Alpine Start

I wake to the low beeping, barely heard above the wind. The snow strikes the wall of the tent, in the dark it sounds like the night is trying to put me back to sleep. I turn on the lamp, and off the alarm. The tent wall is mere inches from my face, the weight of new snow pressing down, until I shake the walls and the poles spring the tent into shape. My naked arm feels the bite of cold, and I hear the distant rumble of avalanches coming down the face. Instead of climbing we will sleep the day through, and tomorrow we will try again.

It’s dark, but this night there is no wind and the snow shows signs of stopping. Three AM, it’s fifteen below outside, but my sleeping bag is comfortable. I dress inside it to put off the inevitable shock of putting on frozen boots. Hopefully they will thaw quickly today. They are cold, but the mountain waits.

Outside, light snow falling, wisps of clouds stream past the beam of my lamp. Tie in now; there are crevasse between the tent and the face, crampons click, and snow crunches under foot. Yesterday’s snow has blown off, through gaps in the clouds the moon lights the peak. A cold blue light shows cold blue ice, on this cold blue night.

A short walk to the ‘shrund, but I don’t see it until the crevasse opens beneath my feet, a dark maw, cold breath sucks heat from the cold air and from me. As I swing my head from side to side, my light expels the dark, but I see no way across. Walking along the bottom edge, one eye alert to the shape of the snow, ready to warn of undercutting, the other eye ahead looking for weaknesses in the wall of ice. Near the far edge of the face, where it is bounded by a ridge of rocks, there is a bridge of snow. It looks too soft to hold my weight, but perhaps the rocks will hold the path on.

The rocks are featureless in the dark, as I make my way to them, the moat is a few feet wide; not enough to be insurmountable, but retreat would be challenging. I step across, and details appear and then are washed out by the flat light of the headlamp. A small hold is found by feel and the way forward opens, for a moment. A few more moves and I’ve run out of holds, the rock is blank and vertical, but a few feet to the left lies the snow and ice of the face we had set out to climb.

A brief call to my partner “watch me!” though there is not much else to see this early. I step out on to the snow, and the rest of the climb is before us.