“He asked me if I wanted to go, but I declined,” Wick added.
“He didn’t even tell us he was going,” John said, “much less ask us.”
“He figured you guys wouldn’t want to go, anyway,” Wick said drily.
“That’s sure as hell true,” I said.
John and I were unaware that Lou, as unofficial logistics manager, was seriously concerned about the developing food shortage—more would be needed from Camp III if we were to make the summit. But in spite of the need for an extra load carrier, he had hesitated to approach either of us for fear of reopening the Camp VI argument.
After a pause, Wick added, “He’s going to talk to Whittaker about the Abruzzi finish also. Lou’s still interested in drumming up support for it. He’s still upset at you guys—especially you, John—and he wants to talk me into going up the Abruzzi, and to try and get Terry and Cherie to support him.”
“What do Terry and Cherie think?” I asked.
“They’re still committed to helping us get to the top, regardless of the route, but Terry admitted he would prefer the Abruzzi since that would give Cherie the best chance of going with us. I guess they’re still entertaining the possibility of Cherie joining the summit team.”
“What about you?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Wick replied. “I’ve still got to think about it.”
“You’re welcome to come with Rick and me on the direct finish,” John said. “Three on a rope would work. Lou could go with the Bechs on the Abruzzi.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. But I still have to consider everything.”
“We’ll support whatever choice you make,” I added.
We decided to meet when Lou returned. Meanwhile, since Wick obviously had much to think about, John and I decided to head back to our own tent. Just then, Jim’s voice crackled over the radio. Apparently, Jim had jury-rigged his headlamp batteries to power the walkie-talkie, and his transmissions were now intelligible.
We informed Jim that Lou was on his way across, and Jim gave us news from Camp III: Dianne was still snowblind, but expected to improve in a day or two; Jim felt his knee was good enough to break trail partway down, should the weather improve, so those below could ferry up badly needed supplies. Food and fuel were critically short at Camp III, and Lou was going to completely drain them. But even if the camps could be re-supplied, Jim was pessimistic we could hold out much longer.
“We might last ten more days at most,” he said. “By then, the porters will be here anyway, and I’m afraid we’ll have to go off the mountain and call it quits.”
There was fatigue, dejection, in his voice.
“I think it would be too much strain on everyone, too much of a risk to everyone’s lives, to stay after September tenth. I still want as much as anyone to get this mountain—and we still might have one more assault left in us—but I just don’t want to risk lives doing it. The storms are getting colder and longer and we can’t stay up here forever.”
Jim finished his transmission, then Wick said, “I hope Lou has some success buoying Jim’s spirits. Still, there is some truth in what he says. We do only have one more chance.”
John and I crawled back to our tent. It was not until late afternoon that Lou got back, and since it was still snowing heavily, allowing little chance that we would move the next day, we postponed our meeting. Through the tent walls Lou informed us, however, that he had had a good meeting with Jim and had convinced him we still had a chance of making the mountain.
“He’s also very much in favor of us doing the Abruzzi finish,” Lou yelled. “Jim feels it would be fitting, since that’s the route Wiessner came so close to completing in 1939.” 5
John and I passed the rest of the afternoon eating and sleeping, and the next morning we were ready for the meeting. We fully expected Wick to go for the Abruzzi. Before we could gather, however, Wick called from the neighboring tent:
“The direct finish is on.”
John and I looked at each other, wondering what would be Lou’s decision.
“I’m with you guys, too,” Lou yelled. “The four of us together on the direct finish.”
Wick and Lou had spent much of the previous night discussing the choice of routes. Wick had been leaning toward the direct finish, and further considering the advantages of pooling our strength into one attempt, had talked Lou into joining forces with us. John and I, of course, were very pleased with the decision; it would put maximum strength on our choice of summit route. We decided to meet at noon, in Wick and Lou’s tent, to discuss details.
Cherie and Terry joined the conference, and although obviously disappointed with the choice of the direct finish, they still made a pitch for Cherie’s being included in the summit attempt.
“I think five on the summit team would slow things,” John said, “especially on the descent. It would just be too dangerous.”
“To be candid and honest,” Wick added, “I will have to say I would be unwilling to rope with Cherie on the summit push, especially up the direct finish.”
Looking at Cherie, he explained, “It’s just that I haven’t climbed with you before.”
“You’ve got to climb with someone you can trust and depend on,” John agreed. “I’d have complete confidence going with Rick, for example, and I’m not going to rope up with anyone else.”
“It’s something you’ve got to be adamant about,” I added, hoping to assuage Cherie. “I’ve been on other expeditions when I’ve been asked to rope with someone I didn’t have experience with, and I’ve always refused.”
“I understand,” Cherie said, quietly and cordially. Both she and Terry, despite their disappointment, agreed to support the attempt and do what they could to carry gear to Camp VI. It was a magnanimous gesture, made more generous considering the strife the team had suffered over the last weeks. At the eleventh hour, it seemed we were again pulling together as a team; we shared the knowledge that only a collaborative effort would allow us to climb K2. Sitting together at 22,800 feet, during this final storm, I felt a camaraderie with my companions, more complete than at any previous time.
At the moment, though, Wick did not fully share my feelings. He had been as moved as the rest of us by Terry and Cherie’s unqualified offer of support. But he was stung by John’s and my revelation that we would rope with no one else, that we were an inseparable pair. To Wick, that smacked of hypocrisy, especially in view of our earlier remark that we would be happy to have him join us on the direct route, forming a rope of three. Although John and I had intended our comment more for Cherie (Wick being a person in whose climbing ability we had confidence), he nevertheless saw it as reason to reconsider his decision to throw in his lot with us on the direct finish.
The meeting broke and we returned to our own tents, believing everything settled. For Wick, however, everything was not settled: He spent the afternoon pondering what to do.
There was a factor in Wick’s decision that the rest of us were not fully aware of. Wick knew the direct finish would be more dangerous: Not only would the climbing be more dangerous and more difficult, the descent would be much harder and consequently slower. We would almost certainly have to bivouac, and if at the same time we suffered bad weather, it would seriously diminish our chances of surviving. It was something we all thought about. I myself had few responsibilities at home and could more easily live with my decision. John and Lou had wives and children. And Wick had a wife and five children; he, more than any of us, felt the weight of his responsibility. He spent the afternoon wrestling with his decision, then at four o’clock, he crawled through the door of our tent.
“I know you guys will be upset,” he began, “and I know how crazy it is this late in the expedition to waffle over such important decisions, but I’ve changed my mind again. After considerable thought, I’m going to have to go back to the Abruzzi. There’re several reasons. I still feel odd man out—both of you are such a tight pair, I don’t see how I, or Lou for that matter, can f
it in. There’s more to it than that—it’s also the responsibility to Mary Lou and our kids. I don’t know if I can explain it . . . ”
There was a pause. John and I were moved by Wick’s candidness.
“Wick, I told you earlier I would respect whatever decision you made,” I said, “and I still mean it—more than ever. You’ll leave this tent with two good pals, and we’ll climb K2 by two solid routes.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
We embraced, and Wick crawled out of the tent. So the die was cast: John and I would now without doubt be alone on the direct finish. The Bechs, of course, would be elated, since it might give Cherie an opportunity of joining the summit team, or perhaps both of them a chance to go along with Lou and Wick.
But for me, the uneasy feeling, the trepidation, the fear of being only with John on such a difficult route, returned. We would be far out on a limb, or, as climbers put it, we would be very extended. If even the tiniest thing went wrong. . . . But if we pulled it off, it would be the ultimate achievement of my life. That alone seemed worth the risk.
Lying in the tent that evening, the vision of standing on the lonely summit of K2, gazing through rarefied air to an earth falling away in all directions, perched on the edge of space where the stars shine faintly in the daylight—that vision had a religious purity.
There was still hope of climbing the mountain. At Camp IV, on September 1, 1978, six climbers perched on a knife-edge ridge below the enormous summit pyramid of K2, bedded down in their sleeping bags, and along with their eight companions in lower camps, prayed for two or three days of good weather. We had no way of knowing, but at that moment the meteorology of the great Karakoram was slowly changing, as a high pressure cell formed over Central Asia; the prayers of those fourteen climbers—so insignificantly small against the vastness of this largest of mountain ranges on our planet—were being answered.
SEPTEMBER 2. A steep wall of ice and a pink-and-black rope going straight up. Above, a climber ascending the rope, below, four tents, barnacles on a knife ridge. Two climbers leaving the camp, moving slowly. On the horizon, to the east, a long, low, dark cloud, singular, backlighted in dawn. A feeling, a hope: Is the cloud moving away? Is it friendly? Otherwise, clear, cobalt sky. This is it. The test begins. The effort starts.
The two climbers leaving Camp IV were Terry and Cherie. I wondered why they had, once again, made a late start. It was past seven, and John, Lou, and I had already made good progress toward Camp V. Just below me, coming into view from behind a serac, I spotted Wick.
For Wick, the departure that morning was an emotional one. He left a short distance behind the three of us. Climbing by himself, he found he had tears in his eyes. They were not tears of sadness, or of mourning, but of thanksgiving. He was going for the summit. It was the culmination of six years of dreaming and planning and working, and as he made each step up the ridge, sliding his jumar up the rope, he gave thanks for the people who had allowed him that moment: his wife, his children, his mother, his father. For nineteen years—the length of his career as a mountain climber—they had given their unfailing encouragement to his dreams, their support through his defeats and tragedies.
John and I took turns breaking trail to the end of the fixed rope. We unstrapped our packs and, sitting on them, snacked on candy bars and lemonade until Lou and Wick caught up. Because of the crevassed section on the lower part of the snow dome, we roped together before moving on. There was excitement in climbing beyond that last fixed rope. From there on, it was “alpine-style” climbing—no fixed ropes, no yo-yoing between camps carrying loads—just daily progress upward. We were on our own.
The route was over familiar ground. For John, Lou, and me, it was the third trip to Camp V at 25,300 feet, and I quickly was hypnotized by the monotony of placing one foot in front of the other. Despite the heavy snowfall, there had been enough wind that the surface was firm, and only occasionally did our boots break through and sink into the softer subsurface. When we did break through, the harder surface crust knocked sharply against our shins. At the end of a day of such postholing, you are not only exhausted, but your shins are badly bruised. The wind crust also increased the avalanche danger, and we had to be careful to choose a route that avoided open areas prone to slabbing.
We reached the site where, weeks earlier, Cherie and Terry had cached their loads on the way to Camp V. It was part of our current plan to retrieve that gear and, dividing it, carry it on up to Camp V. But heavy snowfall had buried it; it took a half hour of digging to locate it.
Meanwhile, we had spotted Cherie approaching the base of the snow dome, but Terry was nowhere in sight. We speculated that he had, perhaps, turned back.
“She shouldn’t come up here unroped,” Lou said.
Only a few minutes earlier, John had nearly gone into a crevasse. We sat and waited for Terry to appear, hollering to Cherie not to come farther without a rope. She was several hundred yards away, and because we were all hoarse from breathing cold air for so many weeks, it was hard to shout. But she understood the message and stopped to wait.
Another half hour passed, and we began to chill. It was surprising how much the temperature had dropped over the past week. There could be little doubt winter was close. That morning, Saleem had relayed from Base Camp the Radio Pakistan weather report for the Karakoram: “For the twenty-five-thousand-foot level, wind twenty knots and temperature minus thirty Fahrenheit.” We could not wait much longer; our toes and fingers were starting to freeze. Finally we saw Terry, moving slowly.
“They’ll rope up when he catches up with her,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”
The four of us traded equal time kicking steps up the long snowfields to the top of the dome, resting only occasionally. The effort took five hours.
At 3:15, we made the last steps to the deserted campsite, a camp now in ruin. Two of the tents were still standing, although partly buried by drifted snow, but the poles of the larger four-person tent had snapped in the strong winds of the storm, and we found pieces scattered down the slope. We excavated the two undamaged tents, and gathering as many pieces as we could find, jury-rigged the other one. It was slow work, and by the time we crawled in, John and I had lost feeling in our toes. Inside we spread our sleeping pads and bags, started the stove for brew water, then put our feet against the other’s stomach. It took over an hour before feeling returned, and by that time, 7:00, it was dark, and Terry and Cherie had not arrived.
The four of us gathered in the large tent wondering if we should go after them. On a radio call from Camp III, at 5:30, Jim Whittaker reported he could see them “probably an hour and a half below your camp, moving slowly.” Since John and I had just then got some feeling back in our toes, and Lou and Wick were equally exhausted, it was hard to make the decision to go back out.
“According to Whittaker’s estimate,” I said, “they should be due any minute. If we don’t hear anything in an hour or so, we should go after them.”
I dreaded the thought. The wind was blowing, and it was very cold. I was only then getting warm in my sleeping bag. We continued to heat water for cocoa and tea, remembering how necessary fluids are at extreme altitude. We waited; 7:30 passed, then 8:00. It was time to think seriously about suiting up for a rescue. 8:15.
“Did you hear anything?”
“It sounded like someone shouting.”
“Could have been the wind, though.”
We turned down the stove and listened carefully, ears toward the downhill tent wall. It was a very faint voice, but we all unmistakably heard it:
“Help.”
Lou and I volunteered to go, but Lou was out the tent several minutes before me because I lingered to warm my brick-hard boots over the stove and to strap on my crampons. Lou left without crampons.
I crawled out of the tent and the cold wind immediately chilled me. Turning off my headlamp, through the blowing spindrift I could see Lou’s light in the distance. I turned my lamp back on and headed that dir
ection. Moving quickly, I started to warm.
I found Terry first; Lou was down the slope with Cherie. Terry was on his feet but moving like a robot, stiff-legged, lifting one foot slowly, then the other, and a rope trailed from him down to Cherie. I shined my headlamp in his face and saw ice frozen in chunks in his beard; his eyes were tired.
“Hypothermic?” I asked.
“Just a little, maybe,” he replied slowly but coherently.
“How about frostbite?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Cherie?”
“Worse than I am.”
I judged that from the coherency of his speech he was—despite obviously being on the verge of the first stages of hypothermia—able to continue unassisted. I descended to where Lou was propped under Cherie’s arm. Terry’s assessment was correct: Cherie was worse.
Lou was bracing her, encouraging her to keep stepping upward. Her eyes had a distant, glazed look, and her lips were blue. There was saliva on the corner of her mouth.
“She’s hypothermic,” Lou said, “but I think she’s capable of getting to the tents if we help her along.”
“I can make it. I’m O.K.”
Her voice had the muffled, barely intelligible sound of someone speaking without moving her lips. I took her hand to help her along, and I was startled by how cold and hard it was. It felt like wood. I feared she was frostbitten. I thought, It has only been dark for a couple of hours, though, and if we can get her on oxygen in time maybe it won’t be so bad.
“Come on, Cherie, we’ll help you along. Keep making steps. You can make it. We’re close now.”
“I don’t need help. I can walk by myself.”
She continued to step forward, awkwardly, but with determination. I knew if she lost that—if we had to try to carry her—it would be difficult to get back. But she gallantly kept on, Lou and me on each side, balancing her.
“My diaphragm hurts. I can’t breathe right. It hurts when I breathe.”
“Try to breathe steadily, even if it hurts. We’ll be there soon.”
The Last Step Page 30
