After an hour and 24 minutes of circling La Plata's summit, looking for my trail down, I decided to return my crampons to REI and learn to knit. The 45 MPH wind gusts and the snow stinging my eyes were convincing factors. The fact that I couldn't find the tracks I had just laid in the snow and that the cairns had disappeared behind snow drifts had to be faced. I wasn't cold but my weary muscles and fatigued - frightened - brain screamed at me to GET OFF THE MOUNTAIN and STAY OFF THE MOUNTAIN!I bargained and pleaded. If I could just get off of this mountain in one piece, under my own power, I would....
I had no place being at 14,336 feet in the first place. My hiking partner
had backed out the night before because she didn't like the sounds of the wind and snow in the forecast. (*Hint*) I never missed a beat. I was almost happy to be doing it by myself. I packed my brand new crampons, my snowshoes, and hitched my (also brand new) ice ax to my pack with jubilation. I skimmed over the forecast winds and snow and fastened onto two words, "Mostly Sunny." I needed no more encouragement. A day in the mountains was calling my name. I would steal a day.The ascent - though windy - was a piece of cake in comparison to what was to come. I was taking a nonstandard route but was happy to find it well-marked with cairns and recent tracks in the snow. I wasn't overly concerned when my map and route description blew away. The ridgeline to the summit was obvious and once on the top, I'd just turn around and follow my own track down. I was low on energy, but what was this? A measly seven mile round trip. I would just take it slower, eat another Gu, and all would be well. The summit was close, it was only a 7 mile round trip, what could go wrong? I would summit today.
After 4 hours of hiking and 3,380 feet of elevation gain, I summited. I crowed at having "stolen a day" and snapped a few pictures. In that same self-congratulatory mode, I started the descent. About 15 minutes down I realized that the valley I was looking at didn't look familiar. I had followed tracks but then it dawned on me that I was doing the nonstandard route - the standard route would come right off of the summit too. I had no idea where they split and how they crossed each other.I now willed my good map to be back in my hands. I had a crummy backup map that indicated that the gross direction I needed to head was southwest. But where was that? The clouds had moved in so I couldn't use the sun with any regularity plus it was 2:30. I had no idea if the sun was more in a southerly direction or was it already in the west?
I looked around and circled the summit. I'd go a little ways down one side and then come back up, go down the other way and come back up. I just wasn't sure. "You're going to be OK, you know?" I said out loud to myself. I knew I needed to keep my wits - and the summit, an indisputable landmark - about me at this point. After deliberating and circling the summit, I decided to follow the most defined cairns and trail. I didn't think it was heading southwest but reassured myself that the trail could just be switching back, and I would just get down the bloody mountain before nightfall and then work out what to do at the (potentially wrong) trailhead.
After following that trail for what seemed like forever, but was only about 30 minutes, I recognized landmarks that proved that I was on the right trail. I heaved a sigh of relief. Prematurely. Just below that point (at approximately 13000 feet) came the snowiest part of the trail and the snow had blown up against the cairns, not completely covering them but making them difficult to spot. I had to pick my way across this section to spot the cairns - and to avoid slipping/falling between the rocks. I had many thoughts of what a twisted ankle or broken bone would mean at this point. The weather worsened.
Wind and stinging sleet now made me want to hurry. But I forced myself to stop and search for the next cairn, sinking to my knees in spots, crossing that snow.
At the saddle on the ridge, I turned to descend into a valley of willows. It was slow-going into the valley and I even had my ice ax out to self arrest in case I slipped. I reached the willows and lost the trail AGAIN!I was sick to my stomach with anxiety and super-fatigued, but talked myself through it, telling myself that the trail had to funnel out of the valley somehow and it wasn't a super wide valley - about 1/4 mile across. I bushwhacked to the left side of the valley and then worked my way back across it to the right. I struck the trail way on the right side and was able to stick to it for the remainder of the way down. I reached my car before night fell.
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My first reaction to this event was anger and self-reproach. I made lists of resolutions about hiking more safely. I have kept those resolutions.
I rejoiced. I was glad to be alive, glad to be at school the next morning, glad to not have spent the night on the mountain.
I reflected. I am drawn to this "province of the extreme" (thanks, Jon Krakauer), but I need to indulge it safely. I am drawn to this province and just doing the mountains is What I'm Looking For. People refer to me as "driven" but that doesn't acknowledge the pleasure I have in hiking, summitting, being with friends on the mountain, being alone on the mountain, fighting the elements on the mountain, soaking up the sun's rays on the mountain. They do so much for me.
I learned. I don't want to die. This sentiment and its force astonished me. It is my anchor, my core. I have an iron will to live. In the two years after my divorce, that was not a given. I had voiced sentiments to the contrary. On La Plata that day, there was no contrariness. I was pure will power. I suppressed anything that would impede my getting off the mountain before nightfall. I focused. Today, I believe that I would have kept walking until I was out or dead. I felt an intractability of spirit that I can still conjure.
With the benefit of hindsight, I see that day as my personal turning point. It's the day I learned to live.
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