Dr. Heinrich Pfannl (1870–1929). (photo credit 4.4)
Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod (1868–1925). (photo credit 4.5)
His regular climbing companion was Austrian barrister Dr. Victor Wessely (born c. 1870) of Linz. Wessely, Hans Lorenz, and W. Merz were the first to ascend the Dolomite rock ridge Langkofelkarspitze (9,268 feet) in 1892.80 He was Pfannl’s frequent climbing partner, joining him, for example, on his 1896 first ascent of the Hochtor-Norwand (7,861 feet), and his 1899 ascent of Mont Blanc; on December 27, 1900, the two of them climbed the Hoch Arn (10,676 feet) in snowshoes.81 Crowley found him myopic (he was the only one in the party who wore glasses), and was revolted by his eating habits, which he likened to hunching over a plate and shoveling food into one’s mouth. Perhaps in response to this unflattering characterization, Wessely, in his account of the expedition, fails to mention Crowley at all.82
Doctor Jules Jacot-Guillarmod (1868–1925) acted as the expedition’s physician and photographer; since the purpose of the expedition was ostensibly to determine the effect of prolonged exposure to rarefied air on mountain climbers,83 his professional acumen was vital to the mission. Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, on Christmas Eve 1868, he was one of four children to Jules (a prominent professor, wildlife painter, and art teacher) and Adèle Emma Courvoisier. From 1888 to 1897, he studied medicine in Lausanne and Zürich, obtaining his PhD and working as a general physician in Corsier, Geneva, from 1898 to 1902. During his studies in Zürich, he became acquainted with the mountains of central Switzerland and developed passions for both climbing and photography. He climbed every year from 1891 through 1901, and is best known for his ascent of Mont Blanc, which he and several doctor colleagues climbed without a guide on June 12, 1897. Other guideless ascents that year included Mont Chemin (5,774 feet), Cornettes de Bise (7,979 feet), Col d’Emaney (8,077 feet), the Dom (14,911 feet), Col de Fenêtre (7,365 feet), La Ruinette (12,713 feet), Col du Mont Rouge (10,961 feet), Col de Seilon (10,499 feet), Pas de Chèvres (9,354 feet), Col des Maisons Blanches (11,240 feet), Pointe du Mountet (12,720 feet), and Monte Rosa (15,203 feet).84 In 1890 he joined the Diablerets section of the Swiss Alpine Club, the French Alpine Club in 1898, and in 1899 he became a senior member of the Academic Alpine Club of Zurich.85 Aged thirty-three, his climbing skills were, in Crowley’s opinion, marginal, but his congenial nature did wonders for morale. Crowley described him as “certainly worth his place in the party, and more, for his constant cheerfulness and the fun we could always have with him.”86
The K2 party (from left to right): Victor Wessely, Oscar Eckenstein, Jules Jacot-Guillarmod, Aleister Crowley, Heinrich Pfannl, and Guy Knowles. (photo credit 4.6)
Towering over the Karakoram range north of India at a height of 28,251 feet, the second-highest mountain in the world was known variously as K2, Chogo Ri, Mount Godwin Austen, and Dapsang. Its sheer walls of ice, jutting sharply out of the landscape, were considered unclimbable. Despite Godwin Austen’s nineteenth-century survey, Conway’s 1892 Karakoram expedition, and Freshfield’s 1899 snow-aborted attempt, K2 and its surrounding mountains remained relatively unexplored. Conway did ascend the lesser neighboring pinnacles Crystal Peak and Pioneer Peak, but Eckenstein, who was in the expedition, knew the facts: Crystal Peak was a minor summit, nine thousand feet smaller than its neighbor K2, while Pioneer Peak was not even a peak but the top of a ridge whose summit Conway could not climb. He scorned the achievements on which the new president of the Alpine Club built his reputation, knowing he could do better with the four climbers he recruited, none of whom belonged to the club.
On March 29, they set out with three tons of baggage, 150 porters, and seventeen ekkas (two-wheeled carts drawn by horses, oxen, or similar animals), spending the night in Tret. The next morning, Crowley awoke to find a smartly dressed young man sitting attentively at his bedside. He was a police inspector sent to detain the expedition. Baffled, Crowley referred him to Eckenstein. Later that morning, Rawalpindi’s deputy commissioner told Crowley, “The rest of your party can do as it pleases. Mr. Eckenstein, however, cannot enter Kashmir.” Eckenstein, fearing this complication would fatally delay the expedition, asked Crowley to lead them into Srinagar while he sorted things out. So, for the next three weeks, Crowley led the march toward the mountain.
Pfannl trained constantly. As Crowley wrote, “After a fifteen-mile march he would have a little tiffin, and then go off in the afternoon up the mountainside to keep himself in condition!”87 He enjoyed marching ahead of the others and, when everyone caught up, proudly announced how many hours he had been waiting. Crowley was sure Pfannl would make himself sick.
Guillarmod, meanwhile, oversaw the cooks, trying to teach them a thing or two about preparing meals. He was good-humored, not even minding being the butt of jokes. For this, the natives invented the saying Yahan Doctor Sahib tahaan tamasha: “Where the Doctor Sahib is, there is amusement.”
Eckenstein found himself accused of being a spy. Interpreting this as an attempt by his rival, Conway, to use his influence to interfere with their expedition, Eckenstein boldly went to Delhi and confronted the ranking British official: if he was blocked from Kashmir, he would go to the Daily Telegraph and expose Conway’s machinations. On April 22 a suddenly unimpeded Eckenstein caught up to his comrades in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.88 An ancient city rich with pagodas and mosques, it offered very few familiar Western comforts; it reminded Guillarmod of Venice, but with a breathtaking mountain panorama visible from virtually every direction.89
On April 28 they proceeded north toward the Karakorams, daily hiring porters to carry their gear. The government, in an effort to make amends for detaining Eckenstein, provided additional food, porters, and permissions to aid the expedition.90 Seventeen days’ march brought them to Skardu, the capital of Baltistan, on May 14. Crossing the Indus river by ferry, they continued toward Askole. Then trouble began.
While most of the world’s great peaks were populated near their bases, K2 was not: Askole, ten days from the mountain’s base, was the last village along the way. This meant carrying an extra twenty days’ provisions for everyone in the caravan. Since a porter could carry thirty days’ rations at best, bringing enough provisions for the entire length of the expedition became a problem. The solution: They cut their baggage back to forty pounds per person, bought every pound of food in the valley, and hired every available man—about 250—to carry it. Crowley’s insistence on bringing along his library drove Eckenstein into uncharacteristic anger. The poet shrugged his shoulders and told Eckenstein flatly, “I would rather bear physical starvation than intellectual starvation. Either I take my books with me or I leave the expedition.”91
On June 5, ten days after arriving in Askole, the expedition proceeded in four teams. Crowley set out first, followed a day later by Wessely and Pfannl, then by Knowles and Guillarmod another day behind. Eckenstein planned to join them after Crowley set up a base of operations on the glacier.
Crowley’s team consisted of about twenty hand-picked porters, his library, and a mobile farmyard of fifteen sheep, thirty goats, and various fowl. The hired help was trying: Baltis traveled for days to sneak into the porters’ pay line and expect their ten cents without working. At nightfall, porters made off with supplies. Through it all, AC tried to treat them fairly and on terms he believed their culture understood. When a porter tested his authority by straggling, he responded by ignoring the offender until the end of the day, then humiliated him in front of his friends with a whipping.92 Conversely, when a Pathan porter cheated a Kashmiri servant of his tattered clothing, Crowley mediated the dispute. He heard the evidence and conceded that, by native justice, the clothes belonged to the Pathan. However, Crowley added a twist to the judgment: “Hassan’s coat certainly belongs to you, but the coat you are wearing belongs to me.” Thus Crowley dressed the servant in the new coat he had bought for each of his porters, while the bully slunk off in rags that were far too small for him. Finally, when he arrived at Paiyu’s open plate
au on June 8 and discovered the servants had stolen his fowl and nearly all the sugar, he fired them all. According to Rowell,93 this was only the first of many expeditions to search in vain for competent high-altitude porters in the Karakorams.
Finally, on June 16—seventy-nine days after setting out from Pindi—Crowley greeted the Baltoro Glacier with awe. Its wall of ice dwarfed the Swiss Alps, jutting over one thousand feet into the sky, and this from an altitude of 16,000 feet. AC spent the next four hours marching where no one had set foot before. At an altitude of 16,592 feet on the southeast ridge that would later be known as the Abruzzi Ridge, Crowley set up Camp 8. His survey from this point indicated that the ridge was the best approach to the summit of K2. Subsequent expeditions would confirm that Crowley lucked upon the best, and possibly only, way up K2.
Crowley’s team proceeded up the south face of the mountain to 17,332 feet, where the glacier rose sharply. Not wishing to endanger his porters, Crowley set up Camp 9 and halted the group. He climbed another 1,400 feet alone to set up Camp 10, the main camp, then sent his porters home and awaited the others.
Pfannl and Wessely reached Camp 10 with their group on June 19. With their arrival came the persistent snow that marred the expedition. While the weather didn’t keep Knowles, Guillarmod, and the rest of the third team from arriving the next day, it soon turned into a furious blizzard. A week passed before Eckenstein could ascend with fresh meat and bread.
A view of Camp 10. (photo credit 4.7)
Eckenstein and Knowles were both ill, with Knowles showing signs of altitude sickness. So Crowley, Pfannl, and Guillarmod started up the mountain. High winds kept them busy trying to keep their tents secure, and Crowley awoke the next morning with snow blindness. Wessely and Pfannl went ahead on July 1 to set up Camp 11 at 20,000 feet. They concluded K2 could be climbed not by the Abruzzi Ridge but by the northeast ridge, an unrealistic plan that Eckenstein vetoed. Snow fell for the next five days.
The climbers soon found that, living on the mountain, their body temperature and weight made a depression in the ice beneath their tent, forming a spot for water to collect and soak everything. On July 5, when two men arrived with two copies of Tannhäuser from the publisher, Crowley wrote in his diary, “We wished they had been 2,000 as then we should have something dry to put tents on.”94 Crowley spent the next day floating paper boats in the small lake inside his tent. The snow and moisture earned this site the nickname “Camp Misery.”
When Eckenstein proposed moving to Camp 11, Crowley objected strenuously, believing Abruzzi Ridge to be the best route up the mountain. Eckenstein feared the porters couldn’t manage the climb, so, on July 8, Crowley, Wessely, Pfannl, and Guillarmod moved to Camp 11, which Crowley dubbed Camp Despair, while Eckenstein and Knowles held back at Camp 10. Crowley went climbing the next day, reaching heights of 21,500 to 22,000 feet, only to relapse into illness on his return. The next day, an avalanche showered Camps 10 and 11 with snow.
Over the next days, Eckenstein and Knowles joined the others at Camp 11. Pfannl and Wessely established Camp 12 at an estimated height of 21,000 feet.
By July, K2 took its toll on the expedition: the weather was inhospitable, the altitude beyond acclimation, and the strain debilitating. At this altitude, water boiled at 194 degrees Farenheit—eighteen degrees lower than normal; it took two hours to make lukewarm tea, and the whole day to boil mutton. Knowles lost thirty-three pounds, and Guillarmod dropped down to 147; both were constantly ill with the flu. Crowley, meanwhile, was down with malaria. Locked in his tent on the mountain, with a fever of 102.9 degrees, the magician worked on The Sword of Song. Later, delirious with fever, Crowley pulled his Colt revolver on Knowles, who disarmed him with a sharp blow to the stomach. In later years, the gun would occupy Knowles’s mantel beside artworks of Degas, Rodin, Whistler, and Guardi.
When news came down from Camp 12 that Pfannl was ill, the doctor took notice. Pfannl had suffered bronchitis on the Finsteraarhorn (14,022 feet) in 1898 and had requried a period of convalescence at that time,95 so Jacot-Guillarmod monitored him closely. His condition worsened the next day, so the doctor examined him and brought him back down to Camp 11. He had edema of both lungs, triggered by the high altitude. It was a common occurrence in mountaineering, but at that time, fluid in the lungs was usually diagnosed as pneumonia; the correct diagnosis is to Guillarmod’s credit.96 On morphine, Pfannl babbled incoherently and explained his illness to Crowley: “The others are brutes and cannot understand. But you are a poet, you can see. There are three of me: two are well, but the third is a mountain, which holds a dagger. I am afraid it will stab me.” On July 21, after the latest snowstorm passed, Wessely took Pfannl down to Rdokass. Five days passed before the others realized Wessely had taken most of the emergency rations with him.
On August 1 the Austrians sent word from Rdokass that a cholera epidemic had broken out in the Bralduh Nala valley, and that the government had sealed off their return route. Eckenstein and Knowles were alarmed. Forty-nine days after Camp 10 was established, Eckenstein wrote to climber Douglas Freshfield (1845–1934):
Since then, we’ve had eight partially fine days (no three consecutive) and the rest of the time continuous snow storms. Our present storm has gone on for over 96 hours, and shows as yet no sign of abatement. At our camp here there are over five feet of fresh snow. Our prospects of ascending a high mountain, or any mountain, are consequently practically nil on this occasion.97
Crowley assessed the situation in very similar terms:
Of the 68 days which I spent on the glacier, only eight were fine; it was impossible even to start on any serious climb, easy as the mountain was, judged by the standard of technical difficulty. Pluck and perseverence are all very well; but they make no impression on deep powdery snow. A novice and a coward to boot will do as well—or as badly—as the best climber in the world with the temperament of Achilles.98
Perhaps more concisely, Crowley wrote these lines at Camp Despair:
So now the Earl was well a-weary of
The grievous folly of this wandering.99
At a long meeting the team evaluated their options. Their money was spent, everyone was sick, the snow was relentless, and a cholera epidemic threatened. Even if the weather miraculously cleared, the plateaux would require at least a week before they could be climbed, and the team had only a fortnight’s supplies to see them back to civilization. They decided unanimously to descend.
They tore down Camp 11 on August 3 and began their descent the next day. On the lower Baltoro Glacier, which they found dry of snow, Crowley stopped near a spring and washed for the first time since they began; he was rewarded with a head cold the next day. The team rejoined Pfannl and Wessely on August 11 in Rdokass, where they were surprised to find their rations gone. Crowley raved, “there were no sheep, the Austrians having managed to eat eight in sixteen days, in addition to fowls, etc!”100 At another meeting the team expelled the two climbers.
Alarmed by the cholera epidemic, Knowles and Eckenstein dumped the expedition’s tea and other provisions into the river and left the region before they could be infected. Neither Crowley nor Guillarmod bought into the panic and left the region at a leisurely pace. On August 20, 1902, Crowley recorded, “My constant sorrow at having ever been born was interrupted by moments of something very like indifference as to whether I was alive or not. It needed, in fact, a very few days to plunge me into the moral abyss of actually liking life.”101 On September 1 they arrived at Gurais, where Crowley and Guillarmod enjoyed a hot bath and cooked food. On September 6 the two climbers continued to Srinagar and parted. One hundred and thirty-two days after it started, the world’s first expedition up K2 was over.
Crowley bathing in a spring on the lower Baltoro Glacier, 1902. (photo credit 4.8)
It is necessary to put this expedition into perspective because it is often overlooked by historians. The oversight is intentional, because the team’s two principals were very unpopular among Alpinists: Eckenstein disdai
ned what he considered glory-grabbing tactics of the Alpine Club, so that Conway was knighted while Eckenstein died in obscurity in 1921.102 Crowley, on the other hand, because of his colorful reputation, was too notorious to receive credit for any achievement, however well deserved. Thus, many histories of K2 fail to mention this expedition at all; for instance, Sir Francis Younghusband’s (1863–1942) account103 merely states that the Swiss doctor, Jacot-Guillarmod, explored the region.
So what did the team accomplish? While it did not reach the top of K2, it was the first to set foot on the mountain; only the weather prevented their reaching the pinnacle. Even so, Guillarmod and Wessely performed reconnaissance up to 23,000 feet, a Himalayan record.104 Guillarmod also performed scientific measurements, recording not only the daily high and low temperatures, but also the altitudes at which vegetation ended (13,500 feet), ibex ascended (16,000 feet), and jackdaws flew overhead (18,000 feet). Eckenstein pioneered the use of successive depots and camps for climbing the great mountains of Asia.105 The expedition also stayed on the glacier for sixty-eight days, living at an altitude of 20,000 feet for longer than was thought possible; none but Knowles complained about the thin air. All this by a team of what some have called amateurs, using very primitive equipment by today’s standards. It would be over fifty years before the party lead by Italian climber Professor Ardito Desio (1897–2001) became first to reach K2’s summit in 1954.
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