Seven Summits (12 page)

Over the radio Whittaker told everyone to take the day off, and Dick and Frank descended with Wickwire to camp 2. Some of the others climbed over to the base of the North Wall to see if they could spot anything. There was no sign, and it was felt that Marty had probably disappeared into the heavily crevassed area that separated the wall from the glacier. In the camps there was quiet mourning. Nearly everyone on the team had worked with Marty for years, and to some she was a best friend.

There was some talk of what to do regarding the expedition, and everybody was agreed that the next day they would resume the climb. They were now in position to make the first summit bid, and they knew Marty would have been upset had they passed on such a chance, especially after working so hard. But of more immediate concern was how best to get word to Marty's parents. Marty's mother—the Mayor, they called her—had already lost two of her kids, and now her third and last. They knew she would, of course, want whatever possessions Marty had left, so Dick and some others circulated around camp and collected them. There wasn't much, as Marty didn't cotton to material possessions, owning only what she needed. There was something, though, that Dick looked for in particular. Something he couldn't find. And that was good, because it meant she had them with her when she fell, and that's the way Dick wanted it. She had to be wearing those lapis earrings.

5

EARTHBOUND

T
he day after Marty's death Larry Nielson, who after the accident had stayed at camp 5, was joined by two others of the lead climbers and together they made the first attempt to reach the summit. They climbed from camp 5 back up to their previous high point at camp 6, 26,500 feet. The next day they awoke early to make preparations to leave for the summit, but it was so cold they feared a predawn start would end in certain frostbite. Worse, their oxygen cylinders showed 25 percent less pressure than they should have, and without a full charge they decided it made more sense to leave the heavy bottles behind.

So at the late hour of 7:00 A.M. the three set out. Even without oxygen Nielson kept a good pace. One of the other climbers, Eric Simonson, however, had an injured knee and couldn't keep up, so the second man, Geo Dunn, stayed with him while Nielson continued solo.

Climbing without a rope, he made steady progress. As he got higher, though, he found the climbing increasingly steep and difficult. At one place he was forced to remove his mittens so he could grip the rock, and it only took a few seconds before he felt his fingers start to freeze. He realized his only chance of success was if the climbing difficulties higher above would ease. But soon he encountered a section in the rock band that was near-vertical.

This would require careful consideration. He glanced down the steep North Wall below his feet.

He thought, It's a one-bouncer if I slip.

That was an estimate of how many times he might bounce before hitting bottom. A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but a good reminder that without a rope any fall was fatal.

He sat on a small ledge to think it out. Was it worth the risk? He looked at his fingers: they were already frozen. Continuing would result in almost certain amputation. And if he did manage to get to the summit, would he be able to get back down?

Still, he was now at about 27,500 feet, and he might never again get the chance. This was the summit of his dreams, the peak he wanted more than any.

He sat for thirty minutes weighing both sides.

Finally he decided this was not to be the day he climbed Everest. He stood up, and started down.

During the summit bid Frank and Dick continued to carry loads to the intermediate camps. Frank was now fully recovered from his sickness, and knowing he had no chance of reaching even high camp, he set himself a new goal. He would be content if he could get as high as camp 4.

Lou Whittaker had promised Frank he would take him up, but now Frank sensed Whittaker wasn't interested in going back up the mountain, so Frank enlisted world-class mountaineer, and chief guide on Rainier, Phil Ershler.

“I would suggest one thing, though,” Ershler told Frank, “and that's not to worry about carrying a load to camp 4, but go light.”

To Frank, accustomed as he was by now to heavy packs, the near-empty pack felt weightless and he made good time up the fixed ropes.

This was not only the steepest slope Frank had ever been on but the biggest. The wall fell away below him 4,000 feet to the glacier; by now Frank had been on enough lesser slopes that the exposure didn't bother him, and, in fact, he found the bird's-eye view exhilarating. He managed to keep up with Ershler too, who was pleasantly surprised and told Frank he was climbing strongly, adding to Frank's growing confidence.

From camp 3 they reached the edge of camp 4 by noon, two tents perched on small platforms cut into the steep snow face. Wickwire was in camp and greeted them. Ershler unclipped from the fixed rope, and with a sigh of relief pulled off his pack and sat down. Frank made the last few moves up the rope and onto the platform, then following Ershler's lead unclipped his jumar.

Frank was lackadaisical taking his pack off. Wickwire had noticed that Frank sometimes had a tendency to get a little sloppy once he thought he was out of danger, or past the point that demanded vigilance. Wickwire was just about to say something when suddenly Frank started slipping toward the edge.

“Frank …!”

Wickwire judged in a flash he was too far to make a lunge to catch Frank. His breath held in his throat as he watched, and his mind quickly played the scenario, so much like what had happened to Marty: the uncontrolled slide, the lightning-fast acceleration, then over the edge, into the abyss, still gaining speed, tumbling, tumbling …

Just as suddenly as it had started Frank crabbed his hands into the snow and his crampons bit the surface. He stopped.

For a moment no one said anything. Then Wickwire, trying to find his voice, said, “Don't ever, ever unclip from that rope until you know without any doubt you have both feet planted firmly on the surface.”

Frank said he understood but Wickwire wasn't sure he fully realized how close he had come. After they had rested, Ershler scrutinized Frank as he connected his descending ring to the fixed rope and began the rappel back to camp 3.

As he slid down the rope Frank was no longer thinking of his near mishap. Now his feet were moving effortlessly one before the other as he hopped down the slope. He gazed across the valley, past the glacier to distant peaks, feeling as though he were flying. It was another mark of his inexperience that he wasn't in any way shaken, that even in the wake of Marty's death he hadn't registered the fine line you balance on while climbing, the ease with which the guard that keeps that balance can let down, and the speed in which you can be one moment at complete ease enjoying the view and the next saying to yourself, just as you gather speed, “No, no, this isn't really happening to me, is it?”

If Frank hadn't realized how close he had come to crossing over that fine line himself, soon he was reminded how real the danger was when more bad news arrived, this time from a different direction.

Chris Bonington, the English climber whose small expedition had been working valiantly to establish a new route on the neighboring northeast ridge of Everest, unexpectedly showed up in camp with one of his team members. It took only a glance at his face to know something was wrong.

“Pete and Joe,” Bonington said, referring to Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, two members of his team who were Himalayan veterans and considered among the best high altitude mountaineers anywhere. They were also two of his closest friends.

“We last saw them through our scope at about 27,000 feet,” Bonington explained, “climbing behind a pinnacle. It was close to nightfall, and next morning there was no sign of them. We've been looking for several days now. I was hoping they somehow might have come down this way. But then that wasn't a very real hope, was it?”

Tears then came to Bonington's eyes. Combined with Marty's death, it was for Frank and Dick a very sobering introduction to Himalayan climbing. But if they had now seen in a tragically intimate way just how dangerous this game of high altitude climbing really was, they also witnessed how tenacious its players were. Nielson's failure notwithstanding, Wickwire and two more lead climbers headed back up for another summit attempt. But this time they only got to 24,500 feet when a heavy storm turned them back. It appeared the monsoon had arrived, and everyone agreed that in the face of it there was no real hope of reaching the summit. Whittaker announced the expedition was over.

Before leaving base camp at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier the team erected a stone cairn in memory of Marty, and gathering around it they paid their last respects.

Dick wanted to say a eulogy that was distilled and concise, like a poem.

And that gave him an idea. He recalled that last stanza of Lasca, the one Marty had asked him to repeat. If he could just substitute a few words, he prayed he could find a way to convey his own emotions. When it came his turn, he spoke briefly of Marty's meaning to Snowbird, and then finished with

“And I wonder why I do not care

For the summits that are like the summits that were.

Does half my climbing heart lie forever afar

By Everest's North Face, below the Great Couloir.”

As Dick finished, residual clouds from the latest storm cleared from the summit of Everest, while here and there shafts of sunlight through the scattering clouds spotlighted the glacier and the huge fluted snow faces.

It was a place of incomparable beauty, but at the moment Frank and Dick had to question whether it was a place they ever wanted to return to.

Dick had just said that the summits that are (ahead) would never quite be like the summits that were (behind). Should he and Frank, then, continue to pursue their Seven Summits dream? Or was it hopelessly, foolishly, quixotic?

Following Marty's accident, they both had agreed not to make a decision until they had returned home. But already, despite the melancholy cast by Marty's death, both of them were toting up a positive and negative balance for the expedition's ledger.

For Frank, he would always remember the previous day when he walked by himself from advanced base camp down to base camp, along the eastern margin of the glacier. His only company was the ice towers standing on the glacier like a legion of silent sentinels; the only sound the occasional rattle of a falling rock loosened by the otherwise imperceptible downward creep of the glacial ice. His senses were honed by the weeks of living on the razor's edge. He felt his muscles work without complaining, and he was proud of his lean body, hardened and conditioned more than at any time in his adult life.

It was a day that was reason enough for wanting to come back.

But what about the danger? If it could happen to Marty, it could certainly happen to either of them. They told themselves that Marty's accident had been a human error and that proper vigilance on their part would prevent such a thing happening again. Even acknowledging that mistakes do happen, even acknowledging there was always the risk it could happen to them—as it almost had to Frank only a few days before—it was a risk they still felt was sufficiently remote that it weighed lightly against both the adventure of the life they had led these last three months, and the thought that perhaps, if they tried again, they might just have a chance at reaching the top. Especially if they could get on an expedition going up the easier South Col route.

They had told each other they would wait until they got home, but before reaching Peking they began to talk it over.

“I know that Marty would have wanted us to have a go at it,” Dick pointed out. “After all, that's part of the mountaineer's credo, to carry on even in the wake of a tragedy. Look at how her fellow guides kept going on this trip, even after the accident. And I know that part of the reason was they knew Marty would've wanted it that way.”

“I’m all for following through,” Frank said. “My only concern is Luanne. In view of the accident, she's going to have a hard time accepting the idea.”

“I guess that's one of the advantages of remarrying when you're fifty,” Dick said. “My wife Marian knew what she was getting into —at least I think she did.”

Actually Marian was no more excited or accepting about mountain climbing than Luanne was. Both women were terrified by the danger and risk, and Marian had decided the best way to cope with it was to distance herself from it. She preferred, then, to stay home and receive news as it came; the less she knew about the expeditions, the less she had to worry about.

Luanne, however, had decided to meet the group in Peking, and Frank knew she would be there when they arrived. So he decided the best strategy was probably to be up-front about his intentions and tell her right off the bat he wanted to go back.

“Darling,” he said when he met her, “it was the saddest thing to lose Marty, more than I can tell you. But it was also the greatest adventure you could imagine, and I know you're not going to like this, and it's hard for you to understand, but we've got to go back, Dick and I, next year.”

Luanne was cool to the idea. But she sensed the depth of Frank's commitment to his dream, and knew that she couldn't say no.

As Frank and Dick returned home, then, they still hadn't made a final pact between them to carry on with their plan, but they both knew in their hearts they were going to do it.

It took only a week after returning from Everest before they had decided to follow through with the Seven Summits. They would divide duties. Frank would organize Kilimanjaro, Antarctica, and Russia; Dick would tackle McKinley, Everest, and Aconcagua. Kosciusko would only require buying airline tickets to Australia.

A few weeks later, though, in July 1982, Dick, in one of his almost daily phone calls to Frank, told him he was having problems.

“Frank, my business manager's telling me if I take off in ‘eighty-three to do all these climbs, Snowbird will fold. Can't we put it off until ‘eighty-four?”