Oh man, I always heard stories about meeting nightmare partners on cc.com, but I never figured I would be the nightmare partner.
I hooked up with a random guy from cc to do the north face of Chair peak yesterday. I was totally excited to do the climb; it had been on my list forever. When I saw his post in the partner's forum, I jumped on it. I figured the route was totally within my abilities, and my self-rescue skills were pretty solid, so there wouldn't be too much risk to doing the route with a partner sight-unseen. As long as he could belay, I was willing to lead the entire route if need be. I figured I'd bring doubles and some leaver slings and worse case, we could bail easy. I talked him into bringing a beacon.
We met up early in the parking lot of Albertsons. I had packed hastily for the trip, leaving most of my gear in a duffle. I quickly threw what I needed into my pack, stuffing everything else back into the duffle as we took off. I had the horrible feeling that I forgot something.
Partner stopped at the gas station for a donut. "I wish I hadn't forgotten my egg sandwhich," he remarked.
Sandwhich! Food! Oh No, I forgot all my food! "Oh no, turn back, I left my bag of food," I said as he got back in the car. No harm done, we were less than 100 meters from the car. Crisis averted. If I had only known what an awful portent this would prove to be.
We arrived at the Alpental parking lot to rain and a balmy 35 degrees. I was not feeling confident. The NWAC report I checked that morning mentioned increasing considerable danger on Friday night, with possibly increasing danger on Sat. I was particularly worried about descending sun-exposed east slopes. I mentioned my wariness, but we agreed to check it out.
After turning around to get the shovel and picket I forgot in the car, we set off towards Source Lake. Partner was very fit, and very quick, and I struggled to keep up. I realized shortly that I was getting out of shape, as I found myself running out of breath. "Damn!" I thought and vowed to get back into my regular training/climbing regime -- for real this time.
I was going through a bunch of crap in my life during the last month, and as a result had not been getting out much. Previously for the last year I had been getting out nearly every other weekend, and training nearly every weekday. But, an illness in December, followed by some challenging events in my life had combined to cause a general feeling of unfitness. I hadn't done any serious climbing in a month.
The snow was positively slushy. It collapsed under my snow shoes when sidehilling. I could see evidence of loose-snow avalanches all around me. And with a gloomy NWAC forecast in my mind, the warm temperatures, and rain/snow -- I was not optimistic.
Halfway up the slopes above source lake, I started hearing the avalanches coming down around me in the fog. I couldn't see them. "I'm not feeling good about this," I said.
"I know," he responded. After a short conversation (and more avalanching around us) I pulled the plug. "I want to bail."
I could see disappointment in his eyes. We didn't even dig a pit. We hiked out, and I was feeling bad, but confident in my decision. To his credit, he never once tried to talk me out of it. He was obviously disappointed, but polite.
"Let's just hike up Alpental and TR that ice flow left of Armstrong," Partner said. "Great idea," I thought to myself -- until when we got back to the car, and it was still raining. And I wasn't feeling a bond with Partner.
"Let's ditch the double ropes and bring my single," said Partner. "Good idea," I replied as we ditched gear in his car. I watched him pull his single rope to the top of the pile in the back of his trunk as I ditched my half of the double.
Again, he blew me away on the hike up. I finally reached him under the delaminating line of ice. It wasn't continuous. I wouldn't lead it. There seemed to be an easy ramp the the left of it, but it looked to be mostly thin rotten ice and snow over slab. We agreed that a TR was still the best option. Some icicles caused me concern, so I set off to build a belay above the fall line while he geared up to rig the TR. I wondered how he was going to get up there.
I watched in curiosity as he exploded his pack. After donning harness, slings, helmet, and some gear, I noticed with a distinct wave of nausea that he had no rope. I had no rope.
"Man, I think we have a problem."
He was not pleased. We walked back down to the car in silence, intersperesed occasionally with my apologies. It was an uncomfortable ride back. "I think the snow would have been OK," he said. "We should have at least dug a pit."
I stare out the window. "Yeah, we should have dug a pit," I thought.
Upon arriving home, I reflected that at least I was right about bailing. I checked the NWAC again to make myself feel better. That's when I noticed that the NWAC forecast had been downgraded to moderate sometime after I left in the morning.
I thought about him back at home, doing housework instead of climbing. Oh no! I was the awful partner!
