Savage Mountain

by John Smelcer

  “What’s his problem anyhow?” asked James. “Why’s he so mean all the time? Why does he hate us so much?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Sebastian, looking at the cloudless sky. “I wonder about that every day of my life.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I wish I had an answer,” said Sebastian, still looking to the blue horizon. “But I think he hates us because he hates everything. He’s angry at the world for one reason or another. Maybe his father never loved him. Maybe he’s just broken, and he can’t love anyone, not even himself. Maybe it’s because we’re not like him. We don’t even look like him. We look more like Mom, especially you with your little breasts,” Sebastian laughed.

  James punched his brother in the shoulder.

  “I don’t have breasts!”

  “Seriously, though. I’m always trying to make him proud of me, always thinking if I do this or that maybe things will be different. Remember how I ran for class president last year? Why do you think I do all the things I do?”

  “I just figured you were a nerd.”

  “Ha, ha,” Sebastian replied sarcastically. “But nothing I ever do is good enough for him. Nothing ever seems to make a difference. I don’t know why I waste my time.”

  “I know what you mean,” said James. “You’re like a little kid on a playground always yelling to your mommy to see what amazing thing you’re doing, ‘Look! Look! Look!’ You’re always trying to win his approval. I gave up trying a long time ago. I could care less. I can’t wait to move out.”

  But Sebastian knew better. James acted like he didn’t care, but he knew that deep down inside his brother wanted their father’s love and approval just as much as he did. The one thing Sebastian could never figure out—and perhaps he never would—was why his father didn’t love them, why he hated them so much. The way he figured it, if anyone in the whole world had to love a person, it had to be his or her parents.

  It just had to be.

  When the boys were done washing and drying the gleaming motorcycle, James turned off the faucet and rolled up the garden hose while Sebastian put away the plastic bucket and hung the towel, rag, and sponge out to dry.

  “So, when do we leave?” asked James, in a tone resembling enthusiasm.

  “The brochure says the ten-day camp begins on the first day of July. That gives us three weeks to get ready.”

  DAY ONE

  Tuesday, July 1, 1980

  THE DAY OF THE BROTHERS’ JOURNEY arrived sooner than expected, the way thin ice suddenly stretches out across lakes in late fall, signaling the imminent arrival of winter. Bright and early on the first day of July, Sebastian and James waved goodbye to their mother as they climbed into Sebastian’s small, gray truck. Their father could care less. He was glad to be rid of the boys for ten days.

  “Got everything?” asked Sebastian, as he fumbled to insert his key into the ignition switch.

  “Yep. Let’s blow this joint,” replied James, like a biker setting out on a freewheeling, coast-to-coast road trip.

  As he drove down the quiet street, Sebastian watched his home become a small and harmless object in the rearview mirror. When he turned onto the main road, the tiny house vanished altogether, as if it no longer existed at all.

  For the first time in a long time he felt free.

  Sometime in mid-afternoon, after driving more than 200 miles of heaving paved highway—dodging moose, porcupine, and occasional caribou along the way—the little gray truck stopped at the abrupt end of the bumpy, gravel road that stretched from the highway nearly twenty miles to this remote spot. Before them, and down a steep bank, was a muddy, braided river, fed by melting glaciers. Instead of one main channel like most rivers, these wide, shallow, glacial-born waterways sometimes have dozens of shifting channels twisted across a wide floodplain, giving the impression of hair braids. The muddy color comes from the silt the river carries in its veins. The river was a couple hundred yards wide.

  Several miles to the east was the mountain they had come to conquer.

  From where they sat, staring in awe out the cracked windshield, Sebastian and James could see two of the three massive prominences that made up the Wrangell Mountains, which seemed to thrust themselves abruptly and unexpectedly from the relatively flat landscape around them. As mountains went they were quite young—not even a million years old—pushed skyward by volcanic activity. Sanford, the mountain they had come to climb, towered above them at 16,237 feet. To the south, eighteen miles away, Mount Drum rose to 12,010 feet, almost a mile shorter in stature. Behind Sanford, and unseen from the brothers’ vantage point, was 14,163-foot-tall Mount Wrangell. Of the three, only Wrangell was historically volcanically active. A thin, wispy plume of smoke perpetually belched from its snowy summit. Among the Indians living in the region—The People of the Copper River—it was said that the plume was the campfire smoke of the dead, whose spirits dwelt on the mountain.

  Sebastian studied Sanford’s South Face, rising over 8,000 feet in a mile, a thousand feet higher than Everest’s Kangshung Face. Few mountaineers had attempted the South Face. Instead, he planned to ascend the North Ramp, the most common route to the summit.

  The brothers said nothing as they took in the spectacle of the snow-covered peak thrust into the cobalt sky, a few benign clouds floating on the horizon. Privately, both were imagining themselves at certain points along their planned route or standing on the summit, looking down at the green world below, exhausted from the climb yet bursting with a sense of joy and triumph.

  Neither imagined the dangers that awaited them.

  Sebastian grabbed his Polaroid camera and took a picture of the mountain. The brothers watched as the image materialized before their eyes. When it was fully developed, Sebastian placed the photograph on the dashboard and gestured to his brother that it was time to go.

  For the next half hour the boys pulled their gear from the back of the truck, taking a quick inventory of their equipment while swatting away mosquitoes. Some of their gear was homemade, like the snow shovels. Sebastian had bought two square-nosed garden shovels at a garage sale and simply sawed off most of the wooden handles’ length. He sanded the cut ends until they were rounded and drilled a hole through which he tied a lanyard so he wouldn’t lose them. He spray-painted the handles bright orange so they could be easily located in snow.

  Most of the climbing equipment was old school. Each carried two coils of climbing rope, one fifty meters long and one sixty meters long. Dozens of carabineers—a mixture of open gate and locking—and a variety of twenty-year-old used metal pitons hung from carabineers on a bandolier made of a short piece of rope, which was worn over a shoulder and across the chest the way a Mexican bandito wears his bandolier full of cartridges. The two piton hammers were regular hammers, the claw almost straight, not the tightly curled claw for easy nail pulling—each with a lanyard tied through a hole in the hickory handle, which Sebastian had also painted orange.

  Instead of modern harnesses, the boys had learned how to tie a “Swiss seat” using a piece of rope about eight feet long to which the climbing rope was hooked through a heavy-duty, locking carabineer. Sometimes they used two carabineers, just to be on the safe side. The extra resistance also helped to control the belay, when one a climber safeguards another by controlling the slack end of the rope during ascents or descents.

  It’s an important responsibility; a matter of life or death.

  The belayer must watch the climber’s every move, offering slack when needed, taking it up so as not to leave too much in the event of a sudden fall. If a belayer takes his hands off the rope even for a moment, to swat a mosquito or scratch a nose, for example, the climber could fall to his death. The further a climber free-falls the more the sudden stress on the rope, the carabineers, and the steadfast pitons—not to mention the human body—when the fall is finally arrested. It’s a simple law of physics that every cli
mber knows by heart: force equals mass times acceleration. Many climbers have been hurt, even killed, by the sudden snap of the rope during a fall. To combat that, modern ropes stretch somewhat under the weight of a freefall, thereby reducing such impact. Climbing ropes in the old days were dangerous because they didn’t stretch. Maintaining the correct rope tension is at the heart of rope work when climbing. When two mountaineers are too far apart to communicate by words, the belayer and the climber exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Part of the art of climbing lies in the belayer’s ability to maintain harmony between the climber’s actions and intentions and his or her own keen observations.

  Mountaineers entrust their lives to partners and teammates a hundred times a day. Some of the strongest and most enduring friendships are forged from having shared the perils of mountain climbing. Some of the greatest regrets are of friends left on the mountain.

  Sebastian and James each had a pair of white Army surplus “bunny boots,” ungainly and heavy, but warm to 60 degrees below zero. Their sleeping bags were green Army surplus “mummy bags,” also good to extreme low temperatures. They each had a thin, blue, rolled-up sleeping pad to keep their bodies off the snow, and their tent was nothing more than a cheap, orange pup tent, to which they could tie extra guy-lines during high winds. Even their green backpacks were Army surplus. Their climbing helmets were brightly painted construction helmets bought secondhand. Aside from their climbing ropes, they each carried a couple hundred feet of white parachute chord for hoisting or lowering their packs and gear. Their pockets stowed two pairs of tinted downhill ski goggles to protect their eyes from blasting winds and snow blindness. Sebastian stuffed a blue winter coat into his pack. When he wore it, he looked like a blue Michelin Man. James packed a red one.

  All in all, their expedition was funded on a shoestring budget, no modern gear like walkie-talkies, spring-loaded cams, or Jumar Ascenders. They carried no official expedition patch or any kind of flag to plant at the summit.

  Their only relatively expensive equipment consisted of two used ice axes and the two pair of used crampons, removable traction devices with sharp metal points or teeth strapped to the soles of boots to aid mobility while walking or climbing on packed snow or ice. Both pairs were specialized for mountaineering, with ten or twelve angled points, including two front-pointing teeth to aid in vertical climbing. The climber can jab his toes into the ice face to gain a temporary foothold. Before purchasing the used equipment at a gear swap, Sebastian carefully examined every inch for signs of excessive wear or damage. He wasn’t taking any chances with his or his brother’s life by using crappy gear. He never bought used ropes. You never know what they’ve been through or how well they’ve been cared for or how many times they’ve been over-stressed in falls or washed and dried improperly.

  For food, both backpacks included packets of dehydrated foods, instant pancake mix, packages of Ramen noodles, rice, powdered soup, powdered milk, and powdered eggs; and oatmeal, granola, dried fruit, and caribou and moose jerky they had made themselves. They also included chocolate bars for quick energy, instant coffee, and bouillon cubes for making hot broth. Aside from the food, there was a small cooking pot and a collapsible cooking stove powered by small cans of Sterno. Most climbers used compact gas stoves, but those were expensive. Sterno was low-tech but lightweight, reliable, and heated just as well. Besides, a person could burn twigs inside the stove just as easily. The supplies also included waterproof matches and long-burning emergency candles. And, of course, each brother carried a plastic flask for drinking water—made by melting snow—stored inside his parka to prevent the water from turning back to ice. Sebastian had a basic first-aid kit in his pack, including a suture needle and thread should the need arise. Almost as important as any piece of equipment, each pack included two rolls of toilet paper in sealed plastic bags, the rolls squished flat to save room. It was important to keep the packs as light as possible without sacrificing what was needed to succeed . . . and survive.

  Both boys wore a whistle attached by a string to the zipper on their lightweight jackets to ward off any grizzly bear ambush while hiking through brush at low altitudes and to help find each other should they become separated in a whiteout or an avalanche. And each carried one item of luxury. Sebastian brought a collapsible Polaroid camera so he could take pictures to prove to their father what they hoped to accomplish. James brought a harmonica.

  After snugly lacing their leather hiking boots with sole patterns that looked like waffles, the boys tied their white bunny boots to the outsides of their packs alongside their helmets in such a way that they wouldn’t swing and bounce every time they took a step. They wouldn’t need them until they were high up in the snowfields. Sebastian locked the truck doors and hid the keys under the frame, using a short piece of wire to secure them to the rear brake line. He made sure his brother saw where he hid them, just in case.

  “Well, let’s get to it,” he said, hoisting his heavy pack onto his shoulders and adjusting the bulky weight. “We should be able to make it to the base and set up camp by bedtime.”

  There was no need to use words like night or nightfall because in mid-summer, such as it was, the sun never really sets on Alaska. That’s why it’s called Land of the Midnight Sun. The boys would be able to see well enough to climb no matter the time of day. Only exhaustion would dictate when it was time to sleep. Only their rumbling stomachs would tell them when it was time to eat.

  With some difficulty, James put on his pack and cinched tight the waist belt.

  For a long minute the brothers stood side by side looking at the mountain—three miles high—with a single billowy cloud snarled on its craggy peak. Sanford was 3,000 feet taller than the Eiger and 1,500 feet taller than the Matterhorn, both in the Swiss Alps. From where they stood, they could see the daunting South Face with its 8,000-foot vertical rock ascent, one of the steepest in the world. Their planned route would avoid the unnecessary dangers of such a technical climb.

  After slinging the coiled ropes over head and shoulder, the boys clambered down the steep bank and made their way across the river, forging across the shallowest riffled channels where the swift icy water came up no higher than their knees. By the time they made it to the far bank, neither could feel his toes. They took a break to empty water from their boots, wring out their soggy socks and pants, and warm their feet in the summer sun.

  “How long do you think it will take us to reach the top?” asked James, rubbing his feet.

  Sebastian glanced at the mountain before replying.

  “I figure we can make it to the summit in maybe four or five days from here. Take us less time to get back, coming downhill and all. Maybe just three. That gives us a couple extra days just in case some bad weather sets in.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely,” replied James, looking at the sunny sky. “It must be almost 80 degrees today. It doesn’t snow in July.”

  “That’s true. But mountains make their own weather. You never know what’s up there.” Sebastian looked up at the mountain again. “It can be calm as can be down here, but the winds up there could be howling mad. I imagine it’s below freezing up there right this minute.”

  James shuddered at the thought.

  Sebastian marveled at the extraordinary contrast of the landscape—the brown, flowing river, the pinkish flowers of fireweed and red rose hips growing along the gravel banks and sandbars, the scraggily green forest and the far green hillsides with their patches of alder, and above it all, the bright snow-covered mountain rising into a cloudless blue sky—all melting into a kind of symbolic landscape not of this world, like something out of a fantasy book with impossible vistas. Sebastian wasn’t intimidated when he looked at the frozen slopes and ridges of the mountain. Instead, his mouth was dry with excitement, and he felt his heart ache in the presence of the inexpressible beauty of it all.

  “It’s so beautiful,” he said, eager to begin the rites of
piton and hammer.

  James stopped rubbing his feet and studied the faraway peak. He swallowed hard and his heart felt as though it were held in a vice.

  “What am I getting myself into?” he muttered, so low that his brother didn’t hear what he said.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  After the sense of feeling returned to their feet, the brothers set off again. They hiked along the riverbank for almost a mile before turning right, toward the east, and following a small stream in a narrow dell that became increasingly steep and boulder-strewn. At some point, they scrambled out of the little gulley and made their way up to a ridge, where gray lichen grew on the rocks, and where pikas and marmots scurried out from their dens among the stones. The few brush-like trees, tortured and stunted, crouched against the wind.

  Walking behind James, Sebastian couldn’t help but notice his brother’s underwear protruding above the beltline of his blue jeans. As all mischievous boys are wont to do, Sebastian grabbed hold of the white elastic band with both hands and yanked. James turned around and chased Sebastian, trying to reciprocate. After he’d pulled his underwear out from between his butt cheeks, they resumed their trek; this time Sebastian was in front, keeping an eye on his brother.

  “Hey,” he said, turning around, “at least I didn’t give you an atomic wedgy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s where I pull your underwear all the way up and over your head.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, James laughed every time he imagined an atomic wedgy.

  After hiking the barren ridge line for almost two hours—ascending several thousand feet above the river valley where they began—Sebastian and James came upon a suitable campsite for the night, which even included a little alpine pond surrounded by alder bushes. And though the summer sun was still fairly high, they set up camp for the night. Sebastian took several photographs of their tent with the mountain in the background, while James built a small campfire from dry alder twigs to boil pond water for their supper of dehydrated chili and macaroni noodles, which later proved to be a terrible choice for two people sleeping in the confines of a small tent.