The Vast Unknown by Broughton Coburn

Author:Broughton Coburn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

Chapter 17

Uncertainty

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not

knowing what comes next.

—URSULA K. LE GUIN

FOR THE WEST RIDGERS, MATTERS WERE GETTING MORE COMPLICATED. Where there

were originally seven West Ridge climbers, and then ve, now

there might be even fewer. Dave Dingman—who’d climbed

admirably during the rst few days of the reconnaissance—began

to feel uneasy about the feasibility and safety of the West Ridge.

He shifted his allegiance to the South Col route.

“The West Ridge looked dangerous,” he said, admitting that he

might not have been ready to tackle its ominous-looking features.

“I had been sitting at sea level for four years without doing any

climbing, so I thought it might be above my ability.” Dingman had

initially o ered to help the West Ridge reconnaissance because

Dick Emerson had been agging: He simply hadn’t acclimatized,

and wasn’t able to overcome sickness and a lack of strength that

had plagued him ever since they arrived at Base Camp.

Then Barry Bishop approached Hornbein and Unsoeld. He told

them that National Geographic, his employer and the expedition’s

main sponsor, had sent him a letter saying that they were counting

on him to reach the summit—by any route possible—and return

with photographs. Hornbein sensed that Bishop was relieved that

the society had gotten him o the hook from what promised to be

a di cult undertaking. On the South Col, Bishop would be a strong

contender for the second summit team. He promised Hornbein and

Unsoeld that he would return and o er support on the West Ridge

once he’d finished with the attempt via the South Col.

“We knew that nobody came back from the summit of Everest

worth anything,” Unsoeld said. “You descend straight to Base Camp

and never return.” The seven original West Ridgers had

represented a sizable share of expedition strength. Now, Jake

Breitenbach’s death had cost them one dedicated member, two

were lost through defection, and one was out because of sickness.

Meanwhile, virtually all of the Sherpas had been redirected to the

South Col.

Unsoeld, like Hornbein, steeled himself for disappointment. “We

were awfully close to tossing in our chips and joining the stampede

to the South Col.” Hornbein wasn’t immune to second thoughts

himself. “Why do the four of us sequester ourselves away from the

chance to stand on the highest point on the Earth?” he wrote to his

wife, as if using a distant con dante to explore his own resolve.

“Why jeopardize this goal by tackling some other route, the hard

way, an unknown way, with a barely su cient party, lagging the

main effort? I wish I knew all, or even some of the answers.”

To climb the West Ridge properly, Hornbein suspected, a whole

expedition might be needed, not just an o shoot. He prepared his

wife for the possibility that his name might be missing from the

roll call of summiters hailed in the press. But this wasn’t something

to regret, he stressed, as he would not be missing fulfillment. “For

whether or not I nd it on the West Ridge, I know it does not lie in

wait as the 9th, 10th, 11th—or even rst—American to climb

Mount Everest by the South Col. There is something about the Col

route which seems too familiar, too traveled.

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