Seven Summits (4 page)

Without waiting for a reply Frank sat and started wolfing down his lunch. Dick said he had a trip coming up in two weeks to Europe, to examine mountaintop restaurants in the Alps for a possible similar installation at Snowbird, and it would be easy for them to rendezvous over there and travel together to Russia.

“Fantastic,” Frank said as he finished his lunch. “I’ve got a good friend, Jack Valenti, who's president of the Motion Picture Association and knows Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., quite well, so the permit shouldn't be a problem. Make sure you take your climbing gear with you to Europe.”

Then Frank looked at his watch and said, “This has been a fantastic meeting, and I wish I had all day, but I really must get to another appointment.” Walking back, Dick considered all that Frank had said. While Frank had certainly taken over their first meeting, that really didn't bother Dick, as it would probably be an advantage to have someone like Frank to help organize the seven expeditions. And just as important, it seemed Frank was in a position to share expenses.

“Frank, what do you think this whole thing might cost?”

“I’m guessing it will come in at about half a million.”

“Well, if you want, you've got yourself a partner,” Dick said, extending his hand. Frank smiled—if there was anything he liked it was a man willing to make up his mind quickly—and taking Dick's hand he said, “You're on.”

With that, Frank returned to his office, and Dick caught a plane back to Dallas. They both had full schedules, and there would be time later to pause and think about what they had just done.

2

ELBRUS ‘81

F
rank Wells had several weeks before he was to rendezvous with Dick Bass in Europe and then travel to Moscow for the Elbrus climb. That should be sufficient time to get the permit, especially since he would have his friend Jack Valenti ask Dobrynin to speed things up. But there wasn't much time to get into shape or, more important, to try to learn more about mountain climbing. Still, Frank decided he should do as much as his busy schedule allowed.

He had just finished reading a book I had written about an American ascent of Everest, and learning I lived in Southern California he asked Wheeler to get in touch with me. At the time Wheeler called I was working on a mountain climbing documentary in post production at the Burbank Studios, the same lot that houses Warner Bros. In addition to writing about outdoor adventures, I had started making films on the same subjects, and had managed to support myself from my interest in climbing and adventuring. In addition to the Everest expedition I had also climbed K
^2,
the world's second highest peak, and had been on climbs in many remote places around the world, including Antarctica.

After Wheeler told me of Frank's interest, I flip-flopped in my sandals and Aloha shirt over to the inner sanctum of the Warner headquarters and was ushered into his office. A group of men were huddled over a black onyx table looking at storyboards for what seemed to be a
Superman
sequel. The office was first cabin: posh carpeting, original art, skylights, indoor palm trees, wet bar.

“Frank, Mr. Ridgeway is here.”

Frank looked up with a smile and walked over to shake my hand.

“Wow, what a pleasure,” he said.

“Likewise,” I said, still staring around the room.

Frank then turned to the others, “Okay boys, meeting's over. I’ve got some important business.”

After Frank outlined his plan to me, I said, “Maybe you ought to go on a one-day climb first. You know, to see if you like it.” He agreed.

We got together the next weekend at Sespe Gorge, a rock cliff near my hometown of Ventura. I brought my neighbor Yvon Chouinard and another visiting climber, Al Steck. Both are among the best-known climbers in the United States. (Frank later said it was like getting invited to your first golf game with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.)

Chouinard and Steck went off on another route and I took Frank up a crack in the 400-foot-high wall that had a 5.7 rating, meaning it was easy-to-moderate by mountaineering standards—to Frank it looked impossibly vertical. About halfway up, he was having trouble. The technique on such a climb is to jam your hands and feet in the cracks, but Frank was pawing the rock searching for footholds, his hands bleeding from incorrectly jamming them. Panting hard, he looked up and said, “What do you say we practice that thing where you slide down the rope. What do you call it—rappel?”

“Sorry, but we have to finish. Otherwise you'd be disappointed in yourself.”

Frank paused to absorb this.

“I took Tom Brokaw up this climb a few weeks ago. He zoomed right up. It was his first rock climb too.”

“So you mean if I don't make this, word gets out that Brokaw does the climb and Wells wimps out.”

“You said it, not me.”

Frank made another move and suddenly his foot shot out and in an instant he was hanging from the rope.

“Go ahead and hang there for a minute and rest your arms and legs. Then try it again, but this time don't hug the rock. That way you'll stay in balance and won't pop off that foothold.”

“What foothold?”

“That edge just above your right knee.”

“You mean this? It's a quarter-inch wide!”

“Yeah, it's a big one all right. So just put the edge of your shoe on it and press up.”

Frank tried again, and fell again. The third time he made it, but he looked very awkward. When we finally reached the top he had several nasty scrapes on the backs of his hands, his knees were bleeding and he had what climbers call sewing machine leg, meaning his legs were vibrating as fast as a needle on a Singer. But he also had a wall-to-wall smile.

“I’m glad as hell you made me stick to it. Still, do I really need to learn how to climb rock cliffs in order to get up these seven peaks?”

“Not really, I suppose. They're all mostly walk-up snow slopes with ice axes and crampons. Altitude, avalanches, and crevasses will be your biggest dangers.”

“Then thanks again for taking me on my first—and last rock climb.”

As we drove back to Ventura, Frank explained how everything was set for the Russia climb. He had the permit, and his partner Dick Bass was already in Europe. He was checking on a couple of possible ways to get to Antarctica, and he had just contacted a Spanish team going to Everest next year and was hopeful he and Dick might be able to join them.

I listened, agreeing it was a great idea and a wonderful project, but at the same time wondering if someone who had just shown by all indications that he had absolutely no natural ability as a climber could really get very far on something as grand as what he proposed. Especially a peak like Everest. I had been up above 8,000 meters —26,200 feet—an altitude in mountaineering that is a kind of red line above which any climbing becomes not only extremely difficult but also extremely dangerous, where the severely thin air confuses your perception and judgment, where often even the world's best climbers make fatal mistakes. And listening to Frank, I was certain he had no real idea what it was like up there in what climbers call the death zone.

Still, it was such a wonderful idea, I didn't want to denigrate it. Moreover, I knew that if Frank and Dick were going to have a real chance of climbing even a few of these peaks, they were going to have to hook up with people who knew what they were doing. Although we didn't discuss it at the time, I had a notion I might just get a chance to become part of this crazy adventurous scheme.

Dick Bass stood on the sundeck of the Klein Matterhorn Restaurant Complex in Zermatt. Spreading his arms to encompass the view he exclaimed, “Just look at this, Hoopie. I’m telling you, we'll have the same thing at Snowbird and people will flock to it.”

Until then Hoopie, Snowbird's mountain manager, who was accompanying Dick on this tour of mountaintop restaurants, had doubted the possibility of a similar installation at Snowbird. But now, caught between Dick's contagious enthusiasm and the inspiring view of the Matterhorn, he was beginning to sway.

“I’ll admit, it's impressive.”

“I knew you'd come around,” Dick said. “You're just like the rest—always doubting me at first.”

It seemed to Dick he was always facing an uphill battle convincing people not only about the mountaintop restaurant but about most of the visions he had for Snowbird (just as he had had a hard time convincing people he could climb McKinley).

With so many nay-sayers it had been tough finding financing, and Dick had sunk every penny of his own money into the project. That had put a tight squeeze on his personal life, and even contributed to his first wife's leaving him, he thought. He was now married again, but the money pressures were still there.

He was absolutely convinced, though, that someday the ski area would not only stand on its own legs but be the greatest year-round mountain resort on earth. He was almost evangelistic about it. He would tell you that when he had gazed on the aspen- and evergreen-covered slopes in Little Cottonwood Canyon, outside of Salt Lake City, his mind's eye saw a system of chairlifts, gondolas, and aerial trams beyond what anyone thought possible. He knew it would probably take another twenty years to see Snowbird the way he dreamed it, but that was okay: he was only fifty-one years old.

Dick felt his tour of mountaintop restaurants in Europe had been such a success that he could put Snowbird out of his mind for a couple of weeks and turn to this mountain climbing project. He had just received word from Frank in California and learned that everything was “go”; Frank had given him instructions to meet at the Copenhagen airport en route to Russia and the Caucasus.

Dick had his twenty-five-year-old son Dan with him to go on the climb as well, and together they arrived in Copenhagen and spotted Frank and Jack Wheeler waiting at the neighboring baggage carousel. The clockwork-precision rendezvous was an auspicious beginning. Once they had Frank's and Jack's gear they could board Aeroflot to Moscow. When the baggage started down the conveyor, however, Dick got a little skeptical, thinking the luggage looked pretty fancy for a true climber.

Mostly that top-drawer Abercrombie and Fitch stuff, Dick thought.

Then a large metal case trundled down.

“What in the world is that?”

“The camera.”

“The camera? Look, Frank, we're here to climb a mountain, not lug something that big.”

“Let me explain. This isn't for the mountain.”

“Then what's it for?”

“My friend Clint Eastwood is making this movie about a navy pilot who dresses himself up as a Russian officer and sneaks into the country to steal one of their top-secret fighter jets. He's asked me to take a few establishing shots for him in Red Square.”

“Do you know how to use this thing?”

“Jack's had some lessons.”

“You've got a permit to do this, don't you?”

“No, we're going to sneak it.”

“Sneak it!? We'll be run out of Russia and never climb Elbrus!”

“Don't worry,” Frank said. “Nothing's going to happen.”

Dick didn't say more, but he hated this kind of unnecessary anxiety. He had enough of that back home, and he came on these climbs to get away from such things. Now he felt that familiar knot in his stomach.

The flight to Moscow was uneventful, as was their passage through customs. The camera box wasn't even opened. They were greeted by the chief of Russia's Mountaineering Committee, Mikail Monastersky, who introduced the two climber-guides on Elbrus. It couldn't have been a more friendly reception, and on the way to the hotel, Monastersky said to Frank, “Next time you come to Russia, you can contact us directly. There's no need to go through such high channels.” Apparently Dobrynin's request had gotten through.

As they had only two days in Moscow, Monastersky made sure they packed in the circus, the Bolshoi, St. Basil's. They were so busy Frank decided to store the camera in Moscow and get Eastwood's shots on the way home. That was a relief to Dick's nervous system. At least he could put the camera thing out of his mind until after the climb. After all, this was supposed to be the time when he enjoyed the simplicity of a pure physical challenge, and he didn't need any new worries, especially since he had worked so successfully before leaving to clear his calendar of the problems that had been pressing him, primarily the payment on the Snowbird loan. Now, if they did get into trouble filming, they would have Elbrus checked off their list.

The first payment on the Alaska coal deal had arrived on a Friday only twenty minutes before the bank closed and his loan payment would have become delinquent, but Dick had still taken a few extra minutes to have a picture taken of himself holding the check under the office portrait of his father before he sprinted the five blocks to the bank. Dick had no doubt that if his father were still alive he would have been mortified to see how far his son was in hock to his creditors. On the other hand he had no doubt his father would have been pleased to see he had built a personal code around the other values the old man had so rigorously inculcated. Dick's father was among the pioneer drillers in the Oklahoma oilfields, and he used to tell his son that a man's capital is not measured by financial wealth but by “integrity, hustle, and friends.” Dick grew up a kid who worked hard in school, loved athletics, and was born with a gregarious bent and ease at making friends.

In high school, despite his slight stature, he went out for every sport on the roster. No matter how hard he tried, though, he just wasn't big enough or good enough, until finally in his senior year he made the football team—only to get his face smashed in a scrimmage at the beginning of the season.

Dick was keenly disappointed, but not discouraged. At this time he saw a poem in the Dallas
Morning News.
He was fond of poetry, and some lines from this one, simple though they were, had a lasting influence: “Ability and brain and brawn/all play a certain part/but there is nothing better than/to have a fighting heart.” Dick decided he would have one more try. The only sport he hadn't gone out for was swimming. This time it worked. He finally found something where his low pulse rate, quick recovery, and determination paid off, and he got his letter.