Point of No Return

No matter where they travel, American tourists usually take a bit of the old country with them. One day last week, they took a traffic jam to the top of Mount Everest.

At about 7 a.m., on different sides of the world's tallest mountain, two pairs of U.S. climbers struggled out of their sleeping bags into brilliant sunshine, strapped on their oxygen tanks, and began the slow trek toward the windswept, 29,028-ft. summit. Working up the relatively friendly South Col route were Barry Bishop, 30, a National Geographic photographer, and Luther Jerstad, 26, a University of Oregon speech instructor, retracing the path of Everest's earlier conquerors, among them Teammate James Whittaker, 34, who planted the Stars and Stripes on the peak this month (TIME, May 17).

On the other side, Thomas Hornbein. 32, a San Diego anesthesiologist, and William Unsoeld, 36, a Peace Corps official, were picking their way up a vastly more difficult route--the forbidding West Ridge, a narrow spur so dangerous that nobody else had dared even try. If all went well, the two teams would meet at the summit. But for those on the West Ridge, it seemed hopeless.

Into Tibet. Days before, a sudden gust of gale-force wind at the 25,000-ft. level had blown away their tents and spare oxygen bottles, knocked two members of their support party 100 ft. down Everest's flank. Hornbein and Unsoeld were dangerously low on supplies. The climbers had to pick their way around huge outcroppings of rock. Now and then, searching for a foothold, they disregarded passport restrictions and stepped across the Nepalese border into Communist Tibet. No one expected them to go all the way-just to climb as far as they could.

In the base camp. Expedition Leader Norman Dyhrenfurth waited for a walkie-talkie message from the climbers. Just below 28,000 ft., the West Ridge team faced its toughest obstacle: the "Yellow Band"--a 100-ft.-high cliff that resembles a shingled roof. Only pitons and rappel ropes kept Hornbein and Unsoeld inching upward. At last they radioed back that they had crossed the Yellow Band safely. But now they were past the "point of no return." Their supply of pitons was gone. They had to reach the summit and head down the easier South Col.

What of Bishop and Jerstad? Where were they? Nobody knew. Jerstad's walkie-talkie battery had run out of juice. At 6:33 the base camp got another message --a whoop of triumph. The West Ridge team had done it! Hornbein and Unsoeld were on the summit and starting down.

No Shelter. Then fate played a capricious hand. The South Col team had also reached the summit--at 3:30 p.m.--looked around for the West Ridgers, given up, and headed back to wait at the South Summit, 328 ft. below. Unaware of all this, Hornbein and Unsoeld wasted valuable time at the summit searching for Bishop and Jerstad. Not until 9 p.m. did the rendezvous take place. By now it was so dark that the four climbers could not find Camp 6 on the South Col route. Huddled against each other they spent the night at 28,000 ft.--without proper oxygen, shelter or sleeping bags. The temperature was 18DEG below.

Then down they came, frostbitten from their night in the open, but under their own power, and with an unprecedented record of mountaineering firsts. Dyhrenfurth & Co. had achieved every goal. All told, five Americans had reached Mount Everest's lofty summit. For the first time, Everest's "impassable" West Ridge had been conquered. When Hornbein and Unsoeld finished their return trip down the South Col, they completed the first transverse crossing in the history of Himalayan climbing. Only Sally Dyhrenfurth took it all calmly. "What," she asked her husband, "are you going to do for an encore?"

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