Mountain Rescue

“Here. Careful, it’s hot.”

I take the soup in the green plastic cup, steam rising, blow on it, then use my camp spoon to skim the yellow broth off the top. In another day we’ll be out of soup, out of fuel, and down to nothing but four Clif Bars: one chocolate chip, two white chocolate macadamia nut, a peanut butter. I hate peanut butter. Until the rescue, I’m thinking maybe go with half a bar each day. There has to be a rescue.

Phil and I are lying in our snow cave, and we have been, three days now. Body heat in the tight space keeps us warm, but the heat also melts the low white ceiling which drips water. Flat on my back I reach up, trying to channel the drips with my finger. It’s still snowing a dry white powder and Phil clears the entry every few hours. This lets pale blue daylight in; let’s the air in.  

We've spent more than three days many times waiting for summit day, the weather to clear; but this is different, and I know Phil blames himself for the fall. I notice he’s not eating. “Hey guy, you need to take some soup yourself.”

“I’m OK.”

“You may have to belay me out of here like a sack of rocks,” I say, jesting. “You need your strength.”

“I’m not that hungry.” He pulls the stove in from the entry, sets the small pot aside, and scrunches down into his sleeping bag.

#

The irony was we took the easier route up the couloir that first day, kick-stepping on the crusted snow, making our way up the steep gorge. With one kick-step at a time, a rhythm, we slowly ascended, five meters of rope between us. Where Phil went, I went; or vice versa. The sun? Brutal. I loosened my jacket and tried not to sweat, knowing sweat on me would make me cold when the sun fell behind a ridge. The sky was cloudless, a vivid blue turning almost black straight above our head. Around us were rows of sharp craggy peaks stretching the horizon, crystal clear mountain ranges folding out on themselves, all against that cerulean sky.

I drove the handle of my ice axe into the sharp angled slope, took off my pack, attached it to the axe with a carabiner, and used the pack as a perch to let my legs recover. Squinting my eyes to the distance I could see the climbers we’d passed on the north face. They were on the other route. I called down to Phil. “Those guys are almost to the ridge.”

He was tied-in much lower on the snow-covered incline, my steps like steep stairs leading up. He paused and looked to where I was pointing. We both could see yellow and red specs, jackets, going up a white incline, a chute, between two peaks. The five climbers were on the route we were going to take.

“They look like they’re doing OK,” Phil said.

“Still glad we diverted. Did you see their figure eight knot when we passed them?”

Phil shook his head. “Square knot. If they fall, it won’t hold.”

“Rookies,” I said, and I was thinking we made the best decision in picking a route to avoid them. If there was trouble, we’d lose our summit chance; we might have to stop to help—though that’s not really the code, I thought to myself. ‘You’re on your own baby’ is the code.

#

Neither of us is sleeping. The cave wraps us, sullen in it's detachment from all caring, an apparition in silence, waiting. The wind; however, is not waiting. It prowls, wolf-like, trying to get in. Phil turns his head lamp on to adjust his pack, shoving it hard to keep out the blowing snow. His light bounces in shadows off the sides of the snow packed walls, our gaunt faces showing four days of beard in snapshots, like ghosts rising from ice, our eyes haunting.

“You’ll have to leave me,” I say, rasping into the shadows. “At first light, if this storm blows through, you go. Get to those climbers.”

I hear Phil. “That will take all day. The traverse alone is six hours. If I find them, and that’s a big if, they might not even come.”

“They’ll come,” I say, but we both know they might not.

I listen to the wind and try to make it—will it—to stop. I measure the strength: a distant howl, a moaning, a lament. But then a quick gusting intruder breaches our entry. A frozen mist settles on my face. 

Once more, I think about Nikki the day I left.

She was in the kitchen and seemed so resolved, her face in pain as she stared into her coffee. ‘Will you be there?' she asked. 'I mean, when we’re old?’, then looked at me. Her eyes said she'd made a decision.

Was that fair? Was there really something in me that couldn’t care? Maybe it wasn't my fault. My dad talked to no one, especially not me. Just sat in his chair, meds ruling his life; if not that, than alcohol. My mom too busy with five kids. Who ever taught me to reach out to anyone? That's a skill I never learned.  

But that’s an excuse and you know it, the deepest part of me said. And now lying in this cave, this tomb, alone; you won’t have time. And Nikki was the key; helping you to join with people; helping you to get through fear—more fear than climbing mountains. And the last words you heard from her? What were they?

‘Just go,’ she said.

#

We reached the final saddle faster than we planned. There we rested and could see a triangular granite peak which looked like the summit, veins of brown and black, exposed against the sky, tempting us to make a final push. But we both knew what looked like the summit was really false. We needed to work around to the left, skirt it; only then would the real summit show itself.

Phil went first along the cliff side of the triangle. He needed to traverse a flat, narrow edge, like a shelf, which hugged the wall; no wider than thirty centimeters, ten meters long. The edge stretched out, wrapping around the exposed side of the triangle.

Anchored in, I played out rope. “Belay on!” 

Phil stepped out facing the cliff, arms wide. “Climbing!” He moved sideways along the thin edge, aware of each boot; pushing broken ice and small rocks off the edge, soundless as they fell into a white void. “Up rope!” he yelled.

I made sure there was no slack as he went around the point and I couldn’t see him now, but knew he was on the most narrow section, with the greatest danger of falling. 

Soon I heard, “off belay!” His voice carried by the wind.

I broke down the anchor. Now it was my turn. “Climbing!” and I stepped out on the edge. The rope held me firm; but a tug pulled me off balance. “Slack!” The rope loosened; I steadied myself, my right calf shaking. As I moved along the thin edge I swept snow off the hand holds, chipping out ice using the adze on my axe, the flat edge breaking up the black ice. Light snow was trailing down from above, settling on my climbing helmet, my shoulders, snow crystals going down the back of my neck. I looked at my feet and took another slight step to the side, another, then another, hugging the cliff.

 “Where you been?” Phil was smiling, grinning, as I came around the wall, showing white teeth in his climbers tan. He stood on a ledge, cocky, like he was standing on a one half-meter stool at the gym, ignoring the thousand meter fall if he stepped forward. Seeing him like that, I knew why he was the only guide I’d hire. 

And now, no more than a hundred meters ahead was the summit. A snow cornice on top had formed a cap, with snow trailing off in the wind. The route to get there was a ten degree incline, a thin knife-edge of a ridge. It’s called ‘No man ridge’, a play on ‘No man is an island’, I remembered, laughing to myself. An easy hike unless it gets in your head. But if you fall, with that slope angle, you’ll have a tough time self-arresting.

Phil let me lead and soon I could almost touch the summit, feeling adrenalin spike. I studied the white crown and traced a line to make sure we weren’t going to climb where the cornice could crack, then break off from our weight. “It’s a perfect day,” I said, glancing back. “This is everything I hoped it to be.” 

Phil nodded, but then something caught his eye. He looked to the north face. His eyes narrowed to focus. “Those guys we left are still climbing. Doing well.” 

I turned to look. As I did my pack weight shifted, just enough to make me move my left foot. The crampon snagged on a rock, my balance thrown. I slipped and tried to recover by flailing my arm, but my feet went out, my chest hit the edge—then I was sliding, dropping fast. The rocks stabbed at my body, pain piercing my knee, my shoulder, my leg. The rope grabbed me; I stopped abruptly in the air; then slammed into the wall, my cheek hugging the rock, hyperventilating. You’re tied into Phil!… But I started falling again, dragging him over the edge, feeling the rope pull above me, knowing he was desperately trying to self-arrest, stop the slide with his axe. I bounced, then came down hard on a narrow flat shelf, no more than a meter wide. Phil then came, sliding, holding, scraping, and two hundred pounds of him and his pack came down right on top of me, crushing me.

Silence. Phil rolled off my body and as he did my right side felt like it was being ripped out. I opened my eyes and saw I was lying on a leaning tower of rock, a buttress against the mountain. Over the edge I could see below—a sheer drop. Ice wind whistled up. A half-meter more and I would have fallen into an abyss, straight down. I still could. The curved blade of my ice axe, like a raptor’s claw, had torn through my jacket, deep into the flesh of my right side. I reached to my lower back and could feel a lump where the tip of the axe blade was pushing from the inside of my body, near breaking the skin through my lower back. On the snow? Iced red slush expanding—my blood.

“This is going to hurt,” Phil said. “I’m sorry.” He found a polar-tech from his pack and pressed it on my side, then pulled the blade of the axe, centimeter by centimeter, working it to get the serrated edges past the interior muscle. I screamed in pain; it wouldn’t stop, but the axe came out. Phil kept pressure on my side, the polar-tech soaked with blood. “You need to compress this, stop the bleeding.” I put my hand on the wound, pushing down as much as I could stand. As I did, I looked down at my left leg where Phil’s hands hovered, then saw him prodding gently. I could see it wasn’t right, the angle off.

“Hold on.” Phil tried to straighten the leg and piercing pain shot up the entire left side of my body. 

“Broken. I can feel the tibia,” Phil said. “I can maybe set it but not here. We’ll need a splint.”

The wind made a low growl, breathing, as it came around the edge of the cliff.

“Phil?”

“I’ll get you down. I promise.”

#

“I’m leaving you the food that’s left,” Phil says. He’s crawling backwards on all fours, exiting the snow cave. I’m propped up in my sleeping bag; using a pile of snow as support to elevate my leg, leaning back against the white, slick, wall behind me. Pale light, dawn, is behind him. The snow has stopped.

“Just go,” I say. “We’ve talked about all of it. Two days at most. I can do that.”

“Phil takes one last look from outside back to me, then starts pulling my pack to close off the dim light, close off the cave.

“Phil!”

The pack loosens. He looks back in. “What?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He moves the pack to block the entry again. I’m in the dark now and all I hear is wind, a long low sigh, rising and falling. I try to get some sleep.

I dream about a single white horse, a stallion, pulling a chariot. He has a black diamond on his forehead. The chariot rides on white clouds and there is no one driving the chariot. The chariot slows, then stops, and the horse is restless, rearing his front hooves. He snorts angry breath in the cold. He turns and looks at me. His eyes are a scarlet red.

#

The pack jostles in the dark entry of the cave, a dim gray opens up, snow spills in. It’s not the wind. An animal. Grabbing my axe, I hold it with both hands clenched, ready. Something black is coming around the side, between the pack and the snow wall. I see a gloved hand reach in, an orange sleeve. The hand pulls the pack to the outside. Bright light from a full day pours in and I shield my eyes with my forearm. A face appears, ice crystals hanging from a beard, blue eyes beneath a white climber’s helmet. On the front of the helmet is a white cross set in a blue circle. Around the circle, also in white against the blue, it says, ‘Mountain Rescue’.

The team stretches me out on the stretcher in no time. As they strap me in tight, somebody hands me goggles. Then we are off and I laugh out loud. Harnessed in, the two men in front pull me, another behind keeps me steady when it’s steep. For the first time ever I think, I relax. I’ll get another chance with Nikki after all. I can’t wait to tell her, tell her people matter, tell her she matters—more than any summit.

When the slope is level it’s fast going and as we hit steep outcroppings I hang straight up and down in the aluminum stretcher, dangling in the air, the straps holding me, the two men above straining to bring me up.

Now we are on a level stretch and I turn my head and see mountain ranges ahead—a shimmering alpenglow—pink, ethereal, beyond blue. The stretcher stops and turns to the side. One man is adjusting the straps. Not now, careful guys.

The man with the iced beard and blue eyes is standing next to me. I look up. He gestures ahead in the bright sun; his ice axe outstretched. He’s framed by blue sky, his orange collar flapping in the cold wind. Following with my eyes I see where he’s pointing; the cornice, the wind blowing snow up and over where it hits the peak; the wind calling, driving cold white powder over the top—the summit. I move off the stretcher and the men step to the side. Now alone on the ridge, I head to the summit, one kick-step at a time.