Читать книгу Point of Direction - Rachel Weaver - Страница 12

5.

MY PARENTS folded me into myself. The first time I felt light seep in was in high school when my class went to a rock climbing gym. My friends cackled and laughed, went up five or six feet and begged to come down. I started out the same, but somewhere around ten feet off the ground, a feeling more pure than any I’d had up to that point shot through my whole body. The tangle of shame and loyalty, of trying to stand up for one of my parents without sacrificing the other, was pushed aside as cold, instant fear displaced everything else. I scrambled up the wall higher and it increased. Thrilled, I climbed to the ceiling and looked down, just to feel it pulse.

I climbed as often as I could after that, poured over the pictures of rock climbers in magazines every night. Eventually I became entranced with ice climbing, the colder, more volatile sister of rock climbing. I was drawn to the idea of ice and that lead me to glaciers. I read everything I could find about them, stared at pictures in books, fascinated by how thick they are, the rolling hills of deep blue produced by the compression of snow and time. The way they are able to create caves, canyons and ledges, whole landscapes, and then just as easily, destroy them.

The day I graduated from high school, I drove to Colorado. I rock climbed in the summer and learned to ice climb in the winter. I lived out of an old gray van, worked in restaurants and bars, taught climbing lessons in gyms, called home rarely, if ever. Years passed in which I learned how to breathe easy, no longer caught between two opposing forces. Eventually, I got a job leading backpacking and climbing trips in the mountains of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, on a trip in the Medicine Bow Range, one of the other guides asked me what was on the agenda now that I was halfway through my twenties.

“Alaska,” I said without thinking. It was a natural progression from the Rocky Mountain West. Wilder, harsher, steeper. I was drawn by the idea of so much ice in one place—glaciers still actively shaping valleys, creating lakes, keeping everyone but the most determined out.

I saved every dime that fall and winter. When spring had a solid hold on the land, I drove the old gray van north. I was headed to the interior, to the Wrangell-St. Elias mountain range, but never made it.

The van started overheating not long after I crossed the border from British Columbia into the Yukon, before I ever made it to Alaska. I stopped in the next town, which consisted of one building. There was a gas station, a mechanic shop, and a hotel in the building. There were a couple tables in the gas station where you could be served from a limited menu. Beyond the building were some scattered houses and beyond that was nothing but horizon. At first, the mechanic, who owned the building and all of its businesses, was thrilled when my van would not start. It seemed he’d not had anything to do for a long time.

He was somewhere near fifty, with blue coveralls and heavy boots. He had black hair, with lots of white coming in, that wisped out from under his ball cap. I sat on a stool in the garage while he clanged and sweated over the van’s engine. I had slipped the can of bear spray from my pack into the pocket of my sweatshirt, just in case. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. I made sure the bulk of my sweatshirt covered the shape of the can. After a while, the mechanic announced the problem was with a blown head gasket.

He wiped his forehead with his arm. “You’ve got a couple other problems as well, but we can talk about those later. Has it been running hot?”

“Yeah. I dumped a whole gallon of water in the radiator the last time I stopped. How much will it cost to fix it?”

“Oh…as long as I got it all torn out, might as well replace the timing belt that’s about to go also… ‘bout $4500. Canadian.”

“That’s more than the van’s worth. Forget it.” That was also more than I had in my savings account.

“What do you mean forget it? The only way you’re getting out of here is to have me do the work.”

“Anybody around here want to sell a car?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll find a ride north with someone stopping for gas.”

“Good luck with that. You can stay in the hotel while you wait for someone to stop for gas, it just so happens all the rooms are available. We’ll leave the van up on the rail for when you come to your senses.”

“I’ll camp.” Why spend the money on a hotel room when I have all my camping gear?

“You’re kidding.”

“Is there someone creepy I should know about? There can’t be more than ten people that live here.”

“No one will bother you, it’s just that I have this perfectly good hotel you can stay in for only $50 a night.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine camping.”

I spent the next four days loitering, asking each of the five cars that stopped for gas if I could catch a ride. No one had room for me and all my climbing gear. I bought food from the gas station and ordered ‘lunch’ —no further description—from the menu each day, so that I wasn’t completely freeloading. I met everyone in town and decided for myself that no one was creepy, but still kept the bear spray in the front pocket of my sweatshirt the whole time, because it made me feel safer.

The mechanic shook his head every morning when he came to work and realized I was still there. He deduced quickly that I wasn’t going to spend the money I had fixing the van. Eventually he produced a middle aged man with a beer belly who he said ran a glacier backpacking outfitter on the Juneau Ice Field. I was standing next to the gas pump watching the long straight road for any sign of a car. “Not in Juneau, who would want to live there?” the mechanic clarified, “but from the Canadian side, the better side of the ice field.”

I picked out another Cool Ranch Dorito from the snack bag I had purchased from the gas station and looked at the guide’s old corduroys worn paper thin at the knees, his rope belt and his faded t-shirt.

“And he’s trying to date my sister,” the mechanic added.

The guide ignored the mechanic, held out his hand to me. “Name’s Brad.”

“Anna Richard.” I wiped Dorito residue onto my pants and then offered my hand.

“Bill says you need a job,” Brad said.

“I’m trying to get up to Wrangell-St. Elias. My van broke down. I don’t need a job, I just want to get out on the ice.”

Brad rolled his eyes. “What is everyone’s fascination with Wrangell-St. Elias? The Juneau Ice Field is just as vast and more rugged because we get the weather off the ocean. Everyone always overlooks it, on their way up to Wrangell. Kind of like that guy in high school who all the girls ignored because he weighed ninety pounds, but then he grew up and filled out, and doesn’t he look good now.”

I dug another chip out of the bag and stared at him. “You’re saying the Juneau Ice Field has grown up and filled out?” I glanced down the road again. Surely, someone would have room for me and my gear soon.

“So, can you give her a job?” The mechanic asked. “Get her off my property? Last thing I need is some woman sleeping out by the dumpster all summer. Bad for business.” Of the five cars that had stopped in the last four days, none had needed any work and no one had stayed in the hotel. The mechanic had about as much to do as I did.

“You ever set foot on a glacier before?” Brad asked. He didn’t seem to have anything to do with his day either.

“No.”

He glanced over at the mechanic and then back at me. “You better go on home. We get folks like you all the time up here, been on a few hikes down south, think they are real adventurers. They end up lost on the ice and we end up looking for them.”

My chips were gone. I was tired of being stranded. I had no idea how I was going to get myself out of the situation I was in. “You’re saying that I’m going to need you to come look for me? I doubt it.”

The mechanic gave Brad an exasperated look. “My sister called you a jackass the other day and I said you weren’t. Don’t act like one now.”

“When did she say that?” Brad turned to face the mechanic.

“I’m leaving,” I said, heading toward my tent.

“Hold on,” the mechanic said. “Brad here, owns a guiding service about eighty miles away. He takes high school aged kids out on the ice for three week long trips, and he needs another guide for the season. I’m going to guess from all that crap in your van that you could do something like that?”

I spotted a car coming toward the gas station, the first one of the day, and kept my eyes on it.

They were both waiting for me to answer, and so I did. “I’ve guided high school aged kids for the past five years in the Medicine Bow, the Tetons, the Never Summer Range, the La Salles, the Wasatch, the Sangre de Cristo—”

“Sounds great. I’ll pick you up in a few days.” Brad said.

“I don’t want a job. I want to get up to the Wrangell-St. Elias.”

“Let me be honest,” Brad said. “You don’t have many prospects. From the looks of things, you’re going to end up camped here for the better part of the summer.”

“She’ll take it,” the mechanic said.

“I don’t need you for another four weeks. But you can catch a ride with me in a few days.” Brad smiled. “Sorry I was being an asshole.”

I watched the car pass without stopping. It wasn’t looking up. What was the difference between one ice field and another when you had nothing to compare them to? It would at least give me something to do, some experience out on the ice while I worked on finding a way up to the Wrangells. The season was short, fall up here might as well be winter. I was wasting days.

“Alright.” We shook hands and the mechanic slapped us both on the back.

I asked the two cars that came through in the next few days, but did not find a ride north. When he came back, I packed my gear into Brad’s truck, said goodbye to my van and left it for the mechanic to use for parts. As we got on the road, I rested my hand inside my sweatshirt pocket on the bear spray.

“How did it go with the sister?” I asked Brad after awhile.

“She’ll come around.”

He headed southwest. The tundra held on until it couldn’t any longer. It gave way to a steeper, greener landscape that eventually gave way to ice.

I was surprised to find Brad’s guiding service was actually legit. He pointed it out as we drove into town. It was in a small skinny building that looked like it might have been a house of ill repute in the previous century. All the buildings of the small town had the same old-timey façade. The town sat on the shores of a blue-green lake that one of the glaciers of the Ice Field spilled into. This was the jump off point for his three week trips. He had four planned for the summer, all of them full. He was making a decent living. Owned a house in town that he had built himself.

When he pulled up in front of it he said, “You can crash on the couch while you get your gear organized. I expect you’ll head out soon?”

“Tomorrow.”

“The grocery store’s not open today or tomorrow. You’ll have to wait until Monday to provision. This isn’t down south.”

I pushed open the passenger door and walked to the back of the truck to start collecting my gear. He came around the truck from the driver’s side. In a nicer tone he said, “We can go to the office tomorrow. I’ll give you some aerial photos, you can spend some time out on the ice familiarizing yourself with the route you’ll be leading.”

The next morning, we walked the wooden sidewalk from his house to his office. The front door was narrow, just like the whole building. Inside, it was organized and clean. Brad pulled maps and aerial photos from a series of wide flat drawers.

“You’ve spent a lot of time out on the ice?” I asked him as he spread everything out on the old wooden table.

“Twenty years.”

“Why don’t you lead trips?”

“Tired of kids.”

He set his finger down at the toe of the glacier by the lake. “This is the easiest place to get on the ice. There’s a trail that goes from town around the lake to right here. You’ll see a little spur to your right. Take that and you’ll end up on the ice. The lower part of the glacier is dry, free of snow, that’s where you’ll stay with kids and as long as you’re by yourself. Get too far north and snow covers up the crevasses. That far up, you’ve got to be roped up with someone you trust can pull you out if you fall in. No kids up here.” He tapped the northern section of glacier with his finger, “You got it? And you stay out of the snow, too. I’ve seen plenty of hot shot ice climbers like you come up from down south, way too confident. Glaciers are a whole different world.”

The next day I stepped onto the ice under a fully loaded pack. The glacier originated on one huge peak that towered far ahead of me. From there, it flowed between mountains in the way of a wide, deep river. I spent the next three and a half weeks hiking through smooth blue valleys of ice, up and over rolling white hills, around towers of leaning ice, jumping the narrow crevasses and peering over the edge of the deeper ones. I marked each on the aerial photo I carried, so that I would know where these yawning holes were when I had a line of kids following me. The peaks overhead were sharp and snow coveredwhen I could see them, lost in a hazy gray fog most of the time. I loved the all-day sound of crampons against ice. An agreement outside of gravity.

I hiked the route Brad wanted me to lead the high school kids, twice. It was a big loop on the lower, less dramatic part of the glacier. After that, I spent the rest of my time below the snow, but higher up where there was more force on the ice. The crevasses were deeper, the uphills steeper, the mountain peaks rising out of the ice, closer. I had to go back to town a couple times to buy more food, but each time I only stayed one night. I felt more at home out on the ice where there was the right step and the wrong step, the safe way and the dangerous way, the ice and the sky and nothing in between.

I walked back in to town the day before I was to report to work.

“Thought we were going to have to send out Search and Rescue after all,” Brad said when I opened the door to the office.

I sat down across from him. “How many kids coming in? The trip still full?”

“I’ve never known anyone to spend four weeks on the ice by themselves,” he said, peering at me from behind his desk.

“I like it out there.”

“Ten kids. You’ll be working with Jason. He’s guided for me before, but it’s been a long time. You’ll be the lead guide. You hiked the route?”

I nodded. “Twice.”

“You can either sleep in the shop here tonight or on my couch again. Whatever you want.”

“Cushions sound better than a hard floor.”

“You’ve been sleeping on ice.”

“Which is why cushions sound great.”

The kids all arrived the next day. There was only one flight a day into the nearest airport, six hours away. Brad picked them up in a fifteen passenger van and drove them back to town. That night, we gathered to pack gear. I moved through the sea of gear on the floor of the office, from one student to the next helping them go through their personal gear to make sure they had what they needed and to talk them out of what they didn’t.

“You don’t need nail clippers, or this razor,” I said to Elizabeth. “Or this watercolor set.” She was seventeen, with long dark hair that spilled evenly over her shoulders. She had on tight jeans, a tank top despite the cool temperature, and a push up bra.

“Yes. I do.” She jammed all three items deep into her brand new backpack. “I’m a painter.” She narrowed her green eyes at me.

“Or this full-sized towel. I have another, smaller one—” I stood to grab a more lightweight towel.

“I’m bringing my own towel.” She got to her feet as well so that our faces were inches apart.

“You’ll have to carry whatever you bring. No one’s going to carry it for you. And from the look of things, your pack is going to be the heaviest one out there.”

“I want my own towel,” she said slowly, evenly spacing her words.

“Fine.” I was sick of her already. I started to move on.

“This stupid trip wasn’t my idea,” she said. When I half turned, she added, “My parents sent me here as a punishment.”

“Expensive punishment.” I raised my eyebrows at her pack. “Take some of it out.”

She scowled at me as I crouched at the pack belonging to the next student.

That first day out on the ice, it felt good to be with kids again, leading them into a world I had fallen in love with. We headed west, following the route, which consisted not of trails or cairns but of compass points and degree headings. I led and Jason brought up the rear. I kept the pace slow as the students skidded and slid, getting used to crampons and the weight of full packs. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth was walking sure footed past each of them, despite her excessively overstuffed pack. It wasn’t long before she was right on my heels.

“This isn’t so bad,” she said. “I thought it would suck, but it’s not that bad at all. I like these things, what are they called again?”

“Crampons.”

“Crampons. I like ‘em. I feel like I could run.”

I looked over at her. She was shoulder to shoulder with me now. “Don’t run.”

By the end of the day, most of the kids had gotten the hang of it, but some had spent all day worried over every step. The mood as we set up camp was not good. Jason and I offered to make dinner to give everyone time to rest in their tents. Elizabeth set up her tent with her designated tent mate and then came into the cook tent where Jason and I were digging out food and stoves and bowls. The cook tent was a small cloth tepee with no floor, less of a tent, more of a shelter from the wind and rain.

“I didn’t even know what a glacier was before I got here.” She announced as she piled up two empty drybags and sat down.

“You don’t want to lie down for a little while in your tent?” Jason asked. He was my age, also a climber, had shown up in town in a truck that he’d outfitted to live out of in order to work less and climb more. His sandy blonde hair stuck out of his winter hat in a way I found appealing.

“You should rest up for tomorrow,” I said to Elizabeth.

“I’m not tired. What’s for dinner? I’m starving. Can I have a snack to tide me over?”

I found the cutting board and dug my knife out of my pocket. “You can cut up the cheese.”

On the second day out, after the discussion Jason led about no sexual relationships, Elizabeth slept with the boy who was quickly establishing himself as the ring leader of the older boys and then began her long vigil of ruthlessly ignoring him. The kids took sides within hours. In a situation where we all needed to trust and depend on each other, she had upset the balance. When I told her as much, she said, “It takes two to fuck.”

“Right,” I said. “I told Rob the same thing. But it was you who climbed into his tent and talked his tentmate out.”

She narrowed her eyes and stomped off across the ice.

That night at dinner, Elizabeth was the first in line. She stacked two burritos on her small plate and found a place to sit out of the wind on the backside of the cooktent. Stephanie, a small twiggy girl one year younger than Elizabeth was next through the line. She sat down next to Elizabeth. Rob was third. When he came out of the cook tent, he threw Elizabeth a look almost as cold as the ice he was standing on and sat down as far from her as he could. Stephanie scooted over, closer to where he sat. With the exception of two girls who were becoming fast friends, and seemed oblivious to the situation unfolding, I watched the other kids, one by one, come out of the cooktent, notice Elizabeth alone, and then join the others with Rob. I watched Elizabeth harden with each choice made.

Later, she crawled into my tent. “They all hate me.” Her face was swollen from crying.

I wished I was out on the ice alone, or maybe with Jason, as I crossed my legs to make room for her in the small space of my tent.

“They all say I had sex with Rob just to mess with him, but they don’t know, they don’t fucking know. He was just as into it as I was and then he said what he said which I’m not going to tell you because it was really mean. Maybe he was messing with me. But I can’t tell any of them that because then I’d have to say what he said. They all hate me just like my Dad said they would.” Her voice was thick with crying. She broke off into raw sobs, pulled her legs into her chest and dropped her head into the crook of her elbow.

It seemed the gates had been opened, it seemed she had lost her ability to contain whatever she had been containing. It was hard to tell if she was exaggerating. Only two days into the trip, I already understood that she was unpredictable, a river raging through a canyon, either taking out or wearing down whatever was in its way.

But she looked so alone, a perfect illustration of how I had felt at her age. “I don’t think all of them hate you,” I said and with that, she reached out, laid her head on my shoulder and cried hard.

I didn’t grow up in a family where anyone touched anyone else. Occasionally, during Our Time, my mom would brush stray bangs out of my eyes. Aside from that, we all lived in our own small worlds, not crossing into each other’s space. No one ever asked how I was doing, how I felt. As an adult, when I did share, it was hard not to measure how often, how much, how soon.

Elizabeth held onto me tightly, disregarding any sense of measured emotion as she cried her way through the past days, months or years. I reached up slowly and rested my hand against her back.