Seven Summits

by Dick Bass; Frank Wells; Rick Ridgeway

  “We will take care of it. So day after tomorrow you and your group fly to Lukla and proceed to base camp.”

  Because the monsoon rain had closed the dirt landing strip to fixed wing aircraft, Dick and his people flew out in two big Puma helicopters. From Lukla they trekked up the Khumbu and arrived in base camp on August 18. Now the plan was for Dick, Neptune, and Dick's trekking friends to spend a few days making a practice climb up 20,306-foot Island Peak while Breashears and a few top Sherpas began work on the Icefall.

  Island Peak is located a little down the Khumbu, and after climbing it several days later Dick was on his way back to base camp when he met the Dutch team in the Sherpa village of Pheriche. He actually was glad to see them, thinking it would be a good chance to have a friendly chat and iron out whatever problems might be brewing. He found Plugge and Timmers in a Sherpa tea house looking tired from the long trek from Katmandu. Since their team was too big for helicopters, they had walked the 125-mile distance.

  “Howdy, you all. Good to see you. How was the trek?”

  “What are you doing here?” Plugge and Timmers said in unison.

  “I’m here with the Nepal police cleaning expedition. You know that.”

  “This cleaning expedition is just an excuse to get you on Everest again. We have the permit and we don't want anyone else on our route until we're through.”

  Dick knew his best strategy was patience. He offered them a beer, but they both declined without even a thank you. Dick made a few more attempts to break the ice, but to no avail. Finally, he left, and as he resumed the walk back toward base camp, he could feel that all-too-familiar knot in his stomach.

  Here I am going for Everest and still can't escape the human barriers, he thought.

  At least back in base camp the news was better. The day after Dick arrived, Breashears and his Sherpa team completed the route through the Icefall, an impressive mountaineering achievement considering it only took them five days. Still, it was progress clouded by uncertainty over what the Dutch would do when they arrived.

  The Dutch pulled into base camp two days later, setting up their tents a few hundred feet from the police cleaning expedition. They kept to themselves, and since things at least for the time being seemed peaceful, Dick decided he would keep to his original plan, which was to make a conditioning climb up the Icefall the next morning.

  He left camp at 4:30, following in single file Breashears and Neptune. The millions of stars glowed brightly through the rarefied night sky. It was a crisp, clear dawn, and Dick was elated to be “back in the harness again,” feeling stronger than he ever had at the beginning of a climb.

  They reached camp 1 at the top of the Icefall, dumped their loads, and started down. The noontime sun shone with a vengeance, and his legs sometimes would posthole up to his crotch in the softening snow. Back in base camp Dick went to his tent to put on some fresh clothes, as Breashears and Neptune stopped by the mess tent where they found Plugge and Timmers waiting for them.

  “How is the Icefall route?” Plugge asked Breashears in a pleasant tone.

  “The Sherpas think we've got a good one. Should be easy to get supplies up to one.”

  Breashears was relieved that the Dutch seemed in a good mood. They chatted for a while, and then the Dutch got up to leave.

  “Just one thing, though,” Timmers said. “We want to make sure you know that you have to be off the mountain by September fifteenth.”

  No one said anything. Then Timmers added, “And since it doesn't make any sense for us to build a second route through the Icefall, we will use yours.”

  When the Dutch left, Breashears blew up.

  “It'll be a cold day in hell before I let those bastards use our route,” he said.

  Dick was upset when he got to the mess tent and heard the news.

  “Sounds like they're trying to be a steel fist in a velvet glove,” he said. “Yogendra ought to be handling this. I’ll head down to Lobuche in the morning and talk to him.”

  The base camp of the all-woman police team attempting nearby Lobuche Peak was about a day's walk down-valley.

  “Don't worry,” Yogendra said after Dick had located him. “We won't allow the Dutch to use our Icefall route unless they show us cooperation. Otherwise, they can put in their own route. Be patient. Things will work out.”

  Dick was not fully confident, yet he felt he had no choice but to put his faith in the police. Yogendra had gotten him into this, and Yogendra would have to get him out.

  Dick returned to base camp disappointed that Yogendra would not come and get directly involved until the police women had finished Lobuche.

  The Dutch opted for putting in their own Icefall route (probably to remain free of any police pressure), and things rolled along the next several days without any conflict as they completed their base camp and acclimatized.

  On September 5 Dick and Breashears met them, however, supposedly establishing their own route through the Icefall. Instead of staying at least fifty feet away, as the police prescribed, the Dutch route was being laid out almost coincident and even criss-crossing the police route in places. Evidently, this first exposure to the Icefall dampened their nationalistic pride about putting in their own route all the way up the mountain, but it didn't dilute their intransigence about the police being off the mountain after September 15 and until the Dutch had finished summiting.

  The police decided, therefore, to enforce their position in the matter by patrolling the lower entry to the police route with rifles slung over their shoulders.

  That was too much for the Dutch to take. Bart Vos, reputedly their most experienced climber after Timmers, came to Dick's tent.

  “This is ridiculous,” Vos fumed. “In fact, your whole expedition is ridiculous. This mountain does not need cleaning. Everything gets covered by snow and what is here now will weather away in thirty years.”

  “That's just not true,” Dick replied patiently. “You haven't seen it up there yet. There's garbage all over the place.”

  “Still, the whole thing is an excuse to get you up the mountain without a permit.”

  “Well, I admit I want to climb the peak, but this is truly a needed and worthwhile project.”

  “We insist once more that you and the police expedition be off this mountain by September fifteenth.”

  After Vos left, Dick sank into a funk. Here he was caught up in a soap opera of petty pride when all he wanted was a simple one-on-one chance at Everest. He lay in his sleeping bag, staring at the checkerboard pattern in the tent fabric. An hour later the Sherpa cookboy rang the dinner gong, and in a lackluster way he grabbed his cup and headed for the mess tent.

  The others were in a similar mood. It was a sober meal, without conversation. Then partway through, one of the police officers on the team rushed in.

  “I just received this message from Yogendra. He has been in touch with Katmandu, and they have ordered a new plan.”

  They read the message: The Dutch were to be allowed to use the police route through the Icefall and up to camp 2. In return the police could use the Dutch route up the South Col. The police team were not to go to the South Col or the summit, however, until after October 4.

  “That's when the weather gets good anyway,” Breashears said. “It's a great plan.”

  “Aah-eah-eaahhh!”

  Everyone dug heartily into their meal, feeling like kings dining on ox-tail soup, canned barbecued beef, cottage fried potatoes, and sliced pears.

  Dick was delighted. Now he could keep to his master plan, which was to go to camp 2 and spend at least a week acclimatizing, then descend down to base camp and head all the way back to Tengboche or Namche, where he could rest a few days at lower altitudes. Then, before his body had time to lose any of its invaluable acclimatization, he would march back to base camp, through the Icefall, up the Western Cwm, the Lhotse Face, and on to the summit.

  They decided, then, to move in the morning to camp 2. Dick was so excited he awoke at 1:30, and
sitting in his sleeping bag used his headlamp to sort through his dozen stuff sacks full of medical supplies, film, batteries, sun lotions, socks, glasses, gloves, sewing kit, and photocopied poems with the normal margins on the paper trimmed off to save weight. Everything was sorted by 3:00, and then with a small tape deck and earphones, he listened to music, putting on, as the finale, Richard Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra. He got dressed, and with the stirring kettle drums and French horns still sounding in his head, crawled out of the tent feeling ten feet tall, and thought to himself, Man alive! I’m ready for Everest or any other dragon standing in my path.

  Dick made good time to camp 1, where he spent the night. Then next day continued to camp 2, at the base of Everest's southwest face. The advance party of the Dutch team arrived the following day, and Dick, Breashears, and Neptune were pleased to see that they apparently were satisfied with the new plan. The three of them helped the Dutch set up their large dome tent, then shared some of their canned, stateside food with them.

  Things are finally on track, Dick thought. And I’m going to check this mountain off the list once and for all.

  They had a pleasant dinner, then turned on the walkie-talkie for their evening call to base camp.

  “We have just received another communication from Katmandu,” the base camp manager said. “The Ministry of Tourism says that all American members of the police expedition are to descend the mountain at once because they do not have a proper permit. They can only go up after the Dutch have reached the summit.”

  “But I thought we had everything worked out,” Dick said, incredulously. “Why are we being treated this way when we're trying to be helpful?”

  “I don't understand it.”

  Once again, Dick felt that knot grab his stomach.

  “Didn't Yogendra say the Inspector General of Police is due to fly in to Gorak Shep (a few hours below base camp) for an inspection tour?” Dick asked Breashears the next morning.

  “I think so. Tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Then let's go down there and see him. Find out what's really going on.”

  Acclimatized as they were to 22,000 feet, they sped down to base camp, then on to Gorak Shep, only to learn the Inspector had cancelled his trip.

  “Let's go ahead with our previous plan,” Dick suggested, “and descend to Namche. Maybe we can get a chopper there and go back to Katmandu and straighten this thing out. Then come directly back and climb this mother.”

  In Namche they were told by police radio their requested helicopter would arrive September 20; but it never showed up. They radioed Katmandu and again were told it would come the next day. But again it didn't arrive, and now they were told it might not be available for yet another four or five days.

  “Even if we wait until then there's nothing to guarantee it'll ever get here,” Dick said dejectedly. “I guess the only thing is to return to base camp and wait for the Dutch to get up.”

  Arriving back at base camp on September 25, Dick found better news. With generally good weather for ten straight days the Dutch had made better progress than anyone had imagined, and now they were approaching the South Col and might actually be in position to make their first summit attempt in a week or so. In the meantime, Dick's Sherpa team was stocking supplies at camp 3 on the Lhotse Face and all the way to camp 4 at the South Col.

  “You know, we might just pull this thing off yet,” Dick told the others.

  Although strictly speaking they weren't supposed to go back on the mountain until the Dutch summitted, everyone thought it would be okay to go up to camp 2 on October 1 and be in position to begin a summit bid as soon as the Dutch were down. Dick's optimism returned.

  That afternoon a Sherpa runner came into camp with a cable for Dick that had been wired from the U.S. to Katmandu, flown to Lukla, then posted on foot to base camp:

  DEAR DICK

  WELL, GOOD NEWS AND BAD. THE GOOD IS YOUR OLD BUDDY BECAME PRESIDENT OF WALT DISNEY PROD. ON SEPT. 22 AND HAS HAD THE MOST EXCITING WEEK OF HIS LIFE IN HIS NEW JOB. BAD NEWS IS OF COURSE I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COME BUT WILL AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL HOME WITH OPEN ARMS AND A BIG HUG. THIS MESSAGE SHOULD REACH YOU AS YOU BEGIN YOUR ASCENT AND I HOPE WITH ALL MY HEART IT WILL GIVE YOU EVEN ADDITIONAL SUPPORT TO YOUR INCREDIBLE INNER STRENGTH IN THE DAYS AHEAD. I AM PACING THE FLOOR WAITING, AND I WILL KEEP PACING UNTIL THE JOYOUS NEWS ARRIVES. YOU KNOW HOW DEEPLY I CARE ABOUT YOU AND IF I GO ON ANY MORE I WILL CHOKE UP. SO I WILL SIMPLY CLOSE WITH …

  LOVE, FRANK

  Dick smiled as he folded the cable and put it in his pack. With Frank's words, and then of course good old Marty Hoey out there in front when the going really got tough, Dick knew he had all the carrots dangling in front of him he needed to find the inner strength required to get up Everest. Now all he needed was his chance.

  On his 1983 Everest climb Dick had promised his wife Marian he would go through the Icefall only once. This time, however, Dick found himself without choice being yo-yoed up and down by the on-again, off-again status of their climbing permission. Now, as he made his fifth trip through the Icefall (seventh if you counted 1983), all he could do was place his faith in his creator that none of the dozens of precariously balanced house-sized ice blocks had his name on it.

  At least there was consolation in the fact that each time through the Icefall he felt stronger. Climbing with Breashears and Neptune, even with a full load he reached camp 1 in two and a half hours and camp 2 three hours after that. This time, with temperatures noticeably cooler, it was actually pleasant walking up the Western Cwm.

  “The only problem is, it means it's really cold up high,” Breashears pointed out. “And it will be getting colder each day.”

  “I just hope those Dutch get their act together soon,” Dick said.

  But that was not to be the case. Two hours later Han Timmers and two Sherpas made their first bid for the top, but high winds kept them from going above the South Col. The next day another team joined Timmers for a second attempt, but their supply line was in disarray, with some of the food and equipment that should have been at the South Col still in camp 1. Worse, the Dutch seemed to lack any climbers with the mountaineering experience and discipline needed to get to the top.

  This gave Breashears an idea. There was a young climber on the Dutch team whom Breashears and everyone else liked and had felt sorry for because he was not being included on any of the Dutch summit teams. What if they invited him to join their attempt? It would give the climber a chance and help improve relations between the two groups. Breashears approached Plugge with the proposition, and to everyone's delight the Dutch leader went along with the idea.

  Plugge called base camp by walkie-talkie and requested a message be sent to Katmandu to get approval of this new plan. That afternoon they got the reply.

  “Any agreement made between the Dutch and the police team is not valid,” the message said. “The police team will be allowed above base camp only to clean the mountain. Foreign members of the police team are not allowed to go to the summit.”

  Dick felt his stomach knot as he realized that after all this time and money and energy, his dream was over. After the attempt in 1982, then in 1983, and now in 1984, he had spent, what? nine months on this mountain. Nine months of his life only to be turned back now because of some unknown problem in Katmandu, because someone or something he didn't know about evidently didn't want him on the summit.

  All he had wanted was a chance, just a simple chance to test his strength and resolve against rock and snow and ice, but certainly not against some faceless bureaucratic barrier.

  “Let's not give up yet,” Breashears said. “Let's go down to base camp and call Katmandu ourselves. There's got to be some solution to this.”

  It was now October 7.

  The following day they descended to base camp, but they had no luck trying to get a radio patch through to Katmandu.

  “The solution is just to go climb the thing without telling anyone,” Breashears said.

  D
ick knew there wasn't much time before the winter winds would arrive, precluding any chance of making the top with or without a permit. Still, there was something in him that definitely didn't like the idea of sneaking it. He didn't even want to think of doing things like that, and he knew that even if he did get up the mountain, the bad publicity he would generate would make it at best a Pyrrhic victory—especially since he was planning his Snowbird Mountaineering Center and definitely didn't want to jeopardize its future chances of conducting treks and climbs in Nepal.

  But he also knew it would be his last chance, his last opportunity for the summit of Everest, and certainly his last hope to be first on the Seven Summits, since Pat Morrow was all set to go to Vinson.

  “Okay, let's go back up in the morning,” he told Breashears and Neptune. “Maybe by the time we are ready to go to the top the police will have come through with formal summit permission.”

  Once more they climbed through the Icefall to camp 1 and on to camp 2. They no more than settled into their tents, though, than they got another radio message.

  “The Ministry of Tourism is furious that you've gone back up the mountain,” Yogendra said from base camp. “They want us to dismantle the route through the Icefall.”

  “Go ahead and dismantle it,” Breashears replied. Breashears was confident that even without the ropes and ladders they could get down okay. But first he planned on their going to the top.

  “But you cannot go above camp two,” Yogendra pleaded. “If you do, we will all lose our jobs. Please wait one more day, and we will try to get permission.”

  “Do you know the meaning of the term ‘coitus interruptus’?” Breashears asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, it's something you can only take so many times before it drives you crazy. We'll wait one more day, but that's it. Then we go to the top, with or without a permit.”