Chris had been right; there was a flatter place four hundred feet higher. But when we had first fixed the ropes across the traverse, we had not realized it would be possible to cross in such a short time; we had not wanted to increase the distance between Camps III and IV. Also, we knew that if a storm came, burying our little footpath in fresh snow, the crossing would take much more time. Chris, on the other hand, had not realized it was a relatively easy job to dig another platform; in less than an hour, we had excavated sites for two more tents.
Craig soon arrived, followed by Cherie. She hurried into camp, obviously upset.
“I think Chris and Skip are in trouble,” she said. “I saw one of them disappear a few minutes ago, and he hasn’t come back into view.”
We had also seen what appeared to be Chris drop over an edge, but we thought it was likely a crevasse he was working to cross. That Skip was still visible, and obviously not panicked, seemed to indicate nothing had gone wrong.
No one responded to Cherie. We kept working, widening the tent platform and rudely ignoring her.
“Maybe we should go up and see if they’re O.K.,” she persisted.
“Don’t worry about it. If anything was wrong they would yell down,” Jim said.
Cherie was silent fuming. Finally, she burst into a tirade directed at Jim.
“I’m getting sick of the way you’re making decisions on this thing,” she said bitterly. “It’s like you and these others are the only ones here—the super-machos out forging the trail—while the rest of the peasants carry your loads. You haven’t given Chris an even chance on the climb yet.”
Jim was stung badly. He was not the sort of person who listened easily to such sharp language.
“Look, Cherie,” he shot back. “I’m also getting a little short with your attitude. I don’t mind you criticizing when it’s needed, but I’m a little fed up with the way you carp about everything. Anybody who earns it is going to have a chance to do well on this climb. But so far you haven’t shown me much, and neither has Chris. Why should I give the summit to a guy who can’t even dig a tent platform?”
They argued until Cherie broke down, crying. Perhaps Jim had been too vehement in his counter. The rest of us failed to realize how Cherie had been injured by recent decisions of who should lead to Camp V. Originally Skip and Craig had been earmarked for the job, but Craig had declined, saying he needed a rest day. Chris was then offered Craig’s position, but he said he wanted to climb with Cherie. Skip then countered by saying he didn’t care for that arrangement, which consequently hurt Cherie. Finally it had been decided that all four—including Craig—would push the route above Camp IV, with Skip and Chris on the job that first day. The whole thing had been messy.
We were all a little embarrassed and quietly finished the platform. In the silence I thought how our expedition—despite our attempts to communicate and despite the days when things went well and we all worked closely as a team—was, as often as not, turning to petty argument. We were still at least ten days—probably more, even if the weather held—from the summit. One more week and one more argument, I thought. We all stand just a little more naked.
We headed back to Camp III, leaving Chris, Cherie, Skip, and Craig in Camp IV.
That evening, Jim announced on the radio his selection of the first summit team. He asked everyone for comments and opinions.
Bill Sumner, from Camp II, in his usual, easygoing voice, said it sounded like the strongest summit team, and supported the idea; Rob Schaller, convalescing in Camp I from a twisted knee suffered while climbing to Camp II, thought it was a bold move to attempt the summit without oxygen, and he was concerned we would be increasing the risk of severe frostbite, with the greater hypoxia. Rob added that if the first attempt should fail, the team would likely have to descend to Camp I to recover. Jim agreed, and added that it would then be up to a second team to make another attempt. The only reaction from Camp IV was a laconic reply from Skip, their radio spokesman, who said, “Sounds O.K.” At Camp III, we wondered what conversation had really taken place at Camp IV.
The next day was, in most ways, a repeat of the previous one: more carries to Camp IV, leaving it fully stocked and ready to stage the upper-mountain assault. But there was little rejoicing. Again, the team pushing to Camp V had made almost no progress, this time with good reason. Unbelievably, it looked like another storm was moving in: there was zero visibility above Camp IV, and it was snowing lightly. A pattern seemed to be developing, with just three or four days of reasonable weather separating storms lasting five to eight days. But this was the first of these short periods of good weather during which we had failed to establish a new camp, and it had a grave effect on our spirits. Other than the few loads transported to higher camps, there had been no progress on the mountain. For the first time, several of us speculated on whether we would reach even Camp V, much less the summit.
In one important way, this storm was different from the previous ones; this time, part of the team was trapped on the far side of the traverse. All of us knew it would be, as the Brits would say, “a nasty business” crossing those ropes into the teeth of a gale.
It snowed heavily through the night, and on the morning of August 12 increasingly strong gusts drove snow against the thin nylon tent walls. It was cold. Over the radio we discussed our options. It was clear we should again bail out for Camp I, leaving only a skeleton crew to break down when the storm cleared. It was generally thought all in Camp IV should cross to III immediately, before the storm worsened and forced them to stay. If they were to remain at IV they would consume supplies that, at this point, represented weeks of struggle and carrying, and in addition, it was dangerous to have people stranded that high in a bad storm. The problem was that those at Camp IV did not agree: they thought it already too late to descend safely.
Jim argued by radio that they should come down immediately; they argued otherwise. Finally, they said it was too late to move at all that day, one way or the other.
“No, I think there’s enough time,” Jim said, talking from his tent at Camp III. “You guys should get under way right now.”
There was silence while Camp IV discussed the request. Skip came back on the air:
“Then have somebody break across from Camp Three to clear the trail.”
John Roskelley, listening to the conversation from a tent near Jim’s, lost patience and picked up an extra radio.
“For Chrissake,” he yelled into the walkie-talkie. “It’s uphill from here.” (While most of the distance to Camp IV was a horizontal traverse, there was a steep uphill section just out of Camp III.) “You want us to stomp uphill for you?”
“O.K., calm down, John,” Jim called over from his tent.
“I’ll break the trail as far as the col” (a point about one-quarter of the way across), Wick volunteered. “Just tell them to get their asses down here.”
“I can’t believe it,” John fumed to me. “Incompetents. Why in the hell do I always end up with incompetents on these trips? There are so many good climbers who wanted to come on this expedition. Where are the Henneks and Schmitzes when I need them?” Both were well-known climbers, friends with whom John had shared previous climbs.
While it was easy for us, in the comfort of Camp III, to say those in Camp IV should descend immediately, the picture on the far side of the traverse was quite different. At Camp III, a large serac under which our tents were nestled protected us from the stronger gusts. But at Camp IV, the tents clung to the narrow ridge, exposed to the full fury of the gale. Periodic gusts would knock them flat, forcing the walls down over those inside; peering out the door, the last thing they wanted to do was go into the maelstrom to negotiate the steep traverse, along ropes now covered with rime.
Nevertheless, they bent to the pressure from those in Camp III and at midmorning started out. Craig and Skip left first while Chris and Cherie broke down the tents and weighted them with snow blocks. That task finished, they waited for nearly an hour wh
ile the other two struggled to reach the top of the pinnacle, the first gendarme, such a short distance from the collapsed tents. They failed to do it and returned to the campsite. Skip was having trouble balancing in the vicious wind; he came back on his knees. There was no choice but to repitch the tents and radio their failure to cross.
Meanwhile, the rest of us—except for Terry and Wick—had left Camp III and rappelled to Camp I, there to wait out this latest storm. It was becoming so habitual to yo-yo up and down the mountain that most of us just shrugged at the prospect of yet another long climb back to the high point once this latest storm cleared; by now, we were anesthetized to the drudgery of jumaring fixed rope at high altitude.
Wick and Terry had set out from Camp III to tackle the strenuous job of tramping snow and pulling out ropes for several hundred yards above Camp III, to lessen the difficulty for those coming down from IV. They had no way of knowing the Camp IV crew had turned back without really starting. Wick and Terry’s effort was especially laudable since much of the distance was uphill. They waited and waited, but when no one came, they were forced to return to Camp III where, by radio, they had finally learned the others had turned back. Wick noted in his journal:
When we learned on the radio they turned back my initial reaction was anger and frustration, but that passed quickly as there was nothing to be done about the situation. Skip was apologetic and said they would try again the following morning. Since Terry and I made it to the col, even though I did most of the trail breaking, their excuse of deep snow doesn’t seem enough reason for not making it. This occurrence merely underscores the judgment many of us have that it is a weak group that is attempting to establish the route to Camp V.
The view from Camp IV was quite different. There was no denying conditions on the ridge were hostile. But perhaps one reason for their trouble getting across was that they really had not wanted to; without a driving reason to keep you going, it is easier to be stopped by gale-force winds. In any case, Jim had more or less ordered them down, against their own judgment; that had raised their ire. In a later conversation Chris observed:
When the “order” to come down came through we were all mad. We had given the radio to Skip because, of the four of us, he had the most tact with words. We understood the reasoning behind it—to minimize food consumption—but the question in our minds was whether it was safe to go down. I was opposed to it. There was a lot of fresh snow, it was windy and cold, not the kind of day to go down. It wasn’t clear if the food saved was worth the risk. Later in the trip, during other storms, people did stay in Camp Four and consume food. It was like people were playing with my life for a few sacks of food. The night of the twelfth I didn’t sleep well at all. I lay in my bag with various scenarios going through my mind. We got up early the next morning and started down. Craig and Skip broke first. It was a total whiteout with a strong wind. A lot of fresh, drifted snow. There was a real balance problem going along the knife-edge out of Camp Four. The whole way across, slabs kept breaking off as we pulled the rope out. Just past the rappel, an avalanche came down and buried me. I was third on the rope. At the moment it covered me I was standing midway between two anchors. I sunk my ax and held tight. I was clipped into the fixed rope. I felt the weight come down; I hugged the slope as close as I could; I felt the weight increase and I pulled out and came down on the rope. My mind flashed, “Jesus, this is it.” Then it let up, but I couldn’t stop shaking for half an hour.
AUGUST 13. It took eight and a half hours for the four to make it across to Camp III. When they got there the camp was deserted—Wick and Terry had left the previous day, after learning the others had failed in their first attempt to cross back. Their morale was low. Skip had lost feeling in his toes, and inside the tent he removed his boots and socks and placed his cold toes on Cherie’s belly—the best treatment for suspected frostbite. Feeling came back, along with pain that, while unpleasant, at least meant there had been no serious tissue damage. All our suspicions had been confirmed regarding the chameleon nature of the traverse: in good weather it was a piece of cake; in bad it was the most miserable of survival tests.
In contrast, the scene at Camp I could not have been more pleasant. We slept late that morning, not getting out of our bags until nearly nine. Then we lazily sauntered to the cook tent, where Diana had laid on pancakes with rehydrated peaches and boysenberry syrup. There was hot eggnog sprinkled with nutmeg, canned Danish bacon, and Gold Label coffee with powdered full-cream milk rifled from Bonington’s deserted base camp over on the west ridge. A lyrical Judy Collins tape played on the stereo. That evening, to celebrate my birthday, Diana prepared jumbo shrimp sauteed in garlic butter, with pea soup and nuggets of ham. Featured music for the evening meal was a Beethoven violin concerto. We were in heaven.
The following morning, the group at Camp III decided to remain there rather than descend because a radio report—relayed to us by Saleem from Base Camp—indicated the weather in Skardu was improving. If previous patterns held, this was a harbinger of better conditions in our area; it was thought that if the four stayed up, two could, when the weather improved, break trail down, clearing the way for those coming back up, while the other two—the strongest—would open up the way to Camp IV. The next day, however, the weather remained foul.
For two more days we patiently marked time while snow continued to fall. There was little to do but read, chat, and think. John spent two days trying to trap a gorak—large ravens that are seen at high altitudes in the Himalaya. When we first came to the mountain there were only a couple of them, but apparently word had spread through the gorak grapevine that there was plenty of garbage at the base of K2; now we had a healthy flock of ten or twelve birds permanently hanging out at Camp I. Like all crows, goraks are highly intelligent. Jim told John they had caught one on Everest in 1963, using the old propped-up-box trick, but these goraks were well beyond that. John constructed an elaborate snare made from a bent sapling (brought up from Askole for a marker wand on the glacier) and baited with Corn Nuts. Several times he nearly caught one, but he refused to answer when asked what he intended to do with the bird if he did catch it. He merely smiled inscrutably, mumbling something about a team mascot.
The talk about a second summit team continued. Several of the climbers—Bill Sumner, Skip Edmonds, and to some extent, Terry Bech and Craig Anderson—said they would be content playing a supportive role from then on, as they recognized their chances of reaching the top were small. But Chris and Cherie both wanted, and felt they deserved, a chance to go for the summit. Jim agreed, saying they should form the core of the second assault effort. Jim also agreed to let them have another try at reaching Camp V. Some of the team, however—especially those of us already on the summit team—believed they did not have the spunk necessary to push through the deep snow at twenty-five thousand feet to Camp V. Unless that camp could be established quickly after the next break in the weather, our chances of a successful climb would be small indeed.
For me, the two days in Camp I were a time for continued reflection on my own ability to meet the task. I was still preoccupied with the lung problem I had had on Everest. I confidentially voiced my concerns to Rob Schaller, who offered to give me a physical. He listened carefully to my lungs, reporting that they were clear and strong-sounding. I had some minor congestion in my throat, and a cough, which are more or less normal when you have been working high for any length of time. I was losing a little weight, especially in my torso, but this too is common at high altitude. Rob recommended I take with me a packet of time-release decongestant capsules, and if I had any problems above, use them. He thought simple congestion could have been my problem on Everest.
A big fear at high altitudes is of sudden pulmonary edema—a bursting of the alveolar sacks and consequent filling of the lungs with fluid. In effect, you die drowning in your own blood. It is a not uncommon problem at high altitudes, especially the altitudes at which we would be working, and we had all learned to listen for the
telltale gurgling in the lungs that indicates the beginning of P.E. Having had trouble before, even if Rob thought it had been only congestion, did not increase my confidence that I could climb without trouble at twenty-eight thousand feet, without bottled oxygen. That evening I wrote in my journal:
Am I mentally prepared? I have self doubts. I don’t know if I can function at twenty-eight thousand feet without oxygen. But sitting here at Camp I, I am girding my loins for the hardest task in my life. I meditate on the formidable job ahead, and the more I concentrate on it, the more I clear the doubts.
What motivates me to such a task? The risks are so great. I could push myself enough to risk P.E. and die. The risk of frostbite is not only very real but in fact probable. I know at that altitude a hypoxic body will sacrifice its outer limbs to heat the more vital inner core. A bivouac is almost certain, and at that altitude it will almost certainly end in frostbite, with the possibility it will be fatal.
Yet I know if we manage to climb K2 by this new route without oxygen it will be perhaps the most significant achievement in American mountaineering. Is that what motivates me? Doesn’t everybody wish to leave some mark in their life? To tread across unknown territory? Cross new thresholds and frontiers? Perhaps this drive is only the result of some large ego. I’m not sure, but there has got to be more to it than that. I do know this: I have a burning desire to do this thing that has never been done. God only knows, though, I hope I can do it.
AUGUST 16. White ice against a cobalt sky. Early morning with a slight wind that carries a sharp, biting cold. The feel of late fall, Indian summer heralding an icy winter.
I thought, The clearest day we’ve had since July 31. Kind of feels like winter, though. Cold. But for sure we will move today. It’s back up the mountain.
The Last Step Page 21