Seven Summits (21 page)
“Dick, the real reason I got you two up here this morning was to give Frank a test,” Ershler confessed. “I know you can handle this okay but I want to see how well Frank does.”
“Well, whatever,” Dick said. “I’m just happy to be getting the experience.”
Ershler didn't want to be unfair, but he still decided to set a good pace. He and Dick hooked into the fixed ropes with their carabiners and stepped out quickly up the trail, which was now well packed around the maze of blocks. It was a brilliantly clear dawn, and Dick paused to gaze across the glacial valley to the cone-shaped summit of Pumori bathed in a pink glow. They crossed the first aluminum ladder, and as Dick stepped on the first rung his crampon spike skated off and he caught his balance on the handline; next step he was careful to place his foot so the spikes straddled the rungs. There was a kind of eerie silence to the Icefall, the only sound the crunch of their boots in the dawn snow and the whistle of their quickened breathing. It was not particularly cold; in fact, dressed in long john underwear, a pile fabric coat, and a windsuit, Dick was almost too warm as he steadily plodded along behind Ershler. They paused to look back and see how Frank and the Sherpas were doing.
“I can't believe it,” Ershler said.
Frank was only a few dozen yards behind. Ershler turned to keep climbing. Thirty minutes later he paused again. Dick was right behind him, and again, a few dozen yards back, there were Frank and the Sherpas. Ershler kept pushing, picking up the pace, only to see, every time he turned, that Frank held his position. Finally Ershler stopped, turned to Dick and shook his head. Frank was still coming on strongly. Ershler noted that he was, as usual, a little awkward, but there was no doubting his determination and there was no doubting he could make it easily through the Icefall in a single day.
“Well, so much for that idea,” Ershler said to Dick. “But now what am I going to do with him?”
CAMP TWO: 21,600 FEET
O
n April 24 Peter Pilafian, the ABC cameraman, and I were on the final day of the walk to base camp. Before arriving we took the one-hour detour to the Kala Patar overlook to shoot an update of the expedition's progress. Holding a mike with the ABC logo on the handle, and the summit of Everest framed over my shoulder, I filed this report:
“The route is now through the notoriously dangerous Khumbu Icefall. It has taken the team nine days, fifty-one ladder sections, seventy-five ice screws, and six thousand feet of rope to fix the passage through the jumble of ice blocks. And today an advance team reached the site of camp two, at 21,600 feet, under the enormous southwest face of Everest. From here, the expedition will now alternate lead teams who will each day climb higher up to Lhotse Face, a four-thousand-foot-high expanse of ice that leads to the South Col, the saddle between Everest and its satellite peak, Lhotse. So far the expedition is on schedule, and if progress continues at this rate, the first team could be in position for a summit attempt in less than two weeks.”
When we arrived in base camp Frank and Dick were out to greet us, and after introductions to those of the team we didn't already know we unpacked and pitched our tent on a platform of flat rocks prepared in advance by the Sherpas. Base camp was positioned in more or less the same locale we had used in 1976; even though the bumps and cracks in the glacial ice change each year, the position of base camp relative to the surrounding peaks remains more or less the same, and because there is always at least one expedition using the campsite each climbing season (before and after the monsoon), base camp has a kind of de facto geographic charter that has put it on several maps spelled with capital letters.
Pilafian and I decided to spend four days in base camp to acclimatize before ascending to camp 2, where we would remain for the rest of the climb. Frank and Dick said they would come up to camp 2 sometime later, after the ropes had been fixed to the South Col (since these ropes would all be fixed by the lead climbers, there wasn't any reason for them to be in camp 2 eating supplies that had to be carried up there).
Those of us on the ABC crew planned to use our time in base camp completing interviews and working on last-minute modifications to our video equipment, including the tiny modified home-type camera and accompanying two-pound microwave transmitter the summit team was to take with them to the top. We had the idea also to take an on-camera tour of base camp, with me pointing out the various tents, introducing the Sherpas, and explaining everyone's jobs. We started at the altar, with its overview of camp.
“There are fifty-one people on this expedition: nine climbers, including Frank Wells and Dick Bass, an expedition leader, a base camp manager, a government liaison officer, a climbing representative of the Nepal Police, twenty-five climbing Sherpas, five Sherpa cooks and their assistants, four cameramen or TV people, and a mail-runner who shuttles between here and the air strip, a four-day hike away. It takes twenty-one tents in base camp to hold everyone, plus a cook tent, two mess tents, and an equipment storage tent.”
We then moved to the equipment storage, a rock-walled enclosure with a plastic sheet roof. Inside were the reels of climbing rope, dozens of aluminum snap links, ice screws, aluminum stakes, and other gear needed to fix ropes on the mountain. There was also the food.
“High altitude often creates a loss of appetite, and correct food can be one of the most important ingredients in a successful Everest expedition. Now this might not sound that appetizing, even at sea level, but some of the things in this tent include fifty pounds of canned salmon and tuna, twenty-five pounds of macaroni and cheese mix, fifty cans of meatballs with sauce, fifty gallons of dried soup mixes, seventy-five pounds of saltine crackers, forty-five pounds of cookies, one hundred pounds of cheese, one hundred fifty pounds of potatoes, two hundred pounds of rice … the list goes on.”
We entered the cook tent—another rock-walled enclosure—to the smell of curry sauce and steaming potatoes, and the head Sherpa cook insisted we sit down and drink tea. He had 3 two-foot-diameter aluminum pots over large kerosene stoves. One pot was used only to melt ice, and in a moment an assistant cookboy maybe twelve years old came in with an iceblock that weighed near what he did lashed to his packframe. A transistor radio was tuned to the abrasive keening of Indian music while at the same time the cook was singing a discordant Sherpa tune. Before we finished tea, two Sherpanis (female Sherpas) showed up. They both had braided black hair, colored aprons, and red cheeks, and giggled when they saw us. They had herded from Namche Bazar two yaks loaded with fresh cabbage and potatoes, and wanted a glass of tea before reversing their journey.
There were two mess tents—one for Sherpas, one for Sahibs— and both had standing headroom. In the Sahib tent there were a dozen small woven bamboo stools along both sides of a table made from butted cardboard boxes, and also two folding aluminum chairs brought from the States. These aluminum chairs were first come/first served, and at the moment Frank had one and was taking his morning in leisure finishing his mountaineering history of Everest. We heard from the nearby cook tent the clanking of an oversize spoon on an empty pot: the lunch bell. In a moment the Sherpa cookboy brought in a pot of steaming curried potatoes.
“It's easy to get used to climbing with these Sherpas,” Frank said, serving himself.
“Easy to get lazy, too,” Dick chided.
“I’m saving myself,” Frank replied. “Last year on the other side of this mountain I carried loads thirty days in a row and look what happened. I got pneumonia. Well, maybe not pneumonia, but it sounds better calling it that. Anyway, I had to go down and recover. And it was all because of that macho thing, everybody having to carry their own weight and the only way I could feel good was trying to prove myself. I’ve learned a lot, Bass. I’ve learned I’m of no use fixing the route through the Icefall or up the Lhotse Face. We'd both just get in the way. So we may as well enjoy ourselves here and wait to go up when things are ready.”
“Well, if it's any consolation, you've definitely converted—or should I say—subverted me. But still, this sittin’ around base camp is no good. We've got to do something.”
“Dick, there's plenty to do. Go practice ice climbing on that serac some more, or hike up Kala Patar. Did you finish that letter you're working on, the one your wife is going to xerox to all your friends and family?”
“No, I’ve been busy on my Snowbird blueprints.”
“See what I mean. You're saying there's nothing to do and you can't even finish the things you've got planned. Dick, you're always this way. Did I ever tell you how David Rockefeller did it? Each December he would gather his family and closest advisers around him and review the year, study his date book, see how he divided his time between running Chase Manhattan, six city boards, five business boards, adviser to the president, and everything else—and then knowing he couldn't do everything at once, plan the next year figuring what he could and could not do. That's what you need, Dick. A plan.”
“I’ve got a plan. I’m planning on getting some exercise. I’m going to go for a hike, Wells, down towards Namche. Visit with some of these trekkers, meet some folks.”
“You can't do that, Dick. That's going the wrong way: we're supposed to gain altitude, not lose it. You've got to gain some respect for this mountain. This is Everest! I’m telling you, people get into trouble up there. It's not that easy.”
“Frank, you're always courting trouble by anticipating it. That's probably from being a lawyer—you're trained to look at all the potential negatives so you can anticipate ways to protect your client. But this is a mountain, not a courtroom. I’m gonna just take the problems as they come. Since there are no problems to deal with for the time being, I’m heading down-valley and have some good leg-stretching and sight-seeing.”
“Dick, you just can't be so cavalier.”
“Sure I can. As soon as they get those ropes in up there, and it's my turn, I’m going to start right up this mountain and not stop till I get to the top.”
The rest of the team were eating their meal, smiling at this latest episode of what everyone was now calling the Frank and Dick Show. The two had spent enough time together on expeditions that they now knew each other like brothers, and as often as brothers they were getting into verbal scrapes. It was always friendly badinage, though, done in a spirit of good fun—although at times Frank was truly exacerbated with Dick's seeming casualness about Everest. Frank realized, though, he had no hope of dissuading Dick from making his down-valley foray. After lunch Dick shouldered his backpack, and with a wave like a pony express rider off into the sunset, he disappeared down the glacier.
“What bugs me most,” Frank said when Dick was gone, “is that he's probably right. He
will
come back here and just march up the mountain to the summit. Doncha’ just love it!”
Base camp seemed subdued with Dick gone. The fifteen Sherpas who that day had each carried forty-pound loads through the Icefall to camp 1 had now returned. Five more Sherpas had gone up to stay in camp 1 to begin shuttling the same forty-pound loads up to camp 2 the next day.
Frank now had his tent to himself, and as everyone usually did, he crawled in shortly after it got dark. Inside there was no headroom—he had to remain seated—but still plenty of space. It is important to be organized when living in such a small space as a tent, and Frank had all his belongings in a series of nylon sacks alongside his sleeping bag. The bag itself was spread atop an inch-thick air mattress that was on another layer of foam rubber: this helped both to cushion the rocks under the tent floor and also— especially when he would be higher, camped on snow—to insulate against cold. Frank stripped to his long-john underwear and crawled in his bag. At first it was cold, but in a few minutes he was cozy.
Across camp occasional laughter came from the Sherpas’ tents: they often stayed awake past nine or ten, telling stories. From behind the cook tent, in the area where the garbage was thrown, two dogs were in a fight: they were the mangy but friendly mutts that had tailed the expedition up to base camp, and everyone had the impression they were in the habit of doing this with every climbing group that came through their village. Then it was quiet until on the moraine behind camp a single rock tumbled, perhaps loosened by some slight shift in the glacial ice.
In the middle of the night Frank woke, pulled on his down booties, and crawled outside to pee. The night sky was cloudless, and a sickle moon left black shadows between the rocks that covered the glacial ice. He was still in his long johns, so as soon as he finished he was quickly back in his bag. There was no wind, no sound in camp, and soon he was back asleep.
He dreamed he was in a tent, high on a mountain, waiting on a storm. The wind was blowing outside, and thunder rolled across the range, getting louder and louder…. He awoke, startled. The thunder was still there, still growing louder. What … ? Then he realized what it was: an avalanche off the west shoulder of Everest! He grabbed the tent door and pulled it open. Below the hanging glacier under the west shoulder he saw the avalanche halfway down the face, approaching the Icefall. It was like an upside-down high-speed cumulus cloud, belching huge white billows as it gained speed. He knew that avalanches off this shoulder have on past expeditions been big enough for the wind-cloud to carry across the glacier and flatten tents at base camp. This one hit the base of the Icefall, and then raced on the flat toward the camp. For a beat he wondered if he should get out and run for a rock to hide behind. Then the roar began to drop, and the billows slowed and then sank back into the now static wind-cloud. It had stopped several hundred yards from camp. He pulled his head back in.
Now he lay awake, pondering the quiet, until on the moraine another lone rock tumbled. Then again the quiet, a silence that his mind began to fill with thoughts of the climb, of his and Dick's chances, and inevitably, of the Icefall, of the towering precarious ice towers that now and again shift and tumble and crush. And then he had the thought everyone on the climb who is scheduled to go through the Icefall has, wondering if up there one of those ice towers already had his name on it.