Queen of the Mountaineers by Cathryn J. Prince

Author:Cathryn J. Prince
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2019-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

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At 20,632 feet, Camp Italia occupied the lower flank of the Nun Kun. The expedition would pass two nights here. “And if any snow-leopards were prowling about, they must have viewed with some curiosity the scene which ensued—men engaged in pitching tents, lighting stoves, preparing dinner, setting up cameras, making observations, and doing other things which showed, that this uppermost plateau in the very heart of the Nun Kun had been successfully invaded by human beings,” she noted.24

In spite of the ever-present avalanche threat, and one very sick porter, Workman urged everyone to press onward. With the arrival of the summer monsoon season, the climb would be too risky to attempt in a few short weeks.

Just before they reached twenty-one thousand feet, Hunter collapsed to his knees. Removing his woolen mittens, Fanny noticed his hands were impossibly white and stiff. A severe headache gripped the fifty-nine-year-old. His back and lower limbs seized in pain. She insisted he go to bed. Upon lying down, he complained of shortness of breath. The symptoms grew worse, especially at night. He gasped for breath and feared he wouldn’t last the night.

No woman—or man—could last long working at these altitudes, she thought. And yet, Fanny and Hunter, now with a smaller group that included Savoye, worked hard, and as soon as they thawed they made their way back to Camp Italia. A cup of hot tea, a few spoonfuls of pâté and crumbling biscuits, and breakfast was finished. They descended to White Needle Camp.

Still a keen photographer, Workman snapped the angles and ice. Suddenly, a sharp pain bit deep into her legs and back. It persisted, and she felt worse during the wee hours of the night. Even after taking a tonic, she couldn’t sleep. It seemed Fanny Workman, ever immune to altitude sickness, had succumbed.

She felt a little better in the morning, so she and Hunter left their frozen tent to trek up a rising plateau. By midafternoon they were 21,300 feet high.

The Workmans and their guides scaled the steep curving slope. They cut steps into the ice and squeezed through narrow passages between ice walls. They passed along the sixty-pound packs one at a time. Here the seracs loomed higher and sharper. The fissures appeared longer and wider. The snowbridges more treacherous.

The group waded through thigh-deep snow for five more hours until they were brought up short. Perpendicular walls of ice and stone rose from the snow. They stared. Either they went up or they returned. If they returned, they could mark the expedition as over.

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