Ascent

by Roland Smith

  “I’m over that. I’ve gotten used to our one-way correspondence.” I wasn’t exactly over it, but I was getting closer. “You don’t have to write back. I don’t expect you to write back. It’s okay. It’s not a priority. You’re busy.”

  “That’s not the problem, Peak. There’s something you don’t know. Something your mom hasn’t told you.”

  I stared at him, wondering what was coming. Josh was as serious as I had ever seen him. Something Mom hadn’t told me? We were very close. Until I was eight, it was just her and me in a little cabin in the Wyoming wilderness. What could this have to do with Josh not writing me back? Unless . . .

  Something from my past resurfaced that hadn’t haunted me for years. When I was nine years old, about the time I started sending Josh letters, I went through a period convinced that he wasn’t my father like Mom had said. That some other guy, one she didn’t want to talk about, was my father. I thought that Josh had agreed to take care of me and Mom from a distance because he and Mom had climbed together for years, breaking several speed records. When I asked Mom about this, she got mad. Josh is your father! There’s no more to this letter thing than the fact that Josh doesn’t write. Let it go, Peak.

  “You look like you know what I’m going to say,” Josh said.

  “You’re not my biological father,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  “Huh?” Josh looked shocked. “Did Teri . . . Did your mom tell you that?”

  “No. I just thought—”

  “I’m your dad. There’s no doubt about it. This has nothing to do with that. It has to do with why I haven’t written you back. You see . . .” He let out another long, foggy sigh. “You see . . . I can’t read.”

  “What?” I couldn’t have possibly heard him correctly. He had to be making some kind of weird joke that I didn’t understand.

  “Oh, I can figure out maps and some street signs,” Josh continued. “But anything more complicated presents problems for me.”

  I hadn’t heard wrong. This was more shocking to me than him not being my biological father.

  “You’ve written several books and dozens of climbing articles,” I said.

  “I dictated the books and articles. I have someone transcribe the words onto paper. Someone reads me the edits. I respond to the edits verbally. Someone writes the corrections down, then I send the book or article back to the editor. Crazy, huh? Labor-intensive. Stupid.”

  “You’re anything but stupid. You’re brilliant and articulate. How did that happen without being able to read?”

  He pointed at his ears. “I’m well listened. Books on tape and a good memory. When I was a kid, I learned to keep things in my brain because I couldn’t take notes. I guess I have dyslexia or something. When I got older, I started using a digital recorder, which was a tremendous help.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my mind around this. There’s no more to this letter thing than the fact that Josh doesn’t write. Mom hadn’t lied to me, but she had come pretty close.

  “No one knows?” I asked.

  “A few people. Your mom knows and tried to help me when we were together, but it didn’t stick. There’s an entire ecosystem out there to help people like me, and it’s gotten easier because of the Internet. If I want to listen to an article, it’s an email and a few bucks away. Totally anonymous. They send me audio files of the articles I want, or need, to read. This is good and bad. Upside, people like me can stay informed. Downside, we don’t do anything about our problem because we—​at least the illiterates who have the money to pay for these services—​don’t have to.”

  No wonder Mom was such a fanatic with me about reading and writing when I was little. There was no television in our cabin. Just books.

  “I didn’t think it was a problem until you started to write me letters that I couldn’t read. I was ashamed. I’m still ashamed. But I’m trying to do something about it. I hired a tutor in Chiang Mai. He’s good, but the problem is that I’m rarely home. I’ve been too busy to address the problem, which is probably another reason I climb. Learning to read and write at my age is harder than summiting a mountain.”

  “I guess I should start sending you audible letters.”

  “Don’t. You’re the reason I’m going to learn how to read and write. Just don’t make fun of me when you get a letter that looks like it’s from a kindergartner.”

  “I won’t. Thank you for telling me.”

  “If I’d known you were going to be so cool about it, I would have told you years ago.”

  “Peak?”

  It was Zopa. “Go ahead.”

  “We just arrived at Camp Two. Five thousand one hundred meters. Where are you? Where is Josh?”

  “We’re together. We’re just about ready to drop down to the glacier. How was the climb up to the camp?”

  “A little soft, but it is getting colder now. There is a big snowfield above the glacier. You will have to cross below it. I saw no sign of it letting go, but I do not like how it looks. Best to hurry when you are beneath it.”

  “Thanks. We’ll see you soon. Out.”

  Josh stood and stretched. “I feel better than I have in years, and I don’t mean physically. A burden has been lifted. Now all I have to do is learn how to read and write. No worries.”

  “You’ll do it. It’s just another summit.”

  “Yep. And I can’t fall and die.”

  The drone reappeared and hovered in front of us.

  “Can Jack hear us?”

  Josh shook his head. “I told him to switch the audio off.” He pointed at the drone. “It is kind of irritating. I think we should call off the documentary.”

  “It hasn’t been a problem so far.”

  “I’m calling it off.”

  I smiled. “Are you leading this climb?”

  “Nope. Are you saying you want to be in it?”

  “We’ll see.” A lot had changed in the ten minutes we had been on the top of the spire.

  We dropped over the edge. The drone followed our slow descent to the glacier below.

  Twenty-Five

  The glacier was scattered with blocks of ice as big as school buses. Josh was ten feet away from me coiling the ropes. I could barely see him through the fog. The wind had completely stopped. The only sound was cracking and shifting ice, which was not unusual on a glacier, but unnerving with the threat of avalanche.

  “It’s a little weird out,” Josh said, tying up the last rope.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  I slipped into my pack and winced.

  “You okay?”

  “Sort of,” I said, trying to find the sweet spot for my right strap. It turned out there wasn’t a sweet spot, just less-sour spots.

  “Peak?”

  Zopa again. “Go ahead.”

  “Are you on the glacier?”

  “We just rappelled down.”

  “How is it?”

  “Fog. Terrible visibility. No wind.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “I think so, but it’s hard to be certain without any landmarks.”

  “I have provided landmarks.”

  “Come again?”

  “Ice marks. Saffron.”

  I looked at Josh. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Bread crumbs.”

  “Ah,” Josh said, pointing.

  Three feet in front of us was a strip of saffron cloth stuck to the block of ice. We walked over to it. Zopa had cut off pieces of his robe to guide us.

  “Got it,” I said.

  “It is a maze. Move quickly. The air is warming.”

  “Roger that. Out.”

  “Twenty-nine degrees,” Josh said.

  “Let’s go.”

  We zigzagged our way through the frozen labyrinth. It was like I was wandering through a dream with my father and remnants of Zopa in the form of strips of saffron cloth clinging to the ice like limp prayer flags. If it hadn’t b
een for the tracks, we would have never found Zopa’s bread crumbs. In a few places Zopa had taken a wrong turn and had to backtrack. In other places there was no way forward except to climb up and over a humungous ice block.

  “How far are you?”

  Josh and I had just topped an ice block, and I was descending. I didn’t have a free hand to answer. Josh had already reached the bottom and took the call.

  “Not sure. It’s slow going in the fog.”

  “How many flags have you passed?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Josh looked up at me. I shook my head. I didn’t know either. It hadn’t occurred to me to count them.

  “I placed twelve of them.”

  If we had counted, as Zopa had obviously hoped, we would have known how far away we were.

  “Was it clear when you went through here?” Josh asked.

  “Yes. But I knew the fog was coming. This is why I made the flags.”

  I dropped down next to Josh. The next flag was about ten feet from us. I could barely see it through the fog. Visibility was a little better, but not by much.

  “The flags are different lengths. Shorter at the beginning. Longer where you will climb up to camp.”

  “Thanks,” Josh said. “We need to get moving. Out.” He looked at me. “Did you notice the different lengths?”

  “I noticed, but I didn’t know what they meant.”

  “Me either. I think we should have let Zopa lead this climb.”

  “I think he is leading this climb.”

  “Ha. Good point. I get the same feeling every time I climb with him. He knew the fog was coming long before the fog knew it was coming. The guy’s a weather guru. I’ve known him for twenty years. He has never been wrong about the weather.”

  The cloth strip, or flag, as Zopa called it, was about seven inches long. The next one was eight or nine inches long. I radioed Zopa.

  “How long is the last flag?”

  “One foot. Maybe a little longer.”

  “We’re three or four inches from that one.” I wished it was literally only three or four inches.

  “What is the temperature?”

  I looked at my watch, wishing I hadn’t. “Thirty-three.”

  “Thirty-five up here. Move quickly. Out.”

  We had four, or five, flags before we reached Camp Two, and no idea of how far away it was. We moved quickly, as Zopa suggested, without a word between us. Sometimes I took the lead, sometimes Josh took the lead as we scurried over and zigzagged through the frozen obstacle course. At the eleventh flag, there was a loud crack followed by a deafening roar to our right.

  “Dump your pack!” Josh shouted. “Run!”

  We ran parallel to the terrifying sound. You can’t outrun an avalanche. All you can do is get as close to the edge as you can before it mows you down. I felt a cold blast of wind. Josh grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me into the wall of snow and ice.

  “Climb it!” he shouted. “Swim up!”

  The white wall smacked into me.

  Everything went black.

  Twenty-Six

  Pitch-dark.

  I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed.

  I couldn’t tell if I was upside down or right side up.

  I’d read a lot about avalanches and had taken a couple avalanche courses, but this was the first one I’d ever been in. It was much worse than I had imagined. I’d been taught not to think about panic phrases like buried alive or icy grave, or words like suffocation and asphyxia, which were exactly the phrases and words running through my brain. My right arm was pinned to my side. My left hand was in front of my face. I could wiggle my fingers, barely. I could turn my head from side to side, barely. I could breathe, barely, which meant that there was a little air in my icy grave. But for how long? I could not feel my legs. In fact, it felt like I didn’t have legs, or feet, or a torso, or . . . Where was Josh? He’d let go of my shoulder an instant before the wall hit us. He needed both arms to swim, or “climb” the wave. Bizarre, I know. The theory is that the higher you can go, the shallower you’ll be buried. You are supposed to carry a location beacon and turn it on, so someone can find you. My location beacon was in my bedroom closet in New York. I hadn’t thought I’d need it in Burma. Weirdly, Ethan hadn’t packed one either in all the junk he had been hauling around. I wondered how Ethan was doing. I hoped he was doing better than me . . .

  Focus, Peak! I told myself.

  What did I have in my pockets? This was another technique they taught in avalanche class. Ask yourself questions to keep your mind off suffocating to death, reducing your panic, thereby conserving oxygen.

  I was wearing cargo pants. I had a lot of pockets to contemplate. My wallet and passport were buttoned in my back pocket. They would be able to identify me if I was ever found. I had a multitool knife in my right front cargo pocket. In the regular pocket above that were two energy bars, one of them half eaten. The sat phone was in my left cargo pocket. Useless because it wouldn’t work underground. Even if it did, I couldn’t reach it. Ethan’s spoon was also in my left pocket. This made me smile. I almost laughed. Buried alive, and my only hope was Ethan’s treasured spoon. But could I wiggle my arm down to the pocket and retrieve it?

  It wasn’t easy. I had to dig my way down to the pocket, which helped me by widening the space I was stuck in. The instructor’s words came back to me. You must do something to save yourself! You are not an ice cube waiting to be dropped into a drink, or a grave. You are a living human being. She had survived two avalanches. In the second, she had been buried for nearly twenty-four hours. I found the spoon handle and was able to inch it out by pinching it between my index and middle fingers. I slowly brought it up and started chipping away at the ice above my head. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I was on my back because ice and snow were falling on my face. The only thing that could cause that was gravity. My body heat was melting the snow and ice, but not enough to move my right arm. It would have been handy to have my knife to help with the chipping. I worked slowly, not making a lot of progress, but at least I was trying to do something to save myself. Hypothermia would be the next problem. I was bundled up pretty well, layered, but my clothes were soaked with ice water now. As I chipped away, I repeated the litany I had learned from the same woman who had taught me about avalanche survival. We had to know it verbatim and had to repeat it in order anytime she randomly commanded us. Shivering comes in waves. Violently pauses. The pauses get longer until the shivering finally ceases because the heat output from burning glycogen in the muscles is not sufficient to counteract the continually dropping core temperature. The shivering stops to conserve glucose. Muscle rigidity develops because peripheral blood flow is . . .

  I was at number one. Shivering, but not too violently, yet. Scrape . . .

  A large chunk of snow, or ice, hit me in the face, making me sputter, but I couldn’t have been happier about it. I was digging myself out a spoonful at a time. In another couple of feet, I might be able to sit up. Scrape . . .

  We probably shouldn’t have dumped our packs. I had trekking and tent poles I could have used to pop through the top, to say nothing about my ice axes, which would have eaten through the snow and ice in minutes. But if we hadn’t dumped our gear, we would have been hit by the center mass of the avalanche, which would have buried us under thirty feet of snow.

  Us.

  I hoped Josh was still with me. Scrape . . .

  We were just getting to know each other. Scrape . . .

  Not being able to read or write, then having to hide it, must have been a nightmare for him. Scrape . . .

  I started shivering. Semiviolently. The good news was that my body had melted the ice enough for me to move my right arm. I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out my knife. I was in the process of choosing the right chipping blade when I realized I could actually see the knife, not clearly, but enough to see that it was a knife, which meant that I had spooned my way to the light, dim but luminescen
t. I started chipping away, spoon in one hand, knife pliers in the other, ignoring my shivers, lack of oxygen, and fast-approaching hypothermia.

  My hole got lighter with every desperate scrape. Finally, I broke through the surface. I put my face as close to the tiny opening as I could and took in a lungful of fresh air. I was considerably weaker than when I started, but the light and the air inspired me to keep going. Scrape . . . scrape . . . scrape . . . scrape—​

  Josh’s bearded face suddenly appeared in the small opening. “Over here!” he shouted. “Steady. We’ll get you out. I thought I lost you.”  There were tears running down his face.

  Zopa appeared above the hole. “Cover your face.”

  He widened the hole with an ice ax. I don’t remember being pulled out, but I do remember being stripped naked, dried off, and enough fragmented sentences to put together what had happened. When the wave hit us, unlike me, Josh had an ice ax in his hand. He was buried, but dug himself out within a few minutes. He called and called for me. Zopa and the brothers rappelled down from Camp Two and joined the search. Jack launched his drone from camp and did a grid search. He didn’t find me, but he located our packs, or what was left of them. They searched in complete silence so they could hear my call . . . if I was still alive. Josh was a foot away from me when he heard me chipping away with my knife and Ethan’s spoon.

  “Lucky,” Josh said.

  “Karma,” Zopa said.

  Freezing cold, I thought, shivering in my dry clothes all the way up to Camp Two, helped along by Josh and Zopa because my frozen arms and legs weren’t working well. They half carried me into the green tent, wrapped me in my sleeping bag, and gave me mug after mug of scalding hot tea. It took an hour for me to stop shivering and comprehend the quiet conversations around me, the fact that the sun had set, and that the wind was howling outside. I think the only reason the tent didn’t blow away was because our entire team and all of our gear were crammed inside. There was barely enough room to scratch yourself.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “He speaks!” Josh said. “Can you feel your arms and legs?”