The listeners said nothing, but finally the man who had done some climbing with the sensei pointed out: 'But you said the Japanese were careless. If you're hit by a storm like that, it doesn't sound much like carelessness.'
And now Takabuki became almost solemn, as if he were the undertaker in some small rural town: 'You're right, Okobi-san. Our people dig in, protect themselves from the storm, but when it's over they come romping down the slopes, fail to keep their ropes taut, and over the edge they go.'
'How do you know that?' a man asked, and Takabuki replied: 'We don't. We're guessing.
All we know are the terrible figures. Show them, Oda-san,' and the next doleful summary was displayed. 'Look at that record! Eleven Japanese dead, and we've not recovered a single body. They van1ished. Into a crevasse here? Over the side there? We don't know. They toiled, they conquered, and they vanished. And Denali refuses to tell us how it conquered them.'
At this point he stopped, his hands clenched with suppressed anger, and only Kenji Oda, looking at the man he worshiped, knew what ugly fact Takabuki was going to reveal next: 'Gentlemen, we Japanese have performed so poorly on Denali. Going up we're unbeatable, coming down we're ..."His voice trembled; he mastered it and said bitterly as he pointed at the ridge from which his predecessors had vanished: 'Look what they call this place! Come up and look!' and when the men did they saw that American cynics had given the ridge where so many Japanese fell a hideous name. Since most of the committee could read English if not speak it, Takabuki did not translate, but two members asked: 'What do the words mean?'
'The Orient Express,' he said grimly. 'The place where we Japanese roar out of sight,' and there the mocking words stood on a map which had become semiofficial.
'It is my job,' he said quietly when discussion resumed, 'mine and Oda's here, to lead a Japanese expedition which will demonstrate what we can do, how we can discipline ourselves. We've been so careless in the past, so one-man daring and contemptuous of risk, that the people around Denali, the real mountaineers ... Do you know what they call us when we appear at Talkeetna to climb into the planes that fly us to the mountain? The Kamikaze Crowd. Well, this expedition will not be a banzai charge.
Have I your permission? And the necessary budget?"
Before an answer could be given, the chairman brought up a problem which perplexed mountaineers in many nations: 'The maps name your mountain McKinley. You climbers call it Denali. I don't understand.'
'Very simple,' Takabuki said. 'It's always been Denali. Real Alaskans and climbers call it nothing else. Honored Indian name, very ancient, meaning the High One.'
'Then where does the McKinley come from?'
'In 1896, I believe' and the sensei looked for confirmation to Oda, who nodded' the Democratic party nominated for the presidency a minor politician from Kansas, I think it was, man named McKinley. Nobody knew him nationally or thought much of him locally.
The party needed some big event to give him prominence, and some politician dreamed up the idea of naming this great mountain after him. Very popular ... with the Democrats.'
The committee members laughed, and one said: 'Same sort of thing happens in Japan.
Why don't they go back to the real name?' During the discussion which followed, Kenji Oda, who had studied in America, spoke quietly to the chairman: 'I could never contradict the sensei in public. Or private either, for that matter, but McKinley was a Republican, their conservative party. Not a particularly bad man. And he came from Ohio, not Kansas.'
'Will his name remain on the mountain?'
'Everybody with good sense is trying to remove it.'
THE SEASON FOR CLIMBING DENALI WAS RIGOROUSLY De fined: before the first of May the snow, storms and cold were too severe; after the middle of July the heat made the snow so rotten that avalanches came thundering down and bridges over crevasses collapsed. So in early June, Takabuki-sensei and the four members of the expedition took the short flight from Tokyo to Anchorage, where they reported to the shop of furrier Jack Kim, who served as liaison for all Japanese climbers. A Korean with a winning smile and a sharp knowledge of Alaskan business, he knew Takabuki by reputation, and after a brief discussion, had the team and their small mountain of equipment packed in a big station wagon headed north for the 133-mile drive to Talkeetna.
At a spot some miles south of the little town, the young man driving swerved to the shoulder of the road, slammed on the brakes, and cried: "There it is!' From the almost level plain rose the three great mountains of the Alaska Range: Foraker to the left, Denali in the center, Silverthrone on the right, with off to one side the remarkable black cube called Mooses Tooth. They formed a majestic march across the blue sky, a line of mountains that would have been commendable in any terrain; here, where the surrounding plain was so low, with an elevation not much above sea level, they soared enormously, white-capped, inviting but filled with subtle menace.
'Each mountain in the world is different,' Takabuki-sensei told his team. 'And each is precious in its own way.'
'What's different here?' one of the women asked, and he said: 'The surrounding terrain is so ordinary, so low, and the range of mountains so very high and so close together.
They are like conspirators, up where the winds blow, and they are plotting storms.
For us.'
At Talkeetna, like many Japanese teams before them, they sought out LeRoy Flatch, who now made a business of flying mountain climbers onto the 7,200-foot elevation of the southeast fork of Kahiltna Glacier. With the rear seats of his Cessna-removed, he could accommodate, as he said, 'three chubby Americans or five trim Japanese.' With wheels retracted and skis in place, he had delivered many young Japanese climbers to the starting point of their great adventure, flying back to meet them nineteen or twenty days later when they descended. Of course, if they became cavebound during some monumental snowstorm, he awaited a radio message from the park rangers and came for them after twenty-seven or even thirty days. He was their lifeline for getting on and off the mountain.
When Flatch assured them that he was ready and that weather reports for the next few days looked good, the Takabuki team repaired to the hut provided for visiting climbers, spread each item of their voluminous gear on the deck for a final check, and listened attentively as their sensei reviewed his instructions:
'There is only one purpose for this expedition. To restore the honor of Japan. And there is only one way to accomplish that. To put three men on the top of that mountain and to get five of us back here safely. It is our task to erase the opprobrium of that insolent phrase the Orient Express.
'So, the rules. We'll portage high and sleep low. That means climb diligently all day to get our gear up the mountain, but hurry back down"at night so that we acclimatize gradually and in an orderly way. We'll take five days to our camp at eleven thousand feet. Very careful around Windy Corner and up to the last two camps at fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand nine hundred.
'Skis to eleven thousand, crampons the rest of the way. Roped three in my group with me, two in Oda-san's, and no slack. At our last stop we build a solid base which can be extended into a snow cave if a storm comes, and from there the three men ascend to the top, up and back fast in one day while the two women maintain supplies and gear at the camp. Only three thousand feet to cover, and more than a mile, very steep.
We'll climb light and hurry back.
'Now' and here his voice dropped to a whisper 'having attained the summit, the easy part, our real task begins. To get back to this hut, all five of us, in good shape, with no call to the rangers or the air force planes to rescue us, and no disappearances.
I want each of you to look at this map.'
At this point he spread the offending chart before them, and each of his four climbers read in English the insulting legend the Orient Express, and each swore privately that this time there would be no Japanese cascading down those steep slopes to oblivion.
TAKABUKI'S TEAM HAD BEEN CLEVERLY COMPOSED. HE, of cours
e, was one of the world's premier climbers, experienced in almost everything that could happen on a mountain.
His endurance was extraordinary, a slim man weighing less than a hundred and sixty who could lug up the tallest mountains in the world not only a protective uniform that would stagger most men, but at the same time carry a cleverly packed and disposed backpack weighing just under sixty pounds. Takabuki-sensei was determined to climb Denali, up and down.
Equally determined was Kenji Oda, who had served as base-camp commander in the second Takabuki assault on Everest, the one that succeeded. The third man, Yamada, had not participated in previous expeditions, but was a superb athlete and had a reputation for endurance in various punishing sports. Of the two women, only Sachiko had any experience in mountain climbing; Kimiko, Takabuki's daughter, had begged her father to let her join this expedition, and at the last minute he had consented.
'Women will do the cooking and mind the camp,' the sensei had said at the conclusion of his instructions. 'Men will set up camp and carry the heavier loads.'
The five-man team with all its gear was ferried to the starting station on Kahiltna Glacier in two easy flights in LeRoy Flatch's snow-ski Cessna, and the first afternoon, at 7,200 feet on the face of the snowy glacier, was spent getting the gear in order.
When that job was half finished, the sensei said: 'Let's run the first load up,' so the three men suited up, put on their skis, hefted the huge loads onto their backs, and started smartly up the first part of the climb while the two women finished setting up the camp. In ninety minutes the men were back, wet with perspiration and ready for a rest. Excellent though their condition was, the altitude had forced them to breathe heavily and they were not unhappy to have the women prepare the evening meal.
Patiently, during the next days they lugged their packs upward, losing in weight only what they ate, and after the most cautious preparation, as if they were heading for the top of Everest, they reached the 11,000-foot mark, where they cached the first of their gear, their skis. Next morning, when they prepared to put on heavy steel crampons, they were reminded of a critical rule of mountain climbing: 'Keep your head clear and your feet warm.' If a climber faulted either of those commands, he or she was already in deep trouble, so Takabuki himself supervised how his team was shod. On bare feet which had been allowed to breathe during the night, each member put on a pair of finely woven, extremely expensive socks made of a silk-polyester-like material, a fabricated stuff that would lead perspiration away from the body. Over them came a second pair of very thin socks, then a third pair of heavy, loosely knit socks which provided warmth and protection from jarring and jabbing. On top of this came one of the lightest, most flexible shoelets one could imagine, in part some exotic metal, in part a canvas made from some newly invented material. This was the secret of the Japanese climber, this flexible, extremely strong, resilient shoe which gloved the foot and readied it for the very heavy Koflach plastic boot that was pulled on over it, forming a massive protection and also a kind of air-conditioned comfort.
A casual observer, seeing that the foot was now encased in five different layers of cloth and metal and space-age materials, might have concluded: 'Now you can clamp on the metal crampons,' but that would have been premature, for over the Korean boot was drawn a heavy, flexible insulated legging which made it impossible for snow to drift down into the boot or up the pantleg. Only when this was tied in place was it permissible to attach the crampons by means of heavy lashings. When this was done, a climber had on nearly four hundred dollars' worth of footwear so effective that without it there would be little chance of getting to the top and back down without serious frostbite, but so heavy that to lift one leg after another, kicking footholds up the steep icy incline, required unusual strength, even without a sixty-pound pack.
Not one person on the Takabuki team would suffer from frostbite that year; not one toe would have to be amputated by the doctors in the hospitals near the foot of Denali.
The climb went well. The three men proceeded boldly along the Orient Express and straight up the last slope to the peak, where amid snow and ice each man photographed the other two. Finally the sensei propped his camera on packed snow at an angle, set the self-timer and shot a picture of all three, with Takabuki proudly raising the banner of the Waseda University Alpine Club atop the world at 20,320 feet.
On the critical descent, things continued to go well, and when they reached the camp at 16,900 feet at about noon, they considered starting down immediately, but Takabuki, not liking the look of the clouds rushing in from the west, said: 'I think we'd better get out the two shovels,' and by the time the June blizzard struck for blizzards could hit Denali on any day throughout the year the five Japanese were snug in their snow cave, where they huddled for three storm-swept days.
There was only one untoward incident. Kimiko stepped outside, intending to move only a few steps to relieve herself, but when her father saw "the terrible thing she had done he screamed in a way she had never heard before: 'Kimiko! No rope!' And Oda-san reached out and grabbed her by the leg. When they had her safely inside the cave, Takabuki said quietly. 'It is just stepping outside, no rope, that kills,' and after apologizing for her error, Kimiko said: 'I still have to go outside,' so she roped up, and Oda-san held the rope around an ice pick jammed into the snow inside the cave, and she was safe.
When the storm abated, they descended to a lower level and started setting up their last major camp, but Takabuki sensei, mindful of the fact that deadly errors resulted when climbers were tired, personally tested the snow for safety and only then allowed the strong nylon tarp on which the tents would be placed to be laid out. In accordance with Takabuki's iron-clad rule 'No fire in the big tent' scores of teams having lost their tents, their provisions and sometimes their lives in fires the crew erected a simple cook tent nearby, and into it went Kimiko to prepare hot rations. After a few moments Sachiko went to help, but almost immediately came out, screaming: 'She's gone!'
The next twenty seconds were an exercise in iron discipline, for Takabuki moved gently before the exit, arms extended to prevent anyone from running out into what might be mortal danger, for if some terrible mishap had befallen his daughter, the same might engulf anyone who went chasing after her. 'By the book,' he said quietly, still barring the passage.
Kenji Oda had reacted within seconds, instinctively wrapping a rope about his body, tying knots in strange and powerful ways, reaching for a spare ice pick and handing the far end of the rope to Sachiko and Yamada. Then, moving the sensei aside, he went gingerly outside the tent to see what had happened, certain that behind him Sachiko and Yamada would keep his rope taut, so that he would not drag them to their deaths if he fell into some deep crevasse.
Peering into the cook tent, he at first satisfied himself that Kimiko had not by some freak accident fallen through the heavy nylon flooring. But when he explored the area just to 1the left of the entrance he gasped and returned to the big tent, ashen-faced: 'She's plunged into a crevasse."
No one panicked. The sensei crept into the cook tent, probed with his ice ax, and saw the mysterious hole through which Kimiko had dropped to a depth unknown. Oda, continuing to act swiftly and effectively in unbroken movement, placed the wooden handle of his ice pick at the edge of the hole so that when his rope cut at the edge, the handle would prevent it from digging into the snow and perhaps starting a small avalanche which would engulf the person below. Where Kimiko was, and in what condition, no one could guess.
Without a moment's hesitation Oda eased himself into the opening down which Kimiko had plunged, and deftly lowering himself along his rope by using a figure-eight device to brake his fall, he descended deep into the crevasse.
It was a monstrous, gaping hole, yards wide and with no discernible bottom, but by the grace of the forces which had carved it, the sides were not unbroken smoothness but a series of broken ledges onto which a fallen body might plummet. But Kimiko was not to be seen, and even when Oda switched o
n his lamp and looked at the terrible icy formations, he saw nothing.
Then he heard a moan, and on a ledge about thirty feet below he saw the outline of Kimiko's body in the dim light, and with rope signals devised decades ago he let the others above know that he had at least seen her. Again without hesitating, he lowered himself deeper and deeper. When he was but a few feet above her he could see that the violent plunge had not only knocked her unconscious but had also wedged her tightly into a constricted area from which she had no way of extricating herself.
'Kimiko!' he called as he drew closer to her, but there was no response. Then, as he waited for the rescue rope to reach him, he considered how he might attach it with maximum effectiveness, but before he started he tied her so securely to himself that if anything happened within the next minutes, she would at least be prevented from falling to her death.
Only then did he grasp the second rope, and with a bewildering series of knots designed for just such emergencies, he tied her into a sling from which she could not fall.
But when he tried to pull her loose, he found that she was so firmly wedged into her corner that he could not do so. However, a pull from above, if strong enough, might do the trick, so he signaled for one, and as the three above tugged on the second rope, having secured the first, Oda saw with relief that Kimiko was being eased out of her prison.
1As soon as she was freed, he signaled for the hauling to stop, and there in the icy mists of the crevasse, with evening light filtering down, he pinched her face and compressed her shoulders to bring her back to consciousness, but the second part of his therapy was exactly the wrong one, for in her fall she had dislocated her right shoulder, and his pressure was so great that she revived, saw him holding her, and sobbed with pain.
At that moment Alaska had a population 460,837, which meant that perhaps 75,000 young people were of an age at which they might fall in love or consider marriage. Indeed, 6,422 marriages did take place that year, but none was founded upon a troth more extraordinary than the one pledged between Kenji Oda and Kimiko Takabuki as they dangled forty-seven feet inside a crevasse on the frozen slopes of Denali. As she reached over to kiss him, they both saw that had she missed slamming onto the projection which dislocated her shoulder she would not have bounced across the chute and onto some other ledge lower down. She would have plummeted to a depth unfathomed.