TR: Sixteen Miles

[Alex]

This is a TR from a failed trip in 1999. I re-read it this evening and thought it a good read. Cheers!

Alex

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

It is funny how your feet hurt more when you know you are close to the end of the road. Today was no exception. As I plodded clumsily on snowshoes through Bridge Creek campground in Icicle Canyon, only a hundred yards back to the car to go, the pain became steadily worse. I found myself stopping every thirty feet, unwilling to go on, telling myself that the pain in my feet would abate if I rested a little more. It was rediculous, being only a hundred yards from the car and trying to rest my feet, but I did not want to go back. I did not want to come back.

 

The plan had been hopeless from the start. Try Triple Couloirs on Dragontail with a weather window that promised nothing, with avalanche conditions at their worst in fifty years. Who were we kidding besides ourselves? I am the Pessimist, my climbing partner the Optimist. We both knew that the likelihood of even getting on the route was slim - we had talked about it quietly in the comfort of the apartment before we left Seattle that morning. We had talked about it quietly and then left in the pre-dawn darkness like thieves. We were trying to steal a route, and we knew it.

 

I had not even packed until the night before. When I woke at 5 am, it was to the pitter-patter of rain falling softly on my skylight. The weather was calling early, it was 12 hours early. If we had had yesterday's weather today, and today's weather tomorrow, we might have had a chance - but now? The Pessimist was already spiraling down, dragging down the Optimist with the hushed conversation that preceded our departure.

 

The day started in earnest at 9:30 am, when I finally got my ass committed and hefted my pack onto my back at Bridge Creek. It was the first time I had used my Dana since I came back from Alaska in May of the previous year. The pack was comfortable and adapted itself to my back, like an old friend who slides easily into meaningful conversation.

 

The Mountaineers Creek road ends at the Stuart Lake trailhead, perhaps three and a half miles of gentle uphill plodding from where it starts at the bottom of the Icicle. Halfway along the road, the snow had changed from firm wet slop to colder, drier snow, and I had put on my snowshoes. Rentals. Worse still, REI rentals. Both my climbing partner and I had had the misfortune of working as retail salespersons for REI in the past. He sold shoes, I sold camping and climbing gear to boy scouts and Microsoft Yuppies. Now we were both computer programmers, and we both paid full retail prices at REI. The irony is staggering, I often wonder if someone is laughing, somewhere. Because it surely is a very good joke.

 

I know that I was very happy to see a snowshoe trail lead off into the woods from the road-end. With luck the poor fools had broken trail all the way to Colchuck Lake, and we would have it in the bag. The trail wound its way through the Grand Fir (in an other life I called it Abies grandis) and Lodgepole (Pinus contorta) along the banks of Mountaineers Creek. An aptly named stream, draining two alpine basins fed by the snows and glaciers of the peaks at the heart of the Stuart Range. A mile past the bridge our friend the trailbreaker had pulled to a dead stop, taken a look around, and had doubled back on his tracks. I turned to the Optimist and said, "no more trail." I was working on him still, with every dire prediction, every nose wrinkled at the weather, and every curse muttered.

 

I do not curse anymore, not like I used to, anyway. I had recently given up using the F-word cold-turkey. I religiously counted how many times it slipped out every day. Someone I know may have been proud of me, but I could no longer ask her, and she no longer gave a shit. I did not know how far we had come.

 

I did not know how far we had come, many miles. We took a break and opened a fresh bag of Skittles. Skittles, Skittles, bite sized candies. A teenager had introduced me to the wonderful world of frozen Skittles on Mt St Helens in 1994, and I had been winning converts ever since. I had taken four pounds of Skittles to Alaska, and they are featured on every trip. The trick is to avoid chewing until they warm up a little in your mouth. You get to savor the flavor a little longer that way.

 

I did not know where we were, really. I could see a short way up the valley, and knew from times past that the trail would soon cross the stream and head steeply up through timber, a thousand feet up to the Lake. Half the elevation gain from the trailhead is tackled in the last one and a half miles. The map gave little sign of understanding our frustration. No trail with five feet of cold snow on the ground, and more than a thousand to go to the lake. Just little brown 80 foot contour intervals.

 

The rentals performed quite nicely on the steeps. I even thought of checking them out as a possible purchase, before I reminded myself that for computer pukes like me who paid full retail, they were 220 dollars. I wanted to buy Redfeather snowshoes anyway, not Tubbs, because they were made in Leadville Colorado where I had once lived. Leadville, at 10,152 feet, the highest incorporated town in North America. Someone I know has Redfeather snowshoes, I thought.

 

The Optimist's altimeter urged us on with false altitude readings. We were working hard breaking trail uphill, breaking steep switchbacks up through cliffbands. We were both practiced at this, the mechanics were very monotenous. My partner broke trail through the flats, I broke trial on the steeps; the division of labor was accepted and we both went about our designated tasks.

 

We were losing light now. It was not a dramatic change, only the subdued light through the clouds became more subdued. Perhaps it was that we were approaching eight hours on the haul, or that the clouds were dropping into the valley. Perhaps it was the fatigue, the eight miles of saying "this sucks". I am not sure how the consensus was reached, but as we broke trial up and over another hill and saw only more hill ahead, with no sign of the lake and no end-game to motivate us for that last lying 400 feet of elevation, we broke down.

 

It had been a fight for me since the broken trail had ended. Or maybe before I had even left the van. Perhaps I was fighting already before I left Seattle. I kept telling myself that if I could make the Lake, just the damn Lake, I would have something to show for my effort. A pretty picture of Colchuck Lake at sunrise on a Winter's morning. I kept telling myself that no one really expected us to climb this route with such a marginal weather window, but people would laugh at me if I told them I didn't even make the Lake. All I wanted was the Lake. All I needed was the Lake, and in the end I gave up short. Like so many other things.

 

I was dehydrated. Humping a load and breaking a trail on snowshoes makes me sweat, and I had had only a liter of water in eight miles. The stove started melting water even as I tramped down a sleeping platform with my snowshoes. First with two snowshoes, then with one, then take them both off and pack it down with boots. The novelty of Winter camping had worn off years ago. This was my first Winter camping trip this year, unless you count spending freezing nights in the back of a pick-up truck in Canadian lumber towns while trying to climb ephemeral ice routes. It was dark when the first drinks were ready. Luke-warm fare that tasted like melted snow. It is interesting how snow melted in a steel pot can have such a distinctive flavor. Water is my favorite drink, but melted snow ranks with iodized water as a foul concoction.

 

The Optimist remained optimistic and said something about getting to the Lake in the morning if the weather was good, getting on the route. The stars overhead bolstered his confidence. Who was he kidding? Not me. We slept on our ropes, carefully flaked out, for extra insulation, and listened to the sound of snowflakes on the tent fabric. It is a peaceful sound, it reminds me how much I need all this. It is a peaceful sound, but tonight it makes me colder and more lonely.

 

------------------------------------------

[Norman_Clyde]

Not only a good read, one of the better reads on this board. Haven't we all felt that way one time or another? But "failed" trips, in my opinion, usually provide memories which mean just as much to me in the long run.

[skyclimb]

Good reminder of trips in the past. Sometimes retreat is highly overrated! However on the trips that i didn't complete, the burning urge inside to go back is so strong i won't feel complete till i finish what i have started. Area south of Banff last fall. Got socked in in the middle of september in shorts and a t-shirt 15-20km back near mt. joffre. Waited the storm out for 4 days hoping for a clearing to climb northover ridge. To no avail had to head back the way i came. Always next year!