Sunlight still on the peaks. Thinking of you this minute Mary Lou.
JULY 18. What you might call another long day. But it was worth it. Camp III is ours at the foot of the formation the Poles called the Keystone. Roughly 22,300 feet. We reached the campsite at 4:45 p.m., and now we’re back in Camp II just before dark. Must say I feel as though I’ve been pulled through a wringer. Getting dark, my headlamp batteries are low.
For several days while Lou, Skip, Chris, and I had worked to Camp II, and then Jim and Wick and later Lou had pushed to Camp III, John Roskelley had been in ABC, sick. Rob had diagnosed a bronchial infection and had suggested strongly that John lay low, lest it develop into pneumonia. We had all been concerned for his health; if he did not get better, we would lose our strongest climber—the one we were counting on to do most of the leading across the traverse.
In the afternoon of July 17, while Jim and Wick pushed the first half of the route to Camp III and the rest of us humped loads to Camp II, John decided he felt good enough to start heading up the mountain. Rob advised otherwise, but John had had enough of ABC; he was itching to start leading and to help with the load carrying.
With John were Dianne Roberts, Diana Jagersky, and Terry Bech. Terry had also been out, with a sprained ankle he had suffered on the marathon trip to Urdukas with Jim, but now he too was feeling fit enough to start climbing. Dianne and Diana had been busy every day with the boring job of transporting food and gear up the glacier from ABC to Camp I. We now had enough confidence in our four Hunza porters, however, that we would let them continue that job while everyone else tackled the ridge. Except for Rob, who was still in ABC not feeling well, all of us would at last be in Camp I or above.
We heard John, Dianne, Diana, and Terry coming into camp before we saw them. They were carrying the stereo—or rather John was carrying it—and he again had the two speakers strapped to the outside of his pack. He discoed into camp, ice ax overhead, with the cut “Stayin’ Alive,” from the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever, playing at full volume. Over the next several weeks that was to become our theme song.
There was a party atmosphere in Camp I that afternoon. We mounted the stereo in the cook tent, and with a selection of more than fifty tapes we had everything from Chopin to Clapton, Bach to the Stones. Everybody was back early from the day’s carry to Camp II, and with John and the rest in from ABC, we all lay in the afternoon sun swapping stories. Nobody was sure who threw the first snowball.
We immediately divided into two sides—the north side of the camp versus the south side. Snowballs flew everywhere; strategies formed. One side charged, then formed an invincible British Square. It fell like Khartoum, and they retreated to the equipment tent, or fort as it were. Lou, who had been quietly reading in the cook tent, walked out to see what the ruckus was all about and immediately caught a dozen snowballs from both sides.
Exhausted from the attacks and counterattacks at eighteen thousand feet, we all retreated into the cook tent for an afternoon snack. Dianne Roberts commented that we had to start thinking about product photographs for all the sponsors who had donated equipment for the climb.
“You don’t have to worry about any for REI,” somebody said. “Their logo will be seen in every shot.” Most of our tents came from REI and had enormous REI logos stencilled on the rain flies, which would be prominent in every photograph of every camp.
Lou, who had quietly returned to his book, looked up and cracked, “Yes, I can see next year’s REI catalogue now. ‘Jim Whittaker says, We climbed K2 with equipment anyone can afford.’ ”
We all chuckled. John, who was obviously happy to be up with everyone, had a roguish look in his eye as he asked Dianne, “How about those gauze masks we use to keep the cold air out of our lungs? Need any product shots of those?”
He was referring to a mask many of us wore while climbing, particularly when it was cold, that looked like a painter’s dust mask, but was designed to humidify and warm air as one breathed. Breathing so much cold, dry air is a common cause of coughs at high altitude.
“Oh, I suppose,” Dianne answered. “Why, do you have some particular shot in mind?” John left the tent, still with a twinkle in his eye. We continued talking, and in a few minutes Diana Jagersky groaned, “Oh no. I knew he was up to something.”
We looked outside the tent and saw John approaching. Except for his boots, overboots, ice ax, and a breathing mask covering his privates—but just barely covering them—he was naked. Dianne shot a few quick photos.
“The National Geographic will love these,” she said.
Lou left that afternoon to join Jim and Wick at Camp II. By now, the trip from I to II was a milkrun with all the ropes properly adjusted and much of the snow stamped into a good trail. Jim and Wick had radioed earlier that they might need help, and we all agreed Lou should be the one to go. The next day he would help Jim and Wick push the remainder of the way to Camp III.
We also thought he might be able to deliver a message. While everyone was in a good mood, and there was that party atmosphere, there had been some earlier grievances. The principal one was that Jim was not doing a proper job with logistics, that instead of leading the route he should be down overseeing the load carrying. That morning, everyone had left camp to carry up the ridge, grabbing whatever equipment came to hand. It was obvious we needed a detailed plan specifying equipment priorities and earmarking which gear was destined for what camp. Each camp should have a “camp kit” of equipment, as Lou called it, and we agreed he should be the one to help Jim devise a suitable plan.
Other than that, things were going very well—almost too well. On big mountains it is easy to become overconfident, especially during spells of good weather when rapid progress is made. Over the next three days Camp III was established, almost all the supplies we would need on the upper mountain were carried to Camp II, and most of the team was healthy and strong.
On July 19, Jim announced the strategy for the next stage of the climb—an announcement we had been anxiously awaiting: the push to Camp IV. His decision was what most expected. The first team to lead would be John Roskelley, Bill Sumner, and Jim Wickwire. They would have two days to push the route. Then Chris Chandler and I would take over for two days and see if we could reach the Camp IV site.
Over the next two days, several of the team moved up to Camp II to begin ferrying equipment to Camp III, and later to support John, Bill, and Wick when they began the traverse. It was incredible to think that in less than a week we could be in Camp IV, having accomplished the most technically difficult part of the climb.
I was satisfied with the idea of climbing with Chris. I still harbored a secret desire to team up with Roskelley, but Chris seemed to be going better, and he was excited about the chance to get out in the lead, especially on the steep ground of the traverse. I still had not had my talk with him, but by then I had convinced myself it really wasn’t necessary. If we would just work as hard as we could, we might make a position for ourselves on the summit team. It was looking like we could get up the mountain by the middle of August, or even sooner. I started to think about being back in California for the fall surfing season, or maybe spending time traveling after the climb. The porters had invited us to their homes in Hunza . . .
Everything was looking good. Everything, that is, except the wisps of high cirrus clouds moving in from the southwest, moving rapidly overhead at about forty thousand feet, darkening the afternoon sky, portending the first of many storms.
| 5 |
THE SNOW BUTTERFLY
FROM THE FOGGY RECESSES OF HIS SUBCONSCIOUS, Jim Wickwire tried to piece together the disjointed scenes. He was in his living room, in Seattle, arguing with Jim Whittaker.
“We can’t just give up,” he told Whittaker. “We can’t just abandon the mountain like that. We have to go back. We have to . . . ”
The doorbell rang, and Wick answered. There was a messenger; he had a telegram. Wick read it, and looked at Jim.
“There, yo
u see. This does it. It says here there is another group this very minute on K2, another American group, trying to climb the mountain, and they’re using our fixed ropes.”
Wick said the last sentence with emphasis. Jim was convinced; they did have to go back. Together they scurried around the house, quickly packing gear and making plans for a lightning-quick return.
“But the permit,” Jim said. “We’ve got to get the permit.”
“We’ll figure out something to tell the Pakistanis,” Wick said. “They’ll have to give us the permit. We’ve got to go back now. Everybody is saying we abandoned the mountain. I don’t know why we left in the first place, but we’ve got to go back. We can’t let them climb the mountain. They’re using our fixed ropes. We shouldn’t have left . . . ”
Wick awoke to the voice of John Roskelley, poking his head through the tent door. Lou, lying in his sleeping bag next to Wick, was already awake. It was 5:30 a.m., July 22, the first day of our first major storm.
“It’s snowing pretty heavy,” John said. “There’s quite a bit of accumulation. Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to move today.”
“Well, we can’t expect to make progress every day,” Lou said.
There were seven of us at Camp II; the rest of the team was at Camp I. Lou and Wick were in one tent, Bill Sumner was with Cherie Bech, John and I bunked together, and Chris Chandler was in the equipment tent, by himself.
“We’ve done pretty good so far,” John agreed. “I guess we could all use a rest day. It’s not a severe storm—yet, anyway. Still warm, and so far no wind. But on the other hand, there’s a lot of new snow already.”
“Fingers crossed it’s a short one,” Wick said, still groggy and still thinking about his dream, relieved it had been only that. The same one had been recurring lately, but usually he had awakened from it with a quiet satisfaction when he realized he had returned to K2, and was on its slopes. That morning, however, the dream had left him with an unfathomable uneasiness.
We can’t possibly have abandoned the mountain, Wick thought, wondering about the dream’s meaning.
“I’m going back to the tent,” John said, “to brew up some breakfast with my good-looking tent-partner.”
“He couldn’t be any worse than waking up and looking at this mug,” Wick said, gesturing at Lou and laughing. He forgot his dream and began thinking about how to cope with the first storm. There were really only two alternatives: go down to Camp I and wait for weather to improve, or stay at Camp II and wait for weather to improve. There were a few tradeoffs. On the one hand, it might speed acclimatization to spend a few days at Camp II, at about twenty thousand feet. It was not so high that the effects would be debilitating; on the contrary, it would probably speed the physiological adjustments that help the body work more efficiently with less oxygen. Also, if the storm lasted only a day or two, we would not have to reclimb the section to Camp II and could thus move quickly to Camp III and start the traverse. On the other hand, each one who stayed high would be eating food and burning fuel that had been carried to that level with much sweat and toil. Since more supplies were stockpiled a relatively short distance below, at Camp I, this was not as critical as it would be later in the trip at the higher camps, but it was still worth thinking about.
After a leisurely breakfast and a radio call to the others in Camp I, it was agreed we should stay in Camp II for at least another day to see if the weather would improve. In truth, we all welcomed the rest day; some of us had not really had a day off since arriving at the mountain. There was little to do but lie in the tents, nap, read, write in our journals, and talk. Wick and Lou spent the morning discussing the politics of the American Alpine Club, Lou’s tragic trip to Dhaulagiri in 1969, and Wick’s involvement in the 1975 K2 expedition that had led to the present trip. But by afternoon, they had decided their time would be better used devising a logistic plan for the later stages of the climb. Lou worked out a basic scheme; Wick provided a critique. Essentially, it was designed around an initial summit attempt by three people, with two backup teams. There would be minimal equipment carried to the upper camps, and most important, very little oxygen. Oxygen would be used only above Camp VI—on the way to the summit. Lou estimated that, with any luck with the weather, we could be in position for the first summit attempt as early as three weeks hence.
While we all agreed we should resist using oxygen until we absolutely had to, there was considerable disagreement on just what that point might be. Lou argued, with much logic, that if we were to use oxygen for anything but the summit attempt above Camp VI—that is, if it were used in hauling loads from Camp V to VI—the exponential increase in the number of bottles required at Camp V would, in all likelihood, take so much time to haul up as to prevent us from reaching the top. I realized what a luxury it had been on Everest, two years before, to have had forty-five Sherpas to haul oxygen up the mountain. There, we had started breathing “Os” at what now seemed the extravagantly low altitude of 24,500 feet.
Lou and Wick’s initial plan was only one of many schemes that would come and go over the next several weeks; as their ideas were radioed down to those at Camp I, the only consensus seemed to be that we would have to wait and see. Meanwhile, John and I passed the day in our tent, talking less about the expedition and more about ourselves, getting to know one another better.
“Your wife has to be one of the more amazing people on earth,” I told John, “to put up with you. You’re never at home. You were on Jannu from February until May, then home for just a month before you left on this trip.”
“And after this I’ll be ice climbing in Canada,” John reminded me. “Then in February, I leave again for Gauri Shankar, and after that directly to Uli Biaho without going home.”
“How can you afford it?”
“Most trips don’t cost me much—at least I’ve come that far. We’ll probably get the fifteen hundred dollars back on this, for example.” (We had each contributed $1500, to be paid back when and if the expedition recovered its debts, through magazine articles, lectures, and other revenues.)1
“But you still need some money for the trips. And then you have a house, a wife, a daughter . . . ”
“She’s a schoolteacher, and most of the burden is on her. I give some lectures when I’m home—as many as I can put together—and then do some odd-jobbing. If I could only sell that book it would help.”
John had written a book on the Nanda Devi expedition, the one on which Devi Unsoeld had died. So far he had not found a publisher. Knowing how much time and work went into writing a book, I sympathized with his frustration.
“You’re one of the best climbers in the country, and as far as Himalayan-type climbing goes, you’re far and away the best in the United States,” I told him. “There ought to be some way you can make a living off that. Look at Messner. He’s doing fine—house, plenty of dough, goes on trips all the time.”
Reinhold Messner is generally considered the world’s top mountain climber; he makes a very comfortable living writing books, lecturing, guiding, and endorsing products.
“Yeah, don’t remind me. I keep telling Joyce that it’s just around the corner, that this whole thing will start paying off. Sometimes I don’t blame her for getting down, but I just know it will work out. Besides, there’s no way I could stop climbing. It’s just something I have to do.”
There was a long pause as both of us lay on our sleeping bags, staring at the checkered pattern of the rip-stop nylon tent fabric. Then a smile broke over John’s pensive face.
“Look what I’d be missing,” he said, gesturing around. “Lying in this tent at twenty thousand feet, looking forward to a dinner of freeze-dried shrimp Creole, cut with dehydrated margarine that tastes like sock squeezings, in a tent with a leaky roof. You’d have to be crazy to pass this up.”
We both laughed; it was true. We would not have given it up for anything. At least not on the first day of the storm.
The second day was another matter. Both John a
nd I had finished reading Holocaust, and the only other paperback around was a waterlogged copy of Don Quixote. After the windmill scene I lost interest, despite Sancho Panza, and even with absolutely nothing else to do, I could not finish it. We lay there, staring at the tent walls, occasionally mumbling to each other. By using our radios, we did not have to leave our tent to talk with Lou and Wick, whose tent was about a hundred fifty feet away. We did not even have to go outside to pee; we had solved that one by cutting the mosquito netting away from the tent window and simply bellied up to it to relieve ourselves.
Fortunately we stayed in good humor, spending much of the time laughing at each other’s rude jokes. That afternoon, still staring at the tent walls and listening to snow patter on the nylon, I looked over and saw John grinning to himself. He propped up on one arm, and looked at me.
“I’m sorry, Rick—I apologize, for your sake.”
“Sorry? About what?”
“Well, I’m sorry that I’m not a woman.”
He lay back down, chuckling. John and I were getting along very well; in spite of his jokes, we both sensed a new friendship in the making, even if he were not a woman.
By the third day, the wind had picked up and it seemed colder. Frigid gusts buffeted the tents, making it necessary to go outside more frequently—two or three times a day—to shovel accumulated snow from the tent walls to prevent their collapsing. About three feet of new snow had built up. We knew that even if the storm ended soon, it would be an additional day or two—until the new snow either consolidated or avalanched—before we could resume climbing. It was clear the delay would last at least a week; we realized then it made the most sense to retreat to Camp I, thereby conserving supplies at Camp II.
The Last Step Page 15