Ridgeway - The last step: the American ascent of K2

PRAISE FOR THE LAST STEP

Never before have the people who climb the high mountains of the world seemed so human. But it is this frailty that makes us root all the harder for their success.

Outside magazine

The Last Step is a classic expedition tale.

American Alpine Journal

The final approach has all the suspense and excitement the reader can bear.... A gripper.

Publishers Weekly

The Last Step is a step above many of todays climbing tales.

The Tacoma News Tribune

A tale of high drama in the high Karakoram....[It] deserves a place among the great annals of mountaineering.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Last Step goes paces beyond the usual mountaineering expedition story.... Compelling.

Adventure Travel

Unlike many previous mountaineering tomes filled with platitudes about camaraderie and grand vistas, Ridgeways account of the K2 climb is startlingly frank.

Adventure Journal

[Ridgeway] was one of the first mountaineering writers to adapt a tell-all style for expedition narrativesthe style thats so in vogue today.

David Roberts

A riveting, heart-stopping account of a 67-day human triumph and ordeal.

Sierra magazine

An astonishing feat and an amazing story.... The Last Step is an outdoor adventure for general readers as well as climbing enthusiasts.

Booklist

THE LAST STEP

THE LAST STEP

THE AMERICAN ASCENT OF K2

RICK RIDGEWAY

Foreword by
YVON CHOUINARD

LEGENDS AND LORE SERIES

Mountaineers Books is the publishing division of The Mountaineers, an organization founded in 1906 and dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas. 1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201 Seattle, WA 98134 800.553.4453 www.mountaineersbooks.org

Copyright 2014 by Rick Ridgeway

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed in the United Kingdom by Cordee, www.cordee.co.uk

17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5

Series design: Karen Schober

Book design and layout: Jennifer Shontz, www.redshoedesign.com

Cover photograph: Four climbers en route to K2s Camp III with the summit pyramid behind Dianne Roberts

Frontispiece: Map of K2s northeast ridge Dee Molenaar

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ridgeway, Rick.

The last step : the American ascent of K2 / Rick Ridgeway.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-59485-861-1 (pbk)

1. MountaineeringPakistanK2 (Mountain) 2. K2 (Pakistan : Mountain)Description and travel. I. Title.

GV199.44.P182K184 2013

796.522095491'3dc23

2013031998

Printed on 30% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-861-1

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-936-6

In warm memory of Al Givler, Dusan Jagersky, and Leif-Norman Patterson

And dedicated to the mothers, fathers, wives, and loved ones who are the true heroes of this story

__________________

Keep your eye fixed on the path to the top, but dont forget to look in front of you. The last step depends on the first. Dont think youre there just because you see the summit. Watch your footing, be sure of the step, but dont let that distract you from the highest goal. The first step depends on the last.

Ren Daumal, Mount Analogue

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

RICK RIDGEWAY AND I STARTED climbing together over forty years ago. Back then he joined me on trips to the east side of Californias Sierra Nevada, where we climbed frozen waterfalls to test prototypes of improvements I had in mind for traditional ice ax design. As a climber, Rick was more focused on mountaineering expeditions to remote ranges, while I was devoted to the big walls in Yosemite and alpine peaks in places like Patagonia. Nevertheless Rick and I were together on some expeditions, including one in eastern Tibet to Minya Konka in 1980, the first year the Peoples Republic of China opened it to outside climbers. To get there, we took a four-day train pulled by steam locomotive from Peking (as it was still called in those years) to Chengdu, then a four-day bus ride, and finally a week-long trek with horses packing our gear. It was on this approach that I first read The Last Step.

From the beginning I could tell that this was a different kind of book in the annals of mountaineering literature. It was honestsome would say brutally honestin its depiction of the conflicts the team weathered. The style was novelistic in its use of stream of consciousness to portray the feeling of climbing at very high altitude without oxygen, and in its use of dialogue. When the book came out, some critics questioned the accuracy of the dialogue, but Ive watched how on these expeditions Rick keeps careful notes, and, in the case of the K2 climb, he also had as cross-references the detailed journals kept by some of his teammates.

The 1978 American K2 Expedition was at the end of the era of so-called traditional expedition-style mountaineeringhuge endeavors made up of a dozen or more climbers and supported by hundreds of porters who carried tons of gear to a base camp, from which the team then ferried load after load of supplies to camps positioned higher and higher up the peak. However, by the end of Ricks account, I could see that the way he and his teammates made it to the top, climbing the summit pyramid without supplemental oxygenand, in the case of John Roskelley and Rick, without a rope or any kind of protectionpresaged the age of alpine-style ascents that would follow.

All sports change from one generation to the next. In my view, they often devolve as they depend more on equipment and technology and become less self-reliant. Climbing and mountaineering, howeverat least on the leading edges of both sportshave enjoyed an evolution instead of a devolution. Today the biggest walls in Yosemite are climbed in absolutely the purest of stylesby solo climbers with no ropesand the worlds highest peaks have all been ascended in single pushes by small teams with no bottled oxygen. Certainly todays guided climbs up Everest are the opposite of this. As I observed in the film 180 South, the business executives and power brokers who buy their way to the top of Everest are assholes when they start up and assholes when they get down.

But it is interesting to note that no one is guiding alpine tourists up K2. The mountain of mountains is sometimes called the hardest climb in the world. While you cant directly compare K2 to the hardest alpine climbs in Patagonia or the hardest solo climbs in Yosemite, most would agree that K2 is alone among the worlds highest peaks if for no other reason than the singular grandeur of its architecture. It is indeed the Great Pyramid of the Himalayas, exceptional in what is required, both in skill and in endurance, to reach the top by any route.