Seven Summits Part 2

"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 sc.r.a.pes 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 h.e.l.l 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. Alt.i.tude, avalanches, and creva.s.ses 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 d.i.c.k Ba.s.s 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 d.i.c.k 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 alt.i.tude 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 d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k Ba.s.s stood on the sundeck of the Klein Matterhorn Restaurant Complex in Zermatt. Spreading his arms to encompa.s.s the view he exclaimed, "Just look at this, Hoopie. I'm telling you, we'll have the same thing at s...o...b..rd and people will flock to it."

Until then Hoopie, s...o...b..rd's mountain manager, who was accompanying d.i.c.k on this tour of mountaintop restaurants, had doubted the possibility of a similar installation at s...o...b..rd. But now, caught between d.i.c.k'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," d.i.c.k said. "You're just like the rest-always doubting me at first."

It seemed to d.i.c.k he was always facing an uphill battle convincing people not only about the mountaintop restaurant but about most of the visions he had for s...o...b..rd (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 d.i.c.k 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 s...o...b..rd the way he dreamed it, but that was okay: he was only fifty-one years old.

d.i.c.k felt his tour of mountaintop restaurants in Europe had been such a success that he could put s...o...b..rd 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.

d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k got a little skeptical, thinking the luggage looked pretty fancy for a true climber.

Mostly that top-drawer Abercrombie and Fitch stuff, d.i.c.k 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."

d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sage 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 d.i.c.k'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 s...o...b..rd 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 d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k'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." d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k was keenly disappointed, but not discouraged. At this time he saw a poem in the Dallas Morning News. 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." d.i.c.k 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. 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." d.i.c.k 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.

He also ran for the president of the student council, but lost. His uncle sent words of commiseration and encouragement, again giving d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, because this other fellow was "so smart and got such good grades." That had done it: d.i.c.k 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 s...o...b..rd- 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 a.s.sociates 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, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k'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," d.i.c.k suggested at the next rest stop.

"I'll be all right," Frank said.

"Whatever you say." d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k had learned that in the mountains things like that count.

What d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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," d.i.c.k said with a smile as he gestured toward Frank's slightly overweight waist, "you'll lose that before the year's out."

Frank knew d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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 Ba.s.s, 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.

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k and the older guide reached what the Russian indicated was a regular rest stop.

"You good. You strong," the Russian said. d.i.c.k 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 alt.i.tude with little acclimatization, d.i.c.k 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 c.u.mulus obscured the valleys below but the snow summit was brilliant against blue sky, and in little more than an hour d.i.c.k 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 s...o...b..rd, of bankers, of loan payments, of payroll deadlines; this was the catharsis that drew d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 alt.i.tude 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 d.i.c.k well enough yet to confide these thoughts to him, but d.i.c.k nonetheless sensed that Frank's failure on Elbrus hadn't dampened his enthusiasm to follow through with their plan. d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k. 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k kept lookout for the trenchcoated KGB officials he was certain were going to nab them any moment. Then Wheeler used d.i.c.k's shoulder for the camera rest as he filmed. No Russians interfered after all, and some months later, when Firefox Firefox was released, there were a few brief seconds on the wide screen of their Red Square footage. was released, there were a few brief seconds on the wide screen of their Red Square footage.

3.

ACONCAGUA: THE FIRST EXPEDITION.

Frank realized his best hope of getting up the Seven Summits was to get into better shape, and he knew the best way to do that was to climb. A few weeks after Elbrus he was on his annual family vacation on the island of Hawaii, and he decided to take a day hike up Mauna Loa.

He started in the morning but by late afternoon realized he had misjudged the distance and wouldn't make the top by nightfall, so he turned back. He knew he couldn't reach his rental car before it got dark, and having forgotten to take a flashlight he groped down the lava trail, tripped, and went nose first into the jagged lava rock. He held his hand over his face, feeling the warm blood gush. It took an hour back to the car, and by the time he pulled into a nearby army camp he was in shock. It took fifteen st.i.tches and another two hours before he finally got back to the hotel.

"Oh, my G.o.d," Luanne said when she opened the hotel room door.

"Not exactly a good start on my climbing career, darling."

But Frank was undaunted. As soon as he got back to his office he called d.i.c.k.

"It's a question of getting in shape," he said.

"You just need a few more practice climbs," d.i.c.k agreed.

"And I've been thinking," Frank continued, "that once I do get in shape we definitely should plan on doing all the climbs one after another in one year. Otherwise if we spread them out over a few years it'd be hard to maintain that conditioning."