DREAM MERCHANTS

INVESTIGATING THE MYSTERIOUS DEATHS OF THREE JAPANESE CLIMBERS ON IN 1989

BY JON WATERMAN

Kahiltna Pass, 10,000 feet, lower left with trail to 11,200-foot camp and up West Buttress; Denali Pass visible upper left. TOM FALLEY TOM

22 ASCENT 2020 ASCENT 2020 23 This photograph and another shot from the The 17-man rescue team hauls the bodies of air show that none of the deceased climbers Yamada, Saegusa and Komatsu to a waiting helicopter. Cyclonic winds delayed the body recovery held their knees or burrowed or assumed for over a month. The three climbers were found just the fetal position of those trying to shelter 15 minutes from their last camp. from the extreme cold. Nor had they begun removing their clothing in the frequent final act of “paradoxical undressing” by translated), were weirdly incomplete. It was hypothermic victims flushed by dilated blood as if Yamada’s deferential Japanese supporters vessels that cause a burning sensation. could not dig up or divulge how the men really From my experience as a Denali perished. WHEN NORBORU YAMADA and his two ranger performing scores of Several accounts of successful winter Japanese companions didn’t return from searches for climbers, rescues or recoveries— climbs on Denali serve as noteworthy and theW West Buttress, Denali’s easiest route, in along with a study of accident victims for even inspirational models, such as the book February 1989, no one could understand my book Surviving Denali—I wanted Minus 148 (detailing how three climbers what had happened. Known as “the Dream an explanation and conclusion for every survived a similar storm at Denali Pass Merchant,” Yamada was famed for his misadventure on the mountain. Even long by digging a snowcave). But tragedies like visionary Himalayan climbs including the after I gave up working on the mountain, that of 1989 garner most of the attention. South Face of Annapurna and Everest in I wanted to prevent tragedy. But with the Disaster, after all, stimulates empathy. And winter. Several years earlier he had led the Japanese team’s demise, the report (written by on another level, comprehensive accident race to climb all 14 8,000-meter peaks. His the South District Ranger) was unintentionally reports (which, as far as I was concerned, many admirers (including me), friends and mysterious and inconclusive. I needed to hadn’t been completed for Yamada) expose family wanted to believe that the climbers understand what really caused their deaths. human error, ultimately evoking coping were sheltering out the lengthy storm in a Teruo Saegusa—eyes wide open like his BOTH ARMS HUNG mechanisms—allowing other mountaineers snowcave. The official park service report and the autopsies noted that Norboru Yamada and his two companions, partners’—alone escaped broken bones. All of to ask themselves if they could have survived More than two weeks after the Japanese Teruo Saegusa and Kozo Komatsu, died of hypothermia. But the three, as seen in the page from the book the team appeared to have perished quickly SUSPENDED IN THE in similar straits—teaching us how to avoid Death Wind, were highly experienced. For them to die on Denali’s easiest route just didn’t make sense. team’s disappearance, supporters had to and were dead before arrival—they made similar mishaps. Yet regardless of nationality, accept the inevitable when the bodies were no attempt to crawl to one another. Their AIR AS IF HE WERE climbers are essentially members of an spotted from fly-overs. In one attempted days into spring, the mercury still plunged wasn’t the only one who cringed about friends exposed skin, whiter than the surrounding extended family, and losing three brethren recovery a military Chinook helicopter flew to -40 F. The rescuers also observed that the and family hearing the tuna-locker elucidation snow, was not bloated or badly distorted, IN THE MIDST OF A can hit hard. half out of control and at full throttle, with wind blew even harder here than it did on or seeing the image, showing Yamada with a preserving each man’s facial features, as if As a lucky survivor of a winter climb on the veteran pilot breathing bottled oxygen and their storm-swept Mount Fuji in , where peculiar, bared-teeth grin. The photograph they had been sprayed with liquid nitrogen. DANCE STEP. DenaIi—up the Cassin Ridge in winter 1982, trying to break out of a 2,000-foot-per-minute wind speeds exceeded 100 mph. did not show that he was roped to his partners Hence the notation “Flash Frozen.” As if similarly accident-prone and exposed to downdraft.Rescuers strapped inside the Denali insiders will never forget the Teruo Saegusa and Kozo Komatsu. mountain weather alone could explain what Compared to 44 other climbers who have inhumane conditions—I knew that someone bouncing fuselage could see three red-suited photograph taken by the body-recovery team Yamada was seen with straightened legs really killed them. disappeared on Denali, the bodies of the as talented as Yamada Norboru, my winter and motionless figures lying below, spread up and leaked from a thick, yet still unfiled atop a several-inch snow pedestal, which Given their body positions and the autopsy Japanese team at least could be examined, brother, wouldn’t simply flash freeze in to 100 feet apart in the shape of an upside- folder that remains—until this writing— the weight of his body held in place as the showing that their limbs were broken after and this was only by luck. If not for their rope his tracks because he underestimated the down isosceles triangle. Cyclonic winds on in the South District Ranger’s office in surrounding snow had been blasted away. DEATH WIND death, the photo shows signs of human flight: catching in the sastrugi, the trio would have mountain. There had to be a more thorough frozen snow had carved abstract sastrugi Talkeetna. Normally, climber accident These winter pedestals suspend everything The leading Japanese alpinist had landed continued being blasted down by the winds that explanation that would allow closure. And I that, from the aerial perspective, looked like narratives, called Case Incident Reports that can’t be pried off by the wind: amber here after a long ride through the sub-Arctic blew away their packs, ice axes, video cameras, confess that the sardonic smile frozen on his texture on a skip-troweled sheetrock wall. (CIRs), are filed three hours north at Denali colored urine stains, mummified human feces, night, blown from the wind-machine of Denali hats and mittens down past blued hanging face has haunted me for years. Since the violent weather and thin-air flying National Park headquarters with a century’s and footprints left over from more than a Pass. Meteorologists agree that the pass, a low seracs, down the two-mile-long, elevator-shaft and landing were deemed unsafe, the Japanese worth of mountaineering arcana. After a thousand Denali climbers who make this same funnel between the two summits of Denali, steep plunge to the Peters . Down there, TO MOST JAPANESE CITIZENS the name remains lay on the 30-degree slope for more few years, most accidents are forgotten, but pilgrimage from May through July. In summer, could, due to the Venturi Effect, triple the in the catch basin of the winds, all is buried in Denali elicits respectful recognition. In than a month. the Talkeetna rangers and Alaskan old-hand when the wind eases and it starts snowing, all 100 mph winds commonly buffeting the upper deep-snow remnants of the last Ice Age. Japan the mountain’s name happens to Finally, on March 26, a 17-man Japanese climbers still see the 1989 tragedy as an is once again blanketed over. mountain. To be lifted and bodily blown off At the time, the tragedy had been briefly be synonymous with that of Japan’s most rescue team climbed to the accident site after unsolved enigma. It didn’t make sense that Yamada’s blue flap hat had long since would take winds greater than that of terminal covered by newspapers, lamented in climbing famous mountaineer, Naomi Uemura. The being pinned down by another prolonged Yamada, a veteran at high altitude and who blown off, while one-wool mitted hand was velocity—or 120 mph—the maximum speed a journals, detailed (but not resolved) in that thick story of Japan’s knight errant of cold weather storm with wind they described as a “devil’s had done technical 8,000-meter peaks in crooked toward his heart because of a broken human can reach while falling through the air. CIR file, and expanded upon in a respectful adventure, killed on Denali five Februaries roar.” The rescuers were shocked to see that winter, would perish on what was essentially arm. Since either a fall or wind had partially Due to the climbers’ lack of fatal injuries, book, 死Shi-fù, or Death Wind, published only in before Yamada, is also cloaked in mystery—

Yamada’s team all lay on their backs on an a steep ski slope. unzipped his jacket and blown back the fur- DEATH WIND and given the cold location, through process of Japan. The authors had only concluded “it was a except to those alpinists who understand the innocuous-looking snowslope merely 15 The troubling photograph captures a supine ruffed hood, his signature red bandana could elimination most coroners would call the causes fatal mistake for them to adapt their experience oddities of this mountain in winter and the minutes away from their last camp. Panting in Yamada at 17,400 feet on a slope guides be seen neatly tied around his neck. The of death hypothermia—as stated in the three in the low-latitude Himalaya” to Denali’s techniques used to climb it in such extremes. the thin air, casting repeated looks up at the had long ago and portentously dubbed “the waxen white and bare left hand extended autopsies. The lack of obvious clues about what harsher, higher latitude. Yet Yamada knew the Born in Kaminogo, Hidaka Town, in 1941, sky in case the wind would begin anew, the Autobahn.” The “Flash Frozen” description straight out, with no apparent relationship to really killed them and why the three expert mountain well, having climbed it repeatedly in Uemura remains Japan’s version of Neil rescuers stood over bodies “stiff as iron” and that circulated with the photo had been the rope wrapped around his shoulder. Both climbers chose to ascend into one of Denali’s previous years, and wouldn’t have overlooked Armstrong. Although he could have been said a prayer for their “piteous death[s].” Even intended to warn aspiring climbers about the arms hung suspended in the air as if he were infamous winter storms is why the accident Denali’s lethal weather. first of his countrymen to step atop Everest, with good weather and daylight returning five ferocity of North America’s highest peak. I in the midst of a dance step. report remained a cold case that needed to be To a Denali expert, all the write-ups, in 1970, when after leading almost all of the COURTESY DENALI NATIONAL PARK, BOOK IMAGE COURTESY KUNIAKI YAGIHARA/

COURTESY KUNIAKI YAGIHARA/ resolved. particularly Death Wind (which I had way to the top, facing the final few yards, he

24 ASCENT 2020 ASCENT 2020 25 his fall, he plunged all the way to the remote Peters Glacier (or somewhere along the way, perhaps, he dropped into a crevasse). Uemura was first in the world to climb the . highest peak on five continents, ahead of the curve in the now popular quest for the . While Uemura had been following his dreams as one who relished solitude and loved nature, he was hardly a “collector” of mountains. If he had survived, he likely would’ve been perplexed by many who now chase the seven summits as if mounting trophies on their walls. There’s no question that Uemura—as the original Dream Merchant—had inspired Yamada, Saegusa and Komatsu five years later. Still, even if Yamada had been obsessed with a Seven Summits quest, by following in the vanished Denali Pass, where the Japanese were likely blown off by 200 mile-per-hour winds. The “Autobahn” (traverse trail Japanese mountaineers have long thought of Denali, footsteps of the respected elder and well- seen diagonaling up from right to left to 18,200 feet) is the site of more fatalities than any other location on Denali. seen above, as spiritually connected to their own sacred Mount Fuji (upper right). Lower right: Yamada THIS IS BACKED UP sponsored legend of Japan would have made him poses for a hardman shot. proceed with great caution and respect. Fuji-san summit. In the story the mountain is pilgrims sought on Fuji-san. So if Naomi Uemura’s disappearance can be called fu-shi, which means never dead. This Although a rising star in thin air on beckoned a respected Japanese elder behind BY TAOIST BELIEFS explained, surely there was a more definitive is backed up by Taoist beliefs that the secret the most difficult climbs under the worst him to go first. In less than a decade, the cause for the deaths of Norboru Yamada, to immortality is found on Fuji-san. conditions, Yamada still found himself a soft-spoken, shy Uemura—who stood 5 feet THAT THE SECRET Teruo Saegusa and Kozo Komatsu. And since The summit of Fuji-san, a 5,000-foot, six- step behind more accomplished Europeans. 3 inches tall in his stocking feet—would a team of Austrians who repeatedly ran into hour hike from its base parking lot, is not a Two years before his death on Denali, become larger than life in Japan for his epic TO IMMORTALITY Yamada on Denali but were not interviewed challenge for alpinists. But the mountain during a bold winter ascent up the most dogsled trips and solos of the highest peaks in depth by the park service for its accident persists throughout Japanese culture because technically challenging route on the most on five continents. These included the first- IS FOUND ON report, I knew they would have their own of its symmetrical form and its depiction dangerous 8,000-meter peak—the South ever solo of Denali, in stormy August when opinions on the disaster. in literature and art since ancient times: Face of Annapurna—he summited with three climbers had abandoned the mountain, several FUJI-SAN. framed by the cherry blossoms on wood-block companions. During the descent to high months after he became the second Japanese JAPAN’S 12,380-FOOT MOUNT FUJI, or carvings; or seen on flags, greeting cards and camp in roseate alpenglow, one teammate, gentleman to climb Everest. He spent 363 Fuji-san (Fire Mountain), falls more than the 1,000-yen note. Toshiyuki Kobayashi, vanished through a days dogsledding from to , Today Japan honors the lost adventurer more time on the mountain than his Japanese a mile and a half shorter than Denali and is Long after Norboru Yamada climbed Fuji- cornice. Shortly after, in an unforgettable a journey that he described as “pure bliss;” with two Naomi Uemura museums. They counterpart. So he is familiar with its biggest 3,500 miles distant. But to volcanologists, the san as a teenager, he had built his confidence moment that would long disturb Yamada, he solo rafted down the Amazon River; and display his many adventure books, postcards challenge: “The wind on Denali is a freight magma-fueled and seismically active Ring of and found himself pursuing greater goals.The his old friend and partner Yasuhira Saito he became first to solo to the North Pole, written during his journeys, the tattered train,” he messaged me. “Get out of its way or Fire, fringing the Pacific Ocean Basin, links youngest of six children, he had been named dropped from exhaustion into the dark void, while stalked by a polar bear and repeatedly Japanese and American flags that he left tied die.” But he’s certain that this wasn’t Uemura’s the peaks like sisters. Norboru—literally “one who is to rise”—by a his crampons sparking against rocks while rescuing his sled dogs. As famous at the to a tripod with a spare pair of underwear on issue. Denali is the elder mountain, a pluton, prophetic priest. Although briefly on track as shouting, “What’s wrong?” time as the great Italian alpinist Reinhold Denali’s summit, and the diary that he left in “Naomi’s boots killed him,” Vern said, melted down by magma 56 million years ago, an electrical engineer, he despised routines Neither Kobayashi nor Saito were ever seen Messner, Uemura enjoyed support from a snow cave at 14,300 feet. Scores of Uemura referring to the toasty but floppy white rubber cooled under the earth and crystalized, then or any sort of mediocrity and committed again. Purina and National Geographic—among his relics are displayed from his journeys— boots (aka Mickey Mouse Boots, as coined by pushed up by tectonic-plate activity. Fuji-san, himself to climbing as a self-taught 16-year- Despite the incredible yet star-crossed many sponsors. He even went back to Everest Everest summit rocks, clothing, and a life-size the military, which developed them during the a stratovolcano, was explosively created—its old Dream Merchant.Eventually climbing accomplishment of the Japanese team, Jerzy in winter 1981, and missed the summit by cutout of the adventurer—but the 20-man Korean War) that he and Naomi wore but that magma spewing up out of the Ring of Fire and nine of the 14 8,000-meter peaks, he put Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer’s first winter ascent several hundred meters after a companion fell Japanese search team on Denali could not find lacked rigidity. The soft boots “were notorious onto the earth—less than three million years together a new Denali winter climb as a 10 months earlier on an easier Annapurna to his death. the body of their beloved Naomi Uemura. for squirming out of your crampons,” Vern ago. Compared to Denali, there are no steep much more ambitious and unprecedented route is what sticks to the record books. Then on the eve of his 43rd birthday, Another unsolved cold case then? Not quite. wrote. “It happened to me, fellow guides and climbs up the evenly sloped Fuji-san, which project: climbing the highest peak on each This lack of recognition on the world Uemura returned to Alaska and made one of To close this file I first turned to Naomi’s our clients many times, especially on the routinely smokes, shudders and, according to continent in winter. Sponsored by Japanese mountaineering stage was not new to Yamada. the most audacious climbs in the world: a solo, diary. A week before his disappearance, down Autobahn. We finally redesigned the heel of seismologists, could soon blow its top again. corporations, Yamada had already knocked In 1984, another large Polish expedition had winter ascent of Denali by the West Buttress. at Windy Corner, a breezy spot where most our crampons by adding a small strap that DEATH WIND In the large national park surrounding Denali, off winter ascents of Everest, , claimed the first winter ascent of Manaslu, He reached the summit on his birthday, climbers avoid overnighting, he wrote about the ankle strap went through.” But Naomi, there are more than 600 seismic events per Kilimanjaro and . After Denali in a winter climb Yamada had tried but failed February 12, 1984. He even made it back his crampons repeatedly falling off and how he new to these specialized Alaskan climbing year, usually directly beneath the mountain; winter, he had only Carstenz Pyramid, Elbrus when he broke his leg in a crevasse fall two down to Denali Pass (the windiest place on nearly froze his fingers tying them back on. boots, would not have known about this occasionally the bigger temblors cause and Vinson left on the tick list. For him to join years earlier. The December after the Poles’ the mountain) and radioed out the next day Then I consulted Vern Tejas, first to survive strapping system. So Vern and I believe that avalanches. Both snow-clad peaks can be seen the expanding ranks of the “Seven Summits winter ascent, Yamada and his good friend to announce his success. Then he vanished. a Denali winter solo, in February 1988. Vern on February 13, 1984, Naomi Uemura had a towering 130 and 60 miles distant from their Club” as its exclusive winter member, the only Saito sprinted up Manaslu in a phenomenal Bush pilots and the park service and would-be respects Uemura, and in his honor planted a crampon pop off on the Autobahn. Unroped respective cities, Anchorage and Tokyo. one to complete the Frozen Grand Slam of three-day ascent. Since winds made the rescuers believed that he fell off further below Japanese flag on top when he summited, but on the tricky-angled ice traverse, and probably A 10th Century Japanese folk tale describes world mountaineering, would be a modern- summit ridge too dangerous, they resorted to

from the crest of the West Buttress. as a seasoned Denali guide he had spent a lot buffeted by the wind, with nothing to stop COURTESY KUNIAKI YAGIHARA/ COOMBS COLBY a smoking love poem that burns forever on the day equivalent to the immortality olden-day an unusual tactic: they roped up and belayed

26 ASCENT 2020 ASCENT 2020 27 one another to prevent being blown away. This feet on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Laserer and his partners acclimatized by bold ascent culminated a hat-trick year in Glacier. At the subzero landing strip, Yamada twice summiting Aconcagua (2,500 feet which Yamada climbed not just Manaslu, but held an uncharacteristic hardman pose for the higher than Denali). They also managed to fly K2 and Everest all without bottled oxygen. camera, kneeling outside the tent without hat off from several hundred feet below the windy Two years prior, in fact, Yamada had also and gloves, guzzling a beer. Through a nearby summit with their parapentes. climbed Everest in December—but the Poles col, they watched the summit blush with Several days later, fresh from the thin air, had yet again beaten him to this winter prize alpenglow, 18 miles and 13,000 feet above. they pulled the trigger on Denali, deliberately three years earlier. Despite climbing nine Still, their competitive edge and something arriving amid the waxing moon cycle to of the 14 8,000-meter peaks, and although unique to their culture had been stimulated. brighten the long winter nights on the widely respected in Japan for these efforts, Through the code of honor called bushido mountain. By acclimating on Aconcagua they outside his own country Yamada remained a among Samurai warriors in pre-modern had taken a shortcut, effectively increasing little-known outlier. Japan—still extant among many athletes in their red blood cells, which carry oxygen While Yamada’s Frozen Grand Slam scheme contemporary culture—they were vexed by for thin-air environments, and benefiting lacked the intense technical challenges of his freshly laid ski tracks leading to the main from an increase in pulmonary pressure that ascent of Annapurna’s South Face in winter, it fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. Europeans, yet infused their lungs. Their invaluable time on had the sort of cachet—and equal dangers— again. Two days earlier a team of seasonally Aconcagua would allow them, theoretically, that drew in millions of yen from mainstream unemployed Austrian guides—Walter Laserer, to sprint up Denali. Still, even though the sponsors. And while by this time both Everest Heli Steinmassl and Heli Mittermeyer—had Austrians had a two-day head start, the and Denali had been climbed in winter, no Japanese raced to catch them. Laserer knew one had even attempted a winter ascent of that the three Japanese had come from ’s Vinson, likely the coldest place on sea-level Tokyo, with little acclimatization earth and cloaked in darkness for much of the (although Yamada had climbed two winter (30 years later, it remains unclimbed AFTER THE 8,000-meter peaks that fall). in winter). If Yamada could pull off Denali and Shortly afterward, the two teams met as then Vinson, his Frozen Grand Slam would AUSTRIANS SPENT the Austrians came down below 8,000 feet to shine with inspiration while showing honor and retrieve a food cache. The Austrians had been completion to the quest of Naomi Uemura— A COUPLE OF forewarned by the park service not to travel whom Yamada had made a film about while unroped on the because old and flimsy climbing Everest several years earlier. HOURS LOST IN crevasse snow bridges were often hidden under A serious and dedicated soul, Yamada, new snow. So they couldn’t help thinking it 39, substituted a smile for talk during THE BLIZZARD, odd for the Japanese to keep their climbing social gatherings. Among his boyish faced HOPE OF REACHING rope packed away on the lower glaciers. The Yamada, Saegusa and Komatsu were vexed to find a team of three Austrians—Walter Laserer, Heli Steinmassl and Heli Mittermeyer—poised for a winter ascent. The heavily Japanese companions, the model-handsome, meeting between these two rival teams, as the sponsored Japanese climbers likely felt pressure in the face of competition to succeed at all costs. The Austrians, seen in this series of four photographs, had no such broad-cheeked Yamada stood out with a full Japanese offered the Austrians tea, was one of obligations and were more savvy to Denali conditions, building an igloo for protection while the Japanese camped in tents. Still, the Austrians barely survived. moustache. He proved a popular teammate, THEIR SNOWCAVE strained politeness, rather than of climbers repeatedly invited on most Japanese seeking bonhomie in a strange and dangerous hardly trying to beat the Japanese, but as But at the bottom of the Autobahn, first against it; Yamada zipped open the door. expeditions, in part because of his strength VAPORIZED—ALL range conspicuously bereft of human beings. professional mountain guides trained to their goggles, then their eyes iced over in the In broken English, looking at the Austrians up high, but since he reined in his ego against Since Yamada had equipment sponsorship along shepherd others, they had the opportunity to blizzard. In desperation, blinded, they began with their faces caked in ice at midnight ambition, he made a point of trying to get THREE THOUGHT with support from a television company (two of carefully observe the ubermensch Japanese. circling the plateau in hopes of finding their in -79 below (according to the Austrian all of his partners to the summit. Just like his Everest expeditions had been sponsored by In one long, cold summit day, the Austrians high camp. Their headlamp batteries had thermometer), with wind gusting over 70 Uemura. Even three decades later, his pure THEY WERE DEAD. Nippon Television) the Japanese videoed the topped out just as the lights of Anchorage already died in the cold; dark storm clouds mph, Yamada could have asked if they were methods and linkage of multiple high peaks Austrians. Laserer felt miffed that the three blinked on in the distance. Laserer’s hat blew blocked the moonlight. After the Austrians O.K. or offered tea, but instead he only asked, (but never as a soloist) remain achievements shot up the glacier with the summit in their men—obviously sponsored superstars with off, so he pulled out a spare. All three tried spent a couple of hours lost in the blizzard, “Summit success?” that only genetically endowed Sherpas and gun sights. their brand-new equipment, logoed jackets and to take pictures; all three of their camera hope of reaching their snowcave vaporized— The Austrians nodded in assent, and just a few dozen highly trained climbers can As veritable unknowns, the three Austrians haughty manner—did not thank them or offer shutters froze open. They quickly shared a all three thought they were dead. then a break in the clouds leaked in moonlight. duplicate. But only if they’re lucky. made their livelihood towing clients up to help with trail-breaking in newly fallen thigh- thermos of hot cocoa. Shouting into one another’s ears to be Yamada pointed the hypothermic Austrians Although he knew how to hang it out and moderate peaks, rather than being paid by deep snow. But while clomping down and squeak- heard above the roar of the wind, repeatedly back to their snowcave—they were saved. had repeatedly seen partners and even a corporate clients to push themselves up Carrying the philosophy that they should stepping across rock-hard sastrugi in the being blown off their feet and struggling for a As they took account of themselves the next leader die on his Himalayan climbs, Yamada immoderate peaks. But they played hard expose themselves as little as possible to the dark, 2,000 feet below the summit, they sense of direction with a compass that they day, discovering that they had all escaped was more than just lucky. He was a shrewd during their time off. Their winter agenda on infamous Denali meat freezer, the Austrians entered what Laserer later called a “proverbial couldn’t hold still in the thundering blizzard, frostbite, they agreed—while trying to patch tactician: sneaking up summits by taking Denali, along with the desire to stretch their continued hotfooting up 7,000 feet of sinuous shit storm” at Denali Pass. They could barely they made their way to what appeared to be their narrow-roofed snowcave, rapidly eroding advantage of changes in the weather, and he limits as young tigers, served as a bergführer glacier, with the unroped Japanese close stand up in the blinding wind. Staying close a boulder that they had not seen when they away in the storm—that the Japanese were remained alert to even the briefest windows vacation from the trade routes they would behind, up to a thousand-foot, blue-ice together, but not roping up—because one left camp. They screamed at each other that crazed to be building snowblocks around their within tempests. return to when spring guide season cranked headwall, where the awe-inspiring section of person’s fall would’ve pulled everyone down— they would shelter behind the boulder, out of tent in lieu of a cave. The nylon walls would This brings us to Denali’s West Buttress in up in the Alps. But their leader, Laserer—an narrow ridge called the West Buttress would they struggled down the trickiest 800 feet. It the wind, and then would continue looking for have been beating against them as if they were winter 1989, with the stormiest weather the all-arounder who has repeatedly guided the bring them to the 17,200-foot high camp. had not escaped their attention that the slope their snowcave and sleeping bags. inside a frost-covered drum. bushpilots had ever seen. On February 16, seven summits—told me, “The winter climb In a week these fit Austrians had dispensed had been named the Autobahn for all of the As they got closer, the boulder appeared to During the middle of their second stormy Yamada, Saegusa, Komatsu and a fourth team on Denali was easily the most dangerous climb with terrain that takes summer climbers unroped and inexperienced German and ripple in a gust—just as they realized it was night, still trapped at 17,200 feet, the member, Shunzo Sato, who would feel ill and I have done in my life.” two weeks. Living on the cheap, with no Austrian climbers who had crashed and often the newly pitched Japanese tent, oddly missing Austrians heard one of the Japanese walking

remain at base camp, were flown into 7,200 While in Argentina the previous month, cash sponsors to oblige, the Austrians were STEINMASSLHELI died descending it. protective snow walls. Laserer was blown up across their snowcave roof, as if out for a

28 ASCENT 2020 ASCENT 2020 29 the spine of Denali Pass and then slammed down against the slope, breaking their limbs IN 2003, THE as they flew past rocks of ancient black seabed and down the Autobahn that Naomi Uemura NORTH AMERICAN had shot across five years earlier. Except for the rope snagging sastrugi knobs, the three bodies RECORD would’ve been lost to the distant Peters Glacier. Even over a mile below, amid the relative WINDCHILL— safety of the Kahiltna Glacier, the wind raged so hard for three days that the Austrians couldn’t MINUS 118—WAS stand up outside their igloo. To this day, 31 years later, Walter Laserer and his teammates RECORDED HERE. maintain that luck saved them. In 1990, a friend of Yamada’s with the like frozen water through the giant pressure Japanese Alpine Club set up a tipi-shaped nozzle of Denali Pass—further reducing their weather station 500 feet above Denali Pass, The Japanese team on the lower West Buttress. They oxygen intake. The millions of microscopic “to defend the honor” of the dead Japanese were in joking, high spirits most of the way up the mountain. alveoli in the lungs of the Japanese climbers so that future climbers could obtain real-time would have been struggling to expand with weather information and avoid the wind. In oxygen as intense cold would’ve begun frosting 2003, the North American record windchill— high-altitude stroll in winter on the coldest and drying out their throats in windchills minus 118—was recorded here. Since wind or mountain in the northern hemisphere. (Later, easily cranking under 100 degrees below zero. rocks picked up by gusts regularly destroyed the Japanese rescuers found that Yamada and Now surely exhausted like Saito had been, the equipment, necessitating repairs every company had tunnel-caved under their tent to Yamada likely began wondering if he would year, the station was abandoned in 2007. escape the storm.) finally join his pal—last seen sparking down Now, at last, Yamada’s accident report can During a lull in the wind the next morning, the South Face of Annapurna. be completed in my mind and—because I left the three Austrians ran for their lives down While the post-mortem diagnosis of the park service decades ago—the file can the narrow spine of the West Buttress. hypothermia as the killer still remains finally be sent north. As for a conclusion, it’s The Japanese, honor-bound, sought their most likely, the climbers’ dropping body not essential to know whether Yamada and his advantage during the sudden calm to go for temperatures would have clouded their teammates asphyxiated at Denali Pass or froze the summit. Down on the Kahiltna Glacier, thinking and numbed their limbs, making there and were blown off—one way or another, chastened and eager to escape the storm, the them stumble like drunks. But there is the wind finished them. On Denali there is no Austrians promptly skied back to their igloo at another possibility: sea-level survivors guarantee of survival—in winter more than 10,000 feet. crouched in storm cellars have described how one in three of those who go for the summit It wasn’t just that Yamada had sponsors to difficult it is to breathe as tornado vortexes will die. And as Laserer said, “When the wind please, and to whom he clearly would’ve lost have ripped away the houses above them, comes it will kill you so quickly you won’t face were he to turn back when the relatively and suffocation sometimes imprints victims’ know what hit you.” unknown Austrians had succeeded. faces with the peculiar rictus grin—a grin To find solace or meaning to tragedy in the Traveling light and unroped for speed, with later found on Yamada’s face. If he and his mountains, we need conclusion and closure: only two packs, Yamada and his partners teammates did suffocate in the Denali Pass an explanation for why these practiced would have made short work of the sloping Venturi, it would’ve happened so suddenly in Himalayists climbed up into a storm. Although traverse to Denali Pass. We will never know the subzero shit storm—under plummeting it happened more than 30 years ago, for exactly what happened, but somewhere above barometric pressure—that they likely didn’t modern alpinists the accident remains a the pass they would have been repeatedly understand why they couldn’t get enough cautionary parable about competition and bowled over by winds. While climbers oxygen in their lungs. sponsorship. In the 1990s Japan’s Masatoshi can function in these intense subzero If it had been summer, and if the winds Kuriaki repeatedly soloed Denali and Foraker

temperatures, there is no reckoning with hadn’t been so severe (a meteorologist in winter, but refused sponsorship due to the Denali Venturi effect. Short of chopping estimated that this storm pushed 200-mph Yamada’s tragic example. Pressure to perform through ice or digging a trench into concrete- winds through Denali Pass) then the three and stretch one’s limits—while paid to do hard snow, survival for the Japanese could men would’ve eventually been buried by snow so—is greater today than ever before. So

DEATH WIND only have been found in immediate descent. where they dropped, like a score of others who ultimately Dream Merchants must take heed So for likely the first time on the trip, have disappeared above 18,000 feet. But after that they don’t sell out to the highest bidders, Yamada pulled out the climbing rope and rigor mortis and subzero cold had straightened while collectors of summits must guard performed as if back on Manaslu with the Japanese into slabs of iron, the winter against becoming the collected. Yasuhira Saito. Yamada, always the strong wind—known to blow rocks out of the ice and leader, would have tried to belay Saegusa and across the upper mountain—began its final Jon Waterman’s books about the mountain Komatsu down against the hurricane, with cleanse. include High Alaska, In the Shadow of air untenably cold in their bronchia, and the As the wind reached maximum velocity, all Denali and Chasing Denali. See also compression of the Venturi Effect—screaming three corpses would have been lifted up over jonathanwaterman.com COURTESY KUNIAKI YAGIHARA/

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