Chris Bonington - Sea, Ice and Rock: Sailing and Climbing Above the Arctic Circle

It started, as most expeditions do, with a phone call. I was in New Zealand and, when I rang home one day, my wife Wendy told me that Robin Knox-Johnston had just called to ask whether I was interested in sailing to Greenland with him and then taking him up a climb. At that stage I was thinking of going climbing in the Tien Shan, in what was then the Soviet Union, but there was something so refreshingly different about this proposal, that I asked Wendy to accept the invitation on my behalf.

I had first met Robin in the autumn of 1978 on a charity edition of the television show The Krypton Factor. This consisted of a series of challenges that were designed to test physical stamina, practical and mental ingenuity and general knowledge. There were four competitors, Ranulph Fiennes, the polar adventurer, Robin Knox-Johnston, first man to sail around the world non-stop single-handed, Don Cameron, the balloonist, and me. We first met on a bleak army assault course on the Lancashire moors. I thought I had it weighed up. Fiennes, tall, lean, and ex-SAS, was almost certain to beat me, but I should come an easy second. Neither a sailor nor a balloonist should be able to keep up with a mountaineer. It was a straight race, with the four of us starting together. Fiennes pulled away easily but Robin was on his tail. I thought Id catch up with my mountaineers stamina telling in the end, but the gap widened and I came in a poor third, my ego severely dented. I consoled myself with the fact that I was still in poor shape following a fall on the Ogre in the Karakoram the previous year. My confidence was restored in the cerebral part of the test when I managed to redeem myself, becoming the overall winner.

I met Robin again a year later when I was researching a book which I called Quest for Adventure. It was a study of post-war adventure in all its aspects. I rang to ask for an interview and he told me he was about to go cruising round the Western Isles with his family on his yacht, Suhaili. He suggested instead of just interviewing him we might exchange skills. Hed teach me something about sailing and I could take him climbing. We arranged to meet at Oban and I drove up in July 1979.

It didnt start too well. I went to the wrong part of the harbour, and was late anyway, having combed the Oban shops for a map of the Cuillin Ridge in Skye which was to be our land objective. I had forgotten to bring my own. Eventually I located a half-inch to the mile map, which would hardly be adequate for the intricate navigation required on the Cuillin, and then found Suhaili at the far end of the harbour. Robin and Sue, with their daughter Sara, were pleasantly relaxed about my late arrival and we set sail, or rather began motoring, as soon as I had brought my gear aboard. It was difficult to believe that Robin had sailed this small, 32-foot ketch round the world single-handed, through the Roaring Forties, and that on one occasion, when a huge rogue wave had swept it while he was working up forward, his only means of saving himself had been to climb the shrouds and cling to the main mast as the boat disappeared in roaring waters and foam. Chugging up the Sound of Mull, sipping a gin and tonic, was a far cry from that.

We anchored for the night in a small bay and the next day reached Loch Scavaig on Skye. I was already captivated by this style of sailing as I was seeing the hills of the Highlands from a different perspective and the very slowness of our progress was a bonus. It gave time to savour their changing aspect as we crept round Muck and Eigg, passed Rhum on the port side, and saw the jagged ramparts of the Cuillin loom ever higher.

The anchorage was a small bay, barely protected by a rocky peninsula. That evening, while Sue cooked supper, Robin rowed me ashore and I gave him his first taste of rock climbing on a little crag just above the bay. It was probably a new route, taking a diagonal line up steep rough gabbro. When he came to follow me, I could see he wasnt a natural climber. His movement was slow and awkward, yet quietly determined. Even though the rope was at an angle and the climb on the hard side for a total beginner, he coped with it in a calm methodical way and was obviously enjoying it.

The next morning we set out for our expedition on to the main ridge, walking up the side of Loch Coruisk and then up the ridge of the Dubhs, padding over the smooth black gabbro boiler plates, which swept up into a low cloud base. I had forgotten the Dubh Gap, a vertical step on the ridge, down which you need to abseil. I did at least have a rope, produced it from my rucksack, dropped the doubled ends down and started to explain to Robin the technique of abseiling.

You know, Chris, I think it would be much better if I did this the way Im used to. This is how I go up and down the mast.

He rigged the ropes as a pulley round the karabiner and prepared to set off. I didnt like the idea at all.

Look, Im responsible if anything goes wrong. I think you should do it as a proper abseil.

But Robin was adamant, and lowered himself down as if he was in a bosuns chair. I was immensely relieved when he reached the bottom and I was able to follow him down.

We were now in thick cloud approaching the crest of the ridge. The map I had bought in Oban was useless and I was uncomfortably aware of how easy it was to take the wrong turning. As we stumbled on I was getting more and more worried but determined not to let Robin know of my doubts. We met up with two other climbers, the first we had seen that day, and I tried in the course of our conversation to find out exactly where we were without letting on that I was totally lost. Luckily, I discovered we were still on the main ridge and going in the right direction.

After a short scramble we reached the Thearlaich Dubh Gap, a gash out of the ridge which once again called for an abseil. Robin did it his way. On the other side of the gap is Kings Chimney, a short climb with water dripping down it, making the rock slippery. Robin had a struggle but arrived at the top grinning, muttering that climbing the mast of Suhaili was more his style. I was enjoying myself on this wild mountain day in the swirling clouds with glimpses of dark craggy rock below and around us, and my pleasure was enhanced by introducing and sharing a skill and experience that meant so much to me. The wind was getting stronger, gusting round the pinnacles of the ridge crest and I could see that Robin was worried. Suhailis anchorage was open to the south and he was afraid the anchor might drag. We dropped down a side gully to reach the valley and returned by the shore of Loch Coruisk to the boat.

The following morning, sailing past the Isle of Rhum, we came across the Royal Yacht. Robin hurriedly hoisted an ensign so that we could dip it and radioed loyal greetings. Then he dropped me off at Tobermory and continued his holiday, while I went home to continue writing my book. I was so taken with offshore sailing that I started talking of buying a boat. But Wendy was more realistic, asking me how I would cope with all the maintenance and everything. So sailing remained a delightful one-off experience and, though we didnt meet up again, Robin and I had built the foundation of a very real friendship. His proposal that we should sail to Greenland was an extension, on a rather grand scale, of our voyage to Skye.

As soon as I got home from New Zealand I started researching a suitable climbing objective and quickly discovered that the most interesting and dramatic unclimbed mountains were on Greenlands forbidding east coast, but that this was also the most difficult to reach by boat. I was told we would be mad to try to take Suhaili into its ice-locked fjords. While Robin read the Admiralty Pilot