Burn Notice

It is always a shock when you make the abrupt transition from a trusted mountain companion—climbing partner, backpacker, day hiking buddy—to persona non grata. And you might not grasp the full extent of it in the present moment. Perhaps only later will you realize that you are truly burned. Of course, sometimes it happens right to your face. Those are the worst.

You wonder why it happened, though it is likely you will never really know. You have been irrevocably cut off. Dumped! End stop. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens, and when it does, it stops you cold.

Many years ago, Denny and I attempted a traverse of the three peaks of Mount Index in the Cascades of Washington state. Upon arriving on the summit of the North Peak, exhausted and running out of daylight, we bivouacked. After a sleepless night, we abandoned the traverse, rappelling back down the route we had climbed the day before. Except for the brushy descent, I was pleased to be off the peak. It had looked pristine from a distance but the route was a messy, unenjoyable affair, a veritable vertical bushwhack. If Denny wanted to try it again, I was out. Though we did not speak of it, I could tell he already knew.

In the early 1970s in Seattle, I was part of the team at Early Winters, which made tents for the local alpine community, and through our factory shop, Denny had become connected to the mountaineers in our circle of climbing partners. Subsequently, he joined me, David Stevenson, Rainer Burgdorfer, and another friend, Roy Plaeger, on an aborted attempt on Liberty Ridge. After that, Roy and Denny teamed up to tackle the Index Traverse. I was no longer interested in the route myself, but I endorsed their enthusiasm and wished them the best of luck. 

The date of their departure arrived, and I kept track of their days on the route. They occasionally cropped up in my thoughts as I pondered where on the climb they might be and how they were handling it. Soon, they were overdue by two days. Since this was no extended expedition, two days was a meaningful delay, an ominous development.

What should I do? What could I do? I called and conferred with my friend and mountain mentor, Bill Nicolai. He reviewed the timetable and then suggested that we call search and rescue. It was good to have a partner in that decision, and I trusted Nicolai’s judgment. After alerting the SAR team, Nicolai and I hopped in his car and drove to Index. We wanted to be there for our friends.

As we found out later, Denny and Roy were surprised by a sudden storm and were forced to bivouac on the Middle Peak. They couldn’t go forward because of the lack of visibility, and the wet rock made climbing treacherous. For protection from the elements, they squeezed into a void under some boulders and got progressively wetter and colder as the water ran down the rocks and onto their huddled forms.

Incredulously Denny had been wearing blue jeans instead of wool knickers. Frankly, not a smart move in the Cascades. And he knew better. Roy later told me he had extra clothing and food, which he shared with Denny as they sat together, wet and freezing in a relentless nightmare of a storm they did not expect. Legendary Northwest climber Fred Beckey had warned in his book, Cascade Alpine Guide, that Index should only be attempted in steady weather. And if caught in a storm, there would be no easy and rapid descent. Denny and Roy discovered the truth of that, and were stuck.

In dire situations like this, time often seems to collapse into itself and crawl nearly to a complete stop. To keep time moving, they did as many who are pinned on a mountain often do. They talked about food—the food they yearned for, hot cheeseburgers, and going out for food they could not possibly get. These were cruel fantasies they imposed on themselves for distraction from the agony of their wet, cold circumstances. The night passed like a sloth.

The storm persisted throughout the next day, forcing them to stay put for a second night. They worried the weather wouldn’t clear, and the threat of hypothermia loomed. Luckily, on their third morning, the fog cleared and they scrambled along a narrow ridge and reached the Main Peak that afternoon.

After the drive to Index, Bill and I hiked up toward a large congregation of mountain rescue members—lots more people than we expected. In evaluating the situation, it was obvious it would be a time-consuming and difficult technical feat for an unaided rescue team to locate and retrieve Denny and Roy from the steep, rugged, and now wet black peaks. Even that might be an understatement: It was hard to imagine success even for a very skilled team, and the chance of mishap for anyone on the rescue crew was too high to risk.

Denny and Roy might well be hypothermic, and perhaps near death. Facing the constraints of time, technical difficulties, and safety, someone in SAR called for a rescue helicopter, which we discovered only when we heard the loud whup, whup, whup of the long blades cutting through the white mist. We waited for word from above, and soon the flight crew radioed they’d located the climbers.

Denny and Roy had made it off the traverse and were spotted amidst a large boulder field on their descent from the Main Peak. They were alive. We did not know they’d successfully summited and reached the boulders by nightfall. They bivouacked there the third night, shivering, cold, and wet as the last two. By day four, they were exhausted and hungry.

The helicopter approached the climbers and hovered a few feet over a flat, house-sized boulder as a rescue crew member extended his hand to help them. The noise was deafening, and the downwash from the rotors challenged them to stay upright and climb in. The moments were tenuous, but they made it. Once aboard, the chopper whirled up and away from the boulder field and ferried them toward our gathering.

The noisy machine slowly touched down, and both climbers and crew emerged. Denny and Roy were ambulatory and appeared unhurt. I felt both relief and joy and yet wondered what would have occurred without a rescue. Would they have made it out without becoming hypothermic and perishing? Would they have soldiered on, beating the odds to return with an epic story of ascent and survival? Or would tragedy have befallen them?

Of that, I cannot say. But with the perspective of one who has spent time in the mountains in horrific conditions on more than one occasion, I remain convinced rescuing them with the chopper was a good decision. Even without other physical trauma, the space between fatigue exhaustion and hypothermia and death can be sliver-thin.

Roy approached, wearing a fatigued smile and a sheepish demeanor. He offered his hand, thanking us both for our concern, for paying attention, for taking action, and for coming out in support. As we talked, Denny walked toward us. Expecting a similar greeting, I was taken aback when, with his head held high and a stern expression, he walked by us without a word or acknowledgment we were there.

I surmised that he was angry at us. I guessed he felt rescue was beneath him, an affront to his dignity and mountaineering abilities. They’d made it off the climb without aid, so why would they need any help from us? I often wondered how Denny viewed what happened that day, what was going through his mind. I still wonder.

His unspoken words to me that day were not, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” They seemed to be, “Don’t call, ever.”

It was over. Even though we had been roped partners on many prior climbs, we would not climb together again, and it was the last time that I would see him. It was to be the last time for Roy as well.

That was long ago. In recent years, I have resumed hiking and scrambling the peaks of the Cascades and teaming with other old climbing partners. One guy seemed well suited to my interests. And he lived close by. For several years, he was always game for mountain adventures, selected great routes, eagerly sallied forth, and often brought beer for the post-event celebration. What could go wrong?

As with previous mountain mishaps, this one involved a dog—always a variable in the mountains. I like dogs. I just choose not to own one, which to some dog lovers means I don’t like dogs. I could never figure that one out.

One spring day I texted my friend an invitation. “Let’s hike up to the Granite Mountain Lookout. There’s still snow on the ridge. I’ll wear mountain boots and take poles, an ice axe, and traction. I plan to go light. Are you in?”

He said he was. So, he shows up in low-cut trail runners, with a 60 lb. pack, no poles, ice axe, or traction, but with his dog, a springer spaniel. If I hadn’t been so gung ho to get into the alpine, I might have noticed we had very different agendas and this supposed light and fast outing might go sideways.

“What’s with the heavy pack?”  I asked as he hefted the beast. He replied he was training to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Columbia River to the Canadian border in one push, without resupply. It was an audacious plan at 505.7 miles and a lot of elevation gain and loss on the way. Lugging a sixty-pound pack up Granite Mountain was clearly training—all climbs are— but I had pitched a light training day with some time on snow as we ascended the last ridge section to the lookout. Even with a minimal pack, the hike would be strenuous. I could not imagine lugging sixty pounds up thirty-eight hundred feet of elevation in a little over four miles. What was he thinking? I should have asked him at the car when he first picked me up at my house. But no, while I saw his huge pack, I also did not see it; the tunnel vision of my overeager brain didn’t allow it to register. I was more focused on the snow climb ahead.

We shouldered our packs at the trailhead, my flyweight, and his behemoth, and headed up. About a third of the way up I could tell he was struggling with weights shifting inside his pack. I suggested he could pull some out, stash them along the route, and pick them up on the return. He concurred. We continued with episodic stops to rest and water his dog. We finally reached the meadows above the treeline. He stopped again. I waited. Finally, he said, “You go ahead.”

I felt released and stretched my pace, eager for the snow-covered ridge. After crossing the first significant snowfield, I looked back. He had stopped again on the other side. I turned and continued onto the ridge, his dog now my frisky companion, as she always tracked the leader. The snow challenged me, yet I welcomed the experience. I soon reached the lookout and scanned the skyline, pleased with my ascent. We waited there together, human and canine.

A small figure appeared far below, my friend waving his arms. It sure looked like a signal to come down. We reluctantly descended and once close I could tell he was not happy. He was furious. What had I been thinking? Had I watered his dog? Well, no. I was out of water. I had only some bottled tea and didn’t think that was appropriate. Anyway, couldn’t his dog lick snow if it was thirsting? His tirade continued. Although I couldn’t square his earlier “you go ahead” with his volcanic anger, I apologized. It didn’t help. He stomped off, post-holing through the snow as he disappeared down the mountain.

I tried to enjoy the rest of the hike on my solo descent, puzzling over what had just happened. Maybe there was something else going on, his emotions a tinder-dry forest ready to explode into an inferno and I was the spark. That gave me solace as I mentally prepared to exit the trail to an empty parking lot. Much to my surprise, he was still at the trailhead, waiting to drive me home. I offered a token, “Hey, I can buy beer.” Perhaps that would help absolve the rift. He responded, “I don’t feel like it.” His anger was palpable so I thought it best not to push it. We rode in silence.

A couple weeks later I texted him with a proposal to make a loop up Longs Pass, down to the Ingalls Creek Trail, up to Lake Ingalls, and back to the trailhead via Ingalls Way. It was decent bait, I thought, sure to get a response. I was wrong. My text went unanswered, my olive branch untaken. Months and later years went by. There was no response. I had been burned. Scorched.

Even now, I still wonder what went wrong.

Some burn notices are more subtle. The slow drifting away. Unanswered calls, texts, emails, and even letters. It’s as if the great trips of the past had never happened. It seems the burns all have a common theme: You are never, ever going to know the why. Instead, you are left with a void. All you can do with inexplicable loss is find a way to be okay with it.

That will have to be enough.