Alpine Reality Check

The grand plan, the big idea, was to complete the Stuart Range Traverse, to climb to the 9,415-foot summit of Mt. Stuart and then traverse along the ridge crest and summit each of the four other Stuart Range peaks to the east: Sherpa Peak, Argonaut Peak, Colchuck Peak, and Dragontail Peak. All in one single push. Nicolai proposed it to me and, from the comfort of my Seattle home, it sounded glorious, even epic. The traverse was probably unclimbed, but who knew? Probably not, and that added to the appeal.

“What a cool idea. Let’s do it!”

That was my usual response to Nicolai, as his projects always had some hook that took them a step beyond the ordinary, that thing to which I could not say no. So, I always just said, “Yes.”

I waited and impatiently waited some more. “Where is Nicolai?” I asked the question aloud even though I stood on the front porch of my house alone. Nicolai was late, and not the first time, and when he finally did show up, he wasn’t even ready to go. No, he needed to drive around town to pick up his rucksack somewhere, climbing gear somewhere else, and perform various other errands. Why was his climbing gear scattered all over town? Why doesn’t he have his gear stashed all in one place? It was a question that I asked myself but did not ask him.

I was fuming, but Nicolai was still my mountain mentor, the fearless leader, the high priest. And I was the acolyte, trailing behind, always trying to keep up, intent on learning and adding to my alpine experience and skill set. We were not equal in the realm of mountaineering. I did not feel like I was entitled to complain much. I was usually projecting forward to the journey ahead instead of being fully in the present moment. I would put up with Nicolai’s annoying ways today.

I breathed with some relief when he finally showed up. No apologies. That wasn’t his style. And so, I pitched my gear into the back seat and climbed in. I sat beside Nicolai, working on my patience skills, as Xanthus, his ’63 Ford Galaxy, lurched around town on a gear hunt before finally heading east and toward the mountains of the Stuart Range. My mood lightened as we entered the narrow forest road, my eagerness now in the forefront. Almost there.

The tires crunched and skidded on the rocks as we pulled up to the packed dirt trailhead in the mid-afternoon. I thought, “Great, what now?” I knew from a previous climb that we had a long, long approach ahead of us before we even set foot on Mt. Stuart. I wondered what Nicolai had been thinking. It was certainly no alpine start, far from it.

As he finished packing his rucksack, he turned and asked me, 

“What time is it?”

He had no watch. I consulted mine and informed him that it was three o’clock. He looked up, wearing a genuinely surprised expression, and after a pause exclaimed,

“Shit, we gotta haul ass!”

At that point, I knew I was in for it. I watched his muscular form disappear up the trail. I hurried to join him. I was used to trailing in Nicolai’s wake as he dragged me along on various climbs. He was always stronger, faster, and more skillful. But I figured that if I kept at it, I would catch up, at least the getting stronger and faster part of it.

That day would finally come, but it was not to be today. Today I was still straining to keep up. We barreled up the trail as the light faded towards sunset. When it got to the point that it was getting dark, we were still on our approach, nowhere near the base of the climb. No matter.

“We’ll stop here,” Nicolai announced as he took off his pack, unrolled his pad, and shook out his sleeping bag, making a spot to sleep right next to the trail. He crawled into his sleeping bag, and that was that. His snoring provided a distinctive audible counterpoint to the otherwise silent night. I zipped up my sleeping bag and wondered about tomorrow.

I woke to the sound of birds on a bright, sunny day and watched Nicolai’s sleeping form for a few minutes. I did not feel like waking him. After a moment, he stirred, looked around as if not sure where he was, and then suddenly jumped up. As he wadded his down sleeping bag into its stuff sack, he declared,

“It’s late. We gotta haul ass.”

And with that, we resumed our approach, hauling ass, phase two.

Still a relative novice and very much under the sway of my alpine mentor, I stashed my growing skepticism and continued, still wondering what might happen. How would this adventure unfold? While I did not know, I was still game. It was my alpine apprenticeship. And I accepted that.

We finally arrived at the base of the West Ridge route on Mount Stuart. I cheekily suggested that we might want to climb it nude. Nicolai readily agreed. He was known for his nude ascents, especially his nude ascent of Mount Rainier, the first and probably only one by anyone ever. A stunt that seemed a bit crazy, and one with no small amount of bravado and risk. I heard that the weather on Rainier, that day of his nude climb, had been perfect, or he would not have been able to pull it off. But pull it off, he did.

The weather on this day was warm and clear, the risk of freezing to death was, unlike on Rainier, slim, and I was eager to try this outrageous naked climbing thing by making a nude ascent of the West Ridge of Stuart. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We dropped our packs and took off our clothes. We stuffed them into our rucksacks and began climbing upward. I was self-aware in a whole new way. At first, I felt a bit smug. The heat of the sun warmed my skin, a satisfying sensation. This nude climbing was a cool thing to do. Definitely.

We climbed un-roped since the difficulty level of the route was well within our capabilities, and it also helped us make up some lost time. We stayed close together, climbing in tandem. Pitch after pitch went by, and as we got higher on the ridge, the immense scale of the mountain became ever magnified as I looked around and down. As we climbed further, a thought occurred to me. What if I fell? I did not expect to take a fall. Falling was a remote possibility in my rational mind, but the seemingly irrational thought would not go away.

By now, the novelty of climbing naked from one jagged granite block to another had worn off. No longer smug, I was just a small, naked climber, a mere speck, on the West Ridge of the mighty Mt. Stuart, the single greatest exposed mass of granite in the United States. My thinking had progressed to envisioning my small crushed body found bloody and naked on the rocks below after a horrendous, terminal fall.

For some reason, I thought it would certainly be okay for my lifeless body to be found, fully clothed, but not to be found stark naked. No, that would not do. I continued mulling this over, perhaps overthinking it. Yes, I was absolutely overthinking it. I climbed on and upward and as we neared Long John Tower, reached a decision. I called out,

“Hey Nicolai, hold up. I’ve had enough of this naked climbing. I’m going to put my clothes back on.”

Without a word, he patiently waited, and after I had hurriedly rejoined the world of the clothed, he turned, and we both continued up the ridge. We had not seen anyone else on the climb and thought that we might have the entire route to ourselves. That was not to be. We soon encountered another climbing party, fully roped and belaying their leader. The four all turned and stared as we approached, mouths open, no words.

The buck-naked Nicolai shouted out, “Do you mind if we climb through?”

And with no objection, we swiftly passed them by. Nicolai and I finally roped up and belayed each other for the more difficult 5.6 layback crux pitch near the summit and then, un-roped again, deftly made our way up the jumbled granite blocks to the top. The sun was slipping towards the horizon, painting the sky in warm orange hues. As we paused on the summit, Nicolai, bronzed and naked, crouched like a primate eating peanut M&Ms from the bag. We briefly rested there, savoring our accomplishment and the view ahead.

Resuming our mission, we carefully descended towards the notch between Mt. Stuart and Sherpa Peak. And it was there, in that rocky granite saddle, we bivouacked for the night, settling into our down sleeping bags, staring wordlessly up at the pinpoints of ancient lights in the moonless sky, as our conscious thoughts slowly faded to black.

The next morning, we confronted our painfully obvious situation. We had simply started too late to complete the traverse in the time we had left. Unfulfilled ambitions are not an uncommon part of the drill in the mountains. Usually, it’s the weather that forces you off the climb, but sometimes it’s just your poor groundwork, probably more often than you’d like to admit.

And sometimes it was both, the weather forcing you off first so you’d receive a reprieve from realizing that, without the weather as an excuse, you would have had to confront your slipshod planning. Often a climb could be sandbagged by decisions and actions that occurred at the beginning, before even one step of the approach. In that situation, it simply amounted to a lack of time, the product of the very late start.

If I had recognized my inner voice, the one with the cognitive feasibility litmus test, I would have acknowledged right at the trailhead that our quest would not succeed. No amount of hauling ass could make up the time that we needed. So, with some deep regrets, we descended from the saddle and hiked back down the Ingalls Creek Trail, trudging our way back toward civilization, now both fully clothed. While my partner Nicolai added another nude ascent to his portfolio, I made probably the only 50% nude ascent of Mt. Stuart ever. Of that, I am confident. Do I regret that I did not make a 100% nude ascent that day? I am still on the fence about that. And that’s okay.

Fortunately, we both emerged without any falls or minor injuries. I chalk it up to being in my bulletproof years. And yet, I continued saying “Yes” to a host of the gnarliest ideas imaginable. After all, we could always back off. And, that did happen on the Mount Index Traverse (after the North Peak), the Liberty Ridge route on Mount Rainier, and a few others. Of course, Nicolai and I suffered greatly in reprehensible weather on the Ptarmigan Traverse back in 1976. But somehow, I survived all those years of risk-filled adventures. I was fortunate as not all did.

That was long ago. These days I am more circumspect. Okay, I’ll just say it, more risk averse.  There are some routes that I will not undertake on a solo outing, and some not even with a partner. And, it goes without saying that I do not climb naked anymore. While I don’t want to die in the mountains, it is simpler than that. I value my mountain time so much that I want it to last forever. And, while forever is a long time I don’t want to miss any part of it that I might yet have. That means that I measure my steps and take extra care not to get injured. I am more realistic and selective in my choices, which is not always easy. What is easy is to sit in front of my computer gathering beta on various alpine projects while in my twenty-something frame of mind. My youthful mental construct where almost everything seems possible. I often suffer the dreams of my young mind in my now older body. Yes, I would like to climb Eldorado Peak again. No, not a repeat of the amazing West Ridge, but perhaps the snow-covered knife edge of the East Ridge. That should be quite a bit easier, and doable, right? Well, that depends.

This year, my friend Mark seemed determined to summit The Brothers, specifically the higher south peak, Mount Edward. Since he lives on a waterfront that overlooks the Olympic peninsula, he spent years gazing at the twin peaks every day. Those moments fed his obsession. Having climbed The Brothers in his youth, Mark now longed to share the iconic summit with his sons. He invited me to accompany him to recon the climb before inviting Tyler and Chase.

At first, I eagerly agreed to join him. However, after researching the route and terrain, I declined. It looked like too much unsavory territory to cover in quest of a summit, both on the approach and the climb itself. Too much suffering for too little fun. I would save myself for better routes. I called him and said so.

“My dear friend, I really want to do this for you, but I really don’t want to do it for me.”

I waited a beat for his response. He understood straightaway and let me off the hook. Relieved, I thought no more of it until I had returned from a recent solo ascent of Mount Defiance and received a text from Mark. He and the boys were heading up to do The Brothers. I paused in thought and then wished them luck and a safe climb.

I was not surprised to learn that both the route and conditions challenged them all. Mark’s hamstrings both suddenly seized up very near the summit, only 500 vertical feet away. To his consternation, he discovered he could not climb any further. He chalked it up to inadequate hydration on an unusually hot day. I could empathize, as the same thing had previously happened to me at the upper saddle below Hidden Lake Lookout. No amount of will could propel you forward. You just had to sit it out and then descend.

Tyler and Chase conferred with Mark, and with their decision made, the brothers continued up while their dad waited and worried. After an hour and a half of fretful anxiety, Mark looked up to see a small figure, Chase, energetically waving from the summit. His sons had both summited despite some fearsome moments. It was no small feat as another group of seasoned mountaineers had missed the final key to the summit, a narrow chimney, and had abandoned close to the top. That summit day and the subsequent hike out constituted a physical beatdown for all. They had persevered, surmounting steep loose rock, thick understory brush, and two trailside hornets’ nests. When I later heard the details, the conditions, and the obstacles they faced, I knew I had made the right choice, my decision criteria clearly validated.

Of course, there are some easier local hikes that I equivocate about but that is usually more about overcoming the inertia necessary to get out the door. My wife, Diane, provides encouragement by assertively urging, “Don’t wimp out.” That usually spurs me to action and I have another fine day in the mountains. Thank you, Diane.

Where is the dividing line that cleaves between ‘just do it’ and ‘don’t do it’ decisions? It varies. I have ascended the steep and loose climbers trail to the summit of Kendall Peak on a couple of solo outings and thought little of it but stopped short at the summit pyramid at McClellan Butte. Perhaps if I had been with a friend, I would have continued to the top. The steep rock face certainly looked well within my capabilities, but the significant exposure gave me pause. I was alone and the uncertainty of what might go wrong weighed on me. I regretted leaving it behind but justified the decision by telling myself that Diane would certainly kill me if I fell and died.

Now far older than when I embarked on my first alpine quests, I feel the heartbeat of time. I temper my ambitions by acknowledging the stark reality of my age and physical limitations. I think about that for my older companions as well. Even though my body still has all its original equipment it does not mean that every new arduous adventure makes me stronger. Hardly.

I later joked with Mark that every plan should heed to a personal ARC, my acronym for an ‘Alpine Reality Check.’ It is a mirror we should regard to help us snap out of denial and confront that both our alpine capabilities and mountain time are now regrettably limited. While it is not difficult to acknowledge that the days of fifth-class mixed alpine may now be well behind us, it is not quite so easy to mentally prepare to finally leave the stage. Perhaps we can ignore that a bit longer if we select the routes that allow us to stay in the game. Staying in the game. I cannot think of anything better.