NOTE: What follows here is a hastily-written account of a recent climb in which my partner and I were caught by snow high on the route 'Diedre', in British Columbia. The route has a reputation as an easy classic; indeed, it is rated 5.7 and only 7 pitches in length. What happened to us was pretty much unpredictable, given the forecast as well as the sky that morning. We were caught, fair and square, by weather. The route didn't 'nearly get us', we nearly got ourselves. Such are the risks of climbing.
This was my first climb in the beginning of my 13th year of climbing: I hope it's not some sort of omen!
The choices we made may make some people uncomfortable: for example, climbing with only one rope (I have rarely climbed a multi-pitch route with only one rope..this time, we got caught and paid the price). Another decision I made, that of jumping when I saw no choice, has been analyzed in minuted detail by a number of e-mail acquaintances. In the end, there seems to have been one possibility that I could have tried, that I did not try. Well, what can I say...It was a desperate moment, and I came to a desperate decision. In my years of climbing, the 'jump' has to be the least-controlled thing I have ever done on a climb, be it ice, rock, wall, snow -- whatever.
Well, here it is. Consider, what would _ you _ have done?
Cameron
On Friday night, 14 March 1997, I drove from
Vancouver to Squamish with Alex Hunt. We camped in a
parking lot, below the looming granite walls of the
Squamish Chief. We woke to find thin, high clouds; no
pecipitation and just a bit cold. The forecast was for
'zero percent chance of precipitation' and partly cloudy
skies. With the cold I decided to take
my shell jacket, and I wore my capilene tights under a pair of heavier climbing pants which reached to the knee. Alex wore two pile sweaters and sweats. It was cold, but still it was possible to climb. We cooked, geared up and started a climb; Dierdre, 5.7, 7 pitches.
Despite the cold we were moving pretty quickly and
easily. The first three pitches went quickly once we'd found the route.
About the time that Alex was in the middle of leading the fourth pitch, it began to snow. Alex completed the lead and tied in. I noticed heavier snow and some high winds whippacross the face as I followed, taking a few minutes under an overhang to work a small cam which was very reluctant to come out.
By the time I reached Alex, at the belay, it was snowing pretty well and there was a growing wind. We were at the bottom of pitch 5, of seven pitches. We decided to continue on -- from here it would be a difficult descent with only one rope, and we'd left the spare rope in the truck, thinking that we would easily complete the route in a few hours. Our speed was fine, but we had made the mistake of trusting the weather forecast, and in just a few minutes we would start paying heavily for our trust.
I started up the fifth pitch, a 5.7 layback. My
hands were frozen and wet from the blowing snow, and to my horror I found that my shoes had no traction on the wet and increasingly snowy rock. It took a lot of effort to maintain myself on the lead, but I managed to put
in the smallest tri-cam and clip the rope. I was probably 20 feet above Alex at this time. I continued to layback upwards, but my feet were slipping most of the time and not even brute force was going to keep me on the rock.
Freezing rain mixed with the giant, wet snowflakes, and the grey rock face began to gather a coating of grimy slush. My right foot slipped, I gave Alex a warning yell, and I was off, taking a small fall onto the tri-cam.
I was not ready to quit, though. I decided to push on. I started aiding the shallow corner, using spare slings as etriers as the snow continued.
I made four moves before deciding it would take too
long and that without extensive back-cleaning I didn't
have the gear required to aid the whole pitch. I
considerd the situation: I was poorly equipped for what I was trying to do, the weather was getting worse, Alex was already freezing at the belay...
OK, I knew what to do now. From my position 30 feet above Alex, I turned and
suggested we rappel off. Alex suggested he have a shot at
the lead. I considered this, then I pointed out the rapidly deteriorating
weather. 'I have done my best', I thought: 'he is offering to do his best
as well'. My mind nagged at me: it was not good to carry on, we should get out of here right away.
Well, who can tell what makes us tick...Despite all my gut feelings, I was really unwilling to retreat. Somehow, I decided to try once more to push on. I turned from Alex and made another aid move, using a good stopper in the crack. At the top of the move I observed as snow continued to settle on my rack and on the rock. Now my mind really did click: GO DOWN.
I turned and looked down at Alex. He could see, in my eyes, I think, that I'd made a decision. Alex said, "Up to you."
I looked back at my last piece of gear, a perfect stopper. I then looked down at Alex and said "Let's rap."
Alex immediately agreed, and as
I looked down at him, surrounded by blowing snow and
with a layer of snow coating his helmet, pony-tail and
bare hands, I though "We have tried our best and we are
not properly equipped for these totally unexpected
conditions. To leave is the correct decision.".
I hated to bail, for a moment, but then considered that it was the right decision and
just turned my mind to getting off the climb safely.
We now had to rap 4.5 pitches with only one rope. This, I knew, would be...'interesting'.
I lowered from the good stopper, retrieved my gear on
the way down, 
and arrived at Alex's belay spot. We arranged the anchors, and the first rap went well, but ended a bit short of the bolt anchors
below. Alex put in some gear and hung while I came down.
I arrived to find Alex covered with a thick coating of
wet snow. The wind was really high now, the ropes whipping about and the cold stinging our faces. The sky was white and the air below us was thick with heavy, wet sno-flakes blowing horizontally across the rock face. It was definitley getting worse rather than better.
The next rap was OK, but ice water, squeezed from the ropes by my sticht plate, poured
directly to my crotch, soaking my lower body instantly. I joined Alex on the ledge below. As we assembled gear for the next pitch, we realized we were both quickly becoming human popsicles. Our rock shoes were useless and our hands were cramping up like grotesque, white claws. Still, I though, my core body
temperature was still OK. I knew it was a bad situation
but that if we went slowly and carefully, and kept moving, we would be OK:
only a few raps to go, but first we had to downclimb a
long traverse that could not be rapped.
As I prepared the belay for Alex, I remember thinking that one year ago at this time I was on pitch 11 of a wall in Nevada, baking hot and dehydrated. Another adventure...another place...Well, if we made it through this one, I'd have another good, bitter experience under my belt.
OK, Alex now began a 5.7 (or 5.6?) slab traverse; 30 right and 20 feet down, trying
to get to the next belay anchors. I belayed from bolts at
the base of the Diedre dihedral. In a superhuman effort, Alex managed to make it 25 feet, across the blank rock apron that was now white with a 5-millimeter thick slurry of rapidly-freezing slush and wet snow. I watched as an expression of supreme concentration cut several years of life into the lines of Alex's face. Suddenly, instantly, he slipped. One moment he was poised on the rock, on all fours, leaning slightly into the rock wall, and then he was headed straight down, in the same position.
I prepared for the shock. I watched as he slid down
and away and disappeared like a skier going down a steep dip in front of
you. I waited...By a flat-out MIRACLE, Alex stopped sliding; there was no shattering yank on my harness...Alex later told me that he had been directly above the bolts for the next anchor when he slipped, and as he passed them on his slipping journey towards doom, his harness caught on a bolt hanger!
I could not understand what was going on, how he'd managed to stop...anyway, Alex immediately set the belay and I prepared to come across.
I was now at least 10 feet left and 20 feet above Alex at
his belay. In just the few minutes Alex took to lead and set up the belay the rock had been blanketed by even more snow. I made a few tentative moves from the saftey of my little ledge...It was a joke, ludicrous...I could not hold on to anything. My feet just slipped away, leaving ugly skid-marks in the slush on the granite. There was no
protection between me and Alex, just 30 feet of slack
rope. I stood on the small ledge, thinking.
Maybe I could
put in gear and tension-travrse across...no, that would be too
complicated and besides, how could I ever manage to tension-traverse if all I could do
was paddle uselessly with my feet on the iced rock? I tried to climb, again, to
repeat Alex's moves...but my shoes just
slipped away uselessly. By this time I could not even see Alex's tracks from his own traverse. The snow was falling very heavily, the wind was up, and occasional blowing white cloud and thick snow blocked our view of the road just half a mile
away and 800 feet down. It was a grim position.
Well, we were desperate, and appartently only a desperate plan would
do. I told Alex I would try to slide down the rock towards him. I truly though I would be able to slid towards him, and grab him as I passed.
I carefully told Alex to change the belay from his
harness to belay directly from the bolts. As he did this, my mind clicked away and I decided I actually was going to try it.... I explained my very thin plan, and we agreed that I would try to slide to him and catch him as I slid down. It is amazing to me, now, that the idea even came to me, and that we agreed to it.
Still, Alex was 10 feet to my right and 20 feet
vertically below. The snow and wind were steady as ever, and my hands and feet were flat-out numb. Alex was anxious for me to go for it, a bit more than I was, I guess.
I resigned myself, then thought only of the task: I had to run a little if I was going
to make it across to aim for Alex. I backed up on the ledge and my feet were
soaked in a puddle of ice-slush. Alex was just a little colored helmet-dot beyond a hump of granite white with snow.
I tightened my helmet strap and checked my harness buckle and tie-in. We
counted "One, Two, THREE" and I made a skip-jump and slippered across
the slushy rock in the direction of Alex down the 80-degree
rock. Instantly, I was moving far too quickly. My aim was
good, however...I remember coming straight for Alex.
WHAM! I hit Alex with my feet but was moving too fast to stop...My eyes shut...Alex says he watched in horror as I now I flipped forward and
went head-first, sailing down and out and away from his anchors, the free rope flying out in a free-blown loop above me.
What I remember: a small bump (some rock hump, I think), a big crash (definitely, hitting Alex) and then the sickening and terrible feeling (to a climber) of being airborne.
Then it was as if a bomb had gone off inside my helmet and I was jerked to a wild, bouncing, swinging stop by the rope.
I was wild-eyed and stunned and winded as I dangled on the rope. I looked up and Alex was at least twenty feet above me, looking down at me with an expression of sheer disbelief. With all the rope out and the stretch, I had just taken a 40-50 foot fall with
no gear, directly onto the bolt anchors.
I was really shocked; my mind was running wild. I
was very glad to be alive, though, bewildered and
screaming expletives at the top of my lungs. I bellowed out one sailor's blue curse after another, realizing that it was doing me no
good to yell but feeling better for doing it.
I do remember feeling very, very happy that I had survived, and I was very mystified at how it was that it had worked. I mean, it was a crazy idea and carrying it out...that was pretty heavy.
I composed my self a bit and began to take stock, leaning against the rock and scrabbling leftward on a three-inch wide ledge in my useless shoes...I had to use tension to pendulum a bit left to a small ledge.
Here I rested for a minute and found my left hand was numb. My left leg was in real pain, particularly at the hip. 'Oh shit,' I thought, 'this is like an episode of GI Joe or something'.
I grabbed the rope and pulled in an attempt to 'bat-man' up, but of course the rock was too icy and my feet just slipped away. To my left was a decent 5.7 hand crack, and I jammed up this easily to get to Alex's belay. My hands were just clumps of
frozen meat, and I jammed them in the crack without
feeling. All I wanted was to be clipped to a solid anchor.
At the belay I clipped in and rested for a moment. We were pretty
shocked...however, the snow was relentless, and we still
had 2 raps to go.
I was shivering now, not sure if it was
from shock or the cold or both. Alex was frozen and felt he had to rappel immediately; he
was wearing rock shoes far tighter than my own 10-year old Fire Classics, and he was afraid for his feet. In arranging the rappel, Alex spent ten minutes trying to untie me from the rope; the fall had tightened the knot into an iron-hard
lump like a knot of steel cable. As for myself, I just stood there
regaining my mind and trying to warm my useless left
hand by sticking it in my right armpit. My free right hand, I suppose, was in a death-grip on the anchor slings.
Finally Alex was able to undo the knot. before he went off, I knotted
the ends of the ropes, pointing the measure out to Alex (did I mention that this was his first multi-pitch climb?).
Alex took off with a grim smile: "OK, man, see you down there."
The ropes were 10 feet too short of the ledge below. I heard
Alex yell this up to me as I stood there facing the rock. My head was tipped forward and I was now sucking on my fingers to
regain them from the cold. I told Alex to put in some
gear and hang while I added 10 feet of sling to the
rappel setup. My left hand was now aching intensely, a good
sign that it was coming back, and I set to work with the good/agonizing feeling of the 'hot aches', like hammer-blows to your fingertips.
I dug into the pack used my six-foot 8mm cordelette and
five blue-water slings to extend the rappel. I distinctly remember thinking about how the wet snow made the slings feel heavy. The wind continued and it was bitter cold. Whatever...
I shouted that the rap was extended, and Alex then made
the last 10 feet to the ledge with a good tree, the same tree we'd started the climb on just a couple hours ago. Alex tied in.
I then went down with my semi-numbed and cramped, useless left hand.
I used a prussik saftey on the rappel, as usual. I was
using Alex's Black Diamond ATC belay/rappel device
because my old sticht-plate locked the ropes too often. No use, the
ATC, I found, locked too much as well, and I kept falling face-into the rock with my feet
slipping from under me. It was a brutal and
disorienting rappel, but finally I reached the tree where Alex was huddled.
At the tree, we took a moment to consider the situation...We just had to rap another 10 feet to another tree, then make the last rap down the 5.4 slab (the
first pitch). Looked OK. We were nearly done.
Alex went first. I waited, thinking through my various injuries and ailments. My feet were numb to the ankles. My left arm and leg were aching. My left hand was stinging and numbed, but coming back. Blood oozed from a gouge in my
right thumb and dripped from my nose, which was not at all sore and apparently free from other injury. All in all, I was a bit worse for wear, but OK and functional.
This was it! The last rappel. We arranged this with the rope over the
fine, solid tree. I was happy to consider that we were just about out of
the blender, we just had to make this last rap safely and then get to the car.
Alex went down and touched down safely on the wide ledge below.
I followed, warning Alex that if I lost control, somehow, he should pull the ropes apart to slow me.
I basically quit trying to keep my feet on the rock and
just rapelled down with my back to the wall and my whole
backside soaking up the wet snow off the rock. BUMP, slip, skid...whatever...
Finally I landed on the easy ledge. Alex and I let out howls of relief WOOOHHOOO! WE DID IT! WE're STILL ALIVE! I was really, really happy to be in good shape and off the route. I'm sure Alex was as well.
Alex now grabbed the pack from my back and started digging frantically for his boots, his feet having lost all sensation a long time ago.
A few minutes later, as we sat under a pine tree, trying to shelter from the incessant snow, and had a bit to eat and hysterically laughed away our horrors, recalling the strange maneuvers above, I made yet another inspection: all joints were flexible but my whole body was sore. My feet were just like blocks of ice encased in soaked socks. I took off my rock shoes and put on my sneakers, which were useless:
the left toe was exposed by a big hole in the fabric and the heel-pads
were both ripped away, long ago, in other adventures out in the wild...
Again, I though, all in all, I'm OK. The main thing is my head was not injuted, I did not break a finger or a limb, and all the links in the belay system worked. It was crazy, but it worked.
It wasn't quite over, though, and for an hour or so we belayed through dangerous snowy steep rock and forest down to the road. Finally, on flat ground, I felt absolutely safe. We finally reached my car and drove into town to get food and coffee. The short drive was incredible: Squamish looked like some place in North Dakota: just a heavy fog, giant wet flakes blowing horizontally and snowplows out in force. In just two hours the scene had
changed from an overcast chilly morning with not a snowflake on the ground, to a full-on March blizzard. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with the accumulating snow, and we marveled at the white, blank face of rock as we looked up to try to see our route.
In town, I ate the biggest meal I've ever seen and mopped at my wounds with napkins.
Alex and I continued to babble about the insane situation as we devoured
our food. After a while we drove back to Vancouover, where we ate more food and continued to recount every detail of our wild, Canadian adventure.
***
For a week afterwards I could barely climb a set of stairs (not a good situation considering the architecture of my univeristy!). Every muscle of my body felt sore and stressed. Eight of ten toes were numb for close to a month, but I've had that before, and I was not worried too much about it...and there was no discoloration. I'm still amazed, though, that I was not injured in the jump.
Obviously, our mistake was to not take the spare rope. As I mentioned, this was just one of those times where you get over-confident and make an error of judgement. Well, I've certainly learned from it. A variety of solutions to my problem (how to get across the iced slab traverse) have been suggested, including taking off my shoes to climb in socks as in the old days. I truly do not think this would have worked --- but it may have. Anyway, I didn't think of it at the time. Probably the best thing I could have done would have been to set an anchor at my position clip my rope through it, then clip my harness to the rope leading to Alex: then I could tension/slide down and, if Alex kept the line taut, I must reach him. I think this would have worked, and would have been better than jumping (!). But, I did not think of it at the time. I'v been climbing too long to try to impress people or get defensive about this, it was a procedure that could have saved me a wild situation, and I did not think of it at the time. One thing for sure; I will next time!
One thing Alex and I really count ourselves lucky on: the fact that we turned around when we did, on the fifth pitch. Had we delayed, and had more slush been on the rock when Alex tried the traverse, he may not have made it to the anchors, and he'd have been hanging from my belay station...It was lucky that he was able to make it across that key traverse (anyone remember the Hinterstossier Traverse story on the Eiger?).
If you are wondering just how much snow actually came down, consider the following photos: on the left, the a tree low on the route, less than an hour before the snow started. On the right, Alex abseils from the same tree about two hours later (click to enlarge). You can alsol look at THIS photo, shot in B&W with my camera (which was in the car) when we got to the parking lot. Here you see the rock face completely covered with snow/slush.
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