Seven Summits (8 page)

“Are you serious?” Wickwire stated incredulously. “It'll be extremely close if Marty and Geo don't get stuck bivouacking.”

But Frank was serious. It was as though in his limited experience he could not realize just how slow and awkward he really was. Frank knew he was the weak link but what he didn't know was how easy it would be for him to push himself into a position he couldn't get out of.

“I’ll take the others here back to camp,” Wickwire told Marty.

“You're giving up on a summit try, then?” she asked.

“No. I might solo the Polish Glacier route in the morning.”

Now it was the others’ turn to be incredulous, but they knew Wickwire was experienced enough to judge such matters. Without further discussion the team split, Marty and Geo continuing on the traverse, the others descending to high camp.

They were quiet as they worked their way down a broad slope. Back at camp the mood was glum. Even Dick was too disappointed to strike up conversation. Frank collapsed outside his tent in the sun and was soon asleep. Wickwire got the binoculars and starting scanning the upper slopes to see if he could locate an alternate route on the Polish Glacier free of crevasses so he could make a solo attempt the next day. One way looked possible but still would involve crossing the bergshrund, the wide crevasse where the head of the glacier separated from the mountain.

To keep his mind off his disappointment, Dick concentrated on reading an account of a previous climb up the Polish Glacier, figuring such background might prove helpful. But he knew his chances were slim. If Marty and Geo came back too tired, and if Wickwire was going to solo in the morning, there was no hope that he could climb the mountain by himself. Obviously, Frank and Goldmark, both having trouble with the altitude, were out of it.

Maybe I ought to tell Wickwire how much I’d love to go with him, Dick thought.

But he hesitated.

No, he thought, I’m the neophyte and I’d better stay in my place. Dick read the article for the third time, then noticed Frank was getting sunburned.

“Frank, wake up,” Dick yelled.

“Huh?”

“You've got to learn to watch after yourself. You're getting sunburned.”

Frank wouldn't move, so Dick got Wickwire to help drag him inside their tent, where he lay motionless the rest of the afternoon. Dick went back to the article. About 5:30 Marty and Geo returned, looking exhausted, and sat down on their packs without saying anything. Dick wasn't sure how far up they had made it, but he figured they looked so wiped out there was no chance they'd want to try it again tomorrow. Wickwire started the stove to make the pair a hot drink.

Marty looked over to Dick and said, “Whoever said this mountain is an easy walk up is full of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it's a long way up there.”

“You mean you made it?”

“Yeah, we made it.” Marty was too exhausted even to grin.

“Well why in the heck didn't you say so?” Dick hooted.

Dick's excitement was dampened a moment later when he realized that now there really was no way they would go back up. He looked over to Wickwire, who again seemed deep in thought.

The bergshrund was bothering Wickwire. There was no safe way around it, and he had promised his wife he would never again take an unnecessary risk, not after he had nearly died on that high bivouac on K
2
. That time he had spent the night out alone at 28,000 feet with no sleeping bag or tent. At dawn he had been so exhausted from the ordeal all he had wanted to do was lie back and go to sleep, but an image in his mind of his wife and kids going to the airport and seeing all the team except him returning home gave him the strength to get up and continue the descent.

Wickwire looked toward Marty and said, “Do you think Bass could make it?”

Marty was still bent over with exhaustion, staring at her tea cup. Without looking up she said, “Bass can go, he can make it.” Dick wanted to hug and kiss her.

“Hey Bass,” Wickwire called over. “You want to climb this thing with me in the morning?”

Dick moved to Wickwire's tent that evening, and at midnight he peered out the tent door. The night was cloudless, and he crossed his fingers, hoping the clear skies would hold. Now he was like a little kid waiting for dawn to bring Christmas morning. At 4:15 he shook Wickwire.

“Time to get ready, Wickwire.”

It took two hours to melt the snow necessary for several rounds of hot tea and cocoa. Although they got away later than he would have liked, Wickwire was optimistic. Dick had shown the previous several days he was strong and could climb quickly, and besides they would be moving even faster because they were carrying next to nothing, only three liters of water and four candy bars. Soon they reached yesterday's high point, where they had traversed off the Polish Glacier, but now they continued upward. The ice was smooth and getting steeper.

When climbing steep ice it is sometimes necessary to front-point, to kick in the two crampon points that protrude from the toe of the boot like prongs on a pitchfork. When the ice is hard these points go in only a quarter inch or so and it takes experience to judge how much or little they will hold. When first tried it can be unnerving, and front-pointing was altogether new to Dick.

Wickwire showed Dick how to belay the rope, and then started up the first steep section, kicking in his front points and at the same time giving Dick a little on-the-job instruction.

“Keep your heels down, otherwise you put the wrong angle on the front points and they might pop.”

Dick watched, trying to remember at the same time what Wickwire had told him about belaying the rope in case Wickwire should fall.

Was I supposed to hold firm with this hand, Dick thought, or this other hand?

“Swing your ice axe like this. You'll know by the feel when the bite is good.”

“If you say so.”

Please don't fall, Wickwire, Dick thought.

Minutes later Wickwire reached the end of the rope length, set up a belay and yelled to Dick, “Belay's on. Your turn.”

Dick reached with his ice axe, swung it and felt the pick bite the ice. Then he kicked his boot but the points glanced off. He tried again and this time felt the points stick. He stepped up, and kicked in the other boot.

“That's the way,” Wickwire called down encouragingly.

Dick was connected to the mountain only by the prongs of his front points and the tip of his ice axe—none of which was in the ice more than a half inch—and he welcomed any words of encouragement. He pried the ice axe loose, moved it up an arm's length, and swung again. It glanced off, and he tried again. Another glancing blow.

“Hold the shaft firmly, and swing with an even arc.”

This time it held. Dick next moved his crampon points higher, first kicking one boot, then the other. In this vertical crab-crawl he climbed toward Wickwire, stopping once to look down to see the glacier falling away under his boots with only the four thin prongs connecting him to the mountain. He quickly looked back up and decided to pay attention only to the work directly in front of him.

Dick reached Wickwire and they repeated the same cycle, climbing four more rope lengths until the angle lay back and they could continue simultaneously. Wickwire set a fast pace, and occasionally Dick would yell for a rest, but his stops were always brief. Wickwire was impressed.

“Bass, if only I can be as strong when I’m fifty-two.”

At this point the trick was to place your mind almost in a trance, to move one foot in front of the other at a pace slow enough to minimize rest stops and fast enough to reach the summit with enough daylight remaining to get down. Here Dick had experience; on McKinley he learned to push his body beyond what he thought possible. Dick found it amazing that with only a little water and two candy bars a person could accomplish so much work.

Eventually they came to the bergshrund Wickwire had spotted earlier through binoculars. The crevasse was wide and deep, and the only crossing appeared to be over a narrow snow bridge only a few feet thick. Wickwire took Dick's ice axe and drove it into the snow, showing Dick how to belay the rope around it and over the top of his boot, to hold him in case the bridge broke. Then Wickwire started across, probing as he went with his ice axe to test the snow. With careful steps, he crossed. On the other, higher side he set up the same ice axe—boot belay, and Dick started over.

“Follow my exact steps,” Wickwire said.

Suddenly Dick's foot punched through and in a heartbeat the bridge started to crumple. Reflexively Dick leaped while at the same instant he swung his ice axe and dug in his front crampon points; they hit home in the opposite wall just as the rest of the bridge gave way into the deep crevasse. Dick pulled himself up on the axe shaft, wormed over the crevasse edge and joined Wickwire at the safe belay.

“Great going, Bass! Done like a real mountaineer,” Wick wire said as he gave Dick a pat on the shoulder. Dick didn't know whether to just feel relieved he had made it, or be buoyant because he had performed so well.

Wickwire looked across the now bridgeless chasm but judged that on the way down with the uphill advantage they could probably jump it.

They guessed they were close to the top. A few hundred feet higher they could see a crest of snow with nothing behind or around it. They set a slow, even pace, making one step, breathing a few times, making another. Dick was elated, thinking how only yesterday afternoon he had nearly given up hope of reaching this point. He looked up. There was the crest, now only thirty more feet. He made a few more steps, then looked up again.

“Oh, my gosh,” Dick said.

He was hoping his eyes were deceiving him, but he knew better. The crest wasn't the summit at all. Beyond it was another ridge, several hundred feet long, with another crest maybe a hundred feet higher. They continued their slow step, breath, step.

Dick was starting to feel exhausted. Haven't I been through enough not to have to suffer through this ordeal, Dick said to himself in a kind of half thought, half prayer.

Dick felt he was too close not to make it, however, and mustered the will to keep making more steps, resolving to make the summit no matter what. Now he only had forty more feet, thirty more …

“Oh, no! Another false summit.”

The ridge continued higher, to another crest at least a hundred feet higher and again several hundred further. Dick felt himself sink, the elation he had felt seconds ago changed to dismay, even doubt.

I’m not going to make it, he thought. This close, and I’m not going to make it.

But he did make another step, then another. He tried to ignore his fatigue, his aching legs and lungs. Step, breath, breath, step.

I was tired just below the summit of McKinley, he told himself, and I made that. So I know I’ve got it in me to make this one, too.

Step, breath, step, breath.

Each step now seemed like it took minutes. He knew it wasn't that much time, but the fatigue made it seem that way. He thought about looking up from his feet again, but decided not to. He couldn't bear another disappointment. He made a few more steps. He changed his mind, and glanced up quickly.

What's that on top of the crest just in front, he wondered. A cross? Yeah, it's a cross. That means it's got to be the summit.

Wickwire had now stopped, and Dick caught up to him. With twenty steps left they interlocked arms around each other's shoulders and side-by-side walked to the summit of Aconcagua.

The highest point in the western hemisphere: 22,835 feet.

“Bass, this has been one of the best summit days I’ve had. It's been a real pleasure climbing with you.”

Dick beamed with pride and felt a tear in his eye. Coming from a veteran like Wickwire, it made him feel like he had really won his spurs. Below them through building clouds they could see the sweep of snow mountains extending north and south, a view to match Dick's joy.

“Aah-eah-eaahhh,” Dick bellowed.

Storm clouds, then snow hampered their descent. Belays down a steep, icy section next to the Piedra Bandera, a prominent rock mass on the east side of the glacier, took two hours and they found themselves at nightfall groping their way across heavily crevassed portions of the glacier back toward their camp on the west side—which they had left over thirteen hours earlier.

Both of them were lightly clothed and Dick had real concern not only about the crevasses, but about not finding their camp as well. It would be just my fate, he thought, after climbing this mountain, to freeze to death in this storm. This wasn't just an idle or “nervous Nellie” concern, either; not too far below them lay the body they had seen coming up. Possibly the man had perished just this way the year before. Dick could see the corpse clearly in his mind, spread-eagled on its back.

All of a sudden, George Dunn came out of the darkness right in front of them. Marty and the others had descended that morning, but he had waited at high camp for them because of the storm and finally couldn't stand the anxiety any longer, deciding to go look for them with a tent and some food in his pack. He knew it would be difficult to survive the night without some help, but he really didn't think he could find them on such a large glacier, at night and in the middle of a snowstorm.

They all hugged, roped one to the other, and Geo led them out of their trial—at least this trial of finding camp. For Dick, though, another trial was about to begin.

Just as he was making his last step from the hard, pocked glacier ice onto the rock of their campsite, his left foot dropped abruptly into a hole he hadn't seen in the dark. He yelled and toppled over, sliding downhill while clutching his left calf. Geo and Wickwire immediately leaped back onto the glacier and fell on top of him, arresting his movement with their crampons and ice axes.

He had really torn it, literally and figuratively. His gastrocnemius muscle was shredded and so was any reasonable chance of getting off the mountain, particularly with the tortuous route that lay below.

That night his lower leg swelled up like a balloon and the slightest jar would give him pain. Early next morning they were pondering what to do, when Dick asked if they had any pain pills, so he could move enough to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, Wickwire had some triple Empirin with codeine, which Dick started taking. Within fifteen minutes he was able to move slowly, so long as he didn't put any weight on his left leg; it was aching, but only had sharp pain if he jerked or vibrated, or accidentally put weight on it. Encouraged, Dick told them he would try to descend the mountain on his good right leg, using his two ski poles for support. Actually, there was no alternative; they certainly couldn't carry him.