Acceptance
Joe Josephson on our first attempt of the Emperor. This attempt ended one-third of the way up the wall when we encountered steep, unprotectable climbing. STEVE HOUSE
Northeastern Oregon: March, 1997
CRUSTY PATCHES OF SNOW lie scattered across the hundred acres of private timberland we are supposed to plant with trees this week. Winter lingers in the Blue Mountains. Worse, the 14,000 seedlings – one year old and four-inch tall miniature ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, blue spruce, and western larch – are still in the ground at the nursery in central Oregon.
Over the weekend I pass the time with an odd job. Using a tractor I push up slash piles from old clear-cuts and burn what I can. Preparing the ground for the coming seedlings is hard, dirty work. The oversized industrial chain saw leaves my hands numb, my back aching, my ears ringing.
My morale takes another hit when we learn that the seedlings won’t be here for at least another week. That night, I’m reading in my parents’ small living room when the phone rings. It’s Joe Josephson calling from Canmore, Alberta. Trying to hide my excitement, I ask how he’s doing.
“Well, actually, not great.” Jojo replies. “See, Barry and I are planning on heading up to Mount Robson, and Whipper, our third man, can’t go. So we were wondering if you would be interested in going in there with us.”
“Where?” I question him, though I think I heard him the first time.
“Robson. We’re going to try a new route on the Emperor Face. Robson man, the King.”
Forty hours later I steer my little car into the Mount Robson Visitor Centre. A loose engine-belt screams as I push in the clutch and coast to a rest next to Jojo and Barry. Their gear is strewn across the tarmac in the sunshine.
Emperor Face of Mount Robson, Canadian Rockies: March, 1997, (10 days later)
I shove my arm behind the base of the icicle, and the fabric of my jacket crackles from the cold. I can just reach around it; feeling the end of the cord with my fingertips I pull it through the back. I tie off the cord and clip my lead-rope to the icicle. I kick my crampon points into the icicle, being gentle as I pass, climbing into a shallow gully filled with snow, edged by vertical walls of black rock.
It is my block, my set of leads, and the short winter day is waning. There is no hint of a place to sit or lie down for the approaching night. The gully gently rises up to another steep section, which looks to be the day’s crux.
I see Jojo’s huge red parka lean back on the belay. “Nice work,” he shouts. As I move past the slung icicle I hear Barry’s more subdued baritone. “Good, Steve. Good.”
During the last 10 days, we tried and failed to climb an audacious direct line up the center of this face. The steep snow-covered rock offered neither protection nor belay stances. The climbing became desperately hard after two pitches. After Barry nearly fell on lead, we retreated to our skis and quickly traveled two miles across frozen Berg Lake to a log cabin shelter. Over these 10 days we have become fast friends; quickly bonded by a love for what we’re doing. Barry and Jojo accepting me into their world.
“It was the weirdest thing,” Barry revealed one night as I stoked the wood stove with a dead log we had scavenged from the stunted spruce forest. “I was at my desk writing.” I turned and saw him holding out his hands, palms down, wrists flexed, as if he were at the computer. “I was working on a story about the time David and I climbed Mount Fay with Carl Tobin.” David Cheesmond had been one of Barry’s closest friends, and was a driving force in Canadian alpine climbing, but died on Mount Logan in 1987. “I was getting into it, writing about the storm. And there was this point where David led this amazing pitch in the storm. He got us off of that wall, saved our lives. So, anyway, I was there writing that part of the story, I was really struggling with it, and this song came on, Jackson Browne’s ‘Running on Empty.’ It was David’s and my favorite song. I could feel David’s presence there. I swear he was there with me, right in the room. I could feel him. I immediately grabbed a new sheet of paper and wrote David a letter. I can’t explain that kind of shit man. Think whatever you want. But I can’t explain that kind of shit.”
Now we are two-thirds of the way up a system of gullies on the right edge of this 6,000-foot wall. I smile as I reach up and clear snow out of the wide crack that rears up in front of me. I plug in our biggest piece and start torquing my picks into the narrowest part of the crack. Pulling on the tools, I step my feet up on small bits of ice and finally reach past the crux with the solid thunk of a well-placed ice tool.
Barry Blanchard grimaces at the very cold, very foodless, and very waterless bivy near the top of the Emperor Face of Mount Robson. The rope strung above him is part of our anchor. JOE JOSEPHSON
With the day’s first light, I lead the first pitch, of a new route called The Silver Lining that Barry, Jojo and I climbed in the spring of 1998 as a result of our commitment to “try again next year.” JOE JOSEPHSON
I lead several more difficult pitches; ice gullies weaving through hard, clean rock. The best pitches of the route. Pitches Alex would love to climb, I think. By the last glimmer of day, Barry sees a ledge off to our right. We don headlamps and I lead across 200 horizontal feet to a three-tiered ledge: the perfect “room-with-a-view.”
As I set up the anchor I ache with the day’s effort. The cold and the 20-odd hours of climbing have been costly. Nevertheless I am elated beyond words. I am living my dream, climbing a new route on the King, with two of the Rockies’ best. Barry and Jojo seem confident in my ability to climb securely and quickly through the difficult, complex terrain. That is the ultimate compliment.
As I belay them across to the ledge, I think about the seriousness of our situation. We are 4,000 feet up a north face; the temperature is quickly dropping towards –20 degrees. We finished the last of our water four hours ago and a north wind is picking up, threatening to freeze our exposed faces. Despite this, I’m really having fun. I am exceeding my own expectations. Worries about dying, or getting injured have dissolved in the momentum of the climbing.
I chuckle and look up at the full moon cresting the horizon. My worries about failure are also fading. The hardest, the worst, is surely behind us. The summit, and success, is ensured. Tomorrow will be cold and clear: a magnificent summit day. I let loose a long howl. In the darkness 100 feet away, Barry joins in.
Barry joins us on the ledges and we set up an anchor for the night. My crampons spark as I kick a few offending rocks off my soon-to-be bed. Opening my pack, I pull out the stove and hand it up to Jojo. I keep digging, looking for my mittens. The cold is creeping in.
“Hey Steve, the pump isn’t on the fuel bottle.”
“No? Seriously?” I reply and Jojo holds the bottle for me to see. “Shit! Well it must be in my pack somewhere!”
I hold my pack, the faded yellow cloth displays dozens of small, and some not-so-small, tears. Carefully, I go through everything. I take each item out and clip it securely to a carabiner so it doesn’t fall. I put my numb, naked hand into the pack and shake it to convince myself that it’s empty. No fuel pump.
Slowly, I put everything back in, checking each stuff sack. No fuel pump. I can’t believe it. I can feel Barry and Jojo’s eyes on me now. Again I remove each item carefully, inspect it, and clip it to the anchor. I check my pockets. I look up and Barry is staring at me from his sleeping bag. I check the top pocket of the pack. I put everything back inside. I am shivering. I examine the ledge I’m standing on, picking up my feet to see if I’m standing on it. I shine my headlamp down the face. A few feet of steep rock and snow give way to blackness.
“Well,” I say letting my arms fall limply to my sides, “I definitely don’t have it.”
Jojo and Barry look at each other. I am nauseated. I feel like untying and chucking myself off this ledge. My mind quickly does the math. Without a fuel pump we have no stove. Without a stove we have no water. Without water we have no food. Without food and water we cannot continue. We will not stand on the summit tomorrow. Even tonight’s open bivouac in these temperatures, in this worn out state, could end in disaster. Frostbite, hypothermia, even death, stalks climbers in our condition: exhausted, hungry, dehydrated.
I lean miserably against the wall. “Definitely. I definitely don’t have it.” Barry and Jojo say nothing.
“It fell out. It must have fallen out of my pack. I mean it came detached from the fuel bottle and maybe I dropped it when I unpacked. But I think maybe it just fell out. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.”
Jojo gets into his bivouac sack. No words. I turn and unpack my elephant’s foot, a short sleeping bag that zips to the bottom edge of my parka. Once inside that I sit on my small chunk of a foam pad and pull the bivy sack over my legs.
There has to be some way to get pressure into the fuel bottle, I think. With pressure we can have fire. Immediately I start to fiddle with a piece of wire from the climbing equipment and some athletic tape that makes up our first aid kit. I desperately want to pressurize the fuel bottle so I can light the stove and melt some snow.
After two hours I have created enough flame to produce one cup of water. I pass it up to Barry. Reaching for the cup he looks at me with his light glaring in my eyes. I hold up my hand to block the glare.
He directs his light away and says in his gravelly voice, “Steve, you’re young. You know, when you sum up all the fuck-ups that you are going to make in your life, this is going to seem like pretty small change.” Jojo laughs.
“Thanks Bubba,” I say meekly, “but I’m not so sure about that.”
Jojo laughs some more. Barry chuckles and passes the half-empty cup to Jojo. Tomorrow we will have to traverse to the Emperor Ridge and descend that route for 3,000 feet – without water. We’ll walk a couple of miles around to the base of the Emperor Face, collect our skis and ski 18 miles to the road. Without a stove, and with all the water within a few hundred miles locked up in ice, we need to get back to civilization as soon as possible. We will do it, together. Barry and Jojo have already accepted my mistake, forgiven my faults. That’s partnership.
It is dark when we get to the road. We drive together in Barry’s truck for 30 miles to the nearest brewpub; actually the only brewpub. We’ve been in the mountains for 12 days and not had a sip of water for over 30 hours.
We take refuge at a dark corner table. When the waitress approaches, Barry looks up calmly. “A pitcher of water please. Wait, make that two pitchers of water,” he says, holding two fingers up for emphasis. “No ice. Oh, and a pitcher of ale please.”
For once the water tastes sweeter than the beer. With both water pitchers drained, Barry hails the waitress for another round. Jojo fills our beer mugs and then hefts his own. “Here’s to the King!”
We drink. Then Barry slaps me on the back and grins at me. “And here’s to trying again next year!”