A Break in the Weather

East Ridge, Ski Descent (III, Steep Snow) — Mt. Haley, Chugach Range, Alaska

East Face, Ski Descent (III, Steep Snow) — Mt. Fafnir, Chugach Range, Alaska

Nick Crews ‘18  

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Merritt drooling over the options just after we were dropped off. [Photo] Nick Crews

We were in a good storm. A satisfying one. Every three hours, one of us had to go outside to excavate the tent from the ravenous snow. The wind was blowing so hard that you had to hide your face in order to see, and you had to be careful in order to keep your balance, but at least there was nothing to fall off. The clouds that blanketed us on the glacier hid the sun, giving the world around us an apocalyptic tinge. Our noses got cold, but not unbearably so. It was hard work shoveling the hundreds of pounds of snow downwind, but it was the kind of work that left us more energetic than when we started. Upon return to the tent, the delicate removal of wet gear caused anxiety for everyone, but after we were safely tucked back inside our sleeping bags we were comfortable. The wind beat on the tent with the correct intensity that seemed to convey the power of the storm, without making us too concerned it would collapse. 

“In order to gain some degree of depth perception, the leader tied 15 feet of p-cord to their ski pole and flicked it in front of them like a really confused fly fisherperson.”

It was late May 2018, and it had been four days since the Cessna 185 single engine plane had dropped Grace Ford (‘19), Nick Merritt (‘19), and I off for our Ritt Kellogg Memorial Fund expedition. We were on the crest of the Chugach Mountain Range in Alaska, 100 miles east of Anchorage. All the moisture from the Gulf of Alaska that is pushed northwards comes over these mountains, and much of it falls as snow to create one of the deepest snowpacks in North America. Hence the giant snow storm that kept us penned in our tent for the first half of our trip. Trying to keep ourselves from going “full weasel” with tent fever (a term credited to the Merritt brothers), we dug a snow cave kitchen, practiced crevasse rescue, and once even tried to go “skiing,” although this ended up being a thigh-burning snow plow through low angled wind drifts in a featureless whiteout. So featureless in fact, that in order to gain some degree of depth perception, the leader tied 15 feet of p-cord to their ski pole and flicked it in front of them like a really confused fly fisherperson. The leader could discern the surface of the snow by how the cord landed, and the followers could tell where to go by how many squawks the leader made as they nearly fell over on every turn. 

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Precipitous Push

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On the afternoon of the fifth day we could see the sun trying to punch through the clouds, so after a gut-stuffing breakfast of pancakes we headed towards the base of Mt. Haley with burgeoning hopes but low expectations. When we reached the base, it was still too stormy to think of going higher, but by the time we dug a snow pit the weather had calmed somewhat. We pushed upward from the lower apron of the mountain, thrilled with how thick the air was. We were used to being at elevations upwards of 14,000 feet to get snow and mountains like this, but we were only at about 9,000! 

At the top of a bench midway up the mountain, we paused again. It was now clear all the way below us, but clouds were still streaming over the summit. The bulk of the mountain mostly sheltered us from the wind, but the summit ridge looked miserable. As we ate snacks and assessed the weather, we fell prey to what I call the “rubber-band effect,” which I’ve observed many times with three person teams: one person is fairly convinced that the weather is improving and we should wait it out, another is certain that we’re wasting our time and should turn around, and the third rapidly oscillates between both positions, depending on which of the other two was the last to make a point. This made it difficult to actually come to a decision, but luckily all the indecisiveness worked in our favor: the clouds and the wind above looked as if they had abated, and we pushed on. 

“I had previously experienced fear buzzing in the back of my brain many times before, but never so consistently or for such duration.”

Ford and Merritt cresting the middle bench on the way up Mt. Haley. [Photo] Nick Crews

The crux was getting on the summit ridge, which required 100 meters of booting up 60-degree wind crust with crampons and axes. Thinking there was just a few feet of snow before the ground, I started off unroped because of avalanche hazard. At the base of the pitch though, my right foot punched through wind crust into a crevasse.  Luckily it was skinny to fall down, but it was still quite deep. Feeling nauseous about how perfectly wrong we had been with our assessment of the crevasse hazard, I backtracked and roped back up for the remainder of the pitch.  

This sort of close call is what gives me nightmares. Normally, I think most of us imagine that we make mistakes out of ignorance or oversight. We didn’t think that it could rain in July! I didn’t bring a headlamp since we’d only be a few hours. He didn’t even notice that the block was loose. Putting my foot into a crevasse without a rope forced me to face the fact that many mistakes arise out of simple bad judgement. To some extent, it’s impossible to perfectly assess a situation, and we are all undergoing that constant inherent danger, whether we choose to acknowledge it. Dangerous mistakes often come out of commission, not just omission. 

This Ritt expedition also changed my opinion on the difference between apparent and real danger. When we were planning it, we believed that it would be one of the most serious trips any of us had undergone. Despite this we were still surprised by how intimidating the terrain was as the plane buzzed away. Did we know what we were doing? Did we belong there? It seems like this is similar to what many experienced mountain-folk go through at some point. Everyone gets out of their comfort zone. The tricky thing is that sometimes this feeling of risk is irrational, but other times it’s warranted. When rock climbing, I’ve gotten to the point where I think I’m fairly decent at being able to distinguish between the two. OK, I’m scared right now, but that’s just because this is exposed. The piece is fine, and although it will be a bit of a fall, it will be clean. 

Merritt and Ford nearing the summit of Mt. Haley, the crux pitch out of sight over the ridge on the left. [Photo] Nick Crews

That’s not the way it works in these mountains. The risks of crevasses and avalanches are insidious. Unlike rock climbing, it’s very easy to push yourself far into dangerous situations without realizing it. It’s usually pretty easy to tell when you’re getting tired on a rock climb and when you might fall, and what will happen if you do. Unstable snow and snow bridges are much harder to assess, and since their collapsing is so low-likelihood but so high-consequence it can be difficult to gain a sense of how warranted your fears are.  

We came away from the trip with a few close calls and nothing worse, but I don’t congratulate ourselves as I might have beforehand. I had previously experienced fear buzzing in the back of my brain many times before, but never so consistently or for such duration. This trip really made me appreciate two things: one, the amount of danger that I feel is often not at all correlated with how much danger I’m actually in and; two, in order to really improve one’s instinct for these low-likelihood, high-consequence dangers, it takes an absurd amount of time in the mountains, seeing enough of these rare and unpredictable dangers actually emerge. I don’t trust my instinct for danger as much as I did before. 

Back on Mt. Haley, I top-belayed Merritt and Ford up the pitch without incident. By the time we scrambled to the top of the ridge, the clouds and wind were completely gone, and a surreal view awaited us. Imagine when you’re taking a bubble bath, with lots of bubbles, and you try to sculpt the foam to be as fluffy as possible. Then, you raise your knees and toes up through the jumbled surface. That’s what it looked like, with the tippy tops of the surrounding peaks poking through a thick layer of clouds that was trapped below us by a temperature inversion. If you’ve ever seen the Disney movie Hercules, it looked like Mt. Olympus from that. The clouds separated us from the lowly world below, so completely that it seemed like someone had written it into our script as a dramatic effect. Up there, it was just us three and the sun, as far as the horizon, way out over the Gulf of Alaska. 

We felt flushed with the joy of assured success as we eagerly skinned up the rest of the easy ridge to the summit. We were pretty hungry by this point, it was already 7:30 pm. The long Alaskan days are lenient for weather with bad timing. Basking in the sun we ate the rest of our snacks and took in the view. The icing on the cake was the long ski back down through consolidated powder. 

There are other stories from the trip, like jumping the bergschrund on Peak 9633, celebrating Merritt’s birthday in our snow cave kitchen with pan-fried brownies, or reaching the summit of Mt. Fafnir after finally finding a route through the icefall at the base, but I liked the day we climbed Haley the most. It was the first thing we did after months of planning and excitement, and the way that the weather seemed to clear just for our sake made me feel like Haley wanted to be climbed. There was a satisfying amount of difficulty leading to a stunning reward, shared with fantastic partners. That day remains one of my favorites that I’ve ever had in the mountains.