Near-death soloing, first-ascent TR

[Alpinfox]

An excerpt from the full-length TR entitled "First Ascent of Mt. Ritter" published elsewhere:

 

 

...I could not distinctly hope to reach the summit from this side, yet I moved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending with myself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I be successful, I might be storm-bound on the mountain; and in the cloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how could I escape? No. I must wait until next summer. I would only approach the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of the first storm cloud. But we little know until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.

 

I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity of the glacier, and discovered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully, through which I began to climb, intending to follow it as far as possible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains. Its general course is oblique to the plane of the mountain face, and metamorphic slates of which it is built are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather off in anglular blocks, giving rise to irregular steps that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheer places. I thus made my way into a wilderness of crumbling spires and battlements, built together in bewildering combinations, and glazed in many places with a thin coating of ice, which I had to hammer off with a stone. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made.... At length, after attaining an elevation of 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar all further progress. It is only about forty-five or fifty feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogeher, by scaling the wall on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructing rock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go right ahead or turn back. The tried dangers beneath seemed even greater than that of the cliff in front; therefore, after scanning its face again and again, I commenced to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution. After gaining a point about half-way to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless tumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.

 

When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountain, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self - the ghost of by-gone experiences, Instinct, or Gaurdian Angel - call it what you will - came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as though through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete.

 

Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagaely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange influx of strength I had recieved seemed inexhaustible. I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in blessed light.

 

 

[Alpinfox]

 

-John Muir

First ascent of Mt. Ritter

Fall, 1872

[Alpinfox]

 

For literature's sake:

 

BadumBUMP

[catbirdseat]

As I read I was thinking the author had a knack for writing. I wouldn't have guessed it to be Muir, though.

[HRoark]

I was thinking, "Bill Shakespeare takes a trip."

[EWolfe]

Nice TR

 

Wasn't the first time he faced death down. His ruthless father forced him to dig a well through bedrock with a pick and a bucket when he was a youth. He would get lowered into the well hole every day in the bucket, and received his lunch the same way. Dawn until dusk.

He hit a poisonous gasline near the bottom, and fortunately when he passed out he fell into the bucket, which his father pulled up thinking it was another load of rock.

Toughness and survival were his companions.

 

RIP

[Alpinfox]

The full-length version of that well story is in "The Wild Muir" which is the same place I got the Mt. Ritter story. It's a nice collection of some of Muir's first person accounts of his more death-defying adventures, but it seemed a bit ragged and I think reading his books is a better way to get to know Mr. Muir.

 

The first story in the book is about young Johnny Muir and his brother's excursions onto the steep roof of their Scottish farmhouse in the middle of the night. His brother slipped and nearly slid off and then froze up. Johnny had to rescue him and talk him down, all without waking up the parents which, apparently, would have been worse than falling.

 

Muir was da shizzle.

[Cairns]

-John Muir

First ascent of Mt. Ritter

Fall, 1872

 

 

 

 

Why bother to believe directly in God when we have John Muir as a pointer to the address?

 

 

1854

John Muir is 15 years old

His father says, "You may get up in the morning as early as you like."

"That night I went to bed wishing with all my heart and soul that somebody or something might call me out of sleep to avail myself of this wonderful indulgence; and next morning to my joyful surprise I awoke before my father called me. A boy sleeps soundly after working all day in the snowy woods, but that frosty morning I sprang out of bed as if called by a trumpet blast, rushed downstairs, scarce feeling my chilblains, enormously eager to see how much time I had won; and when I held up my candle to a little clock that stood on a bracket in the kitchen I found that it was only one o’clock. I had gained five hours, almost half a day! ‘Five hours to myself! I said, ‘five huge solid hours!’ I can hardly think of any other event in my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy so transportingly glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours."

 

John Muir for weeks afterwards spent the hours from 1-6am making a clock that could dump him out of bed at an early hour. When his father learned about this ludicrously unnecessary invention he ‘very nearly laughed.’ Considering the other evidence of his father’s character, that was probably one of Muir’s more amazing achievements.

 

At University of Wisconsin, Muir literally hitched a wagon to a star.

 

John Muir spent 4 years at University. He and his brother Dan went to Canada during the Civil War.

 

June, 1864

Simcoe County, Ontario

"Hunger and weariness vanished, and only after the sun was low in the west I plashed on through the swamp, strong and exhilarated as if never more to feel mortal care."

- John Muir after seeing a Calypso orchid

 

March, 1866

near Meaford, Grey County, Ontario

30,000 broom handles burn, along with a sawmill, a woodworking factory, and some rakes. John Muir’s Canadian stake is gone and he returns to the U.S.

"Anyhow, I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless inspiring Godful beauty."