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brutusofwyde
Jun 21, 2004, 4:52 PM
Post #1 of 2
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Registered: Nov 3, 2002
Posts: 1473
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February.
"Things often look darkest just before it turns pitch black."
We've spent half the day crawling through commute traffic up to Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area. At 1:30 pm, Frank Tarzanin and I clamp skis to the bottoms of our legs. The sun blasts down as we force the boards up hollow slopes... 4 feet of fresh, dry, light, fluffy, bottomless powder (with no base layer) conceals a minefield of manzanita and buckbrush; my rental randonees pop off at each sweltering kick-turn until I crank the tension-release up into the realm of concrete. The manufacturer disclaims all responsibility for any injury which may result from incorrect binding settings as I reach down in pain and twist my knee to extricate yet another buried ski tip from an unseen, hooked shrubbery.
We're trying to scope the ice-climbing conditions on one of Tahoe's best (albeit ephemeral) prizes: the North Face of Crag Peak.
Summit of Rubicon. The anemic afternoon sunlight provides no warmth. We huddle in the lee of icy rocks, cold wind slicing through sweat-chilled pile, and gaze in frustration at the North Face of Crag Peak across the way. The shadowed face remains dry despite the midwinter snow highlighted on the shoulder of the crest.
The westering sun reminds us of the waning day: Steep, icy fourth class downslipping lands us at the skis, fools who have overextended their stay. Frank swoops off into the shadowed forest, all graceful competence, as I tremble, face-slip, side-plant, cartwheel and awkward my way, a pinball crazy-bouncing off tree-bumpers toward the gaping maw between two outcropings, flippers guarding the top of a couloir into the bowels of the machine.
Night. Frank is somewhere behind me, patiently gliding through the dark powder. Hopelessly lost, I sob desperately in the blackness and hug another tree to stay upright. This is not the way we came. (There was a time when I thought that at least we were descending toward Lake Tahoe. The faded twilight of the burned-out sun was draped long in the sky behind us. Or still is. Unless that is the moonrise soon to come? or maybe the lights of of Tahoe City? Or Sacramento?) Fading headlamp flickers but sputters back to life, showing dark, trackless snow, dim and gray, impaled by trees, with only the starry sky overhead to hear my hopelessness.
With a sense of spinning disorientation (the twilight now to my right is up the steep wall of the drainage we have been following) my stomach sinks as I realize we must have chosen the wrong way: We're headed away from any roads, into the backcountry of the Desolation Wilderness with miles between us and any civilization, and a cold wet winter bivouac ahead. I blink back lonely, anguished and frustrated tears as I top the rise and stare, uncomprehending, at a street light.
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Back at the car, we sip Pete's Wicked Ale. Frank shakes his head again in amazement. "That" he says, "was incredible routefinding."
"Nah... Piece of cake." I smile, my fingers crossed in the darkness, and we resume loading gear into the car.
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dingus
Jun 21, 2004, 5:34 PM
Post #2 of 2
(1228 views)
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Registered: Dec 16, 2002
Posts: 17398
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The 3 of us are pinned down by a fierce gale blowing over the col. Snow and cloud are blown horizontal by the hurricane west wind. We can't even see each other's faces, and can barely discern shouted words.
"CAN'T SEE!"
"WIND TOO STRONG!"
"FUCK THIS!!!"
"DOWN???"
"DOWN!"
"DOWN!!!"
That was the extent of the discussion. We break the huddle, a 3-some in harmonious agreement, a rareity.
Angus and I turn to walk to the edge of the north facing chute, our agreed descent. Burl immediately strikes out in the opposite direction.
"BURL! WHERE YA GOING MAN???!!!11"
Burl looks back at us, and then responds in immediate anger,
"I DON'T KNOW WHERE IN THE FUCK YOU GUYS ARE GOING! I'M GOING BACK TO THE CAR!"
A howling argument in a howling storm ensues.
"It's THIS WAY?"
"No HELL IT ISN'T! IT'S THIS WAY!"
Finally, two prevail over one.
"FINE! I'LL GO YOUR WAY! BUT YOU'RE WRONG YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!"
It's steep, and still in the clouds we delicately link turns, me on 3 pins and skinny skis, my companions on stable snow boards. So of course I lead the way. Doing jump turns in the clouds on a 40 degree slope with an unknown runnout, when you can't even see quite where your skis will land, is very strange.
We do it in stages, 5, 10, 15 turns each. Each of us takes a turn at going first. Each of us is granted the spectacle of watching our mates jump literally out of the clouds.
We stop maybe 400 feet into the descent. It's still foggy all to be hell and we can't see much. But down here the wind isn't blowing at all and the whole world is muffled by that weird fog deadening thing. And then the improbable:
"OFF BELAY MIKE!" Just below us!!!!!1111 Like, maybe 50 feet away. Surely whoever that was could hear us too. And our line obviously gets steeper just below us...
Where are we????
Burl renews his assault, the righteousness of his conviction dripping sarcasm from the back of his nasal passages:
"Oh yeah, you guys KNEW where we were! KNEW IT! MORONS!!!! We're on a CLIMB!!!"
I look at Burl. He looks at me. Silence. And then he sees it in my eye, and he starts laughing before I can even flinch. But it takes only a millisecond more than a flinch for me to take the decision and...
LAUNCH!
One, two, three jump turns in a row, each time the steel edges biting, clawing and scratching into the snow. Amazingly, I keep the skis under me, executing a patented (well, copyright protected anyway) Dingus Hop and Hope Turn, a semi-controlled fall, all asshole and elbows.
As I twist into the fall line to make the 4th turn, I pass a helmeted climber on a stamped out snow ledge, rigging some weird snow picket anchor. I can see more and more light at the bottom of the cloud layer now. In an instant I am going to come flying out of the clouds into the sunshine below.
My turn has me headed straight for the dude. At the last second I plant a pole and with my entire body already twisting the other way, perhaps 5 feet from smashing into the climber, I leap. A rooster tail of snow sprays him like a water skier drenching the picnicers at Lake Tahoe. Perspective, it's all a thing of perspective.
20 feet lower I rocket out of the clouds and onto the more sedate 30 degree slopes of the lower bowl. I stop and quickly see our parking spot still 2000 feet below. I can see the red of my jeep.
When Burl catches up he is suitably apolegetic,
"Well, fuck you Dingus. We could have gotten back from the other side too..."
Hop and Hope baby.
DMT
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