SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1999
The next evening, I drive to a friend’s house where Jim’s immediate family gathers to hear the details of the accident from his climbing partners, Keith and Graeme.
Mom and Dad Haberl, as well as Jim’s three younger brothers and his older sister, sit on the edges of the light-coloured couches. Jim is missing. I force my mind to focus on this strange world where Jim should be but is not. I force myself because I have to find him. All heads incline slightly away from the stark lights. We wait.
Before the door opens, at the first jiggle of the doorknob, people are on their feet. Keith and Graeme have driven straight from the Seattle airport. Their faces are shadowed with stubble and their clothes crumple into the crevasses of their bodies. My legs are still catching up when I bump up against Keith’s chest, encircle him with my arms. “Welcome home.” I step back. Keith’s gaze darts above and below me and to the left and to the right.
Keith and Graeme sit down stiffly and take turns unravelling the tragedy.
Questions – why? and how? – burn in our brains. No one wants to place blame, but we all want answers: Why weren’t they roped up in case of a fall? Wearing transceivers in case of an avalanche? Helmets in case of rock or ice fall? How could Jim, such an experienced, wise and talented mountaineer, die in the mountains? Why him when Keith and Graeme survived? And my irrational silent questions: Where is Jim? Why did you leave him there? How do we fix this? How do we get him back?
Jim, Keith and Graeme had planned to climb University Peak, but the pilot could not land the plane there because of poor snow conditions. So they decided to climb an unnamed peak, known locally as Ultima Thule. They discussed how the unusually low snowpack had increased avalanche hazard. As a result, they decided to ski down the glacier and access the ridge to the summit via a 50° chute that was as steep as a double-black-diamond ski run and as high as the Eiffel Tower. The chute had been pummelled by previous snowfall, and so they surmised that it had avalanched and would be a safer route. As they moved along the route, they were laughing, really enjoying being out there with one another.
“I figure,” says Keith, “we were all wondering about the snow stability, but nobody wanted to break the spell.”
At the top of the chute, Keith was leading and began to cut across to the other side. Their boots sank easily into the snow and then stopped suddenly at a harder slab layer deeper down. When they tapped gently on the slab with their boots, it sounded hollow, like banging on a drum. Mountaineers refer to these snow conditions as “bricks over Rice Krispies” because the snow beneath the slab layer is lighter, less dense. On the 50° slope, the harder, heavier layer over the less consolidated one could slide at any time, especially with the added pressure of a human’s weight.
Without saying a word, Jim began to cut another line at less of an angle.
As Keith joined Jim’s new route, the hard snow layer settled beneath them with a “whumph” sound. They froze.
When Jim moved on, he walked as if doing giant tippy toes: one slow high step to clear the snow, then he gently placed his foot down, sank slowly to thigh level and used his plastic mountaineering boot to pat the snow down gingerly. He did this over and over, agonizingly slowly, for 15 minutes. No one spoke.
As they reached the other side of the chute, they dropped their packs on a small knob of snow and began to chat again. The slope angled off to a moderate 20°, and they were out of the chute on a slightly raised feature a few hundred metres from the ridge. The hard part was over. While Keith and Graeme had a drink, Jim resumed breaking trail, pushing through the thigh-deep snow.
Minutes later there was a loud crack. Keith and Graeme looked up in Jim’s direction and heard him call, “Whoa, boys!” A slab of snow the width of a small house and half the height of Jim’s body fractured and rushed toward them, breaking up as it crashed into rocks and ice.
Keith and Graeme fought to stay on their feet as refrigerator-sized blocks of snow, carried along by a river of powdery snow, pushed them toward the rock cliff. As Keith waded uphill against the current, he saw Jim slide by him, fighting to get a purchase with his ice axe.
The room is silent as we stare at Keith. He raises his chin to Jim’s family, and I see his eyes now as he says, “Jim came really close to me, really close … If I had reached out, I could have touched him.”
The room freezes for an instant. I stifle my immediate response: Why didn’t you grab him? Why didn’t you grab him?
I say nothing. I clench my teeth, lower my gaze and fiddle with the bottom of my shirt.
After a pause, Dad Haberl nods his head decisively, raises himself slightly out of his chair, opens his arms and says, “Of course, we know you did everything you could.” And he lowers himself back into his chair.
I gape at Dad Haberl, as if he has switched sides and now plays for the opposing team.
His words are generous, but I am not ready to believe that Jim cannot be saved. I guard my house of cards.
Keith slowly lowers his gaze and continues talking.
When the snow settled, Graeme had hurt his knee and one pack was gone. And so was Jim. Keith and Graeme strapped on crampons to climb down the steep icy chute they had just so carefully ascended. A little voice was saying to them, “You’re lucky to be alive, so stay that way.” Jim had gone over a four-hundred-metre cliff, and Keith knew that there was no chance of survival. But he called to Jim over and over for 45 minutes, “We’re coming, Jim. Hang on, we’re coming.”
When he reached the bottom of the cliff, Keith spotted a patch of snow stained brownish red. His metal probe made a soft thud as it hit something spongy buried less than half an arm’s length down. He dug down with his shovel and found Jim’s wrist, bent at an odd angle.
I think to myself nervously, that’s not right. Jim has always been very fit and healthy. His arms were warm and alive when he held me a week ago. No, Keith must be mistaken.
Keith and Graeme uncovered the rest of Jim’s body and knew he was dead before they saw the head injury. They cried.
They debated whether or not to activate the emergency locator beacon they carried. The device would inform Search and Rescue of their location. Their situation was no longer an emergency. Jim was dead. Nothing would reverse that. Yet, a man had been killed. They decided to pull the yellow plug. Then they cocooned Jim in his dark forest-green sleeping bag and left him on the snow.
On the four-kilometre ski back up the glacier to their tents, Keith fell to his knees sobbing over and over. By chance, Paul flew over to check on them and Keith exhaled into the radio that Jim was dead. Paul landed and picked up Keith and Graeme, but because Paul’s young children were at the lodge and would be upset by a corpse, Jim spent the night on the glacier, alone. Search and Rescue contacted the lodge to confirm that their assistance was not needed.
I picture Jim lying there in the cold. My mind races. How can I get to him and hold him so he won’t be alone? How can I hold his hand as he falls over the cliff? How can I save him? I would die for him.
Back at the lodge, Graeme made the hardest phone call of his life to Kevin, and then Keith and Graeme drank tequila until they were numb.
The next morning, Paul’s father, Grandpa John, flew back to the glacier with Keith and Graeme to pick up Jim. Then they flew to the town of Glennallen and loaded Jim’s body with all of their mountaineering gear into the back of an open pickup truck. “It seemed fitting,” Keith mused, “to have Jim with us, in the truck, with all the gear, as opposed to in an ambulance.”
Grandpa John drove them two hours to the nearest funeral home in Anchorage. The coroner pronounced the cause of death as severe head injuries.
Keith sighs as he recounts the final facts of Jim’s accident. The tension connecting the group sitting around the living room breaks; people relax back into their seats quietly, and their eyes glass over. Gradually, soft voices fill the void and a few people get up. Kevin stands in front of me shaking his head and slamming the back of his hand into his other palm, “It’s such a simple thing. You throw on a rope. Jim knew better.” I say nothing and search for Keith.
I guide Keith to the privacy of the bathroom and close the door. I need more information so that I will be prepared. I shift around frenetically. I put one hand on Keith’s arm and stutter, “I wan… I want to see Jim’s body…” I study my shoes and try to muster courage. “Ha,” I laugh uncomfortably. “Um, you see, I need to know what he looks like, you know?” Keith nods eagerly and gazes at me softly.
“He suffered a head injury, a basal skull fracture. Part of his skull was missing and there was blood pooling in his face around his eyes.” I try to smile in appreciation as tears drip down my cheeks.
“Okay, thanks.”
I am heading to my car to drive back to Dad’s house when Pat places his hand gently on my arm from behind. “There were no regrets, Sue, nothing was left unsaid.”
I turn quickly and agree, “Yes.” I hug him tightly. An undercurrent of truth tugs at my wishful thinking. So much living was left undone, and I think of the words I did not say to Jim: “Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t die.”