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Climbing Big HEARD ISLAND – THE CLIMBING OF BIG BEN — By Tim Bowden ‘Heard Island is a very threatening dawn and see the red volcanic cones make their own tent. One thing the place, the sheer malevolence of Heard and the blue lights of the glaciers and meteorologists had worked out was that Island hits you when you go … it is the snow fields going up into the there was no knowing when Big Ben essentially black and white, stark, clouds, the great cliffs and the Sooty would turn on its very occasional good because the black volcanic rock cliffs Albatross calling ... it was absolute days. Their radiosonde balloons revealed rise out of this grey seething sea and magic. And the whole year there just a ‘pretty nasty’ picture of the weather at the wind is blowing and the birds are reinforced that.’ 9000 feet, cold exposed and windy. just floating around in the gale and Béchervaise and his companions screaming. The tops of these black The OIC of the ANARE Heard Island worked out that the Abbottsmith Glacier cliffs are coated with a thick, fifty-foot station in 1953, John Béchervaise, was probably their best route to the or so layer of white glacier ice and writer, mountaineer, photographer, mountain. They found there was an ice - this disappears up into the swirling artist, teacher and historian, was fall on the glacier which they thought mists that are engulfing this great intensely aware of this magnificent they could negotiate, and thought it a mountain. When the mists clear you unclimbed peak, the lure of which good idea to lay down a depot of food, have a nine-thousand-foot mountain loomed exceeding large when the news which they could return to or take from. rising straight out of the sea. Now, came through that the world’s highest However when they set off in early sum - not many places do you get a straight peak, Mt. Everest, had been conquered. mer, they found their depot had been lift of nine thousand feet for a moun - Many attempts had been made by snowed over and they could not find it, tain from a place where you’re stand - ANARE expeditioners to climb the active but they continued on anyway. ing but to have it coming out of the volcano, but they were always defeated Béchervaise, Elliott and Shaw got to sea with black cliff and then the white by the island’s notoriously fierce weath - striking distance of the top on the tenth glaciers streaking up and the but - er. day. Béchervaise: tresses of the summit and the steep ‘It was a lovely evening, there was a rock cliffs and the ice falls of the gla - pink alpine glow over the snow and ciers – it really is a most impressive there were some marvellous ice for - place. And on the few good days, mations.’ when the wind drops and the clouds clear and you sail around this thing, But Big Ben was not going to be so it is absolutely magnificent.’ benign for long. No sooner had they put (Phillip Law, 30 November, 1987.) their tent up, than a blizzard started with heavy snow and completely buried The ANARE station at Atlas Cove, on their tent. They made a chess set out of Heard Island, was officially closed on improvised odds and ends and played Wednesday, 9 March, 1955, after seven for three days. Béchervaise: years of continuous operation. Its ‘We ate as much as we could, but we demise was a sacrifice to finance the were then conscious of the fact that establishment of Mawson station, the we could be short of food. So, after first ANARE settlement on continental five days, we dug our way out. It Antarctica. became pretty important to become The abandonment of Heard Island mobile. We’d put bamboo markers was strenuously resisted by the Bureau down for where our sledge was, and of Meteorology, which found data from the tips of these markers were show - the island extremely useful. There was ing. We knew the sledge was about also a reluctance to disrupt a history of three or four feet down at this stage continuous observations. Phil Law had and on it was most of our food. We no alternative, but found it ‘a depressing came up to the surface and, still in task’ after so much effort had been put the blizzard, built an igloo large into the station and associated research. Fred Elliott emerges from an igloo above the enough for us to sit in and have light The huts were sealed, and emergency partially excavated tent, November, 1953. and air. The tent was down below, at stores, a diesel generator, stove and [ANARE photo by John Béchervaise. the bottom of a tunnel. We stayed in radio were left in case of an emergency, Australian Antarctic Division © that igloo until it also became covered with snow.’ or a future occupation of the station, Commonwealth of Australia] The Officer in Charge (OIC) on Heard Island during 1954/1955 was medical Towards the end of his year on In the end, because of the shortage officer Grahame Budd – whose associa - Heard, Béchervaise led a party of three of food, they knew they couldn’t stay tion with the island and ANARE was to up the mountain. His climbing compan - there indefinitely. So they dug the sledge continue. It was a matter of intense ions were Fred Elliott, a weather observ - out, under blizzard conditions, and frustration to Budd – and other resident er and Peter Shaw, a meteorologist. They started off on the homeward journey. mountaineers before him – that it had had very little equipment and had to They had been out on the mountain for not been possible to climb Big Ben (2745 make their own climbing boots from fifteen days. metres), then believed to be the highest quarter-inch felt, wound around their Crossing an icefall on the mountain on Australian territory. His Army-issue boots. Béchervaise: Abbottsmith Glacier, Béchervaise fell year on the island in 1954 bit deep. ‘Then we made bootees out of japara into a hidden crevasse. Béchervaise: Budd: and put that on top, with great heavy ‘I went down about 20 feet. And, you ‘I was an impressionable age, I was rubber soles underneath. We had no know, you don't feel anything – you’re only 24. And my first sight of the sledges, so we made a sledge out of just helpless and slightly annoyed place was quite wonderful. I woke up skis, and we towed that up.’ that it happened. You’re just swing - one morning to find Kista Dan hove to ing there between icy walls, with the off Rogers Head – and to look out at They did have ice-axes but had to black depths below ...’ Page 6 - Aurora - March 2011 of science’. Nowadays isn’t it the thin and the three climbers pitched camp Falling down crevasses is expected, veneer of conservation or the thin there, knowing that Mawson Peak (the for those who try to cross Heard’s heav - veneer of jingoism? But actually, why volcanic cone that forms the summit) ily fissured glaciers. But on this occa - not go for fun?’ was only about 500 metres higher. Then sion, Béchervaise was joined by the the weather closed in, and they were third man on the rope, Peter Shaw. Budd argued more realistically that blizzard-bound for five days. The Béchervaise: the scientific part was no less fascinat - climbers were philosophical. Budd: ‘Peter came through too, and he was ing than the mountain, because in ‘Warwick likes to say that the main about 25 feet behind me, and we were 1954/55 he had formed the impression, hazard on expeditions is bed sores. both down the crevasse. But Fred although without firm evidence, that Because you make yourself at home Elliott did the right thing. He Heard Island’s glaciers might be in in the tent and at last start to read anchored the sledge with an ice-axe retreat, and that there might be a resur - the books you brought along.’ and came along and got Peter out.’ gence of the king penguin and fur seal populations. A large part of the island Budd had Dr. Zhivago , Stephenson, The two men then lowered an extra was still unvisited – all the South War and Peace and Deacock The rope to Béchervaise, and helped him Barrier uplands and all the inland parts Importance of Living by Lin Yutang. climb out. It had been a near thing, and around Mawson Peak. So there was a The tent was designed for two, and there their last serious attempt to climb Big great deal of exploration to be done there was barely room for the three men to lie Ben that year. – and a lot of interesting questions. in their sleeping bags, which soon Were the glaciers temperate or polar? became wet as the temperature fluctuat - And what about the nature of the vol - ed from below to above freezing. Heavy cano itself? Budd proposed that a geolo - snowfalls gradually buried the tent. 1963 ATTEMPT gist and vulcanologist, Dr. Jon When the light became too bad to read, Stephenson, join his ANARE expedition. the man lying in the middle held a light - Although Grahame Budd did not Stephenson had led an expedition to the ed candle on his chest while those on have time to attempt Big Ben in 1954, Karakoram [Pakistan, India and China either side took turns in reading out he was aware of growing interest in this border], and had been the sole loud.
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