shit happens!

Shit! Only 5 minutes walk from tonight's bivvi, and I was going really strong earlier. I hope I can find it. I hope I can make it. God this hurts. Where is everybody? At least I can see torches if I straighten my legs. Trust this to happen to me 2 days from the medic at base camp and 6 days walk from the nearest road.

And so my first, and hopefully last, bout of "High Altitude Constipation" started. Why is it that I can never go on a mountaineering trip without experiencing my or my mates’ bowel problems, sickness, or other ailments? Is this just me and the trips I go on, or is this common to mountaineering trips the world over? Perhaps such occurrences are frequent amongst mountaineers, but, as an unglamorous peripheral activity in the mountains, they are not publicised. Even accidents sound glamorous in comparison to unforeseen bowel movements, and I suppose "Triumph and Tragedy" captures the imagination more than sticking your finger up your bum to work something loose!

A week earlier we were lectured at Annapurna Base Camp on the possible problems that could trouble us at altitude, including the lesser-known complaint, High Altitude Constipation (a condition, I might add, that I have not heard of since, and one that I can not find in any book!). We had all laughed at how important it was to "release the load" in such a situation so as to prevent things "backing up", but I wasn't laughing now. My legs felt like they had done a marathon having squatted behind a boulder for 45 minutes and the extremely unpleasant feeling of using my finger as a laxative was not working. However, assistance arrived in the form of 2 mates who carried me to the bivvi where I gradually recovered on copious quantities of tea and water. Unfortunately this put paid to my attempt on Singu Chuli, but with Tharpu Chuli in the bag and Hiunchuli booked I was not too despondent. My trauma was over and 2 weeks later I was to come to the rescue, though not providing the same sort of "helping hand".

Chris climbing Hiunchuli

13 rope lengths and 12 hours up a snow / ice gully on the North East Side of Hiunchuli we were discussing our situation. Should we continue on up into the middle of the night in the hope of finding somewhere to bivvi, or should we start a lengthy abseil down? The decision was made somewhat easier when Chris suddenly erupted into his salopettes. The next few hours were to be quite unpleasant. Since Chris was in no state to concentrate on rigging up abseil anchors it was left to me to descend first, set-up the next belay, wait for Chris to arrive, clip him in, then move on to the next one. 13 times! Chris was suffering badly, on average about twice per abseil, and even worse only about half of the time did he get the zips undone in time! The smell was almost unbearable even from 50 metres below, and I was quite concerned with the prospect of something other than snow and rocks descending upon me, let alone the thought of sharing a tent with him later. At least it took my mind off the single, Russian ice screw belays we were rapping off.

These hadn't, by any means, been my first such "incidents" in the mountains. For instance, a couple of years earlier I had been in East Africa on a rather over-ambitious expedition to reach the summit of both Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya in 3 weeks from Cardiff. Having only pre-arranged the flights we were over the moon to be on our way up Kilimanjaro within 24 hours of our arrival in Nairobi. Our time was limited, as were our finances, and so we opted for the shorter 5-day round trip, which may account for how we felt in the days to come. At Kibo hut, approximately 15,000 feet above sea level, my head started to hurt and the potato soup was feeling less than secure in my belly. In fact I was starting to feel slightly queasy as I sat on a bunk zipped up in my sleeping bag. As always when the need becomes urgent the damned zip got stuck on the bag. So as not to antagonise my guts any further I started gently to un-stick the zip in a bid to escape out of doors. After all, it would not do to put the other guests off their food. The gently-gently approach made little impression and as the need became more pressing so did the force on the zip. Finally, with no time left, I looked about for any receptacle I could reach from my bed. We had made a big mistake deciding to climb Kilimanjaro in plastic boots whilst all around us went in walking boots. The inner boots were on my feet but the outers were lying on the floor within reach. One of the outers soon needed emptying, but the vomiting made me feel a whole lot better. Somehow I don’t think the guests felt the same way, and a young East German girl offered me some perfume presumably to improve the smell thus making their soup more palatable.

Mawenzi Peak on Kilimanjaro

Any disorder can cause distress to others as well, but in my experience we are usually more concerned about ourselves when we feel rotten. Take Paul’s situation on the trek to Annapurna Base Camp as an example. He was sleeping soundly upstairs in the "Batti", a Nepalese tea house for the uninitiated, when he was suddenly "caught short". A desperate, middle of the night dash to get out of his 1st floor accommodation to find a toilet failed horribly. My heart really went out to the poor porters, a people that complain less than anybody I have ever met, who were sleeping beneath the gaps in Paul’s floorboards. With all the hard work they were doing to help us move our mountaineering kit to Base Camp, they certainly did not deserve what befell them in the night. Still, Paul felt better.

But it is not just in the more distant destinations that these problems occur. All too frequently they happen closer to home. The name of the complaint, or the cause may sound less exotic, but the discomfort is the same. In my case, and I’m not alone, living on a vegetarian diet for any length of time can lead to indisposition. I discovered vegetarianism to be a cause of such pains a couple of years ago on a club trip to the Alps, having previously thought altitude or alcohol a more likely reason. 5 or 6 days into the trip I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, and mentioned this to a friend. He suggested eating meat telling me how he always felt the same on club trips due to the communal kitchen catering to the veggies. He was right too, and a bolognese that evening sorted me out a treat.

Other complaints can also lead to this type of dysfunction. One of my first ever visits to the hills of North Wales saw 2 of our group diving on top of a hypothermia casualty to stop him from slipping over a cliff. We were on a school trip many years ago, and had to keep a close eye on him for a good couple of days. One of the side effects of his hypothermia was the loss of bowel control, and the best we could offer the poor bloke was the choice between a tampon and a sanitary towel from the only girl on the trip. I don’t think he would ever have forgiven us if we had let him opt for the tampon.

I suppose that everyone suffers with similar illnesses from time to time, and they are not always directly related to climbing, but are perhaps more likely because of the situations climbing trips put us in. Inevitably some of us will be more prone than others, which would account for why simply driving to Yorkshire always gives me the shits. Amusing as such incidents are in retrospect, they are entirely unpleasant at the time both for the patient and his or her climbing partners. Perhaps I am unique in my ability to pick up such illnesses so often, but if I’m not then why do I never hear of such misfortunes in other people’s stories?