TULALIP – When Don Beavon was trudging up the last 1,500 feet of Mount Everest, he wondered why he was losing ground to other members of his party, and why other climbers kept passing him.
He felt dazed – from the altitude, from little sleep and from climbing all night by headlamp and moonlight. But he pressed on, figuring he must be close to the summit. There was lots of daylight left. He couldn’t turn back now.
Finally, he made it. Some Iranian climbers who had passed him were already there.
“I got up there and just collapsed at the top, and the Iranians were cheering me on,” he said.
Then, Beavon learned why he had been moving so slowly: He had neglected to turn up the flow of oxygen from his tank. He was operating on just one-fourth, or less, of what other climbers were using.
Another climber told him, “You essentially did it without any oxygen” – something a very small percentage of Everest summiters have done.
That accidental feat, in May 1998, actually helped make Beavon’s upcoming adventure possible.
He was invited by a group of accomplished climbers to make an attempt this summer on K2, the second-highest mountain in the world and one of the most difficult to climb.
The team leaves today for the three-month trip. The climb is expected to take 60 to 70 days, but could take longer if the weather is bad, Beavon said.
The party of 10 is attempting the climb without oxygen to lighten their load and keep supply runs between camps to a minimum, he said.
“They wanted me to come because they know I acclimate well,” said Beavon, 50, a former Lynnwood resident who now lives in Tulalip.
K2 got its name from being the second mountain surveyed in the remote Karakoram range on the border of Pakistan, China and India.
Though it’s nearly 1,000 feet shorter than Everest, at 28,251 feet compared to 29,035, K2 is generally a much tougher climb.
Everest has been scaled more than 3,600 times, according to George Martin, general manager of EverestNews.com, a mountaineering Web site. In contrast, K2 has been scaled about 250 times, he said. Only the most serious climbers succeed.
If Beavon’s climbing partner, Billy Pierson, makes it this time, he’ll be the first American to summit K2 twice, Beavon said.
Nicknamed “The Savage Mountain,” K2 has worse weather than Everest and is steep all the way up, presenting sheer faces, precipices and overhangs.
This requires mountaineers to make more use of technical climbing equipment such as ice screws, which are augured into ice and provide protection for climbers when attached to ropes.
It’s a lot of work and can be slow going. What’s the appeal of climbing for Beavon?
“It’s just the whole, total adventure,” he said. “You end up meeting incredible groups of people.”
Beavon has been active all his life and climbing since his late teens.
“I’ve always gone out into the mountains several times a week for years on end,” he said.
His father and grandfather were both accomplished outdoorsmen. The first mountain he climbed was Mount St. Helens, with his dad in 1977, three years before it erupted.
His first major climb was Mount McKinley in 1986. He’s summited eight major peaks in Asia, 14 in South America and been on numerous other excursions in North America and overseas. He’s been up Mount Rainier 17 times.
He’s also seen death in the mountains. In 1993, an American member of his climbing team died on Pumori, a Himalayan peak.
“He fell quite a ways,” he said. “We ended up burying him on the mountain.”
Beavon’s closest call was on the same climb. Beavon and Pierson decided to take a different way up the mountain from the rest of their party, believing they might be the first to summit the 23,494-foot mountain by that route.
They made it, but the route turned out to be much more difficult than they thought, and they had to spend two nights away from the rest of their party. They had little food and water and no sleeping bags, having left those behind because they had planned to come straight back down.
While rappelling down, Beavon fell into a crevasse, but landed on a ledge and managed to climb out with his ice axe.
Back at camp, “I got on my hands and knees and just threw up,” he said. “I was in pretty bad shape. I just passed out.”
Remarkably, Beavon had no frostbite and sustained no lasting injuries.
He’s never had frostbite, he said. It could be partly due to his height of 5 feet 6 inches, he said, because his heart doesn’t have to pump blood as far as it does for taller climbers. Many accomplished climbers are on the shorter side, he said, but not all.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt,” he said.
Working three 12-hour days as a respiratory therapist in Seattle gives him four days off per week to stay in shape and spend time with his wife, Sheila, and 11-year-old daughter, Anna, who is named for the nature sanctuary around the mountain Annapurna in Nepal.
He hikes, runs on the beach, goes for long bike rides, and in the winter, reluctantly ventures indoors to the gym. To get ready for climbs, he’ll carry 5- or 7-gallon jugs of water on his mountain day hikes.
Regarding Sheila’s take on his mountain climbing, Beavon said her standard response is, ” ‘I’m glad to see him go and I’m glad to see him come back.’ “
Beavon’s father, Everyl, 79, lives in Edmonds.
“I’m a little nervous on this, but I do have to support him,” he said of his son’s K2 trip. “I’m kind of excited about the whole thing, too.”
Everyl Beavon believes Don won’t risk losing what matters most just to bag another peak.
“His family means an awful lot to him,” his dad said. “If he makes it, I hope he retires.”
Don Beavon said he isn’t attached to the idea of summiting K2 – he knows it’s difficult and might not happen.
If only one climber makes it to the top, the trip will be a success, he said.
“It’s going to take everybody to get somebody up there,” he said.
The K2 climbing party will take what’s called the south-southeast spur, an easier route than the one usually taken, but more prone to avalanches.
Beavon said he isn’t sure whether this climb will be his last attempt at a major mountain, but it could be. He figures he should try it now while he’s still relatively young and in good shape.
“I’ve got one good climb left in me, like a boxer who’s got one more good fight left in him.”
K2 facts
Height: 28,251 feet (8,611 meters)
World rank: Second tallest (behind Mount Everest)
Name origin: Second in the Karakoram mountain range surveyed by the British
Alternate names: Chogori; Mount Godwin-Austen, named for Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen, who first surveyed the mountain in 1860; Lamba Pahar
Location: on the border of Pakistan, China and India
Nearest major city: Islamabad, Pakistan
Summited: about 250 times
First summit: July 31, 1954, by Italian climbing team
Follow the trip
Updates of local climber Don Beavons trip to K2 will be available on www.heraldnet.com, with links to the mountaineering Web site www.k2climb.net, a sub-link of www.explorersweb.com.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
