K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [69]
Well, I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t cut it for me—even if I ignore that last sneer about Teutonic culture. There have indeed been expeditions on which the leader never intended to go to the summit, choosing instead to stay in the middle of the pack and organize logistics. A good example is the 1953 Everest expedition, whose leader was John Hunt. Hunt designated four other climbers to try for the top—Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans on the first attempt, Tenzing and Hillary three days later on the second. (On the other hand, by his own admission, Hunt wasn’t in the same league with those four as a technical climber.)
But on some of the expeditions I most admire, the man officially in charge of the assault led from the front all the way. In 1950 on Annapurna, Maurice Herzog was always out in front, and in some ways he was also the strongest climber on the French team. In 1938, Charlie Houston led from the front all the way to 26,000 feet on the Abruzzi.
For that matter, David Breashears, the leader of our 1996 IMAX expedition to Everest, had a reputation for being a dictatorial leader. Some people actually said to me beforehand, “How can you work with that guy?” But David was always out front, and he worked harder than anyone else. I knew when he hired me that he expected a lot from me. But if you did your job, you never heard any criticism from David. That’s leadership: lead by example, lead from the front, inspire people to follow your lead. That’s why, despite the difficulties of our own mission to get the IMAX camera to the top of Everest while filming ourselves, and despite getting caught up in the tragedy that unfolded that May, our expedition was a success. That’s why David’s Everest is still the highest-grossing IMAX film ever made.
In my opinion, a much worse situation develops when the official leader attempts to lead from the rear, watching the climbers through binoculars and ordering their movements over the radio. It’s all too easy to sit on your duff at base camp and tell people up high what they should be doing. The one time I had to put up with that sort of nonsense, I felt like radioing back to the leader, “Hey, dude, why don’t you get your ass up here and try it yourself?”
Whether or not Wiessner was overbearing and dictatorial toward his teammates, the logistical plan he came up with, although it necessitated a large number of load carries, strikes me as a brilliant one. Every camp was to be equipped with three sleeping bags and air mattresses, as well as stoves and gasoline and plenty of food. As Wiessner explained in 1984, “I believe that if you climb a mountain like this, you want to be sure, if something goes wrong or somebody gets ill, you can hold out for at least two weeks in any camp. If a man had to come down in very bad weather, he ought to be able to just fall into a tent, and everything would be there.”
The problem that developed on the 1939 expedition, starting at Camp IV, was due almost entirely, I think, to the physical weakness or psychological faintheartedness of all the “sahibs” except Wiessner and Wolfe. On June 21, Wiessner, Wolfe, Sheldon, and five Sherpa were established at Camp IV, with plenty of food and fuel. Wiessner was looking forward to leading House’s Chimney in the morning. Instead, a violent storm arrived in the night. With only a brief lull, the storm lasted through the next eight days.
At Camp II, 2,200 feet lower, Durrance guessed that the peak gusts of wind reached eighty miles an hour. At Camp IV, temperatures as low as minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit were recorded. Even Wiessner was daunted by the conditions. In a 1940 article in The American Alpine Journal, he would write, “To describe these days and nights of storm and cold is not within my power. They were terror-inspiring.”
It was at this point that George Sheldon seemed to have had his fill of K2. In Camp IV, he suffered frostnip of the toes. When the storm finally broke, on June 29, he descended with three Sherpa, eventually going all the way to base camp. Sheldon would