Seven Summits (5 page)

He also ran for the president of the student council, but lost. His uncle sent words of commiseration and encouragement, again giving Dick an aphorism he would carry the rest of his life: “Just remember, ‘men are made strong not by winning easy battles, but by losing hard-fought ones.’”

There was one other thing he learned, although it was less a lesson than a self-realization. All through high school he had been a top student, and now he was heading for Yale at 16, two years younger than normal. But he hadn't gotten those grades just because he was smart and liked schoolwork. The main reason had been a girl. She had motivated him, but not with words of love. In fact, she loved someone else, she told Dick, because this other fellow was “so smart and got such good grades.” That had done it: Dick set out to show her, and from then on he never came home with anything less than an A. He realized there was nothing that energized him more than the desire to show someone he could do something, especially when that someone doubted him.

That was one of the main things that kept him in Snowbird— showing all those who had doubted him. That was what had got him up McKinley—because Marty had told him his hot air wouldn't get him up the mountain.

And that was what would help get him up the seven peaks: a lot of friends and business associates already were telling him he was crazy, that at best this mountain climbing was nothing more than a midlife crisis, a quixotic fantasy, and at worst possibly the ruin of his businesses from which he could ill afford so much time away.

The Elbrus team—Frank, Dick, Dick's son Dan, and Jack Wheeler—checked into the Sports Hotel, built for the Moscow Olympics of 1980. (The charge for hotels, transportation, including domestic airfare, interpreters, and climbing guides was only $850 per person for the entire eleven-day trip.) Their Russian hosts couldn't have been more gracious and they repeatedly asked that they tell other American climbers to come and visit Russia.

They caught a flight south past Stalingrad to the town of Mineral Vody (Mineral Water), from where they made a two-hour drive to the quick-flowing Baxan River, draining the north and east slopes of Elbrus into a valley wooded with evergreens and here and there deciduous trees beginning to yellow, with fall color. Their microbus followed the river to the head of the valley, where they checked into a drab five-story resort owned and operated by a labor union and available to tourists. The Russian guides told them that next morning they would begin with an acclimatization hike.

At dawn the guides awakened them, and after a quick breakfast they left for their hike. The natural beauty of the upper Baxan Valley was a surprise. Perhaps the leaden sky and dull architecture of Moscow, succeeded by the arid landscape outside Mineral Vody, had dampened their expectations, but here they found a trail through an enchanting forest with streams and rivulets cascading down the steep walls of the canyon. The temperature was in the low 80’s, and as the hike progressed through the morning Frank worked up a sweat and found he was falling behind.

“Maybe you ought to take off that heavyweight underwear you're wearing,” Dick suggested at the next rest stop.

“I’ll be all right,” Frank said.

“Whatever you say.” Dick was trying to share some of the things he had learned from Marty Hoey on McKinley, such as how important it is to dress so as never to get overheated and dehydrate by sweating, or lose too much heat and use up energy needlessly trying to stay warm. Dick had learned that in the mountains things like that count.

What Dick hadn't yet learned, though, was that Frank didn't pay much attention to such things. Frank's wife had actually bought most of the outdoor clothing for this trip, just as she always bought all his clothes, and always packed for him. He hated doing things like that, just as he hated to be concerned with what he considered petty details in the home, like cooking, furnishings, and the like. He just focused on grander schemes.

As they continued Frank once again fell behind, and now he stopped long enough to shed the top of his underwear. But that wasn't the only thing holding him back. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep up. He knew he wasn't in great shape, but he had diligently worked out for two weeks before coming on the climb, so he thought he should be in shape to handle this level of climbing. In fact, soon after he had agreed with Dick to do the Seven Summits, he decided to test himself: he got up each morning at 6:00 sharp and ran hard for one hour. Frank hated running and he hated getting up that early, but he felt if he could do both for two weeks he could also find the stamina to climb the seven peaks.

He fulfilled this pact with himself, and felt confident for the climb. More important than the physical benefits from this exercise, though, was Frank's experience on his earlier climbs of the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, and Mont Blanc. On the summit day of each of those climbs he had been nauseous and exhausted but had pushed on anyway and made the tops. From that he had concluded that on this new project the worst he could expect would be a total of seven bad summit days.

But now that he was having trouble keeping up on just the practice hike he was becoming less sanguine about the summit climb. At the next rest stop he found the others waiting for him, and he was concerned he was holding them up. He sat down, breathing hard, and now took off his long underwear bottoms.

“Well, Frank,” Dick said with a smile as he gestured toward Frank's slightly overweight waist, “you'll lose that before the year's out.”

Frank knew Dick intended no malice, but sensitive as he was to falling behind, the comment had a barb to it. Frank's ego was not bolstered by the Russian guides, either, whose contemptuous silence needed no translation.

Dick was of course aware the Russians weren't too impressed, and indeed he himself was beginning to wonder about Frank. But he put it out of his mind, thinking that the next two days would be the real test; he would withhold judgment until then.

The following day they had a comfortable morning, eating from a breakfast selection of porridge, yogurt, bacon, salami, and canned fish and fruit. Frank only picked at his food, though, not finding much to his liking. The six of them, including Danny Bass, Wheeler, and the two Russian guides, left at 8:00 A.M. and took a nearby aerial tram from 8,000 feet to nearly 11,000 feet, followed by a short chairlift, before actually walking at a comfortable pace another 2,000 vertical feet to the shelter where they would spend the night. It was a peculiarly rounded three-story building sheathed in raw sheet metal that looked like a giant Airstream trailer.

“We sleep now,” the Russian guides said as soon as it was dark. “We leave early.”

True to their word, the two guides woke them at 3:00 A.M., and although they were out of the hut and on their way by 4:30 the guides grumbled because they were already an hour behind. The weather was good though, and the clear predawn boded a fine summit day. There was just enough starlight to follow the snowy path. There was no wind, and the only sound was their boots crunching on hard snow. An hour from the hut twilight revealed neighboring peaks across the adjacent valley. The tallest, now only slightly higher than the level they were on, had twin summits that looked like ears on the famous Cheshire cat; the tips of those ears caught the dawn's first rays, and a soft pink moved slowly down the cat's face.

Dick and the senior guide soon began to work ahead of the others.

Danny, having trouble with a frame pin in his pack, was behind, as was Wheeler; Frank, along with the younger Russian, further yet. In three hours Dick and the older guide reached what the Russian indicated was a regular rest stop.

“You good. You strong,” the Russian said. Dick puffed at the compliment even though he knew he was gaining his rating only in comparison to his weaker companions. But still he couldn't deny he was feeling great.

Wheeler arrived and soon Danny caught up and they juryrigged a missing pin to hold his pack to its frame. Frank and the younger guide were now too far back for the others to wait, so they carried on. It was a separation that continued to grow as the day progressed.

Elbrus is an old extinct volcano that for the most part is really nothing more than a long walk up extensive, gradual snow slopes. The technique was to find a comfortable pace, placing one foot after the other, breathing rhythmically between steps. Even though they were now at 16,500 feet, and they had climbed to that altitude with little acclimatization, Dick and his guide continued to make good progress and by noon crested the long slope that led to a saddle just below the final summit rise. Wheeler and Dan soon caught up, and they continued. Afternoon cumulus obscured the valleys below but the snow summit was brilliant against blue sky, and in little more than an hour Dick was making the final steps. Though he had been climbing with only an occasional rest for nearly nine hours, and with little more than a short snack since breakfast, he felt no exhaustion. There were no thoughts of Snowbird, of bankers, of loan payments, of payroll deadlines; this was the catharsis that drew Dick to climbing mountains. Here it had been only himself against these snow slopes, a simple one-on-one he had met and overcome. He stepped on top.

18,481 feet, the highest point in Europe. He looked east, across the transverse Caucasus range, toward the landlocked Caspian Sea, then west toward the Black Sea. He thought how this was another of the Seven Summits—now he had done two of them. Then Dan made the top. That made all of them except Frank and his guide. It was now 2:00 in the afternoon, and Dick knew there was little chance Frank would make it. They stayed on the summit for a half hour, then their guide pointed to his watch and they turned to the descent.

At that moment Frank was 1,500 vertical feet below them, still moving upward but at a tortoise pace. Frank didn't realize it, but the high altitude was clouding his perceptions. He and his single guide stopped to rest at an abandoned hut just before the final and steepest slope.

I can stay here tonight, Frank thought, then in the morning after a rest keep going to the top.

He was too fatigued to realize that the hut's roof was destroyed, that the inside was filled with snow, that he had no pack, no sleeping bag, no food, no stove, and consequently no water. Staying at the hut—or what was left of it—made no sense whatsoever.

After a few minutes, the guide motioned to Frank it was time to strap crampons on their boots, but Frank was so exhausted he remained lying on his back until the guide came over and strapped the crampons on for him. Then they stood, and although Frank walked like a member of a death march, they continued climbing.

I’ll play a game, Frank thought. I’ll take thirty steps. Count each one … two, three, four.

Frank got to thirty and tried to talk himself into another thirty. He made five, but couldn't do any more. He collapsed on his back, breathing hard. Frank watched as the guide, now fifty feet above him, uncoiled a rope.

What's he doing that for? Frank wondered.

The guide then tossed the rope, and the end landed next to Frank. He stared at it, wondering why the guide threw it down.

Maybe he's trying to dry it out, Frank thought.

The guide waited five minutes, then ten. Frank didn't move, but continued to breathe hard and stare at the rope. Finally the guide motioned it was time to turn around.

Frank felt no sense of disappointment; instead, there was relief it was ending, that soon he would be back in the refuge, in bed. Shortly the others, on their way down, caught up, and as they descended together Frank started feeling better and the dreamlike fatigue that had swept him like a drug began to fade. They reached the refuge at dusk.

Even though he was improving, that evening Frank was running a temperature and told everyone he, was too exhausted to think about another attempt.

“Maybe I can come back here next year when I’m in better shape,” he said.

The next day they descended the tram and began the trip back to Moscow. Oddly, Frank still experienced no disappointment—he felt he had given the attempt his best effort—but he realized he would have to retract his former belief that with an all-out, determined effort he could force himself to push to the summits of the seven peaks. This time it hadn't worked. Instead of feeling demoralized, though, he decided the thing to do was try to get in better shape and then give the future climbs his best shot and be content with that. He felt good about his self-realization, and back in Moscow he called his wife, Luanne.

“Darling, even though I didn't make it, I have really good news about the climb.”

“What could possibly be good about this mountain-climbing business?”

“That it was the easiest thing in the world for me to turn back, that I didn't feel defeated, or even disappointed, that the rest of the climbs won't be do-or-die efforts like I said, but that I’ll just give each one my best shot.”

Frank didn't know Dick well enough yet to confide these thoughts to him, but Dick nonetheless sensed that Frank's failure on Elbrus hadn't dampened his enthusiasm to follow through with their plan. Dick knew that even if Frank couldn't make some of the summits, or even most (after all, Elbrus was among the easiest), there would probably always be on each expedition other mountaineers who could accompany Dick. If he had to leave Frank behind, well, that was life. He would certainly prefer a partner he could go arm-in-arm with to the top of each peak but he also realized how extraordinarily lucky he was to have anyone with whom to share the dream of trying the Seven Summits.

Before leaving Moscow, Frank made another call to his office and learned he was needed immediately in California.

“There's just one thing we haven't done yet,” he said to the others. “Would you guys please get that movie camera and get Clint's footage of Red Square?”

Now Dick was doubly pleased he had climbed Elbrus because once again he was afraid that without a film permit they would be caught and blacklisted from ever returning to Russia. It was a gray, misty morning as Wheeler stealthily unboxed the camera in a removed corner of Red Square while Dick kept lookout for the trenchcoated KGB officials he was certain were going to nab them any moment. Then Wheeler used Dick's shoulder for the camera rest as he filmed. No Russians interfered after all, and some months later, when
Firefox
was released, there were a few brief seconds on the wide screen of their Red Square footage.