Day 14

A storm day. Although the weather was nice here at 14 camp, we could see the clouds below. They started right about Windy Corner, and they were moving fast. Above we could see the clouds swirling around the summit. The wind was blowing so hard it was ripping holes in the clouds. You can see the eddies from the turbulence downwind from the summit. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was quite a sight, with an ice rainbow on the upwind side and the swirling eddies downwind, the summit looked evil and vicious. I counted six people that came down from 17 today. They said it was terrible up there. I believed them. David heard that there were an hundred people stuck at 11, waiting to move up. It must be bad down there, too. Lisa, the plane dispatcher at base camp, reported that they had received six inches of new snow and it was 20⁰F. Balmy! The winds at 14 were predicted to reach 30-35 mph tomorrow. But today they were fairly light.

Evil-looking lenticulars on the summit	Storm clouds below 14 camp

Someone came up to Kyle and asked if we had any extra food. Boy did we! We ended up giving away 20 pounds of food, and still had plenty left. Of course, the big reason was that we had brought food for 21 days, expecting some periods of bad weather. So we were way ahead of schedule. Dropping some weight here would be great. Although it was downhill, we still had about 12 miles to go. A lighter load is always welcome.

So we baked the last of the biscuits, read our books, and recuperated. This storm day couldn’t have been better placed for me. I needed the rest! I was still depressed about my fingers. I talked to David about it. He said not to be too hard on myself. Well, I guess I was beating myself up pretty good. I wondered how long it would be before I could rock climb? David said, "Ouch!" I replied that I might just have to take it easy this summer. David said, "John, people like you and me don’t know how to take it easy." I said it might be a good thing for me to learn. To slow down and make room for new things in my life. But right then, all I wanted to do was go home. I cautioned myself that "get-home-itis" was just as dangerous as "summit fever."

Kyle resting on the storm day	Simonsen running around in his underwear

While my fingers were getting blacker and uglier by the hour, they were pretty functional. I didn’t have any problems using them to do all the things I needed to do around camp or traveling.

I think what happens when your fingers freeze is that the fingernails go first. Think about it: they’re more exposed and the very tip is just hanging uninsulated in the air. Also, I noticed a black line on my fingers where the nail meets the quick, indicating damage at that point. As the fingernail begins to freeze from the top down, the freezing spreads to the fingertip. Although I think on my fingers the flesh away from the fingernail froze independently from the fingernail, since the purplest part is not next to the fingernail. Still, I think the fingernail goes first, just maybe not the worst.

After some time in camp reflecting on my condition, I came to more acceptance about it, even appreciation. It is now part of my life. One thing that cancer taught me is to accept what comes with an open mind and heart. Don’t fight it. You can’t beat cancer; you can’t beat the mountain; you can’t beat life. All you can do is live the experience. Let it come inside and change your perspective. That’s how we grow. That’s what humans do best: Adapt and survive.

The victorious team at the 14 camp

Every day my love affair with my sleeping bag grew stronger. It was so wonderful to crawl inside my "own personal furnace." I was warm in seconds, safe from the cold outside, and in my own private little world where all I had to do was rest. The happiest part of the day was pulling the bag up over my head and arranging it so my nose stuck out. I reminded myself of a dog I had as a child, Sandy. He had an outdoor doghouse back in Missouri, where I grew up. In the winter, we would put old newspapers inside it. Sandy would shred the papers with his claws until the entire doghouse was one big wad of paper. When you looked in the doghouse, all you saw was shredded paper with this little black dog nose sticking out of the middle of it. That was me in my sleeping bag.

This night I prayed, deeply and sincerely, for good weather tomorrow. I wanted to go home.