Hidden Courage (Atlantis)

by Petersen, Christopher David

  Jack immediately realized that if he could see other peaks, then he could probably see the one he was climbing. He turned around and there it was: the summit of Destination B. It was a beautiful sight.

  Excited, he stood up and shouldered his pack. He could see the summit and the final slope leading up to it. Scanning the upper regions, he quickly spotted several routes to choose from.

  Although climbing straight up the face in front of him seemed to be the shortest distance, he could see several pitches of ice that would need to be negotiated. They would be time-consuming and dangerous.

  Off to the right, Jack located a ridgeline that led to the summit. While it, too, was difficult and dangerous, it wasn't nearly as bad as the ridgeline he’d crossed the day before. It appeared wider as well as shorter, and didn't seem to have any appreciable ice buildups.

  Leading up to the ridgeline were a set of high angle slopes. They seemed devoid of any ice and would be easy to negotiate. Without further delay, Jack headed off across a series of fluted trenches on his way to the upper slopes and ridgeline.

  At Jack's altitude, moving fast was harder to do. The lack of oxygen meant that for every step he took, he’d needed to take a breath of air. Jack’s conditioning was paying off. Even though he needed more breaths of air, he still felt strong and was moving up the final slopes quickly and easily.

  After a while, Jack stopped for a drink of water. He hadn’t estimated the duration of the technical climbing accurately, and as a result, the extra work translated into a higher consumption of food and water. He pulled out his water bottle and drank the last drop. He knew it was going to be a long time before he had any more and he grabbed some loose snow and filled the empty bottle in hopes that his body temperature would melt enough to satisfy his thirst later on.

  Looking up, he estimated he was only 500 feet from the summit. At the pace he was moving, he figured he’d be standing on the top in less than two hours – that was, if the knife edge went well.

  An hour later and 400 feet higher, Jack had climbed the final stretches of the upper slopes. He was now standing at the final ridgeline. Like the one he had crossed below, it had a narrowly ascending ‘catwalk’, about a foot wide, that he would have to balance himself on for nearly a hundred feet. He knew if he fell, instead of tumbling a thousand feet to his death, he would be tumbling in excess of 5,000 feet. The thought was psychologically far more intimidating.

  Jack scanned across the ridge and tried to find a better solution for its crossing. Suddenly it hit him. He decided that instead of the scary balancing act, he would stand just below the top, facing it, and shuffle sideways with his arm dangling over the other side and his body slumped over the top. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but it was much easier and safer.

  “I just hope no one sees me doing this,” Jack lamented. “How embarrassing.”

  Swallowing his pride, he started his sideways shuffle up and across the ridge, taking care not to catch his crampons on anything. He clutched his ice axes in both hands and readied them at the first sign of trouble.

  Little by little he worked his feet and body toward the summit. Looking down over the other side of the ridge, thousands of feet below, sent waves of anxiety throughout his body as he fought to control his fears.

  “This sucks,” Jack said to himself under his breath. “…And me without an extra pair of underwear.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jack completed the traverse and pulled himself up onto the final hill that led to the top.

  “Oh yes, you're almost in my grasp!” Jack said, as if speaking directly to the mountain's summit.

  As he walked to the peak, he could see the mountains all around him. They were still covered in clouds but at a much lower elevation. The weather now slowly started to clear out.

  The sky above the clouds was a brilliant blue, and the sun’s rays made the snow crystals sparkle. Jack was tired, not having slept in a day and a half, but felt alive as adrenaline pumped through his body.

  A few steps later, Jack had finally achieved his goal. He was now standing on the coffee table-sized summit of Destination B.

  “Woohoo!” Jack shouted out at the top of his lungs. “Made it… on top of the world.”

  Jack felt the pride of accomplishment. He felt that, from that day forward, he could face anything anywhere and succeed. He sat at his lofty height and dreamed. Life had new meaning for him. He felt like the world was his, and he couldn’t wait to get home to have it.

  An hour later, having snapped some photos, he headed down.

  The descent consisted of many rappels. Where there was snow, he placed in special anchors called ‘flukes’, rappelled down to the end of his rope, set up another fluke and continued rappelling. On ice, he did the same, placing ice screws and rappelling. If he could walk down safely, he did so. The descent carried into darkness, taking more than twelve hours in all to descend to the first night's bivouac just above the northern ridgeline.

  Looking at his tiny snow cave, he said affectionately, “Home, sweet home.”

  Jack had been climbing for nearly two days straight and was delirious with exhaustion. As he pulled the rope down from the final anchor, he crawled on his hands and knees to the backpack he had stowed two days before. He rolled on his back and rested a moment. He knew he needed water, but all he wanted to do was sleep.

  Through his exhaustion, he said, “Okay, let’s get the show on the road.”

  Jack rolled over and reached for the pack inside the mini cave. He reached in and pulled out his stove, pot, bivy bag and his sleeping bag. With what little strength he had left, he managed to melt some snow while he placed his sleeping bag inside the bivy bag.

  At his exhaustion level, even the simplest of tasks were difficult. What should have taken ten minutes took thirty.Having already gotten inside his bag, Jack turned off his cooking stove and drank the melted snow from the pot, nearly burning his lips and fingers in the process. The drink was as satisfying as any he had ever had, and he finished the entire contents. With that chore accomplished, he dropped the pot where he laid and threw his head back.

  His sleep came fast; nearly the instant his head came to rest. There were no dreams. He did not move. He slept deeply, as his body desperately fought to heal itself from the ravages of exhaustion.

  DAY 4

  Jack woke the next day as the sun’s rays beat down upon his face. He was still exhausted, but couldn’t continue his rest with the brilliance that radiated off the snow and pierced his eyes.

  He sat up and leaned against the side of the mountain, trying to clear the fog from his mind. Severely dehydrated and thirsty, he lit his stove and melted more snow for water. In his pack he found a stick of pepperoni he had forgotten and made quick work of it while he quenched his thirst.

  As he sat and rested, he took in the magnificence of the mountains around him. Aside from an occasional light wind that streamed on by, the silence seemed thunderous. There were no characteristic sounds of humanity anywhere: no machinery or voices. The sound of animal life and nature were equally nonexistent, as there were no barking dogs, chirping birds or leaves and grasses that rustled in the wind. Jack sat and heard nothing. It was very peaceful, yet somewhat unsettling.

  An hour later, Jack felt stronger and awake enough to descend the last 1,000 feet to the snowfield below. He repacked up his gear, then scouted for a safe descent route.

  The northern ridgeline, with its snowy face, was too risky to descend from. Jack worked his way around to the eastern face, directly above the snowfield. He found an area more suitable and descended by rappel. The descent was non-eventful and, three hours later, he was down on the snowfield and crossing to his now snow-covered plane.

  The previous day’s weather left more snow on the snowfield. As Jack trudged across, his boots sunk in up to his knees, and the sun’s rays bore down on him, forcing him to strip down to his t-shirt to stay cool. As the tiny speck of a plane grew in size, so did Jack’s motivati
on. He picked up the pace and muscled his way through the deep snow. Soaked in sweat and exhausted from post holing for two hours, Jack finally reached his plane.

  Just as the snowfield was covered under a blanket of fresh new snow, so was Jack’s plane. Using a climber’s shovel, Jack carefully removed all the snow as he prepared it for his flight back to the small airport in San Ramon. The day’s chores ended late.

  It was nearly 5pm when he finished. With only two hours of sunlight left, there wasn’t enough time to fly back safely. He would need to stay another night.

  DAY 5

  The following morning, Jack woke ready for his next adventure: the flight off the snowfield. He didn’t waste any more time melting snow for water or preparing anymore food. He figured he could treat himself to those luxuries back at the airport.

  Finishing his preflight, he jumped back into the plane and ran through his checklist to start the engine. With everything set, he turned the key and waited for the sight of the propeller windmilling and the engine cranking. He heard nothing. Looking down at the key, he turned it to off, then back to ‘engage’ to start the engine. Still there was nothing but dead silence. Frantically, he turned the key back and forth several times, hoping there was just a bad connection – but again there was only silence.

  Jack sat thinking. He could hear the sound of his breathing in the quiet cockpit.

  “Shit, the freakin’ battery’s dead!” he exclaimed, coming to grips with the reality of his situation.

  Jack decided to try hand-starting the propeller – ‘propping’, as it is called in aviation jargon. He left the key in the ‘on’ position, loosely tied his door open, then came around to the front to ‘prop’ the propeller.

  He spun the propeller slowly around a couple of times to loosen things up inside the engine, then grabbed the top blade of the propeller and pulled down hard on it. As the propeller rotated down half a turn, nothing happened. The engine sat quiet.

  “It’s a lawnmower engine… can’t expect it to pop on the first try,” Jack said to himself.

  He grabbed the top of the blade again and pulled down hard, rotating it a half turn through its cycle. Still the engine sat silent. He repeated the process many more times over the next fifteen minutes, each time becoming more frantic in his actions.

  Reality began to set in. He was not going to be able to start the engine; the battery was dead and there was nothing he was going to be able to do to change that fact.

  “No way. This can’t be happening,” Jack said out loud.

  Jack stared out at the valley far in front of him. He knew that the only option he had was to hike out of the valley to civilization. That could take many days and the trail that led into the valley would be difficult to find, due to the fact that he never used it to come in by. It was small and meandered at the far end of the valley somewhere. It could take days to find and he had only enough food for maybe two. To make matters worse, he would have to hike for many days without food. This had now turned into a life-threatening situation. He wasn’t sure if he could last a week without food while hiking through the treacherous terrain.

  Jack pulled nearly everything out of his pack except for food, water and a rope for emergencies. If he was going to have any chance at survival at all, he’d need to go as light as possible. He shouldered his pack, took one last look at his plane and began the long hike out of the valley.

  A few minutes later, he got to the edge of the snowfield. Looking beyond it, the terrain dropped off rapidly, at one point becoming nearly a sheer cliff to the valley floor. Jack estimated the vertical drop to be more than 2,000 feet. He stopped for a moment to find a way down the steep slope. He thought about sliding down on his rear end to the bottom but reconsidered, thinking that he would probably slide out of control. As he stood there trying to take that first step from the mountain, an idea came to him.

  “What a minute… How about…” Jack said to himself, stopping in mid-sentence while thinking.

  After Jack built his plane, he was required to test and record the performance as a requirement toward certification. During testing, he had experimented with various flight characteristics. During one of his tests, he needed to see at what speed the engine would restart if it had quit while en route. The test began with Jack slowing the plane at a high altitude, then cutting the engine. He then pushed the nose over and gained speed. As he descended, the speed rapidly increased until the propeller started to rotate by the force of the wind. Eventually, the spinning propeller started the engine on its own and he notated the speed that this happened. It was seventy knots.

  Jack looked down into the valley below. He figured if he could get his plane to the edge of the cliff, push it off and jump in, he might have the altitude for the plane to gain the speed to start the engine and fly out of the valley. It was a long shot, but so was him making it back to civilization without food or water. He ran through the various scenarios with each plan for survival. One ended in a quick death and one ended in a slow death.

  “That’s it. I’m flying the plane off this mountain or I’ll die trying,” Jack said resolutely.

  After considering his options, he actually felt fairly confident that his plane would start before hitting the ground. He was also fairly confident that the chances of finding his way out of the valley and back to the civilization were slim at best. Heading back to the plane, he was frightened to his core. He felt nauseous with each step his took. In an hour he was either going to be dead or flying home.

  The plane was relatively heavy and took Jack a couple of hours to push and pull it to the edge of the snowfield. Toiling hard and deep in concentration, he missed the slight decline in the slope. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the plane began to inch toward the cliff under its weight. As Jack moved from the tail to the wing, he spotted the movement, but only too late. The plane hit a momentary decline and picked up speed.

  Jack grabbed the wing and dug his heels in, but the weight of the plane was too great and he was pulled from his stance and dragged along the ground behind it. Jack could feel the speed slowly increasing. He knew he needed to act fast or all would be lost.

  Frantically, he jogged beside the plane, opened the door and pulled out his ice axe. He then ran back to the tail and grabbed the tie-down rope that trailed behind it. He clipped the rope into a carabineer, then onto the ice axe. In one quick move, he dropped to the ground and thrust his ice axe into the snow. As the ice axe plowed through the snow, Jack rolled on top of it while digging his boots in for added advantage.

  “Come on, baby; slow,” Jack hollered.

  Jack fought desperately with his axe and boots, digging in further with each passing step. He began to feel the plane’s momentum slow. He held his position and angled the axe for greater penetration. Suddenly, abruptly, the plane came to a halt. Jack didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He waited for any sign of movement. There was none.

  “Phew, that was close… again. I’m gonna need to buy stock in underwear before this trip is through,” Jack said, in comic relief.

  He stood up, ran to the door and pulled out his other ice axe. Running around to the other side of the plane, he clipped it into the tie-down that hung from the wing. He then buried the axe in the snow and took up the slack in the rope, creating an extra anchor point to hold the plane steady. Placing his hands on the wing, he rocked it slightly and watched both anchors, ensuring they would hold.

  “Okay, minor crisis avoided,” Jack joked again.

  He walked to the front of the plane and built large mounds of snow in front of the skis, creating barricades to keep the plane from sliding. He then repositioned the ice axe from the wing, closer to the pilot’s door, creating a quick release when he was ready to leave.

  Walking back to the tail anchor, Jack nervously loosened it from the snow. As he pulled it out, he watched to see if his barricades and wing anchor would hold. The plane lurched forward momentarily, then stopped abruptly, held in place by the wing anchor. He disconnect
ed the tail rope and ice axe and stowed them in the plane. Jack was now ready.

  “Okay; this is it. Sayonara,” he said to himself.

  Jack took one last look around. He shuddered as he thought that he might be dead in less than a minute.

  With the plane positioned for release down the mountain, there was nothing left for him to do. Jack jumped into the plane. Nervously, he hesitated a moment, then pulled the rope that held his ice axe, releasing the anchor and allowing the plane to slide forward. This was it. There was no turning back now.

  Jack looked out his windscreen. He was two hundred feet from the edge of the cliff and gaining speed. The ride was bumpy, but acceptable. As he slid closer to the cliff, he started to pull back on the stick in anticipation of the drop. His heart was pounding. Fear and anticipation racked his body as he watched the plane gaining speed as it slid closer to the edge.

  Jack anxiously monitored the distance out his windscreen to the edge of the cliff.