Hello everyone, I am new to this forum and have enjoyed reading your posts and replies. Everyone is curteous and well-behaved.
I thought I would share an experience I had 4 years ago in the Sierra Nevedas. It's a little long so bear with me.
My climbing partner and I set out to climb the east buttress route (5.8) on Mt. Whitney and decided to got for it the weekend before permit season started- in late May. The snow level was 9000 feet, the weather forecast was great, and we were both prepared, equiped and experienced climbers but this was my first time to Whitney while it was my partners 8th or 9th.
First day we approached, second day we recovered and third day was summit day. We woke up the 3rd day with light snow and a huge front moving in from the south just dumping like crazy. We decided to change our plans and summitvia the mountaineers route or gulley and skip the technical rock. It was still an epoch adventure.
An hour up the mountian we were in white-out conditions but making great time and felt safe enough to continue. The snow level slowly increased and the temp dropped. We summited with relative ease and the fun started on our way down.
So much snow had accumulated in the narrow deep gulley that an avalanche was highly probable. We ran into another group at the top that were wandering around in the white-out looking for the entrance to the gulley. We escorted them back to where we had left one ice axe and our rope coiled as a marker and lowered them 300ft. past the steepest part of the gulley. They were moving slow with a member of their group very sick and not doing well. Surpisingly their leader, and the sick women's husband pretty much left her and shot down the gulley. We picked up these two straglers and continued down, occasionally giving them a four-letter-word rittled pep-talk.
A quarter of the way down I was swept away in a mini-avalanche and had my life flash before my eyes. I managed to dive out to the side of the flowing snow and plant my ice axe in some frozen debri near the gulley wall. The snow washed over me and down the front of my neck but I stayed put. I wouldn't have been killed, but I didn't want to get raked over the icy layer under the flowing snow like cheese on a grater.
When we got back to our tent we offered to take care of the sick lady there but they continued on down to upper boy scout lake in white out with even greater areas of avalanche risk. Our three season tent which was mesh around the bottom third had an inch dusting of snow on the inside over our bags and gear. We felt like crap at altitude, still in white-out with the wind really kicking up the spin drift. But it was do or die time so we pulled our hefty ground tarp up heigh around the tent and fixed it in place with the extra 2mm emergency guy line I packed. After laying in my 3 season bag to get warmed up and to let the pounding headache simmer down to not wanting to blow my own head off levels I got the stove going. We had no water. We took what we had with us minus one quart and that was frozen solid. Iceberg lake had a hole someone had chopped in the ice and that is where we had gotten our water to that point but we didn't consider it safe to be walking around in our condition on a thin crusted icy lake looking for a hole the size of a foot ball. We needed to melt snow or suffer really bad. My MSR stove o-ring had cracked due to temp or wear and tear and I couldn't find the spare I brought.
My luck- I brought my soda can stove and a little denatured alcohol to test at high altitude and that was what saved our bacon. Worked like a charm. Since that time I have been sort of converted to the preparedness camp and no longer laugh at my wife or others when they have 72 hour backpacks for each family member or MRS's hidden away in the minivan.
I could tell about the time another climbing buddy dropped our haul bag with our water and flashlights and we had to make our way off a 700 ft. cliff in the dark but that is another story and each experience I have, which I survive, prepares me for the next little adventure.
In my humble opinion, survival in the mountains depends on having respect for the elements and then factoring in the possibility of the worst case and what your odds would be of survival if it should happen. I can happily say I have not summitted or climbed what I wanted to on every trip. I try to have the common sense to turn around while I still can. Having that sense can be just as critical as having the correct piece of gear that is going to make the difference for you.
For those wondering. I wouldn't change anything that day in hindsight. We stood there praying outside our tent in the snow about going up and felt we should go so I think we were there for others as much as for ourselves.
Previous Topic
Index
