K2

by Ed Viesturs

  A cardinal rule of mountaineering, observed, certainly until recent years, is that under no circumstances does one split a small party if one has any reason to suspect trouble ahead….

  Surely this was a time when three ambulatory men should have stuck together rather than separate. Indeed, if by some miracle, all was well below, say at Camp VI, three backs were surely better than two or one to help haul up fresh supplies….

  Was this the decision of a leader fully in command of his faculties?

  I don’t know where Kauffman and Putnam got their “cardinal rules of mountaineering,” but this analysis, like their theory that the expedition leader should not be the same person as the “point man,” seems cockeyed. If Wolfe was too tired to push farther down the mountain on July 23, what was Wiessner supposed to do? Sit and wait at Camp VII—three men with a single sleeping bag and air mattress—for help that would never come? Order Wolfe to descend, no matter how wiped out he was? Far from abandoning his teammate, Wiessner tried to spare him a further ordeal. It did not seem possible that Camp VI could have been destroyed as Camp VII had been. To me, what Wiessner did seems perfectly logical.

  Wiessner and Lama did not depart until 11:00 A.M. on the July 23. And 700 feet lower, the inconceivable became reality. Not only were there no Sherpa in Camp VI, but the two tents had been taken down and folded up. Some gasoline and a little bit of food were cached there, but the sleeping bags and air mattresses were gone.

  “Our situation now became very serious,” Wiessner later wrote. The two men had no choice but to continue the descent. At Camps V and IV, still no sleeping bags. The Camp III depot was empty. At nightfall, Wiessner and Lama reached Camp II, which ought to have been the best-provisioned on the mountain. No sleeping bags! Utterly worn out, the two men took down one tent and wrapped themselves up in it while they tried to sleep in the other. Their fingers and toes got frost-nipped, and for the second night in a row, they got no sleep.

  In the morning, Wiessner and Pasang Lama staggered down the lower slopes of the Abruzzi Ridge and at last emerged on the Godwin Austen Glacier. Base camp was still several miles away. Wiessner later wrote, “For the last kilometers on the nearly level glacier we could only just drag ourselves along, and often we fell to the ground.” Finally, with base camp almost in sight, they saw four tiny figures in the distance—teammates at last. Slowly the gap between those figures and the two utterly spent climbers closed.

  This is the great mystery. Why were the tents stripped? While Wiessner, Pasang Lama, and Dudley Wolfe were pushing hard for the summit, what was going on below Camp VIII? What had happened to the other four Americans, and to the rest of the Sherpa?

  As the figures on the glacier drew near, Wiessner recognized Tony Cromwell and three Sherpa. The first thing Cromwell said was “Thank God you’re alive!”

  By now, with his throat desperately sore from breathing thin, cold air, Wiessner had lost his voice, a condition that would last for weeks. But in a rasping whisper, he summoned up his fury: “What is the idea?”

  Wiessner later recalled his deputy leader’s explanation: “He told us they had given us up for dead. He was just out looking for any sign of anything on the glacier. I said, ‘This is really an outrage. Wolfe will sue you for your neglect.’”

  In silence, the six men plodded the short distance to base camp. According to Wiessner,

  The cook and the liaison officer came out and embraced me and took me to my tent. Pasang Kikuli and all the Sherpas came and embraced me. But Durrance didn’t come for about half an hour.

  When he did, I said immediately, “What happened to our supplies? Who took all the sleeping bags down? And why were they taken down?”

  Durrance said, “Well, the Sherpas….” It was blamed on the Sherpas.

  Wiessner was surprised to discover that the two Dartmouth boys, George Sheldon and Chappell Cranmer, were nowhere to be seen. It turned out that they had left base camp on July 18. After seven weeks on the Godwin Austen Glacier, they were so fed up with the expedition—or simply overwhelmed by K2’s challenges—that they did not even bother to hang around to find out what was happening with their three teammates high on the mountain. The pretext for their early departure: a geology side trip back to Urdukas, the pleasant oasis off the side of the lower Baltoro Glacier! Apparently Cromwell had given the young men his benediction to take off.

  The porters from Askole had arrived on schedule on July 23. Now they were lingering around base camp, eager to go home. In retrospect, this state of affairs is surprising. Although Askole was a seven-day march from base camp for heavily laden porters, the team had had intermittent contact with that last outpost of civilization. On June 28, for instance, porters had arrived with the mail and Durrance’s custom-made boots. As the July 23 deadline approached, with the ascent of the mountain still very much in progress, it ought to have been possible for Cromwell to send a messenger to Askole, delaying the arrival of the porters. After all, in 1938, the cook and one Sherpa had dashed down to that village in only three days, as they organized the team’s firewood-gathering mission.

  In 1992, we waited until we were finally down the mountain before we ordered our porters. We did not want to risk having them arrive before we were sure that our entire team was done with its attempt. Once the porters return to base camp, the expedition is effectively over. That meant we had to hang around on the Godwin Austen Glacier longer than we might have liked—by the end of August, even I was ready to go home.

  The obvious explanation for Cromwell’s allowing the porters to show up while three men were still high on K2 is that all the “sahibs” except Wiessner and Wolfe were desperate to get the hell out of there. “Crump” had set in with a vengeance. Cranmer and Sheldon had not even bothered to wait for the porters, they were so eager to leave base camp. It’s a scary thought, but you can’t help wondering whether Cromwell, having given up for dead the three men high on the mountain, might have pulled the plug on the whole expedition and started hiking out even before Wiessner and Pasang Lama got down to base camp, if he had returned empty-handed from his July 24 search of the glacier for signs of the missing men. Wiessner believed that to be the case. In 1956, with wry irony, he wrote, “At Base Camp, in the firm conviction that Wolfe, Pasang and I had perished, it had been decided to begin the march out on July 25. This plan had to be altered somewhat when Pasang Lama and I dragged ourselves into camp.”

  Something very similar to this happened on the 1963 American Everest expedition. The goal of team leader Norman Dyhrenfurth, and of most of the climbers in the nineteen-man party, was simply to make the first American ascent of the world’s highest mountain. (In that sense, the ‘63 campaign was a holdover from the 1950s era of massive nationalistic expeditions.) That goal was accomplished on May 1, when Jim Whittaker topped out with Sherpa Nawang Gombu. Meanwhile, a small contingent made up of the best technical climbers on the team set out to put up a new route on Everest’s west ridge. Dyhrenfurth relegated this splinter group to second-class status, directing all the team’s logistics and support to the effort on the traditional South Col route. The west ridge group had to bide their time and haul their own loads until Whittaker and Gombu had succeeded. But by then, Dyhrenfurth and most of the climbers on the South Col route were ready to go home.

  This rather nasty impasse came to a head on May 9 in a radio exchange between Tom Hornbein, installed high on the west ridge, and Barry Prather at base camp, who spoke for Dyhrenfurth because the leader had developed severe laryngitis. In his classic narrative, Everest: The West Ridge, Hornbein replays that exchange verbatim (it had been tape-recorded for use in the expedition’s documentary film):

  Prather: The porters are coming in on the 21st and we’re leaving Base Camp on the 22nd. Over….

  Hornbein: O.K., we realize time is running out but we envisioned that there were a few more days beyond the 20th or 21st so far as summit attempts by our route are concerned…. How do you read that? Over.

  Prather: On
ly comment is, there are 300 porters coming in here on the 21st. Over.

  Hornbein: Well, I guess we’ll see you in Kathmandu then.

  In the end, Dyhrenfurth relented and supported the west ridge party. On May 22, Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld finished the route, traversed over the summit, survived a desperate bivouac above 28,000 feet, and accomplished a far more impressive deed than the third ascent of Everest by the same route that Hillary and Tenzing had pioneered a decade before. The stellar British climber Doug Scott later called the Unsoeld-Hornbein climb the greatest single feat in Everest history.

  At base camp, Wiessner learned for the first time that Durrance, rather than staying on at Camp VI, had descended all the way to Camp II on July 14, taking Pasang Kikuli with him. After that date, on only a single day had any of the four Americans supposedly composing the support team gone higher than Camp II, at only 19,300 feet. Instead, four Sherpa were the only climbers stationed between Durrance and the trio pushing up high from Camp VIII to Camp IX. During the light two-day storm on July 15 and 16, Tse Tendrup and Pasang Kitar had waited at Camp VII. Having descended to IV with Durrance and Kikuli on July 14, Tsering and Phinsoo had then climbed back up to Camp VI to support the lead climbers.

  What happened next is an integral part of the mystery. In Kauffman and Putnam’s analysis, “The Sherpas’ instructions, first from Fritz and then from Jack, were to continue to ferry supplies whenever possible, first to Camp VII and then onward to Camp VIII. They did nothing of the kind; perhaps they had not understood.”

  The only source for the doings of these four Sherpa between July 15 and 23 is the discussions they had with the Americans at base camp after July 24. Most of the Sherpa spoke Hindustani but not English, so much of the dialogue had to be translated by Chandra, an Indian schoolteacher who had joined the expedition and the only man conversant in both tongues. Misunderstandings must have been rife, and afterward there would be no way of independently checking the Sherpa testimony.

  Even Wiessner, who was dumbfounded by the stripping of the camps, eventually accepted the explanation that emerged from the base camp dialogue. He would write in 1956,

  On July 17 [Tse] Tendrup and [Pasang] Kitar, who had waited in Camp VII for better weather, came down to [VI], instead of carrying more loads to Camp VII, as I had arranged. As reason for this change in plan Tendrup alleged that Wolfe, Pasang Lama, and I had undoubtedly perished at Camp VIII in an avalanche. P[h]insoo and Tsering, however, were not convinced by this invented story of an avalanche and stayed on in Camp VI.

  Descending farther, all the way to Camp IV, the next day, Tendrup and Kitar met Durrance and Kikuli, who were coming up the mountain. Indignant at their defection, Kikuli ordered the two Sherpa to return to the high camps.

  Thereupon they climbed back to Camp VI, where P[h]insoo and Tsering were still staying, and on July 19 to Camp VII. There they called up to Camp VIII, which however was beyond calling range. Since they got no answer this gave greater probability to Tendrup’s story of the avalanche; we were definitely given up. The two of them now broke up Camp VII, threw most of the stored supplies into the snow, and left the tents open. Only the sleeping-bags and air mattresses were all taken along down to Camp IV. There Tendrup convinced the other two Sherpas that his avalanche story was true, and ordered a descent.

  Later on, in Base Camp, the Sherpas called Tendrup a devil, who had deceived them with the avalanche story and wanted to wreck the expedition. I myself suspect that the strong but often lazy Tendrup was tired of packing between the high camps and therefore had invented the avalanche story…. At the same time he probably thought the sahibs at Base Camp would praise him for bringing along the valuable sleeping-bags from Camps VII and VI.

  This explanation, however, leaves all kinds of questions unanswered. It does not explain why Camps I through IV were also stripped. It does not clarify Pasang Kikuli’s role in the unfolding disaster. And it does not begin to address the central question of who bore the ultimate responsibility for leaving Sherpa in high camps with daunting and dangerous tasks to perform, in isolation from all the “sahibs”—a predicament into which Sherpa had never been thrust on any previous Himalayan expedition.

  At the moment, sorting out the blunders that had led to the stripping of the camps was of secondary importance. The critical task the men at base camp now faced was to rescue Dudley Wolfe.

  It seems almost beyond belief that after what could easily have been a fatal descent, having frostnipped his toes and completely exhausted himself, and having seen his logistical pyramid utterly wrecked, Wiessner still thought there was a chance to go for the summit. But on July 24, the very day he got back to base camp, he wrote in his diary, “The mountain is far away…. The weather is the best we have had so far. Will it be possible for me to go up after a short rest with some Sherpas and Jack, if he is in shape, to pick up Dudley and then call on the summit?”

  On the one hand, you could call this determination the hallmark of a great mountaineer. Getting up K2 meant almost as much to Wiessner as life itself—as climbing the Matterhorn had to Whymper, or Everest to Mallory. On the other hand, you could call it denial. Wiessner had come so close to the summit on July 19 that perhaps he could not accept the fact that it was now eternally beyond his grasp.

  It’s also surprising that at this point, while trying to recuperate at base camp, Wiessner told Cromwell to go ahead and start for Askole with most of the porters. Granted, the deputy leader had proved himself useless on the mountain. But faced with the uncertainty of the rescue, didn’t the team need every able-bodied climber it had to offer whatever support it could? If Wolfe got down the mountain in a crippled state and had to be carried down the Baltoro by litter, the team could have used all the porters available to take turns performing this desperate evacuation.

  It may be that Wiessner was so angry with Cromwell, he just didn’t want the man around. And as if to punish him for his “invented” avalanche story, Wiessner also ordered Tendrup to hike out with the porters, further humiliating him among his brethren. Wiessner kept the rest of the Sherpa at base camp.

  On July 25, Durrance, Phinsoo, Dawa Thondup, and Pasang Kitar started up the mountain, hoping to reach Camp VII and find Wolfe still alive. The four men climbed to Camp II the first day, to Camp IV the second. By then, however, Dawa had developed a painfully sore throat, and Durrance felt his altitude problems recurring. Both men decided they could not go above IV. Durrance asked the other two Sherpa to push on. Phinsoo was willing, but Kitar balked, believing (quite reasonably) that two slightly built Sherpa could not safely shepherd a possibly stricken man as big as Wolfe down the Abruzzi Ridge. Instead, Durrance asked Phinsoo and Kitar to stay in Camp IV and await reinforcements. In his diary on July 27, plucking at desperate straws, he wrote, “I decided to return to base camp at once with Dawa & get Fritz & Pasang Kikuli to go to the rescue.”

  Upon the disheartening return of Durrance and Dawa to base camp, Wiessner prepared to head up the mountain himself. But his frostnipped toes and sore throat had troubled him so much that he had slept very little, and that day he was able to climb only a short distance above base camp before he realized that he was too debilitated to make another effort to go up the Abruzzi Ridge. At this point, the sirdar showed true heroism. As Wiessner wrote in his diary,

  Pasang Kikuli seem[s] to feel in good shape and his toes seem improved. He tells me very resolutely that there would be no need for me in my bad condition to go up, he would be perfectly able to handle the situation…. Good luck for me to have a man like Pasang left, he is dependable and always does what he plans, I could not do it better.

  Early on July 28, Kikuli and Tsering left base camp. What happened during the next six days had to be reconstructed from the testimony of a single witness.

  Despite his frostbitten feet, the sirdar and his companion were so fit and committed that they climbed at a rate of almost 1,000 feet an hour—virtually unheard of at such altitudes. In only six hours they reached Camp I
V, a gain of 5,000 feet. There, to their surprise, they did not find Kitar and Phinsoo. It turned out that Kitar had overcome his doubts and the two Sherpa left by Durrance at IV had pushed on to Camp VI. So Kikuli and Tsering pushed on themselves. In a single day, they climbed 6,900 feet, from base camp at 16,500 feet to Camp VI at 23,400. Theirs was the strongest single day’s ascent performed to that date by any climbers on any 8,000-meter peak.

  From base camp, at 11:00 A.M. on July 29, through binoculars, Durrance and Wiessner saw three men climbing a couloir between Camps VI and VII. They were too far away to identify, and soon they passed out of sight. At 5:00 P.M., Durrance and Wiessner saw three figures descending the same couloir. It was impossible to deduce what had gone on.

  At noon on July 29, Pasang Kikuli, Phinsoo, and Kitar reached Camp VII. (Tsering had been left at Camp VI to prepare hot beverages.) The three Sherpa found Wolfe lying in his sleeping bag, completely apathetic. He did not even read the note Wiessner had written to him. He had again run out of matches, and had eaten or drunk nothing for days. He had not even gone outside to defecate, so his sleeping bag and the tent floor were smeared with feces. The Sherpa made tea for Wolfe, got him outside the tent, and tried to help him walk, but he could only stagger. Wolfe told the men that he needed another day of rest, and pleaded with them to come back for him the next day.

  Kauffman and Putnam write,

  Dudley had spent thirty-eight consecutive days above 22,000 feet, most of them in a tent. Of these, sixteen had been at heights averaging 25,000 feet. In the history of mountaineering to that time, no man—not Noel Odell of Everest, not Fritz himself—has been known to remain at such heights so long—even with oxygen support. And few have done it since.