The Savage Mountain

Although present-day climbers envy the records of climbers like Bates, he is best known for his expeditions on K2, a mountain he never summitted. Situated in the Karakoram range on the Pakistan-China border, K2 is the second-highest mountain in the world, a massive peak of rock and ice 28,251 feet high that has been summitted by just 198 climbers (Everest, by comparison, has seen 1,496 climbers reach the top). When Bates joined the expedition mounted by the American Alpine Club in 1938, they were the first Americans and only the third group in climbing history to explore the mountain. He recalls the initial discussion about tackling K2. "The first thing we did was to go down to the Alpine Club and look at photos from the 1910 Italian expedition. We inverted the photos over a wastebasket. We all walked around the wastebasket. Someone said, 'Does anyone see a route?' We all said, 'No.' We next said we would have to invent another ridge to get up K2. The only routes we saw were, if not impossible, then extremely dangerous."

"We agreed before leaving for K2 that if someone broke a leg on the mountain, we couldn't get him down. But when you're actually in such a situation, you'll do a lot to try to save a life."

The team put together by Bates and his climbing companion, physician Charles Houston, reached 26,000 feet (4,000 feet higher than any previous climbers on the mountain and an American altitude record) before turning back when food supplies began to run out. The expedition succeeded, however, in charting a route up the Abruzzi Ridge leading to the summit. But this was not the end of Bates' adventures. Traveling overland from Kabul to Istanbul in a wild array of buses and trucks with equally colorful passengers, he made the trek home via the Mideast and reached Philadelphia the day before classes began at the university, where he was to teach and resume his graduate studies.

That fall Bates spoke at Phillips Exeter about the expedition to K2, in a visit arranged by his older brother, Bill, a member of the English department and a 1924 graduate of the Academy. Two days after he returned to Philadelphia, Bob Bates received a phone call asking if he would consider joining the faculty at the Academy. He recognized instantly that teaching at Exeter would put him within driving distance of the White Mountains and give him summers off, without the pressure to publish that came with college teaching. And Principal Lewis Perry made a commitment-if Bates had opportunities to join important climbing expeditions, the Academy would arrange for a leave of absence. "The more you know about various things, the more you can explain to others," Bates says of the relationship between his teaching and climbing careers. "You can show your students different ways of doing things. My best teaching may have been with members of the Exeter Mountaineering Club."

Bates (left) mounted two expeditions to K2, the world's second-highest mountain-the first in 1938 and the second in 1953. His climbing partner for both was Exeter physician Charles Houston (right).

News of his climbs made Bates a hero to his students. Yet it is not his accomplishments halfway around the globe for which they remember him. Bob Dodson '43 knocked on Bates' door one day after a fellow student told him, "There's a teacher who takes kids climbing on cliffs on the weekends." He recalls that Bates welcomed him like an old friend and asked if he needed a pair of sneakers. "The time I spent with Bob Bates was not in a formal class or even in an organized sport, but he was one of the most significant teachers I had," Dodson says. "It was the exposure to his character and personality that was so influential. He's simply a wonderful human being." Dodson went on to participate in a year-long Antarctic expedition after serving in the war. A career in international business took him all over the world and afforded many climbing opportunities.

John Twiss '56 also took up serious climbing as a result of Bates' tutelage, spending time in the Chamonix range in France and elsewhere in Europe. This year's recipient of the Academy's prestigious John Phillips Award, in recognition of his work as a marine conservationist, Twiss had been a member of the Mountaineering Club at Exeter and its president in his senior year. Formally established in 1950, the club remained active until 1970, with Bates serving as adviser. "Bob is a very selfless person. He gave you a sense of the worth of doing something because it needed to be done, not because you were being rewarded for it," Twiss comments. "He was someone you could be proud to emulate."

George Russell '50 arrived at Exeter as a prep weighing 98 pounds and under orders from a doctor to engage in no physical exertion because of a heart murmur. Bob Bates, his faculty adviser in Dunbar, convinced Russell's parents they should consult with his physician-friend, Charles Houston, on the diagnosis. Houston recommended exercise and lots of it. Russell went out for cross country and wrestling, and became a founding member of the Mountaineering Club. "Bob introducing me to Charlie Houston saved my life," Russell says today. "Bob was my mentor for those four years at Exeter, and has been my mentor for the 53 years since. It's amazing how many things in my life go back to Bob and his influence. I blame Bob for teaching me the most important lessons about how to treat people and how to look at the world."

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