The Ledge (35 page)

Mike Price soaks in a desert sunset in western Colorado during a stop on his way to Utah, where he was headed to teach an Outward Bound course.
Courtesy of Deb Follo Caughron

Andy Thamert,
left
, and Mike ski across a glacier in the Yukon during the thirty-seven-day adventure they experienced with two other friends.
Courtesy of Bob Jamieson and Andy Thamert

Mike sits outside the tent and writes in his journal near the end of the Yukon trip.
Courtesy of Bob Jamieson and Andy Thamert

Another painter holds my safety rope as I stretch out to paint the end of an electrical tower arm in 1982—work that prepared me for my life as a climber.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson; photograph by Joe Davidson

I stand atop the summit of Maine’s Mount Katahdin in December 1985, one of my early experiences with winter climbing.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson

Daryl Miller, Jeff Bopp, Pat Rastall, and Scott Anderson flank me as we ham it up on the summit of Argentina’s Aconcagua (22,834 feet) in January 1987—my first high-altitude peak.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson

Liberty Ridge cuts directly up the center of this photograph, reaching the Liberty Cap. Our ascent route and our three bivouac campsites are shown. At left is the true summit of Mount Rainier (14,410 feet) and the beginning of our descent route down the Winthrop and Emmons glaciers.
USGS

A series of crevasses cuts across the lower Winthrop Glacier behind me on our first day of climbing on Mount Rainier.
Courtesy of the Price family; photograph by Mike Price

Liberty Ridge looms above me as we begin crossing the Carbon Glacier on the first afternoon.
Courtesy of the Price family; photograph by Mike Price

Mike tightens his crampons on the second day of our Mount Rainier climb.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson

Mike sits tethered to an ice screw after we woke up on a little shelf perched above the Liberty Wall—a bivouac spot we found in the darkness our second night on Rainier. Beyond his toes, the Carbon Glacier stretches out 7,000 feet below us.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson

These are the ice screws and some of the carabiners and slings that I used to climb up the crevasse wall.
Courtesy of Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan