“Oh, my gosh,” Dick said.
He was hoping his eyes were deceiving him, but he knew better. The crest wasn't the summit at all. Beyond it was another ridge, several hundred feet long, with another crest maybe a hundred feet higher. They continued their slow step, breath, step.
Dick was starting to feel exhausted. Haven't I been through enough not to have to suffer through this ordeal, Dick said to himself in a kind of half thought, half prayer.
Dick felt he was too close not to make it, however, and mustered the will to keep making more steps, resolving to make the summit no matter what. Now he only had forty more feet, thirty more …
“Oh, no! Another false summit.”
The ridge continued higher, to another crest at least a hundred feet higher and again several hundred further. Dick felt himself sink, the elation he had felt seconds ago changed to dismay, even doubt.
I’m not going to make it, he thought. This close, and I’m not going to make it.
But he did make another step, then another. He tried to ignore his fatigue, his aching legs and lungs. Step, breath, breath, step.
I was tired just below the summit of McKinley, he told himself, and I made that. So I know I’ve got it in me to make this one, too.
Step, breath, step, breath.
Each step now seemed like it took minutes. He knew it wasn't that much time, but the fatigue made it seem that way. He thought about looking up from his feet again, but decided not to. He couldn't bear another disappointment. He made a few more steps. He changed his mind, and glanced up quickly.
What's that on top of the crest just in front, he wondered. A cross? Yeah, it's a cross. That means it's got to be the summit.
Wickwire had now stopped, and Dick caught up to him. With twenty steps left they interlocked arms around each other's shoulders and side-by-side walked to the summit of Aconcagua.
The highest point in the western hemisphere: 22,835 feet.
“Bass, this has been one of the best summit days I’ve had. It's been a real pleasure climbing with you.”
Dick beamed with pride and felt a tear in his eye. Coming from a veteran like Wickwire, it made him feel like he had really won his spurs. Below them through building clouds they could see the sweep of snow mountains extending north and south, a view to match Dick's joy.
“Aah-eah-eaahhh,” Dick bellowed.
Storm clouds, then snow hampered their descent. Belays down a steep, icy section next to the Piedra Bandera, a prominent rock mass on the east side of the glacier, took two hours and they found themselves at nightfall groping their way across heavily crevassed portions of the glacier back toward their camp on the west side—which they had left over thirteen hours earlier.
Both of them were lightly clothed and Dick had real concern not only about the crevasses, but about not finding their camp as well. It would be just my fate, he thought, after climbing this mountain, to freeze to death in this storm. This wasn't just an idle or “nervous Nellie” concern, either; not too far below them lay the body they had seen coming up. Possibly the man had perished just this way the year before. Dick could see the corpse clearly in his mind, spread-eagled on its back.
All of a sudden, George Dunn came out of the darkness right in front of them. Marty and the others had descended that morning, but he had waited at high camp for them because of the storm and finally couldn't stand the anxiety any longer, deciding to go look for them with a tent and some food in his pack. He knew it would be difficult to survive the night without some help, but he really didn't think he could find them on such a large glacier, at night and in the middle of a snowstorm.
They all hugged, roped one to the other, and Geo led them out of their trial—at least this trial of finding camp. For Dick, though, another trial was about to begin.
Just as he was making his last step from the hard, pocked glacier ice onto the rock of their campsite, his left foot dropped abruptly into a hole he hadn't seen in the dark. He yelled and toppled over, sliding downhill while clutching his left calf. Geo and Wickwire immediately leaped back onto the glacier and fell on top of him, arresting his movement with their crampons and ice axes.
He had really torn it, literally and figuratively. His gastrocnemius muscle was shredded and so was any reasonable chance of getting off the mountain, particularly with the tortuous route that lay below.
That night his lower leg swelled up like a balloon and the slightest jar would give him pain. Early next morning they were pondering what to do, when Dick asked if they had any pain pills, so he could move enough to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, Wickwire had some triple Empirin with codeine, which Dick started taking. Within fifteen minutes he was able to move slowly, so long as he didn't put any weight on his left leg; it was aching, but only had sharp pain if he jerked or vibrated, or accidentally put weight on it. Encouraged, Dick told them he would try to descend the mountain on his good right leg, using his two ski poles for support. Actually, there was no alternative; they certainly couldn't carry him.
For the next two days he tediously made his way down from 20,500 feet through sections that were challenging enough on the ascent, when he had two good legs. At times he would stumble or fall, and the pain would knife through him so badly he couldn't get his breath, but he finally reached the Vacas River at 10,000 feet. There they met with an Argentine mountaineering detachment that was on training maneuvers, and the soldiers considerately put him on one of their mules. The next day he rode the remaining twenty miles to the highway and civilization.
For Dick, his summit success as well as his gutsy descent, bolstered his confidence, and reduced his anxiety about Everest, although it didn't eliminate it, assuming his leg would heal in time. He was concerned about Frank, though, because for him this would be another to add to his growing list of failures. He hoped Frank wasn't becoming discouraged. He had enjoyed Frank's company in Russia, and on this climb too, and if Frank should lose enthusiasm Dick knew he could never find a replacement.
Dick was pleased, then, when Frank said he still had a full head of steam.
“I’m disappointed, sure, but not discouraged,” Frank said. He told Dick he still felt it was a question of conditioning, that all he needed was to go home and work out harder and then spend two or three months on Everest. After that, he would be ready for the Seven Summits year.
Dick certainly hoped Frank was right. But he couldn't help but note that Frank really did seem unaware of just how bad he had been on this climb. Frank didn't even seem to suspect that he was the reason everyone had turned back that day of their first summit attempt, not only because of his slowness, but also his inability to learn to use his crampons and ice axe, to manage a rope, and most of all, to judge the limits of his strength.
Dick decided not to say anything. He was just glad Frank still wanted to go through with the Seven Summits plan, and, being the optimist he was, hoped that things would work out, that maybe on Everest Frank would somehow change and get a lot better.
Two weeks after Frank and Dick left Aconcagua a Canadian climber named Patrick Morrow arrived to climb the mountain. By coincidence, Morrow also had come to Aconcagua as conditioning for an Everest expedition. He was a member of a large Canadian team that had a permit from the Nepalese government to attempt the mountain in the coming fall of 1982.
Morrow was twenty-eight years old, and made his living as a photojournalist specializing in outdoor adventure subjects, especially mountaineering. It was a tough way to make a living, and he had developed a habit of always thinking about things he could do that would interest his editors. He reached the summit of Aconcagua without any difficulty, and while making his descent a particularly appealing idea hit him. He had just climbed the highest mountain in South America. The year before he had climbed McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. He was on his way to try to climb the highest mountain in Asia. If by chance he did manage to get up Everest, why not try to climb the highest peak on each of the remaining continents?
He wouldn't find that out until he was far along toward realizing his own dream of being the first up the Seven Smmits.
4
EVEREST: THE NORTH WALL
Dick Bass relaxed in his dinette seat, lulled by the metronomic kla-klack, kla-klack, kla-klack of the train's wheels and the wistful whistle of the steam locomotive. Out the window the rows of tall poplars bordering cotton fields cast blinking shadows on the curtains of their first-class sleeper. With sunset light on the water they crossed a steel trestle over the great Huang, China's celebrated Yellow River.
“Two days on a train is just what I needed,” Dick said to Frank. “I don't think I got more than two hours sleep out of the last 72 before we left.”
As always the demands of Snowbird had kept Dick juggling on a tightrope. He thought of his frenzied pace and how he hadn't been able to spend any time training for this once in a lifetime experience. So many people assumed he was related to the affluent Bass family of Fort Worth and would probably think this was just another diversion to tide him over the midlife crisis, much like they thought Snowbird was just another hobby. This hurt him. Enduring his perpetual roller-coaster ride wouldn't be nearly as wearing if people only knew the sacrifices Snowbird had required these past thirteen years. And the climbing was actually just a means of trying to keep his head screwed on straight, so he could hang in there on the Bird. Anyway, he wouldn't have to keep the pins in the air now, at least not for the next two months. He had left his business manager, Thurman Taylor, to deal with it, and he now felt free to concentrate on Everest.
Dick still felt a vague unease when he thought of the thin atmosphere above 22,835 feet—the summit of Aconcagua, which was now his personal best altitude record. These last few weeks had been so hectic, though, he really hadn't dwelled on it; now, with more time, he again felt that uncertainty, but in typical Bass fashion pushed it aside, telling himself Everest would be like any other project. Albert Schweitzer had said, “Every start upon an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to succeed.”
If, for Dick, Everest was an untrodden path, for Frank it was a potential landmine. Following his return from Aconcagua, Frank did begin to realize somewhat how far it was he had to go if he were to have any success at all on the Seven Summits. Although it wouldn't be until much later when he would look back with more experienced eyes that he would see he really had no hope of ever climbing Aconcagua on that first attempt, he was sensing there was only the remotest chance he could get up Everest. But he was committed to performing much better than he had on Aconcagua, to carry as many loads to the highest camps as possible. In the few weeks between Aconcagua and departure to China he had upped his exercise regimen to two hours a day.
The train sped into the night, and the darkness outside shrank their world to the eight-by-twelve confines of their sleeper. The train passage from Peking to Chengdu was more indulgence than necessity, as the team could have as easily flown, but everyone had felt it would be fun to see the countryside. Frank was surprised to find himself enjoying the ride; normally he would have lacked patience for a gratuitous two-day extension to a schedule.
Frank was also enjoying the camaraderie of this relaxed interlude and the talks with Dick and the others. Here was Marty Hoey, stopping by their stateroom for a chat. Frank was impressed by Marty's ability to always be one of the guys yet at the same time always be the lady on the team. She had a smile that matched the pretty features of her oval face, yet she could just as quickly raise her left eyebrow with an authoritative skepticism. She could move with grace and femininity, yet her shoulders were strong and her legs powerful. On a climb she would move her feet with firm placement and plant her ice axe with precision. Yet also on a climb she would be careful to have her hair always under a freshly laundered scarf, and a pendant from a fine chain around her neck.
Frank considered how this young lady was in position to become the first American woman to climb Everest, and later with him and Dick, she might also become the first woman to climb the Seven Summits. Frank's mind went back to a visit Marty had made to L.A. just before they had left for Aconcagua, and to a morning when she accompanied him on his run up Mulholland. Frank was determined to show he was getting in shape, and set the fastest pace he dared up the hill. She stayed with him, but he had the impression she did so only out of courtesy. On each curve Marty took the outside, chiding Frank to do the same: a fast car on a blind curve might not have time to swing wide. That was like Marty, always cautious, always planning the safe strategy, always being the guide. Near the top she could no longer restrain herself, and breaking to a near-sprint had dashed the last quarter mile, then waited politely for Frank to catch up.
It was late afternoon on the second day when the train descended from the steep hills to the rich riceland basin of Central Szechwan, and nightfall when they pulled into Chengdu station. They were escorted to the Jin Jiang Hotel, seven high-ceilinged stories reminiscent of the austere architecture they had seen in Russia. Probably the place had been built in the fifties, when Soviet influence yet prevailed. Two days later they were again reminded of the old geopolitics when they boarded a vintage Russian Ilyushin turboprop for the four-hour flight to Lhasa.
The eastern margin of the high Tibetan Plateau rises abruptly a short distance out of Chengdu and on occasional clear days rice farmers in their paddies can see in the distance the shimmering snows of a peak called Minya Konka, rising to over 24,000 feet elevation. Through the plane's window the team spotted this precipitous peak —first climbed in 1932 by an intrepid team of young Harvard students—looking like a shark's fin cutting the rarefied atmosphere. Beyond Minya Konka lay a sea of summits quite beyond anything they had seen before. In the compressed folds of the peaks lay the valley headwaters of four of the world's great rivers: the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtze. Below their wings were unknown regions, peaks even the Chinese knew little or nothing about.
They landed outside Lhasa and drove into town in a microbus provided by the Chinese Mountaineering Association. Their hosts put them in a recently finished tourist guest house, and in a way it again reminded Frank of Russia where so many things were half-finished: here were fixtures for hot water but no hot water, flush toilets that didn't flush. Unlike Russia, however, these accommodations came with a high price.
When the Chinese first opened their mountains to foreign climbers, in 1979, there was much speculation why they had so suddenly reversed their long xenophobia. Perhaps it was a political move, an extension of the thaw that started with the invitation of the U.S. Ping-Pong team. When the first American expeditions returned from their climbs in 1980, however, it was apparent the Chinese had their sights on something else: foreign currency.
Unable to resist a mischievous jab, Frank cornered the liaison officer appointed to accompany the team to base camp. “When we were in Russia last year,” he said, “we had two weeks with all hotels, buses, airfare, food, and two guides, for eight hundred dollars apiece. You guys charge eight thousand, maybe more.”
Actually Frank didn't care if the Chinese were overcharging. He found it more interesting than annoying, and what he was really trying to do was get the liaison officer into a conversation on his favorite subject, politics.
Frank also thought the accommodations were adequate. It wasn't the Ritz, but then two months in tents strung up and down Everest wasn't going to be, either. He and Dick unpacked, then visited the others before turning in. Tomorrow they would have time to tour Lhasa, then the following day load into a minibus and start the four-day drive toward Everest base camp.
One of
Marty's roommates had his cassette machine playing a forties tune.
“My kind of dancing music,” Dick said.
“Wish I knew how to dance to this,” Marty replied.
“Well, I can teach you.”
Dick, who felt confident in his ability to lead even the shyest woman on the dance floor, was glad for the opportunity to reverse the teacher student roles with Marty. Soon he and Marty were fox-trotting on the worn carpet floor of this Lhasa cottage. But, like a little girl, Marty kept saying she couldn't do it, and he was tempted to repeat back to her what she had put on him whenever he said he didn't have time to train: “No excuses, Bass. Your friends don't need any, and your enemies won't believe them.” It was interesting, this trait she had of alternating between helpless maiden and pile-driving martinette. He recalled seeing her in a dress for the first time at a party at Snowbird and how feminine she looked. “Gosh, Marty, I’ve never seen you in a dress before,” he told her. Marty replied, “I love dresses, Bass, but I can't afford them because you pay such paltry wages.” Then Dick thought how next day she went back to her jeans, back to the mountain, back to being a real take-charge leader, demanding of the personnel who worked under her their best performance, and also feeling for them a responsibility, making sure when the season slowed they were the last to get laid off.
That was Marty: one minute acting like a helpless little girl, the next “wearing the pants” like a superconfident leader. Now she literally had pants on again, but he noticed she also wore the earrings he had bought for her in Chile, after Aconcagua. He had been in a jewelry store getting a gift for his wife, and Marty had happened in and was admiring the earrings but said she couldn't afford them. So when Marty left Dick had bought them and later surprised her. Now, as he taught her the basic fox-trot in that spartan room high on the Tibetan Plateau, he noticed she had them on, those simple but elegant lapis lazuli earrings.
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