The departure from Skardu was chaotic. Lou Reichardt was still at the bazaar buying last-minute supplies. Whittaker had to see the district commissioner and an official from the bank before leaving, so he and Dianne left the rest house early. John Roskelley, Bob Schaller, Skip Edmonds, Jim Wickwire, Craig Anderson, and I loaded into the back of a jeep and sped off. We drove first toward the center of town and on a corner saw Jim and Dianne talking to the bank official and the commissioner; a few of the other team members were parked nearby. Someone in our jeep had the idea of speeding by instead of stopping, waving as we passed and getting out in front. No more eating dust; we would be the lead jeep. We all had mischievous twinkles in our eyes—it would be a good way to get back at Whittaker for the episode a few days earlier.
From the back of the jeep John leaned over to the driver, yelling, “Shigar! Shigar! Don’t stop, go, go, fast!” as I yelled, “Rápido! Rápido!”
Jim was standing with the officials and Saleem the L.O., towering above the Pakistanis, on his head a distinctive Gilgit cap. Our jeep roared by and he looked up, not taking much notice, expecting us to stop. But we were waving and laughing. The jeep kept going. Just as we rounded the corner, I glanced behind and saw Jim with an incredulous look, motioning us to stop and come back. It was too late; the driver was possessed with the demon look of a racer entering the straightaway, and none of us really wanted him to slow down. I thought to myself, “I wonder if Jim is going to be upset?” and a second later Jim Wickwire said, “I know one thing for sure. Jim is going to be pretty upset.” But none of us suspected the flare-up that was to follow; none of us suspected there were reasons we should have stopped.
The jeep sped through the afternoon, first traveling along the bank of the Indus. The river was swollen in spring thaw, muddy with silt and glacial flour carried from the remote and secret corners of the Himalaya. Behind us, the sun had dropped below the high mountain ridge bordering the valley and cast great shadows across the valley floor. Puffs of clouds added different shadows to the enchanting design. Across the river, a flat region of several hundred acres had trapped drifting dunes, forming crescent patterns like giant scimitars of sand. The road dropped to the river, crossed a large suspension bridge, and switchbacked up a steep, narrow defile, perfect for ambush from roving bands of Pathan warriors crazed with jihad, the celestial call to Holy War against infidels. Nothing happened, of course. We arrived at the top of the pass, sped over a flat section, and emerged along the bank of the Shigar River. About an hour before dusk we entered the village.
The jeep pulled into a large, grassy courtyard. We had made arrangements to stay in a small rest house across the street. But since we would all have to squeeze into a single small room and the sky was cloudless, it seemed the best idea to sleep outside under the stars. We had time before the other jeeps would arrive, so we grabbed our cameras and explored the town. The one main street made several odd bends around giant sycamore trees, and the two-story houses with balconies overhanging made it too narrow for anything much larger than a jeep to pass. We were walking back to the rest house when the other jeeps arrived. Instead of stopping, they went right past us and, through the windshield, I glimpsed Jim’s face, tight-jawed, staring ahead. Obviously, he wasn’t happy.
Jim got out of his jeep and walked straight to the porch in front of the rest house. I couldn’t imagine why he was so upset—we had only sped by him as a joke—but Diana Jagersky supplied the answer.
“He had some sort of ceremony planned with the bank officials and the district commissioner,” she said. “We were all supposed to get our picture taken together, and when you guys went by it blew the whole thing. Saleem asked why Jim didn’t have more control over his own team—it was a bad scene, and Jim is pretty upset.”
Jim came back out of the rest house. I thought it a good idea to confront the problem right away instead of letting it smolder. I walked over to him and said, “Jim, I heard we blew the scene with the bank officials when we sped off. I guess you’re a little upset.”
“No,” he said. “I’m a lot upset.”
“Jim, we didn’t know you had arranged to have photographs taken with them. It was only a joke.”
“We’ll talk about it later. I want to talk to everybody together.”
That evening we crowded into the small room of the guest house. Jim began the discussion.
“First, I want all of you to know I’m very upset. I had to stand there in front of those people in Skardu today and explain why I didn’t have any control over the team. Saleem asked me if I couldn’t control my own climbers, how could I expect him to control the porters? We lost face and we lost respect—something we can’t afford to lose. If none of you are willing to work together on this thing, we might as well go home now.”
Wickwire apologized, saying we weren’t aware of any reason to stay behind. Our intentions hadn’t been malicious.
“I know,” Jim said, “and I suppose in time I’ll forget about it, but for now I’m mad and nothing you say can change that. One thing we’ve got to do on this climb is work together. We can’t have individuals running off halfcocked and doing what they want.”
“We couldn’t agree more,” Wick said. “Nothing has changed since that first meeting in Seattle. We agreed to work together—work as hard as we can—and we’re all still committed to that.”
We had reached that agreement eight months before departure. Though some of the team had not before been on a big expedition to climb a very high-altitude peak, everyone knew that with fourteen climbers and such an extremely difficult peak as K2, we would be lucky if two got to the top. And to get even two up would take total effort from every person. Each would have to stock camps. We all realized that, on big climbs, the glory usually goes to the few who make the summit, while those who work hard to put them there go unnoticed. For that reason, among others, many climbers go with just a few close friends and climb smaller peaks that do not require the load-carrying logistics of extreme altitude. Our four friends on their way to try Latok were such climbers.
But K2 would take more work than other big peaks—even Everest. On Everest, expeditions normally hire small armies of Sherpas to help carry loads to the upper camps, allowing more climbers to reach the summit. But in the Karakoram there are no Sherpas. We had four Hunzas with some climbing ability and a little experience, but by and large, the job of hauling loads would be ours alone.
We all knew that more than a few expeditions have fallen apart before attaining their goal because of quarreling and an inability to work together. That is understandable when one considers the stresses on people in expedition situations: stress from climbing at high altitudes and natural irritability from being without oxygen; stress from constant exposure to danger; stress from confinement in small tents during frequent storms, often for days or weeks, with the same people. The sort of people who go on such expeditions are usually strong-willed, dominant and persuasive, achievement oriented. It is not surprising that with a tent full of such people, sometimes penned together during storms for days on end at twenty thousand feet and higher, tempers often flare.
Finally, it is difficult, no matter how much you understand the necessity, to accept—after working hard for weeks or even months—a decision of who will go to the summit, if that decision does not include you. But we had all pledged to try to overcome this problem—to work as a team. Jim worried that, by taking off in the jeep, some of us had disregarded this need to work cohesively. Most of us felt he had overreacted—that there wasn’t cause for him to be as upset as he was—but we were all glad he had got it off his chest. We felt optimistic that night as we drifted off to sleep. A lot of little earthquakes are better than one big one.
The next morning was bright and cloudless. We left Shigar at first light, so we would arrive at the roadhead before noon. There were still porters to hire, loads to issue, and if enough time remained, four miles to walk to Dasso, the first village on the trail to K2. Rob, John, Wick, Crai
g, and I again piled in the same jeep; our driver again blasted off in the lead. Wick suggested that this time we pull over and let the others pass. As I saw Jim Whittaker drive by, waving and smiling, I thought, We’re going to work together as much as we can to get somebody—anybody—to the top of K2.
| 2 |
BRIDGE OVER THE DUMORDO
JUNE 23. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX in the shade. I had made the mistake of leaving camp that morning with only one quart bottle of water, doctored with iodine and Wyler’s lemonade mix, and already it was empty. On our first full day’s march, we were moving from Dasso to Chakpo, a distance requiring a hike of about six hours. It was distance without shade or village. We had left early—getting up well before five o’clock—and for the first two hours, while the sun was behind the ridge bordering the valley, the hiking was pleasant. When the sun popped over the ridge, we immediately felt the heat from its direct rays.
For some distance, the trail followed a flat alluvial terrace only a hundred feet or so above the Braldu, but soon the swollen river forced us up a steep bank to gain a higher, older terrace left from the river’s younger days. It was a hot, sweaty, switchbacking trail, a trail of mindless monotony. I watched drops of sweat twinkle in direct sun as they beaded on my forehead and fell to the burning sand. Above us, far away but tantalizing, we could see snowfields gleaming on high-altitude glaciers.
We reached the upper terrace where it seemed we would have nothing more than a flat walk for two or three miles. We could see a fork in the valley ahead where another drainage joined the Braldu, and we knew that was where the village of Chakpo lay. Another village was below us, on the other side of the river, on another terrace at a lower altitude. A small canal flowing from a diverted lateral stream a mile or so upriver irrigated the village, bright green with early summer wheat. The fields wore patchwork, each square bordered by stone walls to discourage grazing cows and goats. The outermost squares of the village, wheat-green perimeters, contrasted sharply with the desert gray and brown. Because we had to camp near drinkable water—the Braldu water would not do, since it contained a thick suspension of glacial flour—we planned our marches to end each afternoon in such a village. On the fourth day we would reach Askole, the last village before entering the high mountains.
What we thought would be a flat walk of a couple of miles became more a trial of endurance when we encountered our first nullah—a Hindi word describing a deep cut by a lateral stream in a river’s alluvial terrace, a word that could also be used accurately to mean: “to drive crazy” or “to cause torture to.” A nullah surprises. You are hiking along perfectly level ground, not expecting any change. The nullah cuts sharply into the terrace, and is not visible until you are perched on the edge. Suddenly, you find yourself facing a steep descent—often hundreds of feet—and then a steep ascent up the other side. The one we encountered that first day of approach turned out to be the deepest; we had to drop well over five hundred feet.
By midafternoon, we were a mile out of Chakpo. We walked through an open expanse of burnt ground, bare except for dwarf desert scrub growing in bunches. In the middle of the expanse was a single thorny-leaved tree, under which all our porters were tightly packed, resting in the only available shade. We passed the tree and the porters waved, laughing and smiling. Two urchins no more than three years old ran up, offering us large, fresh radishes. They were scantily clothed in torn, holed homespun, their skin was dirt brown, their cheeks red and chapped. They smiled shyly; we paid them with a few small brass coins. They handed us the radishes and scurried away. From a safe distance, they stopped to examine their coins.
For the afternoon we had been without water. It was a relief to reach the cool air floating over the first wheatfields, and to soak our feet in irrigation ditches. In another half hour, we reached our campsite: a terraced field gone fallow, cropped short by grazing animals, a lawn perfect for lazing away the remaining hours of sunlight. The sky was cloudless. There was no need to set up a tent, since no one would want to sleep in one anyway. The porters had piled their boxes in neat rows in a neighboring field, and they would sleep there. Our boxes of cookware and food for the evening’s meal had not yet arrived. Porters carrying those loads were still on the trail. Meanwhile, there wasn’t much to do.
Two of our Hunza high altitude porters (we referred to them as HAPS) had gone to fetch water in five-gallon plastic jerry cans from a spring on the other side of town. This spring was also a watering hole for animals but, after a thorough search, we realized it was the only local water source not containing glacial flour. Apart from its foul taste, drinking silt-laden water can cause diarrhea and intestinal disorder. The HAPS came back with two full water jugs.
“Where did they find water?” John Roskelley asked. John was an old hand in the Himalaya—he had been on six previous expeditions and he, more than any of us, knew the danger of contracting dysentery on approaches—one of his expeditions, to Jannu in eastern Nepal, had been thwarted by dysentery. John had suffered all sorts of ailments contracted in the Asian outback—giardia, ear infections, shigella, worms, spinal meningitis—and he was very sensitive about hygienic precautions.
“In that spring we passed on the way into town,” someone answered. “It’s the only waterhole around.”
“Good Christ!” John said, “I just saw a Balti taking a pee in that place.”
Dianne, who was taking a swig from her water bottle, quickly set it down and spit a mouthful on the grass.
Diana Jagersky asked, “What should we do? There’s no other water around. I put a heavy dose of iodine in it—should kill anything.”
“It will kill most everything,” Skip Edmonds said. “And beyond that, there’s not much we can do.”
So we drank the water, though thinking of the Balti peeing seemed to give it a different flavor. While Diana was busy with dinner, the rest of us wrote in our journals, read books, played Frisbee, or napped on the grass. Terry and Cherie Bech washed their clothes in a nearby irrigation ditch. In Skardu, both had purchased the Pakistani shalwarcamise—the loose-fitting cotton trousers and shirt comfortable in the desert, fully covering the skin from sun, but loose enough to be reasonably cool. Cherie’s outfit was wine red with white and yellow embroidery. In that, and the dangling gold earrings she had bought in the bazaar, she looked very handsome.
A young boy from the village came over and offered for sale a half-dozen hardboiled eggs. We bought them; the yokes were bright yellow and fresh. The boy stayed, sitting across from us cross-legged, staring. He had sharp features, medium dark hair, and dark, bright, intelligent eyes. His smile showed even, white teeth. We offered him a handful of M&M’s. He took a few, set them in his lap, then picked one up and examined it. Very carefully, he peeled off the hard candy coating, again examined the chocolate core, then tasted it. He smiled and looked at us. Laughing, we taught him how to eat M&M’s whole. A few days later, Craig Anderson had a similar experience: he gave some young girls a packet of bright-colored Life Savers, then saw the same kids wearing necklaces made of the candy.
The boxes arrived with kitchenware and food, and Diana Jagersky, somehow still showing vitality after the day’s enervating hike, tackled the job of preparing dinner. It would be Diana’s job each day to arise before the rest of us, prepare breakfast, issue our lunch ration, then pack the cookware and food back in their boxes for the day’s carry. Then, in each new camp, she would again unpack the boxes and prepare dinner. Once on the mountain, she would have the same job of preparing meals in the lower camps. It was a duty she always met with élan, even when she had hiked as far, and carried the same loads, as the rest of us.
Diana—born Diana Chiarelli—grew up in Seattle, the daughter of a respected architect emigrated from Italy. Like many Seattle kids, she developed an early interest in skiing. During and after college she worked as a buyer for Recreational Equipment, Inc. There she met two people who were to affect her life: Jim Whittaker, the general manager, and Dusan Jagersky, a climbin
g guide who worked part time as a ski repairman, and who became her husband.
Dusan had come to the United States from Czechoslovakia. He was five foot six inches, stockily built, with a muscle-rippling upper body, and his life revolved around a passion for mountains and climbing. In Czechoslovakia he had worked as an avalanche patrolman, climbing instructor, and guide in the beautiful Tatra Mountains. The government supplied him with room and board, so he was more or less subsidized to climb. It was a perfect job; perfect until the summer of 1968 when Russian tanks rolled across the border. Dusan, knowing there could be no compromise between the Russian oppression and his free spirit in the mountains, arranged a false passport and escaped. He arrived in New York penniless, but with a conviction that he could start a new life.
He landed a job in Harlem in a sweatshop, working with other immigrants. He saved every possible nickel and resolved to get out of the city as soon as possible. Every morning, he rode the subway from the Bronx downtown; every morning, he stared at a cigarette advertisement in the subway’s headliner that featured a photo of a beautiful mountain, snow and glacier covered, surrounded by green forests and bright alpine flowers. Every morning for six months that photo was inspiration.
One of those mornings, Dusan was reading the paper in the subway when he saw another picture of another mountain. The caption said: “Mt. Rainier, State of Washington.” Dusan couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to get out of New York. He got a map, traced the highway system west, bought an old VW, and started driving. Two weeks later, he had not only climbed Rainier, but had landed a job instructing for the Mount Rainier guide service.
The Last Step Page 5
