It was typical of Lou to analyze strategies. He had a scientific mind, plus considerable experience on big expeditions, and in the weeks ahead Jim would rely on Lou’s calculations and suggestions on load-carrying logistics, and later, on summit strategies.
Lou continued, “It also seems to me we will eventually want to abandon Base Camp, except for Saleem, who can stay there with his cook, and probably this camp as well, then move our base of operations to Camp One. It’s just too far from here to the base of the ridge.”
If we abandoned ABC—the camp we were in that night—it would be fine with everyone. When we first arrived there, we thought it reasonably safe. But every so often a rock would come crashing into camp, sending everyone diving for cover. In one of the tents one night, there had been a particularly close-sounding whistle as a rock flew by; in the morning, the occupants had seen a hole neatly punctured through the top of the tent, with a matching hole on the other side where the rock had exited.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking we should move everything to Camp One,” Jim Whittaker said. “There’s a lot of stuff here we’ll have to carry up, but I think it’s the best strategy. We should have four guys leave tomorrow who will stay and occupy Camp One, then the next day start to put the route in to Camp Two. The rest of us can carry loads from here and start to get Camp One ready as our new base.”
“I’ve done some thinking on who should go up to put in Camp Two,” he continued. There was silence in the tent. This would be important. Most of us wanted a chance to get out in the lead. In addition, it was the beginning of what would inevitably turn into endless jockeying for position. It was much too early to guess who would end up in position to try for the summit. An infinite number of things—sickness, injury, fatigue, despair—could happen to any of us between now and then, but it was not too early to start playing leapfrog mathematics to see who might be chosen to lead from Camp III to Camp IV—a very long, very steep traverse at twenty-three thousand feet. We knew that would be some of the most tricky and difficult climbing on the trip, and there were several of us eager to have the chance to lead across it.
“The four I’ve been thinking about for the job are Lou, Skip, Chris, and Craig.” Jim looked at everyone, checking for differing opinions. Lou nodded. He would be pleased to get out in the lead. Skip said it sounded O.K. to him, and Chris was agreeable too. But Craig said he would rather stay behind and carry loads—he was not quite ready to do any leading.
Jim studied his notes and thought for a while, then looked at me.
“How do you feel, Rick? Want to have a go at putting in Two?”
I had been leaning with my arms on my knees, staring at the tent floor, while Jim announced his first choice for the Camp II team. As soon as he mentioned the names—Lou, Skip, Chris, Craig—I realized an important implication of Jim’s choice: he was trying to separate people who might naturally pair up as rope teams because of their experience climbing together on previous expeditions. Of the strongest climbers on the team, those who had climbed together before were Lou Reichardt and John Roskelley, on Dhaulagiri in 1973 and Nanda Devi in 1976, and Chris Chandler and me, on Everest in 1976, as well as on many other climbs in the United States, Canada, and Peru. Jim Wickwire, obviously among the strongest climbers, was odd man out. He had not, in the past, been a consistent rope partner with any other team member. There were other pairings that seemed natural: Bill Sumner and Skip Edmonds had been on many climbs together; and Terry and Cherie Bech, as husband and wife, would have seemed a logical pair had they not made it clear they wanted to be treated as separate individuals on the climb, and thus preferred not to be roped together.
Before we left the States, all of us had talked at length about the problem of climbing pairs forming early in the expedition. It was considered a problem because we all felt that much of the feuding, the quarreling, and the schisms that all of us had observed on big expeditions were often the result of cliques forming early in the climb.
We hoped to avoid this. For one thing, on the approach march and later at Base Camp, instead of separating people in small, two-person tents, we slept in two big tents. Also, people rotated between the big tents, so we would all spend time with everyone on the team, rather than just a select person or two.
To prevent cliques from forming during the climb—or at least during the initial stage of the climb—Jim had decided (with the approval of us all) to avoid, whenever possible, pairing people simply because they had in the past been rope partners. But there was a trade-off in this strategy: while it might forestall cliques, it is nevertheless more comfortable to climb with an old pal whose judgment can be trusted, whose actions are predictable. When your partner leads, sets anchors, and fixes the rope for you to climb, it is nice to know the anchors will be well placed and solid, and when you are leading, to know your partner has a trustworthy belay to secure the rope should you fall.
But Jim, like most of us, felt this advantage was overshadowed by the danger of locking into fixed pairs. Everyone realized that it would be inevitable, even unavoidable, for people to pair up later in the climb. During the final stages, when we would prepare for the summit assault, Jim would have to choose who would be first to try for the top. That choice, we all knew, would be based on how well each of us had performed so far, how much strength we had left, and how much desire we had to push all the way. And the choice, inevitably, would be made in pairs, since climbing would be slow on the technical sections below the summit, with three or more people on one rope. But we hoped that by that stage of the expedition we would all know one another well enough, that we would all be committed to working together to get the first climbers to the summit, and that there would be no resultant disharmony from the pairings.
So when Jim announced his first choice for the Camp II team, it was no surprise that he had not picked both Chris and me. Chris and I had been climbing together since 1973, when we had both been invited to try a new route on a twenty-thousand-foot peak in Peru. We had hit it off very well and together had reached the summit. Several other climbs followed, including another trip to Peru the following year, and then, in 1976, the Bicentennial Everest Expedition. From the start of that trip Chris and I were an inseparable rope team, and we did a major part of the route scouting up to the twenty-four-thousand-foot level. Once in position for the summit, however, a last-minute shuffle put Chris on the first assault and me on the second. It was disappointing not to be on the same summit team, but seemed likely both teams would get a chance to go all the way. As it turned out, Chris and his climbing partner reached the summit, narrowly escaping a bivouac, and safely descended. The Sherpas, however, were reluctant to carry more oxygen to the high camp to support a second assault, and when the weather closed in we abandoned the mountain, happy to have had two reach the top.
In the two years between Everest and K2, Chris and I had seen each other often, and we were still good pals. We had hiked together several days on the approach march; a week before, we had scouted the route through the icefall to ABC. When Craig declined to join the lead team to Camp II and Jim asked if I would take the position, I realized I would again be paired with Chris. I was a little surprised, but Jim explained his reasoning.
“I know you and Chris are old-time climbing partners, but I think we all know each other well enough now, that we’re not risking any splits in the team.”
“Who do you have in mind to put in Camp Three?” Lou asked.
“It’s still a little early,” Jim said, “but I’m thinking of Wick and me. Just the two of us could do it—it’s one of the least technical sections of the climb—and if we did need help, I could ask another climber or two to come up. I would like to get a little lead climbing myself, you know—we would all like a stab at putting in some of the route. But I realize my main responsibility is being the leader, working out logistics. Still, I think Wick and I could do it in a few days. I would get it out of my system, then spend the rest of the time helping to haul loads and work out
the supply lines.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Lou said.
“I know there are still a lot of people left out,” Jim went on, “but it’s going to be a big climb, and everybody will get a chance to do some leading. I’ve said before, on the ’75 expedition it was a mistake to leave some people out of the lead climbing. I don’t intend to do that this time.”
“Have you thought about what supplies should first be carried to Camp One?” Lou asked.
“I have a list of a few things,” Jim said, “but maybe we should make a more detailed one.” Jim, Lou, and several of the others started to discuss the load priorities. Instead of joining in the conversation, I sat for a few minutes thinking how, in its initial stages, the climb might unfold. There had been a name noticeably unmentioned for the lead teams up to Camp III—John Roskelley—and it was clear what Jim had in mind. He was saving John for the difficult section from Camp III to Camp IV, the traverse. But who would John team up with? The only climber with skill in hard technical climbing (something certainly needed on the traverse) who was not on one of the initial teams was Bill Sumner. Perhaps they would pair up. But somehow that seemed unlikely. Bill and John were such opposite types. Bill was quiet, introspective, and approached most things in life—climbing, physics, making tents and equipment—in a slow, thorough manner. He was a complex, contemplative person. John, on the other hand, usually said whatever was on his mind, giving no consideration to the consequences of his statements. “I’ve never been one to beat around the bush,” he said, describing himself. “I tell people exactly what I’m thinking. I know I’m kind of brusque, but at least you know where I stand.”
But if Bill did not climb with John, who would? It was doubtful either Terry or Cherie Bech was technically qualified for the hard leading to Camp IV. Craig had turned down the lead to Camp II, and again, it was questionable whether he had the technical ability for the much more difficult traverse. Jim and Wick would need a rest after working to Camp III. That left the Camp II team: Lou, Skip, Chris, or me.
Skip had done some good technical rock climbing, but it was not clear whether he would be interested in leading the traverse. Like Bill, his close friend, he was introspective and had a slow, methodical approach to climbing. It did not seem likely John would pair up well with Skip. That left Lou, Chris, and me.
It was impossible to predict which of us might go with John. In any case, it had taken the strong Poles ten days to complete the nearly one-mile length of the traverse, and we had little hope of doing it much faster. That meant it could take two or even three teams, rotating every couple of days, to fix ropes along the traverse so we could haul supplies to Camp IV. By then, Wick would be rested. Maybe he could form a team with Bill. That seemed only natural—they got along well together. Which again left John, Lou, Chris, and me. I wondered how Jim might sort us out. If he wished to avoid old cliques, he would have to put Chris with either Lou or John. Again, as with Bill, I was not sure John would be compatible with Chris. A few days earlier, John had privately voiced to me his concern about getting along with Chris the rest of the expedition.
“Chris is a good friend of yours,” John told me, “and I thought maybe you could clear something up—maybe talk to Chris. I have a suspicion he thinks I’m down on him because he thinks I’m a straight redneck conservative. I know we’re different, but I don’t give a damn if he smokes hash.”
“I don’t think Chris dislikes you at all,” I told John. “I guess he thinks you’re a little outspoken, and obviously you guys don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but he doesn’t have any animosity.”
Chris wore shoulder-length hair and a beard and liked to finish off each day with a pipeload of hash from a stash he had purchased in Rawalpindi. He was not the only one who smoked hash on the trip—even Jim Wickwire, the straight-laced lawyer, got loaded with several of us one evening at Urdukas—but Chris, more than any of us, still lived the freewheeling life of the sixties. I had always been impressed that his style had never been cramped by his medical career. But more than one patient, in the emergency room of the Seattle hospital where he worked, had refused to be examined by Chris, not believing he could possibly be a doctor.
I went on staring at the tent floor, working out the future. It seemed most likely that Lou would again team with John, as he had done on previous climbs. Wick would probably be with Bill Sumner, and I would once again climb with Chris. It was all right, I thought, but I was a little disappointed. Although I had not told anyone, I had a strong ambition to climb with John. I had several reasons; most of them, I admitted to myself, were selfish. I was getting along with John very well, and I sensed in him a future friend. I also felt he was the best climber on the team, and therefore the one most likely to reach the top; if I teamed with him, I would also be in an excellent position. I knew we would make a very strong pair. Still, I felt if I made any overt move to team up with John, I would be abandoning my friend Chris. I was a bit ashamed of my ambitions.
Gradually, I realized how ridiculous it was, mapping all these scenarios of who would climb with whom. Time and again, all of us had told each other we would avoid the jockeying-for-position, the game-playing that happens on big expeditions, and here I was indulging in it already, at that early stage. It was ludicrous. I had to laugh at my own gullibility. Anything could happen—sickness, injury, storms—to change any sequence of events planned in advance. But one thing was certain: with an assortment of people as talented, as goal-oriented, as heterogeneous as this group, there was no doubt that whatever the crystal ball held in store, it was going to be interesting.
JULY 12. It was a brilliant morning, the best day since we had arrived at Base Camp the week before. Eight of us were scheduled to carry more loads to Camp I, and this time, Lou, Chris, Skip, and I would stay to occupy the camp. The next morning we would leave early and begin to scout the route to Camp II.
Fresh snow had, in places, covered our footprints; at times, it was difficult to follow the track winding through the maze of crevasses that we had worked out the previous day. I was leading a rope with Chris in the middle and Cherie on the end. There was a second rope with Lou, Skip, and John. Wick and Jim would make their carry later in the day.
We were in the same area where, the day before, John and I had fallen into the crevasse; I was being more cautious. I carefully probed with my ski pole, working it down through the snow. Suddenly it broke through. I pulled the pole out and craned my neck—nothing but blackness through the hole.
“Crevasses here,” I called back to Chris. “I’m going down a ways to look for a better crossing.”
I paralleled the crevasse edge for a couple of hundred feet, then again tested snow. It seemed much harder—possibly the crevasse was narrower, or there was a snow bridge I could not see spanning it. Taking no chances, I had Chris belay me while I belly-crawled over the suspicious area, commando style, spreading my weight evenly over the snow lid covering the crevasse.
I got to the other side, stood up, and continued on, keeping the rope between Chris and me taut. When he got to the crevasse, he decided to walk across. It was a repeat of my performance the day before: one second he was there, the next there was nothing but a hole with the rope disappearing into it. Cherie gave a little scream, and the rope went tight. I fell on all fours, digging my ax in the snow so I could stop the fall as the rope pulled on my waist harness.
That’s the third plunge in only two days, I thought. We’re going to have to establish a safe route through here and make wands out of tent poles, or somebody will get hurt sooner or later.
Lou crawled to the edge of the crevasse, planting a ski pole under Chris’s rope to prevent it from cutting farther into the edge and making it more difficult for Chris to climb out. After a few minutes Chris had jumared up the rope and crawled out, unhurt.
We moved slowly, carefully probing each crevasse crossing. Most were narrow enough to jump across. With ski poles, we could break through the snow that covered the
crevasse, widening the hole until we located its true sides, and then, knowing its width, jump across.
At one crevasse I hesitated for a moment, judging whether it was too wide to jump. I am only five foot five—and at that I have short legs—so I am not a very good broad jumper, especially with a fifty-pound pack. But this one seemed feasible.
“Watch me,” I told Chris. “I’m going to jump. It’s a real leg-stretcher.”
I held my ax with both hands so I could whack it into the far side if I fell short, then cocked my legs and jumped, just making the far side. Chris followed me across, then Cherie approached the hole. She hesitated for a minute, looking down into the crevasse.
“Just stand on the edge and jump,” Chris said. “It’s easy.”
Chris was getting ready to belay her. He had not finished planting his ice ax to anchor the rope when Cherie, getting ready to jump, stepped too close to the lip of the crevasse. The snow caved in, and she disappeared. The rope wound out. In a second Chris was pulled off balance and onto his knees. The rope went taut between him and me, as both of us planted our ice axes, to break Cherie’s fall. John, on the other rope, quickly moved to the crevasse edge and looked down.
“She’s down a good thirty feet,” he reported. “Way down there.”
He cupped his hands and yelled, “Cherie, you O.K.?”
We couldn’t hear her reply, but John looked up and relayed the message.
“She seems O.K.,” he said. “She’s probably shook up but I don’t think hurt. She’s really down there.”
The Last Step Page 12