*** Warning this post includes a graphic description of circumstances which may be triggering for people who have gone through a near-death encounter ***
Fresh off the highs of completing my first ever backpack in the wild, I felt exuberant. So much had opened up for me as I wrote in my last post. And among all the truths, one that struck me most was that my mind (and my fears in particular) have long held me back from reaching my full potential.
Confident of the truth of my new insight, I felt eager to prove it so, as soon as possible. And so, on July 28th, I set off to Mount Alyeska, 45 minutes south of Anchorage, to climb a mountain. I didn’t have a plan exactly. But did I need one? Afterall, the last 8 days, I’d been climbing in the backcountry over portions of mountainsides that had no paths.
When I got to the base I found there was indeed a path up the first 2,000 feet up the mountain to a place where a gondola dropped off tourists at a restaurant. Prior to my trip, 2,000 vertical feet would have scared me. But I found that that morning, reaching it was now easy. Especially with only a light daypack on. And after a brief rest and a sandwich in the restaurant, I re-shouldered my pack and headed further up beyond the highest lifts.
I quickly discovered that beyond the gondola was another matter. Summitting the final 1,500 feet of Mount Alyeska requires bouldering over a pathless goat trail along a narrow ridgeline. On the bright side, the path was clear as the headwall is so steep that there is only one possible way forward. From the bottom of the bowl, the path climbs in a series of undulating ridges to a flattish section of headwall that arcs over 180 degrees to form a near perfect bowl. The peak is around 120 degrees into the arc.
As I climbed, the ridge was so steep at times I had climb up using all fours. At other times it is so narrow, that I wanted to crawl out of fear of falling. For me, it was physically exhausting, but the bigger challenge was mental. “This is not dangerous; this is not dangerous; people must do this all the time” I kept intoning to myself. And though perhaps true, I didn’t see anyone.
Furthermore, the further I got the more I began to doubt my mantra. Having grown up scrambling across ridges and cliffs in the Midwest and Rockies, I’m used to the solidity of granite and limestone. I wasn’t prepared for the fragility of the shale that made up the spine of the ridge. Here, with even a small amount of pressure I found the rocks were apt to crack and pull apart. On more than one occasion pieces the size of my torso, which had no cracking in them prior to me touching them, cleaved out of the ridge when I tried to lever myself up against them.
Though probably only a mile, this last section took me almost two hours to traverse. And upon reaching the summit, I felt both exhausted, but also puffed up with pride. “See it wasn’t that dangerous!” I told said to myself. “Mind over matter.”
Propping myself up against a rock, I surveyed out and down the nearly 4,000-foot drop to the ocean below. Then turning my head, I followed the ridgeline I’d taken at the end. My heart dropped. Yes, I’d climbed it. But it looked awful from above. And down is always harder than up. Did I really have to turn around and go down the same way I’d come up? It was in this state that I began to wonder if there might not be another way down. The peak was more than half way around the bowl, and so if I could follow the other side of the bowl around and down that might shave off some of my climb down. But between the intermittent fog and the shape of the ridge, which only allowed me to see part way forward before it began its primary descent, I couldn’t tell.
Further away, I could see the ridge eventually connected with another ridgeline that I knew had a trail on it based on a conversation I’d overheard at dinner the night before. It was actually that trail which I’d been trying to climb to, but after getting bad advice from a woman midway up the mountain, I had turned to the base of the bowl which I’d just climbed. From the top, it was now obvious to me that she’d sent me to the wrong place. Was there a way to get there from where I was I wondered? I could clearly see the ridges connected, but was it passable?
The longer I sat looking back at where I’d come from the less I wanted to go back. Getting off this goat path and onto an established trail seemed much wiser. “Surely, it wouldn’t be as steep as what I’d just done,” I said to myself.
And so, after about 30 minutes of sitting at the top, I re-shouldered my pack, and began to head down around the far side of the bowl. “It’s not dangerous; it’s not dangerous” I kept intoning to myself like before.
But after 10 minutes, now about 150 degrees through the bowl, the ridge line narrowed in a way it hadn’t on the previous side where I had ascended. Whereas on the way up, there had been small patches of vegetation on the far side of the ridge away from the bowl that I could have caught myself on had a slipped off one of the saddles, here the ridge dropped open up on both sides to sheer drops.
At first, the ridge on top was as wide as my body and so on I could either walk or crawl on all fours safely forward (I did this one than once).
“Mind over matter, mind over matter”.
I looked eagerly toward the cell tower which was ever closer, ever larger in my view.
But suddenly I was stuck. I’d reached a portion of the ridge that was too narrow and sharp to crawl over. Here, there were two large boulders that I couldn’t see a way over. Stepping back and looking around them, I saw that on the familiar bowl side (to the right) the angle of the rocks and a lack of a ledge below them made passing impossible. However, on left side (which looked out into another bowl that had been invisible to me until I reached the peak, it looked as though a narrow ledge existed which I’d be able to walk on while holding onto the tops of the rocks for balance. It didn’t seem easy, but it seemed doable given everything I’d already done that day. “Mind over matter; mind over matter. Don’t let your mind control what your body can do.”
Tiptoeing to the edge of the first stone I pressed my body into the rock in the middle of the ridge and reached my left arm around in look of a grip. I found a large edge which I could grasp tightly. I tested the weight and it held. With my right hand I found a crack near where I was standing to provide a counter weight, and once happy with my grips, I inched myself forward. “This isn’t so bad.” I said to myself.
Once confident in my balance, I stopped and released my right hand, swung it over the rock and sought to find another grip on the first rock’s inside edge now. With my face pressed against the stone I couldn’t quite see the ledges my fingers were touching. After a few seconds I found a ridge and sought to sink the tips of my fingers deeper into it. They seemed to catch. I pressed down, put my weight into the stone, and breathed a sigh of relief.
But then my hand violently shifted. The ledge I was holding, but couldn’t see, had given away under the pressure of my hand. I felt a jolt run through my right arm, shoulder, and into my back. My body shifted back momentarily, but my instincts countered the movement and, my left side body pressed into the rock as my left hand gripped tighter.
I was breathing heavily now. But upon realizing that I was perfectly balanced even without either of my hands, I relaxed. I shook my right hand and noticed a small scrape that was bleeding on the inside of my wrist. I rubbed the blood away on my thigh.
In the movies, when someone is standing near a ledge and they look down for the first time, that moment of sudden vertigo is often dramatized by quick zooming in and out of the camera. I didn’t experience that per se, but as I rubbed the blood of my pants leg, my eyes darted past my leg, first down to the ledge on which I was inching along, then lower to the sharply angled slab below it, then to the sheer drop at the edge of the slab, and finally back to my feet again.
I suddenly realized without a doubt that if I slipped I would certainly die.
I’m not sure where I expected my brain to go in this moment. Would I see my life flash before my eyes? Would a series of deep regrets overwhelm me?
None of that happened. Instead all I could see and think about were the rocks to which I clung and the ledge on which I stood. Though in my default life I’m often consumed by fear of petty things, the fear of death did not cross my mind again during the following few minutes. There was no space for it. My hands probed for new holds, and my eyes were fixed onto the ledges where I sought stable footing that I might shimmy a bit further onto. I’m not sure how long it took me to move forward. Perhaps it was only a minute, or perhaps it was five. All I remember is the moment my left hand found a generous hold on the edge of the second rock around which I could hold tightly enough to swing my entire body onto the large open space on its backside.
Taking off my pack, and lying down, my body was felt quite rigid, unable to trust even this stable ground now. “I survived!” I exclaimed to myself. “And only a few small scratches to show for the danger…. Perhaps it wasn’t that dangerous after all. And despite that, surely, this was not how I was meant to die.” I thought. “How silly that I felt any fear at all. Death can’t come suddenly. Not for me. I’m still young… Chalk it up to mind over matter,” my brain went on.
My body slackened a little, and I slumped into my pack and the ground, thankful the worst was now behind me.
But my feelings of reverie were short-lived. Unable to sit still, I got up, and first looked back, then down to the slab, and finally down further still – toward the spot my body would have careened after falling. But despite craning my neck, the angle was too sharp. I could not see the bottom from where I stood.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I cursed myself. All thoughts of self-congratulations were now gone. “What had I taken this risk for? I am not skilled enough to be playing at this. Surely, you’d only been a misstep away from oblivion you idiot. How selfish and arrogant!”
I sat back down, my heart now racing. And in that state, my mind sought to understand death. So, what if I had fallen and died? What then? What is on the other side of oblivion? Is there a heaven? If not, how can my consciousness simply cease?
But instead of clarity, I felt only nothingness. Though only inches behind me, death still seemed incomprehensible.
And so, my mind went in turn. Switching between this fixation on nothingness, exuberance, and self-disgust, until in time all of these feelings drifted away, and all I was left with was my breath and the view before me. I was not off the mountain. I didn’t even see the path off yet. I’d barely descended from the peak. Somehow I still needed to follow the ridge down more a thousand feet before I would return to safer portions of the mountain.
I let myself rest a bit longer, waiting again for my heart rate to return to something much lower than it was. But as I did so, the fog turned into rain. I reached for my bag and put on my rain jacket. I was dry, but suddenly, between the sitting and rain, I felt chilled. My fingers were numbing.
Looking forward, the cell tower seemed so close. Only a few undulations of the ridge away, and yet I also saw a portion of steepness greater than anything I had climbed before. Perhaps it would appear less so when I got closer? I wanted to press on and investigate.
With each foot forward on this much wider portion of ridgeline, I felt my anxiety lifting. Though I intermittently was still crawling on all fours, I knew each moment was bringing me closer to the point where surely a “real” path off the mountain must exist. Moreover, having survived just a moment before, I now felt a certain sense of blessed destiny about me. Of course, I should be careful. But again, maybe this wasn’t my time to die. I was safe.
But then my stomach dropped. About 50 feet on I reached another section of ridge too narrow to simply crawl over. Faced again with the sheer drops of the cliffs, I no longer felt so untouchable. Looking forward, I saw that getting over the next section of ridge would require a climb as difficult as the one I had just completed.
I wanted to slam the ground in anger. So close. I was so freaking close to the end. How could I get stopped here. The woman at the bottom said there was a way. She was a lair or an idiot. This was all her fault. I wanted to yell. But then, another voice, countered “No. You are the idiot. Turn back. You may not like them, but you know the steps that will lead you down.”
I turned and looked back. From where I stood I could see the whole ridgeline I had come down from the peak, as well as the ridge I had climbed up before. It looked horribly jagged and steep, much worse than when I had climbed it. After scanning quickly, my eyes stopped back upon the two rocks. I sized them up again, and shuddered. Turning, I looked forward. Anything but backward I thought.
But slowly, the truth of my situation began to sink in. No matter which way I went, I would have to risk death. Not a fall onto a mat. Not a jolt into my harness. No, I would be risking slipping over a sheer cliff, where I would be smashed to bits hundreds of feet below. Perhaps it would be quick, or perhaps quite painful. But either way, slip, and I was gone. Forever. My mind whirred. Again, not fully grasping at what this meant. Yes, yes death. But what is that, really?
I looked forward again. Even if I make this next rock, would there be more ahead? I wondered. What if I had to climb more than one, and then still had to turn back?
I sighed. I knew I had to turn back and minimize the number of climbs. Backwards there was one. Forward, there was at least one, maybe more.
As I approached the twin boulders, my pit of my stomach dropped. And yet, what choice did I have. “Stay calm, stay calm.” I intoned now.
Like before I pressed myself into the rock, breathed deeply, and tried to slow my heart.
For much of my life, I’ve struggled from an over-active mind, bouncing between thoughts, plans, and stimuli. But in that moment, I found, without looking for it, a stillness even deeper than anything I discovered in the wilderness the week before. In that moment it felt as if time slowed down as I reached out around the rock in search of a first hold. But at first, I couldn’t get a hold of anything. The rock, now quite wet, slipped from my fingers, and the holds which had seemed generous when I was crossing over the other way, now seemed impossible.
Had I been in the gym at home I would have simply given up. I would have jumped off the wall onto the mat. I would have gone to dinner and forgotten about the wall. But here, in the rain, all alone, and 4,000 feet in the air, without ropes, I couldn’t just go home. I had to get down, and this was the only way forward if I didn’t want it to be a body bag.
I’m not sure how long I stood there at the precipice, reaching around the stone blindly in hopes of finding a crack from which to balance myself. In that state of suspended animation, it felt as though minutes were passing, but it might have only been seconds. Eventually, after having exhausted all crevices part way across the first rock that I could reach, I found myself squatting and reaching for a low point at the level of my where my standing hips would have been. I pressed into it, and because it was low it was not wet, and it seemed to hold. Slowly, slowly, crouching still, I inched onto the ledge and sought a point of perfect stillness from which I might be able to shift my hands and perhaps get back to standing. Again, I grasped for a new hold with my right hand while my left held on to a bulge of wet stone.
“Steady, steady.” I said to myself aloud as suddenly the next few moves seemed to open up for me in quick succession. Before I knew it I was standing at the spot between the two stones. So happy was I to find myself now touching the second rock, that I tried to hoist myself up and over in a single motion. It was impossible. But undeterred at the idea of getting above the rock, I saw a groove in the second rock from which I might be able to get myself up and over if only I could step over to it. Not moving my hands, I slowly picked up and dropped like my leg like a ballet dancer to the spot. But, as I was doing so, I realized the stretch was further than I thought. I could make it, but not put any pressure on the leg once extended. “Perhaps, if I used my momentum to swing over as I’d learned this winter as the gym, then I could. Be bold. This is no time for cowardice,” a voice whispered in my mind.
“But no, that would be madness,” another voice said. “Slow and steady.” I knew it was right. And so slowly, I retraced my leg’s arc back to the crack between the rocks.
Again, I stood there, for what seemed minutes, not moving, trying to calm heart, every beat of which seemed to pound in my ears even as it slowed. Slowly, in time, my fingers, of their own accord began to move again, inching along the top shelf of the second rock, in search of new grips that would neither cleave off or slip out of my grasp from wetness. Finally, I found two such spots for both of my hands, and from that fulcrum, I was able to slip my feet from between the two rocks and back onto the ledge.
Though an inch may seem like nothing when you are on the ground, on the wall it can be the difference between life and death. Now, those inches were enough for me to shift my weight safely to my front foot as I moved it once again to the groove in the second rock. This time I could press down into it. Gripping now tighter than ever before, I pressed my weight into the foot, and then pulled down with both of hands, hoisting myself atop the rock and to safety.
I’d made it. I was safe. I wouldn’t die.
What did I expect would happen in this moment? A trumpet from on high? An announcer’s voice? But of course, nothing happened. More silence. In that moment, I suddenly became aware of just how alone I was on the mountaintop. Had I fallen how long would it have been before anyone even knew?
But even that thought didn’t get a rise of out me. I felt no rush of relief, no adrenaline, no tears. I was exhausted, my chest heaved as I sought to catch my breath.
I had no desire to pump my first in the air in joy, or burst into tears. I just felt tired. So very tired. And I knew I still had a long way to go.
Caption: a satellite map of the terrain overlaid with my path along the ridge (in red).
After a moment, I picked myself up, and began to retrace my steps, first to the summit, and then down the ridge which I had first ascended. Upon reaching the restaurant, it was almost 5pm, and now my entire pants and parts of my coat were caked in mud. I rode the gondola down in silence. Impervious to the quizzical looks of the clean tourists who’d simply taken the gondola to the look-out and were now headed down. They seemed part of an alien world to me. I didn’t understand them and had no desire to talk to them at all.
Thinking my ordeal was over, I got into my car and began to drive away, but only made it 2 minutes. On the shoulder of the road was a large object, shaking. There were no cars around. I skidded to a halt and jumped out of my car. Was it an animal? No. I realized it was a woman. Running to her, I saw she was violently convulsing.
As I reached her, a bus going the other way screeched to a halt, and the driver rushed from the door. I tried to call 911 on my phone but couldn’t get reception. A young man had come off the bus and was looking at us, not moving. I yelled at him to dial 911. He did, but then he ran to me and gave me the phone to speak to the operator. The bus driver was kneeling over the woman holding her head. She came to suddenly. She looked at us with first groggy eyes. Then, they jolted open, and she looked terrified. She tried to sit up. He spoke to her soothingly, and gently held her down. Another woman stopped, an ER doctor. After a moment, she told me to check on her kids in the car. I walked to them. A boy 7, looked at me and said, “Where is mommy. I’m bored.” A girl, even younger popped her head out and giggled. I told them to stay put. The ambulance came. I stood there. Just looking at the ER doctor. Then I stood there looking at the paramedics. Was this real? I felt as though I were elsewhere, watching a movie. The paramedics rolled her onto her side. They carted her into the ambulance and drove away. I still stood there. Someone thanked me for stopping.
~~~
Why has it taken me so long to share this story? Perhaps, because in the wake of yet another set of mass shootings, I feel guilty. If so many people can die when it was not even their fault, why share a story about my stupidity nearly leading to my demise?
Or perhaps, it is because two weeks later, I continue to feel as though I am drifting along in a dream. Surely, I have had many vivid and happy experiences, but often they’ve felt like they were happening elsewhere, or perhaps to someone else. And even when I do feel present for them, it all feels more gossamer.
Or perhaps, even more so, it is because I still don’t know what to make of all that happened. And so, maybe that is why, two weeks later, I turned back and returned again to the mountain without a clear understanding of why. This time, it was a bright sunny day, and I climbed the first 2,000 feet in an angry daze. Then, rather than turning to the leftmost side of mountain as before, I sought the path toward the middle ridge that I’d hoped to climb down. From the bottom it was easy to find. The path was steep, but clear. There were no sharp edges, until around 3,000 feet where I found ropes drilled into the rock faces. But now, having almost died twice, I didn’t have the heart to go on, even with the ropes as aids. I stopped, and sat for over an hour looking out to sea.
So often in these posts, I attempt to tie my experiences together in a rhetorical flourish with the insights they’ve helped me glean. But here, even after my second climb, I still feel at a loss. Sure, I know I need to be more careful. Some risks aren’t worth it. Of course. And sure, I know I shouldn’t overestimate my abilities any more than I should be paralyzed by fear. But having looked death in the face, I feel as though I should have come away with some deeper truth or some clarity about the future of my life. Yet, more than anything I only saw the nothingness within its maw. I did not find regret at the mountains I have not climbed. I feel as though I’ve done all I wanted to do. And in that, I don’t know if I should fall into depression or feel as though I’ve reached nirvana.
Tomorrow, I will disappear again for almost two weeks into the backcountry of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. Though it’s not why I signed up for the trip, I think perhaps it is exactly this which I am needing now. I’ll be completely off the grid as before, but this time much further north and for much longer. There, I hope the stillness of the wild will reveal much to me as it did before.
Until I return, don’t worry dear reader. I will be safer. I have no desire die anytime soon.