Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25248
~s • ave perfect age f or mountaineering. My body is still pretty much intact, but I am (and here I allow pause for those who know me well to snicker) much more "mentally t ogether" than I was, say, ten years ago. These were the salesperson's words. Cedar pOinted out that these factors can mean the difference between life and death in an emergency like a crevasse fall. It was at this moment in the trip that the "mental" component of mountaineering preparation came into play for me. As I watched Tal rather convincingly simulating an unconscious vic tim in a crevasse, I wondered, "Yeesh. Could I handle this, if it were real? If I were half-frozen and panicky myself?" In the end, I decided I could, j ust to avoid the shame of leaving someone for dead. Of having t o explain it later . Better t o b ite it myself, t oo . It's a question about a grave situation that can't be definitively answered until it happens . DAy SIX: Glacier Camp to Aban.onment Peak to Base Camp It turned out that climbing Ab andonment Peak was only the second-hardest event o f this epic day. I don't know if this is bec ause we had s o systematically built up the skills necessary for the ascent over the week, or if it was because of the death march upon which we embarked after returning to glacier 52 camp. Even Eli, who tended to lurch forward with the steady tirelessness of the Terminator, called Day Six "A Day. " Thank goodness for long Alaskan daylight. In any event, Day Six was one of the most physically challenging o f my life. It started with the moderately technic al summiting of Ab andonment Peak (I was afraid at first t o ask the s ource o f the name), that mount ain to the north at which we'd been staring every day whenever weather allowed its t op t o show f or a minute or two. I had a moment of fear when we all roped t ogether for the first time, with Cedar lecturing us on avoiding rope slack and keeping our ice axes in the uphill hand. This was all getting kind of real. What if I really did fallon a steep slope? Would I be able t o self-arrest? Other people's lives were at stake here. And Cedar had promised Michael "a more technical route" than he embarks upon with most groups, because o f our high achievement up t o this point. But before I really had time to get insecure, we were on our way up, the trickiest part being this picket maneuver we had to pull in the really steep stuff. Every now and then Cedar, who was leading, would hammer a good 0 1' picket into the snow and then continue . When the next person reached it, he had t o yell "Picket ! " then unclip himself from the r ope and reclip above the