Conceding the mountain

Meditations on 12,280 feet of rock and ice

STORY BY NICK BELCASTER | PHOTOS BY NICK BELCASTER AND BEATRICE HARPER

(Above) Klipsun writer, Nick Belcaster stands at the Mt. Baker ski resort area on Tuesday, May 17th. Photo by Beatrice Harper.

The decision to climb a mountain is simple enough. It’s the climbing that’ll get you. At around 9,000 feet of elevation it starts creeping in — “Maybe it’s better to go down.” The high sun is burning exposed skin, the air isn’t thick enough and half of the route still rises above us. It’s been hours in the making with many more to go.

As we look back down Mount Adams’ south ridge, all it took to reach this point unfurls below.

It’s 1 a.m. and I’m certain that my long time buddy Scott has lost all sense of self-preservation. He’s got a flair for reckless abandon tonight, drunk with exhaustion and careening my old Subaru at 60, navigating over potholes. We’re on some of the most remote dirt road in the state, and I’ve scanned the FM frequency twice looking for any sort of noise to keep us awake. But none of this matters, we’re headed for the mountain.

Seven hours previous Scott and I took off down the highway from Bellingham, an arrow pinned for the summit of Washington’s second highest peak. We planned on an alpine climbing ascent, using our skis to take us most of the way, then switching to ice axes and trudging the rest of the way to the summit.

By 2:30 a.m. the road avails and we pull into the last spot next to the outhouse. The volcano arrives silently before us, a snowy hump in the darkness.

Climbers around us are already up and preparing to ascend, while we crash in the front seats for a hopeful few hours of sleep. The moon rises and lights up the car like high beams. We are owed nothing, here. An hour passes of fitful sleep and we’re back up, stuffing feet into boots and hefting our packs on.

There’s 6,700 feet of elevation gain to reach the 12,280-foot summit. The route begins by passing through “the burn,” a swath of charred trees from the last forest fire. We push through up to snow level and put on our skis.

“Man I’m already burnt,” Scott says.

The first lesson of “how not to climb a mountain” arrives before us: rest. We’re physically exhausted from the drive that ended only hours ago, and now we have a marathon before us. But this type of “smash-and-grab” mountain climbing is what all the hard climbers do, right? Better to brute your way up a mountain as quickly as possible, relying on good luck and weather.

We push on.

Even with a quick pace, the U.S. Forest Service still pins the time to the summit at between six to eight hours — with good conditions. The agency warns that snowstorms can whip up at any time during the year above 6,000 feet, making this non-technical route another beast entirely.

The high altitude makes the blood more alkaline and less able to carry oxygen, so before the day began we both popped altitude sickness medication to temporarily acidify ourselves. Even so, the elevation lays heavy on our bodies. Every breath feels labored and cheated.

A couple masochists clad in shorts and minimal backpacks jog past us, apparently employing their third lung in a peacockish show of mutant fitness. Here comes another lesson: bring only what you need. We are loaded down with heavy packs, lugging our skis on our feet.

Hours later and a few thousand feet higher, the sun is directly overhead. The terrain is sunbaked snow, contrasted against black-as-coal rock. I remark at the need to take supplemental breaths in between regular huffs. Scott is silent. An airplane is flying behind us, at an altitude lower than we are.

There’s a lot of time to think when traversing between two far points. The first noble truth of the Buddhism book I’d thumbed through on the drive down echoes in my head, dukkha, life is suffering and pain. Or at least it seems that way right now.

The great white mass before me knows this, but this is not to say life denies happiness. Nor does the mountain. The joy of the summit is a physical reality; it can be obtained.

To the south is Mount Hood, and to our left the broken crown of Mount St. Helens. The route is simple enough, ever upward and trending toward the large flats known as the Lunch Counter. Here many climbers set up for the night as a rough halfway point, taking advantage of the night to acclimate and finish off the summit in the early morning hours.

This is another stab at our chances of the summit, another lesson: if other people are doing it, you should be too. When we belly up to the Lunch Counter, tents speck the snow, people are resting, making food, enjoying it. It’s hard not to resent them when looking up at the hill before us.

“I don’t think I can.”

Scott was beaten.

I looked up at the ramp of snow above; climbers dotted the surface in a single file line up and over the edge with the horizon. In front of us was only the false summit, and beyond that edge was even more altitude.

I wanted this so badly. I wanted to stand atop 12,280 feet of rock and ice and gain that airy vantage over all of the state. I had seen it so many times in my head, plunging my ice ax into the firm crust and finally having succeeded. Today, however, success would not come.

The mind was willing; the body was not. Going further meant risking becoming too exhausted to retreat back down. The mountain would keep standing long enough for another go at a later date.

I liberated my mind of Mount Adams, and the winds took us down the south ridge.