The Ledge (22 page)

“You can do this pitch, Jim,” Mike will say. “Get up there.”

“You wanna take it?” I’ll ask, hoping the answer will be yes.

“No, no—you take it,” he’ll insist.

When Mike says I can do it, that means I can.

Before I leave, I decide to tidy up the ledge a bit. That way there will be less gear to snag the rope. Besides, if I don’t make it and someone finds us, I want them to know that we kept it together as best we could, for as long as we could. While stuffing some loose gear back into my pack, I see Gloria’s black Ricoh camera dangling halfway out, ready to take a ride into the depths, but I don’t care. It’s as if I’m spiting the camera, as though it has something to do with my predicament. It’s stupid, but I realize this is an important step for me because it shows how little I care about physical stuff. I am ready to leave it all behind.

Pulling myself together, I push the camera back into my pack, then wonder if I should take a picture of myself in the crevasse so that if I die someone might find it and know that I survived the fall, that I tried to save Mike. I also have a notepad—maybe I should write something to go with the picture. It’s suddenly important to me that I make sure that someone—anyone—will learn my fate if I don’t make it out alive.

Immediately, I realize that self-doubt is the wrong way to go. I need to believe that people are going to know what happened to us because I am going to get out and tell them. How well we climbed;
how incredible the summit was; how the glacier opened beneath my feet and swallowed us; how hard I tried to do something for Mike.

How he died.

Explanatory notes and photos in case I fail might enable a lack of commitment in me. This realization steels me. No pictures. No note. If I die on the rope, hanging off the frozen crevasse wall, maybe whoever finds us will figure out what happened. Regardless, I’ll keep climbing until I make it out and get us both found or I die trying. It’s that simple.

For the first time, the concept of climbing out of here begins to feel right, natural. I think again about what I should take with me. Gingerly, I reach through the gash in my pack, considering what I might need: the food bag, the stove, my sleeping bag, and more. But I am foolishly selecting gear as though I’m setting out on a cushy overnight hike—not trying to scale a frighteningly steep, nearly impossible ice face.

I realize that I can’t take all this crap with me. I’ll be lucky if I can climb this wall at all, let alone lug along equipment. If I don’t get out of here today, I’m not going to need this gear anyway.

I decide to secure the gear in case something goes wrong; at least then I’ll have something to come back to. I can’t stand the thought of hanging from the rope, unable to get out, with nowhere to go. So I’ll leave most of the gear clipped to the anchor and take the bare minimum with me.

I grab a pair of thick mitts and stuff them inside my jacket, along with a red balaclava I can wear to keep my head and neck warm. This makes my jacket bulky, though. I can’t climb like that, so I seize my blue sleeping bag sack and decide to haul it along behind me with a few things in it. Into the empty sack go the extra mitts and the balaclava. A quart of water. A pair of dirty but dry socks.

I realize that if I make it to the surface I’m going to need snow
protection to anchor myself when I get there. I grab an aluminum snow fluke and drop it in. The stuff sack weighs three or four pounds, and I clip it to the back of my harness with a biner. I’m getting closer to the moment when I will leave the ledge.

With a pat to the chest pocket, I confirm that my red-handled knife is inside my jacket. I think about carrying the knife with the blade open in case I need to cut the rope, so it’ll be ready a half second quicker, but I immediately discard that dangerous idea. I press my sternum and am comforted when I feel my medal dig into me.

I’m almost ready, but at the thought of actually leaving, I nearly crumble. I’m a fraud. Assembling all this gear, I’ve only been acting like I am going to climb out. Part of me will not yield, though, and struggles to beat back my fear. In my mind and heart, I realize I’ll get out only if I believe it, only if I am confident that I can make it to the top. To keep busy while I recover my plummeting confidence, I slowly pick through a small ditty bag of miscellaneous items in my pack.

There, I see my sunglasses. If I pull myself onto the surface of the glacier today, the sun will blaze blindingly on the white mountainside. To prove to myself that I intend to make it out before the sun goes down, I grab the sunglasses and drop them into my left chest pocket.

Yes! Now you’re acting like you’re getting out of here today
.

I resume mining the ditty bag, searching. I see the National Car Rental key chain, with the keys to the car. It’s crazy, but I tell myself that once I get out of this slot, I’m going to drive back to Seattle, get on a plane, and go home. I stuff the car keys in with the sunglasses, then zip the pocket shut. My right hand pats the lumpy pocket twice, and the stiff plastic gently pokes my chest.

After I get out, I’m going home
.

And then it hits me: If I want to see Gloria again, I better keep acting like I’m going to get out.

IT’S TIME TO
go.

I look down at Mike, and I have the strong urge to say something before I leave—something important, something meaningful. I am almost overcome. I kneel next to Mike’s body, look sadly toward his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and begin talking to him in my head. No words leave my mouth—the only sound is in my mind.

I don’t want to go, Mike … I’m not supposed to go … I’m supposed to stay with you … We’re partners, and we stick together … But you’re gone now, and I’m the only one left … If I’m going to keep living, I’ve got to get out of here … That means I have to leave you … I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you, but I’ve got to … If I’m going to get us found, I’ve got to get myself out of here, but that means I’ve got to go and I can’t take you with me … So you’re going to have to stay here for now …

My hands shake, and I press my eyes closed, fighting to pinch off the tears. Tentatively, I touch the sleeve of Mike’s jacket. Unconsciously, I blow out rapid breaths, one after another, as I subdue the urge to cry.

I know leaving is the right thing to do, but it feels so wrong. I stand, my head still bent forward. I’m looking down at the jumble of rope lying on the snow. Suddenly, I fear that the rope will tangle around the gear or even Mike after I leave the ledge, stranding me halfway up the wall, unable to ascend or descend, possibly yanking hard on Mike—bad for him, dangerous for me. I don’t want to hurt him. I know that I’m facing a messy climb, that chunks of snow and ice will rain down as I scale the crevasse wall.

I realize that if I cover Mike with his sleeping pad, it will shield him from falling debris and will also provide a safe place for the remaining rope while I climb. I pull out his rust-colored Therm-a-Rest
pad, unroll it, and cover him from his head down to his shins. His boots stick out from the far end.

Carefully, I begin stacking all the slack rope on the stretched-out pad. When I drop the first few coils on the foam surface, they drum out muffled thumps. The sounds fade as the rope pile builds on the mattress. These neatly flaked coils mean the rope should feed out smoothly as I climb. Knowing that the pad will protect us both soothes me anew.

It’s so strange down here. One moment, I’m a meticulous climber, rationally clicking off the list of things I must do to give myself a chance. The next, I’m a grief-stricken friend too overcome to do anything but stare at the rope-covered pad, transfixed.

Rationally, I know I need to rally myself for the climb. But in this moment, I’m not rational, and in my head a battle erupts between confidence and doubt, the same one that has raged since the moment I landed on this ledge and a frozen slurry of ice and snow buried me alive. The negative thoughts send my courage draining from me as if it’s liquid and I’m a fractured vessel. A cold wave sweeps from my head down toward my feet. It is as if heat and courage are leaking out of me and into the crevasse vacuum below. A few moments ago, positive emotion had grown inside me like heat rising from my gut. This is the exact opposite.

I stare at my feet, wondering for the hundredth time whether I have the courage to even try. It takes every fiber of my spirit to fight the urge to cower and hide—I have to be strong, I have to take action.

Then, in my mind’s eye, I clearly see Mike’s face several feet in front of me, off to the right. He scowls at me, a hint of irritation on his face.

“Come on—climb!” he shouts. “You have to try!”

He’s not yelling because he’s mad at me. I realize that he’s yelling
to psych me up. He’s yelling because he wants me to get out of this frozen chasm.

“Go! Go now, before it’s too late. Don’t wait any longer! Get out of here while you still can! Climb!”

I know that Mike is physically gone, but his face is so clear and his words so stern that I know he is here and he is serious. Mike is perturbed that I might not even try, and so he is trying to push me into action. Looking up at the wall, I consider my first moves. His face softens into a grin. My partner senses my resolve returning.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he says more softly. “You can do it.”

Adrenaline rushes through me.

I FACE THE
left wall, a sense of upward momentum pulsing through me. It feels as if there’s a hand on my back, pushing me, while at the same moment I summon my own willpower. I try latching onto the energy building around and in me, raising my right arm high, pumping it slightly up and down in rhythm with the three slow breaths I suck in. I yell out and swing the hammer in my right hand hard. The pick smashes into the frozen wall with a spray of ice. In concert with this progress, a voice inside my mind shouts:
That’s it!

I plant the ax in my left hand just as firmly two feet above my left ear. One foot lifts off the ledge as I kick the front points of a crampon into the wall. Squeezing my biceps tight, I heft my chest up and shift my weight to the tool and crampon placements. Holding my body tension snug to stabilize myself, I smash my other foot forward like a soccer player and drive the front points of my second boot into the ice wall.

I have begun leaving the ledge. I hear Mike whisper in my ear:

“You’re doing it, man. You’re climbing.”

THE CREVASSE WALLS
are only two feet apart, so I rotate my right hip out and kick my right foot into the far wall. With my cramponed boots now on opposite walls, I can easily balance on my feet and save my precious arm strength.

Starting up the wall had built into such a huge internal obstacle that I can hardly believe I am doing it. I look down to verify that I’m actually moving up. Twelve inches below the soles of my boot sits the lumpy surface of the snow ledge. I’m really climbing.

Guessing that I can ascend well by stemming, I slide my Prusik knot eight feet farther along the climbing rope. This extra slack defines my next goal as I rush to resume my ascent. Clinging to my tools for balance and with my legs bridged across the gap, I alternately move each boot upward. Like a chimney sweep, I shift my weight back and forth, stemming up the wall until my eyes are level with my buried ice tool picks. I set one tool higher, then the other. Raise one foot, kick the crampon into the ice. Lift the other foot, then scissors-kick to push myself up. Nervous that I will tire and peel off, and probably more scared that I might lose courage and back off, I move fast.

When the slack disappears from my short climbing rope, I reach down with one hand to pull some more through my Prusik, letting out another six feet. I ascend quickly, getting myself into a good rest position, with one foot planted on each wall. I reach to the gear rack hanging from my shoulder and unclip an ice screw. The screw’s name is a bit of a misnomer, because while these hollow metal tubes are threaded, I have to start them—and sometimes finish them—with hammer blows. With my left wrist still leashed to its firmly planted ice tool for security, I use my left hand to hold the tip of the screw against the wall. With the ice hammer clutched in my right hand, I beat hard on the screw’s head. Once the teeth and threads bite the ice wall, I use my hammer as a lever to slowly crank the ice screw all the way in.