The Ledge

by Jim Davidson

  Worse yet, I know that my supply will dwindle fast, because as I climb, I’ll have to occasionally leave gear behind in the wall, to protect me in case I fall. Then, when I run out of gear, I’ll be forced to lower myself back down over the same section to retrieve some of the screws and biners to use again higher up. Once I have the gear back, I will have to reascend the dangling rope over the same ground to regain my high point. For every foot of gain, I will have to go up, then down, then up it again. Aid climbers call this “leapfrogging the gear,” and it’s done only in desperate situations, because it is slow, exhausting, and dangerous. Hauling myself back up the rope with jury-rigged friction knots will be ridiculously hard. But it’s all I can do.

  The rack now sorted, I move on to my next big need. I have to have an ice tool in each hand.

  Back near the surface, when I shot through the collapsing snow bridge, I had an ice ax slung from my right wrist. Now it’s gone. My ice hammer is strapped to my pack, crushed impossibly between the ledge and the crevasse wall. I can’t get to it. I have Mike’s hammer, but that’s it.

  I look about our tiny ledge but don’t see Mike’s ax. Dropping to my knees, I paw through the dense snow. Nothing.

  A sickening feeling grabs my stomach as I remember. I had an ice ax in my hand when I was digging out of the snow—Mike’s ax. But I dropped it over my shoulder in a panic when Mike stopped breathing.

  I move to the edge of the shelf and look down, my headlamp throwing an eerie light into the darkening fissure below me. About eight feet down, I see a thin, wispy snow bridge stretched between the walls. The missing ax rests on it, standing on its head, its handle sticking straight up and leaning against the right wall. If I want that ax, I’ll have to go down there and get it.

  I close my eyes and tilt my head.

  I can’t believe this.

  To have any hope of climbing, I must have that ax. No one can climb an overhanging ice wall with just one tool, no one. To go up, I’ll have to first go down.

  I’m not going down there. I’m not!

  Remembering my hammer wedged tight between my pack and the wall, I think, Maybe I should just cut all the way through my pack and get the hammer instead. I pull out my jackknife, prepared to cut ruthlessly, but stop myself. If cutting and emptying the pack makes it smaller, our ledge would probably collapse, leaving Mike and me dangling from our anchor screws. If that happens, I figure, I’ll die.

  I slowly fold my knife shut, resigned to defeat.

  Well, that’s it then. I’m stuck here. Maybe I should try to last long enough for them to find me.

  I think again about hunkering down, about the stove and the bits of food left, and I wonder whether I can last that long.

  But I know that waiting several days is not an option. When the sun sets tonight, if I am still down here, I will die. I have already made that determination, yet it is as if I am still seeking a way to not climb, to find something—anything—to do, short of going deeper into the crevasse and getting that ax. I look down again. My headlamp burns through the gloom and illuminates the ice ax. I see the blue handle and the metallic gray pick. The tiny snow bridge it’s landed on looks thin; it could collapse at any time. Next to the ax, the walls press close, a narrowing trap ready to slam shut on me if I dare go down there. Then, I remember Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson.

  The first time I read the epic climbing survival book I was up all night, devouring it in one sitting, captivated by how he barely survived a climbing disaster on 20,813-foot Siula Grande, in Peru. Joe, a brilliant British climber, suffered a horribly broken leg during the descent, and had to be lowered thousands of roped feet by his partner, Simon Yates. After Simon had lowered Joe over a cliff at night, the two men became trapped, Joe dangling in midair, Simon fighting to stay in a seat he’d carved in the snow that was slowly collapsing. Ultimately, Simon was forced to cut the rope, dropping Joe into a crevasse; if he hadn’t, they both faced certain death.

  Presuming Joe to be dead, Simon hiked off the glacier. But Joe wasn’t dead. Still alive, he was stuck fifty feet down in a crevasse, alone, in the darkness. With no one coming to get him, he had to go deeper into his crevasse to find a way out himself or die. The similarity of my crevasse entrapment and of having to go deeper into the slot in some long-shot attempt to maybe escape upward both make my situation feel similar to Joe’s survival fight. Like him, I have only myself to rely on at this moment.

  His climbing route out was easier than mine, but I’m not hurt bad, the way he was. So, basically, we’re even, I tell myself. If he did it, I can, too.

  I’m going to go deeper into the ominous crevasse. I am going to face my fears, wrap my arms around them, and pull them close, just to get that ax and have a chance to live.

  I START SORTING the rope system so that I can rappel down. Using a long sling, I clip directly into the anchors so that I’m secure while I untie from the rope. But my figure-eight knot tied into the rope’s middle is iced over. I poke, pull, and tease the frozen knot but can’t get it undone. Using my teeth, I loosen it some, but it is still locked up. It is more than just the ice; the jerking force of my fall must have cinched the knot extra tight. I decide to pry open the knot by using a tool on my jackknife—not the main blade, though, as it might cut the rope. I swivel out the usually useless file, with its dull, stubby end, and start prodding. It works, and soon I undo the knot.

  I have now freed up about 110 feet of rope. The rope’s remaining fifty-five feet stays tied to Mike on a locking carabiner connected to his harness. I have plenty of rope for my short rappel down to the ax. I connect a new anchor sling to our two screws and equalize the sling to distribute my weight evenly to both anchor points. After clipping a locking carabiner to the extended anchor sling, I tie the end of our climbing rope to it, then thread a curled bight of that rappel rope through my friction belay device. I am almost ready to rappel, to lower myself deeper into the beast’s throat, to recover that ax.

  A brief nightmare emerges: I see myself down there, reaching for the ax, and then, at that exact moment, it slips away, skittering irretrievably into the depths. If that happens, it’s all over. The vision reinforces one overriding thought in my mind: I’m going to have to be very careful about this.

  From my hip, I pull off a Prusik cord, a knotted loop of thin line that I will wind around my climbing rope and then tether to my harness. The wrapped Prusik knot will slide along the climbing rope when there’s no pressure but will cinch down under my weight if I fall, stopping me. This will give me a backup during the rappel. I wrap the six-millimeter cord around the rope in a curling French wrap technique Mike taught me. He had always said it produced more friction than a standard Prusik hitch. I am relying on my experienced partner’s advice, and I find reassurance in that.

  I double-check the knots, the rappel setup, and the anchors. I double-check my harness and my Prusik cord, then check them again. I can’t afford any mistakes. I squeeze my right hand, the one I’ll use for braking, hard around the rope and tug to make sure I have rigged myself securely.

  Letting some rappel rope slip through my brake hand, I ease backward off the ledge, pressing my cramponed boots into the side walls in a stemming move, and begin lowering myself deeper into the slot. I feel very vulnerable leaving the only secure ground I’ve got, the only quasi-safe place down here.

  As I descend gradually, my head drops below the underside of our ledge. Above me, my twisted green pack is jammed tight between the ice slab and the frozen wall. I am shocked to see how my pack was the perfect width to cram solidly against the slab, just preventing my shoulders from corking between the ever-narrowing ice walls. Each exhalation of mine jets out warm air that turns foggy in the moist, cold chasm.

  My bobbing headlamp lights up the mini clouds, so that they seem to glow from within. The sharp illumination of the light beam makes the region beyond even more dark and threatening. When I descend another two feet, the crevasse becomes too narrow for my shoulders. I have to tu
rn sideways to squeeze in deeper. With one ice wall pressing against my chest and the other right at my back, the claustrophobia makes me sweat.

  Every inch I descend, the black walls squeeze in tighter. If the glacier slips or lurches right now, I will be crushed to a pulp.

  Blackness leans heavily upon me from both sides. I keep moving my head about to illuminate the area around me, in an effort to drive back fear. But even the light beam plagues me—when it hits the slick walls, it reflects harshly into my eyes, making the constricting space around me feel even more confusing and menacing.

  For the last foot, I slow my descent to a crawl, then stop with my cramponed boots dangling mere inches above the crusty snow shelf holding the sacred ice ax. The handle is just three feet from me, but I can tell that the snow ledge is maybe an inch thick and as fragile as glass. I can’t step on it.

  My stomach muscles clench tight as I hang motionless in my harness. I hover above the ax, making a plan to grab it while still holding myself on rappel.

  I wind the dangling end of the rappel rope twice around my right thigh in a friction wrap to make sure I don’t slip down. Reaching out with my left hand and leaning over, I stretch out sideways, nearly parallel with Mike, who lies on the ledge about eight feet above me. The icy walls press tight against my chest. Using the only caving trick I know, I force a breath from my lungs to shrink myself. I lean over farther and reach down deeper. My purple-gloved hand moves close. Delicately I close my hand around the handle.

  Squeezing the precious ice ax handle with my left hand, and locking off the rappel rope with my right, I have no free hand to pull myself upright. I hook the crook of my left elbow behind the taut rappel line above me. With this as leverage, I grunt and heft myself vertical.

  As I pull the ax to my chest, I hug it for a moment, then clip it into my harness with two carabiners snapped onto different spots.

  No mistakes.

  I glimpse my battered orange helmet a few feet farther down, the brim broken off. For a moment I ponder heading down to get it, but recoil at the thought of going deeper. I decide to leave it. I push myself back up with a scissors-kick motion off both walls.

  As I wiggle up, I pull the now slack rope through the belay device at my waist to keep myself tight. Chunks of snow drop around me as my bouncing rappel line saws at the end of our snow ledge. Though I am moving closer, I worry that the ledge will collapse before I get there.

  It holds.

  Fifteen minutes after I’d left, I step back onto our tiny shelf, fighting to catch my breath. I feel a wisp of reassurance being back with Mike. Recognizing the twin achievements of retrieving the ax and returning to our ledge lifts my spirits a bit. My neck tingles as I sense the dark, frozen walls hanging far above, waiting for me. But I refuse to worry about them for the moment. I need to bask a little in the idea that some progress has been made.

  Bent over at the waist, panting, I’m staring at Mike’s chest; I turn my head to the right and look into his face. Though I feel uneasy looking at my dead partner, the successful ax recovery feels like an important step forward to share with my friend. At my side, I pat the precious ice ax. With Mike’s ax and hammer, I have two ice tools.

  At least there’s a chance to get out now, Mike.

  CHAPTER 13

  NEARLY AN HOUR has passed since that awful moment when the snow bridge ruptured beneath my feet, and now a new fear arises: There’s something wrong with me physically. The worry bursts into my mind after I hack phlegm from my throat, spit, and see a red-black clot hit the ice wall. Bright red blood drools down an inch, then freezes in place.

  Frightened, I spit again. More blood, this time all fresh—no black clots. I don’t know where it’s coming from, so my first-aid training rattles off possibilities, all of them scary. Stomach? Liver? Lungs? I inhale deeply and shove the breath out hard—lungs seem good.

  I realize I haven’t properly assessed my own medical condition. Reversing the traditional exam order, I reach toward my feet and begin a toe-to-head check. I’m certainly not taking off my boots down here, so I just wiggle my toes and push on the rigid plastic boot tops. Both feet feel fine.

  I get to my ankles, probing hard with my fingers. No pain or protruding bones—so far, so good. I mentally check another box off the examination list and move toward my shins. But what if I find something?

  It’s an intriguing question, and I stop my assessment to think it through. If something’s really wrong with me, what am I going to do? Our first-aid kit consists of Band-Aids, gauze, ibuprofen, and white athletic tape. For minor wounds I can improvise with other materials, but there’s little I can do for serious problems or broken bones. If I discover a major injury, I can’t fix it—maybe it’s better not to know. Hurt or not, I have to try climbing out of here.

  Though I haven’t solved the mystery of my bloody throat, I no longer care. To prove this, I gurgle up more fluid and spit angrily through pursed lips. Dark droplets spray the ice wall.

  I keep conjuring an image of myself dangling frozen on a climbing rope. It’s all too awful, and I feel overwhelmed. Mike’s gone, I’m hurt, and I must face this impossible situation. It’s so damn scary it seems unreal. Maybe it isn’t real.

  I consider the possibility that I’m actually still trapped under the snow, dying. Maybe the air is all gone, and I am just spending my last oxygen molecules wistfully concocting some self-soothing, implausible flight to life.

  Maybe I’m already dead.

  No. I’m terrified and apprehensive about everything. I don’t think I would feel this scared if I were already gone. And when I tilt my head to the left in a self-induced pain check, fire shoots up my neck and my left hand tingles uncomfortably. You can’t feel pain if you’re dead, so I must be alive. This must all be real.

  THE GEAR RACK is sorted, and I have Mike’s ice tools now. I am clipped safely to the anchor screws with a sling. I stare at our supple yellow rope, trying to figure out how I can use it to protect myself during the climb out. Thoughts of climbing bring thoughts of belaying and, with them, a sober realization: There’s no one here to belay me.

  It’s an enormous obstacle. And then it hits me: I’m going to have to self-belay—something I’ve never done before.

  I try imagining how a self-belay system might work, having only ever seen it in books. One end of our rope has to be anchored at the bottom. The other end has to be tied to me so that I could, theoretically, climb out its full 165-foot length. But I can’t quite envision how I will rig it to hold me tight on belay while still feeding out slack as I ascend. I review the tie-in options I know, but none seem right. Since I was fifteen and Dad steered me toward the Concord library’s adventure literature, I’ve had a voracious appetite for mountaineering books. My mind flips back through snippets and half-remembered diagrams from all the climbing manuals I’ve read. Mental pictures pop up from a decade of tent and campfire gatherings with other climbers—snapshot images of rope tricks, tips, and knots.

  My hands unconsciously fiddle with a rope strand as I recall various knots. Old standards like the bowline, figure eight, and square knots aren’t helpful. I could never remember how to tie a sheepshank—God, I hope that’s not the one I need; if so, I’m screwed.

  I need a knot that can move along with me as I climb. A basic Prusik loop wrapped around the main climbing rope, like the one I used earlier on the rappel, could serve as a sliding friction knot. With the other end of that Prusik loop clipped to my harness, it would serve as a short leash, attaching me securely to the main rope. I figure I can scoot the Prusik loop up the rope with me, steadily increasing the length of climbing rope between me and the bottom anchor screw. But if I fall, the Prusik should cinch down tight and hold me. This will provide the adjustable self-belay I need.

  I know I’m right; now I just have to determine exactly how to rig this rope system through my ice-screw protection. I picture it one way, then another. Each time I think a few steps ahead, I get confused.

  Pre
ssing my forehead against the crevasse wall, I close my eyes and search for the answer. Frustrated, I gently tap my forehead against the hard crevasse wall. The ice burns my skin. Suddenly, I open my eyes, realizing I can practice on the two ice screws already in the wall. I can tie one end of the rope to the bottom screw, run it up through a biner on the second screw, and then rig and test my self-belay system.

  To do all this I need to free the climbing rope from Mike’s harness. First, I have to secure Mike to the wall with a piece of webbing—I can’t let him fall in. I scan the gear and glimpse a bundle of half-inch pink webbing about twenty feet long. Mike always left it untied to use as an adjustable anchor sling. At times it snagged, annoying me, but Mike liked it.

  I attach one end to Mike’s harness and tie him tight to the ice screw, letting the excess webbing dangle loose. The rope remains tied to him by a figure-eight-on-a-bight knot into the locking carabiner on his harness. The easiest way to disconnect it is to unclip the carabiner, but the locking screw gate won’t budge. Yanking my gloves off for a better grip, I feel frigid aluminum bite my skin when I grab the biner. I twist and pull, but it’s jammed.

  Figuring it’s frozen, I warm the biner between my shaking hands. I pry and push, pull and jerk, but nothing works. I even smack the knurled locking sleeve of the carabiner with the ice hammer, trying to knock it loose. Nothing.

  Unable to open the biner, I figure I’ll just cut the rope off it.

  I pull out my knife, snap open the blade, and reach for the rope, then stop short in a wave of panic.

  What are you doing?

  Before I cut the rope, I had better think it through. There is 165 feet of rope. Mike is tied in about one-third of the way from one end. If I cut it at his harness point, I’ll have about 110 feet of rope left, but that might not be enough. I double-check my wall-height estimate the way Dad taught me, mentally stacking imaginary people, one on top of another, until they reach the snow bridge’s roof. It’s roughly eighty feet to the crevasse lip, give or take. But what if zigs and zags demand more rope? What if the climbing or rappelling requires me to double up the rope? Then 110 feet might not be enough. No, I shouldn’t cut the rope.