End of the Rope

by Jan Redford

  My own four cadets bumbled along behind me, spaced out like preschool children along my rope. Spastic with puberty, they were like puppies that hadn’t yet grown into their gigantic paws. Whatever signals their brains were trying to send to their arms and legs weren’t getting through.

  Our destination, Mount Saint Nicholas, emerged from the Wapta Icefield like a slightly tilted, narrow pyramid. It was just 256 feet shy of 10,000 feet. Two miles of crystalline white stretched like sparkling sand between us and the mountain. The new snow slowed us down and covered the crevasses, but with the heat of the summer sun, long, dark indentations crisscrossed the glacier, warning us of their locations.

  A few days ago we’d driven from Banff in a convoy of green army trucks and school buses up the Icefields Parkway north of Lake Louise. From Bow Lake we’d hiked to Bow Hut in the rain with fifty-pound packs. The four-hour hike had taken eight hours. The boys had stewed in sweat under their army-issue waterproof ponchos while we, their Gore-Tex-clad guides, had stayed dry under the umbrellas we’d strapped to our packs. By the time we’d reached the hut, the rain had turned to snow and the boys had gotten their first taste of winter camping in the summer. They set up tents, started stoves, heated the foil pouches of food they barely had energy to eat, stuffed wet clothes and boots into sleeping bags to hopefully dry with body heat, then passed out, only to be dragged from bed at five in the morning to go climb a mountain. This was definitely not Outward Bound. None of the guides was doing much coddling, maybe because we’d all lived through our own character-building initiations into the mountain life.

  With my next step, the rope pulled on my harness and stopped me short. My closest cadet, thirty feet away, was at a standstill. “Benoit, qu’est-ce qui se passe?” I yelled.

  These fifteen-to seventeen-year-old boys were from rural Quebec and barely spoke a word of English. Apparently my nine months of French in Katimavik plus my two seasons of tree planting with French Canadians qualified me as a bilingual instructor. I’d been doing a lot of gesturing.

  “Je suis fatigué,” said Benoit.

  “Of course you’re tired. You’re in the army,” I said.

  He stared back at me blankly.

  If I’d been working with English cadets I’d be saying, “What the fuck’s going on? Why’d you stop?” The other guides said the kids liked us to be tough with them, but I couldn’t remember the French swear words my dad had taught me after his government language training. I’d have to give him a call.

  “Ce n’est pas loin,” I added, which was exactly what my parents used to say as we drove the unpaved Alaska Highway, five of us squeezed into a Volkswagen station wagon, choking on my father’s cigarette smoke with the windows closed tight against the dust. “Not much farther!” he’d say. He couldn’t very well tell us, “Only a few hundred miles to go!” Just like I couldn’t tell Benoit, “Only two thousand vertical feet to go!”

  The other three cadets ambled along in a daze until the next one in line, Marcel, was only ten feet behind Benoit, leaving twenty feet of limp rope between them. We had to stay spread out for safety and keep the rope tight. There could be hidden crevasses. I’d pounded this into the cadets over and over when we were practising glacier travel and crevasse rescue.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous faites?” I widened my arms to indicate Spread out! but I couldn’t remember the words in French, so I used the closest I could come up with: “Bougez, bougez!” Move!

  Yesterday, my friend Barb, one of the other female guides, had been crossing a glacier with her cadets when she fell into a crevasse up to her thighs. Instead of spreading out to hold her fall, all of her cadets, overwhelmed by curiosity, had kept walking toward her until they were bunched up on the same crevasse. It could have been disastrous.

  Marcel backed up, tripping over the rope and landing on his side. Sylvain dropped his ice axe, bent to pick it up and got pulled onto his butt by Claude, who’d also started to back up. A Quebecois Laurel and Hardy show. Maybe I should have put Marcel directly behind me instead of Benoit. It had been a toss-up. The weakest link was nearest me, but this was the most bumbling group I’d had this summer, and I couldn’t keep them all close.

  Doug trucked along ahead, widening the gap between us. He weighed over two hundred pounds and had twenty-five years of experience in the mountains to my five, but had one less cadet. “Seniority,” I’d been told. There was also a surplus of French cadets, and a dire shortage of guides who could say more than merde! in French.

  We waited while Benoit removed his mitts and groped around in his pockets to find a baggie of trail mix.

  “Vite, vite! Criss de calice de tabarnac! On y va!” The rest of the cadets urged him to get a move on when they saw our third party gaining on us—Niccy’s three cadets with Karen, the camp photographer, bringing up the rear.

  “Okay, Benoit, on y va,” I said.

  Benoit lifted a big foot, let it drop heavily in the snow, lifted the other one. My ’73 Dart started up more quickly after sitting through the whole winter than this kid. It seemed every time I gave a command my cadets took their sweet time, like they wanted to make it perfectly clear they found taking orders from a civilian distasteful, especially a female civilian. Out of thirty instructors, only five of us were women, and these poor sods just happened to have drawn a really short straw: me, the runt of the litter of instructors.

  Niccy pulled up behind my boys, then wound her group around us. I shook my head and groaned as she looked back, her laughter jiggling her big mirror glacier goggles on her nose, white with zinc oxide. “Having some fun yet?” she said. Her party of five stretched from footstep to footstep, leaving us in last place. Karen brought her camera up to her face, pointed at us and clicked. My cadets groaned and swore at Benoit.

  “Ce n’est pas un…” I hesitated. What the hell was the word for race? “Race,” I yelled with a French accent, so that it rhymed with “ass.”

  But it was a race. For me, anyway. I’d been hired on for my French and my gender, not for my glowing resumé—one summer as camp counsellor at Camp Chief Hector, another as an assistant Outward Bound instructor, Industrial First Aid, and five years of climbing. I knew I had to prove myself.

  * * *

  —

  At the base of the mountain, Doug, Niccy, Karen and I stared straight up at the northeast face of Saint Nick. A long, steep snow slope led to the spectacularly pointy summit. There was a more obvious way to go, though. About a quarter-mile farther along we could access a gentler route up the mountain by walking up to the lowest point—the col—between Saint Nick and its immediate neighbour, Mount Olive. From there we could follow a low-angle ridge to the peak. If a cadet fell, he’d land on his butt in the snow, not tumble a few hundred feet to the glacier, dragging us all with him.

  The camouflage-clad boys sat in the snow, munching on chocolate bars, their laughter interrupted by their universal language—imitations of machine gunfire and explosions.

  “Hey, Benoit! Ça va mieux?” I wished I could communicate better with them. They were so young. Even if they were the cream of the crop, I was sure they were homesick and scared much of the time. Most of them had never climbed. Some had never even seen a real mountain. Few of them had slept on an inch-thick blue Ensolite pad in a tent in the snow and subsisted on foil pouches of army rations that could be mistaken for wet dog food.

  Benoit looked over and grinned. “Oui, oui, madame. It is much good now. Much good.”

  “So, the northeast face or the col?” Doug asked. “The face looks in good shape.”

  I craned my head and looked up, way up, at Doug, like at the Jolly Green Giant. Had I heard him correctly? Why was he suggesting something that steep with this bunch?

  “Let’s do the face,” Niccy said. “The col’s just a slog.”

  My head swivelled to Niccy. I had to clench my hands to keep from wrapping them around her neck. Was she trying to prove something to Doug? He was a full guide and could be the examiner on her guide c
ourse this fall, so she probably felt her every move was being scrutinized. But she was bigger and stronger than I was, and she’d had more practice short-roping. She had a better chance of holding her cadets if one of them fell.

  I looked at my boys, who were now spitting wads of chocolate bar wrapper at each other. At fourteen, Benoit was a foot taller than me, and the rest were not much smaller. On rock I’d stand a chance. I could zigzag through rock features, make sure there was something I could wrap the rope around, find spots to secure myself to belay them if I had to. On snow we would be fully exposed. If the cadet closest to me lost his balance, and if I noticed right away, I could pull on the rope to keep him upright. But if one of the other boys fell and I had to hold two bodies, or three, or four? Worst-case scenario would be if Claude at the back of the line fell and dragged Sylvain with him, who would drag Marcel, and all the way up the line.

  “I’d prefer to do the col,” I said. “I don’t think these guys should be on the face.”

  “Well, majority rules,” Doug said.

  I stared at Doug, opened my mouth. I had to say something. That was not the way it worked in the mountains. You always went at the pace and comfort level of the weakest member. But saying that to him would mean admitting to being the weakest member. And if I told him how much I’d short-roped—a few hours with Dan in preparation for this job, and once up Mount Joffre with my Outward Bound students three years ago—he would have said, “What the fuck are you doing here then?”

  I was also hoping to do my guide’s training someday, like Niccy. Doug could easily be one of my examiners too.

  So I clamped my mouth shut.

  Doug started to prepare his ropes. I stared up at Saint Nick, a snowy, jagged tooth. The few hundred feet of steep snow leading to the summit was interrupted by a band of exposed rock about three quarters of the way up. Fear spread its tentacles through my belly, wrapped around my bowels.

  Fake it till you make it. That’s what Dan would have told me at that moment. But he was back in Banff, working at his safe indoor job, and he was a better faker than I was.

  Niccy squeezed my arm and her smile was like a kid’s in front of the biggest Christmas present under the tree. “It’ll be great. The kids will love it.”

  “Let’s get this show on the road!” Doug clapped his huge hands and the cadets leapt to their feet as if a grenade had rolled into their midst.

  I huddled with my group and pointed out the route. When their excited cheers had died down, I looked each kid in the eye. “Tu tombes, tu meurs.” You fall, you die. They stared at me like I was a lunatic.

  “Nic, you can lead us up,” Doug said.

  I started to prepare my rope, thinking, He picked her, not me! Years ago I used to lead her up routes she could barely climb. Now she was Doug’s protégée.

  Niccy started up the snow slope, her cadets and Karen following behind, the rope now set so they were only a few feet apart. Doug led his cadets up next, and when I followed with mine, it occurred to me that maybe Doug was doing with me what I was doing with Benoit, keeping the weakest link close.

  We kicked our boots into the footsteps, sank our axes to the hilt and moved slowly up the slope. The snow was deep, to my thighs and to Doug’s knees, but the slope was no steeper than a black diamond run at the Lake Louise ski hill. It wouldn’t last long, though. After a short snow wallow, the angle would begin to tilt. Behind me, the boys laughed and blathered so quickly I only understood the occasional word. Every few seconds I barked orders over my shoulder: “Attention! La corde! Ton hache!” as I indicated sinking the shaft of their axe deep in the snow before taking a step, and keeping the rope tight. If they fell here, they could self-arrest. I’d made them practice the technique for hours over the past few days, sliding on their bellies, then sinking the pick of their axe deep in the snow, throwing all their weight on it to stop their slide. But we wouldn’t be able to self-arrest farther up. If they slipped on the steep section, we wouldn’t just slide. We’d fall. We’d be fini.

  The wall of snow kept getting steeper. I twisted around to see Benoit ten feet below me with his axe only halfway in the snow, looking out at the view.

  “Benoit!” He started and looked up. “Ton hache!” I pointed to my ice axe, then made the motion of slitting my throat. He sank his axe to the pick, his eyes as wide as Frisbees.

  As the face got steeper, the cadets grew quiet. Each time I looked back, all four of them were methodically planting their axes, then step, step, with their mouths set in tight lines, their eyes looking straight ahead at the imprints in the snow, trying not to look down. I could hear Benoit breathing noisily, a combination of exertion and fear.

  The higher we climbed, the longer the fall. Why couldn’t I think, The higher we climb, the closer to the top? That’s probably what Niccy was thinking: how cool it was to be hanging off the side of the mountain with a bunch of pubescent boys, while I was thinking how insane it was.

  I stared at the army-green gaiters of Doug’s last cadet twenty feet above. Approximately twenty minutes ago that kid had been joking about throwing himself down the slope to practise his self-arrest, but he was silent now, just like my cadets. No laughter. No whoops. No yelling back and forth. Just the repetitive thud, thud as we kicked our boots into the steps, the shush of the ice axes sinking into the snow as we followed the steep band of white toward the summit.

  Off to our right, a sharp ridge delineated the northeast face from the southwest face, which was a two-thousand-foot rock wall. One by one my boys paused and looked over into the abyss as though they were at a viewing in a funeral parlour. I clamped my glove down on the rope between me and Benoit. Marcel whistled, the same long, eerie dropping sound that accompanied Wile E. Coyote when he fell off a cliff chasing the Road Runner. Whistle, whistle, whistle, splat.

  Benoit looked up at me, his mouth drawn down. He probably wanted his mother, like I wanted Dan. We’d both risk death before admitting it.

  Doug’s last cadet stopped. Niccy had reached the rock band. We stood still as granite, in mid-step, right beside the two-thousand-foot drop, and waited. My legs quivered with fear and exhaustion. The cadets’ legs must have been jelly.

  It took over an hour for Niccy’s team, then Doug’s, to make it over the rock. They continued on, up out of sight, now on mellower ground on their way to the summit, while I shook the rigor mortis out of my legs and climbed on. At the base of the rock, I stopped again. Scrambling up was going to be challenging in stiff plastic mountaineering boots. My cadets stood, a few feet apart down the steep slope, looking up at me, waiting for the next instructions. I imagined the five of us sliding, tumbling, gaining speed, ice axes flailing, fifteen hundred feet to the glacier.

  If anything happened to these boys, it wouldn’t be Doug’s fault. It would be mine. I should have spoken up.

  I unclenched my teeth, forced my jaw to relax. I wanted off this fucking mountain. I slipped my ice axe into the side of my pack, stuffed my gloves down the front of my jacket, then dropped a few loops of rope, getting ready to climb by myself. I’d belay them from the top. The cadets leaned into the slope, exhausted, listening to my instructions. They probably wished they were on six-foot-four Doug’s rope, already sitting on the summit eating gorp.

  “Touchez pas la fucking corde.” If they accidentally pulled on the rope, or stepped on it, I’d get dragged off the climb. They all nodded like a row of bobbleheads on a dashboard.

  I placed my foot on the rock, stepped up. The holds were big, but the angle was steep. I moved carefully, trying not to knock the loose rock off, trying to keep my thoughts fully focused on my task. If I could survive a few more hours, by suppertime tomorrow, I’d be snuggled up with Dan at home in Banff. Maybe I’d bake some banana bread.

  I kept looking down at the boys to make sure they weren’t moving, that their axes were deep in the snow, and that they weren’t near my coils of rope. My neck-slicing gesture must have done its job. They stood still as plastic soldiers until I
reached the comfort of the soft snow again. It had only been five or six moves. Easier than I’d expected, and if I hadn’t been attached to four gangly, testosterone-flooded, heavy army cadets, it would have been fun.

  The slope levelled off. I followed the footsteps up to the anchor, a mound of snow that Niccy and Doug had built to secure themselves to the mountain while their boys had climbed the rock. Niccy and Karen raised their arms in the air in triumph from the top, about thirty feet above me. Doug sat a few feet apart from his cadets. He lifted his hand in a wave, and grinned. I lifted my hand nonchalantly, then let it drop. I tucked my chin into the collar of my jacket to hide my huge grin. I turned and sat in the impression Niccy’s and Doug’s butts had made, sank my boots into their steps. With my rope wrapped around the snow anchor and clipped into my harness, the boys could no longer drag me off the mountain. I was secure. I put my head between my knees for a few seconds to savour my stay of execution.

  I pulled up the slack in the rope, looped it around my waist. Mountains and glaciers stretched out as far as I could see in every direction. Bow Hut with our tents clumped around it looked like a tiny Monopoly house. Off to the north, three strings of cadets inched toward Mount Gordon, a long, safe hike up a snowfield. That’s where we could have gone today, but we hadn’t. We’d done the northeast face of Saint Nick. I couldn’t wait to tell Dan.

  I leaned over and yelled to my cadets, “Okay, Benoit! You can climb! Grimpe!”

  * * *

  —

  Huddled together on my blue Ensolite pad in front of the tent, Ian and I passed a cup of cocoa back and forth. We were getting used to living together, out in the mountains and back home in Banff. His only real flaw as a roommate was that he ate too much of the banana chocolate chip loaf I baked.

  “I can’t believe he said ‘majority rules.’” Ian slapped his knee and laughed.

  “Shhh. Keep your voice down,” I hissed. I’d described our day in a whisper, because Doug was only a few tents away.