During a very critical stage of the Namibia Himalaya Expedition 1982, while we were traversing the deterrent difficult Amphu Laptsa mountain range between Mount Everest and Makalu, we did need desperately this psychological power. In one of their proverbs the Tibetans are saying that it will create disaster to approach the thrones of the gods of the Himalaya.

In his book "High in the thin cold Air" Sir Edmund calls the route across Amphu Laptsa, West- and Sherpani Col a frightening access to Makalu. He still regards the Trashi Laptsa between Rolwaling and Khumbu the most treacherous mountain crossing in the world where mountaineers are killed nearly every year.

We are hearing again and again that "nobody will be killed at Amphu Laptsa because nobody is trying it".

After several weeks of staying in high altitudes we have gained the feeling to be acclimatized sufficiently well for that which is coming and which is feared by us. Fear is a frequent accompanion on Himalaya expeditions. Before critical sections like at the Amphu Laptsa this anxiety is concentrated to panicky fear, especially in these pitch-dark, avalanche ravaged, ice cold nights in the Himalaya. Next morning, however, the world is looking different. The fear is replaced by effort and intensive mountaineering activities.

After having crossed the Baruntse glacier which is rich in crevasses the strenuous and difficult entry into the big wall is beginning. Breathing labouriously we are battling our way up metre for metre. The effort is so great that we are not giving attention any more to the continuous state of danger surrounding us. The world consists of thirty distressed gasping steps only. Deeply exhausted, heavily breathing, the bent down upper part of the body lowered on to the ice axe and the approximately 20 kg heavy rucksack tilted on to the neck the mountaineer is taking his rest. For some minutes he consists only of breathing. After this he begins seeing clearly again and to take notice of the enormous world around him. Deep below him several glaciers are joining like roads of a freeway interchange. On the other side Lhotse with its formidable, ragged, avalanche ravaged south wall is towering and behind it the almost snowfree pyramid of Mount Everest. The higher we are pushing ourselves on these steep slopes covered with dangerous fresh snow the more new mountains with fantastic whipped cream compositions are emerging.

These steep ice- and rock ramps will and will not end. For hours we are climbing on fixed ropes which we have attached to rock pitons to make this difficult pitch easier for our porters, the heavy rucksacks threaten to draw us into the abyss. We are balancing on the edges of vertical precipices which are falling off to the glacier a thousand metre below us. Again and again we are threatened by the danger of a slip into eternity, to loose balance when the soft snow is giving way under our feet and we are sinking in it to our knees, sometimes to our waists. Surrounding us we are noticing numerous strange tracks, avalanche tracks - or maybe the tracks of the mysterious abominable snowman? Who knows? Just here in this remote world at the Tibetan border we had a strange contact with the "yetih miteh" as the Sherpas are calling this odd manlike creature.

We are aware of the danger of the whole snow slope slipping downwards on which we are moving. But all this is scarcely touching us, the effort in more than 6000 m altitude is too grave. The ice is repeatedly the last point of fixing ourselves. The crampons don’t help because the wet snow is too soft.

Seldom do I still have the energy to get my camera out of the rucksack. The pictures of the fantastic mountain world around us are imprinting themselves into my mind. In any case the photos do not reproduce the full truth, the horrible deepness, the fear for the abyss. Not only the dimension of space but the further dimension of the effort, of the climbing is lacking in my photos. It is again and again remarkable as to which extend high altitude is reducing energy. Normally I am an enthusiastic photographer and a good photo which I missed out is making me sick and putting me in a bad temper. Here I am neglecting the most beautiful mountain photo subjects on earth. It is this paralysing high altitude laziness which leads W Tilman to say, "the most frequent of all mountain diseases is the inexplicable reluctance of the mountaineer to set one foot before the other." Climbing up one rope length after the other new peaks are making their appearance like Makalu 2 or Kangchungtse, Chomo Lönzo, Chago, Shartse and many huge peaks in Tibet which I am not able to identify.

Some time or other all sweating is coming to an end. After a last difficult rock pitch across a ice covered cliff and a short step-cutting effort into an almost vertical icewall, the last drop in the bucket of exhaustion, we cannot climb higher, we have reached the top.

Before we abandon the West Col base camp in an altitude of 5600 m my two Sherpas Dawa Thondup and Ang Tschumbi as well as myself are making an attempt to climb the West Col. The tremendous icy upward swings south of the mighty Baruntse do not look very inviting from base camp. First at all we have to cross the icefall of the Hongu glacier to reach the West Col glacier which is gradually soaring up to a steep ice cliff which is looking like the edge of a soup tureen.

During a pretentious ice tour we reach the highest point of the West Col with its 6350 m during perfect clear weather and a roaring strong high altitude gale. The view to the west to Gaurisankar, Melungtse and Cho Oyu are indescribably beautiful. Before we climb into the approximately 70 degrees sloped ice ramp we have to cross al together four times a bergschrund which is falling into bottomless, blueish-black depths by means of a dubious and fragile looking ice bridge. With normal belay techniques like ropes this traversing would be a routine mountaineering manouevre. For reasons which never have become clear to me we haven’t taken a rope along. In the thin high air one’s intellectual power is apparently considerably reduced. This is the only explainable reason that we are starting to attack the ice walls of the West Col without being roped.

In my case the "Hallelujah stage" has been so far advanced that I am offering to my two Sherpas one hundred Nepalese Rupees each, these are approximately six US Dollars, when we do climb West Col without rope and only equipped with ice axe and crampons.

In this perilous way, fastened with the frontal points of our crampons in the almost vertical ice wall, we are reaching the highest point.

Here, on the top, the ice cold gale is roaring like a hundred simultaneously running and slowing down express trains in a diabolical crescendo. During taking a photograph I am feeling that both my hands are beginning to become numb and frostbitten. Whilst massaging them I am feeling a pain in my fingers. During climbing on the ice ramp my hands come again and again into contact with ice and snow. Some days ago during climbing Amphu Laptsa we negotiated the fixed ropes without jumars which our expedition were unfortunately lacking. Most probably my fingers got initially frostbitten there. Repeatedly I have drawn off my gloves to take photographs. The paralysing cold and the raging gale with more than a hundred kilometres per hour is doing the rest, the more so as the circulation of the blood is not any more warranted due to the increased production of red blood corpuscles. I try to give the numb fingers a massage, to warm them at my body but the pain will not disappear. The Sherpas notice, fortunately, my misery. Dawa Thondup is saving my hands by warming them up at the warmest parts of his body and by urinating upon them. My hands are looking pale, frozen, swollen. I have a premonition in this moment that I will not have the full usage of my hands anymore. I too realize that everything we have experienced is worth the suffering. Pain and desperation cast a shadow over the difficult descent. Cautiously holding me with their hands and supporting with their ice axes the Sherpas are guiding me across the many crevasses. Because hard ice sections are changing with deep soft snow they have to put my crampons on and off which represents a torture for all participants.

The sudden gale which comes roaring from the north-west flattens us against some rock outcrops in the ice wall. The force almost threatens to tore us from the mountain. The ice pins are slamming with express train force into our faces. It is a difficult descent. But I am experiencing too the security and friendship of my Sherpas, the bridge between the European and Asiatic which is all of a sudden forming. It is Dawa Thondup who performs here his great deed. We are reaching the icefall tired an exhausted. During its crossing Ang Tschumbi is belaying with his ice axe.

In the camp we find the seriously ill Bruce Campbell Watt, from whom we have thought in the morning that he would need a rest-day only. The West Col had demanded its price. Has it been worthwhile? This question has never arisen in view of the giant peaks. The answer has not been found neither here nor at home.

Bruce Campbell Watt, the porters and the Chief-Sherpa Dawa Thondup are staying for one night only. Next morning they are descending to the west into the Hinku valley. I am staying behind with Ang Tschumbi to climb the Mera Peak with its approximately 6500 m altitude. Ir is said that the Mera is technically not a difficult peak, and a long glacier is leading gradually to the summit ice pyramid. In the Himalayas under high altitude conditions even an easy route is always difficult. Because we haven’t got porters and additional equipment anymore which have been sent down with the main expedition already, we cannot provide one or two intermediate camps and we have to do the ascent and descent in one trip. For 1300 m altitude difference to the peak we have to climb up and down in one day which is not at all an easy task. The bad weather conditions in this year and the daily expected and feared begin of the monsoon make the ascent of the Mera an undertaking which is difficult to judge. In the last couple of days blizzards and dense fog have already started with malicious regularity at 10 o’clock in the morning. In spite of this I am not prepared to let this last possibility pass of an ascent to a high peak during our expedition 1982.

During full moonlight and all paralysing cold at four o’clock in the morning we climb into the icefall. The ghostly blueish moonlight creates a total unreal icy atmosphere. The bizarre ragged ice formations project surrealistic phantoms onto the glittering fresh snow surfaces which have solidified due to deep frost. The silence here is absolute. One is getting the feeling that we are the first human beings here who are breaking this eternal silence with our steps crunching in the snow.

At this early hour the odds are with us because the deep freezing is preserving everything like avalanched and crevasses. The wide and many hundred metres deep bergschrund at the foot of the icefall can be crossed with sufficient safety on snow bridges which now have increased bearing capability. The slight depressions in the soft snow which are indicating underlying unfathomable crevasses are well visible in the clear moonlight. Ang Tschumbi and myself are relieving one another with step cutting in the steep ice slopes which are leading to the great Mera glacier. Later we are relieving one another in making tracks in the deep soft snow which is quite an effort.

As soon as the sun with red-yellow cascades of sparks is beaming its luminous rays into the still blueish-dark space-sky, we have already walked far on the long glacier which is gradually ascending to the steeply rearing summit of the Mera. Surrounding us the innumerable, mostly nameless ice peaks of the eastern Himalayas are rising up in crystal-like beauty. These countless ice giants between more than 600 m and nearly 9000 m are surging like ocean waves in succession against the summit of Mera which we are labouriously approaching. We are moving onwards ropelength for ropelength and are crossing many bottomless crevasses. Later in the morning the icy altitude gale is increasing in strength but the sky which we are approaching more and more and the mountains around us are still clear. Very far in the east near Kangchendzoenga at the boundary between Nepal and Sikkim the first cloud formations are threatening which are quickly soaring through the valleys into our direction. The higher we are climbing into the ice walls of the Mera the more new peaks are making their appearance. It seems that we are moving on the same altitude than Nuptse with its nearly 8000 m. A little bit later we see the summits of five peaks of more than 800 m altitude each surrounding us, from Cho Oyu in the north-west via Mount Everest and Lhotse direct in the north to Makalu in the north-east and to the towering Kangchendzoenga, with its 8598 m altitude the third highest mountain on earth, some distance to the east.

The ascent on the last metres to the summit which we reach at 11 o’clock demands tremendous strength. Although it is still very clear the roaring gale coupled with piercing cold as well as snow which has been softened by the sun is sapping the last bit of energy. I am so exhausted that I can hardly speak. Everything is becoming indifferent. The effort, the heavy breathing is overpowering. But the top, the summit, is causing that all exertion and danger sink into oblivion. The first feeling on the summit is that of a tremendous and total, exhausted nothingness, as if one is not oneself anymore. The second feeling is that of a tremendous relief that we do not have to climb up-hill anymore but only dawn-hill. The ecstatic delight, happiness and even pride comes to the surface many days, even weeks later.