At dawn we pack our one sleeping bag, strike the tent and leave our bivouac. I kick a trail of steps toward the top. We each carry 25 pounds of equipment, food and fuel to survive three more days. My footsteps don’t sink more than ankle deep in the snow. The air is calm and clear. Turning, I can see the curve of the planet stretching into India and across China.
My head hangs. For me it has been another bad night of little rest. Glancing at Bruce, I see his face is swollen from the altitude. I am in worse shape. Our internal organs are subject to the same swelling. We’ve climbed into the “death zone,” the altitude at which nothing can live for long without supplemental aids, like bottled oxygen, something Bruce and I would never consider. For us sucking O is doping, cheating. Besides, carrying the heavy bottles of oxygen is physically impossible in our chosen style ― alpine style ― of climbing. The style is so named because it utilizes the same methods used to climb smaller peaks in the Alps. You climb with a backpack containing your food, fuel, shelter, clothing, and climbing gear. And, if all goes well, you bring it all back down.
I wrap my fingers around a rocky edge and pull myself to the top of a short 40-foot cliff. I pause to catch my breath and Bruce steps ahead and leads off. I follow at a slow, all-day pace. I’m happy to be in his track, drafting. Yesterday I felt strong, but last night I puked up half my meager ration of food. I am dehydrated and sluggish, and my headache is worse now than when we bedded down.
Suddenly I come upon Bruce, leaning against his pack on a nondescript snow slope. I am a little disappointed that his stint in front has been so short.
“How’s it going Steve?”
I lean into the slope, put my head against my axe, and breathe hard. I am not going to lie; Im not fine. But this pain is familiar.
“Uh, okay,” I say as I stand up.
“I’ve been waiting forty minutes. What’s wrong?”
“Forty minutes?” I don’t understand. I pant rapidly. “I just stopped.” Breathe. “To *.”
“You don’t look so good.” Bruce starts to chuckle, but the laugh is lost in a hacking cough that doubles him over.
He lifts his head and takes two awkward steps back up his track. His track? It suddenly registers that Bruce has down climbed to me. His pace has buried mine. He watched me struggle for forty minutes; watched me take five steps, then rest my head on my ice axe taking 10 breaths. Sometimes more.
Bruce raises himself up; his eyes try to meet mine. The cracks in his lips are packed with drying blood. He looks away and says, “I want to go down.”
I lean my forehead back on my axe trying to concentrate. I push back my mitten to look at the altimeter on my wrist. It reads 24,800 feet, just 1,900 feet below Nanga Parbat’s summit.
“Down? Why?” I lift my head and stare at him. He has pushed his hood back, but dark sunglasses hide his eyes. His face is too thin, waxy like a mask. He doesn’t look at me.
“We’re almost at twenty-five thousand feet.” I breathe. “It’s still early.”
“Then where are we going to bivy tonight? On the summit?”
Yes, I think and then I say aloud “Where we end up. Wasn’t that the plan?” Breathe. “I think we’ll be okay.” I gather my breath and force the words out quickly. “We have three more nights.”
I squat down on one knee and think. I try to imagine a logical argument against his decision to turn around. To keep climbing is flagrantly dangerous and selfish. Just like it always is. Not understanding Bruce’s change of heart precludes me from arguing against it. Faintly, I see that I don’t know this man. I nearly chuckle at the folly of us being here together, of not having tempered our partnership in the furnace of experience.
Three weeks ago, while climbing alone on K7, I had been so confident I rejected partnership. I knew that my trust in others had turned to dust, desiccated by ever-changing climbing partners, a failed marriage, and bearing witness to climbers trashing the mountain environments that I cherish. My desire to climb Nanga Parbat had usurped this knowledge.
There is no partnership, no marriage but convenience. There is just he and I. Separate in our desires. Mine to ascend at any price. Bruce’s to cash out now, before we have committed everything. I wonder, “Who is this man?”
发表于 2009-10-13 13:37:04
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发表于 2009-10-14 22:22:28
