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Pasang Lama had had enough of the climb, however, and begged to be replaced in the summit team by someone else. Wiessner thought that Wolfe ought to be equal to the task, or perhaps even Jack Durrance, if he had at last overcome his altitude problems. Weissner was so certain of his return to Camp IX that he left his sleeping bag there, while Lama carried his own down. Here the wisdom of Wiessner’s logistical scheme seemed to pay its dividends in flexibility. On most Himalayan expeditions to that date, each climber had carried his own single sleeping bag up and down the mountain. But by insisting on stocking each camp with sleeping bags, Wiessner made it possible, in theory, for the men to shuttle between camps at will with only light loads.

On the steeper slopes above Camp VIII, the loss of the crampons again exacted its toll, for here Pasang Lama took a fall. Wiessner described the accident in 1984:

Pasang was behind me. I should have had him in front, but then I would have had to explain to him how to cut steps. I had just got my axe ready to make a few scrapes, when suddenly he fell off. I noticed immediately, because he made a funny little noise. I put myself in position, dug in as much as possible, and held him on the rope. If I hadn’t been in good shape, hadn’t climbed all those 4000-meter peaks in the Alps, I wouldn’t have had the technique to hold him.

This account makes Wiessner’s belay sound almost routine, but it was a remarkable feat. Even though they were roped close together, Lama fell, out of control, down to his partner’s level and an equal distance beyond before the rope came tight with a sudden jolt. Many pairs of climbers the world over have been swept to their deaths in just such an accident.

Arriving at Camp VIII, Wiessner received a bad shock: no one had come up from below. Only Dudley Wolfe was there. The man was overjoyed to see Wiessner but was furious at his laggard teammates lower on the mountain. “Those bastards haven’t come yet,” he said. Wolfe had run out of matches two days before, and the only water he had drunk was a small pool of snowmelt that he had gathered on a fold of the tent.

“I cannot understand,” Wiessner wrote in his diary, “why our Sherpas, [who] had definitely promised to stock up Camp VIII, had not come. I also wondered where was Jack.”

Despite a growing sense of alarm, Wiessner was still optimistic. Camp VII, a mere 600 feet lower, had been bountifully stocked even before the team of five had pushed on to establish Camp VIII on July 14. Surely at Camp VII the men could pick up food and fuel and spare crampons, then head back to Camp IX for yet another summit bid.

After cooking a hot lunch and “celebrat[ing] our reunion,” as Wiessner later put it, the three men headed down. Wolfe carried his sleeping bag with him, as did Pasang Lama. For the first time in days, a light fog had crept in. At first, the trio roped up, with Lama going first, Wolfe in the middle, and Wiessner taking up the rear. On a descent of moderate terrain, it was standard practice for the most experienced man to come last, so that he could belay a partner who might slip. But in the fog, Lama kept losing his way, veering too far to the east. (This was exactly what Scott had tended to do as he led our three-man rope down from the summit in 1992.) So Wiessner switched the order, putting himself in the lead and Lama in the rear.

It was here that Wolfe’s clumsiness nearly cost all three men their lives. As Wiessner paused in a precarious position, leaning forward to chop a step below his feet, Wolfe accidentally stepped on the rope. The sudden jerk pulled Wiessner off his stance, and he started sliding down the steep slope.

In 1984, Wiessner gave a vivid account of this near catastrophe:

I immediately called back, “Check me! Check me!” Nothing happened. Then the rope came tight to Dudley, and he was pulled off. The rope tightened to Pasang behind, and he too came off. We were all three