Left for Dead (28 page)

About forty of the Dani had gone ahead with our gear, which they carried on their heads. It would take them a week to get to the mountain through some very rough jungle terrain; we would cover the same distance, three at a time, in a helicopter we shared with a group led by Rob Hall. I recognized the lanky New Zealander from the picture of him I’d seen in Antarctica, and was immediately impressed with his considerable organizational and logistical skills. Under his overall management, this trip flowed together seamlessly. It should have required three to four weeks; we’d easily complete our objective—door-to-door—in two.

I was even more impressed later on, however, when I observed Hall’s constant concern for safety. He took great precautions in establishing our route. I quickly grew confident in Rob’s leadership abilities.

Yasuko Namba was along as well. Although the language barrier prevented us from exchanging much more than basic pleasantries, she seemed a fit and well-experienced mountaineer.

It was a two-day walk from Base Camp to where we actually began the climb, at about ten thousand feet. The first night we camped in a pretty little meadow. The Dani porters found them
selves a cave and cut down a bunch of trees, which they lit on fire at its entrance, turning the cave into a sort of meat smoker. I can’t imagine what they were doing in there, or how they handled the thick smoke.

Two interesting things happened the next day. A wolf ran out on the trail. One of the Dani whipped out his bow and arrow and dropped the wolf in midstride, a hell of a shot. Then he and the rest of them fell on the animal and ate it raw. They didn’t grab chunks of wolf in their teeth, snarl at each other and run in different directions, but they did consume the animal right there and then. They wolfed him down.

I was beginning to get a sense of how tough these guys are, masters of their environment, dressed in little more than their smiles. I, by contrast, felt like an effete, privileged weenie. Despite all our high-tech gear, we could not have been more completely out of place there. Also, now that I’d seen how the Dani behave when they’re hungry, I was effusively polite for the rest of the trip. I figured if nothing else, they’d eat me last.

The one thing you don’t want to be around the Dani is Indonesian. Whether the government in Jakarta is trying to populate Irian Jaya with its own pioneers—in which case the native tribes get shoved aside—or is dealing harshly with civil insurrection, Dani villages have been strafed and Indonesians are not well liked there. One of our guides on this trip was an Indonesian who on a prior outing made the mistake of being caught alone with the locals. They chased him for about five miles. Since the Dani all were carrying knives, there was no doubt in his mind what they intended to do if they captured him.

The second singularity of the day came as we climbed above
the tree line. Displayed along the trail at the top of the pass was a human skull. The previous owner was unknown. Perhaps a Dani, or a slow-footed Indonesian. For us, it was a stark reminder that not everyone who takes this trail returns.

Rob Hall’s group summited first, then we went up and down. At about thirteen thousand or fourteen thousand feet I experienced a little surprise—my vision shifted. It wasn’t anything dramatic. Although my reading glasses suddenly were useless, my eyesight didn’t blur. It just was a little different. Since there was no mention of this problem anywhere in the literature about radial keratotomy, I assumed it was a minor and inconsequential side effect of my recent operation. I had no inkling of the crisis I’d encounter at the really high altitude and low light on Mount Everest.

The precipitating cause for undergoing the procedure had occurred in New Hampshire on an ice climb with Steve Young. By then I had tried everything; prescription goggles, hard contacts, goggles with little fans in them, soft contacts, semisoft contacts. Nothing worked.

In New Hampshire, I was trying to scale about thirty feet of totally vertical ice, working hard and starting to sweat. My glasses iced over from the steam off my face until I couldn’t see where I was going. Finally, I fell, and was suspended from the ice by a single wrist loop. My face was smack up against this vertical wall of ice, and I couldn’t see where to put my feet.

Young, who had me belayed, laughed at me as I took my ax in the opposite hand and flailed away at the wall until I actually penetrated the ice surface with the tool, then dug in my front point crampon knives. I screamed with each step, until I finally
got to the top. At that point I decided, Okay, I’m going to have my eyes operated on.

Beck was not a candidate for RK surgery. He couldn’t find anybody in Medical City to do it. If you’re really nearsighted, as he is, a deeper cut is needed, which means you’ll get more fluctuation when you go up in altitude. He had it done anyway.

People knew that laser surgery was on the horizon. I talked to Beck about that. I asked, “Why don’t you wait six months? This new stuff that’s coming up is much better. It doesn’t weaken your eyes.” He said, “No.”

I think he’d tell you he wouldn’t do it again.

A drenching rain broke over the Carstensz Pyramid just as we got back to High Camp. Skip Horner, who had hung back to take down some of our gear, was caught in the deluge, which turned the mountain’s upper slopes into a waterfall. Luckily, Horner made it back to camp intact.

We all then retraced the path to Base Camp, where the helicopter flew us back to the Dani village. We spent the night in their grass huts. Wondering what sort of health hazard such overnight accommodations might present, some guys decided to sleep out in their tents.

Before the charter came for us the next day, I watched a bunch of Dani children playing soccer, or their version of the sport. There were no goals, and instead of a proper soccer ball
they used a ratty old tennis ball. Like the adults, the kids were more or less naked.

One of them had only one leg and a stick—no crutch. But he was hell-bent for leather, and none of the others cut him any slack. The whole group was just having the time of their lives, laughing and running around in the dirt. They were sweet kids. It occurred to me how impossible a sight such as this would be in North Dallas.

In 1994 I again inflamed Peach by purchasing a big, fast motorcycle, a Honda ST 1100 touring bike. I called her Scarlett O’Honda. Peach just loathed Scarlett. I doubt there is anything I could have done to make my wife any angrier. The motorcycle was such a divisive issue between us that the mere mention of Scarlett provokes Peach to this day.

We cannot even agree on the exact circumstances surrounding Scarlett’s acquisition, except that I bugged and bugged her about it, over time, and took the occasion of Peach and the kids’ absence from town to pick up my shiny new beast. I remember that she finally gave in to my intense lobbying. That’s not Peach’s recollection.

Had it been just the mountain climbing, including Everest, matters might have been different. But if he thought I hated something, he did it. There were the guns, and then the motor
cycle. Apparently it is typical for depressed people to lash out against those to whom they are closest. He was rubbing my face in it pretty good.

Motorcycles were just another one of those things in my life that I enjoyed, lost interest in, then came back to later. I had the Vespa in high school, then a Suzuki when I was a resident. I got rid of the Suzuki when I realized I was getting a little reckless with it. I always enjoyed driving them fast. But this was unconnected to the depression.

It absolutely was connected to the depression. I had just about decided that I’d put up with the mountain climbing after all when he brought this thing into the house. I hated it.

I said, “If you get a motorcycle, I’m going to get a new car.” I’m not a big car person. I’m happy to drive whatever I have for six or seven years. So he did, and I did. He didn’t care, and I didn’t feel any better. I liked my new car, but I didn’t feel any better.

Scarlett wasn’t just a motorcycle. It was real fast and powerful, one more way for him to get away from us. For instance, when we went to the beach, instead of driving with the kids and me he rode his motorcycle. He ended up spending a day with us, then rode his motorcycle back.

That motorcycle also had too many bells and whistles. The
battery would go dead. There was
always
something wrong with it. Finally, he said he would sell it, but he didn’t. He had a million reasons why he couldn’t. So I knew it was going to be mine to get rid of. There was nothing that I hated worse, but I knew with amazing clarity that it would be mine to deal with.

Mount Kilimanjaro didn’t enter my plans until I began seriously considering the Seven Summits Quest, leading up to the Everest climb. Kilimanjaro may be among the better known mountains in the world, and, at 19,340 feet, it is tall enough to make trouble for the unwary, especially those who do not take sufficient time to acclimatize themselves. Still, Kilimanjaro is not really a climb. It is a good hard hike on which you encounter lots of amateurs.

I went to Africa near the end of December 1995 with a group led once again by Skip Horner. We flew into Nairobi, and then drove to the trailhead in Tanzania. There, we met our group of porters—mostly males, but a few females, too—led by a genial fellow named Genesis.

Besides performing the usual porter tasks of humping our gear up the mountain and making and breaking camp, Genesis’s team also sang. As far as I know, they are the world’s only singing porters (the Dani chanted), a true a cappella choir who’d mastered a range of tunes in their native tongue (Swahili, I think), including some original compositions. They sang them for us in a series of daytime concerts. I enjoyed that a lot.

I did not enjoy much else. As we crossed the broad grassy
plain that gradually slopes up to Kilimanjaro proper, I was taken with the usual mountaineer’s crud: vomiting, aches, etc. Although its cause forever will remain a mystery, my best guess is that the cooking got me.

My salvation was a doc on the trip who’d luckily brought along an antiemetic—basically a heavy tranquilizer—that stunned me into an extended slumber from which I awoke feeling pretty awful.

As I dressed that morning, Skip Horner accosted me with the mountain guide’s signature soft solicitude, saying, “You may not enjoy this, but you are going to go to the top.” He was right all around. After a three-day hike up a gentle grade, we rested and then made the usual midnight assault to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Peak.

I now was poised for Mount Everest, which I was scheduled to climb that spring. The mountain had been on my mind for at least four years, ever since Aconcagua, but I wanted to correctly prepare for it. In my view, it would have been presumptuous to climb, say, Denali, and maybe one other mountain and then go to Everest. The Seven Summits are not just about summits. For me, they also were about process and people and being part of that world.

Following the 1994 expedition to Carstensz Pyramid, I called Skip Horner and asked him who he thought was the best Everest guide. He said he thought Rob Hall was probably the most experienced guide on the mountain. I contacted Rob and asked to be included in the 1996 climb. He welcomed me aboard.