ICEFALL

July 17, 1992. An average day out, so far...Chiu and I had simul-climbed three hundred metres of beautiful, firm 40-90 degree icefall neve. Meltwater on the white ice blocks all around us gleamed and blinded. The sky was an even, opal blue with no cloud in sight: the whole scene was straight Dali...

Nearly at the top of the Eliot Glacier's Third Icefall, beneath the bulk of the northern flanks of Mt.Hood, we had found a 10 metre prow of hard blue overhanging ice that we wanted to climb. I was above this ice wall, with a bombproof three picket and one-screw anchor system, preparing to belay Chiu up to my perch.

As I struggled to free my sticht plate from my central harness beiner I was shocked to hear a loud report above; it sounded like the beginning of a far-off artillery barrage on the evening news. My eyes darted up. An enormous mass of ice, about the size of a suburban cul-de-sac, had broken free and was heading our way. My jaw dropped.

I screamed "Look out ! Icefall !" to Chiu, and at the same time wondered whether he would hear me or not. I heard him yell something as I leapt for cover under an overhanging hunk of ice to my right. Tried to, anyway, but the anchors I had just placed did a fine job; my tie-in sprang tight and I jerked to a halt in mid-scream. I suddenly realised my position. I was lashed to a bomber anchor system and couldn't find my tie-in amongst the tangle of slings and carabieners - and a thousand tons of ice was headed my way at great speed.

Twenty meters below, Chiu had heard my warning. He, however, could not see the icefall; he could only hear it approaching, feel the rumbling ice and wonder how long he had to live. Later he told me that he expected nothing but death as he planted his axes and tried to get as close to the wall as possible. In his version of English, this came across as "I just wait for die.".

Up above I watched with horror as the ice avalanche rocketed down at us. I was staring into death as I blindly fumbled with my harness, trying to get free. I had never been so scared. The ice approached, rumbling like a mile-long freight train; a hundred metres, fifty metres, this is it, where's the damned biener, where's the damned tie-in, do I have enough time to chop the rope with my axe, yes but the ice is too soft, I need a hard surface to chop on, how about - what the hell can I do - oh shit here it -

At forty metres the icefall exploded and the whole damned world shuddered. The fall had been deflected by a giant crevasse I couldn't see, and it now shot off a hundred feet to our left like a horizontal Niagra Falls, then, deflected by an ice tower, crashed down the icefall where ten minutes before we had been simul-climbing up on front-points, grinning and enjoying one of the best days of climbing we'd ever had.

As the danger passed I found that I felt weak and nauseous and I was trembling - my hands were weak and uncoordinated. A very brief shouting conversating with Chiu ended in a unanimous decision to get the hell out of there in a hurry. In record time I ripped out the belay and we started across, hopping and front-point traversing, leaping and jogging, winding a way through the maze of crevasses. No more than a few seconds would pass without our looking up at the threatening ice with terrorized eyes.

We cut to the right across the icefall, the shortest way out from under the uncountable tons of ice perched above us, creaking and groaning and cracking and snapping in the blazing sun. Suddenly we were intimately aware of all the noises of unstable ice; everything was so clear. How could we have ignored the danger ? As we had climbed up the ice pinnacles looked interesting and surreal in their topsy-turvy chaos. Now, after what I had just seen and what Chiu had just heard and felt through tremor, they looked menacing, lethal. Our eyes had been opened wide.

With utter relief we reached a mammoth overhanging ice wall which rained big sparkling melt-water drops flashing in the sun. We collapsed beneath it, sickened and shaking and laughing very, very nervously. We had escaped - once again.