We talk to Alan Hinkes live from base camp at Dhaulagiri, a mountain which he found 'surprisingly difficult' plus his desperate quest to get out and eat apple crumble.
Dhaulagiri was one of the toughest peaks he's ever climbed, Alan
Hinkes told OUTDOORSmagic in an exclusive interview direct from base
camp.
Speaking by satellite phone last Friday, Hinkes was frank and to
the point. "I'm knackered,' he said. "Sitting here on the glacier.
The only time I've been more tired after a climb was on K2."
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'I'm knackered' - Alan
Hinkes
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Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh highest peak, was the 13th of the
8,000-ers Hinkes needs to complete if he's to become the first Briton
to climb all 14 - the only one remaining now is Kangchenjunga.
Like K2
It was no pushover though. "I was surprised at how difficult it
was," he told us. "The route follows a ridge and the exposure
reminded me of the north face of K2. You were looking straight down
the mountain all the time, it was very exposed."
Conditions were poor as well. On summit day it was, he says,
'grim' and he ended up wearing all his layers on the summit. It was
so bad, he confessed, that he nearly didn't bother taking any
photographs and the brief time he spent up there was the shortest of
any of the 8,000-metre summits.
"Pretty Scary"
"I got to the top," he said, "and I just wanted to turn round."
The descent too turned into a minor epic with the route down the
mountain threatened by avalanches and rockfall as conditions warmed
up. 'Pretty scary" he says of the six-day round trip from base camp
to the summit and back.
He also confessed to feeling the pressure. "At one point I thought
I wasn't going to do it. I was more than despondent. So may people
people are rooting for me and I really wanted to climb it for
everyone and not let them down."
Alan's success on Dhaulagiri leaves just Kangchenjunga to do.
Right now though he's not even thinking about that. After five weeks
on the mountain he just wants to get back to civilisation and a
well-earned beer and, we'd guess, some apple crumble and custard.
The walk out, which he was planning to start on Saturday, takes
some 15 hours and ends at Jomsom on the Annapurna Circuit route, from
where Alan should be able to catch a plane back to Kathmandu, weather
permitting. Fortunately we were able to recommend a good tea house
with top apple crumble and chocolate cake in the nearby town of
Marpha...
Cho Oyu Dispute
Meanwhile, Everest specialist site MountEverest.net published
this
story claiming that Hinkes' ascent of Cho Oyu was invalid because
'he was not on the highest point of Cho Oyu and therefore it does not
count.'
In the same article it says that Alan 'disappeared' on Dhaulagiri.
In reality he was having problems with his satellite phone and
accuses him of ignoring an injured Spanish climber on K2 in 1995.
It's a curiously vindictive article that also asserts that Hinkes
is better know for bad luck than for his climbing and that none of
the UK media reported his 'disappearance' on Dhaulagiri. Hardly
surprising, since he hadn't actually disappeared. Moreover, Cho Oyu
is widely accepted to be the easiest of the 8,000ers and, in the
past, Hinkes has been totally and bluntly honest about his successes
and failures.
Doubtless he'll have his say once he's returned to the UK in the
next few weeks.
