For most people it is sheer madness. But for a special band of intrepid customers, it is what makes life worth living. Welcome to the world of adventure sports, where staring down the frontiers of death is the ultimate celebration of life. Fahad Al-Kandari in this exclusive to the Arab Times speaks of his passion for climbing, and how he has been raising his stakes with every climb to feel that ultimate rush of adrenalin. He gives his daredevil spirit the credibility of an axiom by calling it the ‘natural progression.’ Death has teased him on a couple of occasions: once in Kyrgyzstan trapped in a storm, and once when he snatched a falling partner from the jaws of death. Yet, he says with a shy smile, “nothing is more dangerous than driving in Kuwait.”

Q: So how did it all start, your passion for climbing?
A: I have always enjoyed being outside, be it jogging or playing tennis. I am an outdoors person. And it was a natural progression, as I began to venture out more and more. It was first the deserts and slowly I moved on to other frontiers of challenge. The natural progression is that I enjoyed trekking, going up the hills, sightseeing the countryside. And then I wanted to take it a little bit higher. And then you want to go further and further up, and finally I ended up summiting the highest mountain in Britain. It is Ben Nevis.
In Britain the first mountain I started with was Mount Snowdon. I enjoyed the climb.

Q: Was this during your student days?
A: No, no. This was when I was working. The fascinating thing about the climb was the quiet exhaustion you feel as you slowly trek all the way to the peak of a mountain. It was a good five hours trek.

Q: Were you alone?
A: No. I was with my wife. She was exhausted. We took breaks along the way. It was a natural progression. From there I went on to climb other mountains, setting myself bigger challenges to surmount. I went to Scotland and climbed all the high mountains there. From there, I progressed into the Alps.

Q: You obviously must have undergone some formal training before you set to conquer the higher peaks?
A: All the mountains I climbed in the UK, I did without any training.

Q: Including the highest one?
A: Yes, including the highest one.

Q: How high was that?
A: If I am not mistaken, Ben Nevis is around 1,350 m tall. I reached the summit without training.

Q: But is that how people normally climb peaks?
A: Yes, most people trek up to the summit just like that. But some undergo training just to be doubly sure. But if you want to do some serious heights then you have to go to a school. That’s when I went to International School of Mountaineering in Switzerland. I did a couple of courses in mountaineering there. From the basics to how to survive an unexpected storm, about navigating your way to the peak, about the different ways to use a rope and so on. After that it’s just about going out there and doing your best. And I have never looked back.

Q: When you reached the highest peak in Britain for the first time what was your feeling? Tell us more about that moment of glory.
A: Oh. I think there are no words that can quite express that moment of reaching the peak. I was utterly exhausted. I had no formal training. I had my wife with me, who did not make it to the peak. She was very tired and I left her at one level and asked her to wait for me until I come back for her.
It was cloudy up there, and I couldn’t see much. I was in clouds. But the feeling was terrific of being there. Whatever I say, can never fully capture that moment of achievement. It was a great feeling. You push yourself to the limit, and when you go beyond that limit, you think that’s what I want to do, that’s what I am here for. It’s a very emotional moment.
However, the feeling lasts only for about ten minutes. The feeling of sheer exhilaration is short lived, because you then get preoccupied with the second challenge of climbing down. More important than going up is getting back down in one piece. The sense of achievement after all the hard work that you put in since taking the first step at the bottom of the mountain dies down some ten minutes after reaching the peak.
Once that disappears, then you have to think about coming down. When you come down safely, it’s party time. You are happy to have accomplished the climb, and before long you are thinking about your next objective. Your next challenge to conquer. And straightaway you start thinking of what to do next and set about doing it. That way it is fun.

Q: When you are talking about climbing more than a kilometer into the sky, that too without any formal training, was it really as easy as you now make it sound? There must have been all those challenges of thin air, precipices and so on.
A: I faced such challenges when I began climbing the Alps. The French Alps, Italian Alps and the Swiss Alps. I enjoyed climbing Mont Blanc, which is the highest peak in Western Europe. It is nearly 4810 m tall. I also really enjoyed climbing Matterhorn, which is 4478 meters. It’s a crazy mountain, a beautiful mountain. I think I was the first Kuwaiti to do it.

Q: Did you need to carry oxygen cylinders for that climb?
A: No, you don’t need oxygen cylinders for that. You have to carry oxygen only for climbs that extend beyond 7000 m. But even then not everybody takes oxygen cylinders. Mount Everest is 8848 m or thereabouts. The air is thin but people have done it without oxygen cylinders. It’s all about getting acclimatized to the conditions on the mountain. And then again, thin air works differently on different bodies. Some people can take it, and some can’t. It depends on your system too. Some people climb a peak one year and find it difficult to do so the next year. They suffer from what’s called high altitude sickness, which entails in fluids collecting in you lungs and causing breathing difficulties. So, different people react differently to these conditions.
Edmund Hilary, the first person to climb the Everest, couldn’t climb the peak in later years. Because he had high altitude sickness.
So, as I was saying, when I started to climb the Alps, it was a completely different ball game. The technicalities were different. The use of belays, ropes, ice axes, crampons and everything was different.
Once you have conquered the height, there is no more fun in doing the same heights again and again. The rush of adrenalin is not there any more. And so you push the stakes higher and higher. That’s how the progression works. It’s about making the climb more technically challenging which is dangerous. But don’t get me wrong. I am not playing with my life. That’s one thing I am not doing. I think driving in Kuwait is more dangerous than climbing. You can quote me on that.
While you climb you are in control of things. If you have the right equipment, if you have the right gear, and you have them on the correct way, then you are pretty much in control. The only thing you cannot control is the weather. But there again, if you are well prepared, then you can tackle it. It’s you versus the element. If the element is not in your favor, then you retreat and wait for more favorable conditions. You don’t push on if the element is not in your favor and you know that the chances of succeeding are very minimal.
You will get to the top if you make the right decision. It’s a matter of progression.

Q: Have you been in situations where you were in real trouble?
A: I went for a climb in a region between Kyrgyzstan and China. We were a team and our objective was to climb virgin peaks, or mountains that haven’t been climbed before. You live in a tent, and we established a base camp, a forward camp and a high camp. High camp was around 4000 meters. We camped on a glacier. We were a group of four. Our objective was also to put some new routes on some of the peaks and attempt virgin peaks never climbed before. We had porters who brought our supplies.
As soon as the porters left, a storm struck us and lasted for three days. And we didn’t have food, because the porters were supposed to come the next day with more food, and they couldn’t make it because of the storm. I mean the situation was very bad. We are talking about wind speeds of 120 km, heavy snow, complete whiteout. I mean we were so scared that we feared our tents would be blown off. The temperature inside the tent was minus 25 degrees.

Q: You didn’t have heaters with you?
A: No, we just had the sleeping bags. It was a very scary moment. For three days we suffered. I developed some frostbites on my fingers and toes. It took about a month to get the sensation back. The whole process of being there doing nothing, nowhere to go, but just lay curled up in your sleeping bags was pushing to the extreme. The whole time, my friend and I were just thinking of food. I was dreaming of a nice juicy steak.
All that we had were these biscuits and a handful of raisins, which we had to live on for the next three days. That was only meant to last for the night, and the next day our camp was supposed to have been stocked with food for the whole week. But that never happened. Between now and then, the storm stops and the wind dies down. That’s when we would come out of our tents and move our limbs.
In just those three days, I don’t know how many kilos we lost. My body had shrunk so much that my pants were loose. Because we were burning so much, just to keep ourselves warm. Our feet were cold. Our hands were cold. When the storm died down, we couldn’t complete all that we set out to do. We couldn’t climb the virgin peaks we intended to climb, but we managed to climb one virgin peak and put a new route on a mountain that had been climbed only once before us.
On the way back there was another storm and we sort of lost our way. It took us two days to reach civilization, instead of just six hours if we had taken the correct route. There was a complete whiteout and we lost our way. When there is a whiteout, the ground and the sky in front of you is totally white. We were in our vehicles, but then somebody had to navigate and lead us walking in deep snow, and we took turns to do the walking. That’s how bad it was. It was a scary moment.

Q: Those three days, did you ever feel that the world is lost for you forever?
A: It was not that bad because there were people in the base camps who knew we were up there, though they couldn’t keep in touch with us. It was just a matter of how long the ordeal would last. How long the storm would last. Luckily it didn’t last an entire week. Then it could have gone really bad.

Q: If that had happened, did you have some arrangements to be rescued? Such as being air lifted or something like that?
A: Not really. I don’t know if you know anything about Kyrgyzstan but it is very basic. We were in touch with the Kyrgyz Alpine Club when we set out on our adventure, because they would provide us with all the logistics and see us through the visa formalities. Otherwise the formalities would be very difficult because these are breakaway republics from the former Soviet Union. We had to go through so many checkpoints as it was a border area between China and Kyrgyzstan. And we had to bribe our way through, giving things like some apples, watermelons, smokes, so that the guards would let you pass without giving you a hard time.
So airlifting wasn’t an option at all. But the country is very different. The food is good. The traditional way of living is completely different. Some of them still live in the traditional nomadic style, grazing cattle and sheep.
We had a radio that was really ancient. The 1914 chunky model with an antenna that touched the sky. The Kyrgyz Alpine Club had given it to us to be in touch with civilization. The first day it worked and then it stopped working.
That was an amazing experience.

Q: You said you had an accident. Tell us something about that?
A: Yes. A couple of years ago I injured my knee skiing. And I also injured the rotator cuffs of both shoulders while climbing. Now I am fit, not a hundred percent though, but I don’t think there is much I can do about it now.
This happened while I was climbing. A girl who was climbing with us fell down and I just extended my hand to catch her and my fingers got caught in her harness. The shoulder of my arm holding her twisted backwards under her weight and got injured. In the bargain I rolled over and banged into the rock face with the other shoulder and injured that as well. She was lucky she didn’t die. Actually we were lucky we didn’t die, because if I had not broken her fall she would have taken me with her.

Q: At what height was this?
A: Well, it was a good 1000 meters. It was the mistake of the guy who was supposed to do the belay knot. He did not make the knot because of a minor mix up, and that caused the accident. If the knot was in place then the girl wouldn’t have fallen down when she lost her grip; she would have simply been hanging there. But because the knot was not in place, she fell.

Q: Which is your highest climb?
A: The highest was in Kyrgyzstan, about 5,100 m.

Q: This was the same expedition when you got stuck?
A: Yes. We put a new route on a different face of this mountain. It had been climbed only once before. But more than heights, I enjoy the technically involved climbs. I am not much into simply trekking up tall mountains. I enjoy the technicalities such as using ropes and all that. Many people tell me about climbing Mount Everest. But Everest is a high altitude trekking depending on the route you take. It does not require many technicalities. What kills you is the altitude more than the mountain itself. You could get high altitude sickness. When the air is thin not much oxygen goes into your lungs and then your brain gets fuzzy. That’s when you start to make silly mistakes and land in danger.

Q: What are your latest thrills in life, the latest turn in that progression you mentioned earlier?
A: Of late ice climbing has caught my fancy. It is nothing but frozen waterfalls. It is more challenging. It is climbed in winter. It is always cold. It is technically involved. You find them anywhere in the Alps.

Q: When you say frozen waterfalls, there are chances of them breaking off as you climb, isn’t it? Isn’t it riskier in that sense?
A: Yes. These are icicles, but slowly they grow thicker in the process of thawing and freezing. If you don’t read the ice correctly there is a big possibility that you could have an accident and you die. When you are ice climbing you have two ice axes and have crampons on your shoes to kick into the ice. So in the event of a fall, your crampons are sometimes stuck to the ice and your leg gets twisted and cracks. Anything is possible.
I had a friend of mine, who died ice climbing. It was in 2001. We did the same climb. We climbed it. It hadn’t been climbed in the last five years, because of the danger of avalanches. Moreover, the ice wasn’t thick enough or the temperature wasn’t ideal and so forth. This is in the French Alps.
After our successful climb, we had a party and I left for the UK. Ten days after that, my friend went on a second attempt on the same ice with another partner. When he hit a particular spot on the ice with his axe, the whole wall of ice cracked and then it just sheered off and fell on top of him. He died instantly. He was buried under tons of ice there for two days, before they recovered his body. On that day, it was little bit warmer and the ice was thinner than usual.

Q: From all that you say, do you think ice climbing is worth the risk?
A: Yes, as I said before, it is part of the progression. To get the kick, to keep the adrenalin flowing we have to push the limits.

Q: Have you tried to understand the medical side of your passion? Is there anything special about people like you that push you to such extremes?
A: I just know that I enjoy it thoroughly. I am only aware of the pleasure that it gives me. I would like to try sky diving, but I am scared of free falling. I mean, the thought of flying in an airplane scares me, because it is restrictive and you are not in control of it. Whereas, while you are climbing you are in full control of what you are doing. I train hard for my climb, I know what I am capable of doing; I know what I am not capable of doing. I will not go for something that I am not sure of achieving. When I set the stakes higher, I train harder and will go for it only when I am confident that I am fit to undertake the adventure. This way I am in control of my climbs. So the medical side of my passion is that it gives me pleasure. But I do not have a death wish. I love living.

biography
Fahad Al-Kandari is a lecturer at the College of Technological Studies, Kuwait University. He studied in the US and the UK, and has a Master of Philosophy in Engineering. It was during his stay in the UK that he discovered his passion for climbing. He lectures and researches and finds time to go on mountaineering expeditions in different parts of the world.