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Memories of a lost climber: Chance meeting brings solace to Assynt rescue leader


By Mike Merritt

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An extraordinary chance meeting on a Sutherland mountain a fortnight ago has brought comfort to Assynt Mountain Rescue Team leader Sue Agnew over the death more than half-a-century ago of her uncle, a pioneering climber.

Ms Agnew and fellow team mates were returning on Friday, September 4, from the rescue of a fallen walker on 2398ft high Suilven, when they unexpectedly bumped into mountaineering legend Sir Chris Bonnington

Sir Chris was making an emotional return to Suilven - a mountain that he first climbed as a 17-year-old and has said shaped his life.

The rescue team stopped for a chat and the conversation soon centred on Ms Agnew’s uncle, George Fraser, a skilled mountaineer from Gatehouse of Fleet who died in 1959 during an attempt on Ama Dablam, one of the most beautiful, but deadly, peaks in the Eastern Himalayan Range.

His story has always fascinated his niece to the extent that in 2009, as part of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellowship, she retraced her uncle’s journey to base camp, with the aid of his diaries.

And she was delighted when it transpired that Sir Chris had been a close friend of her uncle’s and had climbed with him in Wester Ross a year before Mr Fraser’s attempt on 22,349ft Ama Dablam.

Ms Agnew said: “It was a bit of a surprise to say the least to come across Sir Chris. I asked him: ‘Do you remember George Fraser?’ And he did. I think they had struck up a friendship and he knew George well.

“He then started talking about climbing with George in the area the year before he climbed Ama Dablam. They must have been good friends to meet up in 1958 – a year before my uncle’s attempt on Ama Dablam – and share those times together.”

“It was very emotional for me. Chris is an incredibly nice man. I talked to Chris about George and about closure and he said he’s helped quite a lot of people over the years by escorting partners of mountaineers to where they had lost their lives.”

Born in India in 1931, Mr Fraser was the son of Brigadier Stannus Grant Gordon Fraser.

His attempt to scale Ama Dablam – located a few miles away from Everest and known as the ‘giant fang’ as well a the “Matterhorn of the Himalayas.” because of its soaring ridges and steep faces –was made alongside his climbing partner Mike Harris.

Had they succeeded, they would have been the first to do so.

But tragically, they were last seen through swirling mists moving strongly towards the summit, having apparently overcome the last difficult steps.

The surviving members of Mr Fraser’s expedition returned home exhausted, having built an 8ft burial mound of stones on which they inscribed the two men’s names with a screwdriver and hammer.

Mr Fraser’s example has long inspired Ms Agnew, who is one of the most respected figures in Scottish mountain rescue and one of the few women ever to lead a Scottish mountain rescue team.

She said: “My mother Mollie spoke about George, but my grandfather never did because he was of that era.

“Obviously I never met him, but I have all his diaries which he left at base camp for collection on his return – although sadly he never returned.

”He was a great inspiration to me. He and my mother were mountaineers and I got a lot of influence from both of them. Maybe they will find his body one day but I would rather that it stayed on the mountain.”

It was not until March 13, 1981, that Ama Dablam was conquered via its southwest ridge by Mike Gill (NZ), Barry Bishop (USA), Mike Ward (UK) and Wally Romanes (NZ).

Ama Dablam is the third most popular Himalayan peak for permitted expeditions, but the lives of George Fraser and his climbing parter and are not the only ones it has claimed.

In 2006, the collapse of a large serac (a block of glacial ice) occurred from the hanging glacier, which swept away several tents at Camp 3, killing six climbers.

On November 28, 2016, highly acclaimed climbing Sherpa Lakpa Thundu Sherpa of Pangboche was killed when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck, triggering an avalanche and the release of a few ice blocks. Thundu was at 19,680 feet on the mountain.

On November 11, 2017, Valery Rozov was killed when he jumped from the mountain in a wingsuit and struck a cliff.

Sir Chris’s stellar mountaineering career has included 19 expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to the world’s highest mountain, and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna. He briefly became the oldest known person to summit Mount Everest in April, 1985.

But despite his close encounters with the world’s most celebrated peaks, he has previously named Suilven in Sutherland as the mountain that most shaped his life.

He said: “I first climbed Suilven back when I was 17 and it was one of the most magical days I have ever had.

“The views from the top of Suilven are incredible. To the south there was a big, wide loch, dotted with islands.

“That day captured everything that I love about climbing and inspired me to keep doing it – the sense of exploration, the beauty of the mountains themselves, as well as the experience of really stretching yourself in the process.”

The mountain was immortalised last year in the film Edie, in which Sheila Hancock stars as an octogenarian who makes a life changing decision to climb its steep, remote slopes.

Suilven also inspired Margaret Payne (90) to climb her stairs at her Assynt home to the height of the peak in aid of NHS workers and a hospice, raising over £430,000.

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