The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2

by Jennifer Jordan

  With modern science, we know that from the moment a climber ascends above 18,000 feet his body is no longer building muscle. Above 22,000 feet, the lack of atmospheric pressure to force oxygenated blood through the circulatory, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and cerebral systems puts the body into mere survival mode. Wounds don’t heal, slower circulation threatens hands and feet with frostbite, chronic coughing can break ribs and often produces frothy or pink sputum, lips and fingernails can turn an unsettling blue or gray, thinking is muddled, coordination and balance are compromised, and although the climber feels lethargic and drowsy, restful sleep is nearly impossible. Above 25,000 feet it gets even worse. At that altitude, the body is in a race against death, slowly suffocating from a dangerous lack of oxygen and languid blood flow. Meanwhile, the heart and lungs are pumping furiously, trying to force enough oxygen through the blood to keep the body alive. Unfortunately, this “panting” throws off a lot of carbon dioxide, making the blood very alkaline. The kidneys compensate for the alkalinity by excreting bicarbonate, thus increasing urine production, which robs the body of even more liquids. Soon, the blood thickens to something resembling the consistency of house paint.

  All of the body’s reactions to high altitude are designed to be short-term emergency measures, but if the climber remains in the highest altitudes without proper nutrients and hydration, the brain shunts blood away from the nonessential systems—skin, legs, arms, intestines, and other “less vital” organs—to keep alive the crucial ones: heart, brain, and lungs. Thus, digestion slows, frostbite looms as tissue dies from lack of oxygen, and kidney function sputters to a near standstill.

  Mentally, the climber isn’t faring much better. While his heart and lungs are on overdrive, trying to find enough oxygen in the thin air to keep his body alive, his brain is being robbed of the capacity for rational thought. Feeling much like a person with a hellish hangover—headache, nausea, dizziness, and debilitating ennui—the climber in the lethal air above 25,000 feet is stripped of all motivation. Climbers have actually recommended training for high altitude while suffering a hangover so as to fully anticipate the misery that is in their future in the Himalayas. Rest is the climber’s only desire, but it’s an illusion; at those altitudes the body is incapable of rest because it is working so hard to stay alive.

  The death zone, as it is known, has earned its name.

  Today’s climbers know all too well the lethal dangers of remaining above 25,000 feet longer than absolutely necessary, and that they have to tag the summit and run like hell for their lives. In 1939, Dudley did not know that every minute he spent in the high, thin air, even at base camp, he was slowly depriving his body of strength, muscle, and immunity. He just kept climbing. Looking back with the knowledge gained by seventy years of research and experience, it is remarkable how far he got, how long he stayed, and how relatively well he felt.

  WHEN DUDLEY was left at Camp VII at 24,700 feet, he had already spent all but the first week of the expedition above base camp, and two weeks of that he had spent at 25,300 feet. He couldn’t have known it, but he made history by surviving in that lethally thin air and ruthless environment longer than any man or woman before or since.

  It was an achievement for which he would pay dearly. Because no man had been at such heights for such a prolonged period of time, Dudley was charting new territory, not only on the mountain but in his body.

  After nearly two months on the mountain with inadequate oxygen, food, and water, Dudley’s mind, like his body, was shutting down, and his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy was rapidly fading. Medical experts agree that at best he could have been only semi-coherent. As he lay in his tent slowly dying, ravaged by starvation, dehydration, and exposure, the last of his bodily fluids leaked uncontrolled from his bowels. For a fastidious man who never was far from a hot bath and a clean, laundered shirt, his final days lying in his own filth must have been devastating.

  Day ran into night and back to day as he waited, his only company the waxing moon above in the ink-black sky. Fritz and Pasang had only been able to leave him what little food they scraped up from the snow at Camp VII and a handful of matches. He had tried to keep the stove lit and the snow melting, but the stove was tough to light and he soon ran out of matches entirely. Again. At some point in his vigil, he badly burned his left hand, further incapacitating him. After that, all he could do was lie in the tent and wait, watching the day turn to night.

  Few people have survived protracted exposure to the deadly combination of high altitude, starvation, dehydration, frostbite, and loneliness. The small handful who have did so with damaged hearts, livers, missing limbs, and often palsy, epileptic seizures, memory loss, and an abiding paranoia, most likely caused by the severe hallucinations and fantasies suffered during their hypoxic isolation. They also report having had visions so vivid they spoke, often argued, with their “companions” on the mountain during their long vigil. Regardless of the particulars of their experience, each said their mind often took over, taking them places and bringing them visitors as they slowly lost touch with reality.

  Luckily for those who perish on the world’s highest mountains, frostbite doesn’t hurt as long as the tissue stays frozen. Further, the body is unaware of its fatal slowing, and as the brain shuts down, it allows only for random moments of dreadful clarity. Death by exposure, as death goes, is not as horrific as some, particularly if the climber gives in, lies down, and closes his eyes. But if that climber fights, if he is aware that sleep is death and that hope might mean survival, as the poet Dylan Thomas said, he “rages against the dying of the light” as he waits for something to happen to enable his living. Maybe rescue will come. Maybe the sun will enable movement. Maybe.

  WHAT DUDLEY saw and the phantom conversations he had in his last days and hours disappeared with him, but, given other climbers’ near-death experiences at the roof of the world, it is not hard to imagine where his brain went as hope of a rescue faded.

  Perhaps he replayed his grandfather B. F. Smith’s tales of Indians and gold mining and of sleeping atop his wagonloads at night, listening to the wolves and watching the stars. Just as B. F. described the stars above the prairies of Nebraska, those above Dudley were their own extravaganza of light and color, three and four layers deep, like a dark opera house with millions of diamonds suspended from the ceiling on invisible filaments.

  Perhaps he thought of the time he had taken his young nephew, Clifford Junior, out on the open water for the first time and given him the helm. He had watched pure, unspeakable joy transform the boy’s face as it once had his own when he connected the small movements of the tiller in his hands with the creaking melody of that great ship’s turning to starboard or to port, as he willed. Up and down the Maine coast they had sailed that crystalline afternoon, alone together and at peace with the power and grace of the ocean, one among its flock of white-tipped vessels. He had hoped Gwen’s young boys, Dudley and Paul Rochester, would fall in love with the ocean too, and he had even directed that part of his inheritance to them be put toward sailing school.

  Surely he reconstructed his brief, tumultuous time with Alice, and its not entirely sad ending. He had loved her—her strength, her resolute beliefs, and her iron will. Maybe he chuckled, remembering how he had tried to impress her with his mastery of the slalom style of skiing, not realizing she had taught it to her Olympic protégées. She had generously and gently agreed to his ending the marriage, but it couldn’t have been easy for her. She had always been the one to end her relationships. This time Dudley had beaten her to it.

  Then there were the men below him at base camp. Although he was old enough to be the father of some of them, he had enjoyed their boisterous energy and how they had laughed at some of his raunchier limericks. He knew that when they first met him they had thought him a pampered old fool out to prove something to the world. But he’d seen their respect grow as he had shouldered loads and kept pace with the best of them, on the ski slopes of Gulmarg and t
hen on K2. He hadn’t always been able to carry as much as Jack or Fritz, but he had stayed the course when the others faltered. He had swallowed the pain, lowered his head, and kept going.

  It had only been two months since he had first set eyes on the mountain where he now lay. Then, he had felt its power like a great weight in his belly. But after two months on the mountain, perhaps he began to feel its power as a thumping heartbeat far and deep beneath his own, and so long as he felt that rhythmic beat, he knew there was hope of survival.

  He lay in his tent, the full moon creating an eerie light through the thick canvas. For a while he had listened to the avalanches thunder down the mountain, each time wondering if this was the one that would take the tent, and him, to the bottom. But after a time, even listening for the avalanches and worrying about their path took too much energy. Then he closed his eyes.

  THE TIBETANS believe there are eight stages to death. In the first stage, all strength is lost as blood, air, and fire leave the body. The second dries up the nine orifices, causing a terrific thirst. The third brings a cleansing, cool out-breath as the body releases all control over defecation and urination. By the fourth stage, inhalation stops; there is only a constant exhalation. In the last four stages, the mind travels through white, red, and black light, and experiences a series of hallucinations reflective of the person’s karma; a peaceful person will have calm, accepting visions while a violent, angry person will experience aggressive attacks. Finally, the breath stops and there is a deep fainting sensation, even a crushing weight, as the body falls deep into the earth. This stage, in which the person appears dead but consciousness and life force have not yet left the body, can take up to several days. Buddhists believe the body must not be tampered with until it has reached actual death. When death occurs, red and white fluids will release from the nostrils and the mind/spirit experiences a clear vacuity: the light of death.

  Modern science describes the stages of death in very similar terms, particularly death caused by cerebral edema. Beginning with a headache, the climber soon experiences a loss of coordination (ataxia) and weakness, followed within hours by decreasing levels of consciousness including disorientation, loss of memory, hallucinations, psychotic behavior, and, finally, coma.

  When the Sherpas left Dudley, he was somewhere between the third and fourth stages of Tibetan death and between the last two of medical death, those of incontinence, psychotic behavior, and coma. Whether or not he experienced spiritual peace, he was physically released from his struggle soon after he was left alone. His last physical awareness was probably that of being overheated, as the last of the circulating blood rushed to the surface simulating an intense, prickling heat. Many climbers who have died of exposure are found frozen solid but with their clothing stripped off—hat, gloves, parka, even their shirt cast aside in the snow.

  The last hours of Dudley Wolfe’s life remain unrecorded. What is known is that he was lying in his tent as the last of his constricted blood and air trickled to a stop. And if he had similar experiences to those who have technically died and come back to life to tell about it, his last thoughts and visions were of a warm, serene, welcoming place and he was at peace.

  BELOW HIM, Jack and Fritz anxiously watched for any sign that Dudley and the four Sherpas were finally on their way down. But repeatedly, they saw the motion of only three men climbing and descending between Camps VI and VII. What did it mean?

  “There are many possibilities…Maybe,” Fritz faltered, his words fading off. He had no answers but he repeatedly tried to convince Jack that there was “absolutely no reason to be worried.” Dudley and the Sherpas would be in base camp within days, he assured Jack. “Not to worry!”

  But Jack did worry. Not only was the fate of one of their teammates increasingly dire, he also knew he would be the primary scapegoat for the team’s failure, “as obviously someone must [be].” But he had merely been following Tony’s orders to strip Camps II and IV. The descending Sherpas had been the ones to strip Camps VI and VII on their own, trying to save the team money. Still, Jack knew he had abandoned his post at Camp II. If he had still been there when the Sherpas descended with their huge loads, he could have easily ordered the supplies back up the mountain. Further adding to his sense of dread was that when the Sherpas finally reached base camp on the 23rd, he hadn’t directed any of them to return the equipment to the mountain. He knew he would most likely be blamed for that as well.

  While they waited, Jack and Fritz talked about the expedition, the mountain and, mostly, their failure to climb it. They napped, took pictures of flowers at the base of the Southeast Ridge, and ate too much—there was plenty of food in base camp. On July 31 they finally saw Kikuli, Kitar, and Phinsoo leave the tent at Camp VI and head back up the mountain for Dudley. They breathed a small sigh of relief. It shouldn’t be long now before everyone was back in camp, they thought.

  In Camp VI, Tsering also waited. Kikuli had told him to again have tea and food waiting for their return that afternoon. They would not take any sleeping bags or food with them to Camp VII because the plan was to get Wolfe Sahib and descend immediately. For two days, Tsering kept the tea warm and food ready, but no one returned. Afraid to cross the ice slope above camp alone, he called out for Kikuli, Kitar, and Phinsoo time and again, but no one answered. He searched the mountain for any sign of his friends. There was nothing. He waited, hoping and praying to Buddha. Finally, on August 2, after five days in the tent and sure that his friends could not have survived three days and nights without food or sleeping bags, he headed off the mountain for what he hoped would be the last time.

  When he stumbled into base camp that afternoon and told his story, Jack and Fritz immediately ordered him to go back up; there was no one else. Tony and Tendrup had left, Jack had proven time and again he couldn’t make it much above Camp II, Fritz was exhausted, Pasang Lama had frostbitten feet, and Dawa was a “whispering dwarf.”

  Tsering had, in all likelihood, just left three of his “brothers” on the mountain; their disappearance could only mean their deaths. He was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and now terrified of the mountain spirits who had swallowed up four members of the team. But Jack would hear none of his “balking” and commanded him and the hoarse Dawa to go up and check out the slope under Camp I for any signs of life, or death, while he and Fritz continued to watch from base camp. The dejected and exhausted Sherpas once again left base camp and headed for the mountain.

  Jack and Fritz, still watching through Dudley’s field glasses, had decided that if they didn’t see any movement from Camp VII by noon, Fritz would have no choice but to head back up the mountain and bring Dudley down himself. Noon came and went. Exhausted, still with only a rasp for a voice, and now worried that he could lose some of his toes to frostbite, Fritz started up the mountain the afternoon of August 3. Almost immediately, it felt like his breath stopped in his throat. While he had hoped to make Camp IV by nightfall, he was unable to get any higher than Camp II. Calling up the mountain in the still night air, he and the Sherpas heard nothing in return.

  ON THE MORNING of August 5, another full week since Dudley had been seen alive, the weather began to deteriorate and the first real storm in weeks moved across the mountain. As the first light snow began falling, Fritz declared he was too weak and that he “must not jeopardize my last reserves for the rescue.” When the storm cleared days later, Tsering stood outside the tent and made one last call up the mountain.

  Silence was the only response.

  Finally on August 8, Fritz, Dawa, and Tsering descended the mountain for the last time.

  How long Dudley lived at Camp VII will never be known, but perhaps one of the last things he heard was the faint, far-off sound of Tsering calling up the mountain. Whether Dudley was still alive to hear it or not, the strange and beautiful tongue of the Hindustani language floating up the slope and through his silent tent was the last voice heard on K2 the summer of 1939.

  Chapter 12

&nbs
p; Coming Home

  The real measure is the success or failure of the climber to triumph, not over a lifeless mountain, but over himself: the true value of the enterprise lies in the example to others of human motivation and human contact.

  —SIR JOHN HUNT

  Heading home through the Suez Canal. (Courtesy of the Cranmer Collection)

  Their last day at base camp, while Fritz rested, Jack, Dawa, and Tsering made one last trip up the glacier and scoured the mountain with Dudley’s field glasses for any sign of an avalanche or fall. Again, there was no sign of disaster, just the endless miles of snow and rock around them. Jack bowed his head and for one of the few times in his life quietly sang a song. It was from a collection of Schumann’s lieder and it just seemed the right thing to do. He then turned and walked back to base camp. Behind him, the summit of K2 was bathed in the setting sun’s golden light.

  The following day, August 9, Jack and Fritz, the last members of the 1939 expedition to leave, finally walked away from K2. As they neared the confluence of the Baltoro and Godwin–Austen glaciers at Concordia, ten miles from the mountain, Jack turned and looked back for the last time at what had become a malevolent presence on the horizon. He later wrote, “Bade the old devil adieu—it was dutifully shrouded in clouds befitting the fate of those remaining in its clutches.”

  From the moment they left base camp, Jack and Fritz both began preparing their versions of what had happened and why they had left four of their men on the mountain. While they were cordial to one another on the long trek home, each later accused the other of expressing a guilty anguish. Jack said Fritz broke into his tent at base camp to read his journal and that once on the trek he kept asking Jack, “What are we going to say? How can we explain it?” Fritz said that when he repeatedly asked Jack why the camps had been stripped, Jack cried in anguish, “Stop it! Stop it! We have talked long enough.” Fritz also suggested that Jack had removed the sleeping bags from the camps so that he could take one home and use it as a ploy with women.