K2

by Ed Viesturs

  My dogsled trip with Will Steger on Baffin Island in the spring of 2007 was another novel form of adventure for me. I had to learn a whole new art of traveling, and I was fascinated by the culture of the Inuit villages we visited, so different from the cultures of Skardu and Askole or Dingboche and Namche Bazar. Yet as grueling as that overland journey was at its toughest, it didn’t test me to the limits as the 8,000ers—especialy Annapurna and K2—had.

  A year later, I returned to Baffin Island with my dog-mushing friend John Stetson. This time, rather than using dogs to haul our gear, we pulled our own sleds, which weighed 220 pounds each, almost 150 miles over the barren, frozen landscape in a long loop out of the small town of Pond Inlet. This was a physically more demanding trip than the one with Steger, and for me a more rewarding one.

  In January 2009, I climbed Aconcagua, at 22,841 feet the highest peak in South America, as part of a gear-testing expedition organized by the Eddie Bauer company—a trial run, in effect, for the launching of the First Ascent line that we would undertake on Everest in the spring. Aconcagua’s not as hard a mountain as an 8,000er, but it can be deceptively lethal: many climbers die on its slopes from altitude sickness, pulmonary or cerebral edema, hypothermia, or getting lost in a storm. Several folks died, in fact, while we were on the mountain.

  I’d first climbed Aconcagua twenty years earlier, when I was twenty-nine and in prime shape. I expected to find it a little harder at the age of forty-nine, but I surprised myself. On the summit, I thought, Hell, I feel great, I want to go farther. And also: Hey, this is still what excites me!

  The pleasure I had on Aconcagua was what motivated me to go to Everest with the Eddie Bauer First Ascent team last spring. I’m sure that skeptics may have said, “What’s in it for Viesturs to go back to Everest for the eleventh time? A lucrative deal with his sponsors, more publicity via online dispatches?” But the number one reason for me to go to Everest in 2009 was the simple fact that I still find high mountains intriguing. I’ll always love the mountain environment. And as I learned on Aconcagua, climbing is still fun.

  Skeptics might also say, “Hey, he’s scared of turning fifty. He still thinks he’s got something to prove.” But the fact is, I’m not afraid of the big five-oh. I still feel really active, strong, and intelligent. If I didn’t know my own birth date, I’d guess that I’m only thirty-five. Maybe forty, tops. Calendar age had nothing to do with that eleventh attempt on Everest.

  When I was closing in on the end of Endeavor 8000, some of Paula’s friends would say to her, “How can you stand it that Ed’s away so much? Don’t you worry about him? And don’t the kids miss him?” It’s true, I was gone for long stretches, and mountaineering is inevitably dangerous. But I liked to point out that when I was home, I was really there for Paula and the kids. I even told the kids that I probably spent more time with them each year than a dad who went off to his dreary nine-to-five job every day.

  Ever since Paula and I got married, in February 1996, and especially after Gil, Ella, and Anabel were born, family has been the most important thing in my life, even more important than big mountains and climbing friendships. And since the summer of 2005, when I got home from Annapurna, I’ve been a true full-time dad. In the last year, we’ve divided our time between Bainbridge Island and Sun Valley, Idaho, where we’ve owned a condo since 2006. During the winter of 2008–09, the kids went to public school in Sun Valley, but we returned to Bainbridge for the summer. Time will tell how we’ll manage our dual residences in future years, but it’s nice to have options.

  This year, the kids really missed their friends back home, but they love the recreational possibilities of Sun Valley. Gil and Ella have become demon skiers. I’m a pretty good skier myself, but when those two bomb straight down the slope, it’s all I can do to keep up with them.

  At age eleven, Gil is the extrovert of the family. He loves conversation, and he just talks and talks. Paula and I tell him he has a future as a talk-show host. Both friends his age and adults think he’s hilarious. And he’s still madly into Seattle Seahawks football, even though, after the team went to the Super Bowl in 2006, their last three seasons have been pretty disappointing.

  If Gil’s the extrovert, Ella, who just turned nine this June, is our introvert. She’s strong and stoic, never complains about a minor accident or some chore she has to do. Like me, she’s quiet in company, tending to recede when others dominate the conversation. She’s a great athlete, able to keep up with Gil on the ski slopes. She’s also taken up indoor sport climbing whenever she gets the chance. If one of our three kids becomes a mountaineer, it’ll probably be Ella.

  Anabel, at four, is the little lover in the family. Without any particular pretext, she’ll come over to Paula or me and give us a kiss. Or she’ll crawl into my lap and say, “I love you, Dad.” But she’s not clingy—she’s a solid, independent gal in her own right.

  As for Paula, she’s turned out to be a wonderful companion and the great mom I always knew she would be. She has a God-given talent for motherhood. And she doesn’t do it by spoiling the kids, or by using baby talk with them. I’m pleased to say that I’ve never heard any scuttlebutt from friends in Seattle or Sun Valley about our children being pampered or overindulged. Paula is, quite simply, the cornerstone of our family.

  Before I decided to go to Everest again, Paula and I had some good long talks about it. We deliberated, in fact, longer than we had before any other expedition I’ve ever considered. Of course she worries about me every time I try an 8,000er. But Paula has always fully supported me, and the mental strength she sends my way while I’m climbing is, I’m convinced, part of why I’ve been successful. Without her support, I would never go on another expedition.

  Paula has always insisted, “Don’t call me from the summit. Call me when you get back to camp.” She knows from experience that standing on the summit doesn’t mean that you’ve climbed the mountain.

  In the spring of 2009, she knew I’d be gone for eight or nine weeks. She knew firsthand that Everest is dangerous—particularly the Khumbu Icefall, which you have to climb through several times on every ascent of the South Col route. But by now she trusts me on the mountain. She knows that I know how to be safe. Since I wasn’t going to be bound to anyone else’s schedule, I could go through the icefall as fast as I needed to. That’s one place where speed equals safety.

  It was, I have to admit, a bit hard telling the kids that I’d be gone for all of April and May. But they’re troupers. When I told Gil, he got a slightly stricken look on his face; then he said, “Oh, yeah, Dad, I’ll be okay.” But I knew already that I was going to miss the three of them as I never had before.

  It’s been seventeen years since I climbed K2, but in a sense, that great mountain has never been far from my thoughts. And writing this book has plunged me back into the fascination with K2 that had me in its grips when I read everything I could as homework for our 1992 expedition.

  No mountain in the world has a more interesting history. And even though the cynics feel that the second-highest mountain is about to be tarnished by the kinds of commercialization that have tainted Everest, I’m optimistic about the future of K2. In 2009, the mountain remains an ultimate test of the ambitions of the best climbers in the world. The gold that gilds the holy grail is still intact.

  One way I know this to be true comes from having sat in on the chat of high-altitude climbers all around the world. In their company, if you mention climbing Everest, the remark may elicit nothing more than a shrug. But if you let on that you’ve reached the top of K2, a hush comes over the room. And then, invariably, someone will say, “Tell us about it.”

  Acknowledgments

  In 1992, when I went to Pakistan to attempt K2, I traveled there with friend and partner Scott Fischer. Young, ambitious, filled with energy and enthusiasm, we committed ourselves to giving all we had to climbing this test piece among mountains. We had nothing to lose, everything to gain, and no limit of time. In the throes of our ca
mpaign to climb the second highest peak in the world we teamed up with climbers who also aspired to do what we were doing. The climbers I connected with, related to, and enjoyed climbing with became lifelong friends, who still bring back the fondest memories of that difficult yet successful season. The friends and partners whom I wish to thank specifically are Charley Mace, Neal Beidleman, the late Scott Fischer, Rob Hall, and Gary Ball. I enjoyed their companionship immensely and had the pleasure of climbing as partners with them on K2 and elsewhere. There were others on the mountain that season, and they all contributed in some way. I acknowledge them as well.

  I would also like to thank those who forged the way on K2, specifically the 1953 American Expedition. Those men displayed to me the indelible example of team work, camaraderie, trust, and commitment in expedition climbing. When someone mentions “the brotherhood of the rope,” that band of mountaineers instantly comes to mind.

  One member of that expedition I wish to thank specially and with my utmost gratitude and respect is Dee Molenaar. After my ascent of K2, Dee presented me with a bound and illustrated copy of his private expedition journal. For this book, he allowed me to quote passages from the journal that I thought were important in highlighting details of the 1953 expedition.

  K2 in 1992 came quite early in my career, when I still had very little in the way of support or sponsors. But to everyone who supported our K2 climb, I say thank you.

  Thanks also to family and friends who gave me emotional support and waited for word to trickle out from the Baltoro about our expedition. Those were the “good old days” when we often got home before anyone received word as to how things had gone on an expedition. We literally walked off the map and then a few months later, walked back on.

  There are certain events in one’s life that are cornerstones. My climb of K2 was one such event. I believe that one becomes a better, more rounded climber, and also a more thoughtful and patient human being, after having successfully climbed and descended K2. There is no comparison. K2 is the ultimate test of climbing ability, judgment, and patience at extreme altitudes. The bonds that form during the hardships we undergo on such climbs stand the test of time, even while they are difficult, if not impossible, to explain.

  —Ed Viesturs

  My strongest link to the fascinating history of K2 lies in long-term friendships with some of its principal characters—especially Charlie Houston, Bob Bates, Bob Craig, and Fritz Wiessner. The privilege of listening to them tell their stories has been one of the joys of my life as a mountaineer. In addition, I was delighted by more sporadic friendships with K2 veterans Dee Molenaar, Paul Petzoldt, and Jim Curran, and as a journalist, I had the rare experience of meeting and getting to know Walter Bonatti and his teammate Lino Lacedelli.

  Many people helped Ed Viesturs and me gain access to important photographs, for the use of which they gave unstinting permission. They include Polly Wiessner, Charlie Houston, Greg Glade, Ed Webster, Charley Mace, and Chris Klinke. Ed and I hired freelance researcher Alice Gifford to hunt down the availability of and rights to the historical photos. She accomplished this difficult task superbly.

  Dee Molenaar not only let us quote from his K2 diary, but also he helped us adapt his own incomparable maps and diagrams for this book. Many thanks to Dee for his involvement and aid.

  Our editor at Broadway Books, Stacy Creamer, not only got this project off the ground, but also championed it through a series of frantic deadlines and logistical mine fields. Upon her abrupt departure last spring to another publishing house, Charlie Conrad stepped in and smoothly guided the book toward its finish line. Throughout the whole process, assistant editor Laura Swerdloff performed many valuable tasks.

  Once again, Ed and I are deeply indebted to our masterly agent, Stuart Krichevsky, who not only “closed the deal” but offered his constant advice about matters as minor yet consequential as finding a subtitle and getting the cover photo right. Stuart’s colleague Shana Cohen and his assistant Kathryne Wick came through (as usual) with all kinds of important chores and details.

  The American Alpine Club library in Golden, Colorado, proved an invaluable research resource. And I am grateful to my longtime climbing buddy Ed Ward, and to my wife, Sharon Roberts, for reading the book in manuscript and offering pithy comments and vivid reactions.

  —David Roberts

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