Читать книгу Higher Love - Kit DesLauriers - Страница 13

“Whaaaaaaaaa,” lead ranger Renny Jackson wrote on the weatherboard. “High-wind warning through Saturday. Fifty to seventy mile-per-hour winds above 14,000' ASL. Storms stacked up forever.”

Hmmmph. Today had been entirely spent in the tent. In fact, I didn’t even “get up” until eleven. The spindrift of snow that had accumulated in the front vestibule of the tent was all we needed to see to know what the weather was. Yesterday after coming down from our dry run up to 17,000 feet, I spent four hours building taller snow-block walls around our tent at 14-camp, so I knew we were fortified and I’d decided to just plain rest today. But after so much horizontal time, I was back to the mental space where I was itching to get moving. Plus, if we didn’t, our time on the mountain might end up with no summit. “Weather calls for pain,” Renny said on the next day’s 8:00 p.m. radio broadcast. “Seventy-mile-an-hour winds are expected above seventeen thousand feet tomorrow. Maybe nicer on Tuesday, with snow on Wednesday and Thursday.”

OK, Denali, Great One, we don’t want to fight. Please grant us safe passage. We need to at least get into position tomorrow. We mean it.

No planes had flown climbers on or off the mountain at the 7,200 foot Kahiltna Glacier starting point since Friday—five days ago. Reports were that forty people were stacked up waiting to fly off the mountain. May is traditionally the cold and clear month, but not this year. It was becoming obvious that we might have to stay longer than planned, so I accepted a handout of food and fuel offered by the team camped next to us, registered as the “Don’t Worry Be Happy” team according to the Park Service stickers on their gear. Like many others, they were turning back even though they’d been on the mountain for almost as long as we had.

Before the trip, I’d researched Denali and learned that in an average year, the success rate for climbers who spend the usual sixteen days on the mountain is only 52 percent, but it rises to 75 percent for those who spend twenty-one days or more on the mountain, so we’d planned for twenty-two. Be careful what you prepare for, though—now it looked like we were headed toward being here for all twenty-two days. At least. And with no guarantees.

WORKING WITH THE “MAYBE BETTER for Tuesday” forecast, we climbed to high camp Monday afternoon, pitched our tent, and were grateful that we felt better than we had the first time. Rob and I alternated the tasks of melting water for tea in the tent vestibule and building another snowblock wind barrier around the tent. This time, because it was so much colder and drier at 17,000 feet than it had been at 14,000 feet, the snow was harder and it was tougher to force the teeth of the snow saw through it. When we’d finally pry a block loose, the sound it made was like the cracking of a thick slab of Styrofoam.

The 8:00 p.m. weather forecast on the radio called for expected lows of minus-fifteen that night and winds of fifty mph tomorrow, which was a bit of a downgrade from yesterday’s seventy mph above 17,000 feet. But during the climb up today, the sky had actually been fairly calm between 14,000 and 17,000 feet, so we were hopeful that the latest forecast was wrong.

I’d arrived at the point of having to believe that any forecast was wrong if I didn’t like what it said. I really wanted to summit tomorrow.

WE LEFT CAMP ON OUR summit bid at 8:00 a.m. Any earlier would have been suicidal, given the cold. As we climbed, I became worried about my feet. I hadn’t felt my toes since strapping my crampons on at camp. Emulating ski racers, I tried to get circulation back to my feet by swinging my legs from the hip down, but it was hard to do with my right leg because we were headed up and left on a forty-five-degree slope.

During the hour-and-a-half climb to Denali Pass, wind gusts dropped us to our knees six times, forcing us to plant our ice axes in the snow to wait it out. During the Siberian expedition where Rob and I had met, Jim Zellers had wondered aloud, “At what temperature do your eyeballs freeze?” Well, this was a new spin on Siberia, and I wondered, At what wind speed can you no longer take a breath? However fast it was blowing at the moment was the answer.

I had on a base layer of wool, down pants, soft-shell pants, Gore-Tex shells, and four similar layers on top, with an enormous down jacket over it all. I also wore goggles, a hat, and a balaclava. Most people couldn’t fit all this in a suitcase. Somehow, though, the wind got through. I was shivering like a little girl who’s just gotten out of the bathtub on a chilly night and is waiting for her mother to wrap her in a towel.

When we reached Denali Pass, we met a group of Korean climbers who had left camp just ahead of us and were apparently discussing continuing to the summit, but we couldn’t quite understand them and I wasn’t interested in joining forces anyway. While the safety-in-numbers game can sometimes be a help, being a part of a large group can also let the “human factor” influence decision-making. The bigger the safety net of people and resources on hand, the bigger the likelihood that people will choose dangerous decision-making shortcuts and risks they wouldn’t normally take. Rob looked toward the summit and then turned to me. “What do you think?”

“Forget it,” I said. “I’m not continuing up a mountain where I can’t even stand up. Plus, I’m scared of frostbite. I haven’t felt my toes since camp.”

“Let’s take a break behind this rock and rest a minute.” Rob led us a little downhill from the climbing route to a shoulder-high boulder that did nothing to stop our shivering but did make me feel like I was spying on the Koreans as they broke their huddle and continued to climb. When they were out of sight and we hadn’t regained any body heat, Rob and I agreed to retreat. It just wasn’t worth the risk and there would always be tomorrow.

So much for my idea that climbing North America’s highest mountain was a mundane goal. Denali was posing more challenges than either of us had expected.

BACK AT 17-CAMP AND FINISHED with the four-hour process of making dinner and melting snow to replenish our water bottles, we laid our heads down for the night around 9:00 in the waning Alaskan light. I could feel my toes again, but now they were hot, itchy, and extra-sensitive. It was scary how painful it was just to let them touch the fabric of my sleeping bag. I was worrying about what condition they’d be in tomorrow when we heard the crunch of footsteps and some jumbled words in the distance.

“I just fell asleep,” Rob groaned.

“Shit,” I said as I sat up to listen.

Some of the words became clear through the heavy Korean accent. “Team summit . . . man fall . . . twenty meters . . . above pass . . . too cold . . . hit head . . . won’t move . . . need rescue . . . have radio?”

I couldn’t believe it. After going for the summit in that wind, these guys needed to call in a rescue for their friend who was spending the night alone up high. It could have been us up there if we’d gone for it.

At the time, not everyone who climbed Denali carried a heavy CB radio, but the Park Service recommended it when they took you through the mandatory check-in before you flew onto the Kahiltna Glacier by way of a fixed-wing aircraft. Issues to consider are how to keep the six size-C batteries warm and whether the weight is worth it. “Ounces, ounces, pounds” is a saying I learned as a teenager when having to decide on two or three pairs of socks for a month in the backcountry. On that occasion, I decided to use only the one and kept the second pair as a clean backup. This time I accepted the free radio loan (batteries not included) and promised Rob I would carry it. Now I rummaged around in the foot of my sleeping bag for the batteries and put them into the radio before handing it out the door of the tent to Rob, who had pulled on his warm layers to go help the Koreans with the radio call. I figured I’d have a better chance of climbing tomorrow, or helping with the rescue, if I avoided putting any pressure on my toes.

In the morning, there was no way we could selfishly try for the summit again with a rescue underway, so Rob took the radio to the edge of the plateau for better reception and called the rangers to offer our help. Our Jenny Lake friends must have started climbing in the middle of the night and been out of range because they didn’t answer, but eventually the ranger at Kahiltna base camp did, and she advised Rob to walk to the top of the Rescue Gully and grab two tents and two stoves from the metal box of rescue gear cached there, then set up the tents and melt as much water as we could. Melting water for the rangers didn’t seem like much compared with starting a rescue, but it suited my swollen toes, and it’s true that when I get home from a trip like this, the thing I’m most grateful for is being able to turn on the tap and fill a glass with water.

Midmorning, the Jenny Lake rangers arrived at their newly set-up 17-camp, refilled their water bottles, and prepared to climb up to the victim.

“Turn the radio on once every thirty minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour,” one of them told us. “If we need any help getting the victim down, we’ll ask you then.”

Between the radio checks, we continued to melt water and store it in whatever bottles and thermoses we could drum up among the handful of other climbers who were at 17-camp. The members of the Korean team were busy with their assigned task of pulling the thousand-meter rescue rope from its cache and setting it up for the eventual lowering of the victim from 17-camp back to 14-camp. Midday, the wind died down and the snow began to fall so hard that Rob and I would have gotten lost just moving between our tent and the rangers’ tents if it hadn’t been for the four-foot bamboo wands we’d gotten from the rangers’ cache and placed several paces apart along the route.

During the 7:30 p.m. radio check, the request finally came.

“Can you guys come help us haul him across the flats? We’re down off the face, but the snow is deep and it’s slow going.”

Because of the storm, we hadn’t even been able to see most of the technical lowering system the rangers had used to get the litter down from Denali Pass. Even though my toes hurt, I was eager to help, so Rob and I immediately headed out with a handful of wands to mark our path.

As we approached the rescue party, the effort the rangers were exerting was obvious from the strain on their faces. Two of them stepped aside to give us a spot on the haul rope attached to the litter, and I felt like a draft horse in winter when I lifted my legs out of the thigh-deep postholes in the newly fallen snow and leaned into the pull. I exhausted quickly and had to rest often. If they hadn’t been already, these rangers were now officially superheroes in my book.

As we neared the tent, the victim, who was wrapped in an insulated cocoon and had been lying quietly in the rescue sled, suddenly began talking. “Summit,” he said repeatedly, smiling up at us from his strapped-down position. The rangers explained that when they’d found him, one of his hands had been missing a glove, probably for over twenty-four hours, and had now turned purple.

We would later learn that except for his thumbs, all the fingers on both hands had to be amputated.

DAY TWENTY—MAY 22—WE WOKE UP suffocating. Literally. Our tent was buried in snow and we needed to dig our way to fresh air. It took about an hour of shoveling to uncover the tent—what a way to wake up. When we were done, we walked over to see the rescue rangers, who were preparing to lower the victim. “Do you guys have a weather report?” I asked.

“Yeah, the mother of all storms is predicted for the next few days. It was so good of you guys to help, but you really should go down.”

Yesterday’s storm had deposited so much snow that if the forecast for more was right, we really couldn’t risk another night up high. We’d been fortunate to be able to dig our way out, but we might not be so lucky the next time. Not to mention that the avalanche risk would increase and that the steep, enormous wall of Denali Pass loomed directly above us.

Rob turned to me. “Let’s ski the ridge down, and when the storm lifts we can give it another shot. Maybe we can summit on Monday.”

“OK.” It was the only option that made any sense.

The new snow had covered lots of rocks on the usually windswept ridge, creating the equivalent of hidden sharks’ teeth that often caught my skis and caused me to struggle for balance. Our last time up here, we’d cached our skis at 17-camp and come down on foot with our light day packs. This time we were skiing the whole way, including making tight, technically precise turns down the steep section alongside the fixed ropes (but not clipped in), with all our belongings on our backs. We’d summit from 14-camp on Monday or not at all.

THE NEXT DAY WAS SUNDAY and we woke up feeling like we’d returned to sea level, our well-acclimatized bodies no longer giving us headaches at this 14,200-foot elevation. It was a stormy rest day, and during the 8:00 p.m. weather check the radio crackled until we finally heard, “Light snow likely Tuesday through Thursday. Winds ten to twenty miles per hour.” We’d missed Monday? What had they said about Monday? Was there a chance? I suited up and went to the rangers’ tent to ask if they’d heard anything more definitive about tomorrow’s forecast.

“Same,” one said, sounding weary. Was it because of the rescue or was he as tired of the constantly negative forecasts as I was? “Only difference is that the winds may be picking up in a few days, then going back down.”

Back at the tent, I pulled a few positive thoughts from some unknown wellspring. “Let’s go for it tomorrow,” I said to Rob. We’d already given it twenty-one days and were supposed to be at base camp on the Kahiltna the next day, but I figured there were days’ worth of climbers down there waiting to be flown out and we’d have to wait our turn if we got there tomorrow anyway. “We can do it in a day now that we’re so acclimatized.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “Trail-breaking will be tough with all this new snow, though. Let’s go ask some people that were at 17-camp if they want to go with us.”

So with insulated mugs of tea in our hands, Rob and I canvassed ABC and peddled our plan. By 11:00 p.m., we had three others on board, and with everyone agreeing to start out at 6:30 a.m., we called it a night.

ON REST DAYS, YOU TRY to eat as much as possible to make up for the higher-altitude climbing days, when it isn’t possible to eat enough, but that night we learned that two Backpacker’s Pantry entrées each in one afternoon isn’t a good idea. Soon after crawling into our sleeping bags, we started in on the Tums. By midnight, we’d switched to Gas-Ex. And by one, we resorted to splitting a tablet of Vicodin from the medicine kit. There was more than enough to be anxious about without also having to deal with sleep deprivation tomorrow.