Medford mail tribune., December 22, 1963, Image 44

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Family Weekly December 23, 1963
Search party with Lofton (second from right). Plaque at State Dept. honors heroic diplomats.
into the ash. We would take two steps forward
.and slide back a foot, but if we stopped, the heat
from the volcano would begin to get to our feet."
The closer they approached the volcano, some
14,000 feet up the mountain, the less they could
see. They barely noticed how the soft ash
erupted and puffed out belches of yellowish gas.
The smell, like rotting eggs, permeated the air.
Their movements became more sluggish.
"There was a constant rumbling, like muffled
drums, under our feet. During the entire ascent
it had rained a black sleet that left our clothes
with a greasy coating. The heat and exertion
made us perspire under our heavy clothing, yet
ice formed on our caps and shoulders."
Before ascending, they had planned what to
do at the lip. It would take some nine hours for
the climb, more than half the daylight available.
That would leave them no more than an hour
at the volcano's head; then would come a rapid
descent. At the rim, they would call for Rocco
and probe the smoky crater with powerful lights.
Once at the top, though, this simple plan
seemed terribly complicated. Somebody pointed
to the faint yellow bursts of gas coming from
the ground and put his hand to his throat in a
choking gesture. Harry Lofton already knew
what that meant.
"This obnoxious-smelling gas and the lack of
oxygen were sapping our strength and causing
us to feel suffocated," he recalls. Here was San
gay's hidden trap. Its sulphurous fumes were
toxic. They bred a druglike indolence that made
the most wary explorer prey for rockslides and
hidden precipices he otherwise would avoid.
Curtains of Ash Limit Visibility
. The men inched along the rim of the volcano,
feeling more remote and indifferent with each
step. At times, ash and fumes limited visibility
to three feet; then Lofton knew that the others
were with him only by the guiding tugs on his
rope. A gust of wind rose suddenly. It sent clouds
lacing into the valley and, in the moments before
a curtain of ash formed again, they saw bundles
of equipment strewn ahead.
"We had found their camp site," Lofton re
ported. "Every statement of Kaupp's was veri
fied. The equipment had been discarded. And
farther on were tracks leading down the opposite
slope." The discovery dispelled their lethargy,
and they began to follow the trail. They had been
in the gaseous cloud almost half an hour.
The search party lost the tracks on a patch of
snow but recrossed the volcano crest until they
picked up the trail again. "We kept yelling for
Rocco and flashing our lights into patches of
darkness," Lofton said. But the only other sounds
were echoes of an avalanche roar and hissing and
rumbling from underground. They tried to fix
their attention on the trail, fighting the urge to
close their smarting eyes and rest a moment.
Lofton suddenly felt himself being yanked
back by the rope. Startled, he shifted his gaze
straight ahead. Through swirling haze, the rag
ged edge of a cliff emerged and the blackness of
the sheer drop he had been heading for before
his guides had recognized the danger.
End of the Brave Hunt
"Now we were in real danger of plunging over
500-foot cliffs," Lofton remembers. "We had
followed the tracks down the west face until they
were lost in ice, and the problems of oxygen,
poisonous gas, and lack of visibility made going
on impossible. We had been up there probably
45 minutes."
They returned to the crest quickly. Lungs and
eyes seared, they moved half-seeing past the
ghost camp and downward.
"We all agreed that there was little chance
of Rocco's survival," Lofton said. "He had been
without food and under conditions of terrible
exposure for 10 days now. But at least we could
tell people what probably happened from first
hand knowledge."
Rocco probably had died within minutes or, at
most, a few hours after Kaupp had left for help.
Most likely he had stumbled over a cliff; if not,
he soon had suffocated or froze.
The possibility of recovering his body was re
mote because rock slides and avalanches con
stantly shifted the surface.
From his home in McClellandville, S.C., where
he spent his leave before returning to Quito for
a second two-year tour of duty, Harry Lofton
answered the question of whether his dangerous
climb had been needless.
"As long as there is a possibility a man is
alive, other men ought to be willing to take a
chance. Vasquez and Larrea, who were the real
heroes, would have gone alone, I suppose, but
that was an American up there: you don't ask
other people to do your job for you."
Family Weekly, December 22. iflfi.'l