Three Days Until We Die

We were young, smart, and confident. Adventurous mountaineers determined to make our mark. It would not be easy, but the will to act was perhaps our greatest strength.

After launching our breakthrough Light Dimension tent, and papering our workshop walls with orders, we had irrefutable evidence of latent customer demand for an outdoor product made with the new water-proof breathable Gore-Tex laminate. Although we were the first to market and were euphoric about our success, we worried our good fortune might not last. I suggested we maintain momentum by adding Gore-Tex rainwear. Nicolai concurred. After creating simple pullover patterns with underarm zippers for extra venting, I cut and sewed two anoraks from the tent laminate we had on hand. We now needed a rigorous field test in actual alpine conditions. I looked to Nicolai for his mountaineering expertise.

As was his way, he picked a superlative project. The high mountain Ptarmigan Traverse, a remote rugged route among sharp glaciated North Cascade peaks, was unique, challenging, and stunningly beautiful. Nicolai had completed the classic traverse once before, in good weather, and yearned to return. Our objective was so compelling we champed at the bit. The sooner we could validate our prototypes the sooner we could commence production, marketing, and sales.

The weather held us back as days of rain frustrated us. Even in the face of it, we assured ourselves that we were soon due for better. On that basis, we forged ahead. To make it more interesting, Nicolai boldly announced that we would take neither map nor compass. We would rely on his memory. And without commitment to any peak bagging, we left our crampons behind. A weight-saving measure. It was August so a rope and ice axes should do. I accepted Nicolai’s decisions without question due to his confidence and prior experience on the high alpine traverse.

As we crossed the Skagit River and drove up the Cascade River Road to the trailhead, the weather seemed to be clearing, hints of blue sky peeking through the overcast. Dressed in running shorts and cotton t-shirts, with alpine packs, we hiked the three-and-a-half-mile trail to Cascade Pass. Blue patches episodically shone through drifting clouds. The day looked promising. That promise would not last.

Arriving at the pass, gray clouds now swept over Sahale Arm, and the temperature plummeted. We reluctantly changed from nylon shorts to wool knickers, from cotton tees to wool shirts, and donned our Gore-Tex anoraks. It was not what we wanted, but we were not turning back. Both fit and determined, we had one direction, forward.

Heading up the Cache Glacier towards Cache Col, ominous clouds darkened the sky, and rain pelted down. The rain persisted, cold droplets beading up and running down my anorak. Perspiring freely but still relatively comfortable, I climbed swiftly to stay warm. As we gained elevation, I looked back at Sahale Arm and then down to a moving speck of a person below Mix-up Peak. Nicolai was making his way up the crusty sun-cupped snow that covered the glacier. The scale of the environment was vast indeed, seemingly made larger by the heavy shroud of gray. I felt a disquieting sense of isolation. If we became lost, we would not be found.

Just before the col, we crossed a forbidding-looking bergschrund with an overhanging ice block arched ominously over a deep fractured crack. Once over, we continued scanning for Kool-Aid Lake, the site of our first overnight camp. The fun name suggested a welcoming and refreshing place. I had looked forward to it. In my euphemistic vision, it would greet us, sparkling brightly in the sun, a serene reflecting pool perched high on a shelf amongst the surrounding peaks. My Shangri-La fantasy. Less than a mile across heather-covered slopes, Nicolai stopped near a small dark body of water nestled in a rocky outcrop and took off his pack. I realized that this meager pool, little more than a large puddle, was Kool-Aid Lake. A large snowfield wrapped around and over, nearly completely covering it. It was hardly a cause for celebration. Was this in some way a sign that portended what we might encounter in the days ahead? I did not find it encouraging.

Now raining steadily, a gray mist enveloped us. We pitched our Light Dimension, shook out our sleeping bags, crawled in, and zipped up the tent for the night. We fired up our MSR stove and prepared a hearty pot of noodles and landjeager. The savory ramen and sausage both warmed my body and enlivened my spirit despite the damp chill.

We then removed our wet knickers, wadded them up, stuffed them towards the back of the tent, and crawled into the comfort of our down sleeping bags. I had a blue foam pad under my bag. Although thin, it was the right compromise between insulation, comfort, bulk, and weight. Surprisingly, Nicolai had a prototype of a new inflatable sleeping pad from Cascade Designs. The sealed nylon exterior fabric sandwiched a compressible foam. An air valve allowed him to inflate the sleeping pad, creating an insulating cushion under his sleeping bag. In the morning, he could open the valve, expel the air, and roll the pad into a tight cylinder, next-era technology applied to sleeping pads. I envied Nicolai for scoring this prize for his field-testing sleeping comfort. Why he hadn’t he scored two?

The next morning, Nicolai announced that the air valve in the prototype sleeping pad had failed. The formerly inflated foam pad had squished down to nothing, providing negligible cushioning and insulation underneath him. He then mandated that going forward we would be taking turns using my blue foam pad. The person not using the blue foam pad could separate himself from the cold surface beneath by cushioning his bag with our soft packs. So, the next night I knew I would be sleeping on flattened alpine packs and dried sausages. This adventure was getting better and better.

We traversed toward Spider-Formidable Col. And once across, would descend to Yang Yang Lakes for camp. Visibility down into the valley below was decent, but our high route was completely socked in with a dense mist. As we continued our traverse, I expressed some apprehension. Nicolai assuaged my concerns by informing me that all we had to do was follow the cirque to the col and that he had done it before. We continued, still optimistic that at some point, the weather would change for the better, and assured each other with the quintessential Pacific Northwest phrase.

“Don’t worry, it’ll burn off.”

It did not. Instead, it snowed. By the time we reached the col, snow had been falling vigorously for some time and was now blowing sideways with a determined ferocity. The exposed granite peaks that jutted up on each side of the col were dark featureless forms, visibility closing in like a tightening concentric circle. As we crossed over the col and began the descent into the next cirque and our search for Yang Yang Lakes, Nicolai paused momentarily and looked up at me, his expression grim, a mix of fatigue and determination. Standing on a steep slope of jumbled snow-covered rocks, he appeared mounted on a precipice at the edge of a world that disappeared into a deep white void. Were we worried, with no maps or compass? Hell no, Nicolai had been here before. In Nicolai, I trusted. Wait a minute, was I sure about that?

The snow continued, big flakes streaming steadily down. Visually, the scene was quite picturesque, but the wet and heavy snow melted on contact with our warm bodies, rivulets running off our Gore-Tex anoraks and soaking into our wool knickers. One good thing, perhaps the most essential thing, though we were both tired, we were still warm. The Gore-Tex anoraks were doing their job, and our wool knickers retained our body heat even though quite wet.

We kept going and finally found a grassy outcrop that hosted a solitary lake. Not Yang Yang Lakes, but good enough. Though small, it was larger than Kool-Aid, about the size of the footprint of a medium-sized house, and luxurious by comparison to the forlorn little Kool-Aid Lake. We quickly made our second camp on the snow-covered meadow near the lake. Pleased that things were going as well as they were, under the circumstances, I got out the Sigg pots and water bottles and went to the lake to get water for dinner.

Then things got worse. When we pulled our sleeping bags out of their stuff sacks, we noticed they had accumulated a bit of water. It was likely from both internal tent moisture, contact with our wet wool knickers the night before, and water leaking into our packs during our traverse in the wet snow. Our custom Feathered Friends down bags were no match for the weather. The bags had lost half their loft as the down plumules clustered into soggy little clumps. No matter how good the down, it provides no insulation when wet and does not easily dry out. The dampness was everywhere with nowhere else to go. Unless we got some sun, the situation with our sleeping bags would continue to deteriorate. That night we slept in our wet clothes, in our bags, knowing it would only make the situation worse, but we needed to stay as warm as possible and needed that extra layer. We did not sleep well.

The next morning, the weather seemed to be breaking. Visibility now slightly better, we took some time to explore the area surrounding our camp. Despite the snow, there was a profusion of meadow wildflowers that had likely bloomed sometime days earlier, in better weather. Seeing them was somehow heartening. After further exploration, we discovered the two Yang Yang Lakes on a shelf not far below the lake where we had camped. So, not completely off course.

We packed and ascended to a pass in preparation to drop down onto the South Cascade Glacier. As we looked towards the next section of our route, the sun faded to a hazy yellow ball as an opaque curtain of moisture rolled back in. It stayed that way as we climbed up a ribbon of snow that led to a lengthy glacier traverse that would take us to the Sentinel-La Conte col.

Looking down from the pass, the South Cascade Glacier was more than enormous. The base, a web of wrinkled blue-gray fingers, reached towards the green-gray surface of the silty lake below. We dropped into a giant talus and scree slope and plunge stepped down, almost like skiing, short sections on the crumbly rocks. It was tiring work, staying upright in the steep loose wet rock that varied in size from baseballs to engine blocks.

After what seemed way too long a descent, we finally reached the bottom of the scree and the foot of the glacier. As we set boots on the glacier what had appeared as a uniform shade of gray from far above was an undulating river of ice encrusted with fine particles of dark gray rock, the ice filthy and wrinkled with age.

The upper stretches of the glacier had newer snow cover, still dirty but more uniformly white than gray. The main body displayed a gigantic spider web of horizontal crevasses, opened by the relentless creep down over the undulating terrain into the valley below. As we reached the top, we crossed by the South Cascade Glacier Hut, a science research station, perched on a rocky outcrop surrounded by snowfields. Painted a battleship gray, I wondered who chose the paint color.

Though the structure was overwhelmingly utilitarian, festooned with antenna, no Swiss chalet, it still looked like an opportunity to me, a chance to get warm for a few minutes. I had seen no one emerge from the hut. Otherwise, I would have waved. I thought it would be a good idea to saunter over, knock on the door and introduce ourselves. I fantasized that they would welcome us in, and we would join them drinking hot chocolate as we felt the warmth of the fire from their potbellied stove. We could share stories and get warm. My wishful thinking active in the chilly moment.

Warmth as a physical concept was very much on my mind. But Nicolai thought differently than me. He was sure that they would not be glad to see us. He was having none of my fantasy and said we needed to keep going, and we did. I occasionally looked back, so sorry to see the hut become smaller and smaller. Why was Nicolai so headstrong?

The rain continued, drizzling through the cold, damp air, visibility closing into near white-out conditions. So far, we had been traversing and climbing a combination of rock and sun-cupped snowfields and had not needed either crampons or the rope. And then things changed. In the process of descending another immense snowfield, this time looking for White Rocks Lakes, our designated camp three, it slowly became painfully clear that we were off route. We had lost too much elevation and had not found the lakes. Now in a steep section, the surface icy, and starting to get dark, we realized that we were lost. Serious doubt crept into my psyche.

We stopped, knowing that to descend further would only compound our mistake. It was too late in the day to turn around and climb back up. We had run out of time. Determined that a small niche on the ice field was going to be our camp three, we started chopping out a tent platform on the icy slope. We worked furiously, hacking away with the adzes of our ice axes. It took longer than we wished. After clearing just enough space, we hastily pitched the tent on the barely adequate platform and crawled inside. We would sleep on the ice tonight.

Our priority was maintaining body heat. We fired up our trusty gas-fueled MSR Model 9 stove, our little friend, who would keep us company that night. The little stove was a godsend for climbers and backpackers alike, a true mountaineer’s tool. A freaking blow torch that made a lot of noise and cranked out a lot of heat, which you needed when melting snow for water. We huddled around the little stove as it roared away. We were just trying to get warm, leaning over towards the stove, hands cupped and yearning like two small children in a Dicken’s novel.

“Please sir, may we have another bowl of warmth?”

That activity became our ongoing routine as night passed. We called it taking a warmth break. Our down bags were each a sodden mess of wet down clumps sandwiched between two sheets of nylon, completely useless, and we slept on top of them that night, fully clothed in our wet wool. Sleep is a euphemism because we did not sleep much at all. We passed the night in brief snatches of that nether world that exists in the fuzzy border between sleep and consciousness. We punctuated our stupors that night with frequent breaks, crouched over our little gas-fueled friend as it roared away.

Try as it might, the small stove provided only enough warmth to keep us engaged with getting through the night. I was shivering, freezing, certain that I would get through this night, but I was feeling really ragged and seriously questioned how much more of this I could take. I wondered if Nicolai was concerned as well. I asked him,

“So, if the conditions don’t change, how many more days can we do this until we die?”

Nicolai was among the smartest people that I had ever met, and nothing if not self-assured. If you wanted the perfect model for a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “I might be wrong. But I doubt it.” Nicolai would be your first choice. Hunched over the stove, he paused as if making a few mental calculations and then slowly turned his head towards me.

“Three days.”

Two words, with no elaboration. So, there I had it, three days. Well, that was at least a bit more headroom than I had expected, given the way that I felt in the moment. Why it positively cheered me up. Three more days, hurray! We would surely make it out inside of three days. Wait a minute…but if we do not, and if I feel this wretched now, that means it could conceivably get a whole lot worse. I shivered. I did not want to think about that.

After the interminable night passed, I stumbled out of the tent and stabilized myself on the slick ice. Just over the horizon, dawn was breaking. It was finally happening! A blazing sun, now emerging, casting bold flares of light across the glaciers. The clouds parted to reveal a bright cerulean blue sky. I marveled at the visual drama of the moment. My heart filled with joy. I could almost feel the warmth to come. We would live today and tomorrow!

We packed our gear and carefully stepped onto the snowfield, regretting leaving our crampons behind. It looked like any other steep sun-cupped snowfield, but the surface was a sheet of undulating glassy slick ice. I tippy-toed up in the icy cups, gingerly testing every step. Sometimes, while stopping on the steeper sections, I cautiously chopped out occasional crude steps with the adze of my MSR Thunderbird ice axe, careful to maintain my balance. It was too steep and slick to self-arrest.

We finally made it to White Rock Lakes and after roping up and crossing the Dana Glacier towards Spire Point, we descended to Cub Lake and assessed our situation. We had no intention of spending yet another sleepless night freezing and shivering, hunched over the little stove.

We elected to push on, hiking the last eleven miles out the Bachelor Creek and Downey Creek trails to the trailhead. We made the last two days of our traverse in one long exhausting day, bushwhacking through the brush fest that was Bachelor Creek until we finally met the Downey Creek trail, a real trail. Yet, it seemed endless as we stumbled down the last miles of the rough and rocky path in the dark. The orange light of a campfire beckoned as we approached the end.

We opportunistically wolfed down grilled hotdogs gifted by sympathetic trailhead car campers, and giving in to our fatigue slept on dirt in the Downy Creek campground and were glad of it, now warmer again. The next morning, we toasted our sock-clad feet by our campfire as we waited for our ride out. Although we had flirted with a frozen world and encountered the face of death, we had fortunately survived. Breathing the fresh air of life had never felt so good.

Author’s Note: This story appears in ‘Banquet of the Infinite,’ a memoir of my adventures in the mountains and outdoor business in the ‘70s. Available as an illustrated eBook at Amazon Kindle Press, Barnes & Noble Press, and Kobo Books. Although the book has many vintage photos, this story contains some that are not in the book.