Evolution: Beyond the Americas
Rolando Garibotti 12 hours into our 25-hour ascent of the Infinite Spur. The fastest time before our ascent was seven days. This accomplishment stirred more admiration and comment than the considerably more difficult ascent of the Slovak Direct route the year before. STEVE HOUSE
14,000 Feet on the Infinite Spur, Mount Foraker, Alaska: June 9, 2001
I CRANK IN ANOTHER ICE SCREW, clip in the rope, and continue across the calf-pumping slope. The front points of my crampons bounce against the polished ice. I kick three, four times. The points finally stick and I step up with burning muscles.
Angling upward, I crest a ridge littered with many little summits. I scramble happily to the far side where it’s sunny and less steep. The pump begins to empty from my legs as I fervently kick steps up and across the snow. The inspiration for George Lowe and Michael Kennedy naming this route the Infinite Spur after its first ascent in 1977 is quite obvious. They belayed 90 pitches over 11 days, and averaged 14 hours of climbing a day. I shiver at the thought of climbing with a fully-loaded pack.
My pack started out weighing 12 pounds. Between Rolo and I, we’re carrying a stove, a quart of fuel, a small titanium pot, 40 GU energy gels each, eight packages of instant soup, some halvah, a map, compass, altimeter, GPS, radio, one 8.8 mm rope, some ice screws and rock gear, my emergency tarp, and our Polarguard parkas.
We’ve been climbing 12 hours. We’re past the technical crux, but that is little consolation at the moment because I can’t find any protection. Resigned, I climb a 150 feet to where I can flip the rope around a cornice. Now if one of us falls the rope may catch on the cornice between us and keep us from falling to the glacier 5,000 feet below. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s better than nothing.
My watch ticks off our thirteenth hour of climbing when I stumble upon a small flat spot chopped into the crest of the ridge. A pair of Canadians who climbed the route a month earlier must have made this platform for their tent. Grateful for the rest I sit down and belay Rolo.
I greet him as he steps onto the ledge. “I think we should brew and rest here for a bit. Take advantage of this spot.”
Rolo coils up the rope, lapping the rope over his head so fast that it’s a blur. This is Rolo in a snapshot: of Argentine parents, born in Italy, and married to an American. Part international man of mystery and part roadrunner. Ladies swoon in his presence. Before that, I didn’t know what a swoon was. In 20 seconds he has the 200-foot rope coiled and places it on the snow as insulation for his oft-coveted derrière and sits down. I kneel and pull out the stove as Rolo farms some clean-looking snow to melt into water.
Three hours later the cold in my arms wakes me. I open my eyes and see Rolo turn, searching for a more comfortable position. He’s awake, so I sit up and light the stove for a hot pot of soup before we push on toward the summit.
We’ve spent almost four hours at Rob and Eamonn’s ledge when Rolo starts leading the final pitches. The ice is less steep than we climbed earlier, but we are tired – the effect of pushing hard lower on the route. Rolo continues to lead. Four pitches stretch to six. We are near the snowy ridge when I take the lead. Within 100 feet I’m kicking steps up the soft snow of the easy crest.
Thirty minutes later Rolo’s self-proclaimed allergy to snow climbing starts to show itself. We have different paces: mine like the tortoise, slow and methodical. His more like the hare.
Frustrated by these differences, I shout down the ridge, “Let’s unrope. Okay?”
From a 150 feet away he answers with a faint, “What?”
“Un! Rope!”
I finish coiling the rope as Rolo catches me and pauses. I go ahead, punching steps towards the top.
Gaining altitude, my pace slows. Fifteen thousand, and then 16,000 feet pass. I count steps to push back against the boredom. I count to 200 before taking a 30-second break. The snow has the look of a white tortoise shell: bumpy and polished smooth. These conditions often cover crevasses with thin bridges of wind-packed snow. I walk on, looking for shelter from the cold northerly that’s started blowing. I find a scoop that breaks the wind and sit on my pack to wait for Rolo.
When Rolo arrives we walk together. We roll across the east summit onto a bright moonscape. We can’t tell which hump is the true summit, so we keep trudging uphill.
The light plays among the many hillocks and false summits. I reach the last bump and turn and watch my partner work his way through the landscape of light. The only colors are white and blue. The isolation here is complete; years could pass without anyone standing here. I throw my rucksack on the summit. Kneeling on it to keep the wind from stealing it away, I can see no human sign anywhere. The nondescript dome of compact snow offers a 360-degree view of the Alaska Range. This is the fifth highest point in North America and the second highest point in the United States.
Across from us is Mount Hunter, the Alaska Range’s third highest peak. When you land at the glacier airstrip, Hunter dominates the view. From this perspective it looks small; its 10-mile breadth far more impressive than it’s one-mile vertical rise. Beyond Hunter, dozens of peaks scatter in the near distance. I’ve either climbed or tried to climb every one of them: Mount Huntington, Peak 11,300, Mount Dickey, Mount Barille, Mount Dan Beard, the Moose’s Tooth, the Eye Tooth, Broken Tooth, mounts Wake, Bradley, and Johnston.
Reigning over everything is Denali. The name means “the Great One.” And great she is. My eye is drawn to the improbably big and steep south face that Mark, Scott and I climbed last year. The Slovak Direct soars up the biggest, hardest wall on the mountain, going straight to the highest point on the continent. That’s proud, I think. I stand up and Rolo backs down a few steps to snap a summit photo. I forget to smile.
Base Camp, Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier, Alaska: June 11, 2001
The rattling, tent-shaking roar fights its way through my dreamless sleep. Each ferocious beat knocks me further and further from sleep. Every time the visceral thump starts to fade I swim back down, back into slumber. A few blissful moments pass and I’m shaken awake again.
Looking at the inside of my tent with slitted eyes, I feel the oppressive heat of mid-day. The noise has faded, but then it starts to grow in strength and power, until it vibrates right over the tent.
The Infinite Spur comes back to me in bright flashes of memory: Front points dulled by the blanched granite of the lower route. Spinning in ice screws at warp speed while my calf muscles burned. My heart racing as I stretch the rope between Rolo and me. A stiff wind sending us scurrying across Mount Foraker’s 17,400-foot summit just after dawn. Being confronted by Denali’s south face from the summit. The burning quadriceps muscles as we descended the long Sultana Ridge. Looking across infinite green expanses of Alaskan tundra jeweled with a million glittering lakes. The south face of Denali, so big and so sheer, dominating everything. The Slovak Direct Route eclipsing every other route I’ve done.
I unzip the arc of the tent door as the noise recedes, this time toward Mount Hunter. A heavy blanket of cloud hangs bright white a few hundred feet above the glacier. A large black National Guard Pave Hawk helicopter banks at the upper reaches of the cirque and lumbers down the valley towards base camp. A dozen walls, built of sawn blocks of snow to protect the tents from base camp’s frequent winds, sag like melted cheese. I turn as a cloud of steam comes out of the tarp Rolo pitched as our cooking space. His sleeping bag dries on the roof of his tent.
I reach for a water bottle and sit back down on my own sleeping bag. The down bag releases a breath of stale air from weeks of sleeping in the same clothes. Draining the bottle, I feel hungry and wonder what Rolo is cooking.
“Pizza ready?” I ask, stepping into the tent.
Rolo turns from the stove and smiles. “Gosh. No, pizza is sold out. Today’s special is ramen noodles.”
“That was yesterday’s special.”
“Yes. And tomorrow’s I think.” Rolo laughs, handing me a bowl. The soup is hot and tastes good.
“We done good, eh?” I say. I’ve been trying to teach him some western colloquialisms.
“Done good?” He asks. I nod.
“Yes. But I found the route, how do you say, banal?” he struggles with the wording.
“Too easy. I know. I thought there would be more hard climbing. It certainly must be hard with a big pack.”
“Yes. I can’t imagine. It would be so difficult!” Rolo agrees and I slurp down the hot noodles.
“That was something else,” I continue. “The view from the summit. I mean the south face of Denali really stands out.” Rotor wash shakes the cooking tarp as the helicopter circles again, and I reach for the center pole to keep it from blowing down.
“Yes. I’d say you guys did the plum line there, no? I mean really. That is the best line I saw, no?”
“I thought the Infinite would be as good,” I say, blowing cool air across my food. “The line is as good. It’s almost as much vertical relief, but the climbing certainly wasn’t as hard.”
“Do you think I’m a bad man to say I’m disappointed?” Rolo asks.
I laugh at his honesty. “No. No. I don’t. But some people probably will. Will you think I’m a bad man to say I think we’ve climbed out the Alaska Range?”
“Yes! There are many routes, no?”
“But not so big and beautiful and difficult as the Slovak,” I conclude.
“Yes, but the smaller mountains contain much beauty, no?”
“That’s true, but I think we should try that route on the south face of Nuptse in the Himalaya. That looks good. Just as good as the Slovak.”
“I would like that,” Rolo replies.
I pause on the summit of Mount Foraker. Though Foraker is the fifth highest summit in North America and the second highest mountain in the U.S., it goes years between ascents. Behind me, the massive south face of Denali catches the first of the day’s light. ROLANDO GARIBOTTI
Mazama, Washington: January, 2002
The phone rings as I finish clearing the dinner dishes. “Hello?”
“Farmboy!” followed by laughter.
“Mr. Backes. How are you?” I drop into the armchair next to the crackling wood stove, relaxing in preparation for a conversation with Scott. Conversations with him are almost always intense.
“Good. It’s winter in Minnesota. There’s ice in the quarries. I went out with Dahlberg last weekend. But I called to hear about Cho Oyu.”
I tell him about climbing from base camp to the summit in one day, and meeting a Norwegian climber near the top. He was using supplemental oxygen and moving fast, and then periodically dropping to the snow to rest. As I approached he would jump up and sprint ahead 50 or 60 feet, then flop down again like a dead fish. He raced me to the summit and then insisted on me taking 30 or 40 pictures of him with the flags of all his various sponsors. Scott laughs at the story.
“Hey, nice cover shot!” The new Climbing Magazine has just come out. A profile of me is the feature article, and I’m on the cover, climbing a vertical icicle, sticking my tongue out to catch a tiny snow avalanche.
“Yeah. That’s a little weird.”
“I thought they did a good job though. And what do you expect? You can’t do all these routes, change the rules of alpine climbing, and go unnoticed.”
“No, it’s good. The deal with Patagonia has really solidified, and what I make from working with them on product development should pay for one expedition a year. It’s not like I can quit guiding or anything, but it sure is nice to have an additional line of cash flow.”
“Well, I’m sure you will figure it out. I wanted to tell you, nice job on the Infinite. Twenty-five hours! You guys were hauling ass.”
“Yeah, that’s weird. Everyone is blown away by that, but to both Rolo and me the route was such a disappointment. It was too easy, Scott. I expected, and hoped, to have another Slovak Direct experience. But it wasn’t the same.”
“Funny you should say that because that’s what I want to talk to you about.” Scott’s tone deepens. “Steve, here’s the deal. I know it was a year and a half ago, but what happened up there, on the Slovak, that was magical. You know that right? That synergy was unlike anything any of us experienced before and I want to apologize for that.”
“Apologize?” I’m confused.
“I’m sorry. But I’m not sorry, too. See, it took Mark and me ten years of climbing together and living through a lot with each other. And not just in climbing, but in our lives. I was forty-two on that route. Mark was thirty-eight. And we had been building toward that place for a long time. Because of who you are and what you have been through you could mesh with it and contribute to the strength of the whole. I’m sorry because you were what, twenty-nine?”
“Yeah, twenty-nine.”
“I love Rolo. He’s the prototype, the man. He can rock climb better than any of us. But we both know what happened; you were two separate egos on that route. And it sounds like that route was too easy for you. The stress level wasn’t high enough to require you to come together in that synergistic way. But that’s almost beside the point because the fact is that you guys did the route in twenty-five hours, taking six days off the fastest time. People are going to understand that, probably more than they understood the Slovak in sixty hours.”
“Come on Scott. There are maybe fifty people who understand what we’re doing.”
“Fifty?” Scott laughs. “That many, huh? I think a dozen. In the whole world, maybe two dozen because you never know about the fuckin’ Euros.”
“I don’t care about that, you know me.”
“I do know you and I’ve seen you in action and that’s why I wanted to warn you,” Scott says.
“Warn me about what?”
“That the Slovak won’t happen again any time soon. That’s what I am sorry about, that you were exposed to it – to what partnership can be – so young. And now Mark and I are both done climbing. You have to find a new partner, or partners. You have to be very open; keep a beginner’s mind. You’ll know them when they come. And Barry is done too, or is he going to Nuptse now?”
“He’s going. We’re going with that Slovenian guy, Marko Prezelj and Stephen Koch. Rolo and I met them both in Alaska. They seemed nice. Marko’s hilarious, and so experienced. I don’t know about Stephen. He’s nice, or maybe he’s just polite. I can’t tell yet. I really don’t know him.”
“Stephen’s okay. I like Stephen. You guys will be fine. Maybe you and Barry can find your zone up there on Nuptse.”
“I hope so.” I hang up a few minutes later and stare into the fire with the phone in my lap. Rolo has decided not to go to Nuptse. Barry’s coming, and his wife Catherine too, but since breaking his leg on M-16, Barry seems less keen. He already has made an off-hand comment about “heading into the fray one last time.”
Approximately 20,000 Feet, on a New Route on the South Face of Nuptse, Nepal: May 5, 2002
I climb the last few steps to the cracked granite slab that Marko has just crossed. Barry and Stephen follow 10 minutes behind me. As I start across I hear Marko kick a boot into the ice repeatedly to make a step for himself.
“Čakaj, čakaj!” Wait, wait! he yells. I pause and look up. He takes out a small video camera and makes some adjustments. “Okay.” I look back at my feet, place my crampon points in the horizontal fracture in the white granite and start across.
Barry Blanchard soloing moderate technical ground during an acclimatization foray on the south face of Nuptse. The stunning west face of Makalu rises behind. MARKO PREZELJ
On the other side I climb past Marko to the crest of the ridge, stop and turn to wait for him. We’ve been pacing each other all morning, interrupted only by occasional stops for him to shoot video and photos of me clearing an ice bulge, or the sun blasting over a nearby peak, radiating across the dark blue sky.
Barry nears the rock traverse and plants one tool firmly in the ice. Turning his left foot sideways he uses the side points of his crampons to chew out a platform wide enough to stand on with one foot. Marko stands and makes an adjustment to the camera.
Barry clears his throat and considers the rock traverse. “Could use a rope here,” he says.
“No. It is good on the crack. Step on the crack,” instructs Marko as he kneels to the viewfinder. “Okay. Go.”
Barry doesn’t move and I sense that this might take awhile. I turn to the ridge and start climbing in search of a bivouac where we can spend the night and gain some valuable acclimatization. I churn upward, gaining height. The first opportunity to climb during an expedition is always cathartic. Where the angle of the ridge slackens the snow deepens. I wish Marko was here to share in the trail-breaking.
After an hour of climbing, the ridge abuts a steep ice tower and I need a rope, and a partner, to continue. I sit on my pack and take out a chapatti I dressed with peanut butter earlier this morning. I am washing down my lunch when I hear Marko approaching. From the sounds of it he has been climbing at top speed to catch up, and as he crests the slope he stops a dozen feet below me.
Pausing for a couple breaths he shouts, “You should wait for me!” I look at him for a moment. I understand something about his language and culture. His direct, commanding way of speaking doesn’t offend me.
“It is good for camera on this ridge,” he starts again. This time I interrupt him.
“Marko, I came to climb.”
Marko looks at me for a moment and takes the last steps to my stance. He removes his pack and sets it in the snow. He takes out a camera case, removes the video camera from around his neck where it has hung all morning and puts it away. I stand and take out our climbing rope and put away my thermos.
“Good,” says Marko, stepping into his harness. “Now we climb.”
Approximately 20,000 Feet, on a New Route on the South Face of Nuptse, Nepal: May 5, 2002
“Steve, you okay? You look a little green,” Barry says.
The three of us are squeezed into a tiny two-person bivouac tent. Barry lies half outside the door we have enlarged with a vestibule. Marko is wedged on one side of Barry’s legs. I’m on the other. I have just emptied a pot of soup and handed it to Barry. The driving pellets of snow on the tent sound like rice slowly being dumped on a linoleum floor.
“I don’t know.” I sit up. “I do feel a little nauseous.”
A moment later, it hits me: a wave of vomit pushes up my esophagus and my cheeks bulge like Dizzy Gillespie blowing a high note. Panicked, I reach for the nearest container, which happens to be Marko’s partially full pee bottle. I have an instant to decide: lock lips with the pee bottle, or spray vomit across our down sleeping bags. I choose the bottle, which surges as I fill it. It nearly overflows, but I gain control and catch a few drops with my sleeve.
“Oh shit!” Barry exclaims, holding out the pot in case another wave hits me. I hand him the pee bottle, take the pot, and brace myself, but my stomach settles slowly.
Marko laughs. “Nice. Nice.”
Barry too starts to chuckle. “Great catch Farmboy!”
I lie back down, my head scraping the frosted tent wall and sending a rain of cold droplets onto my face. “Drank the soup too fast. I always do that. Can’t eat so much up here.”
The next morning the winds have increased. “Looks bad,” Barry says, zipping the door shut. “Can’t see fifty feet. Maybe we should wait an hour and see what the trend is.”
“Black-side, down-side, up-side coming,” I say, mimicking our base camp cook’s ever-pessimistic forecast.
In the afternoon Marko and I climb away from the tent, front pointing on steepening ice. The blizzard seems to be abating. We still don’t have much visibility, but it has stopped snowing. Having gone as high as possible without belaying, we turn in an ice screw and hang the ropes and rack in a stuff sack and descend back to the tent. Barry has already decided not to attempt the summit, but has offered his services as high-camp cook and moral support.
“How’s it look?” he asks as we step back down onto our tent platform.
“Can’t see much, but its nice climbing.” I crawl through the door to the back corner of the tent and get inside my bag. It seems peaceful without the wind shaking the tent. A few odd drops of snow skitter off the nylon of our shelter as Marko follows me in.
Once situated in his corner with hands tucked between his flexed knees Marko says, “Now we wait. If no good weather tomorrow, I think down. Stove gas finished.”
“Yeah,” replies Barry. “We’ve got one full canister. I think I can get you guys sent off tomorrow morning with a good meal and lukewarm water for the thermos, but no tea or soup tonight. Cold rations from here on out.”
George Lowe on the first ascent of the Infinite Spur in 1977. George is on the ridge leading back to the hanging glacier and easier upper slopes. This photograph was taken very close to the same spot as the photograph on page 171, only 24 years earlier. MICHAEL KENNEDY
Michael Kennedy on the first of 11 days spent climbing and descending the Infinite Spur during the first ascent. June 27, 1977. GEORGE LOWE
I look at my watch; it’s 2 am. The tent wall’s staccato vibration keeps me awake, the alarm will go off in an hour. I doze between wind gusts and when the alarm finally sings, I shift onto my back and speak to the tent, knowing that Marko and Barry are awake.
“Looks like it’s down side for us.”
“Black side now up side,” says Barry.
“Oh well,” I reply.
As dawn breaks the tent shakes harder. Barry brews a pot of coffee that we share before stuffing our sleeping bags. In the cramped space only one person at a time can put his boots on. Marko goes first.
Edging towards the door he says, “I go for ropes, no?”
“Okay,” I reply. After he leaves it is too easy to lounge in the disappointment of not climbing Nuptse.
“No magic this time, eh Farmboy?”
“Yeah. That’s the way it goes.”
“You know, I think this is it for me. I’m done with big mountains. It’s too dangerous, and Catherine and I want to start a family. I’m forty-four, and I’m happy to have done what I did.”
“I understand. You know, it was too bad about Stephen leaving with that tweaked knee. But I really like Marko. I’m glad I got to know him better. I think we’ll climb together again.”
“I think that’d be mega. You guys get on well. I see the spark,” Barry replies.
“I don’t feel any spark quite yet, but these things take time.”
“You’ll get there. I see the spark.”
