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Yet in 1952, on the French expedition to Fitz Roy in Patagonia, with a team as small and close-knit as Bonington’s, Jacques Poincenot was drowned on the approach march in a botched attempt to ford a dangerous river. Lionel Terray, one of the greatest expedition mountaineers in history, later wrote in his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless,

[Jacques] was a perfect companion and a prodigious climber, and his sudden disappearance dealt us a cruel blow. For forty-eight hours, indeed, we debated seriously whether to pack up and go home. After a few days we recovered our spirits and carried on, seriously weakened, however, by the loss of one of our best members.

More than a month later, Terray and Guido Magnone made the first ascent of that beautiful pyramid of granite and ice. The team named a handsome nearby peak Aiguille Poincenot, in homage to their lost comrade.

As the Italians worked their way up the Abruzzi Ridge, they found a vast range of enthusiasm and usefulness among their Hunza high-altitude porters. Only five of the thirteen seemed fully up to the challenge of carrying loads above Camp III. Of the others, Lacedelli recalled, “With them you agreed one thing and then you didn’t see them again. You would go back down and discover that they were still in the tent sleeping. It would drive you mad.”

Desio, too, complained about these slackers: “The language difficulty, the indiscipline of the Hunzas and the capriciousness of certain among them … frequently led to misunderstandings which it was not always easy to clear up.” Disciplinarian to the end, Desio eventually ordered “the dismissal of three men and the return of the five delinquents to their posts on the Abruzzi Ridge.”

Fifty-five years later, it’s hard to guess what was going on with the Hunzas. The language barrier must indeed have played its nefarious part. Since the Karakoram region had for so long been part of British India, some of the Hunzas spoke a smattering of English. But they certainly didn’t speak any Italian. Desio could probably get by in English, but mountain guides such as Compagnoni, Lacedelli, and Bonatti, who had never traveled far from northern Italy, didn’t comprehend a word of that language.

It may be fortunate that the less courageous Hunzas were scared out of their minds on the Abruzzi Ridge. Houston’s team had wisely decided that the Hunzas’ meager climbing skills made them a liability above Camp III. Desio, however, expected them to carry loads all the way up to the Shoulder at 26,000 feet. Hunza terror on steep terrain may well have looked to the Italians like mere laziness. It’s also possible that these high-altitude porters bridled every bit as much as Lacedelli and his disaffected teammates did under Desio’s stern dictatorship.

One incident barely mentioned in Desio’s text reveals the true courage some of the Hunzas were capable of. On July 6, one of the climbers, Cirillo Floreanini, started to descend from Camp III. For security, he held on to a fixed rope left from the American expedition the year before, but he had no sooner put his weight on the rope than the anchor popped loose. Before the horrified eyes of his teammates, Floreanini rolled and then bounced 800 feet before stopping on a narrow ledge. Lacedelli ran to his aid. Writes Desio, “Bruised and bleeding, he was then hoisted on to the shoulders of a Hunza, who, helped by his colleagues, carried him down to Camp II.”

I’ve participated in a number of rescues on the 8,000ers, but I sure as hell have never carried another climber on my shoulders down steep terrain! That’s an almost unimaginable feat. But Desio doesn’t even bother to mention the gutsy Hunza by name. Just one more job the men from Gilgit were expected to perform.

As they crept higher on the Abruzzi, the climbers’ frustration with Desio’s autocratic leadership mounted. Typically, Compagnoni would radio down to base camp after each day’s effort. He and Desio would discuss the day’s events; then the