The Ledge (7 page)

By firelight that night, I dutifully scribbled in my first journal: “I already suppered on franks, beans and canned potatoes with baked apple for desert.” After storing the morning firewood in a waterproof stuff sack, I crawled into my hammock and thin sleeping bag. Within ten minutes, I made my first wilderness survival discovery: Hammocks are miserable in winter. The strings underneath compressed and nullified the sleeping bag’s meager insulation. Chilled air from the frozen pond blew all around me. Shivers kept me awake.

An hour later I heard a measured crunching in the woods. My imagination ran wild; then I reeled it back in, confident that nothing scarier than a raccoon lived on the island. But the footsteps grew louder and were coming right at me. Just as I became certain they were large, human, and probably from an escaped murderer, I heard “Jim!” It was Dad.

His showing up at my campsite in the dark was surprising enough. But his appearance that frigid night was truly stunning as Dad hated the cold. A lot.

With his old black Bakelite flashlight in hand, he zeroed in on my return shouts and walked up to my camp. Waving his work thermos, he asked, “You want some hot cocoa?”

“Sure. You came over here just for that?”

“Your mother was worried, so I’m here to check on you.”

He arched his eyebrows and scrunched his closed mouth in mock disdain.

“How about some more wood on this fire?” he asked.

I slid out of the sleeping bag, tugged on stiff boots, and stoked the blaze. As the heat and light built, Dad flipped back the fake fur hood of his snorkel jacket. He held his hands over the snapping flames while I sipped hot chocolate.

“Well, thanks for checking on me,” I said.

He reached deep into a parka pocket and pulled out a fist-sized object.

“Here, Joanne sent these,” he said, handing me a baggie.

Ah! My sister had baked her gooey chocolate chip cookies. As I wolfed one down, he reached into another pocket and pulled out two cans of Budweiser. He popped the top on one, handed it to me, then opened his. We clinked cans. He knew I drank beer in college, but since I was still eight months under the legal limit, I was surprised.

“So, how’s it going?”

“Okay, I guess. My boots are frozen and the hammock’s cold.”

“Ya gonna stay?”

I paused before answering.

“If I’m going to learn this stuff, guess I’d better stick it out. Besides, I said I was going to, so I think I should.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you think, Dad?”

“I think you’re right.”

With orange light dancing on our faces, we stood near the heat and sipped our beers. We discussed the nighttime temperatures and the thickness of the pond’s ice. Then we found the North Star and pointed out the constellation Orion, just as we always did when we stargazed together. He shoved the empty cans into his pocket.

“I’ll tell your mother you’re doing fine.”

“Okay. See you in the morning. And thanks for coming out.”

He nodded once in response, then smiled and said loudly, “Have fun, baby!”

After listening to his steps grow distant, I crawled back into the pathetic sleeping bag and hunkered down. I pondered why he hadn’t tried to talk me into leaving. I guess he thought that me staying warm was less important than me staying.

I KICKED MY
climbing boot into the snow and stepped upslope. Stabbing the rented ice ax into the snow gave me something to lean on, so I bent over, panting, watching my breath form mini clouds of ice fog.

The climbing guide waited patiently ten feet higher. He was the first guide I had ever met, and he seemed just as I’d imagined one would be: fit, rugged, confident.

My college buddy Randy Hopping was twenty feet below me, struggling, like me, to find the elusive smooth rhythm that the guide had coached us to use. While our skills were lacking, for nineteen-year-olds we had at least shown pretty good judgment in recognizing that we needed a guide for our first snow climb. Randy had earned his Eagle Scout rank back in high school, but he was no mountaineer. I knew how to take care of myself outdoors, but steep winter climbing was a big step up for both of us.

Randy’s suggestion, in 1982, that we attempt a winter ascent of Mount Washington had both thrilled and scared me. Anyone who read the weather section of the
Boston Globe
got a daily update on Washington’s deadly potential. The fortress-like weather station atop the 6,288-foot summit regularly reported winds in excess of one hundred miles per hour, and for three-quarters of a century, Mount Washington had held the world record for wind speed: 231 miles per hour, measured back in 1934.

As we ascended the Lion’s Head route, Mount Washington barely flexed its weather muscles. The temperature was fifteen degrees, with breezes fluttering at a paltry twenty-five miles per hour—as good as it gets in March on this infamous New Hampshire peak.

The guide had warned us several times that if the weather deteriorated he would pull the plug. Tired, but overflowing with enthusiasm, I hoped we would make the top. Higher on the slope, the effects of the arctic environment and savage jet stream winds left the short, gnarled trees so beaten down that they sprawled across the ground like knee-high creeping vines—krummholtz, the guide called it.

Another two hundred yards of snow hiking and I found myself above the tree line for the first time. Gazing a mile across the rolling flanks of the mountain’s upper shoulder, I saw nothing but boulders, snow, and wind-blasted bare spots. A strong gust came out of the northwest, shoving us back. Instinctively, I leaned forward, dropped my head, and drove my shoulder into the wind.

The gust left as fast as it came. When I lifted my head, my tense cheeks ached. It wasn’t from cold wind, though; I was smiling. What a wild, spartan, invigorating world I’d found myself in. Stark wilderness surrounded me, and the opportunity to experience a rare place, the frozen summit of Mount Washington, was tantalizingly close.

Another wall of wind slammed us, and I kept my head up to face it straight on. I thrust my arms straight out to the sides, the metal ice
ax clutched in my right hand. When the wind pushed this time, I leaned into it, not pushing back but embracing the gust, cackling with laughter, whooping joyfully.

The mighty weather gods were kind that winter day, and we reached the highest point in New England.

One day I would look back on this moment and realize that it encapsulated all that it means to climb, to push yourself in a way you might not normally imagine is possible. That if your stamina, skill, and luck were sound, you would get to stand on top. That if you weakened, or your resolve faltered, or conditions worsened, the summit would elude you. I came to understand that respecting the landscape around me and knowing the landscape within me were both key. If I was to wisely balance desire, risk, and self-preservation, I would have to expand my external skills and deepen my internal knowledge. I would have to learn who I was, who my companions were, and what we were capable of achieving. The challenge was harsh, the outcome uncertain, and the growth potential unlimited. I realized that with climbing, I’d found something that nourished my soul and could forge me into a better version of myself.

FOUR MONTHS LATER
, I was back in New Hampshire, taking the next small step on my journey to becoming a climber. Though still a poor college student, I had saved enough through tower painting to take a rock-climbing course in the White Mountains.

Two of us stood there—untested beginners waiting for our instructor, Kurt Winkler, to decide which of us would belay him as he ascended a granite wall. Probably because I had told him earlier about my tower painting work, he chose me.

Kurt had already set a bottom anchor at the base of the cliff, wrapping nylon webbing around a stout tree. So with a locking
snap-link carabiner, I clipped my harness into the anchor to secure myself. With our guide tied to one end of the rope and me to the other, we were connected, but I still had to put him on belay. I grabbed the rope close to Kurt’s end, wrapped it around my waist for friction, then positioned my stronger right arm and hand as the brake. Then I held the rope in my brake hand to anchor him fast. As he climbed, I would feed out slack slowly, ready to tighten my grip and catch him if he slipped.

“I’m not going to fall on this—I’ve done it a hundred times—but if I do, I’ll yell, ‘Falling.’ Then what do you do, Jim?”

“I squeeze the brake hand hard and wrap the rope even tighter around my waist,” I said, pantomiming the actions. “And I never let go.”

He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. Then he got serious and started the commands we had practiced.

“On belay?”

“Belay is on,” I answered.

“Climbing?”

“Climb on.”

With that, Kurt left the ground and began ascending the steep granite slab. His movements were smooth and graceful—not the rushed, jerky twitches of us students. He seemed to naturally grasp the best handholds on the first try, though he would sometimes refine his grip. When Kurt moved his feet up, he looked down and placed them deliberately on small rock nubbins.

Kurt glided up about fifteen feet, then found a comfortable stance. I wanted to do well when it was my turn to follow, so I tried memorizing the rest spot and his movement patterns. He selected a metal wedge from the sling of climbing gear he wore over his shoulder like a bandolier. Then he slid the piece of protection into a crack, moved it down into a narrower section of the crevice, gave it a sharp tug to set it, and snapped a carabiner through the thin perlon cord
dangling from the piece. He added another nylon sling to extend the leash coming off the piece, and finally clipped the sling’s end to his rope with a second carabiner. Knowing he was safer now, I exhaled.

With that gear clipped, if Kurt slipped, I would be able to tighten my grip on the belay rope and catch his fall—assuming, of course, that the protection piece did not pull out or I did not stupidly let go of the rope. I was so determined to uphold my end of the safety bargain that the knuckles of my death-gripped belay hand turned white.

As Kurt led out the 150-foot rope length (also known as a “pitch”) he placed more protection pieces (or “pro”) in the crack. Watching the mechanics of how the rope ran, with a little foresight, I could see how the danger increased the farther he climbed above his last piece. Because he was leading, if Kurt were positioned ten feet above his last piece of pro and slipped, he would fall twice that distance before the rope began to catch him. Even then, the rope would stretch out another foot or two before he stopped.

While placing protection frequently might seem to decrease the chances of getting hurt, there is a counterpoint. Stopping to hang from one hand while setting gear with the other is strenuous. A balance has to be struck between placing gear often enough to be safe but not so frequently that the leader wears himself out. Watching our guide switch between moving and protecting himself, I tried imagining the calculations, estimations, and gut feelings he had to blend to determine when to go and when to pro. I had a lot to learn.

We were on Cathedral Ledge, a classic granite cliff just a few miles from downtown North Conway. Other climbers and tourists milled about on this sunny summer day, but I ignored them; giving the belay my undivided attention was paramount. My brake hand grew tired, but I heard Dad in my head: “There’s no letting go.”

Kurt finished the easy pitch quickly. He stopped on a ledge and set a solid anchor so he could belay me up, and then the other student. Once secured to his anchor, he shouted down, “Off belay,
Jim.” I replied, “Belay off, Kurt,” then dropped the rope and held both hands palms-up toward him to be clear. He waved and yelled back, “Thank you.”

Since I had belayed him, I got to go first. I unclipped from the anchor tree and waited to exchange commands with Kurt. Once I heard “Climb on,” I was ready to ascend. Before I even touched the rock, I relaxed by inhaling and exhaling three slow breaths. To psych myself up, I muttered aloud, “I can do this.”

I stepped one stride across the forest floor and laid my palm atop an obvious round knob high and right. My left hand skimmed the face, finding a second hold. Remembering Kurt’s example, I looked down at my feet. I raised one foot onto a small, flat lip, then the other, and I was ascending the white-and-black granite.

Haltingly, I moved up the rock face from one good set of holds to another. At each spot where Kurt had placed a piece of climbing protection, I worked to fiddle the metal hexes and wedges out of the cracks. I was following the pitch well, and was feeling pretty good about it.

Then, just below Kurt’s belay ledge, I stalled at a section with no obvious holds. After two minutes of visual scanning, and running my hands across the warm slab, as if reading Braille, I realized that the first edges I had touched were probably the best.

Clutching the two marginal seams, I smeared the bottoms of my tennis shoes on steep, crystalline rock. I was on the holds but couldn’t move up on them, so I stayed plastered in place, wasting energy and puffing like a steam locomotive. Kurt, aware of my predicament, leaned off his belay stance above me and in a firm voice advised, “Trust your feet. Stand on them.”

I pushed down off my feet, willing them to stay put. As I straightened my knees, I rose higher, but my balance grew precarious. I was committed to the upward movement, so I kept going, but I sensed that something good had better happen soon or I might fall.
As I reached full height, a deep-cut pocket the size of a soap dish appeared above my left shoulder.

Grabbing that surprise “Thank God” hold made it easy to keep my weight directly over my feet—there was no way I would fall. The rock had provided what I needed. I blurted out, “Yeah!”

I scrambled the short distance to Kurt and pulled onto a flat belay ledge. Kurt clipped me into the anchor pieces set in the crack and then took me off belay while I soaked in the view. Partway down the pitch I saw the tops of green leafy trees. The kernmantle rope I had trailed stretched farther down to the other student, waiting nervously at the cliff bottom. Above us rose several more pitches of salt-and-pepper speckled rock—the way to the top.