Our brother-in-law, Ted, had grown up spending every summer in these mountains, as well as lots of time in the winter, too, skiing—both downhill and Nordic—snowshoeing, and snowmobiling. So he knew this vast, rugged wilderness extremely well. He was in amazing shape, too, as was tough little Elizabeth. They used to teach classes in Yosemite Park with The Yosemite Institute, and would often, on their days off, cross country ski up the side of a steep mountain into a particularly remote area, carrying a backpack on their backs, a tent, and their sleeping bags for some winter camping. They ran long distances and hiked and rode mountain bikes and down-hill skied. All their friends did, too. And even though Richard and I were in good shape, we weren’t in their kind of shape. Still, we were fit enough to climb to the top of a 14,000 ft. mountain that didn’t require mountaineering skills. We had bagged a couple of other 14,000 ft peaks by then. So we didn’t foresee anything but a gorgeous, somewhat strenuous hike when Ted proposed a hike to the top of Mt. Baker with Elizabeth and a small group of their friends.

 

The trailhead started at about 9000 ft, through a patch of thick aspen groves interspersed with sunny meadows dotted cheerfully with alpine daisies. At one point, we startled a doe and her fawn, who trotted away from us up the hiking trail. Every time we rounded a blind curve, we would find the fawn standing there, his spotted rump pointed towards us, his head twisted all the way around to see if we were still coming. When he saw us, he would give a start and scamper a little farther to the next bend.

 

We soon climbed out of the forest and into some boulder fields where marmots, or whistle pigs as the locals call them, live in the crevices. They would sound a shrill alarm whenever people hiked through, and you could occasionally catch sight of one running sprightly over the boulders. Because they occupy a niche that included extreme winter conditions, marmots pack a lot of fat on their little bodies—they always looked to me as if they were shaped like a drop of oil—and have a thick, lustrous coat of fur. I would have loved to have been able to pet one, but that was, of course, out of the question.

 

Then we were out of the boulder field and we were ascending through naked, sheer granite, treacherous talus slopes, and patches of snow. The last part of just about every climb like this that I’ve ever done is a slog. You’re basically climbing up a steep, rocky stairway, planting one foot and hauling up your entire body weight, then planting the other foot for the same drill. The air is thin enough and the physical effort challenging enough that you’re not admiring the scenery. You’re just trying to get to the top. But the funny thing about bagging a peak, for me, is that I don’t find getting to the summit all that pleasant. It’s cold as shit and the wind is blowing 800 mph, the cloud ceiling is usually starting to lower, and lightning storms are building.  You’re drenched in sweat from the climb, so you quickly strip down the top half of your body and quickly pull on the dry clothes that hopefully, you brought with you in your day pack. Through narrowed eyes that are tearing up from the gale force winds even though you are wearing sunglasses, you admire the view. For about two seconds. Then you sit and gobble down the snack that you brought with you—we usually munched on cheese and crackers, peanut butter, apples, gorp, and chocolate—jump up, and start motoring down before the thunderstorms begin, which can be lethal.

 

But today, Ted had a different idea. What would be fun, he said, and easier than climbing down, would be to put on our rain pants—which again, everyone had brought with them because you never knew when the heavens might open up and start pouring on you—and glissade down some snow fields.

 

 

We scrambled down a big boulder field on the other side of the mountain than we had come up. One boulder that I stepped on turned out to have an unstable layer that peeled off when I put my weight on it. I managed to make myself fall backward, but I fell hard, and most of my weight ended up on the muscle below my thumb on my right hand, which landed on a sharp point of granite. The pain, as you might imagine, was intense, and made all my muscles shaky. And it made that hand much less usable. But I didn’t think that this would be a serious problem. I continued down the boulder field, just more cautiously.

 

Soon, we came to the place that Ted thought would make for good glissading. He got onto the snowfield first, to test it out and make sure it was okay. In the meantime, we all moseyed down the peak a little, climbed over a cornice of snow next to a talus slope, and started putting on our rain pants. Elizabeth was the quickest, so she had just stepped out on the snowfield and sat down on the snow in preparation for glissading when we heard Ted screaming from up above, “Elizabeth!!!!! No!!!!! Stop!!!!!!”

 

The panic in his voice made everyone freeze in place. Soon, Ted came into view, basically skiing the snowfield, using every trick he knew to bring himself to a stop without skis. He finally managed and made his way over to us, breathing hard.

 

“This snow field is a lot steeper than it looks,” he told us. “And around that corner there,” he pointed downhill, “it gets even steeper.”

 

We all looked where he pointed, the field disappearing from view from our vantage point, and then shifted our gaze to the cornice we had just climbed over to get where we were. No way were we getting back over that thing. Then we glanced over to the talus slope which was made up of gravel that looked like it was just itching to start sliding down the mountainside. All it needed was a little mass and a little momentum and it would be doing what the Laws of Thermodynamics wanted it to do: race crazily to the bottom of the precipitous slope.

 

“We’re just going to have to downclimb this snowfield,” Ted told us.

 

I blinked. We had no crampons, no ice axes. What were we going to downclimb with? I peered down to the bottom of the snowfield, which looked to be about 2000 ft. away. At the bottom lay a jagged pile of ugly-looking, enormous boulders.

 

We ended up kicking footholds and handholds into what was more of an ice field than a snowfield. A fairly vertical one. We faced the field and clung to it with our hands and dug our feet in as deeply as we could for purchase. My injured hand wasn’t wanting to cooperate all that much, but at least the coldness of the ice felt good as we slowly made our way down. Once, my foothold gave way and I started sliding, terrified that I might not stop. But fortunately, the slope leveled out a tad and I was on snow, not ice in this spot, so I was able to stop myself. But the surge of adrenalin that this produced didn’t help. It made me shakier, not stronger. I realized that I was probably the least fit of everyone on this little adventure, and if someone wasn’t going to make it, it was no doubt going to be me. At one point, between the fear, the pain, and the muscle fatigue, my right leg started trembling violently and uncontrollably, a syndrome known to climbers as “dancing leg.” Fortunately, again, we were close to the bottom at that point, and through sheer determination and desperation, I got that leg to calm down.

 

When we finally reached the bottom, we found ourselves in a colossal boulder field. Many of the boulders were six to eight feet in diameter, so we had to thread our way around them, or scramble over them. By now, all of us were getting tired. Once we made our way out of the extensive boulder field, however, we had a seven mile hike back to our cars. But we made it, bunged up, exhausted, and foot sore.

 

No one was up for cooking that evening. So we went to a restaurant in Grand Lake where I ate an entire half of a fried chicken and a giant mound of mashed potatoes with gravy. And I slept like the dead that night.

 

 

The above image of Rocky Mountain National Park was obtained from WikiCommons.