The 1970 British Annapurna South Face expedition was a Himalayan climb that was the first to take a deliberately difficult route up the face of an 8,000-metre peak. At the time that the expedition set out, in March 1970, the only 8000ers which had been ascended more than once were Everest, Cho Oyu and Nanga Parbat; only Everest and Nanga Parbat had been climbed by a route different from that used on the first ascent.
On 27 May 1970 Don Whillans and Dougal Haston reached the summit of Annapurna I, which at is the highest peak in the Annapurna Massif in Nepal. Chris Bonington led the expedition, which approached up a glacier from the Annapurna Sanctuary and then used rock climbing techniques to put fixed ropes up the steep South Face. Although the plan had been to use supplementary oxygen, in the event it was not possible to carry any cylinders high enough for the lead climbers to use on their summit bid.
Lower down on the mountain, on 30 May, as the expedition was about to leave, Ian Clough was killed by a falling serac. Several members of the expedition rose to fame in Britain, and as a whole the expedition received international recognition in mountaineering circles on account of its innovative and extremely difficult nature.
Background Annapurna
The Annapurna massif is in the Eastern Himalaya region of Nepal, where for over one hundred years the ruling Rana dynasty had not allowed explorers or mountaineers to enter the country. In 1950, Nepal at last gave permission for the 1950 French Annapurna expedition to attempt Dhaulagiri or Annapurna I, the two highest peaks in the Annapurna region. The expedition, led by Maurice Herzog, mounted a successful summit attempt via the North Face. For most Himalayan mountains, the easiest route to the summit is along a ridge route but, for Annapurna, the North Face is not too steep (though it is very exposed to avalanches) and the route subsequently turned out to be the easiest. Although it was the first climbed of the eight-thousanders, Annapurna is not often climbed and there is a high death rate among those attempting it.
Start of rock climbing in Himalaya After years of stagnation between the wars, British rock climbing underwent a renaissance, particularly with working-class climbing clubs starting up in the north of England and Scotland. The Rock and Ice Club in Manchester, the Creagh Dhu Mountaineering Club in Glasgow, and several university climbing clubs were amongst those that engendered a highly competitive climbing environment. At Clogwyn Du'r Arddu in Wales, numerous routes of a very high standard were achieved using strictly free climbing techniques. Hamish MacInnes and Dougal Haston, although not members, climbed with Creagh Dhu, and MacInnes had mentored Chris Bonington's youthful climbing as early as 1953.
In 1960, Bonington, as a member of a joint British–Indian–Nepalese army team led by Jimmy Roberts, reached the summit of the Annapurna II, east of the range's main summit, Annapurna I. The route did not involve rock climbing.
Mount Everest was ascended in 1963 by an American team along a deliberately difficult route along its West Ridge. Two years later, when planning with the American John Harlin for Harlin's direttissima attempt on the North Face of the Eiger, Harlin introduced Bonington to the American big wall technique of directly ascending a fixed rope using jumars. Harlin fell to his death and Haston's success on the route were reported on by Bonington and Mick Burke who were on the North Face as climbing journalist and cameraman. The publicity led to the televising of a climb of the Old Man of Hoy in Scotland, this time featuring Bonington and Haston. From this start, commercial sponsorship became a possibility for rock climbing and more elaborate and ambitious expeditions could be planned. With all fourteen 8000-metre peaks climbed by 1964, Himalayan expeditions using rock climbing routes became an opportunity Bonington wanted to seize.
Encouraged by Roberts, Bonington conceived of the idea of climbing Annapurna by its South Face, which he realised was going to require not just rock climbing, but also siege climbing tactics, given that the ascent would take many weeks. No one had tried rock climbing at high altitude before. The face itself was almost twice as high as the Eigerwand and even above the rock band there were another to the summit. The topography near the summit could be assessed from photographs Bonington had taken on the Annapurna II expedition of ten years earlier.
Planning
With financial support for the expedition from the Mount Everest Foundation, Bonington assembled a team from amongst his friends: Nick Estcourt, Martin Boysen, Ian Clough, Mike Thompson, Burke, and Haston. Advised to include an American to boost sales of the book he was planning, Bonington appointed Tom Frost who had considerable big wall experience in Yosemite as well as – secretly at the time – Nanda Devi on a CIA mission to install a nuclear-powered listening device for monitoring Chinese missiles. Frost was known to and respected by Haston and Don Whillans. Whillans was to be deputy leader for, although by then he was an overweight heavy drinker and smoker who disliked Bonington, he had more Himalayan experience than any other British mountaineer still active. Indeed, of the team assembled, only he, Bonington and Clough had been to Himalaya at all. Also included as climbers were Kelvin Kent, base camp manager, and David Lambert, the doctor. A four-man television team from ITN and Thames Television was to accompany them.
Departure They took of rope for fixing (they did not use their climbing rope), 40 cylinders of oxygen and six breathing sets. The baggage was sent from London by sea with Whillans and Lambert flying to Bombay to see to its unloading and transport to Pokhara by lorry. However, the ship was then delayed by about three weeks so Bonington arranged for Whillans and Lambert to travel to Kathmandu to reconnoitre the approach route instead of waiting at Bombay, and Clough would go to Bombay to deal with the baggage. They took oxygen cylinders intending to use supplementary oxygen above about but it was very little used for climbing and not at all above Camp VI. It was used, however, for people who had become ill.
Expedition March-in and Base Camp
In March 1970, the expedition flew to Kathmandu and then on to Pokhara, trekking to the southern vicinity of Annapurna along an easy route. Unlike twenty years earlier when Herzog had no satisfactory map and had to pioneer a route, by 1970, the track was well known even to hippie wanderers. Another change was that the Sherpas were no longer unsophisticated peasants – they were smart in appearance, spoke good English and had a Western attitude. Pasang Kami, the sirdar, treated the sahibs as equals and this was reciprocated. The other Sherpas were Pemba Tharkay, Ang Pema, Mingma Tsering, Nima Tsering and Kancha. As it turned out, a group from the British Army Mountaineering Association, led by Henry Day, was setting off at the same time for an ascent on Herzog's north face route and they had greatly helped Bonington by flying out of baggage to supply him until his main baggage arrived.
On 16 March, Whillans, Thompson, and two Sherpas went ahead of the main parties to reconnoitre the route and to find a suitable place for the base camp. A temporary location was found to be at the entrance to the Annapurna Sanctuary at the location of a previous base camp: that of the 1957 expedition to Machapuchare. The slower-moving baggage train of 140 porters set off from Pokhara on 22 March, and Clough and his 240 porters were able to leave Bombay with the delayed baggage on 24 March.
Bonington and Whillans met up on 27 March, and Whillans said he thought he and his Sherpas had seen a yeti and had photographed the footprints. More significantly, he had been able to identify a climbing route up the mountain's south face. After the whole party had gathered at the temporary base camp on 29 March, an advance party, including Whillans, Haston and Burke, established a final base camp at , three miles from the foot of the face. Estcourt used a theodolite to make accurate altitude measurements of various points on the face, because foreshortening makes estimation inaccurate. The porters returned to Pokhara from where many of them would help move up to Base Camp, the main baggage being carried from Bombay by the party led by Clough, Thompson, and Kent. Meanwhile, the lead climbers and Sherpas were left to ferry the advance baggage up to the final Base Camp. The monsoon was due at about the end of May.
Climbing route
Between Camp III at and the top of the Rock Band at , the average slope is 55°. Locations of camps on mountain Camp Altitude Occupied Description feet metres Temporary Base 12,000 28 March sited at Base Camp of 1957 Machapuchare expedition Base 14,000 31 March side of Annapurna glacier Camp I 16,000 2 April on "rognon" (island of rock in glacier) Camp II 17,500 6 April under rock overhang Camp III 20,100 13 April large, flat area at Col Camp IV 21,300 23 April sloping 30° on Ice Ridge dump 21,650 11 May col at top of Ice Ridge temporary Camp V 22,500 6 May foot of Ice Wall, vulnerable to snow sliding from above Camp V 22,750 9 May bergschrund at foot of Rock Band Camp VI 24,000 19 May tiny platform carved in snow at top of Flat Iron Summit 26,545 27 May
To Camp III and abortive start up Ice Ridge Whillans and Haston had found a difficult route across the glacier and up to a rognon – an island of rock on a glacier – where Camp I was planned, and then reached the flattish top of the rognon where Camp I would be just far enough away from the face – about a mile away – to avoid avalanche danger. Bonington and Burke relocated the lower part of the route, hoping to make it suitable for porters.
The ridge they were to use at the start of the climb was straightforwardly approached across the glacier, but steep cliffs barred the way onto the ridge itself, so they skirted these on the right to reach a site for Camp II, lower than hoped for but with nowhere suitable immediately higher. For a short distance the route was seriously threatened by an ice overhang which they called the "Sword of Damocles," but they decided to reduce the risk by moving under it as quickly as possible.
When he arrived with the main baggage, Clough was supposed to stop at Hinko Cave overnight on 7 April, but due to confusing instructions, he continued on in a snowstorm with his entourage of 240 porters to temporary base camp some miles further on. Some porters had refused to go beyond Hinko Cave and the rest, overloaded and without adequate clothes and shoes in the bad weather, variously got into states of anger and collapse. However, now the main gear had arrived, it was possible to sort out shelter under cover for the night and provide medical help when necessary. On this same day, Whillans and Haston had reached the Ice Ridge at a col where Camp III was to be established. They had to climb through deep snow in bad weather. In ten days, the expedition had got from the Sanctuary to half height on the face, although with the difficult climbing all to be done further ahead. They abseiled down to Camp II from where, next day, they started placing fixed ropes towards the col.
On 11 March, Boysen and Estcourt established Camp III on the col, where there were to be two Whillans Box tents at a spacious location, free from risk of avalanches or falling rocks. The version used on Annapurna, designed by Whillans, was cuboid in shape, , made of socketed aluminium tubes covered in nylon top and bottom and cotton-terylene at the sides. It was strengthened with nylon webbing straps and at one end was a nylon-zipped entrance. An inner nylon tent was available but not always used. It weighed