Seven Summits (47 page)

“Who's there?” It was Dick's voice from inside his tent.

“Me. Rick.”

“Well, tell us.” He poked his head out the tent door.

“I didn't make it. Too weak and dizzy, and my goggles were iced badly. But Chris pulled it off. I saw him on top. He should be down soon.”

I crawled in my sleeping bag, and in an hour heard the telltale squeak of crampons biting hard snow; it's amazing how that sound carries through the snow, especially when you're lying with your ear close to the surface. As Bonington walked into camp we all cheered.

“Fantastic!” Dick said.

“Job well done!” Frank added.

Bonington looked exhausted. We fixed him tea, but there was so much ice in his beard he couldn't get the cup to his mouth, so we had to cut out the chunks with a Swiss Army knife. With the brew in him, he perked up.

“Fabulous view up there, but I was also able to see off toward the Weddell Sea. There are some very sinister-looking clouds moving our way. I think we have no choice but to pack up and get out of here immediately. Down to our bolt hole.”

“What about our next attempt?” Frank asked. “We would have to come all the way back.”

“I’d rather have you do that than risk getting caught here in a big blow. This camp is exposed, man, and if a fierce wind blew these tents apart, you might not be able to find your way down.”

There was silence; then Bonington, a bit reflectively but in dead earnest, added, “This mountaineering is a serious game. Believe me, Frank, I know.”

Once more, I recalled that wind storm I had experienced on the Antarctic Peninsula a few years before, and how our heavy-duty tent had started to rip, and how we were able to collapse it and pile ice blocks on top, then escape to the safety of a hut down on the coast and wait for it to blow over. Here, though, we might not be so lucky.

“I think Chris is right,” I said. “We shouldn't risk it.”

“I don't agree,” Frank said, “but I suppose I’ll have to defer.”

“Well, I’ll just go along with our leaders,” Dick said. “I’m sure we'll still get our chance.”

Frank wasn't so confident. Despite the belief he had come to on Everest that if a climber sticks with it he usually gets more than one shot at a summit, he now sank in a funk believing that after all the months and months of work, after the cost, neither he nor Dick might reach the summit of Vinson, the one achievement that would had added a unique feather to their Seven Summits cap.

Maybe it was a sign of his exhaustion and fatigue that he was unable to lift himself out of his depression. But as we packed up and started downhill Frank was, other than the day Marty died, now at his lowest moment at any time during the Seven Summits expeditions.

By the time we got down to camp 1 it was midnight, and after a quick meal we turned in and didn't wake up until noon the next day. The hurricane winds that Bonington had feared never materialized, but it was still a good feeling to be near the snowcave. The sky was clouded, and it was windy enough up high that it would have been uncomfortable at camp 2. Until things improved, we had to stay put.

After breakfast Frank called a meeting, and right away it was evident that after a good night's sleep he was back to his old positive self:

“I’m sure everyone here would agree,” he said, “that for as long as we have food and fuel we keep trying for the summit. Now, Chris, I know after having already summitted you might not be up for another try, but I would like to make it clear that as soon as this weather clears we would more than welcome you coming back up with us.”

“To be honest,” Bonington replied, “I’m not sure I would have the energy. But I tell you what. We only have about three days’ food left here, and if this storm lasts longer than that you'll need more supplies. What if I were to go down, rest a day, and come back up with more food?”

Everyone heartily agreed to the plan, and a few hours later Bonington descended.

“That clears up whatever black thought I might have had about Bonington,” Frank said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but yesterday up at camp two when he ordered us to go down, I actually wondered if he was doing it so none of the rest of us got to the summit, so he could have all the glory. Obviously, I couldn't have been more off-base.”

Frank realized just how much fatigue and high altitude combined could hamper his ability to judge people and situations, and he remained chagrined he could have held such a dark thought about Bonington.

We spent the rest of the day sitting in the tent, tearing apart our only paperback novel and passing it around in installments. Dick kept himself busy with his poetry and Snowbird blueprints.

Though we had now been on Vinson a week we were still not used to the perpetual daylight, and it remained an odd feeling to go to sleep with light and wake up with light. It was about 10:00
P.M
. when we dozed off on the twenty-fourth, and noon on the twenty-fifth when we finally awoke. The weather looked about the same, and we passed the next twelve hours sitting in the tent swapping stories until finally, around midnight, we got drowsy enough once more to go to sleep.

It was nearly noon again the next day when we awoke, and now the clouds were thinning, and up higher it looked like the wind was dying.

“Let's wait awhile and make sure it's a solid spell,” Frank said.

“We might as well wait until about three
A.M
. or so,” Dick added. “That way we would be making most of the climb during the highest sun.

Even with the twenty-four-hour daylight we had noticed that during the early morning hours the sun made a detectable dip closer to the horizon, and at the same time it passed behind Vinson so that most of our climbing route fell in shadow. It was noticeably warmer, then, during the “daytime” part of the twenty-four-hour cycle, and consequently we decided to wait for these warmer hours and then try to climb directly from camp 1 to the summit, bypassing camp 2. We felt that if the good weather were short-lived this strategy would be our best hope for success.

We crawled into our sleeping bags, and before falling asleep someone noticed a lone figure down in the basin. That would be Bonington, up with our additional food. We lay back in our bags and soon heard the crunch-crunch of crampons outside the tent.

“Hello Chris,” Frank said through the tent wall. “How was the climb up?”

There was no answer but the tent door started to open just as a voice said, “Not bad as long as I didn't look down.”

It wasn't Chris’ voice! Frank and Dick bolted upright in their bags as Kershaw stuck his ice-encrusted face through the tent door.

“What … where's Bonington?” Frank asked incredulously.

“He was too fagged to make it up the gully, so he's waiting in base camp while I’m delivering your groceries.”

“You mean you climbed the gully solo?”

“It's really not that bad, you know. Just one foot in front of the other kind of thing.”

Frank couldn't believe it. Here was this 130-pound absolute neophyte climber carrying what was easily a fifty-pound load unroped up an icy gully a good 1,500 feet high. It was testimony to Kershaw's natural athletic ability that Bonington had judged him able to do it at all.

“Just the same, I don't think you should go back alone,” Frank said.

“What, stay here?”

“Sure. Look, the weather is getting better so why not catch a few hours sleep, then go with us to the summit.”

Kershaw beamed. Here was a chance to see his dream through.

Dick and Marts zippered their bags together, and the three jammed in for a cozy nap, with Dick in the middle. We knew Bonington would be waiting for Kershaw at base camp, but we guessed that after a while he would climb up to see what had happened.

We were asleep when Bonington arrived. He agreed it was sensible keeping Kershaw from returning alone down the gully, but he still insisted it was not the best idea for him to go to the summit.

“His first duty is with the safety of the aircraft,” Bonington said, making the type of dispassionate analysis that had made him the world's preeminent expedition leader.

“You're probably right,” Dick agreed, “but I sure hate to lose half of my sleeping bag warming team.”

Then, quoting the “Cremation of Sam McGee,” Dick recited, “’Since I left PlumTree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I’ve been warm.’”

As he had before, Kershaw was quick to agree with Bonington's assessment, and following a cup of tea the two returned to the plane.

We used the few hours remaining before our planned departure to catch a little more sleep. We awoke at 3:00
A.M
., but now the clouds were scudding over the ridge above camp, indicating wind above. By 6:00 it had eased, and although it was still cloudy we decided to chance it.

We made good time now that we knew the best way to weave around the seracs, the best route to skirt the crevasses. We all felt strong, and climbed at a good pace. But with each step forward, the clouds seemed to close an increment inward, and by the time we reached the site where before we had set up camp 2 we knew our luck was out. I was worried we might get into white-out conditions that would make it difficult to find our way back to our tents. And if that happened, and if the wind were to come up even more … again, there was that omnipresent potential for danger that this frozen, inorganic, austere place had, like a feeling that some sort of shadowy, undefined concern was always following at our heels.

“We better throw in the towel,” I said.

So we returned once again to camp 1, silently retracing our steps.

The next “morning” Steve Marts opened the tent door. “Well, Frank,” he said, holding the door open so the others could see outside, “what do you think?”

“I can't tell,” Frank said, staying in his sleeping bag while he propped up on one arm, “whether that's steam from our stove I’m looking at, or reality.”

“I’m afraid it's reality,” Marts said, zipping the tent door back up as he placed another snow chunk in the pot of boiling water positioned next to the door. Indeed, conditions outside appeared about as soupy as the steam rising from the pot, and our thermometer indicated 35 below.

“But I’m confident we'll get our break,” Frank said. “Remember, it's springtime down here, with the good weather still to come. We just have to wait for it.”

“I’m glad to see you're thinking positive again, Pancho,” Dick said. “I’m telling you, we'll get it this next time. I’ve got this thing where the third time always works the charm. Just like when I got to the top of the Matterhorn with my kids on the third try. You watch, it'll be the same here.”

As the storm continued for another day and a half we spent the time sleeping, eating, or sitting in Frank and Dick's tent telling stories, listening to Dick recite poetry, or singing songs.

We still planned on our next attempt to try to climb directly from this camp to the summit—over 5,000 feet of vertical—again reasoning that if we only had a short window of good weather, this strategy would be more likely to succeed. But now Miura and Maeda had a different thought.

“Frank is maybe not strong enough to go all the way at once. Maybe it would be better if we carry up and make camp two again, rest there, then go to top.”

“But it will take longer,” I countered.

“I have an idea,” Frank said. “What if Steve and I stay at camp two, and the rest of you go in one push?”

There was wisdom in the proposal. It would maximize our chances if the good weather were only brief, and yet, if the good weather lasted, Frank would have a better shot at the top. I only had one concern.

“The thing is safety,” I said. “If the weather comes in, it would be just the two of you up there. You'd have to make certain your decisions were conservative, and not take any unnecessary risk.”

“If I take any risk, it'll be calculated,” Frank said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Bonington said the risk of staying at camp two was the one-in-thirty storm. I’ve been thinking about that, and Vinson is important enough to me that those numbers seem okay.”

I remembered that conversation earlier in the year, with the Everest team at Camp 2 just after the first summit team had returned, when we all had agreed that the heart of mountaineering was the freedom for every man to choose his own odds. That still seemed fair enough, but my concern was the same as it had been then: that Frank be careful enough to make sure he stacked those numbers as much as possible in his favor. It wasn't enough to rely only on luck, though admittedly that played a part. I had noticed Frank still had around his neck the sacred red string from the lama at Tengboche that the Sherpas had given him during the blessing ceremony at Everest base camp before going into the Icefall.

We agreed to the plan, then a short time later Miura and Maeda were back in the big tent saying they had decided they would go with Frank and Steve, and also stay over in camp 2. Just as they had opted to turn back with Frank on the first summit attempt, we suspected their motivations this time were based on their wish to help Frank get to the top.

So it would be just Dick and me on the first attempt. We left the tent, Miura and Maeda returning to their shelter, me to the small tent I had been sharing with Bonington. I fell asleep to the sound of spindrift spattering the tent. When I awoke I checked my watch: a ten-hour sleep. I recalled my dream, and thought how for me the expedition had just turned a corner, as my dreams had changed from sex to food. One thing about mountaineering, it does order your priorities.

I also noticed my tent had nearly collapsed. I zipped open the entrance, and instead of sky and mountain all I saw was an amorphous gray wall. I was buried in snow, with no shovel to dig out.

“Anybody awake? Can you hear me?”

In a moment Frank was over digging me out. When finally I could peer out I saw the weather wasn't nearly as bad as my burial suggested; in fact the clouds were thinning and the wind had died. After “breakfast” (it was 1:00 in the afternoon) we made the decision. Dick and I would leave in a couple of hours, carrying some of Frank's gear to camp 2 en route on our summit effort. The others would wait a few more hours after we left in the hopes that Bonington would arrive with another load of food. We were now so short there was only enough for two meals, and we knew that even with more provisions up here our food supply back at the plane was so low that this was most likely our final chance.