalu, another 8,000er with Doug Scott and didn't get up it that time, then I got invited on French expeditions to climb other 8,000ers, but it wasn't till I'd got K2 ('95) and Everest ('96) done that I thought, hmm, might as well have a go at all of them.

I did four in a twelve month period, Everest, K2 and Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II and I thought well, might as well do them all. There's no Brit that's done it, it's a quantifiable achievement like the four-minute mile and all that, so I set myself a goal. Not because I though a Brit had better do it, afterwards I thought, yeah, I'd be the first Brit, but at the end of the day it was a personal goal.

Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. It's a hard one because books change. I thought Birdsong was good and I'll probably read one this year that I like, but I read Cider With Rosie when I was about 19 and it made a big impression on me.

Say again? An unladen swallow - 19.3 metres per second, though I'm not absolutely certain. Do you know it?

I do, but it's amazing how many people think I don't. I often say Roseberry Topping, it's a nice one, but it's a difficult question. I really like Helvellyn because it's got so many aspects to it. It was the first mountain I ever climbed so it has memories and it is gorgeous.

People don't realise I get out in the UK. They think the British hills pale into insignificance and I don't go out, but I do.

I have read it, but I didn't think I resembled any of them - I'll have to read it again. I thought when I read Herzog's Ascent of Annapurna that it was more of a satire than Rum Doodle is. It goes on about how it was worth them losing their fingers and toes for the greater glory of France. Everyone says it's a fantastic book, but I actually thought it was just like Rum Doodle really.

No, well, as I keep saying, I don't have a death wish. I wouldn't give up climbing, I couldn't give up climbing.

I'd quite like to do the Seven Summits, which isn't that difficult and there's also the seven second highest which is being mooted as a definite challenge. It was Rob Hall, who was killed on Everest, who suggested it first and pretty much all the second highest summits are actually much harder than the highest.

For example, K2 is harder than Everest, Mount Kenya is harder than Kili, Logan is harder than Denali etc., anyway it's never been done, so I'd be the first to do it. But there's thousands of unclimbed mountains in the world. There's no shortage of things to do.

I went to the Tien Shan last year and climbed half a dozen unclimbed peaks and named one of them after Fiona, [Alan's daughter] Peak Fiona, so there's plenty for me to do.