Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25248
We were covering so many mountaineering Alaska Mountain Guides world as a safety ha~ard. Today was anchoring- and-bel aying day, during bars which bored carabiner Unbelievably strong, easily support full weight. we learned, among other things, how to plant pickets, those metal with holes. they body We practiced a number of methods of picket- burying . There's the Deadman's System (a name I didn't like) and a bunch of other ways t o secure one of these things in snow and ice, s ome invol ving a l ot of banging with ice axes and stomping with boots. Pickets are important bec ause they anchor you if you're climbing a steep face, or if you need t o tie-off because someone in your group has fallen into a c rev asse. Then l~e moved on to knot-tying perhaps lVhat I needed t o learn most. I' ve always been b ad at knots; along with driving in reverse. But especially knots: It's no t that I can't tie them, it's that; I c an never remember how. Tal watched Eli cinch off a figure-eight l oop and had the spatial relations to copy it. I needed a tlVo-hour tut orial. Keep in mind this was lVhile wearing wet gloves on i ce, in rain . More importantly, this was all taking place in non emergency conditions. I tried t o place myself three quarters of the lVay up Den ali, at 50 be l ow before wind-chill, trying to tell my prussik from my figure-eight . At this point, if I had t o gues s whether I would e ve r be fully p repared t o climb Denali, I'd have t o say no, not likely. Not lVithout a cerebellum transplant. skills, so quickly, that I hoped I would remember t o "brake " the belay if s omeone below me fell. But if we were going t o do the planned climb up something c alled Abandonment Peak on Day Six, we needed these skills. Quickly. I wasn't panicking: I'd learned to rely on my mind's ability to "sleep on" new informat ion , incorporating it into the general knowledge base when I awakened. Or so I told myself, as Eli semi-patiently expl ained the same hitch knot to me for the third time. Gaining competence and confidence where there had previously been none was one of the points of this trip. Making routine what had earlier seemed extraordinary. Still, I kept l ooking north and thinking, "Climb that l ooming peak in the distance? Me? If you say so, Cedar." Dinner conversat ion t ended t o center around the t opic cold, hungry men usually discuss lVhen f ar alVay from the scent of a woman. Namely, lVomen. Everyone in my tent had been through similar recent heartbreaks. Maybe that's why we lVe re sleeping on ice in the rain in Alaska in August. Though I l ove s c ramb ling up mountains, I' ve never really gotten into technic al r ock c limbing. But ice climbing-this lV as fun. You need to understand what it means f or an Alaskan to say "I'm actually l ooking forward to lVinter, when the lVaterfalls ne ar my house free~e." Al askans generally don't look forlVard t o frigid lVinters. "But I'll actually be able t o practice ice climbing - in my backyard " The principle is Simple: Apply spikes t o hands 4 50 and feet, and make like Spiderman. Defy gravity. Walk up walls . It lVas so enjoy able , I didn' t even notice DAy FOUR: Ice Climbin~, No Name Glacier