We reached camp by 1700, cutting our travel time down to an hour and a half. At our CHAI meeting that evening, we went over the route for the peak ascent. It sounded like it would be about a six mile round trip. We were to bring layers for a day and a 'lunch'. With plans laid, we made dinner and crashed early. We would have a morning start time of 0430 in an attempt to climb one of the surrounding peaks. Time to get to bed.
The sky was so clear when we woke up! Someone had made a bowl that's edges were surrounded by mountains, and stretched over their top was a dark blue/black canvas. A gentle yellow glow illuminated the western edge of the bowl, and an inky blackness with bright pin pricks of stars could be seen in the east. It was beautiful.
Soon we were off, making good time across the two mile glacier that lay between us and the mountain. Most of the previous glacier time on this trip had been spent spent looking at my feet marching to whatever pace was being set, placing my boots in the impressions that were left from the person in front of me. This morning, there were no boot prints. The five inch layer of snow that had slowed our pace on previous days was still frozen with no tracks being made. We covered two miles in just over 40 minutes.
We took a break at the bottom of the mountain and looked up at the last mile before the summit. The elevation gain tripped for the remaining of the climb. Mandeep's team led, with Mandeep kicking steps into the firm snow and working his way up. During our time in S'whack Academy, our boots were heavy weights which were cumbersome and slowed us down. Now, they were tools to kick steps into the snow, their defined edges allowing us to break the surface of where we traveled.
The ideal step was called a bucket step. One would stand perpendicular to the hill and kick as hard as possible, sinking the boot just past the arch and compressing the snow, creating a step. Another form was called edging, where the climber would stand parallel to the face and kick the boot into the snow, sinking the uphill side of the boot into the surface, ideally setting the uphill half of the boot in the snow.
These boots are monsters; weighing in at 2.5 lbs per boot, a lot of weight on your foot. Inside is a foam liner that slides into the hard plastic shell. For a comparison, these were just a bit lighter than a modern ski boot.
As it turns out, in this terrain, maps are more or less just a reference. There were many times when we stood waiting for Mandeep's team to find a path through; our waiting was always rewarded. Credit to Mandeep: to my recollection, he lead almost every major face that the group encountered. Not that Jorn or Jeff couldn't have led; Mandeep just volunteered. "It be that way sometimes."
Up we kicked, making good progress. The sun started to peek over our bowl's edge. It spilled red, yellow, orange, and dark purple paint across the stretched canvas. We were soon on the saddle looking at our spoils. It was amazing. Most of the group were taking photos of the vistas, yet Jorn's camera, which he had carried the entire trip, remained in its protective case.
When asked about it, Jorn answered, "This is no different than any of the other times I've been here. It all looks the same to me." Being from Colorado, I could see how vistas could look the same, but I was never bored with the view. Jorn seemed to be bored. His reaction stunned me.
The decision was made to call it a day because of the high exposure and avalanche risk. We loaded our packs up and off the back we went; into perfect bowls that made me miss my skis more than ever. A few hours later we had made it back to the glacier; it was just after 1000.
We were all looking forward to camp and relaxing, but we marched on toward the crevasses. Apparently, not everyone had done all three roles, so we were going back. From on the ridge, it looked like I could have thrown a frisbee and reached the crevasse field. But looks can be deceiving, and there was no way I could have thrown something three and a half miles. By the time we got there, it was just after 1300 and we were spent. I volunteered to be first to catch the fall. This time, I was the one thrown 5 feet forward before I was able to plant my ax and catch the fall. I then helped coach my team member as I held the weight of the 'fallen' climber. We returned to camp; it was 1700 and we had the rest of the evening off.
The Long March Ahead
At this point in the trip, we had learned enough that the instructors asked for volunteers to be leaders of the day. Stig and I thought it would be better to get it over with, so we were put in charge of the next day's activities. The instructors showed us our map location and where the plane was going to pick us up. We had almost complete control over what route the team would take as we determined the day's travel.
We would either go to the right of the crevasse field, or to the left, then on toward the pick-up point. By looking at the contour lines along where we wanted to go, we were able to get an idea of how long it would take to travel ground with similar traits. We learned from our summit day that travel was easier in the early morning when the sun had not yet melted the snow. By the end of tomorrow, we hoped to be at the the last major glacier, setting up the following days' leaders in an ideal position to escort us out.
Soon after we finalized our plans, Jeff approached us with the news that Matt was not feeling well and asked how we should proceed. Stig suggested we wait and see how he was doing later, no reason to shake things up at this point. Matt did not get better. In the interest of the team, Stig and I agreed to have the next be non-travel, giving Matt the best chance to recover. Jeff helped Matt, who vomited most of the night. Matt's tent group went about deep-cleaning as much of their gear as possible so they did not get sick.
Stig and I arranged for a couple of skills classes to be held so the day was not wasted. We both felt that it should be up to the team as to whether or not this counted as our day to lead, or would we get another chance tomorrow.
The group decided we could lead the following day. After a few revisions to the original plan, we decided to start at 0400 and travel for what we thought would be 6 or 7 hours. We planned to reach the last major glacier at the end of the day. Because we had moved over this terrain a handful of times already, we knew what the contours looked like and how fast we would travel. All that said, we made what turned out to be an accurate guess to the distance we covered that day.
'Bright' and early, we started our march onward, hoping to cover as much ground before 0715 when the sun would start to come up and hit the snow. We planned to travel up the same route that we had covered twice already, over a small rise, across a couple of bluffs, and drop down onto the glacier by the end of the day.
We made good time. We set up camp by 1430, having covered just under a quarter of the remaining distance from there to the evac point. At the CHAI meeting that night, we were given feedback from our fellow students and instructors. I learned more about leadership on that day than the previous five years combined. Our responsibilities ended when we passed the map and compass off to the next day's leaders. We crashed hard, knowing once again we'd have an early start time. Tomorrow's plan was to drop to the glacier and begin the ascent toward the summit of the last major obstacle of the journey: Jubilee Mountain.
After making record progress down the glacier the next morning, the leaders were in a bit of a dilemma, unsure where to take us next. The maps that we had showed glaciers running right to a large snow ramp leading into to camp. However, we found ourselves at the end of the glacier with no snow ramp in sight.
It was an hour before we started moving again. We climbed another 1000 vertical feet and crossed one more stream that was a little deeper then we thought. It didn't soak our feet too bad, and up for another hour or so, we soldiered on until we reached a flat area and set up camp. Despite the length of the past two days, in which we covered more miles than any previous week, we all felt good. Things were starting to become second nature. No longer did it take an hour to set up camp, but 20 minutes. We found our rolls and prepared them without being asked or told. We were becoming a team.
By now we knew what lay ahead of us: one large climb, followed by a larger descent. That day's leaders received feedback at the CHAI meeting. The new leaders presented us with their plan for the next and off to bed we went. Spent with plans, the next morning we'd travel up and over the second to last ridge that would take us to civilization.
Ghosts in the Night
The storm blew up and over the ridge, it's cold fingers trying to tear the tent from the surface. Out of the storm's fangs walked Jorn, in his orange jacket, leading a rope team toward safety. Instead of going toward the tents, his head swung as if looking for something, then he turned back into the mist away from camp.
That night was loud, but none of us cared. Two of our group heard noises and looked outside. They saw Jorn all roped up. He approached his tent and shook it. Mandeep looked out and made a happy sound, then disappeared back inside. The next morning there was a pleasant, energetic vibe throughout the camp; one which had not been present in a long time.
I overheard a conversation in my sleepy state and and this is when the 'dream' above occurred. In an effort to be efficient, NOLS had three Waddington Range trips planned for the summer with the same drop off and evac points for the group. The first group, WAD 68 (our trip), would be picked up by the same planes that would drop WAD 76 for their start. There was one trip between us working it's way up what we considered backward. It was their lead instructor that Grant and Nial had seen in the night. They recognized the instructors tent and said hello before leading their group down the ridge for the night.
Word quickly spread that another group had passed us in the night. We were interested to see them and hear of any news from the outside world. Our instructors warned us to not say to much about the trip ahead so we didn't spoil it for them.
It must have been truly terrifying to see a dozen different people running down the ridge still shrouded in mist, yelling at the top of their lungs; some of them physically recoiled. We asked about the basketball game Chase had wanted to know about all trip, among other things. Chase's team did in fact win. He was thrilled. It became clear that they wanted very little to do with us and we retreated up the ridge to our camp.
The SLOD's decided we were not to move that day because of the weather. We had another day to kill; turned out to be two days without movement. I caught up on sleep, dozing in and out for the next 48 hours. But we had information about the other side of the pass and hoped to find the tracks from the descending group to lead us up and over the saddle.
I thought a lot about the group we had encountered. They did not seam to have meshed like we had during our first week or so. Cliques were everywhere, and while we might have come across as a dysfunctional family, they gave a vibe of civil friction and disagreement. Our struggles had brought the group closer, but I was unsure if they would get the same result.
At CHAI, it was decided that the group would move tomorrow, just two days after the ghosts in the night. No one wanted additional stress on the group if we missed the evac for unnecessary reasons.
The red tent fabric fighting against the wind, rain, and slight. Warm Qdoba and pizza. The overwhelming urge to have coffee at all costs. The slight odor from my equipment, slipping down the dark hole into the arms of counterfeit peace...
Blinking, I looked at my watch: two minutes before my alarm rang. A curious habit I had acquired, where my body would wake me up minutes before my alarm rang. I lay there thinking that this journey would be over in a week's time; how I had waited so long for that moment, and yet, as it drew near, I was dreading it. Regardless of my feelings, I had no power over time. It slipped around our tent like the Enterprise jumping into warp, leaving crystals of herself in the past.
Knowing what I know now, I would not have slept well that night. There would be a time of testing in what we thought would be our final three days of travel. The physical battle had been won. The more sinister battle of the mind was marching toward us with the cold dawn of the next morning.
Z
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