Events that make life what it is....

To confess, I am quite frightened of heights. This mountain I told was a gradual, "rolling" (which could have many interpretations, especially from the standpoint of a rugged Bolivian mountaineerer. We got to a point on the slope, where the guide instructed us to be super cautious and pay strick attention to the the techniquality of the slope. Soon we got to parts where the path was a literally 1/2 meter wide. Looking over the edge of the path was a vertical drop of 30 meters. Then the ground below was covered in crevices, or tiny slits in the glacier, just wide enough for a person to fit through, if they fell.

If I had to use the bathroom I probably would have gone. I"m in the middle, the guide is breaking the trail try to find the safest way up the slope. He" tugging on my rope, telling me to go. I"m walking like a baby who just learned how to walk. The Isreali"s breathe is carried towards us in the night wind. He"s 3 meters behind me.

I soon get to a point where my crampons are"t sticking in the ice. The ice is too loose. Next, I literally have to make a strong swoop with my ice axe, chisleing it a meter above my head. Next I pull myself up with the the planted ice axe. All the while I"m askuing myself "kip, what in the heck have you gotten yourself into?"

The Isreali was scared too, I could tell. He was playing it off quite well. SO was I. At least I was trying....I"m sure the guide was looking at us with a big grin....ha, newbies...

We made it over the slope finally looking down, at the Chinsese guys who were next up the slope. I could just tell, these guys weren"t going to make it. I purely made it up by luck or chance. The forces of the mountain were with me.

We kept on treking threw the night and next appeared to be a crevice/glacier field. Looming in the distance was vertical rock, maybe 500 meters high. Scattered across the rock were small patches of ice and long, teeth-pointing icecles. Somehow we were going to make it up the back side of that thing? I didn"t even want to ask the guide how we were going to make it up that. I honestly didnt want the answer. I would see it when I got there. Now I could start mentally preparing myself for the summit attempt.

The wind began to howl. Voices nor the sound of our oof our cruncing steps on the ice could be heard. All that could was one"s breath echoing throughout the body. We kept climbing all the while I"m grinning to myself thinking this is totally nuts: sky-divers had better odds than this.

Next I see a the technical part approaching at the base of the summit. I look at the guide, already knowin gthe answer and ask him if this next part is difficult. I thoght the last part was kamikazee and he looks at me and says yeah its a hearder than the last part. And its the beginning of the hardness of the next part. So in other words look down at your feet, shut-up, take a deep breath and hold on for craziness squared.

We started on a path with a couple more crevices to hop over. At first the guide was hoppin gover these like a well-springed cat on way too much cat nip. Now he was stopping at the edge of one, planting his ice axe in the ice, looking for weak spots and/or hidden holes. We would arrive at a crevice, he"d search for possible disaster-leading pieces of ice, finish his search quickly, and pounce like a damn olympian long jumper. He"d give me an encouraging jump. Flying through the air was an uncomtrollable ball of kinetic momentum, with no breaks and whose biggest enemy was gravity. I"d make it across, opening the eyes at the other side. Then the Isreali would go. He didnt seem like a thinking man, using reason as his guide at every step. He seemed to act off on instinct and jump without testing the snow. This was a way to abolish some of the fear of the moment.

We finally started rapping around the back siode of the mountain. It appeared as though we could see some sort of trail, splitting the rock slab in two and winding around the backside of the summit. This was the way we would take. We now approached a steep slope of half rock and half ice. The trail wound its way through this field. Soon we realized that the tricky part if using crampons around ice was that the crampons had no traction in the rock. I would try to plant my feet in what look like ice and I"d hit rock an inch down. However, I wouldnt figure this out until I put all of my weight on the foot and it would slip right out of the rock.

You"d stumble and fall. The guide would luckily have the rope nice and tight and catch you with a giant tug. You"d regain your balance and try for another section of ice that would hold you. This not only happened with the crampons but with the ice axe as well. I would find a sturdy place to plant the crampon and then next I"d hack at the ice to find a spot for the ice axe to stick into the ice. Sometime I"d do a pull-up on the ice axe and it would break out of the ice, sending me stumbling backward and the guide and the Isreali would catch me with the rope. Definitely an unrepeatable, one time life event.

Now was the time for untestable madness. YOur reason was out of the window long, long ago. ITwas 445 am and we had 45 minutes left until the top. Up ahead lay a trail of a meter wide with an unrelenting steepness. I was moreso of a crawl. Actually, it could have more acurately resembled climbing a tree. On my right was a drop of 500 vertical meters of strictly ice. To my left was about a 300 meter drop of pure rock and ice. The trail stuck out mayve 8 inches on each side of my feet, beyond that was gravity took one right off the edge.

The last part took us 45 minutes to go maybe 400 meters. The wind was howling at the top. All I wanted was to get the hell off of this piece of ice. At the very top there was no rock, just pure ice. When we arrived at the top, the victory and joy didnt hit me wuite right. It wasnt until later that I most appreciated such a feat. I was naseous, with a constant state of uncomfortability throbbing throughout my body. Flashing red lights in the body saying "kip, get the hell down, now, I mean it!"

The top area was so small there wasnt even really aplace to sit. It was all uneven jagged, chisled ice. there was room for maybe 7 people max. The guide planted 2 ice axes. He then wrapped the rope around both, then around his boady, then around my torso, and then the Isreali"s. Right.....so we cant even be at the top of this peak without being ropped in. I timidly hinched down for some quick pictures and cheery grins amongst our "team".

The sun rose 5 minutes later in a smiling ball of fireness reminding us we made it. this is what we had waited for. The sun rose slow and steady, lighting up the city of La Paz down below, in the distamce. Next came the lighting up of Lake Titticaca some 200 km in the distance.

Life had ammounted to this moment. I was standing on a peak of nearly 20,00 feet. the icy wind was in my hair. My lungs were flat. I had icy toes and fingers and boy did I feel like shit. None of that mattered for the next coupl eof minutes at the summit. This was my life and I was living it. Consciously choosing to be nowhere in the world in any time or place. I wanted to be here, on this mountain with the howling wind blowing against my eardrums. I had a perspective I had never experienced before. It was a birds eye view on all of the problems of civilizations.

Tragidies and jouyous triumphs of all walks of life now came into perspective as something that couldnt frighten or suprise me at that moment. I had risen above, taken it all in and seen the earth from a perspective of an old wise Socratic-like man, sitting in his throne, knowing truly how meaningless axieties, frustrations, and negative thoughts had no place in the world. There were some things in life beyond our control. Being on that mountain in that icy time and slapped me in the face with a realization that humans were fragile beings, we had to take every day one at a time and continuously be tickled with a giggle that we were quite lucky to be alive.

written by  kipmaddog on October 20, 2009 from La Paz, Bolivia
from the travel blog: adventures from down south
Send a Compliment

comment on this...