The Last Step

by Rick Ridgeway

  “You guys O.K.?” Lou yelled.

  “Yeah, but the tent’s gone. Some of the other gear is probably damaged too, but we won’t know until morning.”

  I was again starting to shiver. Our predicament seemed ludicrous: There I was, in only my wool underwear, exhausted, at night at 25,750 feet with the temperature about thirty below zero, dehydrated and coughing and barely able to breathe, with only one pair of wool socks on my feet—now rapidly freezing—staring at the charred remains of our tent, where only moments before I had been cuddled blissfully in a warm bag. And it had been my night for the Denali bag, too. It didn’t seem fair.

  “Rick’s bag burned up,” John reported to Lou and Wick. There was no response from them as they realized the import of this information.

  “There’s no choice,” he continued. “We’re going to have to crawl in with you guys.”

  Two days before when Lou and Wick had, with Terry, established Camp VI Abruzzi, the three had sandwiched into the tent designed to house, with no luxury, two people. It was a difficult night. Now, with our physical condition further deteriorated, Wick and Lou contemplated the nearly uncontemplable thought of four in the tent.

  “It might not be possible to fit us all in here,” Wick said.

  “No choice,” John replied. “Otherwise we’ll freeze with only one bag—the McKinley at that.”

  John rummaged in the remains of our tent for the reasonably undamaged McKinley bag, and I found my parka. That was enough goosedown to get us through the night, and since we would be packed so tightly in the other tent, being short one bag might cause discomfort but not injury. Pulling out our remaining bag, John handed it to me.

  “You’d better get in this,” he said. “It looks like you’re pretty cold.”

  Despite my now uncontrollable shaking, I felt a warm camaraderie for my summit partner who was willing to give up his sleeping bag that he had all rights to claim. With some feeling of humbleness at his gesture, I accepted the offer.

  “Thanks, pal. That’s nice.”

  I crawled in first, squeezing against Wick, who was sandwiched against the tent wall. I bent my limbs and torso trying to dovetail with the shape of Wick’s contorted figure. John crawled in. It was impossible not to overlap limbs and torsos. We squirmed, trying to find a reasonably comfortable position for everyone.

  “I’ve got to move my shoulder.”

  “Wait, then. I’ve got to move my arm first.”

  “Then I’ll have to move mine, too. Hold on, my leg is jammed.”

  Eventually we reached, at least for a while, equilibrium. It was immensely uncomfortable. My head was under Wick’s arm; my chest jammed against John’s back. Again, the claustrophobic feeling returned. My lungs were congesting, and I breathed faster—gasping rapidly—to get enough oxygen. I had the feeling of drowning. Phlegm stuck in my throat, and I thought I might black out. Panic. In desperation, I forced my torso out the tent door, upsetting the bodies interlocked like pieces of a puzzle, and hung my head outside, gasping. The others squirmed to regain positions.

  “You O.K., Rick?” Wick asked. “Think it might be edema?”

  “Don’t know. Congestion. Can’t breathe. Coughing up junk.”

  I was getting worried. I was starting to cough up hard nodules covered with blood. My lungs ached; my body cried for water.

  “Any water left?”

  “No,” Wick said. “We’ll have to wait till morning.”

  I squirmed back inside, and again we jockeyed about, unavoidably elbowing and kneeing each other. Eventually we regained temporary equilibrium. No one could sleep. We lay quiet, wishing the hours speed through the night. John, without bag, was cold but complained little. He was in a very contorted position, too, and he tried to force the discomfort from his mind. But it was no good. Sometime in the middle of the night he could no longer stand it.

  “I’ve got to change,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’ve got to move to the other side of the tent. This is killing me, and I’m freezing.”

  John started to crawl over me to trade places with Wick. There was a jumble of arms and legs and down gear, and the panic of claustrophobia returned. Again, I could not breathe. With two bodies draped over me, I struggled to sit up and get my head higher to clear phlegm from my throat. I tried to get my head out the tent door.

  “What the hell. Wait a minute, Ridgeway.”

  “Can’t breathe. Got to get out.”

  “Can’t you guys get in one place and stay there?” Lou complained, losing patience.

  I hung my head out the tent, gasping, and then John and I changed positions. The tiny tent stretched and bulged as bodies pressured against the sides. John found a position that at least he could force himself to maintain. I stayed half out the door, coughing nasty stuff out of my lungs. My head and shoulders were getting cold, and my thirst was awful. I told myself over and over, be patient. The night will end. We can start the stove in the morning and make a gallon of lemonade. A full, complete U.S. gallon. Be patient.

  Despite my difficulty breathing, the cold forced me back in the tent. I tried to lie still, to overcome my claustrophobia, to not think about my dehydration, to wait patiently for the dawn. It was our fourth night without sleep, our fourth night in the death zone. I began counting the hundreds of minutes until dawn, when we could crawl out and stretch and make drinks and then begin our escape. I only hoped I could find strength to get down; I hoped whatever was causing the blood I coughed up became no worse. I didn’t want to burden the others who I knew would be taxed to their limits getting themselves down. Of the four of us, it seemed I was in the worst shape. In the cold predawn I thought how four of us had reached the summit, how the expedition was now a success, but also how much room was left for mistake, how easy it would be to quickly trade that victory for tragedy.

  SEPTEMBER 8. CAMP VI. 25,750 FEET. ABOUT 11:00 A.M.

  On the warm insulating pad spread on the floor of the tent, with full sun shining through the large holes in the burned-out tent walls, I lay half-conscious. I was dressed in wool underwear, in which I had passed the dreadful night, and my jumpsuit. My head lay on my parka, and on my feet I had only one boot. The other was next to my hand, tongue pulled open, but at the last minute I had lost the desire necessary to continue dressing, and had collapsed on my parka. That the day was relentlessly passing—that it was nearly noon—and we were still not prepared to begin our long descent, seemed in no way important.

  I was consumed by total torpor; my mind and body melted in the warm sun. John lay next to me, apparently asleep. We were surrounded by the wreckage of our charred tent. Luckily, the gear needed for our descent had not burned, but it had taken some time to sort the debris, and the job was not yet finished. Wick and Lou had managed, meanwhile, to melt snow for nearly two liters of water, and I had drunk my ration with religious thanksgiving. Wick and Lou were presumably also asleep, or, like me, half-conscious; there was no voice from their tent.

  Earlier that morning, waiting for the sun to heat the air sufficiently for us to crawl wearily from our tomblike tent, we had acknowledged the importance of descending rapidly, given our deteriorating condition and the uncertainty of how long the good weather would hold. We made plans to drop that day to Camp IV, and then the following day to Camp II, or perhaps even to Camp I. It would depend, in part, on where the others were positioned to assist our descent; their help breaking trail down would speed our escape.

  Now, despite acknowledging the importance of rapid descent, we told ourselves that if we left before noon, there still would be sufficient time to get to Camp IV. It was not sound thinking, but rather giving in to our greater need for rest.

  The sun shone on my face and I felt my skin burn. My lips were already cracked and bleeding, my neck peeling, and I knew I should apply protection lotion, but I had not the energy to search it out; I simply let the sun burn. My breathing seemed more regular, and my coughing and the choking phlegm also decreas
ed. I thought I should try again to put on the other boot, but I could not bring myself to the task. I dozed, warm in bright sun, thankful for the absence of wind, and I dreamed of faraway places and of tropical sun.

  “We’d better get moving soon. It’s almost noon.”

  It was Lou’s voice, and it sounded as though he and Wick were preparing to get under way. Lifting one hand, I pushed my goggles over my eyes, then dropped the hand. I opened my eyes. John was not moving. I wondered if I could find the energy to fit my other boot. I knew I must; I knew we had to start down. But the languor was all-consuming. I felt drugged.

  I finally mustered the will to sit up and slowly lace my boot. I found my crampons and fitted them over the thick, insulated overboot.

  “Time to go?” John asked.

  “Yeah, we’d better get under way, I guess.”

  John sat up wearily and started lacing his crampons. I was still very thirsty and longed for another drink, but there was no time to melt snow. We would have to wait until evening, at Camp IV. With crampons fitted, I forced myself to stand and shake off the lassitude. I located my pack and sorted what to take and what to leave. Extra pile pants—leave. Camera—take. Extra mittens—leave. Sack of summit rocks—take. Stove and cookware—leave. I found the oxygen regulator I had picked up yesterday on the descent. It cost six hundred dollars. It also weighed several pounds—leave.

  With packs shouldered, we wearily stepped out of camp, leaving behind the tents and miscellaneous gear to the gods of the mountain and also, no doubt, to the goraks who would most likely fly even that high to scavenge our jetsam. The sky was limpid and cloudless, and we descended with the summits of Broad Peak and the Gasherbrums to our right. The valley of Godwin-Austen was formed of ice and rock walls, and the flutings on the ice faces were furrows in a vertical field of whiteness. One face was cut by a sharp line marking the fracture of a slab avalanche. I thought of Nick Estcourt.

  The descent was slow and mindless and required little care until we arrived at a steep drop of hard ice before the corner marking the beginning of the traverse to the snow dome on which Camp V was situated. We faced into the ice and carefully downclimbed, kicking our front points and placing the picks of our ice axes. We were all conscious of not wearing a rope. We were conscious of our exhaustion and the need to keep reminding ourselves to be careful, to keep telling ourselves that after all we had been through it would be unthinkable to face tragedy. With these thoughts, we inched down the ice. When I made the final move to the more secure and less steep snow, I realized the last hard section of unroped climbing was behind me, and I was that much closer to safety.

  It was easier hiking the remaining distance to Camp V, but we were reminded, nevertheless, that we still held space on the roulette wheel. We traversed a fifty-yard-wide swath of avalanche debris from a big serac that had broken from the hanging glacier sometime during the last few days. We picked our way through the jumble of ice blocks knowing had we been there during the avalanche there would have been no chance of survival.

  We were at a crawl. John led, breaking through the soft snow. Lou followed, then Wick, and finally me. I was slowest. We came to a small rise that we knew was the back of the snow dome. Camp V was a hundred feet farther. At the tents Wick turned around, and with dismay he watched me trying to make the last uphill distance to camp. I could not walk. I was on hands and knees, crawling.

  “John, look at Ridgeway,” Wick said. “Can you believe that? He’s crawling.”

  “Don’t worry,” John said. “He’s come this far. He’ll make it.”

  FROM WICK’S JOURNAL

  SEPTEMBER 8. Camp V. Difficulty in writing. Fingers frostbitten. Back at Camp V with Lou, John, and Rick. Getting down today from Camp VI was an ordeal. We walked like zombies—like sleepwalkers—during the three hours it took us. We were to have descended to Camp IV this afternoon, but Rick and I both suffer frostbite, and we did not want to risk further damage by descending the shaded face below Camp V. We are all exhausted, but John and Lou have more strength than Rick and me. Details later as I am absolutely without strength.

  SEPTEMBER 10. Camp III. Storm. A new, violent storm has hit us following the long Indian summer that enabled us to climb K2 and retreat this far, but our attempts to now descend to Camp I are frustrated. We have not been able to locate the fixed ropes below Camp III. They are buried somewhere in deep snow. We need them as guidelines down the mountain. There is no visibility. John and Terry are out trying to locate the rope now.

  Yesterday was long. We descended from Camp V to here with a brief stop at Camp IV to brew up. Still very weak. John, with more energy than the rest of us, led down, following the trail Terry and Cherie had made the day before. We arrived late afternoon. Warm greetings from the Bechs, waiting for us in Camp III (everyone else was in Camp I). Drinks, rehydration.

  1:20 P.M. John and Terry just returned. No luck on the rope. Appears we are pinned here at least until tomorrow. Jim and Rob (on the radio in Camp I) were strong in urging us to come down. We told them impossible in these conditions. They worried we are deteriorating physically and mentally. Actually we are recovering strength compared to what we went through above. But we need to get off the mountain to ultimately recover. Jim and Rob seem pessimistic about the projected length of the new storm. Seven days. Tomorrow, notwithstanding the weather, we will descend with or without the fixed ropes. We’ll get down tomorrow. We must.

  SEPTEMBER 11. THE SLOPES BELOW CAMP III. 22,500 FEET. ABOUT 10:00 A.M.

  Bitter cold wind out of the east. Mist and cloud. My companions just visible although less than a rope length distant. Spindrift carrying rapidly across my legs. Feet buried in deep, white powder. Exhaustion; the continuing task to force on, to make new steps. My body deteriorated, skinny with loss of muscle tissue. Sore lungs, difficulty breathing. Fingers now turning gray and black. The longing, the desire, for it all to end.

  I thought, If only the weather had lasted one more day, we would now be off the mountain. As it was, we had been forced to hole up one day in Camp III, and now despite the continuing storm, we were pushing down. We had never located the fixed rope just below Camp III, and therefore we needed a climbing rope. Terry and I had spent several hours yesterday climbing back toward Camp IV and cutting two lengths out of the fixed rope (that line was not buried because no snow accumulated on the much steeper knife-edge ridge). With that line we had roped up, and we were now feeling our way down, scouting through the thick, blowing clouds, probing our memories to identify familiar landmarks. We must get down.

  It had been a feeling of warm homecoming to find Terry and Cherie waiting, in Camp III, for our arrival. There was a mug of hot cocoa when we entered camp, and many embraces. To have someone simply to melt snow for brew water was great assistance, and Terry’s and Cherie’s faces held much sympathy for our haggard condition.

  Actually, our condition seemed improved from the two previous days; yesterday’s convalescence in Camp III was welcome rest. Wick and I were easily the worst, and it had been mostly up to John, with help from Lou, to break trail down to Camp IV and then across to Camp III. During the two nights since we had begun our descent, I had slept on oxygen, and the gas had improved my lung congestion remarkably. Breathing was easier, although still painful. My fingers were turning mottled gray and black, but I think the oxygen also mitigated the damage of the frostbite. And I had had a nasty abscess—which smelled of infection and made each step across the traverse a trial—that Cherie had nursed in Camp III: it was now less painful. It had been an embarrassment to ask her to clean the infection—more because of the wound’s septicity than from my nakedness. But she had dismissed my concern with a nurse’s indulgent laugh, and her ministrations gave me a warmness toward both her and Terry who, despite their disappointments, and their own weakened condition, had stayed high on the mountain to assist our descent.

  Wick now seemed in worse shape. He had used no oxygen during sleep, and that morning he awoke with pain in his
left side and difficulty breathing. He said it felt like broken ribs, but since he had not fallen, or bashed himself, Cherie thought it was more likely pneumonia. It was hard with Wick to judge whether the pain was serious, because he was stoical and not given to complaint.

  We were in two teams, Lou, Wick, and John on one rope, leading and cutting a swath through the deep snow, and Terry and Cherie and me following on another rope. No one spoke. We silently trod downward, each of us alone with our thoughts. Lower on the ridge, at Camp II, there had been less snowfall, and we easily recovered the fixed rope. Untying from our climbing rope, we each descended at our own pace, and I chose to go last. I realized it was my last trip down the ropes; I was leaving places filled with so many memories, with so much emotion, that I wanted the time alone.

  While I waited for the others to open distance down the ropes, I rested in one of the abandoned tents, nibbling what snacks I could find in the rifled food bags: a pepperoni stick, a few Corn Nuts, a piece of beef jerky. The beef jerky caused me to remember an incident from the Everest expedition two years earlier. Just before leaving for Nepal, we discovered our shipping invoice listed forty-five pounds of beef jerky. It is against the law to import beef products into Nepal, and with no time to retype the entire 240-page invoice, we had the idea simply to erase all the “f ’s” in beef and retype in “t’s,” so we were importing forty-five pounds of beet jerky.

  The thought brought a grin. Memories. Everest, K2—all behind, all memories. I crawled out of the tent, secured my brake system to the rope, and began the dramatic descent to the glacier, slowly rappelling rope length after rope length. I thought how Lou and I had fixed these ropes so many weeks before (I could count the time in months, too). The cloud cover had in some places opened to blue sky.

  At the steepest place in the descent I stopped, secured the rope, and hung off it, silently studying the geography. Across the back of the glacier the familiar features of Skyang Kangri were colored subtle pastels of green and purple and light browns. The rock face divided into two monolithic intrusions, one light gray stone, a source of sun, of things positive, the Yang; the other dark stone, the color of earth and moon, the Yin. Both sides were cut with long, linear dikes of still other stone, knife-sharp in contrast. Snow from the latest storm delicately laced the rock walls. The mountain rose boldly against a piebald sky of grays and browns, with patches of cerulean blue. Skyang Kangri’s northeast ridge descended to Windy Gap, the pass to Shaksgam, and over the pass I could see the needle summits of lesser peaks, the last disturbance of the Karakoram before giving way to the endless brown hills of China. Memories.