K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [101]
Herrligkoffer was the classic example of an expedition boss who always led from the rear. Back in Germany, he claimed Buhl had disobeyed his orders; he even sued his Austrian teammate. But today, mountaineers the world over hail Buhl’s ascent as one of the greatest deeds in climbing history.
I admire Buhl’s audacity on Nanga Parbat, but I also think he was lucky to have a mild enough night to survive his standing bivouac. A deed such as Buhl’s depends on walking the fine line between getting away with a stunning triumph and vanishing in the mists.
On July 9, the team at last reached Camp IV, just below House’s Chimney. Here the discovery of yet more debris from 1939 also posed an apparent puzzle. Along with what Houston described as “tents reduced to shreds” and various kinds of food, including “a large tin of Ovaltine half used but still in perfect condition after fourteen years,” the climbers found three sleeping bags. They were “frozen and filled with ice,” but the 1953 team eventually thawed them out and used them to supplement their own supply of bedding.
Those sleeping bags caused Dee to write in his diary, “Our impression was that this was not an ‘evacuated campsite,’ as described since 1939 by Weissner [sic].” That’s a provocative remark; it may ultimately reflect the bad feelings Houston still harbored toward Wiessner. It implies that the team wondered whether Wiessner’s story of his desperate retreat was a lie. If Wiessner claimed he had gone down to camp after camp and found them all stripped of sleeping bags, what were these three bags doing at Camp IV?
Later Dee came to what was surely the true explanation. The bags must have been left by Pasang Kikuli and his Sherpa companions as they climbed back up the mountain to try to rescue Dudley Wolfe.
The same day the team reached Camp IV, Houston, Dee Molenaar, and George Bell tackled House’s Chimney. Houston had been thinking about that crux pitch for a decade and a half. He would write in K2: The Savage Mountain, with characteristic self-deprecation:
During the past ten days I had been mulling over different schemes which would put me in position to try this lead myself without being too obviously unfair to my companions. Now the time had come and I hesitatingly turned to George and Dee, both more competent climbers than I. “Would you fellows mind too much if I tried to lead this?”
Molenaar and Bell were happy to turn over the “sharp end” to Houston.
For the first 30 feet I worked on the face, clutching at tiny holds, and trying not to appear too clumsy to the experts below. More by luck and will power than by good technique, I reached the deep cleft, where I huffed and puffed, all the while pretending to get out pitons, adjust the rope, or blow my nose. The upper section was strenuous, though not too difficult. With considerable elation I reached the top finally, and shouted to the others, “Come on up; I’ve got you belayed like a house.”
That last line was a sly nod to the 1938 partner who had first led the chimney. And Houston’s performance must have been more skillful than he let on, because Dee recorded in his diary that it had taken only an hour to lead the pitch—half the time Wiessner had expended on it in 1939.
At the old Camp V, only 300 feet above the top of House’s Chimney, the three men found more relics from 1939. “Another smashed tent,” wrote Dee, “and letters to Wolfe—including a bill from some laundry outfit back home.”
One of the delights of Dee’s diary is that it captures—as “official” expedition books rarely do—the homely day-to-day details of life on a big mountain. A few examples:
Backache again, and slight headache—restless sleep, due possibly to Charlie’s irregular snoring through night.
Pete, George, and I took loads and set up Gerry tent at IV, lay inside for 3.5 hrs, talking about the Northwest—and exchanging