Seven Summits Part 7

Later that night d.i.c.k stood in his living room with the lights out so he could see the glow of the full moon illuminating the ski runs across the valley, thinking how those used to be Marty's runs when she was head of the safety patrol. It wasn't going to be the same without her, but d.i.c.k knew in his heart she was going to be with him in spirit on the way up every one of those seven peaks.

Frank walked up and stood next to d.i.c.k. "Well, partner," he said, "the clock just struck twelve."

"The first day of what's going to be the best year of our lives." d.i.c.k grinned.

It was also going to be an exciting year for the Canadian Pat Morrow. Three months before that New Year's-on October 6, 1982-he had reached the summit of Everest. He had scaled the mountain by the so-called normal route on the southeast ridge, the same way Frank and d.i.c.k were planning. In a single day he had gone from the 26,200-foot level to the summit and back down to 22,000 feet, and the following day had descended to base camp. There he had collapsed in exhaustion, but after sleep and a good meal he felt much better, and as he started his homeward trek he began to make his plans.

He had now climbed three of the seven summits, including the highest and hardest. Of the remaining four, three would be easy. He could pick off Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Kosciusko anytime in 1983. The only remaining hurdle was to figure how to get to Antarctica. Morrow had not yet heard about Frank and d.i.c.k, so his plan at that time was, once he got back home, to contact one of the air services that fly in the high Canadian Arctic and see if they had any idea how to get to the Antarctic. Realizing it was too late to get there in late '82 or early '83, he hoped to make his attempt the following season.

It was more or less the same timetable Frank and d.i.c.k had in mind.

6.

ACONCAGUA '83: ONE DOWN The morning we were to leave for Aconcagua my wife and I arrived according to plan at Frank's Spanish-style home located on a lovely Beverly Hills street lined with tall jacaranda trees.

"Perfect timing," Frank said as the housekeeper escorted us into the breakfast room. Frank was seated at a table spread with papers.

"I need someone to witness the signing of my will," he explained.

"I thought updated doc.u.ments might be a good idea," Frank's wife Luanne said as she arrived downstairs. Even at such an early hour Luanne looked impeccable. She sat down at the table with a grace that bespoke the days she had worked as a model, before she met Frank. They had been married twenty-seven years.

Frank, with a Cheshire cat grin, was clearly enjoying the melodramatic timing of his will-signing, but Luanne was sedate and I suspected took the matter seriously. She gave an effort at nonchalance, though, and as Frank and I loaded our gear in the rental van for the drive to the airport she said, "Just like sending the boys off to summer camp."

"See you in three weeks," Frank said, and gave her a kiss.

Then she started to cry. My wife put an arm around her.

"Don't worry," my wife consoled, "Rick says it's just a walk-up." "Maybe," Luanne answered, still crying, "but it's a 23,000-foot-high 23,000-foot-high walk-up." walk-up."

This was my first climbing departure since I had been recently married, and not wanting to worry my wife I had told her that Aconcagua was "a piece of cake, just a long hike, really," leaving out the alt.i.tude part. Now, as Frank and I drove out of the driveway, both women had tears running down their cheeks.

In the Miami airport we hooked up with d.i.c.k, cinematographer Steve Marts, Gary Neptune, and new team member, Dan Emmett. He was a forty-four-year-old real estate developer from Los Angeles who every year or so punctuated his work with an expedition either climbing, river running, or ski mountaineering. He was married with three children and a wife seven months pregnant. Both Emmett and I had been members of the 1976 Bicentennial Everest Expedition, and Frank had contacted him while planning the Seven Summits to ask if he had any tips. Emmett had told Frank that on the '76 expedition there were two groups on the team who climbed strongly, the guys in their twenties and early thirties, and the Sherpa porters, who were strong at any age. "No fifty-year-old Occidental," Emmett had added, laughing, "is ever going to climb Everest."

Frank took an instant liking both to Emmett's fearless opinionating and his convivial smile, and invited him to join any of the Seven Summits climbs (other than Antarctica, because of limited s.p.a.ce on the plane). With his wife so close to delivery, going to Aconcagua had been a tough decision for Emmett, but he decided to come hoping the climb would go quickly, and if it didn't he would simply come home early. Emmett had also accepted Frank's offer to go on Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Kosciusko.

The last member of the Aconcagua team, Yvon Chouinard, was tied up in business meetings and had made arrangements to come late, hoping to catch us before we reached base camp. Chouinard was forty-five years old and had two businesses, one manufacturing climbing equipment and the other a line of outdoor clothing called Patagonia. He had annual sales of $30 million. Besides his entrepreneurial successes Chouinard was also a brilliant climber, regarded as a pioneer developer of modern ice climbing techniques, and was arguably the most internationally recognized climber in America. Despite business demands he managed to spend at least six months out of twelve pursuing his favorite sports, which in addition to climbing included kayaking, surfing, telemark skiing, and fly fishing. When Frank extended his invitation to join Aconcagua, Yvon had accepted because it sounded like a fun group of people.

Both Chouinard and I knew that Aconcagua wouldn't offer any real challenges in the way of technical climbing problems, but we still hoped Frank would choose to try again the Polish Glacier route so that at least we would have a bit of ice climbing and glacier travel to look forward to.

"You've got that Everest experience behind you now," I said, "so I bet you could handle it."

Frank hedged on deciding, and he queried the others to see how they felt. Emmett was easy and said he was happy with any route. d.i.c.k was the same. Neptune said he would go with either route but had a preference for the Polish Glacier. Frank was afraid that without the Polish route Chouinard might not come, and as he was looking forward to having a climber of such stature on the trip, he agreed to try the Polish.

As our plane approached Santiago, and we glimpsed the snow crest of the Andes, Frank still wasn't certain he shouldn't have pushed harder for the regular route.

Granted, I've been to twenty-four grand on Everest, he told himself, and that's higher than Aconcagua. But still, what's important is that I get this summit.

As Frank had left his office the day before, where he was still doing some consulting for Warner Bros., his secretary said, "I hope you get to the top of this one. Everyone is saying how you never make it to the top on any of these climbs." And it wasn't just his reputation with his friends, either, that was on the line, but his commitment to the Seven Summits as well. With the hardships of three more months on Everest coming up, and the work and money still needed to tie up Antarctica, not to mention McKinley and Kilimanjaro and Elbrus, he had had to suceed on this first one. If he didn't, he didn't know if he could muster the toughness and determination to go through with the rest of it. to suceed on this first one. If he didn't, he didn't know if he could muster the toughness and determination to go through with the rest of it.

I should have stuck with the regular route, he thought again.

We spent an extra day in Santiago meeting with the Chilean military to work out details of the fuel drop for the Antarctica trip later in the year, then we were off in a minibus on the trans-Andean highway which pa.s.ses by Portillo close to Aconcagua. We entered the foothills, climbing dozens of linked switchbacks up a narrow rocky defile. Near the top of the pa.s.s the valley opened and the hills were colored with spring gra.s.s and patches of yellow flowers. Things looked different from the way Frank an0064 d.i.c.k remembered the year before. It had been a heavy winter, with record snowfall, and now with an unusually warm spring the rivers were in high flood. The railway running parallel to the road was washed out in several places, and soon our van was stopped in front of a 200-foot-wide tongue of mud oozing across the highway. The only way across was to wait for morning, after the night's temperatures had slowed the mud enough so that a bulldozer could plow a temporary swath.

The next day at the crest of the highway we rendezvoused with our two mule drivers and their pack animals to begin the three-day walk-in. These mule drivers told us no one had yet attempted to get up the Polish Glacier route this season, and they warned us the trail might be washed out. We took off ahead of the animals knowing they would soon catch us. An hour later we came to the first gray tongue of dried mud that covered the hillside, the hardened remnant of a huge flow that had come down during the spring thaws; it cut our trail for a quarter mile.

"Looks easier along the water edge," I yelled, raising my voice above the nearby Vacas River, roaring in full flood.

The churning water forced us against the mud cliff. I was in the lead, and turning a corner I could see ahead what looked like an impa.s.sable section where the raging water had cut vertically into the mudslide.

"Up here," Frank yelled, indicating a breach in the mud wall leading up to the surface of the slide. We had all been hesitant to make the traverse on the slope of hardened mud because it was covered with ball-bearing-like rocks, and a slip could send you off the edge into the turbulent rapids.

But there was no choice. We followed Frank up, then everyone fanned out across the mud slide, each man concentrating on his own footing. None of us were saying anything. It was like trying to walk across a floor tipped at an angle and covered with marbles. I glanced below to the eight-foot standing waves in the muddy torrent, and went through the mental drill of what to do should I plummet in: get my pack off, feet downriver, backpaddle for an eddy. But I knew if I got into one of those sucking ten-foot holes it would probably be all over.

I delicately placed one foot, then the other. Suddenly somebody was yelling, "Frank's going in!"

I spun and saw Frank on his belly sliding quickly toward the edge. Marts was below and off to the side, going for him. He reached and grabbed-and missed. Under the weight of his full pack Frank gathered speed, pawing the hard mud, trying to dig in with his fingers. He had twenty-five feet to the edge, and there was nothing any of us could do. Fifteen feet ... ten ... then his feet hit a small rock glued in the mud. He tried to brake on it, but his feet popped over. Five feet and he hit another rock ... and stopped. He was on the very edge of the cliff.

"Don't move!"

Now I was closest. I took my pack off, braced it on a rock and worked across to Frank. With one hand on a rock I prayed was solidly glued and another grabbing Frank's pack frame I had him until Emmett could throw a rope.

Frank was motionless on his belly, breathing hard. His legs were shaking, and he had a nasty sc.r.a.pe on his thigh.

"Don't move until I get this rope around you."

No doubt feeling that flush of irrationality that sometimes. .h.i.ts you after a close call, Frank calmly said after we pulled him to safety, "You know, Rick, the last time my leg was shaking this bad I was with you too, on that rock climb in Sespe Gorge."

Then he looked up to Steve Marts and asked, "Did you get it?"

"Get what?"

"Get the scene on film?"

"Frank, you almost died and you're worried about the movie."

"I don't want to have almost died for nothing!"

Up-slope Gary Neptune found a better crossing, but further up, the trail became an obstacle course of avalanche debris. In several places we spotted carca.s.ses of guanaco lying petrographically in the mud. They had apparently been caught in the slides and swept to their deaths. One baby guanaco had come to rest on a small flat and now, watered by the spring thaw, had a ring of yellow flowers around it. Late afternoon we came to a huge fan of avalanche mud that was clearly impa.s.sable; the only possible route might be across the river, but the rising torrent looked too treacherous.

"Let's try it anyway," d.i.c.k ventured.

"It's almost dark," Frank countered. "The river is swollen, we don't know how deep it is, and you want to cross."

"Heck, yes. Let's get this show on the road."

"That's my partner," Frank said, shaking his head.

"I'm not sure our mules are even going to make it this far," Emmett said.

He had a good point, and we decided to drop our packs and wait for the animals. By nightfall there was no sign of them so we spread our bags and bivouacked. In the morning we spotted the two mule drivers on horseback riding our way, but with no mules. When they got to us they said one of the mules had slipped and rolled over several times, fortunately without injury. Marts raised his eyebrows. I was acting as translator, and he asked me to ask if it had been the mule with the silver metal case, the one marked "camera equipment."

"Si, senor."

Marts was crestfallen, but Frank perked up. Without the mules it was obviously impossible to continue toward the Polish route, and he knew the only alternative remaining would be to go back and try to get in by the easier regular route.

"Looks like the ruta normal," I said, voicing Frank's thoughts.

"I wouldn't mind seeing the other side of this mountain anyway," d.i.c.k added.

"And I wouldn't mind seeing the summit," Frank piped in, a wide grin on his face.

Fortunately Marts had done a good job packing his cameras and there was no damage from the mule tumble. Our reversal definitely had one advantage: Chouinard was able to catch up with us. As a complete team we were off again the next day, this time following a wide valley little affected by the avalanches that had turned us around on the other route. Despite the heavy snows and record runoff the surrounding cliffs were dry and barren. This was a high desert. On the second day of our hike the air above the flat floor shimmered under noon heat and it was easy to imagine from this a mirage of camels carrying turbaned riders with curved swords through their c.u.mmerbunds. The only reminder we were on our way to the base of the highest mountain in the western hemisphere was the tops of a few snow peaks visible above the valley rim.

We stopped for lunch in the shadow of a rock resting solitarily on the sandy expanse like a remnant of a Zen rock garden.

"You all look like you're in a natural theater in the open," d.i.c.k said. "How about I lay a poem on ya?"

"Let's hear it."

I smiled. It was great to be with someone with such unabashed romanticism.

"How about 'The Men Who Don't Fit In'?" d.i.c.k asked.

"Hear! Hear!"

d.i.c.k then recited from memory just as the mule drivers arrived, smiling as though they understood the words: "There's a race of men that don't fit in,A race that can't stay still;So they break the hearts of kith and kinAnd they roam the world at will.They range the field and they rove the floodAnd they climb the mountain's crest.Theirs is the curse of the gypsy bloodAnd they don't know how to rest."

The next day we reached the end of the line for the mules, base camp at 13,700 feet, and we decided to spend at least two days there to acclimatize and also to sort loads. It would be important, in order to prevent mountain sickness, to climb at a slow rate; this was potentially even more a hazard here than on Everest because an easy route like this often lures people into climbing too high too fast. But then it looked like we might be in base camp for a few days whether we planned it or not. Telltale lenticular clouds forming over the summit presaged storm, and the next morning we awoke to several inches of new snow blanketing the rocks around camp.

"As long as we're going to get pinned down, it's fortunate we're already in base camp."

It was less fortunate, though, for the dozens of climbers caught higher on the mountain by the sudden and unseasonable weather. As the storm continued for the next two days they straggled in, four Venezuelans, three Basques, a j.a.panese team, three Swiss, two Brazilians, and an American couple from Arkansas. Many of them were novice, and they were suffering. The Brazilians had frostbitten hands with fingers starting to go black; another climber was suffering pulmonary edema, a potentially fatal acc.u.mulation of liquid in the lungs caused by high alt.i.tude; and even worse, there was a solo Korean missing, who had last been seen near the summit, just as the storm set in. "He was not climber," the j.a.panese reported. "Maybe just traveler who decides to climb mountain. No sleeping bag, no parka, no boots, only shoes like you wear in city. Maybe he have big trouble."

"I was afraid of this," Chouinard moaned. "Travel the length of the hemisphere just to get stuck in rescues."

I knew what Chouinard was talking about. As the most tenured climbers present, if anyone above were to get in trouble-and that seemed likely-the unwritten code of the mountain would have Chouinard, Neptune, and me up there trying to get them down alive. And we weren't in the mood. It wasn't that we had a dispa.s.sion for our fellow climbers as much as impatience for incompetents and fools who had no business on the mountain without guides. It was the same on McKinley. Each season so many people get in trouble that the better-equipped and more competent climbers often spend all their time in rescues and sometimes miss reaching the summit.

There was nothing we could do while the storm lasted, so we gathered in one of the larger tents and pa.s.sed the days swapping stories. I told about my first adventure, when I had sailed a sloop to Tahiti with some other teenage friends, and how only one of us knew how to navigate, or claimed to know how, because after twenty days we sighted an island, but it wasn't Tahiti. When we asked our navigator, all he could do was shrug his shoulders, so we fashioned a directional antenna from a coathanger, tuned Radio Tahiti on our transistor, determined the direction of the strongest signal, and sailed that way. In the morning we sighted Tahiti and even before entering the pa.s.s through the fringing reef we heard the drums. Near the quay women were dressed in flowerprint wraps with hibiscus in their hair. Men chased women and women pushed men in the water. Everyone had a rum bottle. "This is it." "I knew it would be this way." "I'm never leaving." We all a.s.sumed it was just another typical day in paradise; none of us had ever heard of Bastille Day.

Chouinard had a story from his youth, too, when he was an itinerant climbing b.u.m vagabonding from one mountain range to the next. He was in upstate New York, at the Shuw.a.n.gunks cliffs, when he and his climbing pal took on an automobile delivery to New Mexico. They needed to get to Yosemite, and had just enough money to see them through the season there. The car kept breaking down, though, and all their money went to repairs. In New Mexico the car owner refused to pay them back, so penniless they set out hitchhiking toward Yosemite. In Winslow, Arizona, they were arrested for vagrancy and spent eighteen days in jail at hard labor, with only oatmeal to eat. By the time they got to Yosemite, Chouinard had lost twenty pounds and was too weak to climb.

"Those were the formative years," Chouinard concluded, "and to this day I can't get close to oatmeal."

"d.i.c.k, how about a story from your repertoire."

"Compared to you all," d.i.c.k said, "I've led a sheltered life. But I could tell you about the time I went around the world with my kids repeating the adventures of Richard Halliburton."

"Let's hear it."

"You younger guys might not know about Halliburton, but when I was ten years old his books really whetted my yearning for adventure. He had done all kinds of things like swim the h.e.l.lespont and the Panama Ca.n.a.l, ride an elephant over the Alps like Hannibal, and climb the Matterhorn. I knew he had done the Matterhorn in 1921 right after his college graduation, so when I was nineteen and going to Europe for the summer-that was 1949-I conned these three guys with me into giving it a try. Two of us made it-the other two got acrophobia-and on top I told our guide, Emil Perren, that someday I would come back and climb it again, with my kids.

"Now let's move up to 1973. I've got four teenage kids and all of a sudden my wife drops on me that she wants a divorce. It was a big blow, the two boys staying with me, the girls going with their mother. After that, the only time I ever saw all four kids together was Christmas dinner, so one year I said, 'You know, we need to go on a trip together. How about Switzerland to climb the Matterhorn!'

"They were all for it, so I cabled Emil Perren. He was over seventy, no longer climbing, but he agreed to arrange guides. So that summer of seventy-eight we went over and gave it a try. We caught a midsummer snowstorm, though, and only got a third of the way up, to the Schwa.r.s.ee. But at the end of that year we were again at Christmas dinner and all the kids started saying what a great time they'd had so I said, 'Gosh, if you really enjoyed it that much let's go back and give it another try.'

"They leaped at the idea, and as we made plans I had the thought that as long as we were in Europe we might as well swim the h.e.l.lespont like Halliburton did, run the original route of Phidippides from Marathon to Athens, climb the pyramids in Egypt. And if we're going to do all that, why not go to Nepal and trek to the base of Everest, then to j.a.pan to make the climb up Fuji.

"They thought it was a great plan. The only problem was the bank was talking about liquidating me to pay off my loans, and if I took off for several months, my business manager told me I would be finished. I told the kids we might not be able to do it. It was toss and turn in bed for me every night. The date came for our departure and I had to delay. The loan-with a new bank-that I needed to save everything still hadn't gone through. Finally on a night when I couldn't sleep at all I just said, This is it. Those bankers might be able to foreclose on my a.s.sets, but they're not going to foreclose on my memories. We left several days later.

"It was a Ba.s.s odyssey a la Halliburton. Around the world, we did it all. And I couldn't believe how we all became best friends. You see, the separation had left a kind of gaping hole in my psyche concerning the kids. It was like a mental cancer eating away at me, the thought of them growing up not knowing each other. But we made up for it. And when I reached the base of Everest and looked up at it, I got tears in my eyes and thanked the Lord for helping me set my priorities straight, as otherwise I would not have made the decision to go on the trip.

"While I was away my lawyer and my business manager finished the new bank loan, so I got home and everything was okay. The only thing that was a disappointment was we failed again to climb the Matterhorn-this time we got two thirds of the way up when another summer snowstorm forced us down. That was in 1979. Now in the spring of 1980 I asked Marian, whom I had been dating for five years, to marry me, and I had the idea to do it in the little Anglican chapel in Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn. And that gave me another idea. Why not get married on the summit! I told her I'd have her helicoptered to the top, and our kids and I would climb up and we'd have the ceremony right there. Well, she put the nyet on that real fast, and when you're asking someone to marry you, you can't be too overbearing, so I yielded and agreed to get married in Dallas. But she agreed at least to have a follow-up ceremony in the little chapel in Zermatt.

"So the day after we were married we flew over. Emil Perren was down in the village cheering us on. And this time the weather was right and we climbed the thing-me and my two boys and twin girls-and we got to the summit before noon and were down by six-fifteen with just enough time for me to jump in the tub and soak my aching muscles and make the ceremony by seven. I was hobbling down the street on blistered feet as the church bells tolled, and inside I stood next to my new wife as sunset light filtered through the stained gla.s.s window behind the preacher. And when the preacher finished, he said, 'I feel compelled by circ.u.mstances to say a few words more. I don't know d.i.c.k here-as you can see he just arrived-but I realize this must be one of the great days of his life. Marian here, his new wife, has told me about his climbing the Matterhorn in 1949, his vow to return with his kids, and his two prior attempts. So if there's any final words to leave you with, I guess it's just to remember this: 'The third time works the charm.'"

With d.i.c.k's story finished, Frank and I left the group tent for the smaller two-man tent we were sharing. Outside we could see in the moonlight the huge west face of Aconcagua laced with fresh snow. The cloudless sky had opened the air to drafts of cold that slid from the upper slopes and we felt our cheeks glow and we could see our breath in puffs. The clear cold sky put an optimistic capper on a delightful evening: the barometer was climbing and all indications boded fair weather and a morning departure to locate camp 1. When we were warmly coc.o.o.ned in our mummy bags I wished Frank a good night.

"You know, tonight has underscored for me the importance of choosing the right guys for these climbs," Frank said. "And I don't mean guys just because you know they can help you get to the top."

I thought, You're learning, Frank. There's a lot more to this mountain climbing than just that exhilarating moment you reach the summit. No, the parts that matter most are those intangible ones like tonight, those moments of camaraderie that are like sips of good brandy that give your body and spirit a nice, warm glow.

"Drink up boys," Chouinard said. "We'll need all the liquid we can hold today. It's going to be a hot one."

Chouinard had a four-quart pot full of steaming water for the morning brews. The dawn sky was cloudless, there was no wind, and although some of the upper slopes might yet be unstable with new-fallen snow the slopes leading toward camp 1 looked safe, and all of us were anxious to stretch our legs, since the storm had kept us tent-bound for three days. We planned to carry a load that day to the campsite, then the following day move up and occupy it. Then another load would be carried to camp 2, and the pattern repeated for another camp or two above that before we would be in position to attempt the summit.

"That way we should be acclimatized for the summit bid," Chouinard had said. "We'll take the mountain slow and easy, and drink like crazy the whole way."

Frank was encouraged. He was sure this route would be nothing more than a steep trail, and if he could get properly acclimatized, and if there were no long-term storms, and with the support from the rest of us, he should be able to make it. On that last point Frank was pleased none of us seemed overly disappointed changing from the Polish Glacier. In truth, it didn't really make that much difference any more because we were having such a good time enjoying each other's stories, and the challenge of a harder climb now seemed unimportant. Frank noticed that with this group there was none of the compet.i.tive jockeying that had colored the Everest climb, and he concluded there was more than one way to climb a mountain.

For Frank and d.i.c.k those weeks of carrying loads on Everest had paid off. Frank had about thirty-five pounds in his pack, d.i.c.k about forty-five, and finding that almost trancelike mind-set, they followed hour after hour the steps of us lead climbers as we switchbacked up the virgin snow. The white slopes reflected the noon sun and sweat dripped from our brows. We were down to our last layer of long johns and would have stripped to bare skin except we knew the sunburn would have been worse than the heat. For both Frank and d.i.c.k it had come as a surprise, when they first started mountaineering, to discover that often on high alt.i.tude climbs you suffer from heat as much as from cold.

We made a short stop to take a drink. Each man carried a plastic one-liter water bottle.

"d.i.c.k, could I borrow a packet of that energy stuff you put in your water?" Frank asked.

"How do you know I have any?"

"You always have at least two of everything. That's what I like about you."

"Frank, you've got to learn to bring your own things. I swear, you'll go to your grave still not knowing how to care for yourself. You know, just before we left on this trip Luanne pulled me aside and said, 'd.i.c.k, please look after Frank. He doesn't know how to take care of himself.' "

"And what did you tell her?" Frank asked with a sly grin.