The Last Step

by Rick Ridgeway

  We thought, however, that two people should stay to keep the tents free of snow and the camp open. Any of us would gladly have stayed—because of the advantage of more rapid acclimatization at the higher altitude—but to most of us, it did not matter much one way or the other. In fact, Bill Sumner had already rappelled back to Camp I the day before. John and I walked down to Lou and Wick’s tent to have tea and discuss how best to retreat to Camp I.

  “Whoever goes down should be able to help with the logistics planning,” Lou said.

  “That obviously includes you,” Wick agreed, looking at Lou.

  “Actually, both of us should go down,” Lou replied, “although I would prefer staying up. Chris should also go down since he is supposed to be the oxygen expert. He should be included in any talks about when we should start using it, and consequently how many bottles we haul up.”

  “I’ll go down, too,” John said. “I don’t mind adding my two cents to any discussions.”

  I did not feel I was instrumental in any logistics planning, so I mentioned I would not mind remaining at Camp II.

  “Then you and Cherie should stay,” Lou said.

  “And that will split Chris and Cherie,” I said, “which might not be a bad idea, considering all the rumors.” I had brought up a delicate subject some of us had been surreptitiously discussing for over a week: a suspicion about the growing friendship between Chris and Cherie. During the approach march, before we reached Base Camp, Chris and Cherie were together a lot, though at the time no one thought much about it one way or the other. Once on the mountain, they usually climbed together. Soon after we reached Camp II, Cherie moved into the cramped equipment tent with Chris; the two of them ultimately switched to the larger dome tent after Bill Sumner went back to Camp I. We speculated that Bill was embarrassed sleeping by himself in the larger tent, but instead of making the logical but equally embarrassing suggestion that they swap tents, he chose to bail out to Camp I on only the second day of the storm.

  John had been the first to mention the subject to me, shortly after we reached the site of Camp I, although I had been aware of the possibility before then. In a private moment, John had asked me what I thought.

  “You’re his best friend,” he said. “You know him better than any of us.”

  “They’re certainly becoming close friends,” I said. “But I don’t know any more than that.”

  “I wouldn’t care myself,” John said, “one way or the other, if I didn’t think it would have an adverse effect on the climb. But look, there are only fourteen of us on this team, counting the four Hunzas. If Chris has something going with Cherie, and Terry finds out—which he has to—and gets upset, and all three end up leaving, that’s twenty-five percent of our strength. It could very easily make the difference whether we get to the top. Not to mention the depressing effect it would have on the rest of the team. There just isn’t any place on a climb like this for that sort of thing. I can’t believe it. It’s just like on the Nanda Devi expedition, before Devi died. Two of the team fell in love with her, and it almost finished the climb. It happens every time—I guess it’s being up here in this snow and ice for months without any companionship—but if people can’t handle themselves better, they shouldn’t come. At least Devi was single and didn’t have a husband along on the climb. If my wife ever did anything like that I’d shoot her, not to mention what I’d do to the guy.”

  “Maybe I should talk to Chris about it,” I had suggested.

  “That’s a good idea. You’re in the best position to do something.”

  But I never had. It was the same as my earlier intention to talk with Chris about my wanting to team up with John, instead of with him: every time I was alone with Chris and had the chance to bring it up, I waffled and swallowed the words.

  “Maybe there’s nothing to it,” I tried to convince myself. “And maybe it really isn’t any of my business, anyway.” But I knew better. I was avoiding my obligation, as Chris’s friend, to talk to him.

  So when the discussion surfaced at Camp II, it was not an entirely new subject.

  “Do you really think something is going on?” Wick asked.

  “It seems likely,” I replied.

  “Having suspicions like this on a climb can’t be any good for any of us,” Wick said.

  “Hell,” John added, “three people out of fourteen—that’s nearly a quarter of our strength.”

  “If I had to put the blame on anyone,” Lou said, “it would be Chris. But we still don’t know if there’s anything to this.”

  Again I felt guilt from not speaking to Chris earlier—perhaps that could have cleared this mess up before it progressed so far. But it probably would not have repaired the disappointment Lou was feeling toward Chris. Ever since we had first put in the Camp II route, when Chris knocked the rocks down on Skip and me, Lou’s respect for Chris had been diminishing. He was less concerned about a clique of Chris and Cherie, thinking John’s and my concern was sensationalistic, than about what he considered to be Chris’s dawdling. Lou felt that Chris was not doing his share of the work; he thought Chris had been carrying light loads and taking too many rest days.

  The day before the storm began, several of us had set out on the first major carry to Camp III, but Chris had stayed behind, as had Cherie and Bill Sumner. At high camp, after the long, difficult carry in increasingly thin air, we criticized all of them for not doing their share of the load carrying. It started to snow and John and I headed back for Camp II while Lou and Wick stayed to inventory the equipment. I was pleasantly surprised, on my way down, to see Chris, Cherie, and Bill heading toward me, carrying loads. Except for Bill, they were not carrying very much, but it was better than nothing. We greeted each other, then continued on. Later, they ran into Lou and Wick.

  “Hello,” Bill cheerfully called when seeing Lou and Wick approach. “Nice day to be in the mountains.”

  It was snowing harder. The white, colorless sky was like a thin solution of the snow, and the climbers floated in the amorphous white.

  Lou was surprised to see them. “It’s a little late to be out in this weather,” he said.

  He then inspected their loads so he could add the contents to the inventory list, and noted that Chris carried only one oxygen bottle and a few fuel cartridges—about twenty pounds in all. Cherie had even less.

  “You guys aren’t carrying too much today,” Lou said. He had noticed both Chris and Cherie seemed defensive.

  “We had a late start,” Chris replied.

  “You should get moving a little sooner.”

  “I guess we all can’t be supermen.”

  “I suppose I should tell you we have been talking about you at Camp Three and your names have been taken in vain.”

  This was too much for Cherie; she started crying. Lou had not meant to be so critical, but he realized his words had caused more injury than he intended. Lou had not known Chris had been sick that day and had forced himself to carry anyway, even though his load was light. Chris was taken aback at Lou’s criticism: he had expected people to be pleased that he was carrying at all. Whatever the merits of each side of the story, the fact remained that a schism between Lou and Chris was growing.

  “Let’s go back to the tent,” I said to John, “and tell Chris it will be best if he goes down with the three of you.”

  John and I scampered back along the seventy-foot handline that connected Lou and Wick’s tent with our own. The tent that Chris and Cherie occupied was within calling distance of ours; I shouted over, and Chris poked his head out the door.

  “Listen, we’ve been discussing what to do with Wick and Lou, and everybody agrees four should go down, and two stay. It seems best that those who go down be the ones who could add most to the logistics planning that needs to be done at Camp One. Since you’re the oxygen officer, we figured you should be there. Cherie and I can stay up here and shovel snow.”

  “I don’t want to go down,” Chris yelled back. “I just got up here.�
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  “But we need you down there—you’re in charge of the oxygen.”

  “Big deal. I couldn’t tell them anything they don’t already know. Besides, I want to stay up and acclimatize.”

  I pulled my head back in the tent and looked at John.

  “Well, we can’t make him go back down,” I said.

  Chris was probably right in thinking he could not tell anybody anything they did not already know about the oxygen systems, but I sensed he resented our deciding—without consulting him at all—that he should descend. John and I radioed Lou and Wick.

  “He doesn’t want to go down,” I told Lou.

  “That’s it,” Lou said. “Wick and I are heading down in a few minutes with or without anybody else. You guys do what you want.” They left that evening. John and I decided to stay one more day, partly in the hope that the weather would improve, but also to determine whether Chris would change his mind about going down. But the following morning, the weather continued bad with even more snow and wind. John and I descended to Camp I.

  We crowded into the caravan tent at Camp I. Except for Chris and Cherie, all of us were there, including the four Hunzas. The stereo, with speakers hanging in the tent corners, played an old Joan Baez album of Dylan tunes. In another corner, Diana Jagersky cooked dinner. After so many days of skimpy high-altitude rations, it was wonderful to dine on what we considered “home cooking”: dried split-pea soup with chopped canned ham and, best of all, freeze-dried jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce.

  It was much more comfortable waiting out the storm at Camp I. The cook tent was more a community center. We could sit inside, drink tea, read, listen to the stereo, or gossip; even sleeping tents were not so small and crowded as those at Camp II. And there were useful projects to do.

  Lou and Jim compared notes on strategies for the upper part of the climb; fortunately, even though they had developed their plans independent of one another, they agreed on many crucial points.

  They felt we should carry only a minimal supply of oxygen high on the mountain and try to avoid using it at all below Camp VI. For the first time, there was also detailed discussion of alternative routes near the summit. Unlike most other ridges on K2, whose crests continued to the very summit of the peak, our ridge—the northeast—terminated in a broad snow dome more than three thousand feet below the top, at the foot of the great summit pyramid. That suggested two options: we could either climb directly up the face of the summit pyramid, as the Poles had tried, but failed, to do in 1976; or traverse left under the pyramid headwall until we joined the Abruzzi Ridge route, following that to the summit. The first option, the “Polish finish,” as we started calling it, was a direct line to the summit, and therefore—from an aesthetic point of view—more attractive. In addition, it had never been completely climbed. The second option, the Abruzzi, except for the traverse to reach it, was known territory, having been climbed to the summit by two previous expeditions. There was little doubt we could get to the summit on this Abruzzi route, provided we could successfully traverse from our ridge over to it.

  Whether that would be true of the Polish finish was another question. At about twenty-seven thousand feet, there was a very steep ice and rock section—in one place it was near-vertical for at least a hundred feet—and we knew we would have to fix ropes. This meant, in all probability, that one team would have to climb up and fix the section—a job that would take all day—then come back down, sacrificing their chances of reaching the summit; a second team would follow the next day, using the fixed ropes, and go on to the top. Sitting around sipping tea, we considered the merits of each strategy. We concluded, at least for the time being, that we should try to pursue the Polish finish if at all possible. It would, quite simply, be the grandest way to complete the climb.

  While the rest of us kicked more ideas around, Bill Sumner began teaching climbing techniques to the four Hunza porters. Of all of us, Bill spent the most time with the HAPS, and along with Diana was becoming their good friend. Bill immensely enjoyed hearing about their life in Hunza, about their experiences on other expeditions, about their religion (unlike the majority of Pakistanis, they were Ismaili Moslems, followers of the Aga Khan).

  Bill found that the HAPS, especially Honar Baig and Gohar Shah, possessed considerable natural climbing ability; they quickly caught on to technical ice climbing techniques, learning to use crampons and ice axes to climb the steep ice blocks around camp. We hoped they would be able to help carry loads higher on the mountain. It was clear, however, that even with Bill’s excellent lessons, they had limited experience and would have to be closely watched.

  An incident a few days earlier had dramatically emphasized this; only luck had prevented an injury, or worse. During the storm, the four HAPS slept at Advance Base Camp, and when visibility permitted they carried loads up to Camp I. The third day of the storm was particularly bad; no one on the upper part of the mountain moved. The team at Camp I radioed the Hunzas at ABC, telling them there was no need to come to Camp I if they did not want to. But it was a matter of pride; they were trying to impress us with their efforts to do their share of the work. Despite foggy conditions on the glacier, they decided to make the carry.

  Later that morning we heard distant shouts. Visibility on the glacier was less than a hundred yards. Diana Jagersky took a radio and walked out a short distance from Camp I, yelling as loud as she could, “Radio! Radio!” In a minute the HAPS turned on their walkie-talkie, and Gohar Shah’s voice came over the air.

  “Hello. This is Gohar Shah.”

  “Gohar Shah, this is Diana. Are you O.K.?”

  “Hello. This is Gohar Shah.”

  “This is Diana. Are you O.K.?”

  “Hello, this is Gohar Shah. Yes. Yes. No. I mean no.”

  Gohar was having trouble transmitting with his walkie-talkie. The trouble was compounded by his barely comprehensible English.

  “Gohar. What is wrong? Are you O.K.?”

  “Hello? This is Gohar Shah. We have small problem. Honar Baig in crevasse.”

  “Oh no. Is he O.K.? Is he hurt? Call to him and see if he is O.K.”

  “Yes,” replied Gohar. “Honar Baig in crevasse.”

  “Call to Honar Baig,” Diana repeated, with growing frustration. “Ask him if he is O.K.”

  The radio crackled with static, and Diana was afraid they had improperly adjusted the squelch control. But in a minute another voice came over the air.

  “Hello, this is Honar Baig. I am in crevasse.”

  “You mean you are out of the crevasse, or in it?” Diana asked.

  “This is Honar Baig. Have problem. In crevasse.”

  “Honar Baig, are you hurt?” Diana persisted.

  “In crevasse, upside down.”

  Diana listened incredulously. The HAPS had lowered the walkie-talkie on a rope to Honar Baig, who was talking from the bottom of the crevasse thirty feet down, where he was wedged, nearly upside down, between two ice walls. In the background of their transmission, Diana heard, very, very faintly, the voices of the other three HAPS, who must have been leaning over the lip of the crevasse, yelling frantically, “Honar Baig in crevasse! Honar Baig in crevasse!”

  “Hold on, Honar Baig,” Diana urged. “We will come and help you. Don’t move.”

  A rescue party went out for them. When they arrived they found Honar sitting on the edge of the crevasse. He had managed to climb out using his jumar clamps, but instead of attaching his leg loops, he had grasped the rope ascenders and somehow pulled himself all the way out using only his arms. His injuries were relatively minor—a sprained wrist, sore shoulder, cut nose; he was lucky they were not more serious. But we realized we would have to be more careful with the HAPS. We could not depend on them to get themselves out of trouble in case of accident.

  On July 26, the fifth day of the storm, Saleem announced, via radio from Base Camp, the arrival of a group of porters carrying food rations for the HAPS, and most important to us, the mailbag from Skardu. I
t had been several weeks since any of the team had had news from home. Saleem told us there were ninety-five letters in the bag. Four climbers volunteered to go down and return the next day with the mail. About midmorning, Jim Whittaker, Jim Wickwire, Rob Schaller, and Dianne Roberts roped together and began the long descent to Base Camp. Despite the continuing storm, all four of them had a wonderful trip. Although nothing particularly unusual had happened, for Dianne Roberts it was one of those rare times when perceptions crystalize to a sharp lucidity, when somehow all the elements seem to fit just right, leaving one with an experience that is mystical, perhaps even religious. In a letter written to Susanne and Jake Page, close friends back home, Dianne described the journey:

  During the last storm that prevented us from working high on the mountain, Jim, Wick, Rob, and I made a trip from Camp I to Base Camp (a very long walk) to pick up the mail. On the way down it was snowy and foggy—a total whiteout. Walking on the glacier is rather dicey at the best of times—lots of hidden crevasses—but on this day it was downright dangerous. Jim was leading and he couldn’t even tell if he was walking in a straight line. Wick and I, roped behind him, kept guiding him left or right as he probed for crevasses. It took two and a half hours to reach Advance Base (normally a fifty-minute trip) then another two hours to Base. But Jim, Wick, and I felt great—we are all very close anyway—and even Rob, whose normal mood is morose, admitted it was a good trip even though he had felt the weather had been too bad to leave camp that morning.

  Returning to Base Camp, after a couple of weeks on the ice and snow, was wonderful. That miserable heap of rocks at the base of K2 seemed like heaven. All the colors of the rocks and the sky had an intensity I had never seen before. The grubby Askole porters, who had carried up loads of flour and rice and sugar—and our mail—greeted us with open arms, and Saleem, our liaison officer who (bless his soul) is stuck down there tending the radio, was so happy to see us he embraced us and treated us to a feast of goat meat and chapatties. We spent the night there in the thick air at 16,500 feet (you can’t believe how heavy the air at 16,000 feet seems after being up around 20,000 for awhile) and the following morning we trekked back up the glacier to Camp I. On the way up, the wind abruptly shifted 180 degrees, coming from China instead of Concordia, and the sun shone through for the first time in eight days. Jim again led the way (our tracks from the previous day were covered). It was very slow going; we all had very heavy packs; we were plowing through deep snow; we had to beware of hidden crevasses. But for some reason I felt calm and very happy. The pace was perfect for daydreaming, and my thoughts drifted back home. I thought of Annie Dillard (she lives, I think, in the San Juan Islands), and how beautifully she writes, and how I wished I could write like that, and how I somehow knew, intuitively, we would like each other, and that perhaps, when I got home, I should write her a letter, and maybe, somehow, meet her. But of course I won’t. I remember I felt the same way about Joni Mitchell—that instinctive kinship—and I never wrote her either.