close calls

[catbirdseat]

[Fairweather]

Little Tahoma. 1990. After starting late and spending too much time on the top I descended to the notch at 9000' on Whitman Crest. It was getting to be late in the afternoon and my partner arrived from above about 20 minutes later. I had the rope out and ready to go, but he simply gestured "downglacier", pointed at his watch, and without stopping headed out onto The Fryingpan. I caught up to and passed him, but not wanting to be perceived as a nag, I continued down the soft late afternoon firn without bringing up the risk at hand. Later, looking off to my right, and then my left, I noticed a very wide crack on the convex slope I was traversing. I began to tread lightly and, sure enough, it became apparent that this crevasse was very deep and wide. In fact, the icy walls were still going farther apart as it fell into blackness. As it was too late to backtrack, and I was already more than halfway across this bridge, I continued on and waited at the other side for my partner to appear from above.

 

He was plunge stepping hard as he came into view, and oblivious to my shouting, "stop!" Sure enough, he punched through. Immediately he was in over his shoulders, with his pack and one outstretched arm the only thing keeping him from certain death in the cold darkness below. All I could see was his face and his one arm reaching out to me about 25 feet away. His legs and body dangled freely above the void.

 

"DON'T FUCKING MOVE!...DON'T EVEN BREATHE!" was all I could yell as I frantically dug the rope from my pack. Not wanting to approach the bridge, I threw the butterfly'ed rope to him and luckily it landed within reach. He managed to twist the rope around his one free forearm and hand several times while I clipped a bite of rope onto my harness, which luckily, I was still wearing. As there didn't seem to be time for elaborate pulley setups, I simply laid down on my stomach and clawed/crawled with my pick and the toes of my uncramponed boots... downslope until he was out far enough to extricate himself.

 

Upon reaching a safe spot, he sat down in the snow mentally exhausted. As he was a Vietnam combat veteran, I was impressed that he was quite shaken by the experience, and he just gave me a look and shook his head indicating nothing more needed to be said. The mistake was mutual, for sure. Just plain stupid. We still climb together. Lesson learned. Murphy's law. We always rope up on glaciers.