It is fitting, Mary Lou, that this reversal in fortunes, this clearing of weather in the last hour, has occurred today, our anniversary. I promise to be careful and come back to you.
AUGUST 26. Spindrift scudding up steep ice walls. Ice crystals airborne with cutting velocity, burning and freezing exposed skin. A figure close, inching across the ropes, just visible through wind-driven snow. The feel of fingers beginning to freeze, and the fear of a nose already frozen. Memories: that photograph of Scott and his team in Antarctica, taken by themselves, noses black with frostbite. The last photo, just before they died; the scene in the film classic, Nanook of the North—an Eskimo struggling against blasting spindrift to build an igloo in a race with death. A return to the here and now, climbing against very strong winds, and bitter cold.
“This is crazy,” John yelled above the wind. “I’m worried about frostbite. Can’t feel my toes—they’re going.”
“Nose is gone,” I yelled back. I held my mitten over my nose, directing my breath up around my face. That, however, further fogged my goggles, which were already glazed with ice. I tried to clean them: I rubbed my mittens over the lenses, but though I had removed the ice crust and cleared the fog, the wool had left hairs and water streaks on the lenses, still obscuring my vision. It was no good to try to climb without goggles. The ice particles jetting up the face drove into my eyes, blinding me. I replaced the goggles, forced to make do with partial vision.
My nose was of greater concern. I could not get feeling in it, and I cursed myself for leaving behind my thermal-foil face shield, designed to protect against wind and sun. My fingers were also starting to freeze, but I could more easily regain circulation in them by occasionally breathing into my mittens. The nose worried me, though.
“The others will never make it across in this wind,” John screamed. He was about ten feet from me. “Maybe we should go back to Camp Three. Even if we get across with no frostbite, there might be no point if the others don’t follow.”
“Give me a second,” I yelled. “Need to think.” Again I covered my nose, not caring that my goggles fogged. Spindrift drove up the ice wall and left the crest of the ridge; white fingers of snow streamed above the crest in a trajectory that reflected the steep angle of the ice face. Ice-white fingers, wisps, against deep blue sky. A few more breaths and my nose began to regain some feeling. Relieved, I tried to sort out the options.
John and I had left Camp III early that morning, descending halfway to Camp II to break trail for those coming up. Three of them were going to try to make it all the way to Camp IV that day, and John and I wanted to give them every assistance. We had returned to Camp III, stomping good footholds in the new snow. We rested for an hour, brewed a cup of hot cocoa, then left to break trail to Camp IV. As soon as we crossed from the Pakistan to the Chinese side of the ridge, however, we were hit by strong winds gusting off the Sinkiang steppes. Since there was some doubt whether the others could climb from Camp I to Camp IV in one day with good weather, it was even less likely they could do it in such severe winds.
“We’ve got to decide,” John yelled. “Can’t stand here waiting. Toes freezing fast.”
“Can you make Four without frostbite?”
“Maybe if I move fast. But I don’t think the others will follow.”
“Let’s try it anyway. No more room for setbacks. We’ve got to push—now or never. Maybe they’ll make it.”
“O.K.,” John yelled. Without further words or hesitation he turned and climbed into the spindrift, anxious to keep moving, to keep his toes working in his boots. I uncovered my nose and followed. My goggles remained frosted and I climbed partly by feel. We moved slowly but persistently, not stopping for fear our digits would freeze. I tried to pull the collar of my jumpsuit high on my face to protect my nose, and although it only partially covered, it was enough to prevent freezing. With every opportunity to free my hands, even momentarily, from clinging to the rope, I curled my fingers back into my mitten and held them until they started to ache. That was a good sign: If I could bring the pain I knew they had not yet frozen.
Three hours passed. We crested the gendarme and through the spindrift we could just make out the bright red tents at Camp IV. The wind was gusting stronger, and it was difficult to balance upright on the narrow ridge crest. We covered the last distance stooped against the wind. Inside the tent we removed our boots and mittens, and John placed his bare toes inside my parka, against the bare skin of my belly. He grimaced with pain.
“They’ll be O.K. as soon as they warm a little more,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any damage. How is your nose?”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
The warmth of the tent had restored feeling, and although my nose was too tender to touch with pressure, I had suffered no frostbite. My fingers were numb and white, but I felt they, too, were O.K.
“That was a wild crossing, though,” I said. “Kind of exciting on that last section. In the stronger gusts I thought I was going to be air-mailed to Base Camp.”
We started the stove and began melting snow. It was 4:15. We had left Camp III at 11:30. In good weather, we would have traversed in less than two hours.
“It took over four hours,” I said.
“Yeah, and you know we’re going to be faster than the others if they try and make it here in one day. I doubt seriously they’ll try it. We’ll find out at the five o’clock radio call.”
Meanwhile, lower on the mountain, there was another crisis evolving. As usual, Lou had been in the lead all morning, and he reached Camp III about 1:30. Even though John and I had dropped down earlier and stomped a good trail, spindrift had filled most of our steps and Lou had had to struggle to punch new ones. He had moved more slowly than usual, but he knew he had to pace himself to reach Camp IV. Craig, Wick, Jim, and Dianne reached Camp III just behind Lou; the others, the B Team, were still some distance below.
The five discussed the wisdom of proceeding to Camp IV; none of them had been exposed to the gale on the traverse and had they known what was ahead they might not have been so eager to push on. Lou was anxious to move ahead, however—he felt strong, and he knew he could lead the entire distance. He wanted to start before the tracks made by John and me filled any more. Wick and Craig agreed to follow; Jim and Dianne, both of whom had so far kept up with the others, were also considering crossing.
“I think I can make it,” Dianne said. “I feel strong. And maybe tomorrow I can take a load to Camp Five.”
Lou left camp at 2:15. The others lost time fidgeting with a malfunctioning stove so they could brew hot chocolate, but finally got underway at 3:00. When they left, the B Team still had not arrived.
As they left camp, Wick turned to Dianne and warned her of the need to climb quickly.
“It’s late and you’ll have to keep a steady pace to reach camp before dark. If you get stuck out here it will be serious.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make it,” Dianne yelled back. They were feeling the full force of the wind as they crossed to the Chinese side of the ridge. Dianne realized the implications of not reaching camp before dark, and she was prepared for her hardest physical effort of the expedition.
At the base of the first steep pinnacle, Wick waited for Jim and Dianne so he could be near them on the traverse in case Dianne needed assistance. He let Craig Anderson pass. Craig had, so far, met the physical rigors of the triple stage, but when he left the protection of the lee side of the ridge and was hit by the full force of the gale, he sensed the danger of the task ahead. Had he known that to survive the next few hours would demand more stamina than he had ever mustered on any previous experience in the mountains, he might have turned back. Craig pushed on; Jim and Dianne caught up with Wick, and the three of them followed. Already, twentyfour-thousand-foot Skyang Kangri, rising on the far side of the glacier that descended off the Chinese side of the ridge, was beginning to glow golden in the light of later afternoon sun.
None of the five fighting the gale
, racing the setting sun, had a clear notion how the B Team would react when they arrived to find Camp III deserted. Craig had an inkling of their possible response just as he left Camp III. He thought: The others are going to take this all wrong. It’s just a plan to gain a day, to get to Camp V earlier. But they won’t see it that way. Craig was concerned that his good friends, Skip and Bill (especially Bill, who was then so committed to the B Team effort), would misinterpret his intentions. But by the time the B Team trudged into a deserted Camp III, Craig and the others were too absorbed to consider anything but their own struggle to survive.
Bill Sumner and Diana Jagersky were first to Camp III. Diana later recorded her impressions:
A few feet out of Camp III, I had a sick feeling when I noticed an emptiness. Then I glanced up and saw Lou disappear behind the first gendarme on the ridge, and then I saw Jim and Dianne further behind. I sensed trouble ahead. Already Bill was very upset and fuming.
One by one the others arrived: Chris, then Cherie, Terry, and Skip. Their reactions were the same: anger. Especially from Chris, Cherie, and Terry, who felt they had been deceived not only by the A Team, but by Whittaker as well. Their resentment, however, was for the moment checked by the demands of pitching another tent in strong winds, and also by the growing realization the others might be in serious trouble.
It was bitterly cold, and those at Camp III were exhausted. Bill, Skip, and Diana huddled in a small, two-person tent pitched on an uneven platform that Diana said was like “lying on a bunch of old saddles.” Chris, Cherie, and Terry were in a larger four-person tent. Terry assumed the task of camp spokesman, making the five o’clock radio transmission to alert John and me, as well as Rob in Camp I, that the others had continued across the traverse and might be in trouble.
“There’s no sign of any of them yet,” John radioed back to Terry. “Keep monitoring, and we’ll call as soon as we learn anything.”
John looked at me and said, “That’s the dumbest thing yet. I can see Lou and Wick, and maybe Craig and Jim, trying to get across, but bringing Dianne over those ropes in wind like this with only a couple of hours of daylight left—that’s lunacy.”
We waited. Every few minutes we poked our head out the window flap to search for any sign of our teammates. An hour passed, then an hour and a half. There were only a few minutes of daylight remaining. I wrote in my diary:
It is 6:30 and there is still no sign of them. Lou, who is always faster than anyone, hasn’t even arrived. If they’re not already in trouble there is a good chance they will be. It seems unlikely they will arrive before dark. John is increasingly irate at what he thinks is Jim’s bad judgment to allow Dianne to cross the ropes. A few minutes ago we talked to Camp I, and John asked Rob if Shelby Scates [a newspaper correspondent who had come up to Camp I with a trekking party] was listening. Rob acknowledged that he was, and John said, “Good, I just want him to know that Whittaker is jeopardizing the entire success of this expedition, and possibly the lives of others, by dragging his wife across that traverse.”
I took the radio from John.
“I agree with John that Jim made a mistake,” I said. “But I just hope it’s not a serious one. They must be very cold right now—it’s blowing like hell out there—and I doubt they make it in without some frostbite. I just hope they make it in any condition.”
Even Jim Wickwire was finding it difficult to muster the necessary drive to keep pushing through the spindrift that stung his face and made it difficult to breathe. Several times he caught himself resting on the ropes for no apparent reason, just hanging, his mind going blank. He had to snap back to the reality of making headway, and force himself to keep going. He continued to open distance between himself and Jim and Dianne, who were moving slower. But he could not wait; if he stopped too long he knew it would be too difficult to start again.
Craig was also having trouble. The route gained the crest of the knife-blade ridge, and Craig found it necessary to half crawl to keep balance. The spindrift was blasting with full gale strength, and he had to remove his dark goggles to see at all. The ice crystals cut into his eyes and accumulated on his brows and eyelids. He realized he was in danger—he had only two hundred feet more, but each step was becoming increasingly difficult. The wind gusted stronger, forcing him down on all fours. Crouching, he thought about the danger of his position, then the danger of the entire enterprise, the whole expedition. This is definitely not worth it, he thought. This is craziness, absurdity. It’s too easy to die here. He needed motivation to keep going, and he found it. He thought of his wife and his kids, of the stacks of letters he received at each mail call, of their need for him to come home to them. He got up and staggered toward Camp IV.
Lou was the first to arrive, at about 6:45. John and I spotted him about fifty feet from the tent, moving steadily against the wind. He wore his faithful patched and mended red parka, and his beard and mustache were coated with ice. He crawled shivering into our tent.
“It’s a little nasty out there,” he said.
“Any sign of the others?” I asked.
“Craig is just behind me, and Wick not too far behind him. I don’t know about Jim and Dianne. I think they’re still a ways back.”
It was dark, and John and I looked at each other, knowing our thought was the same: What a night to have to rescue someone. John called the lower camps to report Lou’s arrival, telling them he would keep them posted on the others.
We gave Lou a cup of tea. In a few more minutes Craig arrived, then Wick. They crawled into the other tent and began melting snow for a brew. We called over: “Any frostbite?”
“Just tired, otherwise O.K. Jim and Dianne are a ways back, moving slow,” Wick answered.
We waited, agonizing, wondering if we had the strength left to suit up and leave to help them. About eight o’clock we heard their voices. Dianne stumbled up to our tent, visibly shaking from exposure.
“I’m O.K.,” she murmured. “No frostbite, I don’t think. Only a little cold.” She had trouble pronouncing the words, and her lips were quivering.
Awkwardly, she made the last few steps to Wick and Craig’s tent. Jim was a few feet behind her, exhausted, but apparently in better shape. Wick opened the tent door and Dianne fell through. He wrapped her in his down parka and half bag, and even though both he and Craig were very thirsty, they poured most of their kettle of steaming brew water into Jim’s and Dianne’s cups. Still shivering, Dianne managed a “Thank you” and tried to smile. From our tent, John radioed the news that everyone was safe to a much-relieved audience at Camps III and I.
“You’ve got to admit,” Lou said quietly, “Dianne made a very impressive performance. Believe me, it was rough out there. And she’s not a very experienced climber.”
“She should never have tried to come across, but I’ll agree,” John said, grudgingly. “She did a hell of a job getting through that wind. She’s got a lot of drive.”
AUGUST 27. Bill Sumner awoke in Camp III groggy and queasy—the evening before he had taken a Dalmane sleeping pill after battling several wakeful nights. He seldom used drugs of any kind, and he now felt miserable.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to go up today,” he said. “Just don’t feel good.”
“That’s too bad,” Diana replied. “It’s an incredible morning. No clouds, and the wind is not bad at all.”
The three of them—Diana, Bill, and Skip—had passed an uncomfortable night crammed into their small tent. The other three in the tent next door—Chris, Cherie, and Terry—were preparing to leave.
Diana Jagersky felt excitement at finally getting a chance to go to Camp IV, to cross the traverse. She was as good a climber as Cherie or Dianne, but because her duty to the expedition was to manage Camp I and organize loads lower on the mountain, she had not had the chance to climb high. However, if Diana had suffered any frustrated ambitions, or consequently held any grudges, it was not at all obvious; she had continued to meet her duties with few, if any, complaints. Si
nce everyone except Rob was moving high on the mountain for the final summit push, she had seen her chance to follow to higher camps and realize her climbing ambition on the expedition—to cross to Camp IV.
Those in Camp III had had a night to meditate on what they considered a subterfuge by the A Team, supported by Whittaker, to get a one-day jump on them, thereby scuttling the plan for a simultaneous assault. Now—the following morning—still disappointed, they nevertheless decided to continue their effort and follow as close behind as they could. They intended to head to Camp IV, then the next day climb to V.
But about ten minutes before their planned departure time there was a radio call from Camp IV. John’s voice came over the air; Terry monitored.
“You can’t come over today,” John said. “You’ll have to stay in Three. Everybody is too wiped out here to move up to Five today. We had a hell of a time getting across the traverse last night. Dianne was hypothermic. Nobody was able to melt enough water and rehydrate. This morning everybody is lying around hardly able to cook breakfast. Looks like a rest day, so there’s no room for you guys over here. No tent space.”
“Those bastards,” Cherie spat.
Terry grimaced. Chris sat Indian-style on the tent floor, staring passively, no longer surprised by anything. “And those are the guys always complaining about us not moving fast enough,” he said.
John’s voice continued, “It’s also still windy here this morning, and cold. Unless the weather changes it’s too rough to cross.”
Although the weather seemed near-perfect from the perch at Camp III, protected as it was in the lee of the serac, strong gusts still buffeted the tents at the exposed Camp IV. Despite the sunshine, crossing the traverse would have been rigorous.
The Last Step Page 27