Day 15

I looked out of the tent and saw blue sky with only a few clouds and light winds. Let’s get out of here!

Descending from the 14 camp

We got off about 11:30. Ryan led our rope team, with David in the middle. They were both pulling sleds. David’s was especially heavy since he had taken an extra 20 lb stuff sack from Dove, who didn’t have a sled. I had no sled either, but David had his sled tied to the rope with a prussiks knot. That meant that when we were going down steep hills, the weight of the sled was on me and I was the brake. At first I rigged myself according to the standard rule, with the rope clipped through a chest harness. But then whenever the sled lunged downhill, I got a jerk in my chest and had to counter with my back and stomach muscles to keep it from doubling me over. That was ridiculous. It wasn’t long before I gave up the standard form and unclipped the chest harness. Then the rope was pulling on my waist harness. Much better, but still hard work.

After a while, David removed the sled prussik from the rope. Don’t know why. Then I had it easy and he had all the weight. It was a hard section for him. I tried to be extra careful with rope management and not let it get under his feet, or go taught and pull him backwards. So I was constantly adjusting my speed to David’s, regardless of what terrain feature I happened to be on at the moment. It keeps one occupied.

Windy Corner was a little windy, but not bad. It was much better than I expected it to be. Once around it we could see the clouds below. The tops were at about 12,000.’ As we approached the cloud deck, we started running into the crowd coming up from below. It was quite a scene. All those 100 people camped at 11 seemed to be coming up at the same time. And to me it seemed like they were racing each other in slow motion. The trail is just a path in the snow. There’s no reason you couldn’t walk somewhere else, except that the traffic had compressed the snow, so the footing was easier on the trail. Yet the trail was only one person wide most of the time. So if your rope team wanted to pass another rope team, you had to go faster - post-holing through the soft snow off the trail than they were going on the smoothed-out trail. It was hard work, and today, for the uphill folks, it was cloudy and into a 10-20 mph headwind. Since you’re all traveling at less than one mph, this passing sequence can take a couple hundred yards or so to complete.

The first of the crowd coming up from 11,000'

At one point there were four rope teams abreast, each trying to pass the others. With us going downhill, the crowd was now five rope teams wide. This was insanity. And I was struck with the pain and agony on the faces of the people coming up. Dragging huge sleds and carrying huge packs, they would take a step, grimacing, grunting, and efforting like an over-exerted weightlifter, then stop and pant three or four times, then the other leg and a repeat of the same grisly scene. And once in a while with a furtive sideways glance at the rope teams next to them to see if they were passing or being passed. It was awful.

When we got to the 11 camp, it was mostly deserted. It had snowed a foot since we were last there. We lunched, dug up our caches, switched back to skis, then headed out unroped for the 7800 camp individually. We were all carrying sleds. It’s tricky to ski downhill when you have a 20 to 30 pound sled roped to you. First I tried just letting it trail behind, but it wouldn’t do that. If I went straight, it would come up and slam into me. When I tried to turn, it would swing out wide and try to get in front of me, or get stuck in the soft snow. It was a disaster and time and again I flopped down into the snow, sliding down on my side, collapsing onto my back, head first like human lawn darts. I tried riding the sled like a horse, keeping the nose directly underneath me. That didn’t work, either. It wouldn’t stay in the right spot. To keep my grip on the sled, I had to ski hunched over. It was hard to turn that way, and anyway, there’s was no way I could hold that position for very long. A rope team on snowshoes passed me. That was embarrassing. It became my goal to catch up with them and pass them. I finally did, but it took about a mile to do it, and some education. I caught up with Punches. He said Dove had figured out how

Punches skiing down the Kahiltna glacier - sled in tow

to handle the sled. There were two ropes going from my harness to the front of the sled, left and right. The trick was to hold the ropes like reins and let the nose of the sled ride a little in front of your skis, with the rear of the sled between your legs. That way you could steer the sled by pulling on the reins, and if you needed to, shove the sled left or right with your feet. The snow also got a little firmer, which made turning easier. For a while I got the hang of it and made good progress. But the geography from 11 down to 7800 is a series of steps. Relatively flat sections followed by relatively steep sections. On the steep sections I had trouble keeping control of the sled and went out of control with more spectacular crashes. It was worse for Punches. He was the least experienced skier on the team and struggled mightily that day.

As I skied down the Kahiltna Glacier, I was again struck by the awesome beauty of this place. I think looking down the Kahiltna had become on of my favorite places in the world. I had been to the top of the mountain, and now I was once again in the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods. What a privilege to be here. The majesty and beauty seeped into my fatigued heart and lightened my load.

It was a long way down to 7800' and I was exhausted when I got there. But we only rested a short while. Kyle and Dove had both mastered their sleds and were tired of waiting by the time I straggled into 7800.’ They left for base camp. The other four of us rested a while, then roped up and headed out ourselves. We started off with skins, but soon took them off. I wasn’t sure that would work, since there were some short uphill sections on the route. It turned out that it worked fine. It was downhill enough that we didn’t need skins. As we had descended from 14, it had become progressively warmer. Now the snow was slush. On the glacier it was boiling hot and we were all sweating like crazy. It was the warmest air I had breathed in two weeks.

Back in the Throne Room	Dove and Kyle baking on the lower Kahiltna

I was bringing up the rear of our four-man rope team and feeling klutzy. And it was more than just a feeling. I was falling down often. I was really tired, but the exhaustion was compensated for by my happiness as we got closer to base camp, and home. Being the rear guy, I couldn’t prussik my sled to a rope, there wasn’t any rope behind me to prussik to. This led to problems. At one point we were on a long downhill section and making good progress. Punches was in lead and setting the pace. The rest of us were getting into the speed and yelling, "Faster! Faster!" So Punches sped up. My sled was keeping up with me and had moved out on my left. Then we dropped down over a little bump. The sled gained a lot of speed as it came off the bump and whipped around in front of me. But since it was attached to me it looped across my path and boloed my feet. I had been calf-roped. I yelled to try to give the others some warning, but we all went down like a line of dominoes. I’m sure it looked hilarious, but we were too tired to laugh, and I was embarrassed to be the cause of everyone’s crash.

Late in the day on the lower Kahiltna

Heartbreak Hill was waiting for us as the last obstacle before base camp and taking off the pack for the last time. It was a long hill, and yet another death march, but I was happy. The weather today had been perfect. I was glad I had prayed so hard. I know I wasn’t the only one praying. I think we had all called on all the help we could to pull this expedition off. Now the trip was over, and we had summitted. I didn’t have to worry about getting my fingers cold and re-frozen, and we were on our way to hot showers and good food.

We pulled into base camp about 8 PM. Too late to catch a plane. But Lisa, the plane dispatcher, said we could fly out tomorrow morning. We set up camp and recuperated from another long day, feeling happy and satisfied. The trip couldn’t have gone much better, except for my frostbite, of course. But by now I was convinced that my fingers were meant to be frozen; that this was my karma; and anyway, there would be no permanent damage. It was just another lesson for me. There are no mistakes in this world.

Climbers pulling in the base camp

Now that I was sitting in base camp, assured of getting out tomorrow, the mountains looked absolutely beautiful. There is such huge energy here, and it’s not human energy. It’s very strong, but not human and not even especially friendly to humans. We humans can come here, appreciate the stark beauty, tell survival stories about the harsh environment, but we don’t belong here. This is not a place for humans. And I, for one, am content with that. Let the Mountain Gods live here by themselves. They didn’t build this place for us. We are intruders, and it is only our insignificance which lets us get away with our climbing. On any given day, the mountains can manifest conditions and events that would make it impossible for any particular human to stay here, or even survive. Lethal winds, killing cold, blistering sun, avalanches, killer storms - these are not rare events to be gingerly side-stepped - these are the things the Mountain Gods do as part of their everyday lives. If the Mountain Gods ever perceived us as a threat, or as anything significant at all, we wouldn’t last a day in this place. In John Krakauers’ book, "Into Thin Air," he quotes a message posted on an Internet discussion forum about Everest:

"I am a Sherpa orphan. My father was killed in the Khumbu Icefall while load-ferrying for an expedition in the late sixties. My mother died just below Pheriche when her heart gave out under the weight of the load she was carrying for another expedition in 1970. Three of my siblings died from various causes. My sister and I were sent to foster homes in Europe and the U.S.

I never have gone back to my homeland because I feel it is cursed. My ancestors arrived in the Solo-Khumbu region fleeing from persecution in the lowlands. There they found sanctuary in the shadow of "Sagarmatha (Everest)," "Mother Goddess of the Earth." In return they were expected to protect that Goddess’s sanctuary from outsiders

But my people went the other way. They helped outsiders find their way into the sanctuary and violate every limb of her body by standing on top of her, crowing in victory, and dirtying and polluting her bosom. Some of them have had to sacrifice themselves, others escaped through the skin of their teeth, or offered others lives in lieu...

So I believe that even the Sherpas are to blame for the tragedy of 1996 on "Sagarmatha." I have no regrets of not going back, for I know the people of the area are doomed, and so are those rich, arrogant outsiders who feel they can conquer the world. Remember the Titanic. Even the unsinkable sank, and what are foolish mortals like Weathers, Pittman, Fischer, Logsang, Tenzing, Messner, Bonington in the face of the "Mother Goddess." As such I have vowed never to return home and be part of that sacrilege."

I can remember the days when I stood on the summit of some peak, filled with the pride of achievement, "crowing in victory." No more. To embrace the Halls of the Mountain Gods and live to tell about it is about the best I expect. We can never be resonant enough with the energy here to take it away with us. Even if we did, we couldn’t use it. It’s not like the energy we get from trees and flowers - homey things. Yes, we can be drawn to the Mountain God’s energy, even addicted to it, but it will never be ours to take home with us. It’s too alien. And what’s wrong with that? It’s ok with me that there are places humans don’t belong. Places we have no real business being, places we don’t understand, can’t cultivate, can’t control. Maybe there is one gift we can receive in the Halls of the Mountain Gods - humility.