John N. Mugaas
A raven, blacker than a moon shadow, paused for a moment at the edge of a high rocky crag. A light breeze ruffled its feathers as it leaned forward attentively and cocked its head warily. Far below, on the mass of jumbled boulders that covered the east flank of the mountain, the raven spotted a man moving. The feathers on its crown rose and settled. It croaked, and with a thrust of its legs launched itself into the chasm beneath the crag. The afternoon thermals, fueled by a dazzling sun in a cloudless sky, soon caught the raven's outstretched wings, and it floated effortlessly toward the man.
The man's name was, Willi. He was old, and burdened with a large pack. Unlike the raven's effortless thermal powered flight, his climb up the river of boulders was slow and agonizing. Sweat soaked his blue flannel shirt. His face, thin lipped, deeply lined, and gaunt, was hidden in the shadow cast by the broad, floppy brim of his hat. As he labored from boulder to boulder, Willi steadied himself with his ice ax. He tottered onto a large flat slab of granite and lurched, spraddle-legged, to a halt. His breath, a hoarse, raspy whistle, flew in and out of his gaping mouth, and his heart drummed wildly in his ears. Every muscle in his body screamed for rest. He slumped forward and braced his chest on the ice ax, which, like a third leg, kept him from falling. He closed his eyes and struggled to control his breathing. It was at that inopportune moment that the dream slid like a cold, grey phantom into his mind, blotting out all other sensations, and twisting his face into a terrible grimace.
In the dream, he was securely anchored with three well placed pitons to a standing belay on the face of a cliff. Snow swirled around him in an angry swarm, driven by fierce, howling gusts of wind that battered him with wave after wave of hard icy crystals. No matter how he turned his head the tiny, sharp flakes lashed his face and made him gasp. His frozen tears threatened to blind him. He was securely anchored, but sometimes the gusts came straight up the cliff
and threatened to lift him off his feet.
"Willi! Off belay! Off belay, Willi!"
These words from his climbing partner and wife, Gerry, were torn to shreds by the brutal gusts. Had he really heard them? He thought he had, but he wasn't sure. Willi instinctively tightened his grip on the slender red climbing rope that ran through a trail of carabineers and anchors up the sharply-ascending crack in the otherwise-smooth rock face above him. Gerry, leading this pitch, was out nearly a full rope length, invisible in the storm, fighting desperately to forge a route up the crack. Willi tested the rope for slack. It felt taut, but the wind played it like a banjo string, and it vibrated and shook in his hands, which were fast becoming numb and useless.
"Off belay, Willi! Slack! Give me slack, Willi! Willi, are you there?"
The words, barely audible wind-whipped fragments, were indecipherable, but bristled with urgency.
"Willi, are you there? Off belay, Willi! Slack! Give me slack!"
Willi hunched his shoulders against the wind, held his breath and strained to decipher the fragmented commands.
Then, as suddenly as it had possessed him, the dream evaporated from his mind. The shear rock wall. The swirling snow. The wind. The cold. The fractured words. Everything was gone, and as his senses cleared, his head was once again filled with the hoarse, raspy whistle of his breathing and the Thump Thump, Thump Thump of his heart. He opened his eyes. Specks of mica in the granite slab sparkled up at him--thousands of tiny, black eyes in a sea of gray calling him back to reality.
"Willi, are you there?"
Recently, memories from his past intruded, without warning, into his consciousness. His mind did this on its own. He just went along for the ride.
"Willi, are you there?"
Sometimes these adventures from his past enthralled him. At other times, like now, they were a glimpse of some terrifying event.
"Willi, are you there?"
He shuddered as he remembered the source of this most recent dream. He and Gerry had been high on the north face of the Grand Teton when they were hit by a sudden, unexpected, early June snow squall. Gerry, high above him on a treacherous lead in the raging June blizzard, had called it "climbing the egg."
"Willi, are you there?"
Everything is predictable until the egg cracks. That's when terror overwhelms the senses and fear dictates action. At that moment the wrong move or the wrong decision will cause the egg to collapse. The storm had cracked the egg. But he remembered, with fierce pride, how they had overcome their terror and had emerged battered and exhausted, but victorious and triumphant, on the summit. They had climbed the egg. But, that was then, and he had to focus on now.
With considerable effort he straightened up. The pack pulled him off balance, and he danced a little involuntary jig to regain his footing. The Thump Thump, Thump Thump faded to a barely noticeable swish swish, swish swish. He sighed and gazed at the field of boulders that stretched far below him. He had come a long way.
Willi, in the eighth decade of his life, was too old to be climbing around on these boulders. At least that's what his daughter, Tatiana, and Dr. Morse would say. Willi thought about this as he turned and gazed upward at his ultimate destination, the peak, glistening in the late afternoon sun high above the great cliff. He ground his teeth together as fragments of conversation from the last few weeks crept into his thoughts.
"Daddy, Doctor Morse says you shouldn't be driving. Maybe you should give me your keys..."
"Daddy, if you can't take care of the yard yourself you need to hire someone to do it for you..." "Willi, Tatiana asked me to talk to you about your medications. You need to take them as prescribed..."
"Daddy, when's the last time you washed your dishes?..."
He had tried to explain to Tatiana the difference between "can't" and "don't want to," but she had told him he was being childish. This overprotective meddling made Willi feel as if he was trapped in the downward spiral of a self-fulfilling prophecy that would culminate in premature helplessness and senility.
Willi had been a school boy, just out of Grade 5, when he first climbed this mountain. His father had led him up the easy route, the same one he intended to climb now. He smiled as he remembered how his father had coaxed him up these same boulders.
He pulled a big red bandana handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face and glasses. His hand reached to release the canteen from his belt. Then he remembered he had emptied it during his lunch break. He sighed, took a deep breath and stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. He squinted against the glare of the
sun and fixed his gaze on the dark green spruce grove perched at the base of the great cliff. There he would find a level place for his sleeping bag and a spring that would quench his burning thirst.
As a young man he had climbed this boulder field to the spruce grove many times. In those days it had been a quick scramble, a short prelude to a greater adventure on the magnificent peak that soared high above the great cliff. But today. My God, today he had been inching his way up this tangled mass of boulders for hours, and his body screamed for relief from the strain.
His gaze drifted upward to the massive granite walls of the peak and lingered on the precipitous hanging snow fields that sparkled near the summit. The mountain was beautiful, and at the same time it was wild and terrifying. He laughed nervously to himself and mumbled, "Crazy old fart, I can't believe you're doing this." But the pure beauty of the mountain poured into him like a refreshing drink. A twinge of excitement stirred deep within him, and he steeled himself to go on.
He continued up the boulders as if he was scaling an unstable, irregular staircase, careful to avoid those rocks that looked as if they would tip under his weight. He knew the danger they presented. If they shifted and threw him off balance he might sprain his ankle or break his leg. What the hell, he might even have another stroke or a heart attack. "Ah yes," he laughed wickedly to himself, "that would crack the egg!"
His boulder hopping settled into a familiar rhythm. He counted his steps. When he got to ten he would stop, lean over the ice ax and support himself on it until he caught his breath. Then he would straighten up and take ten more steps. Over and over he repeated this routine. His shoulders ached from the relentless pull of the pack, and sharp, arthritic pains alternated from foot to foot with each step. His body screamed at him. "Stop! Take off the pack! Rest!" But he set his jaw against the pain, groaned, and gradually increased the number of steps he took between stops. When the number of steps reached twenty the Thump Thump, Thump Thump was back in his ears.
"That's too many," he gasped, leaning over the ice ax. "Better stick with ten or the dreams will come back." He waited for his breathing to calm and the agony in his shoulders and feet to subside. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose onto the rock under his gaze. How many times had he and Gerry sprinkled the mountains with their sweat? An offering to these stony gods.
"Willi, are you there?"
The voice startled him. He pushed himself upright and looked wildly around, halfway expecting to see Gerry. Instead, there was the spruce grove just a few steps away. He had made it! He trembled with relief and smiled at the trees. Their branches stretched out from massive, scaly trunks in long drooping arcs, decorated with ragged garlands of grey-green reindeer moss.
He loved these trees. Their regal beauty had hardly changed in his lifetime. Only he had changed. Suddenly he not only felt old, but also vulnerable; a mere speck in this wilderness, his life less than a blip in the scale of time.
He envied the trees their centuries of strength and vigor. Tears welled up in his eyes, and a lump formed in his throat. He had been away too long. "I'm glad you waited for me," he whispered to them.
He remembered the first time he had brought Gerry to this mountain. His mountain. They had camped in the spruce grove next to the spring. The next day they had forged a new route straight up the great cliff above the spring. During the next two days, they had made the first-ever ascent of the east buttress. It had become their mountain.
He shrugged the pack up higher on his back, and stepped from the last boulder onto the relatively flat bed of centuries-old needles and bark scales that carpeted the grove. A red squirrel, startled by his intrusion, scampered up a nearby tree and chattered angrily. He chuckled at the sound.
The garrulous calls of Clark's Nutcrackers came from the far end of the grove where the tree-covered platform gave way abruptly to the edge of a cliff. The spruce trees crowded right up to the brink of the cliff, their ancient gnarled roots clinging to its treacherous broken lip in a desperate embrace. That high, lonely, alpine perch, breathtakingly poised on the brink of a void, was the Nutcrackers's playground. There they frolicked on the late afternoon thermals that floated up from the sun-heated slopes below. He had watched the Nutcrackers there many times as they fearlessly dove from the tops of the spruce trees into the abyss. Once launched, they would soar and swoop and loop over the void, mocking the pull of gravity in an irrepressible frenzy of aerobatic rapture. Their calls rang through the grove like joyous laughter and made him smile. He inhaled deeply through his nose and savored the slight cinnamon smell of the grove. A few more steps brought him to the edge of the spring. He threw down the ice ax, swung the pack off his back, and collapsed, totally spent, onto the spongy carpet of needles. He just lay where he had fallen next to his pack.
The spruce trees formed a protective arc around the spring, and cast a cold shadow over him. Before long his sweat-soaked clothing cooled, and he felt himself begin to chill. He roused himself to his knees, pulled his sleeping bag out of the pack, and sat down on it to take off his boots. He was so stiff he could hardly reach them. In his clumsy haste he knotted the laces. After a long struggle that almost defeated him, the knots yielded to his persistent fingers, and he kicked off his boots. The struggle left him gasping for breath.
Thirst gnawed at his throat, and he looked longingly at the spring. With trembling hands he pulled an aluminum kettle from his pack. His back and legs were so stiff he didn't think he could stand. He crawled to the edge of the spring pushing the kettle along in front of him. He resisted the urge to flop down on his belly and gulp down the cold water. That could give him an even greater chill, perhaps a cramp. After he filled the kettle he unhooked thetime.
canteen from his belt and filled it. By the time he crawled back to his sleeping bag, his teeth were chattering. He put the canteen in his pack, placed the kettle within easy reach, and crawled into his sleeping bag. He would drink later. Once settled, he zipped up the bag and snugged its draw string around his chin and forehead until only his face was left exposed to the thin, cold air.
The chill gradually left him and he relaxed a little. A great stillness settled around him. The squirrel ceased its scolding and the Nutcrackers stopped laughing. Soon the soft bubbling of the spring and the gentle gurgle of the little rock-strewn stream lured the tension from his body and carried it away to that secret subterranean space beneath the very boulders that had provided him with such exquisite torture. He had sacrificed greatly to the mountain, and now, in this simple way, it renewed his spirit. A warm glow spread through him and he relaxed even more.
His mind wandered back to three summers ago when he had suffered a mild stroke. Not long after that, Tatiana started to nag him about his inability, or unwillingness, to care "properly" for his rambling old house or himself. Last summer she started to insist that he move to an assisted-care facility for the elderly and disabled. He resisted and refused to consider the idea. By the early part of this summer their arguments had become acrimonious and bitter. Finally, just to bring some civility back into their relationship and to put a stop to her relentless nagging, he had consented to try it, at least for the coming winter. As soon as he made that concession he regretted it. He could feel what little freedom he had left slipping rapidly through his fingers, and in that dark, lonely, introspective moment he asked himself a question. If there was one thing in his life he could do again, what would it be? That's when he hatched the scheme to climb this mountain. The realization that he still had the freedom to make such a decision left him intoxicated and giddy.
Exalted and flushed with excitement, he had rushed to his basement and mined his climbing and backpacking gear, like precious gems, from an assortment of long-buried boxes and sacks. Tatiana would have been furious if she had discovered his plan. She would have called him rebellious and crazy, and she would have done everything in her power to stop him. Rebellious? Yes, he would admit to that. But crazy? No, he wasn't crazy. And so he had kept his plan a secret between himself and the mountain.
To strengthen himself for his adventure, he made himself walk a little further each day. When he was out on his training walks he could see the mountain. It towered in singular grandeur above the foothills west of town. At first, just seeing it caused his palms to break into a cold sweat and fear to knot his stomach. The stroke had weakened his left leg, and he knew how quickly the mountain would expose any defect he might bring to it. But as the weeks went by, his strength and stamina increased, and both legs felt sound. A feeling of confidence gradually replaced his apprehension, and eventually, whenever he looked at the mountain, it seemed to beckon him like an old friend.
The sleeping bag finally warmed his body, and his burning thirst brought his mind back to the present. He unzipped the bag and pulled his cup out of the pack. He dipped it into the kettle, filled it to the brim, and greedily gulped down the cold, tasteless water. He refilled the cup a second and third time before he put it down and slithered, shivering once again, back into the sleeping bag. When the shivering subsided, he was overcome with a feeling of warm contentment. His eyes closed, and a deep dreamless sleep overtook him. When he woke many hours later it was just getting light.
His shirt and pants felt dry, and his feet were even warm. He smiled to himself and luxuriated in the warmth of the sleeping bag. He closed his eyes again, and dreamed while he dozed. He imagined the mass of the mountain rising majestically above him, and in his mind he reviewed the route he would climb. After breakfast, he would leave the spruce grove and climb the easy route up the great cliff. Once he scaled the cliff, the route would be a less strenuous friction climb up a series of rock slabs that would carry him to the south ridge. Just this side of the ridge crest, there was a shallow cave where he would camp for the night. The next day it would be a relatively easy scramble up the south ridge to the summit.
He opened his eyes, and as he watched the sky lighten he reveled in what he had accomplished. His careful planning and preparations had gotten him to the spruce grove, and they would continue to serve him. Confidence welled up in him and propelled him out of his sleeping bag into the frigid, early morning air.
He struggled into his sweater, plucked his jacket out of the pack and slipped it on. When he found his hat he clapped it firmly onto his head. Shivering slightly he picked up the nearly empty kettle and forced himself to stand up. If he was going to climb, he had to be able to stand and walk. He moved with shaky steps to the spring, filled the kettle, and carried it back to his sleeping bag. He took the gas stove from his pack, fixed a level place for it, lit it, and while the water was heating he walked into the grove and relieved himself.
Back at his pack he changed his socks and struggled to put on his boots. They had sat out all night and were cold and stiff. His feet remembered their agony from the day before and cramped in protest. By the time his boots were on and securely laced, the water was boiling.
He turned off the stove and prepared freeze-dried eggs and a thermos of tea. The canteen and thermos of tea would be his only water until he got back to the spring. The eggs were soupy and tasteless. He closed his eyes and pretended they were thick egg drop soup. When the eggs were gone, he washed them down with several cups of sweet hot tea. Next time he would buy the scrambled eggs and ham with hash browns. Next time? He smiled at his unconscious optimism.
He stowed his cooking gear, thermos, and jacket in the pack, secured all its fasteners and drawstrings, and was ready to climb. His mood turned gloomy. He tried to recapture the feeling of pride and accomplishment that had driven him out of his sleeping bag, but it eluded him. He shuddered as he thought of what lay ahead. Yesterday had been hard, but it was nothing compared to what he faced today. He could turn around right now and climb back down the boulder
field. That would be the safe thing to do. But then, this winter in the assisted-care facility he would have to live with the fact that he had not even tried to go beyond this point. His cheeks burned at the thought. That settled it! He was going up. Not down. He leaned his ice ax against one of the spruce trees. He wouldn't need a walking stick or extra weight where he was going.
He hoisted the pack onto his back. "Holy mother of God," he groaned. "It still feels like a rock." He wriggled into the padded shoulder straps and buckled the waist belt. His legs quivered, and he swayed unsteadily from side to side as his body adjusted to the weight. He took a deep breath, and started forward, one slow step at a time, up the little rise at the back of the spring. When he reached the base of the great cliff, he turned left. The trees and the cliff formed a narrow corridor that led him up a gentle incline to the end of the platform. There his progress was blocked by a house-sized boulder covered with lichen. He leaned against it to catch his breath and to prepare himself for what it concealed. On the other side of the boulder, the east face of the mountain formed the Nutcracker's playground. Thoughts of climbing unprotected above that chasm knotted his stomach and left his mouth dry. It had been a long time since he had experienced the dizzying effect of so much vertical space.
A narrow gap between the boulder and the cliff served as the portal to the east face. To put off seeing the void for as long as possible, Willi backed through the narrow opening and out onto the broad ledge on the other side. When both feet were securely planted on the ledge, he turned around and looked out. The sudden appearance of the vast hazy space just beyond his toes froze him in his tracks and sucked the breath from his lungs as if he had been kicked in the stomach. He broke into a cold sweat, and vertigo threatened to pull him off balance and send him tumbling over the edge. He collapsed against the great cliff and clawed desperately at its cold surface trying to find something his fingers could cling to. There was nothing. His legs gave way, and the pack pulled him down and anchored him in an awkward heap at the lip of the broad ledge. He was as near to panic as he had ever been in his life. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths to quell the fear that paralyzed him. Several minutes passed before his panic dissipated. More moments elapsed before he could open his eyes. Cautiously he turned his head and looked out away from the mountain toward the far horizon. To his relief, this did not renew his panic. Slowly he shifted his gaze closer and closer to the profundity below him, and gradually his mind adapted to the void.
Finally, he was able to unhook the waist belt, slip his arms out of the pack straps, and stand up. After a few more deep breaths he was able to look straight down without having to hold onto the cliff. He looked carefully all around at the vertical world he had just entered: the abyss that sank away below the broad ledge and the great cliff that
towered above it. As he did so, his thoughts returned to the Nutcrackers soaring and diving as they frolicked over this chasm. The remainder of his fear melted away. A wry smile crept over his face, and he chuckled. The crisis was over. He had won. He was back in his element.
He hoisted the pack onto his back and continued. The broad ledge led him in a long traverse far out onto the east face, where it ended in a deep couloir that split the great cliff above the ledge from top to bottom. Sweat glistened on his cheeks, and he was breathing hard from the exhilaration of exposing himself to such tremendous vertical distances. When he reached the couloir he spotted the step-like blocks that would carry him out of it to the start of the easy route on the face of the cliff.
He rested in the cool depths of the couloir for a few moments before he scaled the blocks, and stepped out onto the exposed face. The abyss yawned beneath his heels. He took a deep breath, steeled himself against the feeling that the void was trying to swallow him, and looked up. There was an abundance of large substantial foot and handholds that stretched all the way from where he stood poised to climb and the top of the cliff, but there was no place for him to sit down and rest.
"This is the test, old man. Now is when you must have your strength."
As his breathing quieted, he noticed the fragile clumps of moss and the delicate little clusters of alpine blue bells and forget-me-nots that clung as precariously to the rock as he did. The sheer improbability of their existence in this harsh setting always inspired him. A sense of confidence flooded through him, and with grim determination he started his climb.
The sun, now well above the horizon, baked him as he advanced up the cliff in short spurts of climbing, punctuated by long pauses. During the pauses his muscles still had to fight the relentless pull of gravity, so fatigue crept into his body whether he was moving or not. As he climbed, a sense of panic crept stealthily into his mind. The panic grew there like a silent, insidious cancer that fed upon his confidence, devouring it little by little. Thump Thump, Thump Thump-- that sound never left his ears.
Suddenly, a cold shadow replaced the sunlight. Willi stopped and looked anxiously over his shoulder. Heavy black clouds obscured the sun and were engulfing the mountain. A cold wind raked the surface of the cliff, and soon it was pure agony to hold onto the rock with his bare hands. He had no gloves; he would simply have to endure. He looked up. He was almost to the top of the cliff.
"You can do it, Willi. Rest a minute. You can do it." He relaxed a little, and leaned in toward the cliff to take some of the strain off his arms.
Flash, crack, boom! The sudden flash of lightening and clap of thunder jarred him to the core. He jerked away from the cliff and almost lost his footing. He recovered his balance and frantically pawed at the cliff to reestablish his handholds. The rumbling echo of the thunder fled into the distance. He looked up just in time to catch the first wave of rain in his face. Gasping and sputtering, he lowered his head and shook it. A mighty gust of wind pulled at him, ripped the hat from his head, and sent it tumbling across the face of the cliff.
"Move! You have to move," he sputtered. He groped his way upward. Fortunately, the pitch of the cliff had decreased, but he still had to use his hands to steady himself against the fierce winds that threatened to tear him off the mountain. The intensity of the storm increased. He groaned as another gust of wind mauled him. Rain flooded the lenses of his glasses and blinded him. He took them off. They slipped from his cold stiff fingers and
disappeared down the face of the cliff. He was soaked to the skin. He shivered violently. His teeth rattled. He gasped desperately for breath. He could barely hang on. Thump Thump, Thump Thump. He had cracked the egg.
"Willi, are you there?"
The voice startled him, but in his mind all he could see was the great white surface of the egg slowly spliting beneath his feet. He tried desperately, with all his strength, to keep the crack from spreading, but he couldn't.
"Willi, are you there?"
The crack was getting bigger, and other cracks were forming all around him.
"Willi, are you there?"
He heard himself call back at the top of his lungs, "Yes! Yes! I'm here. Is that you, Gerry?"
"Look up, Willi!"
He looked up.
"Take my hand, Willi. The egg is breaking! Take my hand."
He couldn't see anyone, but in desperation he held out his hand. Nothing would focus in his mind except the surface of the egg which was rapidly breaking into smaller and smaller pieces that fell from under his feet like chalk dust.
A gentle, soft, sweet voice urged him, "Come on, Willi, let's go."
His mind cleared, and there she was. She was looking at him with that secret little smile that always made his heart sing. Some way or the other his hand had found hers. Their fingers were intertwined, just as they had been when she was carried out of his life years earlier.
"Gerry! It is you! How? How did you know?"
"I've been waiting for you to crack the egg, Willi."
Willi looked around. His body was in a hospital bed, not at the top of the great cliff. Tatiana and Dr. Morse were standing by the bed. Tatiana was crying.
"Did, did they rescue me off the mountain?"
"No, Willi. You never got to the mountain. You had another stroke."
"The climb up the boulder field. Your calling to me. They were so real."
"The stroke hit while you were loading your pack into your car."
"And just now?" Willi asked. "The lightning, the rain, the cold?"
"That's when the rest of the blood vessels in your brain gave out."
"That's all there is?" he asked.
"No, Willi. That's not all there is. Look!"
The sharp whistle of a marmot drew Willi's attention. A raven, blacker than a moon shadow, croaked overhead. Willi looked up in time to see it bank sharply away. His gaze followed the bird to discover an eternity of high peaks--huge, silent, and beautiful.
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