Bear Grylls Read online

  You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God.

  Matthew 5, v.2 (The Message Version)

  Appendices

  British Everest Expedition 1998 – Official Sponsors

  Davis, Langdon and Everest, Chartered Quantity Surveyors, London, UK

  Gartmore Investment Management

  SSAFA Forces Help

  Eton College

  Virgin and the Morelli Group

  Karrimor

  Quatar Airways

  Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare

  Breitling

  Timex

  Khyam Leisure

  BT plc

  John Duggan Esq

  Michael Dalby Esq

  The Grenadier Guards

  Land Activities Sports Fund

  PRI ITC Catterick

  Household Division Funds

  Lazards

  St Hugh’s College, Oxford University

  Citibank

  Smithkline Beecham

  Henderson Crosthwaite Institutional Brokers

  Sharp Panasonic

  Liquid Assets!: Moët et Chandon

  Freedom Brewery

  Charity Contributors

  The Expedition was raising money for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and SSAFA Forces Help – the national charity, helping both serving and ex-service men and women and their families in need.

  Many individuals and companies generously contributed to the fund-raising efforts, for which we are very grateful. The following is a list of some of the major corporate contributors:

  Theakstons Brewery. Guinness Mahon. Perpetual. Bank of Ireland

  Greenflag. Alliance and Leicester. RBS Avanta. Churchill Insurance

  Aberdeen Prolific. Albert E Sharp. Baring Asset Management. Birmingham Midshires. Britannia Building Society. Halifax plc

  Hill Samuel Asset Management. HSBC Holdings

  Harrods. Rothschild Asset Management. London and Manchester. Pearsons

  Save & Prosper. Scottish Equitable. Templeton. Virgin Direct

  Ludgate Communications. Bristol and West

  Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Research. Henderson Investors

  Kleinwort Benson. Lansons PR

  Mercury Asset Management. Northern Rock

  Portman Building Society. Frere Cholmeley Bichoff

  Luther Pendragon. Polhill Communications

  Woolwich. Nonsuch High School

  MORI. Biddick Harris PR. Broadgate Marketing. Chase de Vere

  Chelsea Building Society. Colonial

  Coventry Building Society. Financial Dynamics

  Prospero Direct. Thomas Cook

  Yorkshire Building Society. Brewin Dolphin Bell Lawrie

  Cazenove. Financial and Business Publications Ltd

  Lansons Communications. Rathbone Bros

  Skipton Building Society. Walker Cripps Waddle Beck

  Brunswick PR. Norwich and Peterborough Building Society

  A total of £52,000 has been raised for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, £13,000 for SSAFA Forces Help and £30,000 for the Rainbow Trust (a charity supporting terminally ill children and their families).

  To date Bear and his expeditions have raised almost $2 million for children around the world.

  For further information on Bear Grylls see: www.beargrylls.com

  Endnotes

  1. A recent survey has established that the height of Everest has increased to 29,035 feet as a result of movement of the earth.

  2. The preserved body of George Leigh Mallory was finally discovered at 27,000 feet on Everest in May 1999. No camera, nor the body of his companion, Sandy Irvine, has been found. It is presumed that Mallory fell to his death leaving Irvine to die alone, sitting in the snow. A photograph of Mallory’s wife, Ruth, that he promised to leave on the summit, was missing. The mountain’s greatest mystery still remains.

  3. Pascuale Scaturro successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest late in May 1998.

  4. In early 1999 Neil Laughton completed his dream of climbing the highest peak on each continent. By the summer of 1999 he had also reached the North Pole.

  5. Green Island in Poole Harbour was very kindly lent to me by the Davies family. It was magic!

  6. Graham Ratcliffe MBE reached the summit of Mount Everest from the South Side in May 1999. He is the first Briton to climb Everest from both sides.

  Mount Everest

  Summit 29,035 ft.

  Camp 4 26,000 ft.

  Camp 3 24,500 ft.

  Camp 2 21,200 ft.

  Camp 1 19,750 ft.

  Base Camp 17,450 ft.

  Bear and Mick during the Puja ceremony at Base Camp.

  Bottom’s up! Geoffrey breathing oxygen and trying to rehydrate at Camp 4 (26,000 ft) before the second summit attempt.

  Pasang, the Icefall doctor. One of the bravest men on the mountain.

  The complete team at Base Camp. Back row: Graham, Mick, Michael, Bernardo, Iñaki, Javien, Andy, Bear, Henry, Carla, Ilgvar, Ed, Geoffrey, Kipa, Lakpa. Front row: Allen, Nasu, Neil, Lo, Kami, Dowa, Pemba, Pas, Ang

  Yaks ferrying equipment up through the snows towards Base Camp.

  The imposing Lhotse Face Icewall at 24,000 ft. The blue ice shimmering in the moonlight.

  Crevasse-crossing in the Icefall at 18,500 ft.

  Slowly working our way through the icefall.

  The Western Cwm at dusk.

  One of the corpses on the mountain that serves as a sober reminder of Everest’s authority.

  Dusk at Camp 4. The highest camp in the world at 26,000 ft. The clouds are pouring over the lip of the South Col.

  Bear on top of the world. 7:22 a.m., 26 May 1998. Summit of Mount Everest at 29,035 ft

  Neil’s frostbitten feet. The result of our long wait beneath the South Summit.

  Bear back at Base Camp for the last time. Still sweaty and drinking Moët in the midday sun.

  The four of us post-climb. The tension falls away.

  FACING THE

  FROZEN OCEAN

  ONE MAN’S DREAM TO LEAD A TEAM

  ACROSS THE TREACHEROUS

  NORTH ATLANTIC

  To my dad, who I miss so much,

  and to Shara for giving me Jesse, our little son,

  whom my father would so adore.

  mer’cy n. & a.

  1. compassion towards those in distress;

  2. something for which to be thankful;

  3. a blessing – ‘it was a mercy we got out alive’

  1. DANGEROUS DREAMS

  The man who risks nothing, gains nothing.

  Neil Armstrong

  We are still no closer to Base-Camp and it’s getting late. I glance nervously around the Icefall. We are 19,000 vertical feet above sea level, in the mouth of Everest’s killer jaws. I notice my hand is shaking as I fumble with the ropes through thick mittens. I am scared.

  The sound of the metal climbing devices clinking on my harness is becoming hypnotic. I squeeze my eyes tight shut then open them. I try to breath rhythmically. I dig my crampons into the snow and wait. Mick is still ten yards away, stepping carefully across the broken blocks of ice. We have been in this crevasse-ridden, frozen death-trap for over nine hours and we are tiring. Fast.

  I stand up on my feet and take a few more careful steps, testing the ice with each movement. Then I feel the ice crack under me. I hold my breath. My world stands still. It cracks again then drops and opens up beneath me. I am falling.

  As I smash against the grey wall of the crevasse that was hidden beneath a thin veneer of ice, my world is spinning. The tips of my crampons catch the edge of the crevasse wall and the force throws me to the other side, crushing my shoulder and arm against the ice. I carry on falling, then suddenly I jerk to a halt as the rope somehow holds me. I can hear my screams echoing in the darkness below.

  The ice that is still falling around me crashes against my skull, jerking my head backwards. I lose consciousness for a few precious
seconds. I come to, and watch the ice falling away beneath me into the darkness as my body gently swings around on the end of the rope. Suddenly all is eerily silent.

  Adrenalin is soaring around my body, and I find myself shaking in waves of convulsions. I scream again and the sound echoes around the walls. I look up to the ray of light above, then down to the abyss below. Panic is overwhelming me. I clutch frantically for the wall, but it is glassy smooth. I swing my ice-axe at it wildly, but it doesn’t hold, and my crampons screech across the ice. In desperation I clutch the rope above me and look up.

  I am 23 years of age and about to die.

  The River Thames, September 2003, five years later. It is raining. I look up and hope for better weather for the day of Jesse’s christening. I have it all planned.

  The priest is going to stand on the old wooden deck of our barge, his robes billowing in the autumn breeze that whistles down the Thames, and, right there, with our families all around, he will christen our gorgeous son, Jesse, with snow water brought back from the summit of Mount Everest.

  But first there were forms to be completed and my wife, Shara, was gradually working through the questions.

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to put your occupation here.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well,’ Shara asked, ‘what is your occupation?’

  I hated this question. What would have been a simple query for most people was anything but straightforward for me.

  It would be so much easier just to be an estate agent. It would be so simple to write.

  Explorer? Sounds self-important.

  Mountaineer? Well I have always climbed, I guess.

  Motivational speaker? Partly, but that’s not all.

  Television presenter? When bribed.

  Writer? Once in a while, but not that brilliant.

  ‘Just put anything,’ I replied unhelpfully.

  In truth I feel rather as though I’m unemployable; but somehow I seem to have carved out this strange existence where I am able to do what feels natural to me, and then earn my living speaking about those experiences. And that, I guess, is my job.

  ‘Oh, just put estate agent, my love,’ I told her.

  The two adjectives most often attached to the men and women who live these adventures are ‘brave’ and ‘eccentric’, but to be honest, I dislike them both. I am not especially brave: I struggle with so many things and am much too sensitive for my own good. I often feel both afraid and vulnerable in this weird world we live in, and miss my family if I leave them for twenty-four hours. As for ‘eccentric’, I am not eccentric: yes, I sometimes take risks, but by nature I am extremely cautious. I am only too aware of the law of averages: the more times you get lucky, the worse your odds become.

  What I do know is that I have always tried to live as my dad taught me.

  My father died less than three years ago. Out of the blue, unannounced. He had been recovering from a pacemaker operation and was at home and fine, sitting up in bed. A minute later he was dead – just like that. That wasn’t meant to happen; he was only sixty-six. In the blink of an eye, one cold February morning, my dad had gone. All I had now was what he had taught me. I wish every day I could remember more.

  Throughout my childhood in and around the Isle of Wight, he’d taught me to climb and he’d taught me to sail. I adored every day we spent together on the cliffs, every day on the sea. I adored the excitement, the thrill and the challenge, but above all I loved just being close to him.

  I remember those special days all the time, often at odd moments. Maybe backstage at a big conference when I’m nervous, about to go out there and face another sea of strange faces. It can feel like the loneliest place on earth. I often think of Dad in those seconds before going onstage. I don’t know why.

  I remember how he once gave me an old 7-foot wooden boat with an even older 1-hp outboard engine. For Christmas he added a steering wheel, so I could potter around the harbour like a real captain.

  He guided me, he moulded me and he liberated me.

  ‘Now listen, Bear,’ he would say. ‘There are only two things that really matter in life. The first is to have dreams. The second is to look after your friends. The rest is detail.’ That was life in a nutshell.

  If my school reports were terrible, as they invariably were, he would say I should try harder, but it never seemed like the end of the world. He would pull a silly face, speak in a silly voice and hold me tight. And I learned more about life in those moments than in all my years of school.

  It was soon after my eighth birthday that Dad gave me a huge framed photo of Mount Everest. This was immediately hung on the wall in my bedroom. I would stare at it for hours in the dark, trying to imagine what it would be like to climb up there. What would it really feel like, so far away, so exposed, in those storm-force conditions that inhabit high ice faces? In my little bedroom, that Everest dream was born. One day, I swore to myself, I would stand on top of the world.

  After leaving school, I joined the army. During this time I served for three years as a soldier with the British Special Air Service (21 SAS) until a freak parachuting accident almost ended my life.

  I was in southern Africa, it was early evening, everything was routine; then my chute failed to deploy properly. I survived the fall, the torn canopy slowing my descent, but my injuries were bad. I had broken my back in three places and was deemed by the African doctor a ‘miracle man’ to have survived. It had indeed been a miracle, and one I thank God for every day.

  Six months in and out of military rehabilitation healed the bones but my confidence took much longer to return. The idea of climbing Everest seemed nothing but a pipe-dream now.

  But from where I lay, I began to dream again. And as my movement increased I began to get restless. I soon found that my hunger to climb had returned, and that hunger became the focus of my recovery. When, two years later, the opportunity to join a team of three other climbers on Everest came around, every ounce of me knew this was my break. It was crazy, but here was my chance.

  I had been earning about £45 a day as a soldier and I needed £15,000 for the expedition. I sold all I could, took out loans and got lucky with one amazing sponsor, Davis Langdon and Everest. The door had creaked open.

  Together with Mick Crosthwaite, my friend since we were kids in the Isle of Wight, and an exceptional team led by Neil Laughton, an old army friend, I spent three extraordinary months on Everest. Finally, at 7.22 a.m. on 26 May 1998, exhausted as dawn broke over the high Himalayas, two of us from our team stood on the roof of the world. A strange combination of luck, friendship and heart had enabled that moment to come true for me. It was all that I had imagined it would be and more.

  Two years later, I led a team that managed to circumnavigate Britain on jet-skis in aid of the RNLI. It was Shara’s and my first summer of married life together, and not quite her ideal holiday, driving around behind us in a camper van laden with jerry cans. She thought it was crazy but we had a blast. We had the proper sponsorship, we were helping a charity, we were with my closest mates and we were following a dream. This became my career.

  I had been drawn into the world of expeditions partly because it was what I loved but largely because I found it was one of the few things I could do all right.

  Early in 2000, I read about a British team that had previously attempted to cross the North Atlantic, just below the Arctic Circle, in an open rigid inflatable boat (RIB). They had performed heroically in horrendous conditions. Close to hypothermia and fighting frostbite, they had twice had to put out a call for emergency help – once to be brought out of the pack ice near Greenland and on the other occasion to be lifted on to a fishing trawler during a storm off Iceland. But they completed their route and had all returned alive.

  I was intrigued.

  ‘Do you think it is possible to complete this North Atlantic crossing in an open RIB without needing such emergency assistance?’ I began to ask various ma
ritime friends.

  Typically, they would laugh. I would look at them and wait, expecting an answer which never came.

  ‘It must be,’ I would then tell myself. ‘It has to be possible to do.’

  The idea lingered.

  There had been a Hollywood film set in the same seas, The Perfect Storm, starring George Clooney, about a group of fishermen who set out and never came back. I had seen it already and been terrified. I watched it again, but this time differently. I scrutinized the scenario and the conditions – the way the waves and the storm formed. I tried to imagine how a small open boat would cope. What decisions would I take as skipper? Would I turn round or risk the vessel? Suddenly, almost without knowing it, I was hooked.

  Icebergs, gale-force winds, whales, the Labrador Sea . . . I started to sleep badly at night, my mind a race of imaginings. But most importantly, by day, solid research led me to believe the crossing was distinctly possible.

  Three years later, we did it – just. This is the story of that journey across the freezing, ice-ridden, most northerly part of the Atlantic.

  In late 2002, I was invited to write an introduction for Debrett’s People of Today. I felt unsure about what to say. I wanted to explain the essence of exploration and why it still appeals so much to me. But that essence is extremely hard to capture. This was my best effort: