Seven Summits (59 page)
“He's made it! He's climbed Everest! We've got the Seven Summits! And you, you lucky bastard, you've got the ending to your book!”
And now I could tell Frank was crying. Crying for joy.
THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
A
few days after Dick returned from Everest he got a phone call from Frank.
“Dick, you'd better sit down for this one. I just got a call from Giles, who has just received some appalling news from Antarctica. Apparently some scientists have recently resurveyed the Ellsworth Mountains, and they are right now recalculating the altitudes of several of the peaks.”
Dick felt the blood drain from his face.
“Pancho, you're not going to tell me what I think you're going to tell me, are you?”
“They've just finished recalculating the measurements for Vinson. As you know, the old altitude was 16,860 feet.”
“And the new?”
“Sixteen thousand sixty-seven feet.”
“And the altitude of Tyree?”
“Well, it was 16,290 feet.”
Dick leaned back in his chair.
“Oh, my aching back,” he said. “Do you mean we climbed the wrong mountain?”
“Maybe not. See, they still haven't finished their calculations for Tyree. Sixteen thousand two hundred ninety is the old altitude, and the scientists think there's a reasonable chance that since their new altitude for Vinson was lower than the older measurement, the same might be true for Tyree. If so, let's hope it's proportional.”
“When are they going to know?”
“They say it will take another month or two to complete the calculations.”
“I can't believe the good Lord would let us climb the wrong peak.”
Dick recalled all too clearly the day he climbed Vinson and sighted down the range to Tyree, noting that it even
looked
higher than Vinson.
What am I going to do if Tyree is the highest? Dick thought after he had hung up with Frank.
A week later he had the answer. Dan Emmett, Yvon Chouinard, and a few other climbers were making a deal to charter the DC-3 Tri-Turbo for another trip to the Ellsworth Mountains, with the goal of climbing whatever peaks looked like the most fun.
“So if Tyree does turn out higher,” Emmett told Dick, “we're saving one seat on the plane for you. But you'll definitely have to get up Tyree on the first go.”
“Why?”
“Because Pat Morrow has made arrangements to charter the plane immediately after we do. He's heard the rumor that Tyree might be the highest, and he's set to climb it if that turns out to be the case.”
“How long, O Lord, how long? When am I ever going to get this ordeal laid to rest?”
Dick decided it made no sense to worry about which mountain was higher until the final answer came in.
“Men spend most of their lives worrying about things that usually never happen,” he told himself.
And if it does happen, Dick thought, I’ll just have to pucker my tail to my tonsils and go back and climb Tyree.
Meanwhile, Dick followed through with his plan to have the gala Seven Summits banquet he had long dreamed of. It was set for August 4, 1985, on top of 11,000-foot Hidden Peak, overlooking Snowbird.
Everyone on any of Frank and Dick's expeditions received an invitation saying “tuxes for men and appropriate party dresses for women are required. Because of the rocky terrain on top of Hidden Peak both guys and gals are encouraged to wear climbing boots or hiking shoes.”
Dick hired a camera crew to film the event.
“It'll be the perfect finale to our movie,” Dick told Frank. “Just like I described to you that day on the Everest North Wall expedition in ‘82.”
Dick also lined up the 80-piece Utah Symphony and the 150 member Jay Welch Chorale. When the big day came, the musicians and singers took a late afternoon tram to the summit of Hidden Peak. The rest of us—300 total, including many Snowbird employees— followed an hour later.
It was perfect weather. The symphony was located under a huge portable cover and the choir on raised bleacher seats. Next to them a forty-foot banquet table festooned with ice carvings and baskets filled with flowers was decorated with a whole pig with apple in its mouth, pheasants, lobsters, trays of snow crab, shrimp, smoked salmon and trout, white asparagus, caviar, and platters of exotic tropical fruit. Behind, running the length of the banquet table were huge four-foot-high letters carved from ice blocks that spelled out “Seven Summits,” and nearby several chefs manned Texas-sized barbecues racked with whole strips of tenderloin and hundreds of roasting tiger shrimp. A phalanx of tuxedoed waiters was standing by on the sidelines, each waiter with a tray supporting a bottle of champagne.
I was standing next to a Dallas oilman friend of Dick's who I heard tell his wife, “You know darlin’, even ol’ Malcolm Forbes never put on a shindig like this.”
Altogether, there were more than 500 people on the summit of the mountain. As Dick had promised when he first had the idea for the banquet, it was “a feast that would make Nebuchadnezzar envious.”
Dick had carefully planned the feast from beginning to end, and as part of the plan he and Frank, instead of taking the tram, were hiking to the top of Hidden Peak. Now, with all the guests waiting with champagne in hand, and with the film crew rolling, the pair with packs on their backs crested the ridge to the reverberating crescendo of “Climb Every Mountain.” They retired behind a temporary screen, then, as the symphony played “The Blue Danube,” they doffed their climbing clothes and in time to the waltz tossed their hiking shoes and socks, soiled pants, shirts and underwear over the screen, emerging a few minutes later in black tie and tuxes.
They were each given champagne, and with their glasses raised to each other Dick spoke: “First, I’d like to say what I said on top of Everest,” Dick told the crowd. He then recited the same message of thanksgiving to his creator, family, and friends he had said on the summit, ending with the dedication to Marty and “to all the plus-fifties in the world who share with me the conviction that the second half can and should be the best half.”
The crowd cheered, and Dick then recited the last lines of Tennyson's “Ulysses.”
“I’ve got one more thing to say, and this is to Frank. I really feel it's divine providence that we met, and the friendship and warm esteem we have for each other after what we've shared on the Seven Summits odyssey is as meaningful an achievement for me as the Seven Summits themselves.”
Then turning to Frank, who was standing next to him, Dick added, “I mean it, Pancho.”
“You have just heard the
second
most awesome fact of these climbs,” Frank told the crowd. “And that is that after four years together, Dick Bass could say that to Frank Wells. The
first
most awesome fact is that after four years I can say the same thing back to Dick Bass.”
A dozen waiters then popped champagne corks and the bubbly fountained into the air like a fireworks finale.
“Dick,” Frank continued, “do you know what today is? Today is August 4, 1985—four years ago to the day we met at Warner Brothers Studio and shook hands agreeing to do the Seven Summits.”
The crowd cheered again.
“And there's one more thing I want to say. A lot of people have asked me how I really felt when Bass made it to the summit of Everest, and I wasn't there. I’ve been trying to figure out an easy answer, some way to explain how I didn't feel bad at all because with my new job I’m as happy as a pig in mud. Well, here's my answer.”
Frank then unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, and pulling open his studded shirt exposed a T-shirt with a shoulder-to-shoulder image of Mickey Mouse. It brought down the house.
When the cheers and laughter subsided, Dick said, “Now for the banquet. Did you all see the movie
Tom Jones?
Well, we're about to have our eating scene.”
“Wait a minute,” Frank interjected. “First, I’ve got one more thing to say. I know this is liable to upset a lot of plans and a lot of celebration today, but I’ve just got a message, and I feel I must read it.”
Frank then reached in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “’To Frank Wells from the U.S. Department of Interior,’” Frank read. “ ‘Thank you for your recent inquiries concerning the altitudes of the peaks in the Ellsworth Mountains of Antarctica. We understand your interest, and that of your mountain climbing associates, regarding the possibility that Mount Tyree rather than Mount Vinson may actually be the highest mountain in Antarctica.
“ ‘As you may know, our original measurements of the Ellsworth Mountains were made in the early 1960’s and had some inherent inaccuracies. At that time, our measurement of Mount Vinson showed it to be 16,860 feet, the highest point on the continent.
“Recently a new survey using cross-reference measurements from five different satellite positions resulted in a new altitude for Mount Vinson. The new measurement is 16,067 feet.
“ ‘As you know, that makes Mount Tyree, by our old measurement, actually a few feet higher.’ “
Dick's hand holding his champagne glass dropped to his side, and his ebullient bearing changed to incredulous dismay.
“Oh, my God, I can't believe this.”
Frank paused, held up his hand, and said, “Wait, let me finish.” He paused again, then slowly continued the message:
“ ‘However, we have just completed the new measurement for Mount Tyree. The final altitude is …’ “
Frank paused again, smiling impishly.
“ ‘…fifteen thousand nine hundred and three feet. So Mount Vinson is still higher than Mount Tyree—by 170 feet!’ “
“Aah-eah-eaahhh!”
The waiters popped more champagne, the crowd cheered, and the symphony and chorus cut loose with “The Impossible Dream.”
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