“We were all for battle, but not for sudden death. Life is never so sweet as when one stands in danger of losing it. And if one takes imponderable risks too often one is not likely to last long.
Our motto was to take risks, but only calculated ones.”
Conquistadors of the Useless by Lionel Terray
It was a gorgeous, sunny, blue-skied, unseasonably warm day at Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park. It presented the perfect opportunity to make all sorts of bad decisions. Cause, after all, why not add stress to a day that started out without a care in the world?
The first and last genuinely happy and excited smiles caught on camera and none to be had for the next 2.5 hours. Photo in black and white to lend it that ominous feeling of our upcoming doom. There were many nervous smiles, incredulous smiles, maniacal smiles, but celebratory, truly happy ones were placed on hold.
The route was perfect snowshoe terrain. The snow had a wonderful hard crust and our snowshoes made a delightful crunch sound as we made our steps toward the base of what is to be called “the ridiculously steep hill.”
If only if the route remained this fantastic hard crusted snow layer throughout our hike. While this looks steep this part was a perfectly easy hill to snowshoe.
Me looking like I gotta go potty while assessing the ridiculously-steep-hill that David was proposing we go up on. After all, all the skiers heading up to Camp Muir were doing it with skis strapped to their packs. Why not us sensible hikers with just backpacks on? (Cause me. Cause I don’t do such things.) As we neared the base of the hill I kept pointing out how no way I can do it. One skier had been tackling it for some 15+ minutes and looked like he was struggling greatly. David replied to my nervous incredulity of my inabilities and kindly and calmly said, “Let’s just go to the base of it. Assess it. Then decide.”
I understood that he was probably thinking back to our time at Mount Elbert where all that separated us was a rocky ridge with steep drop offs on both sides and had declared from a distance that I can’t do that. But sure enough. Once we got to the base of it, I realized I could do it. But that was summer. No snow conditions. And I was probably delirious from lack of sleep and oxygen.
Oh. We went to the base of it. I assessed it by putting one snowshoe-footed foot on it then an another then the next thing that was happening is I was halfway up it and had passed 3 people up. I continued on up at a steady pace of someone that was being chased by a herd of wildebeasts. David close behind me. Could hear his heavy breathing. My thoughts were 1) I will not look back nor down 2) I just gotta make it to the top 3) really gotta blow my nose 4) did I just pass up that skier that I have been watching struggling to get up the “hill?”
I passed up about 7 people who all set out before me. One couple had cleats on their boots and didn’t understand why the girl was going up in zig zags when she was far better suited than me in my little snowshoes to go straight up it.
David was the only one (besides me) who knew that my sudden attack at mountaineering worth speed of this iced up hill was purely driven by the fear that up is way easier than down. He just didn’t think I’d be able to keep the steady-fast pace all the way up. But. I did. And once it was done I just sat on a little patch of dirt and rocks with shaky legs and set out to eat half my lunch at 11 AM.
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