Seven Summits (3 page)

“Someone named Jack Wheeler on line two,” Dick's secretary said.

“Jack who?”

“Jack Wheeler. Says he's the professional adventurer you met a few months ago at a party here in Dallas.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay, but I can only give him a few minutes.”

Dick picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi Bass, Wheeler here.”

Dick was a little put off by the slick tone, but then he dismissed it, remembering this Wheeler fellow had said he was from Southern California, and Dick just figured they were all the same out that way.

“How ya doin’,” Dick said.

“Fine. Listen, when we met you said you were about to go to McKinley. I was wondering if you did.”

“Yes, I went.” There was a pause, and Dick sensed this Wheeler fellow was hesitant to ask the obvious next question. Maybe he doesn't want to embarrass me, thinking maybe I didn't make it, Dick thought.

“Well, uh, er, did you climb it?” Wheeler finally asked.

“That's what I went there for, isn't it?”

“You mean you made it?”

“Of course I made it.”

“You did? You don't mean it! I mean … Well, was it hard?”

Dick saw his chance to return a little of Wheeler's bravado. “Heck no, it wasn't any hill for a climber,” Dick said, wanting this Southern Californian to know that Texans were not to be underestimated.

Wheeler exclaimed, “That's just fantastic! Listen Bass, how old are you?”

“Fifty-one.”

“Perfect. I recently met someone here in California who said he would be interested in meeting you. He's almost fifty, and a successful businessman; he's president of Warner Brothers Studios. His name's Frank Wells, and I met him through our mutual friend Clint Eastwood. Frank has this dream, and part of it is climbing McKinley. Would you mind talking to him, maybe giving him some pointers?”

“Sure, I’d be glad to. But what's his dream?”

“He wants to climb the highest mountain on each continent.”

Dick nearly fell out of his chair. He had known, as soon as he had returned from McKinley, that his fantasy of climbing the highest peak on each continent would probably remain just a fantasy. It was simply a question of too many irons in the fire. But now, from out of nowhere, this: a partner, somebody to help him with the planning, the financing, the logistics. Someone to share the whole adventure from beginning to end. It was like some kind of divine intervention.

“Tell Frank Wells I’ll talk to him. In fact, tell him I’d like to come out to California and meet him. Right away.”

Although the center of Frank Wells’ universe was very much the presidency and co-chief-executive-officership of Warner Brothers Studios, he had an interest in mountain climbing that dated back thirty years to his undergraduate days at Pomona College when he used to daydream about becoming the first to climb Everest, even though at the time his only experience had been a hike to the top of Mount Whitney, in California's Sierra Nevada. One day while studying for graduation finals Frank's fraternity brother, who also shared the Everest fantasy, called and said, “Well, we blew it. Some guy named Hillary just climbed it.”

That put Frank in a deep funk, but not for long. After graduating
summa cum laude
and Phi Beta Kappa from Pomona he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he found an American friend who shared his passion for adventure. After spending Christmas skiing in the Alps they started wondering what to do for spring break.

“I’ve got it,” Frank's buddy said. “Africa! Listen, I’ve got my pilot's license, so we'll pool our money, buy a cheap plane, and fly from here to Cape Town and back.”

They found a tiny two-seat airplane for $600. It had no navigation equipment and no radio. It also happened to be all they could afford. With eight weeks remaining before Easter break, Frank was in charge of visas and landing permits, which turned into a full-time job. With a maximum range of 500 miles, they were going to have to land in twenty to thirty countries, principalities, caliphates, and assorted chiefdomships.

The day before departure Frank's buddy said, “Oh, there's one more thing you'll have to be in charge of because I haven't had time to learn how.”

He handed Frank a book on air navigation. Frank was up all night reading furiously and finished the book only after they were airborne. He honed his navigational skills with the dividers and parallel rule as they hopscotched across France, over Corsica and Sardinia and on across the Mediterranean into North Africa, gunkholing to Libya, Egypt, and then down to the Sudan and Uganda. Approaching Nairobi they could see due south the glistening snow on the summit of Kilimanjaro.

“Let's climb it,” Frank said impulsively.

A week later they ascended via the established Kibo trail, although in 1954 the mountain wasn't climbed enough for the trail to be labeled the tourist route. Near the top Frank was nauseous, throwing up every ten minutes, but too close to turn back. They both made it.

They continued toward Cape Town and shortly after had to make an emergency landing in a farmer's field. The plane flipped upside down and was totally destroyed, but they walked away unscathed and hitched a ride on a British military air transport back to England.

It was a glorious adventure, and Frank was hot to follow it up with an even better sequel, an idea that had come to him while descending Kilimanjaro. Hillary had climbed Everest, so he couldn't be the first to do that. But Frank was sure nobody had ever climbed the highest peak on each continent. He had just done the highest in Africa, so why not try for the other six?

The demands of Oxford, though, precluded any other extensive adventures, and then one thing led to another—the army, law school, legal practice, and eventually Warner Brothers Studios, where he started in the business affairs department. At six foot four, with a cordial but sincere smile, and the habit of cutting extraneous fat from phone calls, meetings, or any conversation in order quickly to get to the heart of the matter, Frank's career at Warner Brothers had been a steady rise to the presidency.

But he had never forgotten that mountain climbing fantasy. Years went by, but in 1980 he had managed to get a couple of weeks off to travel to Europe and attempt Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe. He made the top, and it rekindled what was now a twenty-five-year fantasy about doing the highest peak on each continent.

One day he mentioned this interest to his friend Clint Eastwood. Clint told him about a fellow named Jack Wheeler, who helped him scout locations in the high Arctic for his next film,
Firefox.
Eastwood explained that Wheeler had some experience mountain climbing, and he thought the two of them might like to meet.

“Send him over,” Frank said.

When he met Wheeler, Frank told him about his highest-peak-on-each-continent fantasy.

“Now I’m the first to admit I don't have much experience,” Frank said. “Other than Kilimanjaro and a guided climb up the Matterhorn, the only other mountain I’ve climbed was Mont Blanc, last year. And that was with a guide and I was throwing up near the summit just from exhaustion. But I made it—the highest peak in Europe—so I’ve got two crossed off the list.”

“There's only one problem,” Wheeler said. “That's not the highest mountain in Europe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Europe is measured as everything west of the Ural Mountains. The highest peak in Europe is Elbrus, in Russia's Caucasus Mountains between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea.”

“Well, fine.”

“What do you mean, fine?” Wheeler had clearly expected a different reaction.

“That means there's still another mountain to climb to reach my goal, and Russia itself sounds like an adventure.”

Why not try Elbrus right away, Frank figured. If it could be done in ten days or so, he could check that peak off his seven summits list without compromising his company responsibilities. He had no time to organize such a thing himself, but here was someone who claimed to be a professional at doing just that.

A deal was struck and Wheeler started to investigate what it would take to organize climbs to the other peaks.

It was while researching that idea that Wheeler remembered this Dick Bass fellow he had met at the Dallas party a couple of months earlier, the one who had said he was going to climb McKinley. Thinking he might be a good source of information on that peak, Wheeler called Dick and was astonished to learn that Dick had the same fantasy about climbing the highest mountain on each continent.

Wheeler immediately called Frank, who quickly latched onto the possibilities: he would have a climbing companion, and there was a good chance they could share costs.

“Should I set up a meeting?” Wheeler asked.

“As soon as possible.”

When he hung up Frank mused, of all the luck, to find someone with the same outrageous fantasy, about the same age, and in a financial position to afford making the fantasy come true.

You could have put all the names in the world into a computer and still not come up with such a pairing.

That had been a week before, and now, as Frank pulled his Mercedes in front of Warner headquarters he thought about his lunch that day with Dick Bass. He was anxious to meet him, but didn't dwell too long on it: he had a full day's business agenda, and Dick Bass was just an item scheduled between noon and one.

In his office Frank's secretary came in with the list of yesterday's calls and the morning's schedule, starting with an informal meeting with the four other Warner execs to discuss a picture having a slow start. Should they put more money into advertising or concede the picture didn't have “legs” and drop it? They decided to drop it. Next item was a completed film they could pick up at a good price, but one that had a questionable potential—20th Century-Fox had just passed on their option.

“What's it about?” Frank asked.

“Basically it's a story set around the 1924 Olympics about a couple of runners with different backgrounds who compete against each other; one's a Jew and the other's a Scot Presbyterian.”

“Sounds like some blockbuster,” Frank hooted.

“I’ve seen it, though, and it does have good music.”

“Maybe we should get it over for a screening just in case it might be worth our while.”

“What's it called?”

“Chariots of Fire.”

The meeting over, Frank returned his calls; then it was time for lunch. In a few minutes Frank's secretary escorted in Dick Bass.

Dick was impressed, not by the office, but by Frank. Raw-boned and rangy looking, Dick thought. But Dick didn't know whether that was from climbing or from weathering the rigors of the movie-making business.

After some brief small talk, Frank looked at his watch and stated peremptorily they had better get over to the corporate dining room right away: “We've got a lot to talk about.”

In the private lunchroom Dick took a seat while Frank remained standing. Frank had just finished Jack Wheeler's report on how they could climb the highest peak on each continent—the Seven Summits, as he started calling them—and now Frank was ready to explain the proposal to Dick.

“First, after checking into it a little, we've found that no one has ever climbed all seven summits. So for whatever it's worth, we would be going after a first-time record.”

“Second, other than Everest and the Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica, all these climbs should be relatively easy to organize. Aconcagua, the highest in South America, is climbed each year by dozens of parties. You know about McKinley, of course, and I can tell you Kilimanjaro is a long, long day when you go for the summit but really nothing more than a grueling hike. Kosciusko in Australia actually has a road almost to the top of it, and as for Elbrus, it shouldn't be too hard either. But I’ll get back to that in a minute. First, though, the problems with Everest and Antarctica …”

Dick sat in his chair staring up at Frank. An old neck injury started acting up, and despite the growing discomfort Dick made an effort to stay politely attentive.

“Now with Jack Wheeler's help I’ve been checking into Everest. If you can believe it, there are so many climbers who want to try Everest they're waiting in line. The mountain sits on the border of Nepal and Tibetan China, so you can attempt it from either side, but as the two governments only allow a couple of teams on different routes each season the permits are presently backed up all the way to 1990. The only way to get one is wait or tie-in with a group that already has one, and I’m checking into that …”

Dick couldn't believe it. He was the one who almost always did the talking when he first met people, but now he felt out-gunned. What Frank was saying was interesting, though, and he was obviously serious about the seven climbs. But he kept talking … for ten minutes, fifteen minutes … and the pain in Dick's neck was getting worse.

“… as for Antarctica, as you may know, our government's National Science Foundation has a chartered mandate to direct and oversee the U.S. bases there, and the most direct way to get to Vinson would be on board one of the C-130s operated by the navy out of McMurdo Station. I’m checking into it; I’ve got a few friends in Washington, and …”

My God, Dick thought to himself. This guy is more like me than I am. Meanwhile, lunch had been served, so Dick could look down and give his neck a rest. Frank ignored his food and continued to talk.

“… so if the N.S.F. doesn't work out we've got this backup plan with a converted DC-3, retrofitted with brand new turboprop engines—three of them, including one in the nose—and ski-equipped because it was built to fly support for U.S. bases in the high Arctic out of Alaska's north slope. It's privately owned and although there are lots of problems, I’m investigating what it would take to charter it and have it flown from its home base near here in Santa Barbara down to the tip of South America, across the Magellan Strait, to Antarctica, and on to Vinson. The biggest hurdle there looks like refueling in Antarctica, and to solve that we have a handful of possibilities …”

Twenty minutes nonstop. This guy must think he's chairing a board meeting.

“… and so we could do the seven climbs in that order. But I still think we should climb Elbrus right away, for practice. Then go back to it later, if we want to do them all in a row in one year. If something happens to U.S.-Soviet relations and we can't get back into Russia we'll have it under our belts. I think we can get the Elbrus permit arranged in three weeks. What do you think?”