Seven Summits (37 page)

As planned, the next morning Susan's friend Dave Munson readied the dogs for the trip back to the airstrip. He would take them home while Susan stayed to finish the climb. She gave each of the dogs a big hug.

“Stay out of trouble until I get home,” she chided them.

“And you stay out of trouble too,” Ershler told Munson. “If that big crevasse looks too gnarly, wait until someone comes along to rope you over.”

With the dogs gone the camp suddenly seemed deserted. Ershler broke the silence, “Let's get on with the day's work.”

That would be shuttling loads to the next campsite, at 12,700 feet. To get there they followed a moderate-angled gully alongside the West Buttress, and as they were now off the relatively flat glacier it was best to abandon the man-haul sleds and, still wearing skis, carry all of the gear on their backs. After reaching the campsite, they cached their loads, then clamped the heel locks on their ski bindings for the downhill run back to the 11,200-foot camp.

“It's June twenty-third and look at this snow!” Dick yelled as he stopped halfway down. He let out a Tarzan call, then made a series of parallel turns the rest of the way to camp. Next day they moved up to occupy the 12,700-foot camp. The weather was clear, and Dick wore only his long john underwear, leaving his wind suit in his pack.

“Wells,” he said, “at this rate we'll be on top in a week.”

“Home for the Fourth of July.”

As usual, Dick had an abundance of personal gear, and his pack was so heavy—around sixty pounds—that he started to fall behind even Frank. The wind began to fill, and with them still a half hour away from camp, it was blowing twenty miles an hour. Dick was getting cold quickly, but he was now close enough that he didn't want to stop his rhythm and take off his backpack to get his windsuit on. Airborne spindrift plastered on his underwear making him look like a frosted Christmas ornament. It was a repeat of the day he went to the South Col, little more than a month before, when he had started out dressed for a fair day only to be freezing by the time he reached camp—but then he at least had on his windsuit.

Ahead he could see the others setting up tents. He was shivering and worried about frostbite, not on his feet or hands but, because he had only the one layer of underwear, he had lost all feeling on the end of his “dinkie,” as he called it.

“It's going to freeze and fall off for sure,” he muttered.

He tried to move quickly, but the weight of the pack kept him to a snail's pace. He walked in a penguin waddle, with his gloved hand like a fig leaf over his privates. Twenty-five yards ahead he could see Frank sitting on his pack—fully dressed for the cold weather— eating a candy bar. Susan was pitching a tent, and the others were busy constructing camp.

As he reached the edge of camp Frank looked up and said, “What's wrong Dick? Have to pee?”

“Pancho, the wind's going right through this underwear. I’m afraid my dinkie is frostbitten.”

“Bass,” Susan spoke up with a wide grin, “what are you looking for—a blow job?”

When he could finally get a word between everyone's guffawing all he could say was, “And when we started this trip I was concerned that you might be one of those prudish New England types.”

“Too many years in Alaska, I guess,” Susan said.

Still laughing Dick crawled in his tent to examine himself but was relieved there was no apparent damage.

In the morning Ershler explained the next stage of the ascent.

“We climb up and out of this gully, then around Windy Corner and into the basin at 14,000. The campsite is on a wide flat at the base of the summit pyramid.”

The following day was clear, and although there was no indication Windy Corner would live up to its name, Dick nevertheless opted to wear his wind suit. Everyone continued on skis, zigzagging up the thirty-five-degree slope, kick-turning at each switchback. Frank had never done this kind of ski mountaineering, and now he was toppling every dozen yards. He didn't complain, though, nor did he suggest he carry any less than the others. He might not have been willing to do his share of cooking, but he was determined to do his share of load hauling.

When they reached the basin at 14,000 feet they cached their loads and skied down, returning next morning with the rest of their gear. Rounding Windy Corner they climbed into a stiff headwind, with building clouds portending storm. Pitching their tents in the wide, flat basin, they cut snow blocks to build windbreaks. The all-female team arrived, and Dick invited them to set up their tents alongside but they moved on a hundred yards to the site of several snow caves dug by some previous group.

“They act like we've got B.O. or something,” Dick said.

It was snowing by the time they had the tents up and stoves started. They crawled in one of the tents to eat, and the steaming water had the inside warmed to a comfortable room temperature.

“I don't know about this younger generation,” Dick said to the others. “Here we are with a whole expedition of pretty girls down the way and you guys sitting here with us old bucks sipping tea. If I was young I know where I’d be.”

The tent was warm inside, and there was that warm feeling that comes from sharing stories with your buddies. Outside the wind had let up, and it was quiet. If they listened carefully they could just hear the big snowflakes on the fly tent as they landed and then gently slid off to the snowbank growing around the base as the storm settled in.

For three days it snowed, and finally on the fourth it cleared.

“Too much avalanche danger to move up,” Ershler warned. “We'll wait and see how it looks tomorrow.”

Next morning Ershler judged it safe to move.

“We'll carry a load to the 17,200-foot camp, come back down here, then move up and occupy the camp tomorrow.”

Remnant clouds from the storm hung above the slope as they climbed out of the basin, following a fixed rope placed by some earlier party. The slope rose nearly 2,000 feet above the basin, although in the persistent clouds their view was obscured. It was the wearisome task now so familiar to Frank and Dick, the placing of one foot before the other in the rest-step fashion, the sliding forward of the jumar, the heavy, rhythmic breathing. Toward midday they could glimpse the crest of the ridge through the clouds. Frank decided to make it his goal.

Soon one of the climbers disappeared over the crest, then reappeared and yelled down, “Wait till you see this view.” Frank was puzzled, as all he could see was more clouds, but when he reached the crest he discovered why the others were so excited. For some reason the ridge was the dividing line between good weather and bad, and all of a sudden the world opened and it seemed he could see across the breadth of Alaska. In front of him the great white sweep of the northern glaciers flowed to the foothills, and through clear air he could see 14,000 feet below the tongues of white ice spilling onto the vast carpets of green forest that then extended to the horizon. He stared and felt the warm Arctic sun glow on his face, giving his skin a soft orange complexion.

He stared as though the scene were a physical addiction he couldn't turn away from. And as he stared, his thoughts became reflective. He thought how most of his friends and acquaintances back home, the people he knew in Los Angeles and New York in the movie business, would pass their lives never knowing that scenes like this even exist in the world. It made him a little sad to realize, but at the same time all the more pleased he had decided to take the year out of his life to discover such things himself.

They continued up a snow-and-rock ridge to the campsite at 17,200, cached their load and returned to the lower camp. The next morning they moved back up to occupy the camp. Residual clouds clung to the basin, giving the feel that the weather was still unstable. But now they were at least above that basin, above the ridges and faces that until then had always enclosed them. Now for the first time on the climb they were following a ridge crest so that there was nothing surrounding them, and the only thing higher was the goal ahead, the summit. There was exhilaration, a feeling of being near the summit-day push, a feeling of being above human barriers, being free to go for it.

The ridge ended at a wide bench with a backdrop slope leading toward the summit. This was their high camp. Dick had fallen behind Ershler and a couple of the others, but ahead he could see another party camped in the middle of the flat. He guessed they were the guided party they had heard about, and went over to introduce himself.

“Say, you all haven't seen the rest of my group, have you?” Dick asked.

“They went that way.”

Dick walked across the flat until he spotted Ershler and the others. They were below the lip of the flat.

“What are you doing down here?”

“This is out of the wind.”

“But when I climbed this mountain before we camped back up there, where the other group is.”

“Guess they don't know what they're doing.”

Dick shrugged his shoulders; it didn't matter that much to him. But when they got the tents set up Ershler walked back toward the other group, and soon returned with the news he had found a snowcave perfect for a kitchen. Now Dick was upset. He grabbed his cup and spoon and walked fifty yards uphill to the “kitchen,” knowing each time they had a meal he was going to have to repeat the hike. Dick knew he shouldn't let some small thing like that bother him, but at the same time he couldn't help it. It was an example of how high altitude and cold weather can cause someone to lose patience.

It snowed through the short night, and in the morning it was obvious they would have to wait for better weather. By McKinley's standards it wasn't cold, never much below zero, and the snowfall wasn't heavy, either, but it was like a head cold that wouldn't go away, that was just bad enough to keep you bedridden.

“It'll be a close call whether we get home for the Fourth,” Frank said.

Through the day, as the snow continued, Dick kept reminding himself that since he already had climbed McKinley two years before he was going through all this just to climb the Seven Summits within a year. And even that was out the window now that they had missed Everest.

“What's got me worried is the food,” Frank said. “We've got maybe two days’ rations. There's another two days down at fourteen, and maybe two more at eleven, but we'd eat that much bringing it up to here.”

“Yeah, Pancho, and here we are two grown men able to afford the best hotels and restaurants in the world, and we're sitting up on a snowheap in the middle of Alaska freezing our buns off, eating food unfit for convicts. Sometimes I think I need my head examined.”

“There's no way we can
not
climb this mountain,” Frank said, ignoring Dick. “If this storm continues I’ll have to think of something.”

Next day the snow continued.

“How about a helicopter,” Frank said to Ershler. “We'll have a load of groceries delivered from Talkeetna.”

“You can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“It's the ethics. You might as well have the chopper take you to the summit.”

The third day the snow continued. They were on their last day's rations, and if it didn't clear in the morning they would have no choice but to descend.

“Even if it's clear tomorrow,” Ershler said, “We may have to wait a day for the slopes to slough.”

With the other two guides Ershler decided to climb a short distance above camp, to judge the snow conditions at the base of one slope he was particularly worried about. While they were gone Frank lay in his sleeping bag considering options. Maybe there was someone below who had more food than they needed. Maybe there was a food cache somewhere that someone had left behind. Maybe he would ignore Ershler and get a helicopter anyway.

Maybe none of these things would work out, the storm would continue, and they would fail.

He hated the thought but had to acknowledge the possibility. Failing on Everest had been disappointing, but really not a surprise; actually he was pleased to have done as well as he had. Everest notwithstanding, the Seven Summits would still be a great success … if they managed to get to Antarctica … if they managed to get to the top of McKinley … if, if, if.

While Frank mulled over these thoughts, Dick lay in his bag reading his
Complete Works of Robert Service.
Despite the grim logistics of their circumstance Dick's mood was improving. First, he had told himself there was no sense fretting about their food shortage because he knew if there was anything to be done about it, Ershler and Frank would figure it out. Second, he had realized that feeling sorry for himself only made things worse. So he had looked around for something positive to do, and had landed on the idea of re-reading Service cover to cover, and rating each poem one to four stars. Now in the middle of that project he was reasonably content.

Ershler returned and said the snow was deep but apparently not layered. If it cleared in the morning it might be safe to make a last-ditch effort.

“It'll be hard work postholing in that soft snow, but there's no other way,” he said.

That evening it didn't take long to make dinner, as all they had were a few candy bars. When everyone finished Susan said, “For breakfast we've got one packet of soup and one packet of cocoa each. That ought to get us to the top.”

Frank and Dick were asleep when Ershler called from the neighboring tent.

“We haven't got all day. Let's get going.”

Dick opened the tent door and looked out. In the morning half-light he could see to the west the summit of Mount Foraker eye-level with their position. There were a few clouds hanging round it, and above, at extremely high altitudes, a few thin wisps. It was definitely clear enough to climb.

“Let's get this mother behind us,” Dick said excitedly to Frank as he started to get dressed.

With only their one packet of soup and cocoa, they didn't have to be concerned about lingering too long over breakfast, especially with the temperature several degrees below zero. In the cold shadows they left camp and began the slow plod up the slope toward Denali Pass. In line ahead of them were the eight climbers from the guided expedition. It was quite a procession, like those old black and white photos of gold rush miners struggling through the deep snows of the Chilkoot Pass on their way to the Yukon.