The Ledge (12 page)

ON A PHOTOGRAPH
of Rainier’s north face, the line up Liberty Ridge is, in the language of climbers, “elegant”—a distinct route up and up, toward the snow-shrouded summit. The cleaver-like ridge juts out between two great walls. On one side is the Willis Wall—4,000 feet of steep volcanic rock, interbedded with crumbling ledges of ash, mud, snow, and ice, much of it poised to fall away. On the other side of Liberty Ridge stands Liberty Wall, imposing at 3,000 feet and with a terrifying reputation for even more frequent ice-cliff collapses and rock falls.

Above both walls and the ridge sits Liberty Cap, an ice field hundreds of feet thick wrapping a subsummit of the volcanic mountain. The edge of that ice cap is in constant change, cleaving off building-sized slabs that rumble down the walls in explosions of rock and ice. These collapses sometimes trigger cascading avalanches that can sweep out a mile across the Carbon Glacier.

We know climbing Liberty Ridge will not be easy; we will ascend 5,000 feet during a five-mile approach through a forest and across two glaciers just to reach the foot of the ridge. Then there’s Liberty Ridge itself. It will demand another vertical mile of muscle-numbing work, roped together, each of us hauling a pack loaded with fifty pounds of gear and supplies. There will be slow-motion glacial flows clogged with ice blocks the size of trucks, a knife-edge ascent up a ridge averaging about forty-five degrees, and a couple hours of melting ice for drinking water each day. It will mean probably four days of hard work and lots of simul-climbing, where to move faster we’ll be roped together and climb simultaneously, neither of us belaying
the other. When we simul-climb, we’ll be fully committed to each other and will have to be completely confident that neither of us will fall, as a mistake could yank both of us off the mountain.

But we’re experienced, and we’re ready. I am twenty-nine; Mike’s thirty-four. My climbing journey stretches a decade, and Mike’s nearly fifteen years. And after the last of our gear tumbles from the baggage conveyor, we drive away from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in a red rental sedan and head for Mount Rainier National Park.

Even from ninety miles away, in Seattle, Rainier’s hulking mass dominates the skyline. The classic volcanic cone is gouged by huge glaciers that chop the mountain into alternating swaths of ice and crumbling rock. Though scores of big and beautiful peaks populate the Pacific Northwest, locals refer to Rainier simply as The Mountain.

WE PULL INTO
the White River Ranger Station, just about eight miles northeast of Rainier’s summit. It’s Wednesday afternoon, June 17. Seeing the rustic building among the giant conifers triggers my memories of having been here nine Junes before. Mike and I check with the rangers about the conditions on the mountain, the weather forecast, and recent climbs. We fill out little index cards, listing our names and addresses, the route we plan to take, and emergency contact information for our families. I jot down Gloria’s name and our home number. My unmarried wanderlust friend lists his parents in Oklahoma.

An hour later, in the White River Campground, we dump out all our gear, talking about what to take and what to leave—a blending of risk assessment and climbing confidence and gut instinct. Some of it is easy. We figure to be out four days, maybe five, so we set out enough food for that period: oatmeal and bagels, granola, nuts and
raisins, macaroni and cheese, quick-cooking noodles. We grab Gatorade powder and iodine tablets to purify our water, a lightweight backpacking stove, fuel, helmets, headlamps, sleeping bags and pads. We decide to leave the tent behind—it looks as though the weather is going to cooperate. Tossing the tent into the rental car’s trunk instead of into our packs means seven fewer pounds we’ll lug up the mountain.

But figuring out which climbing hardware to take is more difficult. Too much, and the packs will be too heavy for us to move fast—and the potential danger will rise. Too little gear, and we won’t be able to protect ourselves sufficiently, so the risk will increase. We settle on two camming units—spring-loaded contraptions about the size of a baby’s fist—for rock cracks; about twenty carabiners; two snow flukes, which look like shovel blades; and seven ice screws—each one a hollow tube about eight inches long with a sharp tip and a thread up the outside of the shaft.

As the sun slowly descends in the western sky, we take in the grandeur of Rainier. We see Liberty Ridge and, at its apex, nearly 10,000 feet higher than we are now, a huge frozen slope gleaming in the fading light.

WHENEVER I CLIMB
, I experience moments when fear tries to grab me, and each time I fight to remain relaxed and move fluidly, not jerking my hands and feet from perch to perch. I tell myself to stay calm, to ignore my heart pounding harder, and to fight the compulsion to draw short, fast breaths.

Sometimes, my head becomes a battleground as two personas—a frightened self-doubter who is all emotion and a confident cheerleader who is all logic—bicker for control. Although I hear other voices when things get hairy—those of my dad, of old climbing buddies—it is most often this battle that grips me.

It seems different for Mike. No matter how difficult or risky the situation gets, he stays calm, a reassuring presence when things are toughest. Mike will sense me struggling and will say, “C’mon, Jim, you can do it,” and I’ll know then that I can’t let him down.

WE RISE EARLY
—it’s time to go climbing. After shoveling down instant oatmeal, we set out from the campground wearing shorts and T-shirts and carrying packs brimming with gear. Sunlight filters through the woods in splotches as we follow a broad hiking trail for three miles, gaining 1,600 feet of altitude. The dirt path eventually wanders out of the forest and then, at an elevation of around 5,500 feet, the trees thin and we enter a grassy meadow. Ice hundreds of feet thick once covered this area in Glacier Basin, but now it is a rugged open valley of rocks, sand, and dust, birthed by a volcano and transformed by moving ice. The main trail angles south a short distance, to the smooth, milky surface of the tiny Inter Glacier—the toe of the Emmons-Winthrop route. We’ll be coming down that way in about four days, depending upon how the climb goes. The pleasant sunshine makes the upper edge of the Inter Glacier look far less scary and dangerous than it felt during that driving nighttime windstorm almost a decade earlier. It’s a lesson on how dramatically things can change on Rainier.

We cut west on a faint climber’s trail that ascends a snow-covered scree field of broken rocks and continue on to an open saddle called St. Elmo’s Pass, named for the electrical discharge known as St. Elmo’s fire observed here in 1887. Weighted down by my heavy pack, I pant and sweat my way up the slope. When we reach the pass, we gaze to the southwest, awestruck.

A massive heaving sea of ice stretches for miles. Building-sized frozen blocks with ragged edges are thrust up in some areas, while
other sections drop in a jumbled series of collapsing ice ledges. Mixed in are smooth ice fields the size of mountain lakes, neatly patterned with regularly spaced crevasses. Farther up the glacier sit swollen ice domes, irregular and unpredictable crevasses slashing around their edges.

Even more stunning is the looming hulk of the mountain, rising 7,000 feet above us now in a sweeping slope of unstable rock buttresses and shifting ice cliffs. Continuous erosion of the weak volcanic rock leaves long drools of dark debris on the glacier that look like mascara running down white cheeks.

We drop our packs, snap a few photographs, and bathe in the morning sun’s warmth. About 200 feet below us rests the massive Winthrop Glacier, the beginning of serious climbing.

It’s time to gear up. We wiggle into more clothing, then pull on our helmets and harnesses, one around the waist, one across the chest. We force our way into snug plastic climbing boots and put on our crampons—metal brackets ringed with twelve sharp steel spikes, two of them angled forward for climbing steep ice.

We pull out our ice tools. Mike and I each carry two, an ice ax and an ice hammer, and they are nearly identical. Each looks sort of like a small miner’s pick—a long, straight handle with a steel blade sticking out of one side of the head. We use the sharp-toothed picks to dig into ice and pull ourselves up as we climb. On the back side of one tool’s head is a hammer, which we’ll use to drive in ice screws. On the back side of the other tool is an adze, sort of a curving sideways ax designed for chopping out ice to make a flat spot, or to cut through slop on the surface to reach hard ice underneath. At the base of each ice tool’s handle is a spike, a spearlike metal tip with a carabiner hole in it.

We pull out 165 feet of rope, divide it roughly in thirds, and both tie into opposite ends of the middle third. About fifty feet of
rope separates us, and each of us carries a fifty-foot coil across his shoulders. This coiled spare rope is reserved for hauling one or the other of us out of a crevasse.

Finally, we step off dirt and onto ice, walking across a relatively flat section of Winthrop Glacier slit again and again by crevasses. After zigging and zagging around obvious slots, an hour later we reach rocky ground on the far side of the glacier. We climb onto a rock outcropping called Curtis Ridge, a high point where we can survey the massive Carbon Glacier. Nearly six miles long and 700 feet thick, it is a stunning sight—tilted ice blocks crammed against one another up and down the valley.

From the high spot, we try to pick a route across the mottled whitish-blue surface of the glacier, one that will keep us away from obvious crevasses and avoid the dead ends we’ll never see once we’re down among the towering ice blocks. It is about three in the afternoon; roughly six hours of light remain. We are tired but not exhausted, and we want to get as far as we can before dark. Slithering down unstable slopes of rock debris, we leave Curtis Ridge and try accessing the Carbon Glacier. I try forging a way first, but get cut off by an uncrossable gap in the ice. Mike then takes the lead in a new direction, picking his way across teetering ice boulders before retreating after concluding that they’re too unstable. Then he moves over thirty feet to a new set of glacial blocks, and I feed out rope, watching him forge a way across the tumbled mess.

Sensing a weak section ahead, Mike sinks an ice screw and clips his rope into it with a carabiner; then I put him on belay. After he makes it across, I let my breath out. He pulls in the rope as I follow his footprints across, treading lightly.

Now we move up the low-angled glacier simultaneously, without placing ice screws as anchors. The fifty feet of rope between us stretches taut as we keep our distance from one another, each of us
trying to match the other’s pace, mindful that when crossing a glacier a tight rope will minimize the length of a crevasse fall. Mike leads the way until fatigue, eyestrain, and tension wear him down; then I move out front. Over the next few hours, we swap the lead back and forth. A couple times, we find ourselves in a dead-end alley between house-sized chunks of ice, and we must retreat to find a new route. It is like picking our way through a frozen three-dimensional maze. As we move toward Liberty Ridge, we consciously veer away from the dangerous Willis Wall.

The sun sinks low in the sky, and although we are almost across the glacier we know we need to shut it down for the day. On a relatively flat spot between two crevasses—one slot ten feet away on the right, one slot thirty feet on the left—we probe the glacier’s surface with our tools, decide it’s safe to bivouac here, spread out our foam pads and sleeping bags, and light the stove.

After dinner, we lie in our bags in the twilight, looking north past our toes as the glacier stretches downvalley below us for five miles, satisfied with our progress. Darkness comes, stars explode across the sky, and every so often distant rocks and ice rumble down the Willis Wall.

Our muscles ache and our shoulders throb where the pack straps dug in, but we feel pretty good even as the cold seeps up from the glacier and through our sleeping pads, chilling us. Before sleep overtakes me, I tap my fingertips against my chest, making sure my lucky medal is there.

I FIDGET THROUGH
the night—I never sleep well on rough ground—and at first light we are up. Melting snow for water consumes an hour as our stove, no bigger than a beer mug, hums beneath a battered two-quart pan. We sip tea and eat oatmeal and cram our sleeping
bags back into their nylon stuff sacks, invigorated by the crisp morning air, by thoughts of what’s ahead.

Around seven
A.M.
, we pull our packs onto our sore shoulders and head off, crossing the last section of the Carbon Glacier.

Then we reach the flank of Liberty Ridge, and we start climbing up onto the ridge crest from the eastern side. A hillside covered with dirty ice—volcanic dust and pebbles embedded in frozen muck—rises above us. Mike leads, raising his ice ax as he sets out, stopping a little way up and forcing an ice screw into the hillside. He moves a few more feet and then stops, lifting his second ice tool off his belt. Watching Mike alternately swing both tools, I know it’s getting tougher now.

Mike climbs a little higher, rams another screw into junk that’s more frozen mud than ice. He turns back to look at me.

“Don’t fall,” Mike yells.

“Understood,” I holler back.

His words unsettle me. It must be pretty shaky up there.

The rope tightens at my waist, urging me up, and I kick my crampons in and swing my ice tools and follow Mike’s trail. We are simul-climbing, and it is scary—this ridge is really a mudsicle, not the dense water ice where we feel most safe, where the sharpened tips of our crampons and axes bite firmly. Twenty feet higher, Mike stops again.

“Do … not … fall,” he shouts, and the anxiety coursing through me ticks up a couple notches.

“Understood,” I answer. We make it another fifty feet before Mike stops again. By now, I have angled over to the right and jammed my body into a little cave where the ice meets the rock. Simul-climbing is too risky here. I toss a long nylon sling over a boulder for a quick anchor and put Mike on belay.