Dancing on the edge
Lakewood man shares delicate balance of reaching Denali summit
October 9, 2010 - By Lyndon Gritters, M.D.
It's method on the edge of madness ... balance on the edge of a razor ... a dance on the edge of life.
He was so close, and yet he failed to survive. Several feet under my boot, James Nasti lay quietly on the snow-packed knife-edged ridge heading to the Denali summit, the highest peak in North America. Like many, he was consumed by an obsession that he didn't fully understand. Like some, his obsession would claim his life - for there are many things that can go wrong.
THE METHOD
For days, the wind howls endlessly, ripping at our sanity and our tent fabric. Under the unblinking eye of the Alaskan midnight sun, we are smothered under the incessant whiteout of a week-long storm, the trip only just begun. Instead of climbing, we are reduced, frustrated, to merely surviving. Yet, it is a relatively comfortable survival provided by synthetic insulation, goose-down and ritual. Every four hours, we dig out accumulated snow from around the tent; every six hours, we boil water and eat; every eight hours, we repair the snow walls protecting us from the gale; and every 24 hours, we exercise and sleep. Time slows, one day becomes a week, and as we wait, we disappear into whatever paperback novel keeps us sane. Up ahead, someone has died.
After years of preparation, Bill Hearne, of Fairport, N.Y., collapses above Windy Corner.
"For Bill, running, climbing, teaching spin classes and just basically being a perpetual motion machine was fun. And it was the kind of fun he loved to include other people in. It was a welcoming, patient, laughing, goofy, grinning, all-inclusive fun. He was just one of those guys who met you and made you feel like an old friend in the same moment."
Windy Corner - the crux of the route to advanced base camp - is not technically challenging, but the first major step up a deceptively difficult mountain.
At advanced base camp, flags from all over Europe, Asia and South America quaver under the malevolent gaze of indifferent mountain sentinels known as Hunter and Foraker. The capricious weather is now placid and brilliantly sunny as we set tents and build snow walls. An open-air latrine sits like a naked throne at the edge of camp, and a cornucopia of languages contributes to the low level din of activity. A South Korean team ropes up to head out to high camp, a squad of Navy SEALS lazily suns themselves, an Italian group argues about a snow wall and a French party chatters excitedly over lattes.
With the sunset, temperatures plummet 20 degrees, and with the dawn, our fortunes permanently change for the worse. Two of our climbers retch and hack through the night, and eventually quit the following day due to the altitude. One of those lost is a guide, leaving us a party of five climbers with just one remaining guide. One more loss and the whole expedition will have to turn around.
THE BALANCE
The Denali headwall, a 50-degree 600-foot high angled ice wall heading to high camp, is a challenge that all climbers must confront on the way to the summit. It is intimidating to most, and can be brutal. Once surmounted, however, the climb gratefully follows the gentle rocky sinuous spine of the West Buttress route leading to high camp at 17,200 feet. High camp! Through the sleepy morning haze, the sharp crunch of cramponed boots on hard packed snow grows until it seems to come from inside my own head. I lie cocooned in my sleeping bag, wondering why my guide, John, seems so agitated.
"Lyndon - get up - we need you over here - now. Hurry."
My patient is lying, ashen, in his sleeping bag, complaining of chest pain. Despite having summited without difficulty the day before, he now looks terrible and requires immediate evacuation. After getting aspirin into him, park service climbing rangers strap him into a litter, and lower him 3,000 feet down the 60-degree rescue gully back to advanced base camp, where a helicopter whisks him away to Anchorage the same day. I never heard how he made out.
That night the weather deteriorates, forcing our team to make an unfortunate decision. We have a weather window of only three days before we have to depart the mountain. We will attempt the summit the next morning and take our chances with the unpredictable weather before things get worse. The next morning, shortly after leaving camp, however, something tells me to stop. My legs aren't right, the wind is heaving, and billowing purple clouds now obscure the route up to the Denali pass. I stop the team and I leave the rope. I decide to stay behind, watch my friends climb, and let go of the summit after six months of intense preparation. My team members seem puzzled that I have given up, but they remain silent. I am all right with my decision.
I watch anxiously as my friends ascend into the gathering maelstrom, and I finally lose them at 19,000 feet. Eighteen endless stumbling hours later they return to high camp - a normal summit bid usually taking around 12 hours. Two have fallen but have been caught by the fixed lines, and twice they have temporarily lost their way. One climber promptly vomits. I make hot tea and am glad that they are back, but I am also secretly jealous of their summit success. I am still (mostly) all right with my decision.
THE DANCE
Early the next morning, with one day left before we must depart the mountain, a neighboring team's guide approaches my tent, explains that they are making a summit attempt, and offers me a spot on his rope. The catch? I have to be ready to leave in 30 minutes.
It is hard to dance without toes. Despite having the warmest boots available and having ascended 1,000 feet to the top of the pass, my toes are now unmovable and completely numb. My issue is a common malady. In my scramble to join the other team, I didn't have the time to get hot morning liquids into my body, and the price for my omission is steep. Most frostbite isn't simply a matter of bad boots. It is usually a combination of cold, dehydration, exhaustion and poor judgment.
It is now my turn for fate to hang in the balance. It is a risk, but I decide to take my boots off to inspect my toes as the wind roars around me. The wind chill here is so severe that any exposed skin is at risk for loss. Taking a glove off - even momentarily - can result in frostbite. My toes seem to be dead, but an angel appears, silently hands me a pack of chemical toe warmers, and vanishes.
As I negotiate the narrow ridge leading to the small angled summit plateau, I step near a small buried mound of polyester covering the remains of James Nasti. The wind, so vicious several hours ago, has vanished, and in the late afternoon sun the Brooks Range is peacefully laid out in an amazing Technicolor repose all around. Our all-consuming goal, the summit, is a small angled shelf no bigger than a walk-in closet. From this vantage point, I can see our entire West Buttress route 13,000 feet below.
James Nasti was fit and climbing well the entire trip. Just before attaining the summit, he unexpectedly fell forward on his ice axe, slid head-first several feet down the slope and died. No one knows why. Resuscitation efforts failed, and as weather closed in, his team reluctantly abandoned him. His body was ultimately judged too difficult to recover due to altitude, weather and topography, and he was buried there with his family's approval. He is the only climber to be buried on the Denali summit.
More deaths occur following my departure from Denali high camp the next day.
"Two surgeons who were longtime mountain climbing partners have died after falling thousands of feet on Denali. The two were roped together and plummeted at least 2,000 feet to their deaths Thursday while on the Messner Couloir," the National Park Service said. "The two men were alone and had begun an ascent of the West Rib on May 30. It was unclear if they had gone off-route on their way up or were coming down a different way when the accident happened."
I immediately call my family on a satellite phone to let them know that I am safe and not one of the physicians who had recently died. For every death, 500 individuals summit successfully. Like most climbers, I survive, depart with 10 fingers and toes intact, and even manage to have fun.
This time, the method was sound, the balance was right and the dance was good.
(posted by Bill's friends)
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