Hidden Courage (Atlantis)

by Petersen, Christopher David

  Over and over, Jack continued his mantra: “Just keep going, just keep going.”

  Looking up from his feet, the narrow strip seemed to go on forever. Jack put his head back down and continued his task.

  “Just keep going, just keep going.”

  Forty-five minutes went slowly by as he shuffled his feet along the ridge. Suddenly, Jack stopped. He looked up at the ridgeline in front of him. It had widened.

  “Holy shit! When did this happen? It’s nearly two feet wide. I could almost throw a party up here,” he said to himself. “Talk about extreme concentration.”

  For the first time in almost an hour, Jack placed his feet side by side and rested. He could feel the blood flowing through his calf muscles as the pain started to ease. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cloth and wiped the stinging salt from his eyes.

  “Ah, I really needed that,” Jack said loudly. Focusing on the ridgeline up ahead, he added, “I could almost run on a path this wide. Phew, I’m glad that’s over with.”

  As he stood and rested, Jack could see the mountain’s 5,000-foot vertical face looming in front of him. Taking advantage of his perspective, he scanned its entire length for the easiest route to the top. Shifting his weight slightly, he shuffled one of his boots forward to gain a better look.

  Suddenly, Jack’s crampon hooked the side of his boot. Immediately he fell forward on both knees. For a split-second he was okay and balanced - but then the momentum of his pack caused him to roll off to the left side. Immediately, Jack flung his right leg over to the right side of the ridge in an attempt to counterbalance his weight.

  The counter-balancing act only worked for a moment. With his weight concentrated mostly over his left leg, the heavy load caused the snow to collapse underneath him.

  In slow motion, he started to slide off the edge of the ridge.

  Instinctively, he tried to dig his toes into the snow, but found nothing to hold him. As his chest fell below the ridgeline, he knew this was it. He was about to fall to his death.

  In one last desperate attempt to save his life, Jack flicked the ice axe into the palm of his hand and, with intense focus, swung and planted the pick into the snow in front of him. His arm went taut, slowing his accelerating slide. Instinctively, he drove the front points of his crampon into the snow below him. They held for a moment, then broke loose. Scrambling as his arm went taut again, he drove his front points into the hard packed snow once more. As his left foot gave way, his right foot broke loose, then held.

  Jack was in a desperate struggle for his life. His heart was pounding harder than he ever felt it. He envisioned his parents weeping at his funeral. His grip on the ice axe was slipping. If he could just release his pack, it would fall the 1,000 feet below, making him light enough to climb out of this awful situation. Unfortunately, he’d have to let go of the ice axe to do this: not an option.

  Slowly, delicately, he worked the left front points of his crampons into the snow. He was barely breathing, trying to limit his movement. He tried to put weight on his left foot. It felt firm. Jack felt his sweaty hand beginning to lose its grip on the ice axe. Frantically, he looked down to inspect his foot placement and spotted the ground a thousand feet below. Panic swept over his body as he realized how close to death he was.

  Battling his fear, he went for broke. In one short, swift burst, he pulled his left front points away from their placement and drove them further into the snow. With his hand nearly sliding off the end of the ice face, Jack weighted his left foot. It held.

  As his right hand began to slide off the end of the ice axe, Jack lunged with his left hand and placed it on the axe handle above his right. As delicately as he could, he pulled on the axe with both hands and, little by little, he slid them higher. Sweat poured from his brow as he tried to control his frantic breathing. He knew if his axe pulled out, he would tumble backward to his death.

  Inch by inch, his hands moved slowly up the shaft of the axe. He carefully pulled out his left foot and replaced it higher. It held. As he pulled on the axe, he transferred his weight to his left foot, then moved his right foot up to match his left.

  With his head and chest now above the ridge, he could almost see down the other side of the cliff face.

  Jack felt his right foot starting to give way. This was it. He had run out of options. With only one ice axe marginally placed and his left foot bearing the full load of his body and pack, he knew one or the other would break loose at any moment. Anxiously, Jack looked at the ground a thousand feet below. Desperation was his only card left to play.

  Jack’s right foot finally broke loose from its purchase. As he felt the ice axe beginning to move, he pulled hard on it with both hands and lunged upward. Frantically, he threw his right leg up on top of the ridge.

  As the axe tore through its placement, Jack released his grip and thrust his right hand over the opposite side of the cliff, digging it into the hard packed snow. He pulled hard and forced his right leg over the other side of the cliff.

  With one leg dangling over the left side and the other dangling over the right, Jack was now straddling the ridge. He exhaled deeply and fell forward, resting on his stomach. He was safe… for the moment.

  “Oh my God, what the hell am I doing up here?” Jack whispered through labored breath.

  Hyperventilating and feeling light-headed, Jack concentrated on slowing his breathing. As he regained his composure, he sat up. He now had a new problem. His pack was heavy and unwieldy. With his strength nearly depleted, he knew he would not be able to handle the weight of the shifting pack. If he tried to stand, he would lose his balance and fall off the cliff.

  Looking at the remaining length of the ridge, Jack decided to slide along the rest of the way as he sat. It would take him a little longer, but it was safer.

  He weighted his hands in front of him, dug his feet in and slid himself forward a few inches while focusing on keeping the heavy pack balanced. Taking a short rest, he shook out his tired arms and legs and repositioned them for another attempt.

  Placing his hands in front of him again, he pushed hard with his legs and shuffled along further than the first attempt.

  “Okay, that one was nearly a foot,” Jack said to himself. “Five hundred more of these and I should be safe.”

  Jack quickly disregarded his humor and became serious. With darkness only an hour away, he knew his situation was still life-threatening. Placing his hands in front of him, he pulled and pushed himself along.

  Over and over, he repeated this series of movements, sliding forward a foot at a time. Nearly an hour passed and the width of the ridge expanded from two feet to four. Still too tired to stand, Jack hoisted his legs up on top of the snow and crawled the rest of the way along the ridgeline.

  Clear of the danger, Jack unbuckled his pack and stood up. He felt shaky and exhausted, but somewhat euphoric from relief. He turned around and looked back at the spot that almost claimed his life.

  “Damn, that was close,” he said out loud. “This is really becoming a habit.”

  Scanning the base of the mountain, he knew he would have to find another route down for the descent. With less than fifteen minutes remaining of darkness, he snapped a few pictures, then donned his headlamp as he made camp for the night.

  Two hours later, Jack had melted snow for his water bottles, ate some Ramen noodles and dug out a mini-cave in the side of the vertical cliff to sleep in for the night. He was tired as he laid snug inside his sleeping bag, sipping hot raspberry tea. With a full moon high in the evening sky, there was no need for a headlamp. His eyes had adjusted perfectly, and he took in the distant valley as he sipped his drink. The winds were relatively light, making his stay enjoyable, and he listened to the sounds of distant spindrift avalanches as the falling snow worked its way down the fluted trenches.

  The delicate sounds had a calming effect on Jack, the same way the sounds of ocean waves have on others. A short while later, exhaustion finally overtook him. He took his la
st swallow, pulled the sleeping bag over his head and fell asleep.

  DAY 2

  Jack sat up. He heard a thunderous roar from above that sounded like a tornado. In the early morning light, he peeked his head out from his tiny cave to investigate the noise. He looked in the direction of the sound, but saw nothing. The sound became deafening and he felt the area around him vibrate. Frightened and in reaction, he pulled his head back in. The sound and vibration intensified, then quickly stopped. Jack poked his head out again and still saw nothing.

  “What the HELL was that?” he shouted out loud.

  Jumping out of his sleeping bag and quickly putting on his mountaineering boots, he ran over to the ridgeline. Down in the snowfield, he spotted it: a snow boulder the size of a house. Much higher up, it had somehow broken loose and fallen, coming to rest in the soft snow at the base of the mountain, intact.

  Jack looked up and saw the path of the snow boulder it had taken on its way down. It resembled the shape of the fluted trenches.

  “Huh… falling debris. So that’s what made those trenches,” Jack surmised. “Dammit, this is not good. If they’re falling over there, then they gotta be falling above me, too.”

  Jack stood back and studied the long mountain face directly above him. Even in the low light, he could make out the path of the trenches. Some were deep, some were shallow. Jack deduced that one of the shallow trenches would be a safer route up the mountain.

  Suddenly, Jack heard a loud cracking noise from above. Looking up, he saw a large boulder of ice tumbling down one of the larger paths. Quickly, he moved far off to the side and watched it impact the snow a short distance from him.

  Looking up at the shallow trenches, Jack knew right away he was making the right choice.

  “Oh yeah, definitely safer,” he said confidently, then added, “If ever there was an argument for the ‘path less traveled’, this is definitely it. Well, Mr. Frost, I hope it ‘makes all the difference’,” Jack said to himself, coining several phrases from Robert Frost’s infamous poem ‘The Road Not Taken’.

  Having been ‘rudely awakened’, he worked quickly to prepare for the day. In his earliest plans, he had considered lugging his backpack all the way to the top of the mountain, then climbing down the other side. It would be a difficult chore but he had plenty of supplies and the descent would be easier due to his choice of rappel routes.

  After his realization of the dangers from above, he deduced that speed was more important than the luxury of an easy descent. He decided to make his tiny snow cave his base camp for the climb. He intended on taking just the necessities and stowing the rest in the cave.

  As he stood and examined the route, he figured he needed little or no rock climbing gear. There were some difficult icy sections, but for the most part it looked like steep snow. It was hard to tell from below, but he guessed he could climb without ropes and protection over more than half the route.

  Jack figured that by moving quickly, he could probably climb the 5,500-foot face in two days. In his pack, he would be taking only the absolute necessities: ice gear, food, water, two ropes, two ice axes and a bivy bag (a waterproof, breathable, uninsulated bag to sleep in). In all, the weight of his backpack would now be no more that 20lbs, a far cry from the 80lbs he lugged up the ridge. He could easily climb fast with that little amount.

  --- --- --- --- ---

  With an ice axe in each hand and his pack on his back, Jack stared up at the snow face above. The route was steep, but not enough for him to consider the use of ropes. He would be hiking nearly upright as he ascended. Unfortunately, if he slid or fell he would not be able to stop himself, so even though the route was relatively easy to climb, it was also deadly if he made a mistake.

  Jack could see up as far as 1,000 feet, but then the pitch of the slope lessened a bit and became hidden from view. He could also see the last slopes to the top and guessed those to be about 1,000 to 2,000 feet high. It was now simple math to estimate what was hidden from view, and he guessed it to be 2,000-3,000 feet high and relatively easy, due in part to it being less steep.

  The fluted trenches he would be climbing looked to be about thirty feet wide on average, and nondescript. Upon reflection, he likened them to the furrows in a farmer’s field, except that these were vertical. He was glad for this. Even though it was steep, it wasn’t technically challenging – at least the lower section, as far as he could tell.

  Taking it all in, he went through a wide range of emotions, mostly fear and anxiety. The unknown was the worst. He had never done anything on this scale before and just didn’t have a feel for what he could expect above. He knew he was strong and skilled, but sometimes that was not enough. If he ran into a situation that was beyond his abilities and climbing down was impossible, he would die. This was a paralyzing thought. He stood for a moment, unable to move. Finally, he pushed through his self-doubt and moved to the slope in front of him.

  “Okay, man, don’t psyche yourself out before you even started,” Jack said to himself. “You can do this. Just keep moving forward.”

  Jack started up one of the fluted trenches. The snow was hard from the lack of sunshine on the northern side, so his crampons grabbed the top surface without breaking all the way through. He knew that once the sun hit the slopes above, it would soften and he would probably sink to his knees on every step. He decided to take advantage of the climbing conditions by moving as fast as he could.

  As if climbing a tall ladder, he worked his feet up the steep face, occasionally placing his hands on the snow in front of him for balance. He started off slow, stepping up, matching his lower foot to the higher foot, resting, then stepping higher, continuously repeating the cycle.

  As he climbed, he fell into a subconscious routine, moving higher as if on autopilot. After a short time, his muscles loosened up and he began to feel his strength and confidence build. He changed his routine from stepping up and matching feet to taking full steps above his feet as if he were walking up a set of stairs. This greatly increased his speed, as he stepped one foot above the other, over and over.

  Almost in a trance as he climbed, his mind drifted off from the sound of his heavy breathing and his footsteps as he kicked his feet into the snow with each placement.

  In his mind, he began to play the simple chorus of a familiar song. Over and over, he replayed the chorus. After a while, as he breathed out, each note in the chorus corresponded with each exhale of breath, in essence subconsciously creating a metronome. His pace of climbing became matched with the beat of the song, a phenomenon common in climbing that made the hours of long, hard work pass more quickly and painlessly.

  Nearly three hours passed and Jack’s repetitious hard work was paying off. He had ascended nearly the full 1000-foot face, a monumental task. He looked down and saw the small platform he left from, then worked his eyes out across the dangerous ridge he had crossed the day before. Inside the long fluted trench, his view of the snowfield was blocked. The most he could see of it was that portion leading up to the ridgeline.

  He was nearly 2,000 feet above the snowfield and the huge blocks of ice that sat below the ridge looked like pebbles. He was really high up. If he slipped, even a little, he would tumble all the way down to those ice boulders and to his death – a very sobering thought. With a couple hundred feet to go, he made sure there were no mistakes.

  A short time later, the steep slope relaxed a bit and Jack could now climb without the need of his hands for balance. As he crested the top of the slope, he found a narrow platform that meandered around the mountain. Measuring fifty feet at its widest point, it resembled a wide sidewalk that created breaks in the fluted trenches.

  Jack stopped for a moment on the walkway, drank some water and ate a peanut butter sandwich, then walked around from the north side to the east side of the mountain. He stood at the edge of the ‘sidewalk’ and looked down into the snowfield for his plane. At first he became scared, unable to find it. Concentrating his focus on the area at the botto
m of the south ridge, he spotted it; it blended in with some of the larger rock and ice boulders.

  Jack looked up at the sky. There were thin clouds forming overhead. He remembered the weather forecast from the previous day: a low-pressure front moving through the area. He had hoped that it wouldn’t impact his climbing, rationalizing that the Andes range would form a barrier, preventing the weather from passing through, as he had heard was the case in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. He looked at the fast-moving clouds and accepted the reality that the weather could become a problem. He took a mental inventory of his gear and concluded that he had three days of rations if things got bad, two days more than he needed. It was not a comfortable surplus, but it was adequate. He turned and hurriedly headed back to his route.

  The next 1,000 feet or so looked to be the same kind of climbing that he had just completed, only not as steep. He breathed deeply a few times, trying to repress the anxiety that was building inside him again. He started off up the slope, this time moving faster than before. He was happy that he still hadn’t run into anything technically difficult, although he still could not see the upper slopes that still lay hidden from his view.