Meeting the Mountain

**Thank you for your support of my climb of Mount Baker in the Cascade Mountain range of Washington State (closest to the city of Bellingham). I am sharing my experience and lessons learned. I see many parallels of this experience to life and to building a more united planet.

Warning: This might be my longest post yet, but it was a big experience for me.**

The Experience

Our training started at 7 AM on Saturday. There were five of us in the group—mostly professionals from the Pacific Northwest, including a Tribal Court Judge, an anthropologist, an ornithologist, and an occupational therapist. We also had two guides, both new to the field. This was actually their first expedition. Although they lacked guiding experience, they were both committed and attentive.

Our group was new to alpine mountaineering, but we all brought an eagerness to experience nature and learn.

After our orientation, we had to lay out all the contents of our backpacks. It is essential to pack as light as possible but also to have all the critical gear to keep you warm and safe. In addition to our climbing gear, we also packed tents, sleeping bags, stoves, and fuel, as well as shared camp equipment like ropes, shovels, and stakes, to help us set up a high mountain camp on a snowy slope.

We had to bring everything out that we brought in, along with the “deposits” that we made along the way.

After a scenic 1.5-hour ride to the trailhead, we spent the afternoon hiking, then climbing up to the high camp. As we entered the snow-covered and treeless alpine region, we attached snowshoes to forge through the deeper snow. During this initial ascent, two members of our team started to have breathing and leg issues. We did our best to stop often but still had to keep moving in order to set up camp before dark. As the daylight dissipated and the winds whipped up, our guides decided to split up the group, with some of us going ahead to help set up camp before dark.

We arrived at a snowy slope and used shovels to dig flat platforms for our tents. Our tents flapped wildly in the wind as we tried to put them together. We had to work quickly to make anchors for them by driving stakes deep into the snow.

As the second group arrived, we had the tents set up, and we all eagerly climbed into our tents to seek refuge from the cold.

The next morning, we started skills training on the mountain, learning different climbing steps for ascending and descending the mountain. This was followed by training on knots and rope systems using harnesses.

The guides had set up a common tent, so we gathered there and sat on snow benches covered with our sleeping bag pads. Despite the howling winds, we enjoyed a cozy environment and made tea or coffee with our stoves. After a discussion among the team, two of our members decided to stay by the camp the next day to learn about crevasse rescue, while the remaining three of us joined the summit team.

The summit team was given a meeting time of midnight. After waking at around 11:15 PM or so and downing quick bowls of oatmeal, we reported outside of our tents with harnesses, headlamps, and helmets at 12 AM. We roped up as a team. “Are we ready?” asked our guide. “Let’s do it,” we all replied. Our guide led the way out into the darkness. I held up the rear. We were each separated by about 30 feet of rope.

Luckily, our team had managed to get some good sleep despite going to bed so early at 4 or 5 PM. The adrenaline of the climb ahead made us fully awake.

The weather as we set out was calm and not too cold. We steadily forged upwards in snowshoes for about seven hours with a goal of 1,000 vertical feet per hour. Our guide was pleased with our progress.

My gaze was focused on the hazy orb of light casting out from my headlamp. The air was filled with a gentle sparkling mist. Ahead, I could see my teammates taking one step at a time through the crunchy snow, surrounded by misty spheres of light. Everything else was complete darkness. Behind me was a black hole of silence.

My thoughts alternated between feelings of gratitude and awe that I was in such a place, to thoughts and prayers for loved ones, to the realization that we were walking upon ridges surrounded by invisible drop-offs cloaked in darkness.

As time wore on, conditions started to change. Pellets of ice and snow began to pelt us, ricocheting across the slopes and stinging our faces. Temperatures plunged. The snow became waist-deep as we plodded up steeper and steeper slopes.

Out of the darkness, we heard voices and encountered two other teams—one small team of two and one team of six.

As the light of pre-dawn emerged, a whiteout commenced. High gusts filled with snow painted the air so thickly that we could barely see. I could barely see or hear my teammate, Isabelle, ahead. She did her best to pass messages down the “climber’s telephone” as each member of the rope team relayed messages down the line.

As a kind of perfect storm emerged, so did the crevasse. (A crevasse is a crevice in the glacier of the mountain. In some cases, the opening of the crevasse is clearly visible. In other cases, the crevasse is hidden within a snow bridge of unknown thickness.)

As the three teams converged on the crevasse and tried to figure out how to navigate it, the rope teams came to a standstill on the icy slopes, giving the wind an opportunity to slowly whittle its way inside our bones.

The adage in climbing, as our guide reminded us, is “Don’t be silly, leave chilly.” In other words, dress as lightly as possible and start cold. Your movement will heat you up quickly on the climb and you will also avoid perspiration which can ultimately make you very cold. This logic is sound unless you can no longer move. I took this advice to heart and left with a long-sleeve base layer and hard shell jacket (without lining). We had packed up extra layers in our backpacks, but with ropes, a harness, a hard shell jacket, and gloves, a steep slope on a mountain in high winds is not an optimal changing room. It was too risky to add a layer there. Something could have easily blown away in the wind or slipped down the mountain.

As I stood there motionlessly, the wind started to work its way deeper into my bones. My fingers went numb inside my wet gloves, and for the first time, I began to shiver uncontrollably. “Come on, let’s move,” I thought, but no one could hear. I did my best to swing my arms and blow air into my gloves. It helped, but just barely.

Finally, it was my turn to walk the crevasse. “Make sure to go to the left,” cried out Isabelle. I went left of the clear opening, but I could still see a radiant blue light shining through the hiking pole holes as I walked softly forward. The snow held and I made it through.

As I passed through the crevasse, I could see one team turn around. Our team kept moving upwards and made it to a high ledge. We huddled next to each other, surveying the situation—all of us shivering in the blistering wind and cold. It was a complete whiteout. “We’ve got zero visibility and there are wind slabs on the headwall,” cried out our guide. (Wind slabs are giant gusts of wind packed with snow. They create avalanche risk. The Roman Headwall is the final slope leading to the summit. It is extremely steep and extends upwards for a great distance.)

“There’s no way to make it. We need to turn back. Everyone good with that?” We had gone as far as we could go. Nature had decided for us. We all nodded approvingly. As we started to plunge-step down the mountain in the whiteout, the third team followed suit. The mountain had decided not to give any of us passage.

As my teammates and the other climbers used their ice axes and hiking poles to carefully descend, I was making vain attempts to warm my hands by tucking my climbing tools under my arms and breathing into my gloves or shaking one hand while holding my tools in the other. The relief lasted seconds, then returned once I switched hands.

My teammates could see that I was struggling. “Are you okay?” Isabelle cried out on a few occasions. I tried to tough it out and continue on. Finally, Isabelle just intervened. She asked Fallon ahead if she could relay a message to our guide. “Dave has really cold hands. Can he borrow your spare pair of mittens?” Our guide had already lent Fallon the mittens, and her hands were now warmer. Fallon graciously shared the gloves with me so that I could warm up.

Ten hours after we left the camp, we returned. The rest of the team met us on the slopes. We celebrated our attempt together, knowing that we had given our all. After a short rest, we packed up camp and the shared gear for the trek back down the mountain.

We never felt so light after we arrived at the trailhead and took off the heavy packs. It had been a long and early day. We went out to meet the mountain, and the mountain had taught us much.

Lessons Learned & Reflections

In extreme conditions, lessons are most vivid.

No amount of preparation can fully prepare you to meet the mountain, but don’t let that stop you from reading and training as much as you can! You'll learn the most as soon as you take the first step.

When all team members bring a positive “can do” attitude and humbly support and care for each other, it infuses the team with positive energy and sets the stage for optimal performance and success.

If you need help, ask for it.

Pay attention to your teammates. If you think something is going wrong, speak up and lend support. Check in. Don’t wait until it is too late.

Experience and training will help reduce, but not fully eliminate risks.

As our guide said, “As a rope team, we need to be one organism. Our survival and success depend on each other.”

In extreme conditions, you have to solve problems and find answers or face dire consequences. In many ways, this is like the state of the world. We are all on a giant mountain. We are all climbing, but cannot fully see the encroaching hazards. Teamwork is our best hope for the future.

Over-communicate. In a rope team in high winds, frigid temps, and low visibility, you can’t always see or hear the entire team. Each person has to relay messages to the others down the rope team. A missed message like “go left by the crevasse” could be life-threatening.

Don’t assume that others can read your mind. Share your thought process. This helps everyone understand and learn. A team’s survival could depend on it.

Two of our members wisely decided to stay back. They used their time to learn crevasse rescue, an essential skill for alpine terrain. There is a role for everyone who wishes to work hard and make an effort. Diversity of perspectives, talents, and skills is key.

Recognize when it doesn’t make sense to continue on. While it is nice to make it to the summit, there are other intangible summits that provide even greater rewards: the summit of teamwork, preparation, effort, sound decision-making, and appreciation for the natural world.

Constantly challenge yourself. That’s one of the reasons I believe we are here in this “life school.” The harder it is, the more you learn and grow so that you can reach your own personal peaks.

It is not just the physical demands; attitude, perspective, mental toughness, will, and focus matter most of all. These are areas that can be worked through every moment on the hilltops and mountaintops of everyday life.

Guides and leaders do their best to make the right choices, but they are human. Speak up and question decisions as needed to contribute to the team. Feel comfortable with your decisions and your steps. Just don’t take them blindly. Anticipate and be prepared for worst-case scenarios (standstills on the slope, cold hands).

Walking up a mountain surrounded by wilderness is a wonderful time to reflect on the magic of life. Appreciate every moment of the journey (along with your fellow climbers and guides) as best you can.