The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 (27 page)

The World’s Highest Graveyard

Dudley Wolfe’s plaque on the Gilkey Memorial.
(Jennifer Jordan / Jeff Rhoads)

S
ixty-three years after he was left to die on the mountain, Dudley Francis Wolfe was finally put to rest at its base. It was a far cry from his beloved rocky coast of Maine or the mountains above Zermatt, but at least he had finally made it down off the mountain.

After our discovery of his skeletal remains, Jeff and I all but ran back to base camp, pulled out the satellite phone, and called Charlie Houston in Vermont.

“Jennifer! Tell me, how is my beautiful K2?”

“Well, it’s a different place than when you were here, Charlie. Now it’s littered with a lot of expedition garbage, and with those who have died.”

I chose my words carefully, painfully aware that the body of Art Gilkey, his 1953 teammate, had only recently been found.
^*

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said after a pause, his voice thick with emotion. “I hate to think of K2 that way; when we were there it was pristine and spectacular.”

“It’s still spectacular, it’s just rather depressing. That’s why I called,” I said, eager to tell him my news. “Charlie, we found Dudley Wolfe. Well, we found his remains.”

Silence greeted my announcement. I allowed my dear friend time to absorb the news.

“Dudley Wolfe. My God, I haven’t thought of him in decades. Where did you find him?”

“On the glacier, about a mile southwest of base camp, almost all the way across the glacier toward Broad Peak.”

“It’s good he can finally be put to rest.” I could hear tears in his voice.

I
N THE TRADITION
of mountain burials, we hammered a plaque from a tin dinner plate we found in Dudley’s wreckage and fastened it to the memorial that, in 2002, held the names of fifty-two lost climbers.
^*
On it we put the words: “Dudley Wolfe—The first man to die on K2, but not the last.”

I
N RESEARCHING
this book, I spent years gathering Dudley’s letters, photos, and memorabilia. During this time I had many pleasant conversations and emails with his nephew, Dudley F. Rochester, a retired pulmonary specialist living in Virginia. In one of our exchanges he told me that he had attended an American Lung Association conference in Estes Park, Colorado. At dinner, the conversation turned to high-altitude medicine, given that most of the doctors at the table were struggling with the elevation, having flown in from sea level to the meeting at 7,600 feet. Someone brought up K2, and that it was becoming the deadliest Himalayan peak, and Dr. Dudley Rochester offered, “My uncle died on K2 in 1939.”

The man to his right slowly turned to face him.

“You’re Dudley Wolfe’s nephew?”

“Yes, I’m Dudley Rochester,” he said, offering the man his hand.

The man looked as if he’d been hit by a hammer. After several moments he took Rochester’s hand.

“I’m Jack Durrance,” he said.

Rochester, knowing very little of the particulars of the expedition, smiled and told Jack he knew who he was and that it was an honor to meet him.

“I barely knew my uncle,” Rochester went on, “but he was always something of a mythical figure in our family, a real adventurer type who just pushed the envelope too far on his last journey.”

Durrance seemed to bristle.

“Your uncle died because he was fat and clumsy,” Jack said sharply. “He had no business being up there.”

Rochester thought the comment was a bit odd, but he had no reason to doubt a man who had been there, so he believed it, and years later repeated it to me as his understanding of how his Uncle Dudley had died on K2.

I told him, gently but firmly, that Dudley Wolfe did not die on K2 because he was fat and clumsy, that in fact no one gets to where Dudley did on that mountain without incredible strength, determination, and skill. Did he need help on the ascent? Yes, many climbers do. Did he find the route difficult, demanding, and in parts terrifying? Yes, many climbers do. Was he, at the end of the day, unable to make it down without help? Yes, many climbers are.

No, I told him, Dudley Wolfe died on K2 because he climbed beyond his ability to get back down, and after two months at those extreme altitudes, he needed someone else to help get him down safely. And those who were there were either beyond their capacity or chose not to try.

Either way, Dudley Wolfe died on K2 because he was left there.

If we deserve nothing else, we deserve to be remembered fairly, for our gifts as well as our faults. But Dudley’s written epitaph has been a cartoon of a millionaire out to put his foot on the summit, regardless of the risks. According to his teammates and the expedition’s various chroniclers through the years, he was overconfident, clumsy, fat, slow—the adjectives describe a stereotype, not a man. What is most unfair is that they are almost without exception untrue and unearned.

Dudley Wolfe was a kind, gentle, quiet, unassuming, generous, adventurous soul. His family adored him. His women fell in love with him fast and hard. A loner by nature, he didn’t surround himself with scores of friends and associates, but those he had were close and real. His hard-as-nails ex-wife begged him for reconciliation, writing him the plaintive love letters of a teenage girl. His army buddies wrote fond reminiscences of their wartime adventures in Rome and Paris; his long-lost uncle sent holiday cards and gifts; and his siblings signed their letters “with love, always.”

It was this Dudley Wolfe whom I want history to remember as the first man lost on K2.

I list the following people in no particular order as each was invaluable as I gathered information about people I had never met, altitudes on K2 I had never reached, prep schools I had never attended, armies in which I had never fought, ski areas I had never schussed, and boats I had never built nor sailed. Writing is indeed a collaborative endeavor and I am indebted to each of the following for making this book as comprehensive and accurate as possible.

THE FAMILIES

Dudley F. Rochester, Cynthia Seefahrt, Joanna Durrance, Charis Durrance, John Durrance, Ada Durrance, Stella Durrance, Polly Wiessner, Andy Wiessner, Jeanie Cranmer Clark, Bruce Cranmer, Betty Cranmer, Allen Cranmer, Forrest Cranmer, Holbrook Mahn Cranmer, George M. Sheldon, Susan Sheldon Cercone, John E. Cromwell, Alisa Storrow, Sidney Howard Urquhart, Maggie Howard, Janice Vaughan Smith Snow, Crocker Snow, Jr., and Zaidee Parkinson

THE MOUNTAINEERS

Charlie Houston, Nazir Sabir, Jeff Rhoads, Jed Williamson, Henry Barber, Steve Roper, Ed Webster, Paul Sibley, Conrad Anker, Hector Ponce de Leon, Ted Wilson, Dee Molenaar, Charley Mace, Annie Whitehouse, Sandy Hill, Charlotte Fox, and Paula Quenemoen Bowman.

THE SAILORS

Tom Kiley and Rye Kiley, Jonathan Webber, John Keyes, George Keyes, Ann Montgomery, and the staff of the Camden Yacht Club.

THE FELLOW RESEARCHERS

Dr. Hans Joachim Maitre, Hannah Townsend, and Kasey Morrison.

And those glorious friends and family who provided a warm bed and delicious meal while on the research trail and those who listened patiently to my theories, stories, updates, and frustrations, on the hiking trail, over endless emails and at the kitchen counter: Alice Webber, Muffy Ferro, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Jenny Mackenzie, Ronna Cohen, Becky Hall and Charley Mace, Chub and Nicole Whitten, Marcie Saganov and Susan McClure, Charlotte Fox, Laura and Paul Bruck, Nancy and Charlie Gear, my editor Star Lawrence, my copyeditor Allegra Huston, my agent Jill Kneerim, and always, patiently, and “with love in his heart,” Jeff Rhoads.

UNPUBLISHED DIARIES (each from the family’s private collection)

Fritz Hannes Wiessner, Jack Durrance, George C. Sheldon, Chappell Cranmer, and Alice Damrosch Wolfe.

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS

Dudley Francis Wolfe, Alice Damrosch Wolfe, Clifford Wolfe Smith, Gwendolen Wolfe Sharpe, Mabel Smith Wolfe, Marion Smith, Lucien Wolf, Arthur Wolf, Janice Smith Snow, Fritz Hannes Wiessner, Jack Durrance, George C. Sheldon, Chappell Cranmer, Lt. George Trench, Oliver Eaton Cromwell, Henry Hall, Joel Fisher, Walter Wood, Lawrence Coveney, Robert Underhill, Charles Houston, Robert Bates, William House, Bestor Robinson, Al Lindley, Lincoln O’Brien, Lincoln Washburn, Bradford Washburn, Adams Carter, Dr. Hans Kraus, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Paul Petzoldt, Major Kenneth Hadow, Roger Whitney, Betty Woolsey, Christine Reid, Rosi Briscoe, Dorothy Dunn, Capt. R.N.D. Frier, E. L. Shute, Percy Olton, Lowell Thomas, Pete Schoening, Galen Rowell, Dee Molenaar, Sterling Hendricks, Yvon Chouinard, Nick Clinch, Hank Coulter, Dr. Karl Maria Herrligkoffer, Dick Burdsall, and Hassler Whitney.

LEGAL DEPOSITIONS

Fritz Hannes Wiessner, Jack Durrance, Oliver Eaton Cromwell, Pasang Lama Sherpa, Dawa Sherpa, George C. Sheldon, Chappell Cranmer, and Joel Fisher.

INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE

Charles S. Houston, Gail Bates, Andy Wiessner, Polly Wiessner, Joanna Durrance, Charis Durrance, John Durrance, Jeanie Cranmer Clark, Bruce Cranmer, Forrest Cranmer, Allen Cranmer, Betty Cranmer, Holbrook Mahn, George Sheldon, Susan Sheldon, John E. Cromwell, Bob Craig, Dee Molenaar, Charley Mace, Thomas Hornbein, William Putnam, Bernadette McDonald, Alisa Storrow, Sidney Howard Urquhart, Maggie Howard, Janice Vaughan Smith Snow, Crocker Snow Jr., Zaidee Parkinson, Jed Williamson, Henry Barber, Steve Roper, Ed Webster, Paul Sibley, Conrad Anker, Michael Brown, Ted Wilson, Dr. Peter Hackett, Dr. Colin Grissom Dr. Paul Rock, Dr. Louis Reichardt, Dr. Lorna Moore, Dr. Erik Swenson, and the high altitude research team at NASA.

AMERICAN ALPINE CLUB ARCHIVES

Andrew Kauffman Files, Henry Hall files, the 1938, 1939, and 1953 American K2 Expedition files and with the invaluable assistance of the AAC Library’s Beth Heller and Gary Landek.

ALUMNI, HISTORICAL, AND PROFESSIONAL SOURCES

Robert Glatz, Harvard Varsity Club

Barry Kane and Pat Dyer, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Andrea Bartelstein, Dartmouth College

Suzy Akin, Hackley School, New York

Charlene Swanson, Pomfret Academy, Connecticut

Ruth Quattelbaum and Tim Sprattler, Phillips (Andover) Academy, Massachusetts

Jennifer Neuner, Manlius Pebble Hill School (formerly St. John’s School at Manlius)

Todd Knowles, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City

Jack Driscoll and Bob Dunn, New England Ski Museum, Franconia, New Hampshire

Gunnar Berg, Institute for Jewish Research, New York

Flora Rodriguez, New York Junior League

Michael Kennedy,
Alpinist
magazine

Matt Samat,
Climbing
magazine

Niels Helleberg, Alden Boat Designs

Dave Graham, Corinthian Yacht Club, Marblehead, Massachusetts

Morten Lund,
Ski
magazine

Ted Hennes, Knollwood Country Club, Elmsford, New York

Union Boat Club, New York

Cannell, Payne and Page, Yacht Builders, Camden, Maine

Diane Shoutis, National Outdoor Leadership School

David Little, historian, 10th Mountain Division Resource Center, Denver

Adriane Hanson, Princeton University Archives

BOOKS

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Curran, Jim.
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Curran, Jim.
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Finletter, Gretchen Damrosch.
From the Top of the Stairs
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Fuess, Claude M.
Phillips Academy, Andover, in the Great War
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Hall, Lincoln.
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. Adelaide: Random House, 2007.

Hornbein, Thomas F., and Robert B. Schoene, eds.
High Altitude: An Exploration of Human Adaptation
. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2001.

Houston, Charles S.
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. 4th edn. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987.

Houston, Charles S.
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. 5th edn. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2005.

Houston, Charles S.
High Altitude, Illness and Wellness: The Prevention of a Killer
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Houston, Charles, Robert Bates, et al.
Five Miles High
. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1939.

Houston, Charles S., MD, Robert Bates, et al.
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Houston, Charles S., John R. Sutton, and Geoffrey Coates, eds.
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Lawrence, Ruth.
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ARTICLES, PAMPHLETS, AND PAPERS

“Interview with Fritz Wiessner.”
Ascent
1, no. 3 (May 1969): 15–19.

Cranmer, Chappell, and Fritz Wiessner. “The Second American Expedition to K2.”
American Alpine Journal
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Cromwell, Eaton. “Spring Skiing in the Vale of Kashmir.”
Appalachia
23, no. 2 (1940).

Dietz, Thomas. “Altitude Tutorial.” International Society for Mountain Medicine, 2001. www.ismmed.org/np_altitude_tutorial.htm.

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American Journal of Physiology
115 (April 1936): 538–8.

Edwards, H. T. “Lactic Acid in Rest and Work at High Altitude.”
American Journal of Physiology
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Grocott, M., et al. “Arterial Blood Gases and Oxygen Content in Climbers on Mount Everest.”
New England Journal of Medicine
360:140 (2009). Houston, Charles S. “The Effect of Pulmonary Ventilation on Anoxemia.”
American Journal of Physiology
146 (1946): 613–21.

Houston, Charles S., and Richard Riley. “Respiratory and Circulatory Changes During Acclimatization to High Altitude.”
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Pugh, L. G. “Physiological and Medical Aspects of the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition, 1960–1961.”
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Wiessner, Fritz. “The K2 Expedition of 1939.” Translated from the original German.
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