“I’ve lost some close friends in the last year myself,” Wick said. He told Boysen about his climb the year before in Alaska, when Al and Dusan had died, and how it had felt to have—in just a few minutes—the elation of victory change to meaningless void.
“What about your wife?” Wick asked. “What’s her feeling about you going on these trips every year?”
“When I got married, sixteen years ago, I was a climber already,” he said. “She worries, of course, but she has accepted the risk. She’s very supportive.”
“That’s just about how mine is,” Wick said, “and God knows how much I depend on that.”
The heavy conversation was getting to both of them, so they wandered back to the campsite and joined some of the others making short practice climbs on the nearby boulders. It was late afternoon, and a pleasant breeze blew from the upper Baltoro, thinning the hordes of flies and gnats. The three women, Dianne, Diana, and Cherie, were back after a short hike above camp, where they had discovered a small waterfall and a rare moment of privacy to shower under brisk water in bright sun. The rest of the group sat on the grass, writing in their journals and reading books or chatting; there was a picnic atmosphere that day.
There are some days on long expeditions, days that are warm and memorable, days when you not only spend hours reading a book, or talking to friends, but when you realize better how important it is—in the grander view—to do such things. You look at mountains and valleys and glaciers and flowers with crisp perspective. You find yourself in the thick of conversations on religion, politics, and personal philosophies. It is more than just having time to read and think and talk, more than just being away from bills and phone calls and freeways. What gives rise to these times of reflection, often times of lucidity, is that you are involved in a hazardous enterprise. Sitting at Urdukas that day in the bright Karakoram sun was not like sitting on the beach in California. There was danger in the project that we were about to begin. It is not that we dwelt on the danger—on the contrary, most of us rarely even thought consciously about it—but it added to the picnic atmosphere in our camp that day (or any day of our approach march) that crystal quality that is part of the intangible stuff that makes people climb mountains.
I heard Diana Jagersky up first, trying to get the stove started to heat the brew water, and cursing under her breath when it would not prime properly. Beyond her, not far away, rose the lonely song of a Balti calling to Mecca in his own dialect: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” It was a singular, haunting call, a beautiful, clear, melodic voice, a song that drifted over the rocks and the wasteland to the mountain walls, was reflected, and came back to us.
I lay for a moment with my eyes closed. For the first time in weeks the air felt brisk, enough so that I wanted to pull the down lip of my sleeping bag around my neck and not get up. But there was an excitement to the morning, a slight electric tingle that urged me to open my eyes and sit up, get out of my bag, pack, and get under way. When I managed, at last, to sit up, the reasons for that tingle became evident: we were in Concordia, the heart of the Karakoram, and at every point of the compass were the greatest peaks on earth. By afternoon, the approach march would be over. We would be in Base Camp.
All of us had, again, slept that night under the stars. By sitting upright in my bag and leaning against a rock backrest, I could see up the Godwin-Austen Glacier. Eight miles away, directly up this glacier, was K2. It rose two vertical miles above the glacier, pyramid-shaped, cloudless in the morning air. From that viewpoint, it was perhaps the most magnificent mountain on earth.
Concordia, so named by Conway in 1892, is the confluence of two major glaciers. From K2 to the north, the Godwin-Austen Glacier, bordered by Broad Peak, flows to Concordia, where it joins another glacier coming from the south: the Upper Baltoro, which is actually a separate glacier from the larger Baltoro on which we had been hiking. The Upper Baltoro spills off the slopes of Chogolisa, the Golden Throne, and the Gasherbrums. These glaciers unite as the main artery of the Baltoro, which leaves Concordia and flows west, forty miles back to Paiju camp. Standing at Concordia, one is at the center, a hub with glaciers radiating from it like spokes: in all directions from this hub rise enormous peaks. Directly behind Concordia is Gasherbrum, shaped like a shark’s tooth: to the south is the snow-mantled Golden Throne and nearby, Chogolisa, sometimes called Bride Peak. The names of these magnificent peaks bespeak the poetry of the place.
I wormed out of my bag and dressed in my surgeon’s shirt and pants. It was the second week of hiking. By now, morning packing was routine and took only a few minutes. I walked over to Diana’s makeshift kitchen for a brew of coffee and cocoa and a hearty helping of mushy oatmeal. Most of the others were up and, as usual, Lou Reichardt was already about to leave camp. Most days, Lou and John Roskelley were the first on the trail and first into camp, moving much faster than the others (although for the last two days Lou had been slowed by a sprained ankle). Jim Wickwire and Jim Whittaker were frequently just behind them, and the rest of us dribbled into each day’s camp somewhere in the middle. Bill Sumner and Craig Anderson almost always arrived last, often just before dusk.
Although it was difficult, at the time, to recognize it, this pattern reflected in no small degree the personalities of the team members: in retrospect, it portended a lot of what happened later on the climb. John and Lou were very competitive, anxious to get to the mountain, and wanted to demonstrate their willingness to work hard and move fast. Wick would have been right with them, first into camp every day, except that he was carrying a heavier load to further strengthen his leg muscles. In contrast, Bill Sumner and Craig Anderson hiked slowly. Craig spent considerable time each day composing photographs with his three cameras (including a wide-format panorama Linhof) and Bill seemed not so much to look at the surrounding scenery as to meditate upon it. He was of the disposition to go slow, more a religious pilgrim to the mountain than a climber come to conquer the great peak.
Lou Reichardt shouldered his pack and left camp, with Jim Wickwire on his heels. I was anxious to get an early start myself so I could make that last day into Base Camp hiking with John Roskelley. I had two reasons for wanting to hike with John: he was without doubt the best technical climber on the expedition, and I wanted a chance to talk with him and get to know him better. I even thought we might get a chance to do some lead climbing together, although I knew he usually climbed with Lou. Besides, he had the expedition’s cassette stereo in his pack, with speakers strapped to each side, and I wanted to listen to Eric Clapton blasting rock ’n’ roll as we made those last steps to the base of K2.
It was always desirable to leave each morning before the porters took off. Hiking behind a string of them on a narrow part of the trail could be very slow. They had a disconcerting habit of suddenly stopping to rest, in the middle of the trail, about every ten minutes. The leader of the pack would call a halt, and each porter would take his T-stick, place it behind him, and rest his load on it. In order to pass, it was usually necessary to scramble up around the trail to the front of the line, often over loose rocks and talus, and often to the amusement of the porters. Even if berated, they never seemed to rest off the trail as, from our point of view, courtesy would dictate. After thinking about it, however, it became obvious that, from their point of view, it was easier to rest in the middle of the trail. Besides, since they knew they would get to the next campsite in plenty of time, why should anyone want to pass? A number of our crew realized this early on, and knew it was just as easy to rest behind the Baltis when they rested. That morning, however, John and I were out in front.
The Godwin-Austen Glacier is laned with wide bands of rock and adjacent bands of ice pinnacles—called “neve penitentes”—caused by the melting and freezing action of the temperate-zone sun. These are the features that, when viewed from an airplane or from the top of a mountain, are the parallel stripes of a glacier you may have seen in geography or geology books. They gave us the c
hoice of hiking either on lanes of rock or on lanes of ice pinnacles that we had to weave through, and it seemed a toss-up which was faster.
The sky was still hazed with the strange smoglike dust blown in from China; in addition, there were other portents of bad weather. It had seemed near-miraculous, after all the tales of bad weather on the ’75 expedition, that we had slept out under the stars nearly every night of the approach march. On only one day had it rained, and even that had been light. But now there was a telltale lenticular forming over Broad Peak. These saucer-shaped clouds are caused by moisture-laden air blown up the windward side of a mountain and condensing in discs on the lee side of the summit; they usually mean bad weather will soon arrive. Still, we could not complain. We would arrive at Base Camp after a mere thirteen and a half days on the trail—faster than we had ever hoped in the light of the thirty-six-day approach march in 1975.
After less than four hours of hiking, John and I could see Wick ahead at a flat, rocky area. We guessed that must be Base Camp. We knew the Japanese K2 Expedition the year before had used the same spot. Theirs had been an enormous, paramilitary operation, with 56 climbers (including two young Pakistani climbers) and 908 Baltis to porter their equipment to Base Camp. They had had predominantly good weather, and it was no surprise that they placed seven climbers on the summit. It was only the second ascent of K2, made via the same route the Italians had used in 1954 on their first ascent, but given the size and complexity of the Japanese siege, most climbers the world over dismissed their expedition as having achieved little of significance in mountaineering history. We were reasonably certain the location of their base would still show signs of Japanese garbage.
John and I arrived a few minutes past ten. Wick had already been there more than half an hour. Lou was out scouting a nearby campsite. Wick admitted that, especially with his heavier pack, he had had to “suck it up” and push himself to keep up with Lou. We scouted around for the best tent sites, identified the bundles containing our two “car-camping” tents, and set them up. We also set up two smaller tents, one for the four Hunza high-altitude porters and another for Saleem. We had another huge tent about twenty feet long and ten feet wide, which we pitched to house some of the porters, though most of them would have to construct shelters by stacking boxes and covering the enclosure with plastic tarps. Kerosene stoves were issued so the porters could brew tea. It would be a cold night, and we had to sympathize with them, shivering in their shantytown shelters while we would be bundled in down bags in our fancy tents.
Base Camp was fully established before noon, and a good many of the porters wanted to be paid immediately so they could leave and return as far as Concordia before nightfall. But we had not yet received the extra money we had sent for from Askole, days before, when Jim had calculated a pending cash shortage. We needed it to meet the final payment for the porters. By our estimation, the porter carrying the money should have left Skardu over a week before, and since he would be able to travel fast, he should arrive anytime. Fortunately, only 81 of the total 220 porters who had made it to Base Camp wanted to return that afternoon, and we had just enough money left to pay each his salary of 740 rupees—about $74. We considered it no small coup that, with Saleem’s encouragement, we had persuaded the remaining 139 to stay a little longer to help ferry loads partway around the mountain toward our goal, the northeast ridge.
We had discussed this idea two days before at Concordia. It had seemed almost a miracle that we would reach Base Camp so soon. This improved our chances of reaching the summit, but it was still very late in the season and we wanted to do everything possible to speed the climb along. Up to that point the porters had been amazingly cooperative and hard-working. For the past few days, Saleem had gathered the porters each morning before leaving camp to thank them for their help and encourage them on; even along the trail he would stop to make grandiloquent speeches to much cheering and applause. There was an amazing esprit de corps.
Considering the élan the porters had shown as far as Base Camp, we thought perhaps we could persuade at least part of the group to stay one or two days more. It would be a difficult carry to an altitude of about 17,500 feet. The feasibility of the plan depended on finding a safe route free of crevasse danger, since none of the porters would be roped up. Unfortunately, few of them wore adequate footgear. In Askole, we had issued Vibram-soled hiking boots, but we discovered to our chagrin that most of the porters had left them behind so they would not scuff such a pretty pair of new boots; also, they could later use them for trade or barter. Saleem nevertheless seemed to think he could talk many of them into going the extra distance. We were thrilled when 139 agreed to the plan. Since we had about 125 loads to carry around the mountain, our good fortune seemed heaven-sent.
But there was a problem with keeping the porters even one extra day: we were nearly out of atta, staple of the Balti diet. We had just enough for their return to Askole. Staying that extra day would create a serious shortage.
There was one possible solution. After Bonington abandoned his west ridge attempt, his team scuttled their base camp with haste, leaving most of their food supply behind. There was a good chance we could find a cache of atta there. We knew the camp had already been raided by Askole men, but we reasoned they would have rummaged for valuables such as rope and climbing gear and would have left behind heavier, less valuable food bags. We decided that the next day some of our team would go to Bonington’s camp on a food scavenge; Lou and Wick volunteered to take five porters and hike around to see what they could find.
Meanwhile, it was going to be important to move as fast and as efficiently as possible—while we still had the porters—to scout a route around to the east side of the mountain. The Godwin-Austen Glacier turns at Base Camp and continues up between the east side of K2 and the back side of Broad Peak, forming a small icefall at a constriction in the glacial valley where the southeast ridge of K2—the famous Abruzzi Ridge—joins the glacier. We thought we could find a safe passage, free of crevasses, if we stayed at the edge of the glacier, close to the foot of the Abruzzi Ridge. We had been told, by a Pakistani climber who had been on the Japanese expedition the year before, that just around the Abruzzi Ridge, off the glacier, was a campsite free of rockfall from the heights above. We hoped the porters could carry the loads as far as that campsite. If we ourselves had to carry those 125 boxes, each weighing fifty-five pounds, it would take at least ten days.
Chris Chandler and I volunteered to scout the route early the next morning. We would be accompanied by one of our Hunzas—Honar Baig—who had been with the Japanese the year before and thus would know the most likely place to find a safe passage. It would be necessary to work fast and make few mistakes because the porters—each carrying a load—would be only an hour behind us. Ideally, we would have had at least one day to scout the route, but we felt we could not afford the extra time: there was not enough food for the porters, they might not want to bivouac for another cold night, and of even more concern, it looked like bad weather was coming.
By early afternoon a lenticular cloud had formed over K2; then high-altitude cirrus began to move in. By dusk, clouds were swirling about the summits of both K2 and Broad Peak. It was an awesome spectacle; all of us sat outside the tents, cameras poised, trying to capture the scene. The clouds would periodically open, allowing glimpses of the upper reaches of the two mountains colored orange by the low sun, contrasting vividly with the steel-blue clouds. We had a good view of most of the south face of K2. Several of the team had for some time discussed this face as a possible alternative route to the northeast ridge. It had two advantages: it was close to our present campsite and therefore would eliminate the lengthy carries to the other side of the mountain; and it provided a more direct line to the summit, with no lengthy traverses such as those we would have on the northeast ridge. The principal disadvantage was that it appeared unsafe. As if to dramatize this point and congeal our thoughts, a large avalanche thundered off the face, sweeping close
to where we would climb if we picked that route. It was unanimous that we proceed to the northeast ridge.
On the morning of July 6 we awoke at 5:10. After several brews of tea and cocoa, Bill Sumner, Wick, and Craig Anderson left with five porters for the abandoned British camp to recover food for the Baltis. Lou Reichardt, who was supposed to go with Wick, stayed in camp because of a cough and sore throat that he did not want to aggravate. Chris Chandler and I left at 6:15, with the Hunza, Honar Baig, to scout the route to Advance Base Camp.
It was cloudy, misty, and drizzling as we walked up the moraine in the light of early morning, but despite the dreary sky it was fun to be with Chris. It brought to mind the early mornings when together we had scouted the route through the notorious Khumbu Icefall on the Bicentennial Everest Expedition. We could see the porters about an hour behind us; we knew we had to be quick finding a route through to Advance Base. If there were any delay, the porters would be unlikely to stand around in the rain and sleet waiting for us to locate a safe passage.
We wandered through a maze of seracs—ice blocks formed when glaciers moved over steep, underlying bedrock—and it was difficult to guess where the best route would be. Twice we hiked up passageways between the blocks only to be stopped by cul-de-sacs. The best strategy seemed to be to divide, with each of us scouting different directions. Occasional broken bamboo marker wands indicated the Japanese had used portions of this route the year before. Honar Baig went directly up while Chris and I explored more toward the center of the glacier. We could not go too close to the middle, however, because there we would find crevasses too dangerous to travel over with the porters.
We were getting nervous. It was snowing lightly—though the cloud ceiling was still a thousand feet above us, and there was enough visibility to navigate—and we could not find a passage the porters could easily follow. They were less than ten minutes away, a long line of small men dressed in homespun rags, brown against the snow and gray sky, each with boxes tied with goat-hair ropes slung over their shoulders. Chris and I rapidly considered the alternatives and decided we had to try to climb out of one of the cul-de-sacs. We would fix a few lengths of rope, using ice screws and pickets, cut steps in the steeper ice with our ice axes, and motion the porters up. Then we would just have to hope the rest of the route of Advance Base Camp would be straightforward.
The Last Step Page 10
