Summit Fever

by Andrew Greig, Joe Simpson (Introduction)

When poet Andrew Greig was asked by Scottish mountaineer Mal Duff to join his ascent of the Mustagh Tower in the Karakoram Himalayas, he had a poor head for heights and no climbing experience whatsoever. The result is this unique book.

Summit Fever has been loved by climbers and literary critics alike for its refreshing candour, wit, insight and the haunting beauty of its writing.

Much more than a book about climbing, it celebrates the risk, joy and adventure of being alive.

Genres: Nonfiction, Climbing, Mountaineering, Travel, Adventure, Biography

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 1985

About the author

Andrew Greig is a Scottish writer who grew up in Anstruther, Fife. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He lives in Orkney and Edinburgh and is married to author Lesley Glaister.

Reviews

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

“So what’s it all about? Why do climbers climb, why did I do it, what does it mean? Somehow I no longer want to talk or think about it. I’d begun climbing eager to analyse my companions, myself and climbing; now I’m reluctant to draw any conclusions at all. There is no clear answer to these questions, and even if there were it would not be very important. It is in the experience itself that the value lies.“

Andrew Greig is a Scottish writer who was asked, in 1984, by climber Malcolm Duff, to document his expedition’s attempt to summit Mustagh Tower in the Karakoram Himalayas in northern Pakistan. The author never expected to undertake such a daunting task, but Duff helped him prepare and taught him the basics beforehand. This book takes the reader along for the entire trip, starting with the preparations and logistics. It recounts the various obstacles and challenges all along the way, including both the downtime and the actual climbing.

Greig documents the interpersonal dynamics, physical and mental challenges of climbing, landscapes, and people living in the region. It differs from many books I have read, which are more focused on the actual climb once all the preliminaries are completed. I always seem to enjoy these narratives, since it allows me to experience an expedition without, you know, risking life and limb.

“Above 20,000 feet one does not recharge, can eat little and usually sleep less, in conditions of great discomfort. And then the next day get up and do it all over again. It is this combination of absolute mental and physical demands that makes mountaineering the total experience. That makes it so addictive.”

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was just under 24000 feet high, in the Karakoram which were apparently part of the Himalayas, ‘third turning on the left before K2’.

The young author writes a volume of poetry titled ‘Men on Ice’ and, one thing leading to another, receives an out of the blue invitation to actually go on an expedition to climb Mustagh Tower. He first meets Mal Duff, the leader, at a book reading.

‘Er, Malcolm ... you do realize my book was purely metaphorical? I can’t climb.’
For a moment he looked taken aback. ‘I’ll teach you. No problem.’
‘And I’m scared of heights. They make me feel ill.’
‘You’ll get used to it.’
‘To heights, or feeling ill?’
‘Both.’ The sardonic – satanic – grin was to become all too familiar.

The whole idea is crazy, impossible given the complete lack of experience for Andy, but it is also the chance of a lifetime. Instead of listening to the voice of reason, the author listens to Mal’s favorite quote, attributed to the Duke of Montrose (1612-1650):

He either fears his fate too much
or his deserts are small,
that dares not put it to the touch
to win or lose it all.

Andy dares, and we are rewarded with one of the best mountaineering books I ever read, mostly because of its candid, unbiased view from the fresh, sensitive eye of a poet.
I know I am hardly unbiased myself in my remarks, since I do have a minor case of the summit bug myself, after spending the best part of four decades trekking in the mountains. I did no technical climbing, but I did use crampons, ice picks, harness and cord, heavy backpack and bivouacs under the stars. I have also read a lot of books about Himalaya, so I have a solid frame of reference to judge the quality of the present account.
The author is an outsider in the world of professional climbers, but for me this is an advantage because he has nothing to prove and no bones to pick with the community.

To call mountaineering a sport or a pastime is like calling monastic life a hobby. For those who become serious – though seldom solemn – about it, it is the core of their lives. Everything else is arranged around it. It affects their attitude to everything else.

Once the decision to take part in the expedition is taken, the hard work must begin: learning the ropes with Mal Duff during winter in Glencoe (a hilarious and hair rising proposal), heavy training for months before the departure, financial and emotional commitment and so on.
The actual arrival in Pakistan is not the end of the preparations, but the start of serious troubles with bureaucracy, sponsors and illness that threaten the outcome before they even step on the Baltoro Glacier. But it is also quality time for the team to discover what they are made of, who to trust and how to work together.
Despite waiting impatiently for the actual climbing chapters, I was fascinated by the journal of the couple of weeks the expedition spends waiting for funds in a small Balti village on the Indus valley:

Everything is used, everyone has a role, everything fits. Askole life is as unbroken, unforced and interconnected as the irrigation channels that sustain the village.

Balti time, amnesiac mountain time, full of the present and of timelessness. Vast external spaciousness gradually mirrored inside.

This gradual easing into the group and into the scenery is the reader’s version of high altitude acclimatisation, an essential part of every attempt on the high peaks. For a book written in 1985, there are numerous details of the nuts and bolts of the preparations, but my favorite bits of trivia relate to how important books and audio cassettes were in the distribution of the porter loads. It is well known that a bad turn of the weather might mean days or weeks of being trapped inside Base Camp with nothing to do. Casual encounters with other expeditions underline the fact that only one in ten such attempts is successful. Climbing royalty might also just casually stroll down the path you are climbing:

‘That was Rheinhold Messner,’ Mal said casually.

The most poignant fact of life though is the awareness that you are literally risking your life for ambition.

‘It’s a wonderful way of life,’ he remarked once, ‘but every so often you look around and realize how many of your friends aren’t here any more.’

—«»—«»—«»—

I don’t want to do a recap here of every step taken by the author on the trip, or describe every member of the expedition. The best part of the book for me is the capture of both the magic of the mountains and the actual pain of getting to your target.

All you can do is stand and shake your head while your eye is drawn up one Tolkienesque fantasy after another. On both sides of the glacier, soaring spears of granite, spindrift pouring from the tip as if white blood were streaming out of a rent in the sky. The tortured pyramid of Masherbrum, dripping miles of snow ridges down into the valley. Trango Peak for all the world like a vast, ornate Victorian jelly.
We’ve finally been admitted into their austere, crazed, magnificently indifferent presence. Their attraction is in their repulsion, their manifest impossibility. They knock your eyes back, you feel them as a blow to the chest. They shrug and an avalanche that would wipe out an entire expedition smoulders down a slope. They don’t give a damn.
They are killers, heartbreakers, the lovers you can never possess and never forget.

I feel that this particular passage would have sufficed to explain my 5 star rating, making all my other observations superfluous. Yet, I do want to keep the other bookmarks I made in the text, for the way they mirror personal experiences, even if achieved at about half of the heights in Karakoram.

I don’t like this.
Ibex Trails are strictly for ibex. And for climbers who leave their brains in their rucksacks and their imagination at home. I don’t like edging along this sloping ledge of grit and loose stone with the cliff on my left forcing me to the edge of the 500 foot drop on my right. The pulse in my ears beats its drum, my breathing is erratic. I cling to the rock on my left, take each section in short, sharp rushes, feeling the surface slip under my boots.

When life is hanging by a thread on a mountain, there is no room any longer for evasion and self-deception; for better or worse you know yourself as you are.

How do these guys keep doing this? Whether they’re crazy or brave or plain tough, what’s remarkable is not the danger they accept, but the pain they embrace. I’d no idea it was like this.

Funny, this Himalayan stuff is so awful that the true wonder and fun and enjoyment only comes in retrospect. Trouble is, I suspect it’s also a bit addictive ... (Mal’s journal)

Any fool can trog upwards but it takes craft and cunning to descend quickly and safely in these conditions. (also Mal’s journal)

The Tower looks as uncompromising as before; we climbed it but in no way conquered it. If we conquered anything it was ourselves, each in our own way.

>>><<<>>><<<

Andy Greig went back to Himalaya for an attempt on Everest and another story. He was forced to give up the sport after health issues. He has also written some very interesting historical fiction books that I would like to try.
Mal Duff died doing what he loved, at Everest Base Camp. He is practically forgotten now, but glorious in this story.

[Ade Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew Greig, Summit Fever, Canongate, Edinburgh, 2005. (First published 1985)

In recent months I have returned to reading climbing books, once more from the safety of my armchair. Over the years I have been enthralled by the writings and adventures of many of the great mountaineers, always seeing in their stories insights into the human performing and thinking in extreme situations, always sensing the absurd urge to go beyond safety. To a lesser extent there has been the narrative satisfaction of relaxation after stress, something which in a minor way millions of us who to a greater or lesser extent set ourselves physical challenges in the ‘great outdoors’ also experience.
The poet, Andrew Greig made the extraordinary decision to take up an offer by the climber Mal Duff to learn climbing from scratch and accompany a team on an attempt of the Mustagh Tower in the Himalayas. As a member of the team, he would be its witness and write a book about it. Not surprisingly, much of the pleasure of the book comes from admiring the self-deprecating author’s considerable achievements against the odds: there but for the grace of sanity or cowardice could be ‘one of us’.
Too, the book like any other climbing book maintains its fascination by telling of the inevitable problems, frustrations, risks, near disasters, struggles against the odds, and the relationships between people of very different temperaments in often dire circumstances. The book is interwoven with the diaries of four of the climbers: “Four diaries, four inner worlds drifting in the mountains, touching like soap bubbles and bouncing away again…. The diaries are a salutary reminder that we’re each a unique world in ourselves, and that there are as many expeditions as there are members of the expedition.”
The old truth that one is always battling with oneself more than the mountain comes through sharply: of the seasoned climbers, Greig observes, “Enduring fear, danger, hardship and disaster has given them an unusual degree of self-knowledge. They’ve lived over and over the naked confrontation with the self. When life is hanging by a thread on a mountain, there is no room any longer for evasion and self-deception, for better or worse you know yourself as you are.”
So what is it that drives them on? Early, as the initial preparations start, as acclimitisation and setting up Camp 1 fill the days, there is “the Look. The Look that every party we met on their way down had. At once worn and fit, alert and withdrawn; the weathered skin, the eyes not so much distant as self-absorbed, relaxed yet revving…. The on-the-hill look, the early stages of summit fever.”
There are many, many neat observations, moments of drama and hilarity, and some beautiful writing that tries to suggest the almost Zen-like sense of being beyond the shabbiness of the quotidian, the mulch of thoughts racing in past and future. All sounds new-agey perhaps, but the writer can write! And you trust him, and this writer recognises the limits of words in communicating: “Why do climbers climb, why did I do it, what does it mean? Somehow I no longer want to talk or think about it… It is in the experience itself that the value lies. I can really only talk about it with other climbers, and with them there is no need to explain…. With self-possession comes a certain reticence.”
This is a lovely book, and for me given the extra edge by in some way being about writing itself which is, like climbing, “a supremely satisfying central activity that seems pointless to many – sometimes to ourselves.” There is a scorn of safety, a ground-down dissatisfaction with the security of the ordinary life, no matter how successful and full. Beneath writing and climbing, the sense of our fragility: “our lives are erected over crevasses and we thread our way through visible and invisible icefalls. Our faith and our sanity hang belayed from a tottering heap of shit.” By the way, there is deep affection in that last bathetic phrase which you will discover if you are lucky enough to read the book. “And yet we press on. Our protection may be illusory, but we use it. We go places, we achieve things in the face of our fear…Creatures of hope, living on amnesia, riddled as the times.”
I won’t quote from the ending. It is worth waiting for. The ‘postscript’ is added as the writer sits writing his book looking through a window onto an Edinburgh Street. Suffice it to say that the qualities, values and greatness of human spirit are evident too down in the everyday valleys of routine and security if we but look.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ordered "Summit Fever" because I know two of the climbers who were on the expedition. I know them, that is, in present life; the adventures detailed here took place decades before we met, and I feel vaguely dirty about spying into their past lives.

The book is a narrative of a mountain-climbing expedition to Muztagh Tower, the "Matterhorn of the Himalayas." The expedition was privately funded and led by experienced British and Scottish climbers. They were joined by three Americans, a couple and a single woman, who had basically paid to be guided to the summit by the experienced climbers. My friends are the American couple described in "Summit Fever."

"Summit Fever" predates Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" by eleven years, but is essentially similar. Both books were written by published authors who had been invited along to chronicle ambitious mountain-climbing expeditions. Both are gripping edge-of-the-seat narratives of perilous adventure, filled with insights into the world and minds of professional and world-class amateur mountain climbers. Both offer naked, frank appraisals of the climbers ... at their best and worst.

Krakauer's book is a first-hand account of a harrowing 1996 Everest attempt that killed eight climbers. He includes a long afterword to "Into Thin Air" detailing attacks on his veracity by surviving members of the expedition. Greig does not; there the two books differ.

The three Americans dropped out of the Muztagh Tower expedition early. The single woman turned back after the expedition ran out of money to pay the necessary porters. My friends Burt and Donna made it to base camp but had to helicopter out when Burt injured his leg. The core climbers invited Donna to continue on with them but she elected to go back down with Burt.

Greig did not give Burt and Donna an opportunity to present their view of events, as Krakauer did for the survivors of the 1996 Everest expedition. The Burt depicted in "Summit Fever" is a quite different man than the one I know. He comes across, in Greig's telling, poorly. Donna shines in comparison. I will be reluctant to ask them about the climb, and Greig's book, when I see them again. But I feel as if I've been prying into their medicine cabinet or something, and maybe I won't. I know I'd have come across poorly in Grieg's telling ... for I never would have made it as far as Burt and Donna did.

"Summit Fever" is apparently out of print; I was able to get a well-used paperback copy through an interlibrary loan request.

[Becca Conlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved, loved, loved.
I had the pleasure of hearing Sandy Allan speak at a lecture for a local climbing club. In the lecture he made reference to this expedition (of which he was part) and Andrew's book.
Summit Fever seems to have captured the impression I was left with of Sandy, Mal and our countries other climbing greats. That shared casual understated manner climbers have in the retelling of their incredible achievements can both engage and simultaneously isolate non climbers from connecting to the story. Coming from Andrews hand Summit Fever allows the reader to feel the highs and lows, the fears and the pride of a "non climber" on one hell of a challenging expedition. Its a behind the scenes look at a journey so many will never experience and a tribute to the incredible people who dedicate themselves to living the life. Awesome Stylee.

[Miles Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite mountaineering books. As a professional poet, Greig's writing sparkles in a way that most climbing books fail to achieve; as a newbie climber, he can take an outsider's perspective on the weird conventions of the subculture and explain things that most authors in the genre consider self-evident.

[Féarghal Mac giobúin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summit Fever is one of those rare gems. Equally poignant, hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time.

In brief, the book details an attempt by a group of eccentric but talented climbers to summit the Muztagh Tower. But really the joy of the book isn't in reading about the climb, it's the narration.

Greig is a writer first and foremost. Prior to this expedition, he was not a mountaineer. His training consisted of some brief interludes in Glencoe in the highlands before disappearing to the Himalayas.

The fact he is an outsider makes this book much more accessible for an audience as Greig takes care to explain this myriad world to his readership, we learn as he learns, following his journey every step of the way from Scotland to Pakistan.

I'm an amateur climber at best, perhaps more experienced than Greig was but I loved this book. The sheer isolation, the effort required to even reach the mountain is a tale worthy of a book on its own. He wasn't part of the summit party on Muztagh but using the diaries of his fellow climbers, he recounts the rest of the tale he didn't witness.

The humour is what made the book for me. Greig is a bit of a philosopher and writes many intriging passages but it's his casual nature, good humour and constant self-deprecation that makes it such an entertaining read.

If you're looking for an introduction to the world of climbing, you could do a lot worse than choose this.

[Di · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books. An outsider's perspective on high altitude climbing ... in the process of his becoming an insider.

[Marketa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. Anyone who loves mountains or climbing or just a good, well written story should read this.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meine Meinung von 2010:
Der schottische Autor Andrew Greig führte ein beschauliches Leben und hatte nicht die Absicht das zu ändern. Doch an einem Sonntagnachmittag änderte sich das schlgartig: er bekam Besuch von dem legendären Bergsteiger Mal Duff der ihn einlud, an einer Himalaja-Expedition teilzunehmen. Ziel war der Mustagh Tower der seit mehr als 20 Jahren nicht mehr bestiegen wurde. Ohne je mehr als auf eine Leiter geklettert zu sein nimmt Greig die Einladung an, eine Entscheidung die sein ganzes Leben verändert. Über erste Kletterunterweisungen an Treppengeländern und später im Glen Coe kommt er seinem Ziel, dem Mustagh Tower, dem weißen Tiger immer näher.

Wie kommt jemand, der bis jetzt nicht mehr als Treppensteigen gemacht hat dazu sich auf einen der schwierigsten Berge im Himalaja zu wagen udn wie kommt ein so erfahrener Bergsteiger wie Mal Duff dazu ihn überhaupt einzuladen? Während Andrew die Frage für sich nicht beantworten kann gibt Mal zu dass es aus einer Laune heraus geschehen ist und weil er einen ehrlichen Bericht wollte. Das ist Summit fever zweifellos. Andrew Greig hat Zugang zu den Tagebüchern der Expeditionsmitglieder und er benutzt sie auch. So erfährt der Leser die privatesten Gedanken, auch wenn sie nicht immer freudlich den anderen gegenüber sind. Den einen oder anderen Charakter habe ich schon in manchen Roman von Greig kennengelernt. Der Autor nimmt sich davon aber nicht aus: auch er ist so offen wie die anderen. Dadurch lernt der Leser jeden einzelnen des Teams gut kennen und mehr oder weniger mögen. Doch je näher man dem Gipfel kommt desto mehr tritt Privates in den Hintergrund und man konzentriert sich nur noch auf die eine Sache. Am Gipfel kommt dann die Erkenntnis dass es keinen ausser einem selbst interessiert was man eben erreicht hat.

Wieder unten trifft man auf eine Gruppe Norweger, die ein Visum für den Everest haben, deren halbes Team aber auf dem Berg zurückgeblieben ist. Zuerst ist es nur Gerede, aber dann entschliessen sich die Männer dazu das Visum zu übernehmen und den Everest über das North Ridge zu besteigen. Wieder ist Andrew Greig dabei und wieder hält er seine Erfahrungen fest: in "Kingdoms of experience".

Meine Meinung von 2018:
Ein Poet trifft einen Bergsteiger und nach ein paar Bier beschließen die beiden, gemeinsam auf einen der höchsten Berge im Karakorum zu steigen. Danach beschließen sie, den Mount Everest zu besteigen. Über eine bis jetzt noch nicht bestiegene Strecke. Klar, warum auch nicht, der Poet hat seine Höhenangst überwunden und diesen ersten Trip ja überlebt.

Das klingt ironisch, ist es aber nicht. Denn so ist es wirklich passiert, so wurde aus dem Poeten Andrew Greig ein Bergsteiger. Was zwischen dem ersten Bier und dem Tee am Ende der ersten Expedition liegt, ist die Geschichte einer Sammlung von Menschen, aus denen ein Team wird, von zu großen Egos die zurecht gestutzt werden und vom Überwinden der eigenen Grenzen. Vom Zurückstehen obwohl man eigentlich derjenige ist, der den Gipfel als Erster verdient hat. Von der Freude, dass es der Andere geschafft hat.

Alle Mitglieder der Expedition haben Tagebuch geführt und diese auch Andrew zum Lesen gegeben. Deshalb ist dieses Buch etwas Besonderes. Es geht nicht um den Berg, sondern um die Menschen, von denen einige am Berg geblieben sind.

Was mir aufgefallen ist, war die Bürokratie, mit der sich Malcolm Duff als Expeditionsleiter herumschlagen musste. Er musste sogar einmal zurück nach Schottland fliegen und die Anzahlung auf ein Haus dazu verwenden, um die Finanzierung zu stemmen. Wenn man heute von Expeditionen dieser Art liest, scheint alles viel glatter zu laufen.

Auch beim zweiten Lesen hat das Buch mitgerissen.

[Soaibuzzaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

<3

[Fiona Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written, insighful account of the lives of Himalayan climbers by a climbing novice. Even if you aren't interested in climbing, it's still worth reading.

[Agreenhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of us who will never make a Himalayan mountain climbing exhibition, this is the next best thing. It gave me insight into the people who go through torture to get to the top. It also was a wonderful travelogue, bringing me to remote HImalayan villages in Pakistan. Life there is different than any other I ever read about.

[Kit · Rating 3 out of 5]

less poetic and more recounting than I was anticipating, still good.