‘The secret of climbing the highest mountains in the world withvertigo? Just don’t look down’
One of the world’s greatest living explorers will be sharing extreme stories of survival at this year’s Fringe Bythe Sea, in North Berwick inaugust
He has crossed Antarctic ice caps, climbed Everest and is the oldest Brit to have scaled the north face of the Eiger – all while suffering from extreme vertigo.
It’s true. World-famous mountaineer Sir Ranulph Fiennes – who trained with the SAS – initially ruled out climbing the world’s highest mountain because of the at-times debilitating condition that affects the body’s balance and makes sufferers feel like everything around them is spinning.
It was only when his wife died that Sir Ranulph (or more properly Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-fiennes, 3rd Baronet OBE), set himself the challenge of overcoming his vertigo and reaching the top of Everest.
However, the expedition in 2004 did not go smoothly, as the 78-year-old adventurer explained: “I just wanted to do something, anything to distract me. So I did months and months of training and then I got a heart attack when I was 300 metres from the top and my friend got hypoxia on the way down.
“I told the doctor when I got down to base camp that I was never trying it again but he told me that if you go up the other side, from Nepal, it’s dead easy!”
The adventurer, who was inspired to become an explorer during his time in the Army, attempted Everest a second time, doing it the so-called “easy” way, four years later in 2008. But that trip was also blighted by disappointment and sadness.
Fiennes said: “I nearly got to the top, didn’t get a heart attack, but the body of my Sherpa’s father appeared in the snow. He died trying to climb Everest. There hadn’t been that much snow that year so the bodies just reappear. It was awful.
“The next year, 2009, by which time I was an OAP, I had worked out why I had failed twice: I was being too competitive. The next time I tried, I went with a Sherpa who was so fit, there was no point in trying to be competitive. I went very slowly that time.”
When he summited the great mountain, aged 65, he became the oldest British climber to accomplish the feat.
He is still competitive and regrets not having scaled all seven of the world’s tallest mountains, having climbed three of the seven, including the highest one. If he had completed the feat, he could have added it to his long list of accolades and achievements, including being the only person to have crossed the Antarctica ice cap and the northern ice cap and to climb the highest mountain.
It’s called the Global Reach Challenge and the former Army captain is the only person to ever complete it.
He said: “The mountains that you can actually climb when you are in your 70s have to be much lower than the ones you could have climbed before. There are only three of them out of seven I haven’t done, so it’s very annoying. I’m sure someone else will complete it soon.”
When he scaled the Eiger – which at 3,967 metres tall is less than half the height of Everest, at 8,949m – he seemed to conquer his vertigo, thanks to his trusted companion who had climbed Everest 11 times. He puts his success on the north face of the Swiss mountain down to this one man.
“He is very clever at teaching his climbers how not to get vertigo temporarily. It’s pretty simple – don’t allow yourself to think below your feet at all. It seems obvious but don’t look down! The north face of the Eiger has killed off 80 people but I could only do it because of that guy.”
However, when it came to climbing a ladder back home, Fiennes was not so successful, he laughed: “Last August at home, the gutters got full of leaves, and I was too scared so I sent my wife up and I held the ladder!”