There are a few things in my life that I’ve done and I never, ever need to do again. Near the top of that list is climb Mount Baker. I did that. Well, I kind of did that. I made it about 500 feet from the summit and decided that I’d be perfectly happy heading back down to more solid ground.
A number of summers ago my brothers, dad and some mountaineering-family friends were making plans to climb Mount Baker. For some reason I decided that I wanted to go with them….not thinking that my zero mountaineering experience would really matter.
We hiked up to “base camp” (I use the term ‘base camp’ loosely because it was basically where the snow started and the rocks stopped) and set up camp. Since we were climbing in July, it was important that we were not on the glacier during the hottest part of the day, so we would begin climbing early the next morning.
After taking lessons from our mountaineering friends about how not to die (don’t step on the rope, if somebody falls hammer your ice ax so you don’t fall….you know, solid advice that isn’t scary to hear at all) we tried to get some shut-eye since we were to start climbing at midnight.
I should have headed back down the mountain when I heard one of my brothers say to my dad, ‘can we tell her now?’. TELL ME WHAT? After my dad and brothers looked horrified that I had overheard, they confessed that at ‘base camp’ there had been a bit of a RAT problem. RATS, I tell you. I HATE RATS.
How was I supposed to sleep with the possibility of rats climbing on my face or into my sleeping bag? In all my camping days that closest I’d come to any type of rodent getting me was a raccoon batting at my tent when I was 12. At that time, I was able to force my younger brother next to the tent wall and smoosh myself in between my two siblings. This time, however, that was not an option, neither of them wanted to ‘protect’ me from the possible rodents. Plus, we didn’t have a tent because we were only resting a couple hours before the big climb. Eventually, I fell asleep for a couple hours burrowed into my sleeping bag thinking, for the first time, why I was on the mountain.
With the moon hight in the sky, we all woke, prepared our gear and hit the trail, each connected to one another by a rope. It was absolutely gorgeous being on the mountain during this time. The sound of snow crunching below my feet, fresh air and even the distant sound of ice chunks melting seemed so organic. Unfortunately, this was a short-lived appreciation for a number of reasons.
One being, that one of the two guys behind us (not a part of our climbing party) fell into a crevasse and had to be saved by his climbing partner. This happened right as we were crossing the smallest ice bridge in the world with NOTHING on either side. The two people that I was responsible for saving were my older brother and my dad, both aren’t tiny men either.
Another reason that I became less enchanted with the mountain was the fact that my boots were tied as tight as those pups would go. It never crossed my mind to loosen them up so my shins wouldn’t get smothered, so it felt like somebody was kicking me in the shins with every step.
As we neared the top, I found myself whimpering with each step out of both pain and fear. I was on the Roman Wall, which is basically a huge wall of ice where cramp-ons and ice axes are required, when I saw the man –the same man who had fallen into the crevasse earlier – lose his step and slide about 15 feet down the The Roman Wall before hammering his ice ax in to slow his body’s momentum.
It was in this moment, with my rented boots making my shins throb, that I decided I didn’t really need to climb Mount Baker afterall. Even though I could practically see the summit, I needed begin my descent. I had a teeny-tiny nervous breakdown when it was suggested to me that I continue the 500 feet to the top.
My dad, my wonderful dad, stayed with me and we made our way down to a good resting place where I could take my boots off and recover from my meltdown. When I was on the Roman Wall I had felt really unsafe and unprepared to save myself if I were to start to slide, not to mention the people attached to each end of the rope.
Being on the almost-top-of-Mount Baker was enough to give me a deep appreciation for being down here on more solid ground. The silence and stillness found on top of the mountain was heart-stopping, but I felt anything but calm perched 500 feet from the summit. Like I said, I’m okay if I never do that again.
