K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [58]
And then the pair made a dismal discovery: they had forgotten to bring matches with their loads! Without matches, there would be no way to light the stove; without the stove, no way to melt snow into water. Houston later wrote,
This was a catastrophe. In my pocket I found four safety matches and five strike-anywhere matches, all of dubious value. The latter, brought all the way from New York, carefully dried in the sun at many of the lower camps, had persistently failed to function well above 20,000 feet, and only with extreme care and preparatory rubbings with grease did they even glow. The safety matches, on the other hand, were made in Kashmir and were very fragile.
It took three matches to light the stove for dinner. The men melted pot after pot of snow, and even slept with a pot full of water wrapped in their clothing and placed under their feet, so that it would not freeze during the night.
In the morning, it took three more matches to light the stove to cook breakfast. The two men were off as soon as the sun’s rays struck their tent. Roped together 60 feet apart, Petzoldt and Houston slowly plodded up the snow slopes leading to the Shoulder, often plunging in to their knees. In an era before down jackets, each man wore four Shetland sweaters over his flannel shirt, with an outer windproof suit and two pairs of wool mittens, but they still felt the cold acutely.
On that last push, the Wyoming cowboy came into his own. “Petzoldt was feeling strong and moving rapidly,” Houston later admitted, “but I had a curious weakness in my legs, so that every upward step was an effort requiring several breaths.” By 1:00 P.M., the two men had not only topped out on the Shoulder but had traversed its easy ridge to a point only 900 feet short of the slope that leads up to the Bottleneck couloir.
The men ate a quick lunch, then unroped, hoping to dry the coiled line by laying it out in the sun. Petzoldt continued in the lead. Houston later recalled,
I could see him ahead of me working steadily upward, pausing now and then to take bearings. My progress was ludicrously slow. Every inch I gained in altitude was an effort. My legs were so weak I was forced to rest every five or six steps, and soon fatigue made me forget all danger from above. I struggled on—why I do not know.
At last Houston gave up and sat down with his back against a large boulder, trying to warm himself in the sun. Petzoldt plugged onward. He reached a point several hundred feet higher than his partner before turning around himself. At 26,000 feet, Petzoldt was still 2,250 feet below the summit.
All his life, Houston inclined toward the mystical. Of that high point on K2 he later wrote,
I tried to look ahead years into the future so as to cement firmly in my mind recollections of these great moments on our mighty peak. There were other emotions too deep to be expressed. I felt that all my previous life had reached a climax in these last hours of intense struggle against nature…. I believe in those minutes at 26,000 feet on K2, I reached depths of feeling which I can never reach again.
The two men started down at 4:00 P.M., reaching their tent as dusk turned to twilight. They had a desperate craving for hot tea, but there were only three matches left. Houston recalled:
With infinite care we waxed one of the matches, dried it as much as possible, and struck it. It fizzled and went out. A safety match broke off at the head. Paul in a gesture of bravado struck our last one. It lit and we were assured of our warm supper. Too tired for much talk, we melted water for the morning, snuggled in our sleeping bags, and drowsed off to a dreamless sleep.
The climb was over, but not the expedition. It took three more days for the team to climb carefully back to base