Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain, Jonathan Bloom [best ebook reader TXT] 📗

“repetition compulsion” – something forbidden and taboo that he could not stop. Alcoholics kept whiskey in jars under the floorboards. Compulsive gamblers visited underground poker games on their lunch breaks. William Hoyt secretly went climbing on the weekends. Along with Wizzy, he took on the Catskills, the Adirondacks, the White Mountains, and the Green Mountains. Every time he went, he would take bigger and bigger risks, as if he wanted to get caught. Afterwards, he would “ride home in my horse-drawn carriage, still hungry for more and filled with a growing sense of shame as I reentered this horizontal world.”

The single-day climbs were also becoming less interesting to him. He wanted to climb higher than a day would take him. He had read of American and British teams climbing to unprecedented heights in the Andes and the Himalaya. Only a few years previous, the British occultist Aleister Crowley had made an attempt on Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world (as far as the world knew at the time). Crowley had gotten to about 20,000 feet before an avalanche wiped out much of his party and he was forced to turn around. “I dreamed of challenges like these,” William wrote, “but knew there would be no way to hide them from father.”

If William had some deep urge to get caught, then his urge was about to be fulfilled. One summer afternoon while climbing Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont with three former classmates from Yale, William damaged himself terribly after falling twenty feet onto mossy rock. He was tied to a board and gently lowered off the notch wall with an ornate system of ropes and pulleys. He was then taken to Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury to recover from a broken arm, another broken rib, and multiple lacerations to the neck and scalp (he had landed on a raccoon).

William’s father was at a garden party held by New York Governor William Sulzer when he received word of his son’s folly. According to other party attendees, the usually-reserved man spat out his lemonade, cursed loudly, and punched a hole through the top of his straw boater. After apologizing profusely to the governor for his outburst, Spalding travelled to Vermont to visit his son at the hospital. His intent was not to comfort William.

Spalding cut his first-born son out of his will, fired him from his job at the family business, and, after the hospital bills were paid off, had no intention of funding William any further in life. William may very well have been hurt by this turn of events, but he must have also felt liberated, fearing the day his father would discover his hidden life, but unconsciously willing the event for several years. Now the storm had passed, the stale humidity of sameness had broken, and he was free.

Hoyt was also doing a background check on Junk before the Presidential assault. Climbers often have to rely on their fellow climbers for survival. There was no way a man like Hoyt was going to put himself in a life or death situation with someone he did not know. More importantly, he likely wanted to know of any possible way he could get out of paying one hundred thousand dollars if he lost the bet. The more he knew about this lush, the better.

On the day of the traverse, rain fell steadily and the temperature was unseasonably warm. Early March in New Hampshire was still winter, but this year was different. A front from the south had made its way to New England one week earlier and still stubbornly held its ground.

The uncomfortable reunion at the trailhead took place just before lunch on Friday, March 1st. The two men started fighting almost immediately. Hoyt stated his concern about the weather. Such warmth could bring on avalanches. In addition, they would be soaked early on, and once the temperature dropped with higher elevation and the approach of evening, everything they carried and wore would turn to ice. Junk would have none of it. They were going to make the trip regardless of weather. What Hoyt saw as a well-reasoned, conservative decision on his part, Junk saw as cowardice. In a letter to his mate McGee, Junk wrote, “I was hell bent, and told Hoyt in no uncertain terms, ‘One hundred thousand dollars says we walk today.’” In an effort to assist Junk in getting everything he deserved, Hoyt agreed to proceed.

Back in 1919, Junk hit the financial mother lode. The money he was about to make would go on to take care of him for years to come. Even the Fumu ascent, still but a dot on his horizon, impossibly orthogonal to his life in 1919, would be funded by events that were about to transpire.

Patrick McGee was friends with a healthy number of Boston police officers, some because he grew up with them and others because he bribed them to stay away from his crap games. Through McGee, Junk also befriended many of officers. These friendships were actually the means by which Junk and McGee avoided the Draft. When soldiers came for recruits, local police would “arrest” the two men for preposterous crimes (One form read “Practicing magic without a license”), and the soldiers would opt to look elsewhere for men to send to Europe.

The city of Boston was going through a terrible crisis with its police force. The police were underpaid and required to work under abominable working conditions. When the police tried to unionize, the commissioner, mayor, and governor pushed back. Many officers were fired for trying to organize.

Junk was born a calculator of situations, and this time he foresaw that the police debacle was going to get worse before it got better. He knew the hearts of the police officers, and from the newspapers, he felt he knew the hearts of Commissioner Curtis, Mayor Peters, and Governor Coolidge. All parties were bullheaded and had serious investments in the outcome. Junk understood – as if it were