Four women, four full-scale mountaineering packs, a very large dog, and that was it.
“You got my frequency, right?” Meg was already starting to rev up the rotors as Ani leaned in the pilot’s door.
“Yes—and we’ve got radios and beacons. See you tomorrow at sixteen hundred, unless we radio differently.”
“You got it. Be safe!” With that, Meg upped the rotation and Ani skedaddled to join the others at a safe distance. Within minutes, the orange of the helicopter hull was a southbound dot.
Ani took a deep breath, gauging the temperature at about thirty-five in the sun. She wanted to inhale the silence that fell after the chopper’s blade noise had completely faded. There were no trees to stir in the wind, no surf to crash on sand, no clicking of electricity or far-off hint of a roadway. If sunlight on ice could make a sound, that’s all there was.
“This really is the wilderness, isn’t it?” Lisa had zipped her jacket completely closed and secured the snaps at the neck.
Tan settled her goggles into place and Eve followed suit before putting on her gloves. “Let me help you,” Tan said to Lisa. “If you get too hot, unzip these vents. You have to keep your gloves on for the traction pads in case you fall. You can also push back your hood—it’s the quickest way to reduce your body temperature. Goggles you have to keep on because of the potential for snow blindness. You’re asking for a raging headache and retina damage if you take them off for long.”
Ani let Tan concentrate on briefing Lisa as she told Eve to retrieve the walking sticks from her pack. “We’re going to hike for about an hour, then we have some climbing to do. It won’t be too bad. There’s really only one serious grade, and we’ll be camping at the top. From there, after we offload the tents and rations, it’s a short, easy hike to the accident site.” She flashed one of the two GPS units that Tan had signed out. “I can find it within two feet.”
Eve had stooped to tighten her boot laces. “This is sort of like a geocaching expedition.”
Ani hadn’t thought of it that way. “I suppose, that is, if Monica left us something to find.”
“And we’re not leaving anything in its place.” Tan gestured at her pack. “I’m ready.”
One by one they lifted packs onto each other’s backs, settling the hip belts and shoulder pads. Ani was gratified when Eve fished out a tiny camera and took a few photos. She’d not thought to bring a camera and she knew she wouldn’t want her memories of this trip to dim. It could be the last time she was with Eve, though she wasn’t going to think about that right now.
“You don’t have to lean forward,” Ani told Lisa. She tightened the shoulder straps and Lisa sighed with relief. “Don’t let the pack push you down. It’s riding on your hips, not your back.”
“That’s much better, but it already feels like a ton.”
“It’s actually easier to keep moving than it is to stand still. But remember, you weigh more than usual, you’re going to walk heavier, pack the ice harder and if you lose your balance, you’re going to topple easier. Sometimes, it’s better to let yourself fall.”
Lisa nodded. “Just like falling off a board. Sometimes, it’s better to kiss the waves than risk a board to the head.”
“One last word of warning,” Ani announced to everyone. “Blisters are serious business. If you feel any rubbing, we’ll stop and see what we can do by way of switching out socks or fixing the boots. Because of the extra weight, a blister will flare in a couple dozen steps, and escalate to extremely painful in a half mile.”
“Yes, boss,” Eve said.
Ani gave her a sheepish look. “Did I sound officious?”
“Yes,” Lisa said, just as Tan said, “No.”
“Keep doing what you do,” Eve said. “I’m feeling safer by the minute.”
Ani flushed—there was no helping it. She wanted to keep Eve safe, and so much more.
There was no set path in the ice, but there were traces of other hikers having gone this way the last several weeks. Ani had her map marked out in GPS blocks, and there were geologic features to use as guidelines, especially canyon entrances and fissures wide enough to have been named and marked on the survey map. She set a slow, steady pace, figuring about two miles an hour. She could likely travel faster, but mostly because her stride was longer.
“Weren’t we just over there?” Lisa pointed to an outcropping on the other side of a deep fissure.
“Yep. We had to cross over and double back.” She whistled to Tonk, who promptly returned from a foray behind them.
“My pack is so heavy. Why didn’t we bring a sled and mush it?” Lisa looked to be developing a full-on pout, after only a quarter mile.
“Now that I see the ice condition, a sled would have slowed us down. The surface is actually quite soft—not ideal for sleds, even though the dogs would love it. We’re moving faster under our own steam.”
“Sure, easy for you to say.”
Ani gave her a narrow look. “Do we need to stop and redistribute?”
“No.” Lisa took on a stubborn expression. “But I will have to pee in a while.”
Ani smiled. “Oh, that’s fun for girls out here.”
“I can hardly wait.”
Eve, third in line between Lisa and Tan, offered up a game. “We used to play it on long car rides. I say a name or a phrase or a place, and the next person says whatever comes to mind. So if I say Clark Gable, Ani says…”
“Gable and Lombard? Is that the duo?”
Eve nodded. She looked back over her shoulder. “And Tan says?”
“Lombard Street, San Francisco.”
Lisa promptly said, “Richard Nixon.”
“I don’t get it,” Ani said.
“Lombard Street is the crookedest street in the world, and Richard Nixon was—”
“Not a crook,” Eve said with a passable imitation. “A double jump, very subtle. So I say Spiro T. Agnew.”
“Spirograph,” Ani contributed. The game proved to pass the time, and led to numerous explanations of why one thing prompted thoughts of another, and they were soon discussing movies and music. Tan liked something called Panic at the Disco, which elicited an approving wink from Lisa. Under the easy banter, Ani kept turning to the possibility of finding the notebook she had thought she’d destroyed. If they found it, what would she do?
Their potty break was fraught with the usual joy of coping with the wind, privacy and disposal. Tan had the “female urinal” gear that Ani was familiar with, and though Lisa was vocally squeamish, a demonstration of the disinfecting wipes and bury-it-or-burn-it trail etiquette met with reluctant cooperation.
“Be glad you don’t have one wet sock now. Did you think we had an outhouse stashed in our backpacks?” Ani fussed with Tan’s backpack zipper after tucking away the bag that held the useful cup and spout device. “Or we’d stop at a gas station?”
“No.” Lisa scrupulously wiped down her hands, then dropped the wipe into the hole with their other paper wastes and watched as Tan salted it with a biodegrading agent, then covered it up. “Evolutionarily speaking only, it kind of makes sense that men did hunting trips while the women stayed home and organized the world. Access to a toilet is a big deal.”
“I’m sure Margaret Mead would agree.”
“Margaret Mitchell,” Eve said.
“Clark Gable.” Tan sketched a bow. “We’re back to the beginning.”
They set off at the same pace. Ani felt a twinge in her lower back—she’d certainly gotten soft when the heaviest thing she’d lifted in the last three years had been a crate of vodka a total of four feet. That and Lisa’s luggage.
When they got within sight of the first climb, Ani called time for lunch. Packs hit the ground with resounding thumps, and Ani immediately demonstrated the usefulness of a pack as a dry seat. Eve fished out a bag with Tonk’s food. Tan, looking indestructible, chopped out a block of ice and plunked it into the only cookpot they had. Within a minute, she’d also lit a small propane burner and se
t the pot on it to get the ice melting.
Ani nodded her thanks. They were all carrying water, but she was nearly out, and by the time they’d eaten, there would be enough melted, treated and filtered ice to refill their supplies. Tonk, especially, needed a lot of water.
It was a little too chill to stay still while the ice melted, so Ani did some jumping up and down.
Lisa joined her, then found a slight rise in the ice. Perched at the top, she crooned off tune, “Everybody was surfin’,” and proceeded to slide down the incline on the edges of her boots, her hips balanced by graceful arms. “Surf’s up!”
Tan laughed, but Ani rolled her eyes when suddenly Lisa couldn’t keep her balance. She wobbled, stumbled and what a good thing, Tan caught her before she fell.
“That was lucky,” Ani observed in a flat tone.
Lisa devoted herself to giving Tan a full-on my hero look.
Their almonds, raisins and freeze-dried meat strips were better washed down with the cold water Tan forced through the filter, and Eve earned big kudos by producing brownies from her pack.
“There might be more at dinner,” she added with a note of satisfaction. She passed around the wax paper packet.
Wax paper felt nostalgic to Ani. Those first sandwiches, the picnics, goodies always came out of Eve’s specially wrapped packages. She bit into her brownie and had a vivid flashback to her dorm room.
“These are so good they’re sacred,” she’d told Eve.
Eve had been so beautiful with only a blanket wrapped around her. They’d fallen on the picnic basket after other hungers had been satisfied, and she was like an adorable nymph, passing out delicacies. “Thank you. It’s the German-processed cocoa powder and the sweetened condensed milk.”
“No,” Ani had countered. She’d pulled Eve to her for a chocolatey kiss. The blanket had slipped off, giving her delightful ideas. “No, it’s you.”
Ani glanced over the top of her brownie at Eve to find Eve gazing back at her. She blushed—there was no stopping it.
Eve, the very picture of innocence, said, “Someone once told me these were sacred brownies.”
“I hear that,” Tan said.
Lisa gave Ani a droll look, but she said nothing.
Ani went on blushing.
* * *
Eve wasn’t about to admit it, but she was as sore as she’d ever been, and that included an infamous forty-eight hour cooking shift on a salmon boat when her hips had been much younger and she’d been much more foolish. The climb ahead looked daunting, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the hand axe that she’d been told to get out of her pack.
The things you do for love, the voices were saying. She ignored them. Love was not a topic. Discussing brownies had been dangerous enough, with Ani looking like she wanted to be kissed and vivid memories of things that had happened on the floor of Ani’s dorm room dancing around in her head. Just as soon as she felt warmed to her toes by Ani’s smile, a finger of cold air would get around the collar of her snowsuit and she’d feel both a physical and emotional chill—which was a timely reminder that there was no certain future with Ani. There was just the here and now, including a daunting slope to somehow climb.
Tan demonstrated a basic pick and pull. “You have to leave enough room between each person. If you feel yourself losing traction or in danger of falling, chop in and twist slightly.” She embedded her axe into the ice facing. “Don’t trust it with your whole weight, but use it to get your feet stabilized again. It’s critical to keep your feet under you.”
Eve reached for the handle. “And remove it like this?” She lifted only the handle, letting the semi-circle blade carve its own way out.
“You got it.”
Lisa’s voice broke over the group. “What about this? I’m Xena! Behold!” With a warrior princess yell, she brandished her axe, then embedded it into the ice. “So much for you, Callisto!”
She joined Tan and Ani in applauding, feeling more than a little out of step. Tan, the oldest, seemed to share more about pop culture with Lisa and Ani than she did. By the time she got home from work, and it was just as true with the restaurant as it had been with catering, she could only think of familiar jazz, old movies or a good book to end her day. Eve hadn’t a clue why anyone was lost or housewives had been desperate.
Ani went up the facing first, as surefooted as a polar bear. Her long legs made short work of the distance. Eve tried to take note of how she used her axe in the rare moment her momentum slowed. Lisa went next, and as far as grace went, Eve had to hand it to her, she was certain and secure in her movements. A glance showed that Tan found it mesmerizing. Then Eve stopped watching Lisa’s progress as Tan motioned for her to get going.
She made it halfway before the weight on her back forced her chest-first, down to the ice. There was just no way she could continue to press upward with her legs, pull on the axe and hold up the thirty or so pounds. Tonk scampered up to her with a concerned bark, and nosed at her armpit as if to help.
There was a yelp above her and she risked a look up, ignoring Tan’s advice about relying on the axe with her whole weight. Lisa had also gotten stuck and Ani was hauling her the last few feet with hands in places that were—at the very least—undignified.
“Maybe we should have done rope. It’s the packs,” Ani called down to Tan. She had shucked her pack and was in the process of slipping something over her boots. Crampons, Eve surmised, as Ani came down the slope backward, using the toes of her boot to chip in firm footholds. “Tonk! Up!”
Tonk promptly abandoned his supportive posture at Eve’s side and joined Lisa at the top of the grade.
When she was close enough, Eve managed to say, in fits and starts, “It’s the pack. I know I can do this, but I’m not managing the weight right, somehow. I can’t get back on my feet.”
“It’s okay, honey, beginner’s trouble. I got cheek burns more than once on easier climbs than this. Once you’re on your knees, it’s hard to recover without taking the pack off. I should have suggested we take your packs up separately. We will on the big climb.” She reached not for Eve’s hand but for the loop on Eve’s backpack. “I’m going to pull slowly. Go ahead and release your hip belt. Good, that’s perfect. Now work your arms out—trust me, Eve. Work your arms out and keep hanging onto the axe. If you slip, it’s okay. It’s not that far to slide down, but I’d rather you didn’t.”
The weight on Eve’s back lessened. Ani’s boot toes slipped about a half-inch, then the weight of the pack was completely off of Eve. She held onto the axe for just a moment, then dug in her toes and pulled the axe out of the ice. One foot up, another foot… She finally got her feet back under her, and used the axe the way Ani had to get the rest of the way up. It really wasn’t that steep, but she’d obviously gone about it all wrong. Lisa gave her a hand for the last bit, then they both turned to grab the pack as Ani walked it up the slope.
“I did the same thing,” Lisa said. “I thought getting lower would let my legs do more, but the pack flattened me. It was such an awkward position. I smashed my boobs.”
Eve couldn’t help herself. “I’m sure Tan would help with first aid.”
In response she got a flicker of Lisa’s usual bravado, then a tremulous, vulnerable smile. “I hope so.”
Tan came up the slope exactly the way Ani had, and now Eve saw that the successful technique was not giving into the instinct to lean forward. Tan waited while the three of them got settled into their packs again, then it was back in single file behind Ani. Tonk was definitely not quite as frisky, but he continued to run ahead, sniffing along the ice, then returning for petting, slurps of water and the occasional treat. He looked as if he was having the time of his life.
At first, walking on the glacier had seemed to Eve much like walking on packed snow. Her goggles tinted the landscape sepia, but the pristine conditions were unmistakable. With the exception of the red circle denoting the helipad, she’d seen no sign of human presence out here. She’d bee
n on cross country skiing trips with her family, and had done some sightseeing around Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, and neither had felt this remote. The surface below her feet was soft for about an inch, but under that was solid ice. Edges and peaks exposed to the wind were rounded, like snowdrifts, but looking down into the gorges that split the glacier revealed edges as sharp as knives. Where the ice had broken and settled at different elevations it was common to find a ribbon of glacial blue, an intense hue that Eve had never seen anywhere else.
She had thought that being completely on the glacier meant the landscape would be monotonous, but the variations in footing, the rain-crafted gullies and sheer faces of ice sometimes extending three times her height kept the hike as interesting as any forested walk. It was undeniably fascinating to come upon a boulder the size of a car encased in the ice, with Ani speculating it might have been picked up miles away, and slowly churned to the surface. One boulder edge was flat and glossy, indicating it had been in contact with something harder than it was.
What also surprised her was the vegetation. The moraine strip, in particular, had enough rock and soil to attract the occasional brave seed. As they went deeper into the Naomi’s less accessible core, there were more stands of stunted pines. Even in a place that offered no warmth and no ease there was a hardy insistence on life.
Tonk paused long enough to anoint one of the pines. All God’s creatures, Eve thought, do what they know how to do.
“Hey, can we take a picture?” The facing to the north was so clear it captured their reflections.
Lisa unzipped Eve’s backpack pouch that held her camera, and handed it over. Lined up, their colorful suits were bright blotches in the ice surface, and they pulled back their hoods to make it easier to see who was who, though Ani was unmistakable with her extra inches in height. Even Tonk posed briefly, though he then backed away, as if not entirely liking his reflection.
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