could have easily faced in and downclimbed the steep step where he fell; he didn’t need to rappel.
That’s where my anger came from. I’d been on the mountain too long with other climbers who weren’t even my teammates, let alone my friends, and whose judgment and technique I didn’t trust. What’s more, the irritation in my diary must have been a defense: I didn’t want this needless tragedy to undermine in any way my own determination to climb K2. Had it been Scott or Charley who had died, more than likely I would have given up my attempt.
August 15 came and went with no improvement in the weather. That day, having run out of bottled oxygen, the Swedes bailed, and the third Mexican, Héctor Ponce de León, descended to console his surviving teammate. So now there were only five of us left at Camp IV: Hall & Ball, Charley, Scott, and me. We had to pass the hours resting and daydreaming. My mind was filled with anxious thoughts: How strong would I be during the final ascent after surviving here for two or three days? Would the weather finally break? Could we get up to the summit and back before nightfall, as no one this season had yet done?
My diary entry that day is a testament to uneasiness:
Tried again last night & no go. Still funky weather. Barely eating. We either go up tonight or bail down tomorrow….
Weather is OK. Not great. Cloudy, no wind, poor visibility. We seem to be at the top edge of clouds. Very anxious. Tonight we must go up or go down tomorrow & start all over—ugh! I want to get this over with! We snooze all day like coon-hounds. Dreaming of food—salad, beer, pizza.
That line about going down and starting all over again, I now realize, was pure rationalization. All five of us knew this was going to be our last chance that summer to climb K2.
On August 16, Scott and I were up at midnight. It was still cloudy, but calm, so we decided to go for it. Breakfast was a cup of coffee apiece. Altitude deprives you of hunger, and forcing yourself to eat can stir upwaves of nausea. It’s one of the paradoxes of high-altitude climbing that even though you are burning thousands of calories each day, you simply cannot get enough back into your system to balance things out.
We had slept in our down suits, so it was just a matter of putting on boots, overboots, harnesses, mittens, hats, goggles, and headlamps. Ice that had coated the inside walls of our confining tent showered us as we tried not to elbow each other. Finally we were out the door. We strapped on our crampons and were moving by 1:30 A.M. Charley didn’t get off for another hour, and Rob and Gary were even further behind.
I wasn’t carrying a pack, just two liter bottles filled with a powdered energy drink; in my chest pockets I’d stuck a couple of Power Bars. I also carried a spare pair of mittens, a camera, and extra headlamp batteries. Scott and I were roped together with our fifty-foot line, in anticipation of the crevasses that we knew lay above.
The slope gradually steepened as we headed up into the mouth of the Bottleneck. We kicked steps in the firm snow, inclined at a 45-degree angle. Following in our tracks, Charley caught up to us in the Bottleneck. During the whole expedition so far, Scott and I had scarcely climbed with Charley, but in that instant he became our partner. We managed to tie in all three of us on that fifty-foot rope, which was almost absurd, yet roping up together gave us a certain feeling of security.
Near the top of the Bottleneck, the snow conditions worsened, alternating deep, soft powder with a scary breakable crust. We swapped leads often.
We’d been climbing for two hours before we finally saw Rob and Gary’s headlamps as they left Camp IV. Despite that late start, and despite using supplemental oxygen, they were moving very slowly. Was something wrong?
At the top of the Bottleneck, we began the leftward traverse, the crux of the whole route. Vlad had fixed a 150-foot rope here on August 1, and
That’s where my anger came from. I’d been on the mountain too long with other climbers who weren’t even my teammates, let alone my friends, and whose judgment and technique I didn’t trust. What’s more, the irritation in my diary must have been a defense: I didn’t want this needless tragedy to undermine in any way my own determination to climb K2. Had it been Scott or Charley who had died, more than likely I would have given up my attempt.
August 15 came and went with no improvement in the weather. That day, having run out of bottled oxygen, the Swedes bailed, and the third Mexican, Héctor Ponce de León, descended to console his surviving teammate. So now there were only five of us left at Camp IV: Hall & Ball, Charley, Scott, and me. We had to pass the hours resting and daydreaming. My mind was filled with anxious thoughts: How strong would I be during the final ascent after surviving here for two or three days? Would the weather finally break? Could we get up to the summit and back before nightfall, as no one this season had yet done?
My diary entry that day is a testament to uneasiness:
Tried again last night & no go. Still funky weather. Barely eating. We either go up tonight or bail down tomorrow….
Weather is OK. Not great. Cloudy, no wind, poor visibility. We seem to be at the top edge of clouds. Very anxious. Tonight we must go up or go down tomorrow & start all over—ugh! I want to get this over with! We snooze all day like coon-hounds. Dreaming of food—salad, beer, pizza.
That line about going down and starting all over again, I now realize, was pure rationalization. All five of us knew this was going to be our last chance that summer to climb K2.
On August 16, Scott and I were up at midnight. It was still cloudy, but calm, so we decided to go for it. Breakfast was a cup of coffee apiece. Altitude deprives you of hunger, and forcing yourself to eat can stir upwaves of nausea. It’s one of the paradoxes of high-altitude climbing that even though you are burning thousands of calories each day, you simply cannot get enough back into your system to balance things out.
We had slept in our down suits, so it was just a matter of putting on boots, overboots, harnesses, mittens, hats, goggles, and headlamps. Ice that had coated the inside walls of our confining tent showered us as we tried not to elbow each other. Finally we were out the door. We strapped on our crampons and were moving by 1:30 A.M. Charley didn’t get off for another hour, and Rob and Gary were even further behind.
I wasn’t carrying a pack, just two liter bottles filled with a powdered energy drink; in my chest pockets I’d stuck a couple of Power Bars. I also carried a spare pair of mittens, a camera, and extra headlamp batteries. Scott and I were roped together with our fifty-foot line, in anticipation of the crevasses that we knew lay above.
The slope gradually steepened as we headed up into the mouth of the Bottleneck. We kicked steps in the firm snow, inclined at a 45-degree angle. Following in our tracks, Charley caught up to us in the Bottleneck. During the whole expedition so far, Scott and I had scarcely climbed with Charley, but in that instant he became our partner. We managed to tie in all three of us on that fifty-foot rope, which was almost absurd, yet roping up together gave us a certain feeling of security.
Near the top of the Bottleneck, the snow conditions worsened, alternating deep, soft powder with a scary breakable crust. We swapped leads often.
We’d been climbing for two hours before we finally saw Rob and Gary’s headlamps as they left Camp IV. Despite that late start, and despite using supplemental oxygen, they were moving very slowly. Was something wrong?
At the top of the Bottleneck, we began the leftward traverse, the crux of the whole route. Vlad had fixed a 150-foot rope here on August 1, and
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