We had made it a fair ways down when suddenly, my eyes blurred. At first I thought it was my sunglasses, so I took them off and opened my jacket to wipe them on my vest. But the blurriness remained. I tried to blink it away, to no avail. Something was very wrong. I’d never had trouble with my vision, not even with age and a family history of glaucoma. The snow’s white and the clouds’ gray and the rocks’ beige blended into each other. I could still sense depth, yet its specifics were difficult to determine. I blinked furiously, trying to dispel the disruption. I could differentiate boulders from the path and Goran from Patricia, because of their heft and heights. Ian and Charlie looked the same to me, their jacket colors opaque.
Not wanting to lose the path ahead, I trailed close to Goran, as he was nearest to me. I was scared to stumble—more scared about what had caused the change and how long my sight damage would last. Permanently? Had I descended too quickly? I shuddered not from cold but from apprehension. When we stopped for a rest, I said nothing while removing my sunglasses, but my squinting blinks caught Patricia’s attention.
The descent of Mount Ararat is potentially more dangerous than the ascent. The mountain’s steepness and the climbers’ tiredness are conducive to mistakes.
“Something in your eye, Rick?”
I brushed off her question, and stopped the rapid blinking until we were again on the trail where no one could see my efforts. Vanity surely brings more mishaps than it avoids. I worried about the wrong factor. Not acknowledging my handicap kept my teammate image a strong, if inaccurate, one. To compensate, I made sure there was someone behind me; I was no longer interested in being the final one on the trail.
Emotionally, I stumbled down the mountain but somehow managed to keep an even physical pace, and my concerns went unnoticed among the group. When we reached the red blur of our tents, as the team members sauntered into the camp, I chose to follow behind, picking my steps carefully. When we neared our site, I recognized Ian’s stance and followed him over. We sat down on the rocks outside our tent and shucked off our packs.
“Ian, I can’t see.”
“What can’t you see?”
“Everything’s a blur.”
“Ever happen before?”
“Never.”
“I’ll get Patricia. She knows first aid.”
“No.” Why was I being stubborn? “Let’s leave it a bit. Another hour. Let’s settle here. Can you bring me up some food?”
I took orange juice and meat, which I could not identify by sight, only mouth feel. There were eggs on toast. And a Wagon Wheel!
I lay down and slept. My dream was a blurred memory of the descent.
After an hour-long nap, I woke up feeling groggy. I rubbed my face with my hands and elbowed the tent flap out of the way. I could see, and see clearly. Two Armenian men were approaching, Ian close behind them.
High altitude can wreak havoc with a body, fit or not, and play tricks. When a climber’s eyes are compromised on a mountain, so is their safety, as well as the well-being of those they hike with. Later I was to learn that a possible side effect of taking medication to avoid acute mountain sickness (I had taken Diamox) could be blurriness of vision. And I would read an article quoting Dr. Fred Edmunds, in Primary Care Optometry News, regarding mountain climbing at altitude: “The cornea doesn’t get as much oxygen as it would normally like, and it swells up a bit … the curvature changes slightly … and this brings about a slight myopic shift.”
I found all this out later, though. Right then, I had just enough time to realize that my vision had been restored, as the two Armenians, oblivious that anything had been wrong, had news. “We will attempt tonight.”
The second one said, “Some of us.”
“How many?” Ian asked.
“Not all,” said the same man.
“It’s what is necessary,” I said.
“Yes, the Spanish told us how difficult it was with the ice wind and slippery rocks. Tonight’s forecast is snow.”
Ian took the conversational pause as a chance to check on me. “Rick, we are planning to go on down to Base Camp this afternoon. Now, actually. You OK to go?” He’d had discussions with Goran, Patricia, and Charlie and did not want to mention my eye condition in front of the Armenians, but clearly he was wondering if I was able to make the trek. If not, the team would wait until I was ready.
“Agreed,” I said. “The sleep has cleared everything.”
Ian smiled and then turned to the Armenians’ planned ascent. “The danger … it is dramatic. The sense of achievement is … well, it’s humbling.” And by way of unconditional encouragement, he said, “Of course, you will know all that this time tomorrow.”
“Did you see any sign of Noah’s Ark?” one of the Armenians asked, only a slight jest in his voice. “I mean, in the daylight, in the distance?”
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.
“And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Ararat is a big mountain, and there are a lot of places on it to hide a boat—even a large one.
TWELVE
WALKING BONES
“No conscientious traveller turns homewards on the route by which he came if a reasonable alternative offers itself.”
—H. W. Tillman, Two Mountains and a River
The satisfaction of our ascent infused the rest of the day. We broke camp after a late brunch. The good cook Fesih, who had returned to camp, would stay with the Armenians, ensuring they had sustenance for their climb. Kubi and the Armenians had struck a peace accord, and he stayed at Camp II with them. The Armenians’ guide was seconded and sent down with us.
“Is there a different direction to descend?” I asked Kubi, thinking we’d see new parts of the mountain on the afternoon’s hike.
“It is as you came up,” he replied. “It will feel like new goat path to you.”
For the first hour, our guide stayed close. We were rested some but tired more. The downward moves jarred our knees. It felt unfamiliar and a bit cumbersome. When we came upon a boulder jammed into another, the only path was an up and over. Did we come up this way, I wondered? Usually the guide went first and watched each of us as we made the leap. When Patricia’s turn came, he reached up and assisted her down, holding her by the waist. Within the next half mile he found a number of occasions to aid her. Finally one of the crew turned to the rest of us and said, “Maybe if I had nice breasts he’d help me down too.”
Whatever shape you feel your body is in, once you begin to push yourself physically, the psychological strain can be onerous. Fighting for oxygen wears on people emotionally, even after the altitude normalizes. That and the difficulty of a climb can strain group dynamics and affect a group’s behavior. Our group escaped those repercussions, but another did not.
We were descending with a companionable satisfaction, matching up in twos or threes, taking or providing a helping hand over difficult areas, when we came across a stranded group of eight Frenchmen ahead of us who weren’t faring as well.
We’d heard they were on the mountain, but our paths had not yet crossed. Before summiting, we had looked over from Camp II, seeing the yellow tents of “The French” (Kubi’s term) spread out on a plateau across the ravine from where we camped. Though hikers milled about, we had not encountered even one of them on the mountain, until now. Ian pointed out during our brunch earlier t
hat day that they’d broken camp and left. We thought they’d be well ahead of us on the trail, but when we came off a straight and moved down among big rocks, we saw they had stopped.
They were scattered along the trail, looking on as one man stood atop a boulder beside a hunched-over man. Both looked dazed. One of them had recently vomited, but it was hard to tell which one.
As we passed, I offered our first aid kit.
The fellow who was standing shouted at me, “What is your job? Are you medical?” There was arrogance in his voice, a tone to ward off any challenge to his leadership role within the group. Or altitude was at play, his brain in want of better oxygen.
“I’m not a doctor,” I replied, “but if you need something, we may have it.”
He looked at me, then at Patricia and Ian as we moved past, and dismissed us with, “He has height sickness. Is all.”
“So long as you’re sure it’s not a stroke,” said Ian.
We left the French force behind us.
The two pack horses with our gear trundled to the east of us, higher up, making their own course down Mount Ararat, half-followed and half-led by a young boy who was singing a ballad-sounding song. They worked down an incline that would eventually cross our trail, catch up, and pass us. The boy lived on the mountain, in a nomad’s village tucked out of view.
Trailing me were Charlie and Ian. Patricia was just ahead. Down further, barely in sight, cantered Goran. Around the bend and out of vision was our guide, as though safety was a preoccupation going up but much less so now. As the switchback turned, Goran was near enough for me to reach him with a shout.
“Goran. Goran. Sheep!”
He stopped at my call, and the slope between us narrowed as my own steps quickened off the path toward him. He waited a hundred and fifty feet below me, but hundreds of feet of switchback trail separated us. The guide appeared in front of him and continued along.
“Sheep?” Goran asked.
His story from two nights before, regarding the barbecue during his friend’s African mountain hike, had popped back into my mind. “I’ve a bet,” I said. “If you can get the guide to find fresh meat—sheep? Sheep? for tonight’s fire, I’ll find a dozen beer.”
It was a time-filling banter between weary hikers, as much an effect of lean air on the brain as of hunger.
“Cold beer?” Goran shouted.
“I’d drink it warm,” said Charlie, who had caught up to me.
The prospects of consummating the bet with Goran were not good.
“You’re on,” said the lively minded Goran, who turned immediately and yelped at the now-you-see him, now-you-don’t guide, who had reappeared on a switchback. The guide turned and waited. Goran jogged across the ground between them, his pack jumping all over his back, putting his hand flat on his baseball cap to hold it in place. When he caught up with the guide, the young man stared at the ground, listening to an out-of-breath pitch from Goran. Slowly the man shook his head. Even from higher up, I could see the guide smile an answer that said, “Silly.”
Goran shifted his stance, now downhill a step from the guide, but still standing taller. He was using more English words than the Turk understood—I could tell that by the sideways shake of the guide’s head. Then Goran reached in his pocket, pulled out some crumpled American dollar bills, and shoved them into a waiting hand. The guide nodded and hurried off. Goran swept a pivot with his left foot and scanned the mountainside to find me. He raised his right hand, thumb up. And his left hand rose, thumb down. On Ararat, nothing was certain.
Why had I said a dozen beers? Why had I said cold?
Still a good distance from Base Camp, our path again came close to the youngster and the horses. He was a hundred yards away and on a friendly slope, his own shortcut. Soon he would forge ahead, getting to the night campsite well ahead of us in order to set chairs, ready tents and light a fire. I left the trail and angled across the mountain slope to cut him off.
“English?” I asked on approach, feeling dumb not to have spoken earlier with the boy who had been doing all this camp work for us. The youngster grabbed the pack rope on the lead horse and halted it. The horse snorted and flicked his head, and his spittle landed on my cheek. Point made.
“Beer,” I said, raising my hand in a drinking gesture.
The kid’s head shook. The horse’s head shook.
I spoke louder, as though that would improve the translation. “Beer. Twelve.”
His smile showed that he knew what beer meant, but his head’s tilt said, “Not possible.” My mentioning twelve was irrelevant.
“Beer,” I nodded as though this could make it so, then held up all my fingers to indicate ten and flipped two again. I pushed off my pack and dropped one hand to a side zipper. I had a U. S. $20 bill and he took it eagerly. Now I was the one who was confused. Was this the price? A down payment? A tip? Or did he just accept my money without obligation?
Then he was gone, moving faster to catch up with his coworker.
Goran looked my way, palms out, asking about my success without saying a word. I shrugged, Wait and see.
Forty minutes later we took a trailside break. Those in front doffed their packs to rest and waited for us stragglers. The trail was distinct, which explained the guide’s confidence in moving ahead and leaving us on our own.
“My prediction?” Charles chuckled. “Cookies, pasta, and orange juice for dinner.” He bit into a chocolate bar, looking at Goran and me. “You two just gave away money. You’re on Mount Ararat, for heaven’s sake, not at a food fair.”
“I am walking bones,” Ian laughed. “Very much in need of a meaty meal.”
Patricia took off a boot and stuck a finger in it, searching for a pebble. She caught it with a fingernail, hooked it free of the padding, and flicked it away.
Intuitive camaraderie came with our exhilaration and exhaustion. So when Goran said a simple, “OK?” our answer was to strap on our packs.
We reached Base Camp, where Niecit was expecting us.
“Merhaba,” he said in welcome.
“Merhaba,” rolled off our tongues in response.
He had a tumbler of cold water for each of us, backed by the smell of fresh perked coffee—the cooks’ tent version.
Our packs were soon off the horses and shunted to where Niecit and the boy had decided they should be placed. Three tents lay flat on the ground in their designated places, waiting to be set up.
There was lots of campsite room—no Russians, no Spaniards, no Armenians. No one else was descending except the French, and there was room across the gulley for them. The Spanish climbers were hell-bent for home. Their guide had told Kubi they’d hike one long day’s trek, up from Camp II to the summit, down to Camp II, onward to Base Camp, and out. It was an unnecessary and unhealthy jaunt, favored only by daylight. No one was on the ascent, or they’d be here by now, setting up camp for the night.
We pitched our tents—still shared—as nasty clouds gathered. The wind was up and ruffled the nylon walls, so we opened the flaps and windows so that it could blow through.
Then we relaxed. I was burrowing in the large pack for my windbreaker—it was not cold yet, my sweater underneath was enough, but the breeze had a bite. As I pulled it out of its inside-pack entanglements, I heard “clip clop—clip clop” and looked over my shoulder to see a horse with a rider—a young man, unshaven—and across the neck of his horse lay a dead sheep. Or at least I thought it was dead, until it raised its head in an uncomfortable shift; eyes open, looking straight at Goran.
“Well, well, well …” Charlie said.
“I don’t believe it,” Patricia said.
Ian clapped his hands in applause.
Goran didn’t make a noise, but his chest showed he was stifling a smug, though shocked, laugh. He cracked, and we all snickered—until Ian pointed to Niecit, who was unsheathing a knife. Now confronting us was the cold reality of our antics.
“‘Die sheep or eat the knife’,” Goran said. I’d nev
er heard that saying. Where’d Goran get it? Croatia? New York? It hardly seemed an architectural term.
The sheep was slid from the horse into the arms of the cook, who grabbed the rope that held it by the neck. The rope was taut.
I walked away to gather scraps of dead scrub brush from the field for the fire, feeling suddenly irresponsible. Even though the sheep’s fate was “life on the mountain,” we’d instigated this particular slaughter. Ararat was a setting; the scene was our own.
Sheep make a throttling whine when their necks are pulled back, arched for the knife. My back was turned. Ian fussed with tent pegs, Patricia repacked, Charlie made more coffee; Goran alone watched—an obligation to witness?
Silence.
Niecit had moved out back of the cook’s tent. There was ample room to place a plank of wood on solid ground, a butcher’s block for his carving. The man who’d brought the sheep was there to help the cook. We went back to our chores, the fire brightened and cooking coals glistened. The guide brought out a round metal bowl, scorched by a thousand campfires. He placed the pan inverted near the fire, to be used later as a grill.
Two village boys climbed, from below, up the rise and into camp, sweaty and happy to have found us. They went straight to the guide, who darted behind the big tent to consult with the cook. When he came back he pointed the boys in my direction and called “Rick.” They each carried a plastic bag that bulged with hastily packed cans. The bags wept from condensation. The cold beer had arrived.
The older of the boys went to help tend the packhorses, bringing them water and wiping them down with his bare hands. Later he held one hand open and fed both of them carrots from the vegetable tray sitting on the dinner table. The horses nuzzled his hand and licked it, seeking more carrots and the salt of his sweat. The boy rubbed the saliva on his pants and returned to his duties.
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