The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Read online

  What from their point of view would we be doing if we were not trying to save them but kill them? I was a little ashamed of my rough treatment of Blade. I had my own mistakes to worry about.

  Janet got soaked again. She lost her footing while being lowered, swung into a waterfall and was too stiff and cold to roll out of it without help. I began to feel that she might not make it and I had to do something personally to give her heart. The distance the rescuer maintains between himself and the victims makes stepping out of it a more effective gesture.

  I made her squeeze in behind a flake which would not only protect her modesty if that was necessary but mainly protected her a little from the cold evening westerly pouring down on us from the snowfields above. I made her take off her Levis, lectured her about the fact that denim was the worst possible material to wear in the mountains and wrung the water out of them as much as I could. They were new and stiff. I imagined that she’d bought them down in Jackson, in honour of her visit to the West. I gave her some food I’d been saving for someone it might make the difference to, including possibly myself. Then I took my favourite sweater out of my pack and made her put it on. I tried a little levity. I told her that it was a twenty-five dollar sweater and she’d better not get it dirty! She took me seriously – so much for levity. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen without interference from me.

  There were shouts from below. They were coming up and we were to be careful about rocks. It was worth being a climber to feel the cameraderie that I felt then, an emotion that embraces much more than mere bullshitting around a table in a tavern.

  First to arrive were Pete Lev and Al Read. Lev is the picture of earnest strength. Read is a man in command of himself. Witty, quick to perceive the ludicrous as the ironic, he is a natural leader and an unobtrusive one. Lev is very compassionate and was taken aback by what he saw, including me and Jim. Jim and I were emotionally numb by this point and I saw concern in their faces. But suddenly it seemed possible that most of us might escape from this place. Suddenly the mountain seemed covered with people who knew what they were doing. Herb Swedlund was down there, Swedlund who would joke with the Devil. I couldn’t wait to get down to hear him say something like, “Sinclair, you’re quaking like a dog passing peach pits.” Rick Horn was down there, probably performing great feats of strength and daring while screaming. “The world is contrived to drive us insane.”

  The next pitch below ended in the middle of a slab which bulged out from the base of the couloir. Every rock that came down the couloir had to hit that slab. Jake Breitenbach was at that anchor. When I got to him, I was afraid for him, a fear that seemed familiar. Then I recalled the boulder in the great ice gully on McKinley that seemed to pursue us. He, however, was ebullient, as he was most of the time in the mountains. For him, this was what it was all about. How often do you get to have fun like this, up here in an interesting part of the mountain with practically all your climbing and guiding buddies? He was good for the people we were rescuing too. He told them, as he prepared to send them down the vertical slab below, “We always arrange to have these rescues at night so you won’t know what you’re stepping off of.” He picked them up and kept them going. For one or more of them it is likely that Jake made the difference.

  The man I was most eagerly waiting to get to was Sterling, because once I got to him and passed below, he would take charge.

  I asked Pete and Al if they’d set up the snowfield. They hadn’t. It turned out that the guides, Jake Breitenbach, Al Read, Pete Lev, Fred Wright, Dave Dornan and Herb Swedlund, Mike Ermarth and Rick Horn of the rescue team and Dr Walker from Jackson had arrived at the base of the couloir just minutes after Jim and I reached the top of the couloir. Even if the radio had worked, the word that we needed masses of gear would have gone out too late. Again, the critical two hours I had lost. There went my hopes that things would soon speed up. It had taken Jim and me five hours to get the party down five pitches. It was another seven hours to 2.00 am when the last victim was to reach the top of the snowfield. Just two more ropes would have cut that seven hours nearly in half.

  Al and Pete tactfully suggested that Jim and I go on down to the snowfield, they could handle matters up here. They received no heroic protests from us.

  My last image of the gully is of Horn working on the pitch exiting the couloir. I was rappelling down a steep slab and Horn came racing up by me, foot over hand it seemed, to help someone who’d gotten hung up on a ledge. He was muttering to himself and lunged to the ledge just as I realised that he was climbing unroped. I asked him if he thought that was wise. He didn’t, but there weren’t any more ropes.

  At the top of the snowfield, a huge platform was being cut, large enough to hold all the rescued and some of the rescuers. I described the situation above as best I could to Sterling after telling him he looked good enough to me to kiss. I told him that it wasn’t at all clear they all were going to make it. Lester Germer had expressed a sentiment to be left alone to die. I’d be tempted to let him and was glad it was out of my hands. Actually the fact that Germer had the whole party dedicated to keeping him alive certainly gave them a badly needed focus for survival. Germer was, I believe, in some degree conscious of this because, as we later found out, he had spotted the rescue team coming up Teepe’s Snowfield and had said nothing to his companions.

  Jim and I stood around on the ledge until the first victim arrived on it. There was some debate about whether to set up a series of anchors down the snowfield a rope-length apart or fewer super anchors to which we would just add ropes. I tried to join in the discussion and realised that I couldn’t think very well and that it was no longer our show. Jim and I decided to go down.

  I got as scared as I’ve ever been descending that snowfield. We were without ice axes and crampons. The surface was so hard that we couldn’t kick steps deeper than half an inch. The rock hammer and pitons we had to stop a fall weren’t convincing. I couldn’t judge the surface either by sight or touch. I had difficulty keeping my body balanced over the pitiful footholds we were kicking because there was no elasticity left in my legs. At any time I could have moved on a marginal hold to a place where I quickly needed a good hold to find that I was on water ice and that would be it. All the way down my thought was, “And I said we wouldn’t need crampons. You stupid son of a bitch, if you fall you’ll deserve it.”

  In those circumstances we paid little attention to the commotion going on above us except cynically to remark that we hoped our mates didn’t bomb us with one of the victims.

  At this point we shall leave Pete Sinclair for a while and let Al Read take up the story:

  Pete Lev and I had climbed up several leads in the late afternoon and were the first to meet Pete Sinclair and Jim Greig who were coming down from the Otter Body Snowfield lowering the helpless people, all suffering from hypothermia. We did not reach them until late afternoon or dusk as I recall. Pete and I were quickly joined by other rescuers and we all participated in the lowering process down the rock wall to the top of Teepe’s Glacier. We were all wearing headlamps and the shadows of the victims and the rescuers against the walls were quite dramatic. I remember Jake Breitenbach (killed on Everest the next year) strapping one man to his back and rapelling down. Some were in very bad shape and two, it seemed at the time, rather near death. Anyway, there was no time to wait for litters because it was still snowing and all the victims were absolutely soaked through.

  A crew lower down at the top of Teepe’s Glacier had hacked out a large platform just below the rock walls and were receiving the Appies as we lowered them or brought them down on our backs. All finally were sitting on the snow tied to a number of ice axes driven in to the hilt just above the platform. The snow was extremely steep and quite hard. A slip would have meant a 2,000-foot slide down the glacier (really more of a steep snowfield but technically a glacier) into the rocks of the moraine below and certain death.

  We all were very concerned we would have more hypothermia dea
ths unless we got the people down to the rescue group waiting at the bottom of the glacier with medical attention, soup, sleeping bags, etc., and the helicopters which would be there at dawn (no chance of pickup at the top of the glacier). We decided to lower everyone – really just slide them – down the glacier from our top stance to a lower stance several hundred feet below. Here we decided to make another platform from which a final lower could be made to where the angle of the snow eased and the Appies could be carried or dragged to the edge of the glacier and assistance. Herb Swedland and Jake went down to make the lower stance – perhaps 500 feet down. Meanwhile, Peter Lev, Sterling Neale, Rick Horn and I tied five loops in a climbing rope and placed five Appies in them. Each victim was tied about ten feet apart. We belayed this expeditious arrangement from two ice axes driven into the floor of our platform. I stood on one and let out the rope while Sterling watched the system and prepared to add additional ropes. Pete Lev (wearing crampons) descended to assist the Appies as they were being lowered. We slid the victims one by one off the platform and began lowering. They were heavy and I wished we had had a better belay.

  Suddenly Pete yelled up to stop. He said there was an empty loop. There were only four people on the rope. Obviously one had fallen out of his waistloop. Dead, we thought! But after yelling down to Herb and Jake, nobody had seen or heard a body whirling by. Because everyone was working in the fall line, obviously a falling person would have been noticed. Pete then saw someone in his light about fifty feet to the right. He yelled at him. No response. He ran over to him and told him to return to the rope and safety. Pete immediately began to cut a platform as the person was wearing no crampons – only his mountain boots. Of course he had no ice axe. Pete told him to follow him back to the rope. The victim, John Fenniman, said nothing but looked as if he understood. Pete began cutting steps back to the rope, which we had by now stopped lowering. Rick Horn was preparing another climbing rope to throw down to Pete, so he could tie in the victim. We all knew he could come off at any minute.

  As Pete began cutting steps back to the rope, Fenniman ignored him and went the other way instead. Pete stopped and climbed back to him, Pete insisted he follow him. Then Fenniman suddenly grabbed Pete’s ice axe and they began grappling and struggling. Pete yelled up to us for help.

  Rick Horn, also wearing crampons, who had by then readied a climbing rope, quickly lowered himself down and diverted Fenniman’s attention. Pete scampered away, still retaining his ice axe. From behind, Rick managed to tie a quick bowline around Fenniman’s waist and get away. He quickly returned to our ledge and put a belay on Fenniman. We all looked down at him with our headlamps. He began slowly to climb up towards our stance. I was still holding the remaining four Appies on belay through the two ice axes.

  As Fenniman approached our platform his eyes were bulged out. He was ashen and looked as if he had gone mad. He had! He said very slowly. “You are the Devil. You are taking me to Hell” – or words to that effect. I could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing. All at once he jumped up on our ledge and began hitting us. We believed he was trying to reach the several ice axes still stuck in the snow behind us. I remember thinking, as his fists were banging into my face, that I might have to let go of the belay to keep myself from being thrown off the platform or hit by an ice axe if he ever got hold of one. I remember yelling to Rick, “Kill him if you have to!” One of the Appie victims still on the platform yelled back, “No, no, don’t kill him!” It was all quite incredible.

  Rick finally managed to give Fenniman a shove and he went over the edge, but was caught at the lip by the belay, secured by Rick, who yelled we were only trying to help him. But when he continued to resist, Rick had to knock him out with a kick to the side of the head. The frontpoints of his crampons missed by a fraction. Fenniman went limp, Rick dragged him over to the rope, tied him in, and sat on him. The lowering was renewed.

  Coming up from below, Jack Turner describes the scene as first seeing four people being lowered out of the darkness – limp and facing every direction, some upside down. Suddenly he saw a victim being ridden by Rick. Rick was hitting him with his fists and gagging! What was happening was every time Fenniman showed signs of coming round, Rick had to put him out again without actually killing him, and the tension and desperation of the experience had nauseated him. According to Turner this remains as one of the most amazing scenes he has ever witnessed.

  The rest of the victims were lowered without incident and all fully recovered. I saw Fenniman later that morning being carried in a litter down to the helicopter landing site. He remembered nothing and could not have been nicer or more thankful. He simply had momentarily lost his mind and was trying to protect himself. I rather imagine he had thought he was dead or dying and that we indeed were trying to take him to Hell.

  Pete Sinclair and Jim Greig had spent twenty-two nonstop gruelling hours on their vital first part of the rescue. But the next day something had to be done about Steve Smith’s body. Pete Sinclair takes up the story again:

  We didn’t want to bring the body down. The Chief Ranger, Russ Dickenson, and the Superintendent contacted Smith’s parents and asked for permission to bury Smith on the mountain. I don’t know how they found the words to ask them and I don’t know how the Smiths found words to grant it, but they did. I felt awful about it, as if we were violating the code that Achilles violated in refusing to allow Priam to give Hector a proper burial. Achilles relented, we didn’t. I knew the Smiths would probably recall that Steve had loved the mountains and might wish to be buried there. That might have been his wish had he died in the heat of action. But life had not ended in glorious action for Steve Smith, it had oozed out of him, sapped from him by an insidious worm of self-doubt that had gotten lodged in his soul, giving him no opportunity even to struggle.

  On Monday, Rick, Jim and I were transported to the Lower Saddle by helicopter. The weather looked lousy. Soon it started to snow. We stayed in the guide’s hut, lounging on several layers of sleeping pads and drinking tea, chocolate and soup. Rick told us about his adventures with Fenniman. He still hadn’t quite recovered from that experience and obviously didn’t relish the task at hand. Our plan was to go up the Owen-Spaulding Route, cross over the top of the mountain just south of the summit and descend the snowfield to the shoulder of the Otter Body where Smith’s body lay, bury him, and descend the route taken by Joyce, Blade and Smith and then on down the evacuation route, cleaning up as much of the debris as we could. The snowstorm was not an auspicious beginning. This was turning out to be one of the worst climbing seasons in memory. Jake used to say that the Owen-Spaulding is both the easiest and the most difficult route he had climbed on the Grand, easy under normal conditions, difficult under the conditions currently prevailing. That worried me some but that wasn’t what was worrying Rick, much the strongest climber. Every hour or so Rick would inquire as discreetly as possible as to what we thought he would look like when we got to him. It dawned on Jim and me that his was to be Rick’s first corpse, and I have to confess that we laid it on a little. We weren’t unsympathetic but we knew that nobody can help you through that experience. The best you can do is to gain what distance you can by finding what humour you can, not laughing at the death but laughing at what your imagination is doing to you.

  It snowed throughout Monday night and for much of Tuesday and then began to clear. We would leave for the summit before dawn on Wednesday. It was not an unpleasant prospect. We were well-rested, in good physical condition and we’d spent most of the past four days high in the mountains.

  The Owen-Spaulding Route is on the shaded side of the mountain. It was bitterly cold for midsummer that Wednesday morning and the whole upper part of the mountain was completely iced over. It might have been November. Jim and I climbed slowly and cautiously, protecting every high-angle pitch but Rick found that maddening. He seemed almost frantic to get to the summit ridge, out of the cold and into the sun.

  Over the crest of the ridge we found
a beautiful summer day in the mountains. Not hot of course because we were in fresh snow above 13,000 feet, but the sun opened our down jackets and eased into our tensed muscles. We called a halt for an early lunch. The partially mown hay fields made squares of light green between the darker green willows along the Snake and the Gros Ventre rivers and the greenish-grey and light brown sagebrush flats of the valley. The snow was clean and too bright for unprotected eyes. We had passed from winter to summer in the space of a few moments and a few yards.

  We moved at normal pace now, picking out a route with caution in the couloirs we had to cross to reach the snowfield and then descended with an occasional belay down the East Snowfield to the rock above the body. Some scrambling and a short rappel brought us to Steve Smith. Near him was an empty matchbook, the matches lay scattered about. Each one was tried, none had lit. Much later, we heard the story of how at Smith’s death Charlie Joyce rebelled, took Blade by the shoulders and told him that they were going down, all the way down.

  We took what personal effects we thought his family might like to have, tied a rope to the body and manoeuvred it over the moat between the base of the cliff and the Otter Body Snowfield. Getting it adequately protected was something of a problem. We looked for a place near at hand where the snow pack was thickest and least likely to bare the rock in even the driest year. Rick was above anchoring the body. From a stance a few feet above the corpse I guided the rope to a position where it would drop directly down a small chimney to the debris at the base of the cliff. Jim straddled the rope at the body with his knife out.