K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [122]
But after he started out on July 28, Rey gained only about 160 feet before dumping his load and turning back. According to Lacedelli, “Two of us actually had to help him back to the tent because he could hardly stand up.” Stricken by some kind of altitude sickness, Rey gave up all hopes of the summit and headed down the mountain.
Thus, almost by accident, Lacedelli took Rey’s place in the summit party. Lacedelli had never gotten along with Desio, who had relegated him to the “B team”—the “second group,” which also included Bonatti and whose duty was mainly to carry loads in support of the five climbers in the “first group.” A twenty-nine-year-old guide from Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites, Lacedelli was treated almost with contempt by Desio, as if he were a country bumpkin lucky to be invited on the expedition.
On July 26, at Camp VII, Bonatti had suffered from food poisoning—he thought he might have eaten spoiled sardines—and was so ill that he had had to stay in camp while his teammates pushed on to Camp VIII. Furious with himself and deeply depressed, Bonatti decided to force his way back into the action. He would recall in 1961, “I decided to eat at all costs, though the very thought made me feel sick; only in this way, I thought, would I be able to regain a little of my lost strength and resume my place up there.” By July 29, he was almost back to his normal self. And, as it would turn out, Bonatti was fitter and stronger than anyone else on the mountain.
On July 30, Compagnoni and Lacedelli pushed up to the Shoulder, traversed it, and set up a Camp IX at 26,250 feet. Their choice of a campsite was a curious one: instead of pitching their tent on the broad, almost level ridge of the Shoulder, they angled left and stopped at a narrow shelf hidden among the rocks at the base of the summit pyramid, very near where Fritz Wiessner had started climbing the final band on his first attempt, in 1939.
It was only after more than fifty years of silence that Lacedelli cast new light on the decision about where to pitch Camp IX. In 2006, he wrote,
Compagnoni and I reached the place we had all agreed on for Camp IX. I said to Compagnoni, “Shall we pitch the tent?” but Compagnoni said, “No, here is no good, it’s too dangerous.” He then suggested we cross over to the left. I said, “Isn’t it more dangerous that way?” But he wouldn’t listen and so we carried On…. Eventually we reached a place that wasn’t particularly good … it was precarious with a bit of a slope.
A camp at the base of the rock band would have made sense only if the two men planned to attack the cliffs above, as Wiessner had. But Lacedelli and Compagnoni intended to climb the Bottleneck couloir the next morning. On Wiessner’s second attempt, he had had to lead the dangerous traverse across the lower edge of the rock band just to get to the foot of the Bottleneck.
The true reason for Compagnoni’s insistence on the out-of-the-way location for Camp IX would not become clear until more than half a century after the expedition.
After pitching their tent on the “precarious” slope among the rocks, Lacedelli and Compagnoni were poised to make the summit attempt on July 31. But they were convinced they had no chance to get to the top without supplemental oxygen. Unable to carry heavy oxygen bottles to Camp IX along with their tent, stove, sleeping bags, and food, they counted on their teammates at Camp VIII to ferry up the critical cylinders.
Only there were two problems. The oxygen bottles that Lacedelli and Compagnoni needed were not at Camp VIII but down at Camp VII, at only 24,700 feet. And one by one, the other Italians up high who ought to have been able to ferry loads had succumbed to lethargy or altitude sickness. By July 30, only two men were capable of supporting the summit duo. They were Walter Bonatti and the Hunza Amir Mahdi.
In a heroic effort, on July 30 Bonatti recruited Mahdi to perform the ultimate load carry. That day the two men descended to