The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2

by Jennifer Jordan

  No matter how it happened, something pulled Dudley off the mountain so strongly that he somersaulted over Fritz and began careening down the precipitous slope, pulling Pasang and then Fritz after him. Soon all three were tumbling down the icy grade, the rope playing out and then catching between them as their bodies fell. Fritz kicked his boots into the slope trying to gain purchase in the ice as the men slid with ever-increasing speed, bouncing against the rocks as they plummeted. After several wild swings of his heavy ice axe, which glanced off the frozen slope as if it were a baseball bat, Fritz finally felt the rope catch and braced himself as the other two men’s weight became taut on the rope at his waist. They all stopped, less than 200 feet from a sheer drop-off to the Godwin–Austen Glacier 9,000 feet below. While Fritz later said he was finally able to sink his axe far enough into the ice to hold the three men, Pasang reported that the rope had caught on a rock. Either way, their fall had been arrested and they were alive, if bruised and badly shaken by their close call. Looking down, Fritz could see that Pasang had suffered some sort of injury to his back or possibly his kidneys, while Dudley’s rucksack (with his sleeping bag, air mattress, and one of his cameras) tumbled down the slope and disappeared into oblivion.

  After picking up the pieces and dusting themselves off, the three men limped carefully down to Camp VII, only a few hundred feet below them. But instead of men and supplies, they found the camp not only empty but stripped; its tents had been left open to the wind and were half-filled with snow, food and matches were scattered on the slope, and, most critically, no one was in sight whose crampons Fritz could use for his summit bid.

  The three men stood staring at the ruined camp, dumbstruck.

  What in hell happened here? Fritz wondered. While it was one thing for Jack and Kikuli not to have reached Camp VIII, for them to have evacuated Camp VII was an outrage. He had left exact orders detailing who was to bring what supplies and when, and he was infuriated that his demands had been ignored. He had reprimanded Tony and Jack several times before and now to be so utterly disregarded was unthinkable. Had he and Dudley been sabotaged by the Sherpas, even though Kitar and Tendrup had been so “cheerful” the last time he had seen them at Camp VIII? Fritz stomped about the camp, his temper, anguish, and exhaustion boiling over in equal measure. His own team had “sacrificed this great goal,” his great goal. Not only had they been abandoned, but they had been left without spare sleeping bags and air mattresses high on K2. Standing on the edge of the mountain in the fading light, after his white rage finally passed, Fritz had one overriding thought: What the hell am I going to do now?

  As Pasang gathered some of the scattered food and prepared a small meal, Fritz and Dudley re-erected the most usable tent. When it was finally standing, the three crawled into it for the night.

  Fritz wasn’t exactly clear on what had happened on the slope above, or why they all fell, but he knew that they had almost disappeared down a 9,000-foot face. Did he have the strength for another close call? Could he stop all three of them again if there were a next time? Could he take that chance? The nails on his boots were almost butter-smooth by now—he hadn’t been able to sharpen them in over a week. Also, his six days above 26,000 feet had cost him more in terms of his physical strength than he’d thought. He was exhausted. The idea of descending, with the summit so close, infuriated him. However, without crampons and a climbing partner, it was impossible to even consider another try. He needed to replace Pasang, but there were no Sherpas in sight. There was only Dudley and his one pair of crampons.

  For nearly ten hours the three sat upright huddled beneath Pasang’s thin sleeping bag while the frigid cold bore into their bones through the tent floor. With sleep impossible, Fritz and Dudley talked through the night, Fritz bitterly accusing the men below of having stolen his summit out of jealousy and revenge, and declaring that Dudley, with his money to buy a team of lawyers, could have them all sued for stripping the camps, even put in jail for criminal negligence. It was the longest night of Fritz Wiessner’s life and one from which he felt he never truly recovered his strength. Years later, he would tell his son that that one night at Camp VII cost him more physically than anything else ever would in his life.

  As they waited for the first light of morning, Wiessner thought of the descent ahead and knew that the worst of the steep and icy slopes was still below them: a treacherous 65-degree pitch with ice so smooth they called it blue. They’d have to traverse across it in order to avoid facing directly downhill, but that would only lengthen their descent. Even if Fritz were to wear Dudley’s crampons, there were few rocks to arrest a three-man tumble down the slope and none of them had the strength or skills to hold the weight and momentum of all three careening out of control down the mountain.

  Whether Fritz accepted it or not as they sat upright that long night, perched on the edge of K2, his ability to get Dudley Wolfe down the mountain was gone. Their fall the day before had been devastating for Dudley; after two months on the mountain he was a frail shadow of the man who had boarded the Biancamano four months before. His somersault down the slope, losing his rucksack, and nearly falling off the east face cliffs, had taken the last of his already spent reserves. He was done.

  The debate about mountain ethics, and what one climber’s responsibilities are to another, is as old as the ropes and pitons of the earliest adventurers. Many, including Charlie Houston, believed that the glory of climbing is found not on the summit but in the shared experience of getting there, and back, alive. Judging by their behavior, just as many other climbers believe that it’s “every man for himself,” and that no one can or should rely on anyone else to take care of them in a place called the death zone. The question is not without its sea-level equivalents. Like the captain of a sinking ship, is it the leader’s responsibility to make sure every man is off the boat (or the mountain) before he saves himself? And does it matter, morally, if the leader is so incapacitated by exhaustion and mental haziness that the mountain may end up claiming not just one, but three lives if he doesn’t save himself?

  While we will never know what the two men said to each other as the first slate gray of dawn appeared in the sky, what we do know is that a decision was made for Dudley not to continue descending with Fritz and Pasang. There are two possible reasons. Either Dudley thought he was strong enough for a summit bid and wanted to rest in preparation for it, as Fritz later testified, or Dudley acknowledged that after two months on the mountain he was too weak, too inexperienced, and too hobbled by frostbite to get down safely, and that Fritz alone couldn’t provide that help.

  Because there was adequate food for a summit assault between what remained of Dudley’s Camp VIII stash and what they found at Camp VII, food was not the reason for Fritz and Pasang to descend. And because there were extra sleeping bags at Camp VIII, sleeping bags were not the issue. The only viable reasons for Fritz to continue descending were his and Pasang’s mental and physical deterioration, their lack of crampons to climb above the Bottleneck, and the need for help in getting Dudley down safely. But that’s not what Wiessner later said.

  In all of Wiessner’s accounts after the expedition, verbal and written, he said he descended to Camp VI in order to resupply another summit bid, and he left Dudley at Camp VII to rest (without explaining why, if rest were the issue, he hadn’t left him at Camp VIII). He also never specified what supplies he needed, and no one ever asked.

  While it seems heavy-handed to label Dudley’s decision to stay at Camp VII “sacrificial,” his staying with only Pasang’s cheap sleeping bag, which was just two-thirds as tall as he was, and only two or three days’ worth of matches poses the question: Did he remain on the mountain because he realized he was a liability to the others and didn’t want to risk their lives as well as his own?

  THE FRIGID, miserable night left the three men disoriented and exhausted. In the morning, Fritz and Pasang readied themselves for their descent but in their weakness and delirium it took them nearly six hours to pack u
p and put on their boots. When they were ready, Fritz counted out the remaining matches and handed Dudley fifteen of them, taking the last full box for his and Pasang’s descent. Dudley put his fifteen into his stainless steel match case, careful to tighten the screw top firmly back into place. As they left camp, Fritz turned and saw that several matches remained scattered in the snow.

  “Dudley!” he called.

  Dudley stuck his head out of the tent.

  “You’d better collect those matches and dry them out. You may need them.”

  Dudley waved and nodded that he understood.

  With a promise that he’d be right back, Fritz turned and headed down the mountain.

  AT THAT MOMENT, Tendrup, Kitar, Phinsoo, and Tsering were resting at Camp I at 18,600 feet, after an exhausting descent the day before all the way from Camp VII, laden with gear and feeling guilty over their decision to vacate the high camps without orders from the leader. Almost reluctant to return to base camp, which had become a fractious place, they finally left the tent by midday and made it into base camp that evening.

  As they neared camp, sentries who had been waiting for any signal from the summit team saw the Sherpas coming and a cry went up that four members were moving down the glacier toward the tents. The entire team rushed out to meet the men as they approached. There Tendrup told Jack, Tony, and Joe that he and the other three Sherpas had not seen or heard from Bara Sahib or Wolfe Sahib since July 14, the day after Jack had left them above Camp VI. In fact, Tendrup told them, he believed that the summit team was dead, telling how he had gotten to within 500 feet of the Camp VIII tents and had called for help to cross the slope, but no one had responded. He also showed Jack and Tony that the four of them had brought down all the sleeping bags and valuable foodstuffs from Camps VI and VII, just as Jack, Kikuli, and Dawa had done from Camps II and IV.

  If Jack and Tony were concerned that the team’s laborious work in stocking the high camps had just been entirely erased, they never mentioned it. Instead, they listened to the Sherpas and were perplexed. The weather, save for a storm on July 15 and 16, had been relatively good, and they figured that from Camp VIII at 26,000 feet, all Fritz and Dudley would have needed was three days to reach the summit and return to a lower camp, maybe even all the way to base. Here it was the 23rd and no one had seen or heard from the summit team in nine days.

  Where are they? they wondered, looking up at the mountain. Could they in fact be dead?

  Jack and Tony went to Dudley’s base camp tent, got his powerful nautical field glasses from the leather case embossed with Highland Light, and scoured the mountain for any signs of life, or death. They saw none—just oceans of snow, rock, and ice. As they searched, Chandra, the schoolteacher and translator from Srinagar, approached and told them he was concerned that all of the bags had been removed and thought that at least a few should be returned to the high camps for the retreating summit team.

  They looked at the man in annoyance. He had been nothing but a complaining hindrance to the team and a frightful gossip all summer. Joe Trench thought him a laughingstock who was desperate to befriend Fritz for future work and who would agree “black was white if Wiessner said so.”

  Jack and Tony needed time to figure out what to do. The last Sherpa to get within shouting distance of Camp VIII had concluded that the summit team was dead. The porters had arrived, as scheduled, to take the team out of base camp. And now this bothersome man was telling them to rush back up the mountain and restock the camps which had been stripped in preparation for the team’s departure, a departure they hoped was imminent.

  Hoping to quell Chandra’s instinct for wagging his tongue, they told him they were going to survey the glacier in the morning for any signs of the summit team and instructed him not to share his concern about the clearing of the camps with any of the other Sherpas. The last thing they needed was a rumor starting a revolt.

  With that, Jack and Tony returned to their private conference about what to do next, leaving Chandra standing on the glacier angry and embarrassed at having been spoken to like a child. The schoolteacher had had a long summer suffering the arrogance of the Americans and the bigotry of Trench, the man hired as the porters’ supposed liaison who couldn’t be bothered to learn their language. Bruised and resentful, Chandra returned to the Sherpas’ tents where he, true to form, kept the men busy chatting with speculation, accusation, and second-guessing Tony and Jack’s management of their splintered team. Even if Jack and Tony had been able to silence Chandra, it would have done little to calm the babble at base camp, where, when disaster strikes, those not on the mountain are mostly left to speculate about those who are. The trouble above is simply too far out of anyone’s reach to do anything constructive. All that’s left is talk.

  That night, with little else they could do, Jack and Tony, the men in charge, went to bed. In the morning Tony headed up the glacier with Kikuli and Dawa to examine the ropes and upper campsites from the base of the climbing route. As Tony went to look for concrete evidence that their teammates were dead, Jack stayed in base camp to manage the thirty porters who had arrived to take the men home.

  Whether through malfeasance or simply because they didn’t think to do so, neither of them ever mentioned returning any gear to the high camps for the descending summit team.

  Chapter 10

  The Last Man on the Mountain

  These mountains do not forgive mistakes.

  —ANATOLI BOUKREEV

  The highest-known photo from the expedition, taken most likely at Camp VIII. (Courtesy of the Fritz H. Wiessner Collection)

  When Fritz and Pasang reached Camp VI at 23,400 feet on the afternoon of July 23, they found it too was deserted. Fritz was at a critical juncture. He could either re-ascend the 1,400 feet back to Camp VII and bring Dudley down, or he could continue down the mountain hoping beyond reason that someone was still in either Camp IV or II who was able to rescue a failing man (he knew Camps V and III had been dismantled and served only as supply depots). Without the strength to climb back to Camp VIII, where the only extra sleeping bags were, going back up would have meant another miserable night on the mountain with three men again sharing one bag. Evidently, for Fritz, that was an unthinkable alternative. By now, he was near or at the end of his tether; he had to get down. Up was no longer possible. Instead of going back for his last man, Fritz continued down, taking Pasang with him.

  As they descended, they found more of the same: the remnants of Camp V at 22,000 feet, an evacuated Camp IV at 21,500 feet, and the old equipment depot which they called Camp III. With all evidence to the contrary, Fritz still held out hope that Jack and a few Sherpas remained at Camp II, the mountain’s main staging area at 19,300 feet. But as Fritz and Pasang drew near the tents, Fritz’s last flicker of optimism was extinguished. Camp II was clearly empty. Its tent doors were open and blowing in the breeze with no sign of life or sound of a hissing stove cooking dinner.

  With night falling and unable to put one foot in front of the other, further descent that day would have been suicidal. With their arms and legs feeling like lead, Fritz and Pasang took down one of the remaining tents and wrapped themselves in it. They huddled together for yet another frigid, wretched night in the cold.

  It’s hard to imagine what physical and mental state Fritz and Pasang were in after their weeks on the mountain, the last five days above 26,000 feet clawing for the summit. Climbers who have spent similar amounts of time at that altitude, straining every fiber of muscle and brain matter to reach the top, have experienced a range of miseries when they finally turned to head back down the mountain: cerebral edema, hallucinations, fatigue so severe that the only desire is to lie down and sleep even though every last ounce of their survival instincts is screaming, “NO!! If you sleep, you DIE!” It’s a tribute to the men not only how close to the summit of K2 they climbed, without any support, but what they accomplished on descent. During those two desperate days of retreat from the uppermost summit slopes, they survived sev
ere dehydration and malnutrition and were exposed to the raw and frigid elements, exhausted beyond measure.

  While Pasang was simply grateful to be alive, Fritz felt they had been utterly deserted and he was tortured by thoughts of their abandonment. They left us on the mountain for dead. Forgotten. Perhaps even sabotaged. His grand plan for K2 and his future seemed destroyed. Not only had he not made the summit, he still had a man high on the mountain. And not just any man, but Dudley Wolfe, one of the richest men in America, a man who could have meant a lot to his financial and climbing future, a man whom he could have talked into returning the next year, and then to any number of expeditions in the Himalayas. But Fritz had left him on the mountain. He’d send help to bring Dudley down as soon as he got himself to the base; but still, it wouldn’t look good to the outside world and for his future as an expedition leader.

  As he and Pasang stumbled down, each in a semi-coherent trance, Fritz began to silently chant to himself, Come on, keep it going. Fight it. It became almost a mantra as he focused intently on the ground at his feet. Keep going. Fight it. A misstep now would surely mean death. Neither he nor Pasang had the strength to hold the other in a fall. Thankfully, with every foot he descended, the thicker air became food and energy for his ravaged body and brain. While he grew weaker and more desperate for sleep, he nonetheless knew now that he would make it down and survive.