The mountain in front of him, Destination B, towered 5,500 feet above him as he stared at it through his windshield.
“Holy shit! That thing’s big,” he said as his slowly banked left into the wind.
Jack looked to his right. He had now descended below the northern ridge. Suddenly, he was hit by a burst of turbulence from the south, striking the plane broadside on the left and shoving it dangerously close to the ridge and drifting closer.
“Whoa!” he cried out in fear.
The plane immediately drifted to less than a hundred feet from the cliff. He could see the plane’s shadow cast onto the mountain’s face as he inched closer. Jack instantly reacted by adding power and banking into the wind to steer away from the deadly rock face. With his eyes glued to the ridgeline, he nervously watched as the tiny plane turned and began to distance itself from the impending crash.
“Damn, that was close,” Jack called out as he breathed a moment of relief.
Jack’s relief was short-lived. Refocusing on his task at hand, he quickly looked out his window to monitor his progress. He was now a hundred and fifty feet above the ground and still descending. As the tiny plane flew away from the ridgeline, he stopped his turn and now lined up, heading directly across the snowfield.
With the great mountain on his right side, he now stared out his windshield at the other ridgeline directly in front of him. Lined up in the center of the snowfield, he estimated the ridgeline to be only five hundred feet away. He cut the power completely, rapidly accelerating his descent.
Jack looked out his side window, down at the snow below. He could tell by the ski that he was close; about twenty feet from the ground now. Then it dawned on him. He hadn’t lowered the skis below the tires yet. Quickly, he grabbed a lever and lowered them, while he watched the skis instantly drop below the tires and lock in place. In the time it took him to do this, he had dropped a few more feet. He could see the skis casting a shadow on the snow below. He was close.
Looking up across the field, there was now only 300 feet left between him and the other ridge. It was going to be close.
Jack reached down and turned off the key, cutting the power to the engine.
“This is it. No turning back now,” Jack cried out to himself.
Jack was now committed to land. With the engine off, flaps lowered and the skis fully extended, there was nothing else he could do but wait and watch the end of the field race toward him. Looking down at the skis again, he was now inches above the ground. The speed was now rapidly bleeding off as he started to flare the nose.
Forty knots, thirty-five knots, thirty knots…
Jack felt it first as a tiny vibration – then the whole plane started to shake. He immediately glanced out his side window. He was now touching down and skidding across the field.
With his speed falling below twenty-five knots, the far end of the field was no longer far. It was a mere one hundred feet away and closing. He pulled hard back on the stick, trying to raise the nose of the plane as high as he could, using the bottom surface for aerodynamic braking.
Without warning, the tiny plane slid down into a small depression, then back up the other side, slowing it further, but launching it into the air several feet. Instantly, Jack held the stick back as far as he could to soften the drop. It was the only thing he could do on short notice.
The tiny plane hit the soft snow with a loud, jarring thud that scared Jack. He was sure something must have broken on the hard landing. Holding back the stick through the series of bounces, the tiny plane shuddered and creaked as the speed began to bleed off.
Slowing to a stop, Jack flung opened his door and leaped out of the plane to inspect for damage. To his surprise, he immediately sunk up to his knees in soft snow.
He looked back at the struts the skis were attached to. Relieved, he saw no damage. Stepping back, he reached up and grabbed a wing. Pushing it up and down, he rocked the wings and listened for anything unusual. A slow smile spread across his face as he realized he came through the landing unscathed.
“Phew, dodged another bullet,” Jack joked to himself out loud. “Just a walk in the park.”
He looked up at the mountain in front of him, then over to the ridges that cradled the snowfield. As he listened to the wind whistling past him, he suddenly realized just how alone he really was.
“Six thousand miles from home, no one around for a hundred miles and buried deep in the heart of the Andes… What some people won’t do for a little peace and quiet,” he joked again, downplaying the seriousness of his situation.
Moments later, Jack set up his camera on a makeshift tripod of snow and snapped a photo of himself with the plane and mountain in the background. He reviewed the photo with pride as the enormity of his feat finally hit him.
As if speaking to an audience, Jack chronicled the details of his trip out loud: “I built a tiny airplane that carried me 6,000 miles from home and landed at the base of an unknown and unclimbed mountain I found in a magazine, on a tiny snowfield that no one has ever landed on before.” With a sarcastic sigh, he continued, “It’s the little things in life I love most.”
Jack felt proud of his accomplishment. He felt if he could do this, he could do anything. Looking up at the mountain, he laughed at how silly this statement was.
“Not so fast, hotshot. The real work hasn’t even started yet. You still have to climb that damn mountain and fly home. Let’s not jinx it by celebrating too soon,” he scolded himself loudly.
Realizing the truth in his words, he tamed his vanity and headed back to the plane in preparation of his next adventure: climbing the 5,500 foot icy cliff that towered high above him.
--- --- --- --- ---
Jack stood by the propeller of his plane and looked up at the mountain. His eyes followed from the base, all the way up to the summit. Racked with apprehension and fear, he felt slight nervous tremors throughout his body. He took a deep breath of air and exhaled as he struggled to gain his composure.
Jack could see the deep fluted grooves carved into the face of the mountain very clearly now. They looked even more intimidating at his close range. Even though this wasn’t nearly as difficult a climb as some of the other climbs he had accomplished in his earlier climbing career, it carried its own dangers that in many ways surpassed even his hardest accomplishments; the most obvious danger being the remote location.
Jack’s climbing career consisted of trips to Yosemite Valley in California, the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, as well as the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. They were much more technically difficult than Destination B. But if he ran into trouble in the US, a rescue could be mounted in a matter of minutes – not so in Peru. He was on his own in this part of the world. He knew if got hurt, even just a broken leg, he would almost assuredly die. It was just that simple.
The other glaring danger was the fact that Jack was climbing alone, truly alone. With his other adventures, even though he was alone, he really wasn’t alone. He had hundreds of people around him climbing close by and further out, and there were thousands in the nearby surrounding towns and cities. He could count on their support to a large degree, but in Peru, a hundred miles from civilization in the remotest of rugged locations, there was nobody. Jack’s life was literally hanging by thread. Every problem would be life-threatening.
Jack had folded the wings of his plane, a feature that caught his eye when he was researching the plans of hundreds of experimental planes. The wings were unlocked, rotated backward on a pivot point at the cockpit and then secured to the tail. In such a hostile environment, it was essential to break the lift of the wings by securing them in that fashion. If he left the wings extended, any wind that flowed over them could cause the plane to literally fly away and crash.
With the wings stowed and the plane anchored with ropes to the snow, he was ready to begin the climb. He lifted his enormous pack onto his back, the weight nearly knocking him off his feet. Jack’s solo climb required him to carry everything: ropes
, climbing gear, food, water, fuel for boiling snow, cooking stove, shovel, sleeping bag and many more heavy items that created a load on his back weighing in excess of 80lbs. It was a crushing amount of weight to carry, especially at 12,000 feet and above, where the air was thin.
Jack started for the ridge to the north. With each step he took, he sank up to his knees. This was a laborious task.
“Dammit, I wish I’d brought my skis,” Jack lamented.
Like snowshoes, mountaineering skis spread the weight of the traveler out over the snow, allowing him to glide on the top. Unfortunately, the plane could not handle the length and extra weight of them, so they were left home in Connecticut.
After an hour of ‘post holing’ – a term that refers to sinking up to one’s knees in snow –he arrived at the northern ridge. It looked smaller as he looked up at it, but he knew from flying over it that it was pretty high; at least 1,000 feet at its highest point.
Looking up at the profile of the ridge, he could see the route he needed to take. Some of it looked icy and steep, with small stretches of steep, blocky rock faces. Having stripped down to a t-shirt early in the hike across the snowfield, he was now getting a slight chill as the breeze blew against his wet clothing.
He quickly pulled off his pack and retrieved two ice axes and his crampons (crampons are plates one straps to their boots that have sharp points extending out to aid in climbing on ice) in preparation for the steep icy sections he would need to negotiate. He sat down and snapped the crampons to his feet, then hauled the pack onto his back and headed up the ridgeline.
Prior to his trip, Jack had spent months training for high altitude climbing. He routinely hiked steep hills in New England with a pack weighing in excess of 130lbs. Although the training made him strong and agile, the effects of high altitude still slowed him down. With each step he took, he needed to take a breath of air. He would step left, breathe, step right, breathe, then step left and pause to rest under the heavy weight he was lugging on top of him.
Two hours had passed and Jack had ascended 300 feet up the ridge, occasionally needing his ice axes to balance him over the steeper sections. In front of him was the first of a series of rock and ice walls. They were short; about twenty-five feet high and looked relatively easy, so Jack removed his pack and decided to climb them without placing any protection in case of a fall. He tied a rope from himself to the pack and started to climb.
The rocks were very blocky, making the climbing easy and quick. In rock climbing, the difficulty scale is measured with a range between 5.0 to 5.14, where 5.0 is easiest. Jack estimated the ease of the pitch to be 5.1 in difficulty; relatively easy.
Twenty feet up, with his ice axes dangling from his wrists by lanyards, he could see the last portion was ice that had flowed off the top of the pitch, completely covering any exposed rock. He needed his ice axes and crampons to get over this five foot section.
Jack’s ice axes looked like miniature pickaxes. The pick of the axe was a curved plate that was sharpened so that it could pierce ice without shattering it.
Holding an axe in each hand, he reached above with his right hand and drove the point into the ice. It held firmly as he tugged on it as a test.
His crampons had two points extending out beyond the front of his boots. He lifted his right foot and drove the points into the ice. Pulling on the ice axe above for balance, he stood up on his right foot as the two front points held him in place to the ice.
Immediately, he drove the front points of the left boot into the ice, creating an artificial platform for him to stand on. He then drove the left ice axe higher, tugged on it and now drove his right axe and right front points higher at the same time, moving higher with each placement.
The cycle of climbing ice is a repetitious one: the right appendages move higher and the left moves up to match their level. Then the left appendages move higher and the right moves up to match their level. Over and over the cycle repeats itself as you gain altitude. This pattern can change as conditions change, but the concept is usually the same from climb to climb.
Jack pulled himself over the top of the icy bulge and stood on a tiny platform of snow. He grabbed the rope and struggled as he hauled the heavy pack up the short twenty-five foot section he just climbed.
He slowly hiked up the steep snow slope in front of him until he ran into another short rock and ice pitch. He climbed this one as he did the last, hauling up his pack when he finished the section.
Three hours and four more sections later, Jack stood at the top of the ridge and looked down the 1000-foot wall he just ascended. He’d made good time and felt exhilarated.
“Woohoo, a thousand feet down and only five thousand to go,” Jack shouted out, jokingly
He looked down onto the snowfield at his tiny plane. It looked very small from his vantage point. He could just make out his footprints in the snow that stretched across the snowfield, eventually becoming too small to see. Aside from the plane, his footprints were the only evidence that he was there.
He looked at the half mile of ridgeline he would have to traverse to meet the main face of the mountain. It was a knife-edge, a term used in mountaineering to describe a narrow ridgeline that steeply drops off on both sides. The knife-edged ridge that Jack was staring at was no wider than two feet at its widest point. Any misstep would result in a tumble down the 1000-foot face on either side, resulting in his death.
“What a lovely little spot for a picnic,” Jack joked to himself, then added, “Too bad I’m all out of truffles.”
Jack looked down at his watch. It was late in the afternoon and he figured he had only about three hours of light left to the day. He knew if darkness fell before he finished his crossing, the consequences could easily be fatal. Considering that even a gust of wind could knock him off the narrow path, he felt he would need at least two hours to cross the ridge safely.
“Man, that leaves me with only a one hour safety factor,” Jack said to himself. “Not good.”
Jack looked down at the 1,000 foot face below him. Shaking his head, he said resolutely, “No way am I rappelling down and reclimbing that whole friggin’ thing again tomorrow. Besides, how bad could it really be?”
Staring across the narrow knife edge, Jack swallowed hard, then headed off across the ridgeline, carefully placing each step as he walked.
With the 80lb load he carried on his back, he felt clumsy. In addition to the heavy load, Jack battled with his footing. A common problem for climbers wearing crampons is that the spikes under them catch on boots and pant legs, causing a climber to trip. Jack had to be extra careful to place each foot exactly where he wanted it go, to ensure this wouldn’t happen. It was physically demanding to be that deliberate when he walked, and he used all his muscles to accomplish this slow motion action. An hour later, Jack felt tired.
“Well, thankfully the winds are light,” Jack said to himself as he stopped to rest a moment.
Occasionally, Jack experienced stronger gusts of wind that nearly rocked him from his stance. Quickly, he would plant an ice axe for balance and stabilize himself. When the gusts subsided, he moved on. Jack was like a machine, focused and undeterred from his task.
As he lookup across the ridgeline, he could see he was halfway to the other side. He looked down both sides of the steep faces, looking for some way off in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, there was none.
Jack’s legs hurt with cramps from the constant foot placements he was making. He wanted to sit and rest for a moment, but knew that the only way to do this at his location was to straddle the ridge with his legs dangling over each side of the steep cliff faces. It would be like sitting on a tree limb 1,000 feet off the ground. He could do it, but then he’d have to contend with standing up and then, while balancing himself, sling the 80lb pack over his shoulders. It was hard enough to put it while on standing on flat ground. It was quite another thing to do this where he was standing.
Ten minutes later, Jack encountered the narrowest se
ction of the ridgeline. It was less than a foot wide, forcing him to walk with one foot directly in front of the other, as if he were on a balance beam. In a desperate act to keep his body stabilized, Jack held his arms out at shoulder height and shifted them up and down for balance as he fought to stay on the ridge.
Jack’s fear and anxiety were now raging. He was balancing on the edge of death. With his legs aching and his body trembling from exhaustion, he repeated to himself over and over, “Just keep going, just keep going.”
Foot over foot, he moved along the ridge. With each gust of wind, he crouched slightly and concentrated on his stance, frantically trying to place his ice axe for stability. As the wind let up, he continued on his path, watching each foot as he moved forward.
Jack felt the extreme ache of his calf muscles in overload. With each step, they screamed for relief that would never come.
Sweat poured off his hands and face and he felt the sting of salt in his eyes. His sleeves had long since waterlogged and all he could do was shake his head for relief.
Hidden Courage (Atlantis) Page 7