Another trip back in the time machine...

- i wrote this in about 1980....

By the time April arrives in the Cascades most people have hung their skis back in the garage and are dragging out the bicycles and kayaks and backpacks, getting ready for the next season’s worth of outdoor sports. For me, that’s the time of year when the skiing is at its best. The crowds have thinned out and the days are longer. It also warms up enough to be able to shed a few of the layers of clothes needed in the colder months. All those things were part of the reason Erik and I chose to take one particular April weekend and use it for one of our backcountry trips.

At about midday, we shouldered our packs and climbed into our skis. Erik chose to slog along in a pair of downhill skis with climbing skins. I had a pair of mountaineering skis with fishscale bottoms and the old fashioned Silvretta bindings, a cable affair that would attach or detach at the heel. For climbing, I’d disconnect the heel and could climb with relative ease. For downhill, I needed only to reattach and I had almost the same control as with a rigid binding. The problem with them was the need to use a leather climbing boot as opposed to a plastic downhill ski boot. Uphill I easily outdistanced him. His more rigid boots gave him much greater control on the downhill.

We climbed for about two hours and reached a sheltered and flat spot at the end of the ridge which was the perfect spot for camp. We unloaded our gear, set up the tent and tossed out our sleeping bags. Freed from the burden of shelter, food and water, we felt light as feathers as we stepped back into our skis and headed for the edge of the ridge. It was a glorious sight. All around us were the fiercely rugged peaks of the North Cascades. The sun was intense, so much so we were able to strip to sweaters before we dived into the bowl in front of us. For the rest of the afternoon we dived into untracked bowls of shaded, powdery snow. By staying in the shadows we avoided getting into snow that had thawed and refrozen. As soon as we’d reach the bottom, we would painfully climb to the top of the ridge and look for another way down, once again claiming first tracks in the isolated basin all the while yelling and laughing. Erik was by far the better skier and filled the long, painful climbs with stories of ski patrol rescues and dynamiting cornices before the resort opened. Gradually, the sun sank lower and our energy finally gave out.

Just below the tent, we paused alongside a great, house-sized rock needing to take a rest in order to make the last few hundred feet back to camp. Erik kicked off his skis, leaped onto the boulder and climbed to the top where he peeled off his sweat soaked shirt and proceeded to absorb what heat was left in the sun. I disconnected my clingy cable bindings and planned to do the same. As I approached the rock I noticed the melt gap between the heated rock and the snow. I crouched to jump the distance so as to clear the short void as Erik had, but as I did so I broke through the crust and my right leg dropped into the gap with an audible noise. As I heard a loud tearing, popping sound I experienced rather intense pain in the vicinity of my ankle followed by pain in several other parts of my body as I crashed face first into the rock.

Erik heard me yelling and soon he was pulling me out of the snow hole. After a brief examination revealed nothing dangling or broken, we decided it was best to head immediately for the tent.

As soon as I arrived at our weekend home, I unlaced and removed my boot to see what sort of ding I had received. Although it was painful, things didn’t seem too bad and there was no real visible sign of damage. The most pressing question was one we didn’t even ask as we watched the sun go down and Erik started the stove. That question was, what kind of shape was I going to find myself in tomorrow?

(part deux…after the fall)

I got my answer the next day. In spite of having spent hours the night before with my foot shoved into the snow outside the front of the tent, my ankle was horribly swollen. I was hopeful that by icing (in this case “snowing”) my injury I would minimize the problems. Wrong. I managed to pull a sock over the melon sized appendage and when I attempted to stand I realized for the first time, I was in serious trouble. There was no way I was going to be able to ski out from our camp. I couldn’t even put weight on my foot. That was not too big an issue since I was never going to be able to get my boot on anyway, so attaching myself to the ski was out of the question.

While making breakfast of hot coffee and tea and oatmeal and a generous helping of cookies, Erik and I discussed the problem. The first option was for me to sit tight and for him to ski out and get help. We figured the most likely scenario to be a few ski patrollers from the Stevens Pass ski area dragging in a stretcher to retrieve me. The terrain between where we were and where we needed to be contained a couple of extremely steep segments that would be a problem with a stretcher, even for experienced rescuers. There was also the possibility of having to use a helicopter to reach me where we sat at the end of the ridge. Neither of these options was particularly appealing to me. I think it must have been a combination of stupidity, stubbornness and embarrassment that affected me as we tried to decide. The longer I thought about it, the less interested I was in involving anyone else in my “rescue”. I’d gotten myself into this fix because of my own stupidity, so it somehow seemed to make sense to try and extricate myself without involving anyone else. Except, of course, Erik.

As I mentioned, he was an exceptional skier, so when I first proposed getting out ourselves, he thought it was a marvelous idea. It was just wacky enough to appeal to a guy whose idea of fun consisted of tossing half sticks of dynamite into the air above a freshly snowed face so as to blow out any likely avalanches. We still had three good legs between us, so we decided to go home on three skis.

While I pulled on every leftover sock we had, Erik broke camp and packed us up. I stuffed my unused ski into the sleeve of the pack and hung my extra boot off the back. We hefted out packs and headed up the slope to the top of our ridge, just a short distance away. Fortunately, the uphill part was very short, since there wasn’t much Erik could do to help me there. I mostly hobbled and shuffled as I made my way to the top. Once there we had a gentle downhill for the better part of a mile in which we could develop a technique for three-legged skiing. It wasn’t pretty. Or even very effective since there were rocks and trees scattered along our route, but I somehow managed to hang onto Erik’s pack frame with one hand while balancing on one ski with my spare foot in the air between us. Having extremely good edging skills is a must for this sport since single ski travel requires all turns and all control to be focused on the one foot. I wasn’t particularly good at that so I spent a lot of time crashing into my buddy, knocking us both down numerous times. We finally established enough proficiency that we were able to travel for considerable distances between crashes. Luckily for us, the steeps didn’t come until we had a chance to practice.

At the first of these exposed crossings, we stopped to rest and consider our chances. It appeared likely that if (more likely when) I fell, I’d be able to stop myself if I acted quickly. The slope angled steeply, and went for a long way before ending in cliffs and trees. I would be skiing with my good leg on the ski that put me on the downhill side of Erik. If I fell, at least I wouldn’t take him with me. By what must have been sheer will, we crossed both of these exposed areas without so much as a slip. By this time we were atop the last ridge and the parking area along the highway came into view. The rest of the trip was a simple exercise in pain as I made my way down through areas that were simply too steep and broken for us to “three leg” ski.

Erik is no longer with us, having succumbed to a cancer that was discovered when he visited the doc for x-rays of a few broken ribs sustained in another ski adventure later in our lives. His memory remains alive with me for this trip and for others we took.