I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be prepared with the essentials needed for survival when venturing into the wilderness. A fishing pole makes a poor substitute for an ice axe, and dogs do not belong on glaciers. But, we were young during this rite-of-passage, oblivious to our limitations and inexperience as we navigated treacherous wilderness terrain, fortunate to have escaped serious injury or worse. That being said, I discovered that sometimes a lack of experience in high-stakes situations can be exactly what a person needs in order understand their true capabilities.
It is thus appropriate that I start the launch of this site with an excerpt from A River Knows My Name. I’m sworn to secrecy as to the whereabouts of this place, so I’ve changed or removed any obvious geographical references. The photos above accompany the scene described below. I hope you enjoy.
“It was as if we had suddenly passed through a portal from a place of life and color to that of a different planet. Sparkling rivulets of water bled from the bottom of the great ice sheet. The shock of such raw, primal beauty overwhelmed me. The mood was somber. By climbing up the creek instead of crossing that canyon earlier that morning, we had put ourselves several miles northwest of our day's destination, and now our path was ominously clear. We were going to have to cross the glacier. We had no other choice.
We stared in silence contemplating the task ahead. A steady wind off the ice field cooled the sweat in my shirt. I shivered. An hour ago, we were elated. Now, as we stared up at the crevasse-riddled frozen mass towering overhead, we were again reminded of how small we really were. A quarter mile across the terminus, the ice sloped back down to a jagged spine of rock following the contour of ice. Beyond it, distant ridges were becoming shrouded in late afternoon mist. It was time to move.
As we started up the frozen ramp with nothing but fishing poles in our hands, the ice vibrated from the thundering river beneath our feet. There was no telling how thin or thick the ice was, but the running water was loud enough to cause Trushka to stare down at it, and whimper in fear a little. If we broke through it was over. One by one we climbed up the dirty ice and after a hundred yards of careful navigation, we were standing on a vast, frozen pancake, sprawling up and out of sight toward the summit. We slowly trudged across the glacier, leaping over small crevasses, and zigzagging around the larger ones with nothing more than our threadbare boots to give us traction while the stark towering rock walls above screamed the fury of angry, impersonal gods, ready to send us tumbling to an icy death if only for our sheer audacity.
In the distance we could see glorious, flower-filled meadows with babbling waterfalls above which stood the barren talus fields of Heather Pass. It was a picture of freedom and purity. Beauty was truth, the truth I had always dreamed of—a truth that made more sense to me than the mumbling, black-robed men of my youth.
I did not know much about mountaineering, but I knew what an ice axe and crampons were, and how critical they were to glacier travel. We did not have them and our boots on the ice gave us traction the equivalent to walking on ice cubes. It was slick, and one wrong slip and a man would slide into a crevasse. I am not sure why, but our rope stayed buried in Dixon’s pack. A quarter mile away, the black spine of rock beckoned, and it was slow, treacherous going. We worked together, calling out instructions, encouraging each other and taking our time. This was the recipe for getting across.
Finally, after 45 minutes, we topped a rise in the ice, close to the relative safety when our hearts sank. The ice below us sloped sharply down about fifteen feet revealing a great black cavern where the ice had melted away from the rock. There was no telling how deep it went. There was no way we could down climb to safety. To even try would mean losing our footing and sliding helplessly over the lip of ice and into the black depths. There was only one way off the glacier—we would have to slide down and at the last moment, jump from the ice and onto the rock. There was no other way. The gap between ice and rock was several feet, and the key to survival would be not falling backwards once we landed. We jammed our fishing poles into our packs. It was time to move.”
This photo of me was snapped just after we were able to slide on our butts and leap off the glacier onto solid rock. I would not ever recommend doing this. We were extremely lucky.