Another Glimpse

After spending nearly a week, and then a month on the summit of Mount Baker, I felt a deep longing to return to the summit of the mountain on a solo ascent.  I had planned the trip for a Wednesday and Thursday, hoping to add just the right amount of solitude to the adventure.  My solitary trek through one of Baker's first growth forests one summers day was a memorable experience, as was my bruised descent of the peak only a year before.  My timing was great, as there didn't seem to be anyone else around (and there wasn't). 

Not far above tree line I found the hillsides sun-drenched in color.  Flowers were everywhere.  Yellow and purple heliotrope waved gently back and forth with tall grasses in the slight breeze, giving off a most hypnotic scent: subtle, yet sweet.  It would have been so easy to make camp right there and spend the rest of the day watching the antics of a herd of fat, playful, pea-brained marmots.  They watched me closely, and occasionally whistled out another dire warning as I made my way up a ridge to the snow's edge.  Waterfalls Cascaded out of the glacier, sparkling in the early morning sun . . . all of this reminded me of why it is I love the mountains so much. 

As miles passed on the trail and then on the glacier, so did a profound sense of dread I had experienced in the hours and days before.  If Baker has some cosmic desire to do away with me, it certainly would have done so by now.  I had given it plenty of opportunity to finish me off, or so I told myself, while stepping and leaping over one crevasse after another: I sort of trust this mountain by now.

Most of these certainties had faded with the evening light as I lay in my bivouac sack under the cold shadow of the Black Buttes.  Staring up at the highest reaches of the volcano I felt so small, so vulnerable, so out of place; and yet still so much at home huddled in my tiny one person abode.  Eventually, I actually fell asleep. 

I tiptoed into the waking realm around midnight and looked out at an alpenglow draped over the summit cap.  Stone cold.  Death Mountain.  Without a doubt, I was shaking like a leaf as I drifted off to sleep again.  All too soon it was time to prepare to depart for the summit, that is, if I was going at all.  These are the toughest moments for a climber, when you know a lot of hard work and danger awaits you.  It is so easy to change your mind as thoughts of home and loved ones creep into the picture during the wee morning hours.  This is especially true when you are all alone.  It is ever so tempting to opt to sleep in and go down after a nice, safe, breakfast.  Or take the chance of dying, painfully, in one or another crevasse - with or without breakfast.  Picture yourself there in those dark, lonely hours of decision.  Your level of ambition, or degree of common sense, will often determine the outcome, for good or for bad.

I allowed myself to fall back asleep, only to come broadly awake yet again somewhere around 2:30 a.m.

In the absence of anyone with whom to share in the usual pre-dawn camaraderie, I wasted no time in getting dressed, throwing a carefully prepared pack on my back, stuffing a frozen candy bar in my mouth and setting off up the hillside. 

An hour or so out of camp the first hint of dawn began to reflect from sheets of ice surrounding me.  The glacier slowly changed from gray to the darkest shade of blue imaginable.  From there it turned to purple, and then a wonderful hue of lavender, and finally to solid pink.  This spectrum of color widened as orange was introduced, highlighting hundreds of finely sculptured ice formations at my feet (Mount Baker has a way with that). 

By the time I neared the crest of the Roman Wall, fear had fled from me like darkness from night.  Fragments of ice sprayed onto my face and intermingled with sweat as I pounded my way up the final 300, 200 and 100 steps to the crest of the summit plateau.  There I was again: this time not deep over my head in waters of uncertainty, but confident, and suntanned, and healthy!

From the top of Grant Peak I could almost hear distant thunder of days gone by 
. . . embers of lightning threatening, flickering over the plateau.  Wind in the willows of starvation.  Hardship: the Glory of God.  It was all there as I knelt with eyes closed and wept in remembrance.  Perhaps I had finally come to peace with Mount Baker, in another glimpse.

Copyright @2000 Glenn Williams