I Fell in a Crack
Here’s what it’s like to fall through a hole in a glacier and find yourself suspended over a crevasse, a frozen chasm that if you fell into it could swallow you like a lozenge into an endless void. I mean, for real: an endless void.
(Oftentimes I’m going to be writing these entries at a clip, because there’s only so much time in the day and I’ve got a lot of shit to do. Like for example yesterday, when I published the first post, we were interviewing candidates for a job opening at the company I founded with my friend and partner. And in between 30 minute conversations with these folks I was also juggling the day’s other various tasks while contemplating whether or not to hit Publish on Post №1, a decision I’ve gone back and forth on since this idea occurred to me three weeks ago, which is taxing, the decision is, for all kinds of reasons, which I’ll get into at some point but not now. And but then there was also this other lingering background conversation going on pretty much all day with my mom and sister about what booze needs to be purchased for the wedding.)
Wedding Tip №8: Buying Booze. Google “Drink Calculator.” OMG, right? There are a number of handy little sites that’ll let you plug in your number of guests, the length of your wedding, etc. Some, like the one we used, even let you specify the percentage of guests who are light Vs. average Vs. heavy drinkers. So let’s say your guests range from ladies who giggle after two chardonnays and talk about the champagne going straight to their head and current and former drinking buddies who’ve made liver damage a sport. Worry not: There’s an app for that. Calculate your booze, call BevMo, have them deliver that shit. Or, send your mom to CostCo the day before the wedding. Protip: If no one can remember your wedding, did it even really happen?
But so: Nearly falling into an endless void? That’s a pretty clunky metaphor for a series of posts that will take at least a handful of overwrought detours into subjects like depression, self-harm, and etc. But then also: it’s the truth.
We were attempting to summit Mt. Rainier: me, Best Man Kevin, High School Chum Tate, and a lovely but narratively superfluous fourth friend. Alpine hiking is an occasional pastime of mine, which is a funny thing to contemplate now that I’m a bit older: What the hell was I thinking? That shit is dangerous. You don’t just casually walk up a snow-and-ice-covered mountain.
But then again, that’s exactly what you do, exactly what you must do. Back when I’d occasionally partake of a mountain climb, I had no special training, had done little research. My thinking was, Hey, I’m with friends, and they seem pretty confident, and we’re all in this together, so what the hell — should be fine! And generally it was, although it also generally wasn’t.
On my first such adventure with Kevin and Tate, hiking from a trailhead outside Lone Pine, CA., with the intent of summiting Mt. Clarence King, we lost track of the trail, which was covered by deep snow. Off course and trudging at times aimlessly through drift, we added two days to a trip that was only supposed to last that many. Having run through our food and water, it would have made much more sense to turn back, but I don’t think that ever occurred to us: Our friend was a biology student at Berkeley, and had spent summers at a base camp deep in the sierras where he knew there’d be a big metal box full of food and supplies. All we had to do was make it there. We trudged on.
Eventually we did arrive at the site of the camp, only to realize that the box was buried beneath the same heavy snow we’d just spent the last few days trying to navigate. Famished and dehydrated, we spent another half-day digging it out, after which we gorged ourselves on a supply of rehydrated refried beans before crashing out — three of us — in a two-person tent.
Now, everything I’ve just described was an ordeal, but it was a ride on a unicycle compared to spending 12 hours in a too-small tent attempting to sleep through the fumes our bodies then proceeded to emit, the noxiousness of which I’ll leave to your imagination.
The next day, following our tracks back, we hiked the entire distance out of the mountain range in one amazing push, bellowing songs as darkness descended, scrambling frantically to find our car in the dark, and ultimately collapsing into the booth of a Lone Pine Pizzeria, where we each ordered entire an entire pie for ourself. We ate so much so fast that a family passing by stopped outside to stare at us through the window of the joint, with the father so stupefied he finally felt compelled to scream through the glass, “What are you — eating for the whole week!?”
So flash forward 10 years and it’s the three of us off on another adventure. Kevin and I have just run marathons, and Tate’s been in great shape since seventh grade. We actually know a thing or two about ice climbing by now, but Mt. Reiner in July is a different animal, and I am the novice of the group. It’s worth noting that I have been dating my future fiancé for about six months at this point: long enough for this idea to seem impressive, not long enough for her to try to talk me out of it.
Once again, we have navigation issues. There’s a lot of cloud cover on the mountain on the day we set out, and even though Tate’s got a GPS we make a few wrong turns that cost us time. We camp on the first night a few clicks from where we’d ideally like to be (haha, I don’t normally say “clicks,” but that was fun). The thing with Reiner is you’re on a schedule, you can’t dick around. We were hiking up Liberty Ridge, a saddle that takes you from the glacier field to the summit, on which there’s only one patch of flat ground to camp for the night. You have to coordinate with rangers to reserve that spot because there’s not enough room on it for two groups. Once one group summits, another one takes its place.
Having made poor time on day one, we had to hustle on day two if we were going to make it to the ridge, but hustling is not an ideal mindset when you’re navigating a glacier field. Imagine a thick hairbrush covered with a piece of toilet paper — that’s what a glacier field is like. When you’re walking on one, you’re stepping over a layer of what’s hopefully ample snow, which is concealing all the deep drops in the ice just below it. Since this is a stupid and unnatural thing for humans to do, your best bet is to rope yourselves together, and to keep the rope relatively taut between you as you go along, so that if one of you falls through the snow you don’t fall far before the rope goes tight and your buddy prevents your fall.
We were using this system for the solid half-day it took us to navigate the bulk of the glacier, and none of us had fallen through. With the sun at its highest point, and with the ridge itself in sight, we took a quick break, bunching around one another for food and water. Kevin, in his excitement, unclipped his rope, I think so he could get a better view of the ridge up ahead. A few moments later, I stood up, took a few steps, then — whoomph.
First the snow gives a little, then a little more. You don’t know what’s happening at first but you realize it pretty quick: you’re in a bit of shit. Strange as it seems to me, I didn’t panic. My legs were dangling beneath me over a hole; the hole could be four feet, it could be 40. I called out, calmly, to let my friends know what was going on. They looked over to see half my body submerged, the other half held up by my outstretched hands. I was not roped into Kevin. If the snow didn’t hold me, if I fell…
The snow held me. I didn’t fall. Within reach of my ice axe, I grabbed it and sunk it an arm’s length ahead of me. Tate threw me a rope. I pulled myself up through the snow. Roped in again, I looked down through what I’d fallen through: a deep crevasse that went from icy blue to purple to black as it sunk down into the earth.
Now the funny thing is this didn’t deter us; we just kept on climbing. I was way more rattled by what would ultimately become Guinness World Record blisters forming on both heels, blisters that would get so infected by the time I was about to board my flight in Seattle that I actually freaked out and called 911 at the airport. The medics who arrived recommended I get on my flight and get some antibiotics from my doctor ASAP. The 24 hours before my doctor appointment the next day were the most nerve-wracking of the whole week. It was only years later that it hit me: Jeez, I coulda died.
We didn’t make the summit. We got to the base of Liberty Ridge when a nightmare storm overtook us, pelting us with chunky ice that made pushing up the saddle seem dangerous if not impossible. Out of options, we camped on the glacier field (don’t do this). The next morning, we emerged from our snow-covered tents just in time to watch an avalanche come tumbling down the face of the mountain. Gee, we wondered, wouldn’t that be something if that deadly wave of snow and ice made it all the way down to where we’re standing right now, drinking our miso soup before hiking out. Obviously, it didn’t.
