The Last Step

by Rick Ridgeway

  It was 5:15 a.m., and there was a scheduled 5:30 radio call with those in Camp III. The walkie-talkie was in John and Wick’s tent. So, half-dressed, I carefully walked the icy path over there.

  “Hello Camp Three. Hello Camp Three. Camp One calling. Over,” Wick transmitted.

  “This is Camp Three. Come in.” It was Skip’s laconic monotone.

  “Looks like a good day,” Wick continued. “The storm’s broken—this is the best day in weeks. Looks like we move.”

  “Yeah, it’s beautiful up here,” Skip answered. “We’ve been talking about what to do. Seems like there is a lot of new snow up here. Might not be safe.”

  “Well, it’s not like you’ve got to climb up,” Wick said. “You’re breaking down. That’s safer—you can break the slabs off as you come down. But you need to clear the way before we can go up.”

  John looked at Wick and me and said, “Even if they come down we still don’t get anywhere unless Chris and Cherie break over to Camp Four. We’ll just logjam at Three otherwise.”

  “One thing at a time,” Wick said.

  Skip resumed his transmission. “We’ll have to have a closer look at the snow conditions. Why don’t we call back at eight-thirty.”

  “O.K.—eight-thirty. Camp One over and out.”

  I walked back to my tent feeling an impalpable uneasiness. If those in Camp III did not move today . . . I did not want to think about it. But soon my fears were borne out. A couple of hours later, Wick wrote in his journal:

  It has started out as one of those days when the personality problems have risen to the fore and dominate everything—including the awesome grandeur of K2 rising ten thousand feet above this camp.

  Before the 8:30 call we gathered in the cook tent for breakfast. Despite the brilliant day, our enthusiasm had palled with the hesitation of those above. The breakfast gathering became a purgative for pent-up emotions. Jim and Dianne had gone down to Base the day before to pick up mail, and their absence gave air to many criticisms of Jim’s leadership—or lack thereof.

  “I guess what irks me most,” Bill said, “was the decision to risk all on one oxygenless ascent with only some fuzzy plan for a second attempt with oxygen. At least he could have asked our opinion before simply announcing his decision on the radio.”

  Several others also felt Jim had not sufficiently planned for a second assault team, but it was surprising that it bothered Bill—the implication was he still considered himself a candidate for a backup team.

  “And it is one of the few times he has made a definitive decision,” I added. There had been criticism of Jim’s equivocation on several issues, especially that Chris-and-Cherie question. Some felt that, had Jim ordered Chris and Cherie to descend from Camp II during that first storm, the issue would have been discussed openly and later innuendoes and backbiting avoided. Some also felt Jim should have been more exact in planning logistics for the upper mountain assault. Many times people had simply carried what they wanted to, and however much they wanted to; although this had never resulted in any major supply problem, there was a feeling that we lacked a tight strategy for the assault. During this last storm, however, Jim had designed a very specific plan that called for fifteen loads to be carried to Camp V—enough gear, he estimated, to supply two summit attempts.

  In Jim’s defense, it should be pointed out he was in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma. While Bill criticized him for not consulting the team before making a major decision, many of the rest of us complained he listened to too many opinions and consequently waffled on decisions. Jim was still sensitive to the mistakes of the ’75 expedition and was committed this time to running the expedition more democratically. The problem, however, was that we were such a disparate group, there were times we would have been better governed by a benevolent dictator.

  “Jim has too often let things happen, when he should have more affirmatively directed events,” Rob asserted. “In the next few weeks we need strong leadership. We’re running out of time. It was noticeably colder this morning, and I’m afraid winter might arrive before we get our chance. The HAPS say we can expect the winter storms to arrive anytime after late August. By the way they describe it, the storms we’ve been having are nothing.”

  It was 8:30, time for the radio call. In a few minutes Skip’s voice came on. “Chris thinks the slope above camp is unstable. Craig and I went below camp two rope lengths, and we tend to agree with Chris.”

  We looked at each other, our fears realized. Another day of good weather lost. We considered the implications. It would be very difficult, and probably too dangerous, to work back to Camp III until Craig and Skip cleared the way from above. The larger problem, however, was that even if we did get to Camp III, there would be little useful work to do until Camp V was established. All camps through IV were more or less stocked, and all progress on the climb hinged on how quickly Chris and Cherie could get back to IV and push the route on to Camp V.

  “If those guys could just break down to Camp Two,” Terry said, “I would be willing to double-stage to Camp Three today. It might be fruitful if I had a talk with Chris and Cherie. It might help impress upon them the importance of getting to Five, and I could also explain the details of Jim’s plan for a second assault—how they are the core of the plan. That would perhaps encourage them to push harder.”

  We agreed that, of anyone on the team, Terry would be the best to encourage Chris and Cherie. If he personally could talk with them, it would be much better than the frustrating communications by radio.

  “I’ll go with you,” Bill volunteered.

  Terry and Bill left camp; Skip and Craig would break down if, after further surveying the snow, they thought it would be safe. At nine, they called, however, and said they felt they should not descend. They, along with Chris and Cherie, were going to stay in Camp III. It became obvious Terry and Bill would be able to climb no higher than Camp II. In my journal I noted:

  Another day wasted, and it appears that Terry and Bill won’t even make it to Camp III to try and dangle a carrot in front of Chris and Cherie. The problem is we are not in a position to judge their assessment of avalanche conditions, but we have broken down to II after storms twice now. We can’t help but wonder if they are running out of gas up there, and no doubt our skepticism comes across in our radio communications. They are probably getting a bit upset with us, first for pressuring them to cross the traverse in the storm, and now for questioning their judgment on avalanche conditions.

  Whittaker has been at Base Camp, but we told him this morning he is needed up here badly. We must get Chris and Cherie to move up—we’ve got to get V. We’re at a crucial stage in the expedition; leadership and decisions are sorely needed.

  Jim returned that evening. We had a meeting, and although Jim felt many of our grievances exaggerated, he left no doubt Chris and Cherie had only one try to get Camp V. He promised to keep tighter reins on the expedition—we all came away feeling much better. That evening, in the privacy of their tent, Jim told Wick, “Don’t worry, if Chris and Cherie don’t charge up to Camp Five, you tigers get the green light to go right up their tailpipes.”

  | 7 |

  THE SNOW DOME

  AUGUST 17. CAMP III, IT WAS HOT. The still, thin atmosphere allowed the noon sun to cook the tents to oven temperatures. The camp had the refuse-strewn ambience of a tropical fishing village in some backwater country: garbage decorated the slope below the tents; urine-stained snow created abstract yellow designs on the camp’s periphery. Three goraks, looking evermore like vultures, lazily scavenged through the empty beef stroganoff and turkey tetrazzini packages, squawking and occasionally pecking each other. In all, there were three tents. Chris and Cherie were in one, Lou in a second, and John and I shared the other.

  Lou, John, and I had come up from Camp I that morning, climbing the ropes cleared by Skip and Craig as they descended. We had passed them just below Camp II. Wick, Jim, and Dianne were also climbing up, Wick making slow p
rogress; he had awakened with severe diarrhea and consequently was suffering from dehydration in the strong sun.

  The departure from Camp I had been emotional. If everything went as planned we would be leaving for the summit in five or six days. We left camp like soldiers into the last battle, with many wishes of good luck. Diana gave everyone a farewell hug, and with restrained emotion wished us a safe return. It would be the most dangerous part of the climb, and she had been thinking of Dusan. When she hugged Wick, he sensed her thoughts and whispered to her, “When I get to the top, Dusan will be there with me.” Diana wiped a tear from her eye.

  With the weather clear at last, the plan had called for Chris and Cherie to clear the route to Camp IV that day and begin pushing to Camp V. So we were astonished, when we trudged into Camp III, to find them still there.

  No one said anything and I followed John as he crawled back into the tent we had deserted days before. Lou arrived a few minutes later, and sensing any comment would be a mistake, crawled inside his old tent and waited for Wick. Feeling I should at least say hello to Chris, I went over and sat in his tent.

  “We started across,” Chris explained, “but at the col there had been an enormous slab breakoff on the Chinese side, and the snow just didn’t feel safe. It was real spooky, and I didn’t want to risk it.”

  “I understand,” I answered laconically. I went back to the tent I shared with John, and in a few minutes we spotted Wick making the last steps into camp. He stopped in front of our tent, unshouldering his pack. As he started to greet us, he noticed Chris and Cherie in their tent.

  “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that who I think it is?” he groaned.

  “That’s them,” John said. “On extended honeymoon. Nice place here, Camp Three. Warm, plenty of food. No reason to go anywhere else.”

  I knew Chris and Cherie could hear the conversation and I felt the rancor spread through the air like vaporized gasoline waiting for the next small spark. But nothing happened. We all sat in our respective tents and whispered. Jim and Dianne soon arrived, and once again I was surprised that Jim seemed to accept with equanimity that Chris and Cherie were still in camp. I had the impression he was disappointed but realized anger would get us no sooner to the top of the mountain. Instead, he set to work designing a new strategy that would put us quickly to Camp V, yet still preserve as much team solidarity as possible. He called a meeting in his tent later that evening.

  “I’ve been thinking how best to use our strength from here on,” Jim opened. “And I think John and Rick should break trail tomorrow to Camp Four. They know the route better than anyone, and they should be able to get across fast.”

  Everybody nodded silent agreement except Cherie, who sat stone-faced, anticipating the worst.

  “Then I think Chris and Cherie should follow right behind,” Jim continued, “get to Camp Four, and start pushing the route. They’re the only ones who can do it because they know where the ropes are buried.” Unlike the lower sections, above Camp IV we had fixed only the steepest slopes with rope, and with new snow covering them it would be necessary to know where to locate each segment. “Terry and Bill can follow to help carry extra rope and take over leading if the other two need relief. We won’t reach Camp Five in one day, but we should get far enough to finish it the following day.”

  John’s and Lou’s disappointment was obvious. Wick sat in a corner, still suffering badly from the dehydration caused by his diarrhea, too drained to enter the discussion.

  “It sounds like a weak plan,” Lou countered. “Chris knows where the ropes are. I think Cherie simply isn’t strong enough to lead to Camp Five. It will be the longest distance, the greatest altitude gain, between any of our camps; we will have to climb above twenty-five thousand feet with heavy loads without oxygen. Furthermore, if there is any delay getting to Five, that means there will be a logjam in Camp Four, and seven climbers eating food is crazy. I think they have had a fair chance to put in the route, and you—Jim—have lived up to your obligation to give everyone a fair chance at leading. But it’s time to give the job to somebody else.”

  In a constrained voice, trying to sound imperturbable, Chris replied, “Lou, you have had a low opinion of Cherie and me from the beginning, and I think your prejudice is blinding you to even considering that our concern with the avalanche potential on those slopes just might be justified. You haven’t been out there to see the slabs that have recently broken off. If it had looked safe, Cherie and I would have worked as hard as anyone to reach Camp Five, and we still will. But only if it’s safe.”

  Cherie sat near the tent’s vestibule entrance. She wore her jumpsuit and had her hair tied in two ponytails falling over the front of her shoulders. Her nose was still clown-white with sunscreen; the taut and lined skin of her face betrayed the stress of living and working at high altitude. Like everyone else’s, the veins on her temples, the backs of her hands, and her forearms were raised in a growing bas-relief, as her blood thickened to acclimatize to the increasingly thin air. Her lips were pressed thin and serious.

  “I’m getting sick of hearing how I’m not as strong as the rest of you,” she snapped. “Everybody’s always saying, ‘Get rid of Cherie and have Craig or somebody take her place!’ Hell, man, I can carry as much as him or most of you guys, and I’m getting tired of not being treated the same.”

  Cherie rolled up her sleeve, flexing her biceps in a mockery intended to carry no humor.

  “Cherie,” Jim said sharply, “sometimes I lose patience with you, and I think you could be a little more polite . . . ”

  “Oh, look who’s talking now! Mr. Universe. Big Jim. It all makes me sick. All you bloody machos.”

  Jim’s patience dissolved. “It’s too bad you aren’t a man,” he shouted, “because then I could punch you right in your frigging nose.”

  Terry finally broke up the argument. “O.K., both of you, I don’t think this is getting us anywhere. We’ve got to calm our tempers and think rationally.”

  Jim and Cherie apologized, but the truce seemed shaky. Lou remained disappointed with Jim’s decision, and as the meeting adjourned he said he would sooner go down and carry loads between II and III than face the frustration of climbing behind a weak lead team. We went back to our tents, where each group prepared its own dinner. (It was the way meals were usually cooked; since all our food was packed in separate sacks, each containing two man-days of food, and since each tent had a separate stove, it was easier than shuffling food between tents.) The moon was full that night, the sky cloudless and the air clear. The high peaks cast great moon-shadows across the glacial valleys thousands of feet below. Although no one stayed out too long in the cold night air to enjoy the panorama, the grandeur of the scene beneath our aerie ameliorated much of the animosity in camp.

  In the morning, John started our stove at 4:00 a.m.; at exactly 6:00 we shouldered our packs and left Camp III. Lou, after a good night’s sleep, had decided to follow us across the traverse to pull out the first four hundred feet of rope above Camp IV. Chris and Cherie would be right behind, then take over, navigating to where they knew the next section of fixed rope lay buried. Bill and Terry would also cross to Camp IV to help in the following day’s push toward Camp V. The others, including Wick—who was still recovering from diarrhea—stayed in Camp III.

  Digging out fixed rope buried by new snow is very hard work. It was better when we were able to keep a skeleton crew at a high camp during a storm; after the storm, it was much easier going down while pulling ropes than doing the same job going up. But on the traverse it would not have made much difference anyway, since most of the distance was sideways with only occasional uphill sections. The technique was to slide the jumar clamps up the buried rope, then lean back with all your strength, pulling up; with luck, four or five feet of rope would pop out. Then you’d slide the clamp up again, and again pull. A 150-foot section, especially if it was uphill, consumed all your energy, then another climber would have to take over. Fortunately, much of
the traverse was so steep that little snow had accumulated on most sections.

  We reached the col—the point where Chris said he had spotted the fracture edge of a big slab avalanche, the one that had made him question the slope’s stability and turn back. We looked down the Chinese side of the ridge. There it was: a sharp step in the snow slope, at least a hundred feet long, where the slab had separated and avalanched to an icefall feeding K2’s north glacier. There was no question the nonavalanched part of the slope was unstable. Fortunately, we would cross high above the most dangerous part, but it boded ill for other slopes farther along that we would soon have to cross.

  “It doesn’t look safe,” I said to John.

  “I know,” he agreed. “Chances are, the snow hasn’t accumulated as much on the steeper sections ahead. Still, it’s not stable. But if we don’t go across we might as well go home. We’ve got to get Camp Five now. Time’s short, winter is coming.”

  I knew he was right: I knew we had to do it. We paused for a few minutes to rest and sip lemonade before carrying on. I looked over the hills of China and thought, as I sometimes had on dangerous days: I wonder if this is the last one. Is this the date on your calendar when all past events focus, to be carried together in one big avalanche of snow and buried in an icy crypt in some remote corner of western China? It was morbid, but I could not push the thought away. It kept recurring: Is today the day?

  Our decision to carry on, despite dangers, crystalized before me a picture of the problems and factions on the expedition. Suddenly, it was so easy to understand; suddenly it was possible to look at the climb through the eyes of the others. To Lou and Wick, John and me—the four going to the summit—crossing this slope after a storm was worth the risk simply because we had so much to gain. But why should Chris and Cherie, with only a fuzzy plan for some second attempt, risk their necks? And for four people who they felt had wronged them. I, too, would have been bitter being ordered, against my own judgment, to descend from a high camp in a storm. And how would I have felt with rumors circulating behind my back about a friendship with a woman, when the hubbub over a supposedly irate, cuckolded husband was unfounded? Chris had come on this expedition leaving behind a hornets’ nest of problems resulting from a bitter divorce. Was it so surprising he would seek the company of someone in whom he could confide his problems?