Cloudveil

Eighty feet above me, fingers and toes adhering to thin edges on the vertical rock face, Dick approached the summit of the 9,415 ft. tall Mt. Stuart.    The reputation of the north ridge as a stellar climbing objective was clear as we ascended the sharp ridge pinched between two massive glaciers.  The foot of the buttress stretched in a vain attempt to dip a toe into Lake Stuart, 3,000 ft below. 

My neck ached as I squinted in the sun, watching Dick’s progress.   I fed the rope out in small increments, matching his progress. 

“We got this” I said to myself, relieved we were approaching the summit.   “We got this.”

Ten feet from where the steepness of the rock eased, it happened.  Dick reached up and right for a handhold.  As he moved his right foot up, his left foot popped off.  He rotated like a barn door in the breeze. 

From below it was silent and quick – like someone gave him a shove.  He fell with his back to the ground, slowly rotated towards his right and then out of sight behind a corner.  I braced to hold the fall.  A muffled impact, Dick bellowed, and a clang of carabiners rang out as the rope wrenched, pulling me upward against my anchor. 

“Dick – are you good?”, I yelled. 

“Yea”, he shouted, and was silent for a beat “…but my shoulder is out.”  

Fuck! I thought – but said, “Check your head – your hands!”

He yelled back, “I hit the ledge on my pack – all good except the shoulder – I can’t climb over to you.” 

                                                            *****

Yesterday my watch alarm woke us out of our slumber.  Four a.m. comes early no matter where you are, but crawling out of a sleeping bag into the crisp alpine cold is always an act of faith.  I packed away my sleeping bag.  Dick sorted through the climbing gear, the clink of metal a familiar and reassuring sound, like unlocking your front door.  We knew the plan, so drank our tea in silence.  We stashed our camping gear under a boulder for pickup on the return trip, hoisted our packs stuffed with the rope and gear, and set off.

Our camp was on the north side of Ingalls Lake in the central Cascade Mountains of Washington State, 4.5 miles and 2,500 ft. of elevation gain from the trailhead.  The goal was to ascend the steep north ridge of Mt. Stuart, the second highest non-volcanic peak in Washington and tenth highest peak overall.   The dominate feature in the range, Mt. Stuart overshadows its neighboring peaks.   It sits in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, a vast array of peaks, lakes, and tarns on the east side of the Cascades.

We hiked around the lake through golden alpine meadows towards Stuart Pass, on the west flank of the peak.  Crossing talus fields on a rising traverse, the rocks underfoot clunked together with a hollow, dull echo.  Near the pass, an uninterested mountain goat the color of winter drifted by, pausing to munch on alpine sedges. 

At the glacier’s edge we paused.   “Glacier time!” exclaimed Dick as he slipped his crampons (a grid of metal 2-inch-long spikes) onto his boots.

Pulling off my gloves, I adjusted my crampons, slipped the ice axe off my pack, and pulled on my climbing harness.   

Dick tossed one end of the rope for me to tie into “We’ll make quick work of this.”

He led out on the sparkling glacier as I waited for the rope slack to tighten.  The snow, still hard from the overnight freeze, crunched underfoot.   The bite of our crampons on the frozen surface left a trail resembling a small, tracked vehicle.  We crossed the Stuart Glacier to its intersection with the north ridge in 30 minutes.  Stowing the axes, crampons, and ropes and in our packs, we climbed up a steep, 200 ft. long rock gully to gain the ridge. 

Despite the dizzying exposure, hand and footholds were plentiful, if not always firmly attached.   Looking down to watch Dick follow, both of us without the security of a rope, a climber’s saying came to mind –

“If you fell, you likely would not survive but if you did, you’d wish you hadn’t.” 

We pulled up on a ledge at the top of the gully.  The technical climbing, requiring ropes and gear, started here.  I uncoiled the rope as Dick organized the rock gear.   We packed away our bulky mountain boots and pulled on our light, rubber-bottomed rock shoes, as delicate and nimble as ballet slippers.  

“This is the fun part.” I said.

“Yo, another party” Dick nodded to a team of three dark specs attached to a thread on the stark white glacier. 

It was a weekend, and this was a popular route, included in the book Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.    Shining a spotlight on these routes led to its nickname, Fifty Most Crowded Climbs of North America.

“Dang” I said, “we’re not going to be alone”, hoping for solitude.  Later in the day I would change my mind.

As we gained the ridge the views were increasingly expansive.  Stretched before us lie the Cascade Range, guarded by steep valleys and innumerable rocky crags, edged with old growth forests where goshawks nested and elk sheltered, interspersed by cobble-strewn salmon rivers.  

Several snow-draped volcanoes – Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker to the north and Mt. Rainer, Mt. Saint Helens, and Mt. Adams to the south – glistened with the dawn, mirroring the crystals in the rock.    With the rough granite under my hand, the swirl of the alpine breeze against my face, and the sweeping view, we were out here for a moment together, away from the day-to-day.  It was a little adventure.  It’s what Dick and I did together.

Dick led out on the first pitch (a route section between good rest spots), smiling in the warming sun as he pulled on a series of cracks and ledges.  

He placed a nut (a metal wedge threaded on the end of wire loop) or a spring-loaded cam, into cracks as he progressed.   Tugging to insure it was snug, he then clipped a tether to the piece with a carabiner (a metal, hinged clip), then clipped the tether to the rope with another carabiner.  If he fell, the wedged protection piece would stop his fall as I locked the rope tied to his harness.   He placed protection as suitable cracks became available and according to his discretion.  Similarly anchored to the rock, I fed the rope out through my belay device (belay – to secure) as Dick made solid upward progress. 

Leading, on the “sharp end of the rope”, is more psychologically and physically taxing than “following”, coming up second.  Climbing as the second felt more secure with the rope always tight above you.   If you slipped the rope would immediately catch you.   In contrast, if a leader fell 10 ft above their last protection piece, they would fall 10 ft. to the protection and then another 10 ft before the rope slack tightened – a 20 ft freefall before stopping.  You can’t dwell on this and climb efficiently.  If you’re thinking too much about falling, you’re not thinking about climbing.  You lose confidence.   It’s a strong feedback loop.

Dick was lean and spider-like.  He looked good today.    A year ago, neither of us thought he would be climbing so soon, if ever again.

                                                                        ******

That late spring evening I arrived home to find a message on the phone machine.  It was Dick.

“Hey, something weird is going on with my eyes, can you check in when you get back?”  he said.

He didn’t answer when I called.  Eventually I got hold of his girlfriend, Elizabeth.  She was home with him after an emergency room visit.  I drove over to his house to see them.

Elizabeth was with him in the living room where he sat in a corner of the couch, curled up, eyes closed.  Sporadically he grimaced and rocked back and forth.   

“This headache” he moaned “and these weird visions.” 

“He had a bad headache with weird ghost visions” she said.  “The hospital did a CAT scan of his head and said nothing showed up and that it was likely a migraine.”  

He had never had one before. 

“But back here it just didn’t quit” she said.

Sitting near him we offered encouragement and rubbed his shoulders to no avail.   Elizabeth looked at me with wide eyes.  She subtlety shrugged her shoulders and turned her palms upward silently asking the same question I was thinking.  What should we do? 

We talked in the kitchen briefly – “I’ll stay with him for the evening and if things don’t improve, I’ll take him back in.”  she said.

I left for home.  Late that night Elizabeth called.

“It got worse and after a few hours I thought screw this, and drove him back to the emergency room.  This time he had an MRI and was admitted.” 

First thing in the morning I went to see him at the hospital. Elizabeth was already there.  He was sitting up in bed, relaxed, eating breakfast, looking quite wide-eyed and chipper. 

“This breakfast is pretty good” he said with a smile, hoeing through his pancakes. 

Elizabeth was relieved.   “The doctor hasn’t been by yet, but we assume he just had a nasty migraine and either it stopped on its own or they found some drugs that helped.”

“It was crazy”, Dick explained “I was was out for a bike ride, and riding through Fremont my perspective suddenly got tweaked.  It was if someone held a windowpane in front of me and quickly turned it sideways, distorting everything”. 

“Somehow, I managed to get home. I had to walk the bike.  I don’t know how many fucking times I had to stop to stare at the street signs to figure out where I was. It was a dreamscape”. 

As we talked the doctor stepped in and introduced himself. 

He asked, “Can you two step outside while Dick and I talk for a minute?”

Elizabeth and I waited nervously in the hallway.  Nurses rustled by, muffled beeps sounded down the corridor.  It smelled of antiseptic.  I started when the doctor opened the door.   

He was direct. “Dick has a brain tumor.”

“It’s a Grade 2 Oligodendroglioma to be precise”, he continued.  “These are dendritic, slow growing tumors whose primary symptom is brain seizures.   This is why Dick had headaches and visions.  He’s on medication to control the seizures.”

My ears rang. I felt a surge of adrenaline. 

The doctor excused himself.    “I’ll check in before discharge and we can go over things a few things.”

Elizabeth and I looked at one another.

“What the hell?” I paused and exhaled.   Elizabeth nodded to me as we went in to see Dick.  He sat up in bed, biting his lower lip. 

He said “Well, isn’t that something?”

                                                            ******

Dick called down to me from 120 ft. above – “Off belay,” meaning he was anchored and secure.

Tightening my rock shoes, I noticed a head pop over the ledge from below.

“Hey”, I said – “you guys made pretty good time up that gully.”

The party of three climbers greeted me as they assembled on the ledge but were not overly friendly.

From his stance above Dick pulled the rope tight and called “come on up.” 

I quickly climbed to him, not wanting the other party at our heels.  At the belay ledge Dick handed me the gear sling with a “Here you go,” as I took the lead.

Preoccupied about the party below, I made a poor route decision.  Climbing to a dead-end, I had to backtrack, wasting time and allowing the leader of the party behind to pass.

“Damn” I muttered to myself.

It didn’t seem like an issue now, but soon was.  Two hundred feet higher the climbing became more difficult, and their progress bogged down.  The ridge narrowed and passing the group would be difficult.  

“Hey, do you mind waiting so we can pass since we’re just two?” I asked. 

“No, we’ll be quick” one of them replied.

“Crap” Dick whispered to me “We’re stuck behind a friggin’ slow garbage truck.”

Precious time leaked away.  We planned to tag the summit, downclimb the south ridge, retrieve our camp gear, and then hike out to the car.   We didn’t want to complete the latter half with headlamps in the dark.

The party of three made stilted progress and we were out of patience.  “We gotta get moving” I said to Dick.

“Yea, I didn’t bring any clothes for a bivy on top.”  Bivy – short for bivouac, sleeping on a peak sans tent, or in this case, sleeping bag or extra clothes. 

“Let’s not make this a suffer-fest…” I said, “…simul-climb past?”   

We shortened the rope to 30 ft between us, each carrying the extra rope in a coil across our shoulders, allowing us to climb simultaneously.  I led out and sparingly placed protection in the cracks and clipped the rope to it.   As Dick reached each piece, he removed it.   This allowed for some semblance of safety in case one of us fell.    We quickly moved past the party on what we considered a stretch of steep, but easy climbing.

Once past, Dick blurted “Fucking Mountaineers.  Why is it always a cluster with those guys?”. 

They were a group that belonged to a Seattle-based club, The Mountaineers.  Once a storied and skilled group, they were now more known for travelling slowly in the alpine, loaded with too much gear, and in large, lucky numbers of say, 13. 

We stowed the rope as the steepness of the climbing eased approaching the summit.  Dick was scrambling behind me when I hear a scraping sound – something hard and manmade, not a rock – followed by Dick’s exclamation – “Shit!” 

We turned to watch his helmet, which he had clipped on his pack since it was warm and the hard climbing was done, bounce in ever larger arcs until it leaped out of site on its way to the glacier. 

“Well, I’m not going back for that”, he snorted. 

We continued upward and suddenly were staring up from the base of a steep, 80-foot-high headwall. 

“What? – I thought it was a mild scramble to the top from here”, said Dick. 

“So did I”, I agreed.

In our casual scrambling we had veered too far right.  And yes, making a bee line for the correct, easier line were the 3 climbers we passed, about 200 ft to our left. 

“Well, this looks doable and I’d rather not sit behind that cluster again.  My lead” he said, uncoiling the rope. 

I set up the belay for this final headwall and said “I got you, climb away” as Dick started upward.  

“Where we stopping for a burger and beer” I yelled.

“Ha, soon enough” he replied from 50 feet above me.

The American Alpine Club publishes an annual report on Accidents in North American Mountaineering, that serves as a roadmap as to what went wrong and where for specific alpine accidents.  Their description of events and an analysis serves as a level of guidance on how to reduce risk in the mountains.  If you page through the incident reports , it’s typical that a single event was not the cause of an accident, but rather a series of seemingly small decisions that account for the ultimate mishap.  A piece of equipment is forgotten or lost, time peels away in slow route finding, weather is ignored, the party is tired after a long route and makes fateful decisions, the team becomes complacent. 

                                                                        *******

After his fall Dick dangled on the end of the rope, his right arm limb at his side.

I yelled, “Hang on, I’m coming over in a minute.”

The taught rope ran from my belay device on my harness up to his last piece of protection, and back down to him.  I could not let go of the rope.  

Knotting the rope so it would jam in the belay device, I freed both my hands.  Using a loop of nylon webbing I fixed an adjustable knot to the rope above the belay device, tightening the rope to the anchor.   The rope now securing Dick, I was able to untether myself.  I gingerly climbed around the corner to him with the other end of the rope.  

“How we doing over here?” I said as I tied a figure eight knot, clipping it to his harness.

“Man, if I would have hit my head instead of my shoulder, it would have been watermelon seeds all over the place” reflecting on his lost helmet. 

I checked him.  “No head wound, thank God” I thought.

“Ok, here’s the deal.   I’m climbing back to the anchor and then will yard you over” I said.  

“OK” he said, nodding through gritted teeth.  

Back at the anchor I incrementally lowered Dick while pulling on the horizonal tether, retrieving him around the corner.  He grappled at holds as best he could with one healthy paw. 

“You’re good now” I said, clipping him into the anchor. 

He sat while I thoroughly checked his injuries.   His distorted shoulder bulged below its normal position.  It was dislocated and his arm useless.   Pulling back his shirt revealed an apple-sized abrasion, already purple and swollen.  

 “Don’t worry, we’re going to be good – it’s just going to take a bit.”

He nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing, his brow furrowed, eyes squinted.

The climbing party we had earlier cursed had seen everything and one of the them was already at the summit. 

“We’ll send down a rope in a few minutes after we all get on top – sit tight.” 

There was nothing else to do.  We now depended on the courtesy that we would extend to any climbers in trouble – and from those we mocked earlier under our breaths. 

 “Here, drink some” I encouraged, tilting the water bottle to his mouth.  He swallowed a few gulps.  “Their gonna get us on top”.   

I didn’t know what we were going to do from there.

We had several years of climbing and backcountry skiing together, coming to the aid of others a few times in the mountains.  Now, on the other end, needing assistance, we were humbled.  We were not professional climbers – we were just working stiffs – competent, but just seeking the joy of steep rock and mountain air when we had the time.

The summit party tossed down a rope and I tied Dick in, supplementing his climbing harness with a shoulder brace I formed from webbing to keep him secure.  The team of three hoisted him up the last 80 ft. to the summit.  Dick used his good arm and his feet to assist as he could.  

He scraped along the rock, groaning over each ledge.  He bumped up the steep face, his right arm limp, resembling a sack of flower with one working appendage. 

With Dick on top the party tossed me the rope end.   I tied in for a belay and climbed.  I took stock of where he fell.  It was the hardest climbing of the day but within our usual range of difficulty.  I pause a moment to determine the correct sequence of hand and footholds.   Maybe he just rushed through it, so close to the top.

Once we were all on the summit we gathered around Dick.  

“His shoulder is dislocated” I said.

One of the team members said, “Can we pop it back in?”

“Anybody here with medical training?” I asked.    Everyone shook their head no.

“We can try” one of the three said.

“I don’t know, I guess” I replied, skeptical.   But help was a long way away.

Two of us braced Dick in a body hug while one pulled on his arm.  His muscles were in full spasm and our medical training was limited.  Dick groaned with each clumsy attempt.   It was set like concrete, and we couldn’t make it right. 

 “Thanks guys, but let’s leave it” I sighed.  It was getting late.  “We’re going to have to get settled down for the night.”   

This team planned on spending the night on top and carried extra clothes.   They offered a warm hat and an extra jacket for Dick.

“I appreciate it” I said.   I’m sure they thought we were assholes for passing them but were generous anyway.   We would do the same for them.

I helped Dick over to a tilted cubby of rock the size of a large bathtub.

“Let’s get you settled” I said, pulling his limp arm through his jacket as he winced.  

I layered the donated fleece over his good arm, left the injured one hang inside, and zipped him up.  He squirmed to a half reclining position against the white granite.   I rooted through our packs for the remaining snacks. 

I broke off a piece of energy back and handed it to Dick.   He ate a few bites and shook his head no when I offered more.  We settled in for the long night.

The evening’s cold and a hoard of woodrats persistently rummaging our packs prevented much sleep.  Bushy-tailed woodrats, ash gray, about the size of a fist with long luxurious tails were extremely adorable and the bane of alpinists.  Obnoxiously persistent as a Chinese water torture they were relentless in their pursuit of any morsel left in the bottom of a pack.   The mention of their nickname, snafflehound, would cause the most even-tempered climber to set their jaw with the memory of sleepless nights.  

Dick lay on the coiled rope grunting through the pain.  I curled against the rock, shivering.  Batting a woodrat off my head, I tried to huddle into a ball and sleep. 

Granite teeth pierced the dark around us highlighted by the stark light of the full moon.  Spending the night up here wasn’t the plan but at least the weather was good.  

Cold and stiff, I welcomed the warmth of the rising sun.   Ripping apart a bagel I handed some to Dick. 

“Did you sleep at all?”  I asked.

“Not much” he replied.  “It feels like my torso is being rung like a wash rag”, his muscles trying to compensate for the displaced shoulder.

Dick winced while trying to get less uncomfortable on our slanted, summit perch.  It was a long way back to our camp, farther still to the trailhead.  Dick’s muscles were in constant spasm.   A long walk would be arduous; downclimbing the exposed south ridge was out of the question. 

It was 1992; there were no cell phones, no GPS, and no rescue beacons. Climbers are a self-reliant lot and generally assume it is their responsibility to extract themselves from whatever trouble arises.  That was not going to happen. 

“Ok”, I said, “I gotta talk to these guys.”  Dick nodded.

I scrambled across the ridge to the three climbers eating breakfast.  With an exhale I spoke with deep embarrassment:

“We need a rescue.” 

They knew what I meant.  A helicopter rescue.   There was no other way to get Dick out of here safely and quickly.

“We’ll get to the first phone and call the Forest Service ranger station” one of them said.

“Thanks” I said handing them back the borrowed hat and jacket Dick used.  

They gave us some extra water.   “We’ll hustle” one of them assured me.

I enviously watched them down-climb toward the false summit.  I raised my gaze over the landscape, tracing the route out.  It was going take them most of the day to descend the peak, climb up to Longs Pass, hike down to the car, and drive to the nearest town.  After that, we had no idea how long it would take to coordinate a helicopter rescue.

In the late afternoon the air cooled and the thought of another night up here, with Dick in pain, was not inviting.  I did not bring up that possibility.

The tension built as the late afternoon stretched on and our conversation dragged.  “Come on, come on”, I thought – “get here already.”

Dick traced the arc of swifts rising in the afternoon thermals, diving past us into the void above the north ridge headwall.  We would have been amused yesterday.  Today it served as a minor distraction. 

As we lay in the afternoon sun I unwrapped another Jolly Rancher, leaned over and plopped it in into Dick’s mouth.  He slid his tongue under his upper lip, sighed, and smiled. 

“That’s the last of the grape ones,” I said.  “We’re stuck with watermelon now.” 

“Grim”, he replied with a smirk. 

We scanned the eastern horizon – past Argonaut and Dragontail Peaks, anticipating the distant thump-thump of a helicopter.  I slowly turned my head from one side to the other, listening.  Nothing. 

Dick said “We bit off a big one this time, eh? “

“Well, we certainly didn’t plan on this, did we?”  He tried to smile.

Addicted to climbing we understood it was not without risk, but we didn’t dwell on it.   With solid planning and acquired knowledge, we could control most of the risk.  If pressed, we’d admit that was bullshit, knowing our thumb was always on the reward side of the scale.

Examples of what could go wrong were not in short supply.  Doug died in a late spring avalanche on the pedestrian route up Granite Peak.  Pete tripped on easy ground on the Bailey Traverse in the Olympics and was killed falling from the ridge. Mike took a leader fall on Snow Creek Wall, ripping his hamstring muscle from his pelvis.  Marcie died when a cornice she skied over collapsed.  Dick’s friend Mike retreated off the north ridge of Mt. Stuart, lucky to come away from a fall with a mere broken ankle.   It happened to other people.  Some we knew better than others.   It appeared as random as getting a brain tumor.

Gauging the setting sun our lofty position I estimated we had an hour or so of light remaining. 

“Oh Christ” I thought “We’re spending another night up here.”

Dick stifled moans and lightly rocked.   I gave him a couple more Ibuprofen.  That’s all we had for pain relief.  While checking our meager snack inventory, I heard it.  Dick heard it too.  We both turned. 

It took a minute of scanning but there, from the east, two specks made their way towards us.  The lovely sound of  helicopters.  A wave of relief washed over me – help was here. 

Bolting up I said, “Come on, let’s pack up…” and froze. 

Dick was still sitting, knees bent towards his chest, leaning with his good shoulder against the rock, folded up like an injured origami.  His head was down and he was silently sobbing. 

All the pain, the tension of waiting all day, the anticipation of spending another night here, and the uncertainty was released in a rush. This was not just another outing – the underlying risk of climbing, unspoken, dropped on us like a massive sandbag.  

Swallowing hard I crept forward, gently patting his back.  “It’s ok, Dick, it’s ok.”

I squatted and put my arms around him – “we’re getting outta here, we’re good, we’re good.”   

Well, I was half right.

The pair of helicopters slowly rose, arcing towards us.  A smaller, bubble cockpit helicopter led a larger, Vietnam era Huey copter.  The smaller Chelan County Sheriff’s helicopter hovered close and asked through the bullhorn –

“Is he conscious?   Does he have a head injury? Can he ride a T-bar?”

Yes – No – Yes, I signaled.   

The smaller helicopter approached, tossed a smoke bomb that landed on the rocks 75 ft. away as a wind indicator for the Huey, and then peeled away.

We could not see the Huey as it had dropped off the back side of the North Ridge. Suddenly it was there, 50 ft overhead.  The storm of noise, propwash, and swirling grit swallowed us.  We kept our heads down.  I had a camera but was utterly embarrassed at our situation that someone had to come out and get us.   I wasn’t about to document this.

 As he was lowered to us, I steadied the young army rescuer to our perch.  He quickly sat Dick on the T-bar, lashed him securely with some webbing, and instructed his team though his headset to hoist him up. 

As we watched Dick rise and slowly rotate upward, he turned back to me and yelled above the din – “Can you get yourself down OK?”

“What? I’m not going?” I yelled.

This was news to me – Dick and I assumed we were both getting whisked off the peak. 

“No”, he said as the empty T-bar swayed back down towards us, “…we’re getting low on fuel.”  

“Yea, I can get down – can you take his pack?” I yelled.  

Getting down with one pack was fine, two would be cumbersome.   I assumed they would take Dick’s. 

“No”, was the terse answer as he readied himself on the T-bar. 

As he started to rise I thought – “Crap – what’s the problem with taking a 10 lb. pack?” 

Snatching Dick’s pack that had a carabiner attached to the top loop, I quickly clipped it to the cable above him as his feet left the ground.  He rose 8 feet, said something into the headset, and was lowered back down to his stance. 

He unclipped the pack, threw it down at my feet with emphasis, glared at me, and called his team to haul him up.  He was pulled aboard as the helicopter banked eastward, swiftly angling down valley. 

The helicopter noise drifted away.  I was alone on the summit.  The alpine breeze combed through the surrounding peaks as the sun blinked below the Olympic Mountains west of Puget Sound.   I could muster no appreciation for this beautiful solitude I often sought.  I was just too worn out.

 “I’m not spending another night up here” I mumbled, aiming to descend 500 ft to the false summit– just for the sense of making progress. 

In the faint alpenglow I gingerly navigated my way down the series of steep ledges and loose rock, strategically tossing Dick’s pack to large ledges below.   Only later did I realize that Dick’s small camera was strapped on the outside of his pack – oops.

“Careful here….” I kept muttering to myself in the dwindling light. “Do not fall, do NOT fall.”

Reaching the false summit, I was relieved to find a nearby melting snow patch for water.  Hovering some leftover snack, I settled in for another night with my woodrat friends.  At the first hint of dawn I rose, stuffed all the gear I could manage into my pack, and hung excess items on the outside.  

After placing the rope and a water bottle in Dick’s pack, I left it under a boulder – I couldn’t manage everything.  Trudging down the steep rocky couloir with enough extra gear and clothes clipped to the outside of my pack, I could’ve been mistaken for a mobile outdoor gear sale or – oh dear – a Mountaineer.

The faint climbers trail leading to Long’s Pass was the most direct way back to the truck.  Retrieving our camping gear at Ingalls’s Lake would have to wait for another time.  At the trailhead I threw the gear in the back of Dick’s Toyota truck and headed out on the forest road. 

Halfway out a car came into view on the opposite side of a clearing.  It stopped 200 ft away and flashed its lights.  I drove up and was ecstatic to find it was Dick and Elizabeth!  Elizabeth trotted over and gave me a long hug. 

“I am so happy you got down safely”, she whispered.

Dick, his arm in a sling and that wry smile on his face said “Dude – long time no see.”

“Soooo, what happen after you left the party?”  I asked.

“Well, they pulled me aboard and when that army guy came up instead of you and we headed out I said – Hey, what about my buddy?”

The copilot said “Low fuel, we gotta get back.   Hey – are you hungry?”   handing over a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“Hell yea” Dick replied, scarfing it up.   “We landed at Wenatchee High School’s football field where an ambulance waited, then off to the hospital.”

“It was all so weird.  One minute on a peak, the next in the hospital.   The doctor was pissed those airmen gave me food, just in case I needed to go under anesthesia.  They gave me an X-ray and said I had a small chip on the end of the humerus.  They gave me the option to fix it there or back in Seattle.  I told them to leave it for now.”

“And the dislocation?” I asked.

“Get this,” said Dick.  “They gave me a shot of Demerol – whoa, that was good.  The doc had me lay face down on a tilted-up hospital bed with my arms dangling.  He sat on the floor and slowly pulled on my arm and pop!  Back in place.   He said it would have been hard to do on the peak, especially with no training.”

Elizabeth said, “We were going to leave you a bunch of Gatorade at the truck!” 

“She drove over to get me last night” said Dick “…and we spent the night in Wenatchee”.   

“Well, I’m glad you’re good, but I need a burger” I said.

They turned the car around and I followed them in the truck down the dusty Forest Service road.

We stopped for a burger and some ice cream at the Twin Pines drive-in, outside of the town Cle Elum.  The three of us sat on the tailgate of the truck eating our cones.   The scent of the surrounding Ponderosa pine forest enveloped us.  It smelt like the lowlands, safe and secure. 

It wasn’t our last adventure but one on a continuum.  It was, however, an unacknowledged  milestone.  Dick was always adamant about outdoor adventures be it climbing, skiing, or mountain biking.  It was what he did and who he was. 

He had a sticker on his refrigerator that said, “Don’t mistake having a career for having a life.” 

“That was a bit too much adventure for a couple days, eh?” he said. 

“Yea.” I sighed.  “Yea.”

Dick said, “I called Pamela from the hospital and told her we were both good, but you were still on the peak, and she yelled – “You left him there!?”   and then she hung up.”

My wife Pamela was a city girl, living in Greenwich Village when we met.   We had been married less than 2 years.   She was not a climber, and this was the first time I had not return home from an outing within our estimated timeline, adding stress to an already strained marriage.

“I called back and explained” Dick continued, “but she still seemed freaked.”

“Thanks for the warning” I replied.

Pamela was in the garden when I got home.  I sat in the grass and explained what happen, attempting to downplay the hazards.   She didn’t buy it.

“I can’t tolerate this behavior any longer” she said with conviction.  She had never been comfortable with my climbing exploits.  I let it go for now.  There was no sense trying to assuage her concerns, her dread too raw.

“Go give Chloe a hug” she said tersely, referring to my 8-year-old daughter.

The next week Dick had surgery to suture that bone chip back in place.  He was 37, much too young to have to contemplate the long-term implications of his brain tumor diagnosis.  The trajectory of our friendship was changing, torqued by ways we could not have imagined.

When I got back to town the first thing people asked was, “Is Dick alright?”

“Yea”, I replied, “he’s a bit banged up, but he’s good.”

Our mutual climber friends eventually asked “Was his brain tumor a factor in his fall?” 

I paused. 

I hadn’t considered that until asked.  We had a solid history joined by an intimate tether and the unbridled joy of the vertical.  But now we had to acknowledge a change, as if a sinister cloudveil enveloped our summit. 

I felt an uneasiness in my stomach.  I didn’t know how we were to route find from here.