Seven Summits Part 4

"You mean you made it?"

"Yeah, we made it." Marty was too exhausted even to grin.

"Well why in the heck didn't you say so?" d.i.c.k hooted.

d.i.c.k's excitement was dampened a moment later when he realized that now there really was no way they would go back up. He looked over to Wickwire, who again seemed deep in thought.

The bergshrund was bothering Wickwire. There was no safe way around it, and he had promised his wife he would never again take an unnecessary risk, not after he had nearly died on that high bivouac on K2. That time he had spent the night out alone at 28,000 feet with no sleeping bag or tent. At dawn he had been so exhausted from the ordeal all he had wanted to do was lie back and go to sleep, but an image in his mind of his wife and kids going to the airport and seeing all the team except him returning home gave him the strength to get up and continue the descent.

Wickwire looked toward Marty and said, "Do you think Ba.s.s could make it?"

Marty was still bent over with exhaustion, staring at her tea cup. Without looking up she said, "Ba.s.s can go, he can make it." d.i.c.k wanted to hug and kiss her.

"Hey Ba.s.s," Wickwire called over. "You want to climb this thing with me in the morning?"

d.i.c.k moved to Wickwire's tent that evening, and at midnight he peered out the tent door. The night was cloudless, and he crossed his fingers, hoping the clear skies would hold. Now he was like a little kid waiting for dawn to bring Christmas morning. At 4:15 he shook Wickwire.

"Time to get ready, Wickwire."

It took two hours to melt the snow necessary for several rounds of hot tea and cocoa. Although they got away later than he would have liked, Wickwire was optimistic. d.i.c.k had shown the previous several days he was strong and could climb quickly, and besides they would be moving even faster because they were carrying next to nothing, only three liters of water and four candy bars. Soon they reached yesterday's high point, where they had traversed off the Polish Glacier, but now they continued upward. The ice was smooth and getting steeper.

When climbing steep ice it is sometimes necessary to front-point, to kick in the two crampon points that protrude from the toe of the boot like p.r.o.ngs on a pitchfork. When the ice is hard these points go in only a quarter inch or so and it takes experience to judge how much or little they will hold. When first tried it can be unnerving, and front-pointing was altogether new to d.i.c.k.

Wickwire showed d.i.c.k how to belay the rope, and then started up the first steep section, kicking in his front points and at the same time giving d.i.c.k a little on-the-job instruction.

"Keep your heels down, otherwise you put the wrong angle on the front points and they might pop."

d.i.c.k watched, trying to remember at the same time what Wickwire had told him about belaying the rope in case Wickwire should fall.

Was I supposed to hold firm with this hand, d.i.c.k thought, or this other hand?

"Swing your ice axe like this. You'll know by the feel when the bite is good."

"If you say so."

Please don't fall, Wickwire, d.i.c.k thought.

Minutes later Wickwire reached the end of the rope length, set up a belay and yelled to d.i.c.k, "Belay's on. Your turn."

d.i.c.k reached with his ice axe, swung it and felt the pick bite the ice. Then he kicked his boot but the points glanced off. He tried again and this time felt the points stick. He stepped up, and kicked in the other boot.

"That's the way," Wickwire called down encouragingly.

d.i.c.k was connected to the mountain only by the p.r.o.ngs of his front points and the tip of his ice axe-none of which was in the ice more than a half inch-and he welcomed any words of encouragement. He pried the ice axe loose, moved it up an arm's length, and swung again. It glanced off, and he tried again. Another glancing blow.

"Hold the shaft firmly, and swing with an even arc."

This time it held. d.i.c.k next moved his crampon points higher, first kicking one boot, then the other. In this vertical crab-crawl he climbed toward Wickwire, stopping once to look down to see the glacier falling away under his boots with only the four thin p.r.o.ngs connecting him to the mountain. He quickly looked back up and decided to pay attention only to the work directly in front of him.

d.i.c.k reached Wickwire and they repeated the same cycle, climbing four more rope lengths until the angle lay back and they could continue simultaneously. Wickwire set a fast pace, and occasionally d.i.c.k would yell for a rest, but his stops were always brief. Wickwire was impressed.

"Ba.s.s, if only I can be as strong when I'm fifty-two."

At this point the trick was to place your mind almost in a trance, to move one foot in front of the other at a pace slow enough to minimize rest stops and fast enough to reach the summit with enough daylight remaining to get down. Here d.i.c.k had experience; on McKinley he learned to push his body beyond what he thought possible. d.i.c.k found it amazing that with only a little water and two candy bars a person could accomplish so much work.

Eventually they came to the bergshrund Wickwire had spotted earlier through binoculars. The creva.s.se was wide and deep, and the only crossing appeared to be over a narrow snow bridge only a few feet thick. Wickwire took d.i.c.k's ice axe and drove it into the snow, showing d.i.c.k how to belay the rope around it and over the top of his boot, to hold him in case the bridge broke. Then Wickwire started across, probing as he went with his ice axe to test the snow. With careful steps, he crossed. On the other, higher side he set up the same ice axe-boot belay, and d.i.c.k started over.

"Follow my exact steps," Wickwire said.

Suddenly d.i.c.k's foot punched through and in a heartbeat the bridge started to crumple. Reflexively d.i.c.k leaped while at the same instant he swung his ice axe and dug in his front crampon points; they hit home in the opposite wall just as the rest of the bridge gave way into the deep creva.s.se. d.i.c.k pulled himself up on the axe shaft, wormed over the creva.s.se edge and joined Wickwire at the safe belay.

"Great going, Ba.s.s! Done like a real mountaineer," Wick wire said as he gave d.i.c.k a pat on the shoulder. d.i.c.k didn't know whether to just feel relieved he had made it, or be buoyant because he had performed so well.

Wickwire looked across the now bridgeless chasm but judged that on the way down with the uphill advantage they could probably jump it.

They guessed they were close to the top. A few hundred feet higher they could see a crest of snow with nothing behind or around it. They set a slow, even pace, making one step, breathing a few times, making another. d.i.c.k was elated, thinking how only yesterday afternoon he had nearly given up hope of reaching this point. He looked up. There was the crest, now only thirty more feet. He made a few more steps, then looked up again.

"Oh, my gosh," d.i.c.k said.

He was hoping his eyes were deceiving him, but he knew better. The crest wasn't the summit at all. Beyond it was another ridge, several hundred feet long, with another crest maybe a hundred feet higher. They continued their slow step, breath, step.

d.i.c.k was starting to feel exhausted. Haven't I been through enough not to have to suffer through this ordeal, d.i.c.k said to himself in a kind of half thought, half prayer.

d.i.c.k felt he was too close not to make it, however, and mustered the will to keep making more steps, resolving to make the summit no matter what. Now he only had forty more feet, thirty more ...

"Oh, no! Another false summit."

The ridge continued higher, to another crest at least a hundred feet higher and again several hundred further. d.i.c.k felt himself sink, the elation he had felt seconds ago changed to dismay, even doubt.

I'm not going to make it, he thought. This close, and I'm not going to make it.

But he did make another step, then another. He tried to ignore his fatigue, his aching legs and lungs. Step, breath, breath, step.

I was tired just below the summit of McKinley, he told himself, and I made that. So I know I've got it in me to make this one, too.

Step, breath, step, breath.

Each step now seemed like it took minutes. He knew it wasn't that much time, but the fatigue made it seem that way. He thought about looking up from his feet again, but decided not to. He couldn't bear another disappointment. He made a few more steps. He changed his mind, and glanced up quickly.

What's that on top of the crest just in front, he wondered. A cross? Yeah, it's a cross. That means it's got to be the summit.

Wickwire had now stopped, and d.i.c.k caught up to him. With twenty steps left they interlocked arms around each other's shoulders and side-by-side walked to the summit of Aconcagua.

The highest point in the western hemisphere: 22,835 feet.

"Ba.s.s, this has been one of the best summit days I've had. It's been a real pleasure climbing with you."

d.i.c.k beamed with pride and felt a tear in his eye. Coming from a veteran like Wickwire, it made him feel like he had really won his spurs. Below them through building clouds they could see the sweep of snow mountains extending north and south, a view to match d.i.c.k's joy.

"Aah-eah-eaahhh," d.i.c.k bellowed.

Storm clouds, then snow hampered their descent. Belays down a steep, icy section next to the Piedra Bandera, a prominent rock ma.s.s on the east side of the glacier, took two hours and they found themselves at nightfall groping their way across heavily creva.s.sed portions of the glacier back toward their camp on the west side-which they had left over thirteen hours earlier.

Both of them were lightly clothed and d.i.c.k had real concern not only about the creva.s.ses, but about not finding their camp as well. It would be just my fate, he thought, after climbing this mountain, to freeze to death in this storm. This wasn't just an idle or "nervous Nellie" concern, either; not too far below them lay the body they had seen coming up. Possibly the man had perished just this way the year before. d.i.c.k could see the corpse clearly in his mind, spread-eagled on its back.

All of a sudden, George Dunn came out of the darkness right in front of them. Marty and the others had descended that morning, but he had waited at high camp for them because of the storm and finally couldn't stand the anxiety any longer, deciding to go look for them with a tent and some food in his pack. He knew it would be difficult to survive the night without some help, but he really didn't think he could find them on such a large glacier, at night and in the middle of a snowstorm.

They all hugged, roped one to the other, and Geo led them out of their trial-at least this trial of finding camp. For d.i.c.k, though, another trial was about to begin.

Just as he was making his last step from the hard, pocked glacier ice onto the rock of their campsite, his left foot dropped abruptly into a hole he hadn't seen in the dark. He yelled and toppled over, sliding downhill while clutching his left calf. Geo and Wickwire immediately leaped back onto the glacier and fell on top of him, arresting his movement with their crampons and ice axes.

He had really torn it, literally and figuratively. His gastrocnemius muscle was shredded and so was any reasonable chance of getting off the mountain, particularly with the tortuous route that lay below.

That night his lower leg swelled up like a balloon and the slightest jar would give him pain. Early next morning they were pondering what to do, when d.i.c.k asked if they had any pain pills, so he could move enough to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, Wickwire had some triple Empirin with codeine, which d.i.c.k started taking. Within fifteen minutes he was able to move slowly, so long as he didn't put any weight on his left leg; it was aching, but only had sharp pain if he jerked or vibrated, or accidentally put weight on it. Encouraged, d.i.c.k told them he would try to descend the mountain on his good right leg, using his two ski poles for support. Actually, there was no alternative; they certainly couldn't carry him.

For the next two days he tediously made his way down from 20,500 feet through sections that were challenging enough on the ascent, when he had two good legs. At times he would stumble or fall, and the pain would knife through him so badly he couldn't get his breath, but he finally reached the Vacas River at 10,000 feet. There they met with an Argentine mountaineering detachment that was on training maneuvers, and the soldiers considerately put him on one of their mules. The next day he rode the remaining twenty miles to the highway and civilization.

For d.i.c.k, his summit success as well as his gutsy descent, bolstered his confidence, and reduced his anxiety about Everest, although it didn't eliminate it, a.s.suming his leg would heal in time. He was concerned about Frank, though, because for him this would be another to add to his growing list of failures. He hoped Frank wasn't becoming discouraged. He had enjoyed Frank's company in Russia, and on this climb too, and if Frank should lose enthusiasm d.i.c.k knew he could never find a replacement.

d.i.c.k was pleased, then, when Frank said he still had a full head of steam.

"I'm disappointed, sure, but not discouraged," Frank said. He told d.i.c.k he still felt it was a question of conditioning, that all he needed was to go home and work out harder and then spend two or three months on Everest. After that, he would be ready for the Seven Summits year.

d.i.c.k certainly hoped Frank was right. But he couldn't help but note that Frank really did seem unaware of just how bad he had been on this climb. Frank didn't even seem to suspect that he was the reason everyone had turned back that day of their first summit attempt, not only because of his slowness, but also his inability to learn to use his crampons and ice axe, to manage a rope, and most of all, to judge the limits of his strength.

d.i.c.k decided not to say anything. He was just glad Frank still wanted to go through with the Seven Summits plan, and, being the optimist he was, hoped that things would work out, that maybe on Everest Frank would somehow change and get a lot better.

Two weeks after Frank and d.i.c.k left Aconcagua a Canadian climber named Patrick Morrow arrived to climb the mountain. By coincidence, Morrow also had come to Aconcagua as conditioning for an Everest expedition. He was a member of a large Canadian team that had a permit from the Nepalese government to attempt the mountain in the coming fall of 1982.

Morrow was twenty-eight years old, and made his living as a photojournalist specializing in outdoor adventure subjects, especially mountaineering. It was a tough way to make a living, and he had developed a habit of always thinking about things he could do that would interest his editors. He reached the summit of Aconcagua without any difficulty, and while making his descent a particularly appealing idea hit him. He had just climbed the highest mountain in South America. The year before he had climbed McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. He was on his way to try to climb the highest mountain in Asia. If by chance he did manage to get up Everest, why not try to climb the highest peak on each of the remaining continents?

He was sure no one had ever done it. What he didn't know, of course, was that an Oxford Rhodes scholar nearly thirty years before had had the same idea while coming off Kilimanjaro, and that a Dallas businessman in his fifties had had the same idea only the previous spring while coming off McKinley. And he had no idea he was now following their footsteps on Aconcagua.

He wouldn't find that out until he was far along toward realizing his own dream of being the first up the Seven Smmits.

4.

EVEREST: THE NORTH WALL.

d.i.c.k Ba.s.s relaxed in his dinette seat, lulled by the metronomic kla-klack, kla-klack, kla-klack of the train's wheels and the wistful whistle of the steam locomotive. Out the window the rows of tall poplars bordering cotton fields cast blinking shadows on the curtains of their first-cla.s.s sleeper. With sunset light on the water they crossed a steel trestle over the great Huang, China's celebrated Yellow River.

"Two days on a train is just what I needed," d.i.c.k said to Frank. "I don't think I got more than two hours sleep out of the last 72 before we left."

As always the demands of s...o...b..rd had kept d.i.c.k juggling on a tightrope. He thought of his frenzied pace and how he hadn't been able to spend any time training for this once in a lifetime experience. So many people a.s.sumed he was related to the affluent Ba.s.s family of Fort Worth and would probably think this was just another diversion to tide him over the midlife crisis, much like they thought s...o...b..rd was just another hobby. This hurt him. Enduring his perpetual roller-coaster ride wouldn't be nearly as wearing if people only knew the sacrifices s...o...b..rd had required these past thirteen years. And the climbing was actually just a means of trying to keep his head screwed on straight, so he could hang in there on the Bird. Anyway, he wouldn't have to keep the pins in the air now, at least not for the next two months. He had left his business manager, Thurman Taylor, to deal with it, and he now felt free to concentrate on Everest.

d.i.c.k still felt a vague unease when he thought of the thin atmosphere above 22,835 feet-the summit of Aconcagua, which was now his personal best alt.i.tude record. These last few weeks had been so hectic, though, he really hadn't dwelled on it; now, with more time, he again felt that uncertainty, but in typical Ba.s.s fas.h.i.+on pushed it aside, telling himself Everest would be like any other project. Albert Schweitzer had said, "Every start upon an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circ.u.mstances looks sensible and likely to succeed."

If, for d.i.c.k, Everest was an untrodden path, for Frank it was a potential landmine. Following his return from Aconcagua, Frank did begin to realize somewhat how far it was he had to go if he were to have any success at all on the Seven Summits. Although it wouldn't be until much later when he would look back with more experienced eyes that he would see he really had no hope of ever climbing Aconcagua on that first attempt, he was sensing there was only the remotest chance he could get up Everest. But he was committed to performing much better than he had on Aconcagua, to carry as many loads to the highest camps as possible. In the few weeks between Aconcagua and departure to China he had upped his exercise regimen to two hours a day.

The train sped into the night, and the darkness outside shrank their world to the eight-by-twelve confines of their sleeper. The train pa.s.sage from Peking to Chengdu was more indulgence than necessity, as the team could have as easily flown, but everyone had felt it would be fun to see the countryside. Frank was surprised to find himself enjoying the ride; normally he would have lacked patience for a gratuitous two-day extension to a schedule.

Frank was also enjoying the camaraderie of this relaxed interlude and the talks with d.i.c.k and the others. Here was Marty Hoey, stopping by their stateroom for a chat. Frank was impressed by Marty's ability to always be one of the guys yet at the same time always be the lady on the team. She had a smile that matched the pretty features of her oval face, yet she could just as quickly raise her left eyebrow with an authoritative skepticism. She could move with grace and femininity, yet her shoulders were strong and her legs powerful. On a climb she would move her feet with firm placement and plant her ice axe with precision. Yet also on a climb she would be careful to have her hair always under a freshly laundered scarf, and a pendant from a fine chain around her neck.

Frank considered how this young lady was in position to become the first American woman to climb Everest, and later with him and d.i.c.k, she might also become the first woman to climb the Seven Summits. Frank's mind went back to a visit Marty had made to L.A. just before they had left for Aconcagua, and to a morning when she accompanied him on his run up Mulholland. Frank was determined to show he was getting in shape, and set the fastest pace he dared up the hill. She stayed with him, but he had the impression she did so only out of courtesy. On each curve Marty took the outside, chiding Frank to do the same: a fast car on a blind curve might not have time to swing wide. That was like Marty, always cautious, always planning the safe strategy, always being the guide. Near the top she could no longer restrain herself, and breaking to a near-sprint had dashed the last quarter mile, then waited politely for Frank to catch up.

It was late afternoon on the second day when the train descended from the steep hills to the rich riceland basin of Central Szechwan, and nightfall when they pulled into Chengdu station. They were escorted to the Jin Jiang Hotel, seven high-ceilinged stories reminiscent of the austere architecture they had seen in Russia. Probably the place had been built in the fifties, when Soviet influence yet prevailed. Two days later they were again reminded of the old geopolitics when they boarded a vintage Russian Ilyus.h.i.+n turboprop for the four-hour flight to Lhasa.

The eastern margin of the high Tibetan Plateau rises abruptly a short distance out of Chengdu and on occasional clear days rice farmers in their paddies can see in the distance the s.h.i.+mmering snows of a peak called Minya Konka, rising to over 24,000 feet elevation. Through the plane's window the team spotted this precipitous peak -first climbed in 1932 by an intrepid team of young Harvard students-looking like a shark's fin cutting the rarefied atmosphere. Beyond Minya Konka lay a sea of summits quite beyond anything they had seen before. In the compressed folds of the peaks lay the valley headwaters of four of the world's great rivers: the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtze. Below their wings were unknown regions, peaks even the Chinese knew little or nothing about.

They landed outside Lhasa and drove into town in a microbus provided by the Chinese Mountaineering a.s.sociation. Their hosts put them in a recently finished tourist guest house, and in a way it again reminded Frank of Russia where so many things were half-finished: here were fixtures for hot water but no hot water, flush toilets that didn't flush. Unlike Russia, however, these accommodations came with a high price.

When the Chinese first opened their mountains to foreign climbers, in 1979, there was much speculation why they had so suddenly reversed their long xenophobia. Perhaps it was a political move, an extension of the thaw that started with the invitation of the U.S. Ping-Pong team. When the first American expeditions returned from their climbs in 1980, however, it was apparent the Chinese had their sights on something else: foreign currency.

Unable to resist a mischievous jab, Frank cornered the liaison officer appointed to accompany the team to base camp. "When we were in Russia last year," he said, "we had two weeks with all hotels, buses, airfare, food, and two guides, for eight hundred dollars apiece. You guys charge eight thousand, maybe more."

Actually Frank didn't care if the Chinese were overcharging. He found it more interesting than annoying, and what he was really trying to do was get the liaison officer into a conversation on his favorite subject, politics.

Frank also thought the accommodations were adequate. It wasn't the Ritz, but then two months in tents strung up and down Everest wasn't going to be, either. He and d.i.c.k unpacked, then visited the others before turning in. Tomorrow they would have time to tour Lhasa, then the following day load into a minibus and start the four-day drive toward Everest base camp.

One of Marty's roommates had his ca.s.sette machine playing a forties tune.

"My kind of dancing music," d.i.c.k said.

"Wish I knew how to dance to this," Marty replied.

"Well, I can teach you."

d.i.c.k, who felt confident in his ability to lead even the shyest woman on the dance floor, was glad for the opportunity to reverse the teacher student roles with Marty. Soon he and Marty were fox-trotting on the worn carpet floor of this Lhasa cottage. But, like a little girl, Marty kept saying she couldn't do it, and he was tempted to repeat back to her what she had put on him whenever he said he didn't have time to train: "No excuses, Ba.s.s. Your friends don't need any, and your enemies won't believe them." It was interesting, this trait she had of alternating between helpless maiden and pile-driving martinette. He recalled seeing her in a dress for the first time at a party at s...o...b..rd and how feminine she looked. "Gosh, Marty, I've never seen you in a dress before," he told her. Marty replied, "I love dresses, Ba.s.s, but I can't afford them because you pay such paltry wages." Then d.i.c.k thought how next day she went back to her jeans, back to the mountain, back to being a real take-charge leader, demanding of the personnel who worked under her their best performance, and also feeling for them a responsibility, making sure when the season slowed they were the last to get laid off.

That was Marty: one minute acting like a helpless little girl, the next "wearing the pants" like a superconfident leader. Now she literally had pants on again, but he noticed she also wore the earrings he had bought for her in Chile, after Aconcagua. He had been in a jewelry store getting a gift for his wife, and Marty had happened in and was admiring the earrings but said she couldn't afford them. So when Marty left d.i.c.k had bought them and later surprised her. Now, as he taught her the basic fox-trot in that spartan room high on the Tibetan Plateau, he noticed she had them on, those simple but elegant lapis lazuli earrings.

They were seventeen climbers and six tons of food and equipment, and it took a minibus followed by a caravan of bulbous fendered Chinese flatbeds to move them across the Tibetan Plateau. In places the road crossed rocky streambeds and they had to get out and help push the trucks through. On the fourth day, they crossed a pa.s.s and had their first close look at the mountain they had traveled half the world to climb.

Even at thirty miles the great summit dominated the skyline; on this north side the sweep of its pyramid was un.o.bstructed, rising white and black, snow and rock. From the top the emblematic plume boiled to leeward a mile or more, like a banner off the lance of a royal knight: it marked the great alt.i.tude where the summit punctured the jet stream.

The climbers yelled to the truck driver to stop. They stared at the mountain in silence. It was a couple of minutes before anyone spoke.

"The Great Couloir looks straightforward but it might be a tricky exit."

"I bet we can get it with five camps. Top one about twenty-six five, then go for it."

"Long summit day, though."