“Well Shit, Here We Are”: Fear and Doubt in the Arctic

2019-2020

Dec 20

Xanadu in bad weather, marshmellow packrafts take on the Kobuk – why the hell do we do this?

Nick Penzel ‘21

The Arrigetch as seen from the approach from the South. [Photo] Nick Penzel

As we pulled ourselves up and over the lip of the saddle, a cold wind whipped up from below. It pulled the sweat from our foreheads and brought goosebumps to our arms. Suddenly, standing on the narrow top of the pass, with precipitous drops on either side and glacially carved valleys far below, the vastness of the landscape drowned us. Granite spires loomed for thousands of feet until the thick clouds and mist that had been hinting at rain all day cloaked the highest of these peaks so that their summits were invisible. Suddenly I felt alone. I felt like this landscape could swallow me up. I could disappear into it without a trace. My body would never be found, and nothing would change. In the same way that you don’t blink when you swat at a fly or step on an ant, these mountains would eat me up out of pure indifference to my existence.

I’ve always felt a calling towards wild places. The untraveled and rough spots have been a proving ground for me– a place where I could test myself. Everyone's reasons to climb and explore are their own, but I’ve always felt it as a means of escape. There is a feeling of freedom that can be found when you push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone. It becomes a sort of addiction, where, in certain moments, the vibrancy of life is so close to the surface that it lights you up. So you chase that feeling and are always seeking the next experience. It’s because of that chase that I found myself standing on that ridge in the Brooks Range in Northern Alaska.

Our Arrival.

The idea of a trip to the Brooks Range, and the Arrigetch Mountains in particular, had been loosely floating around in my head for several years as an abstract dream…

I’d seen a film of Tommy Caldwell and Hayden Kennedy climbing in the Arrigetch and had been struck by the adventure of going to such a remote place to climb. Both Tommy and Hayden had been personal heroes of mine for many years. Hayden, specifically, I had always admired. He was from my hometown, and I remember him working in our local used gear store and being one of the most unassuming and friendly people around. When I was little, I remember watching him at a climbing competition. His mother, Julie, commented that it was amazing to see Hayden in his element on the wall. That feeling of loving the sport and feeling at home has always resonated with me as well. After his tragic death in 2017, I found myself again returning to the video of him and Tommy climbing in the Arrigetch as a way to process losing a hero.

That, combined with being surrounded by a group of peers who were equally excited at the prospect of an expedition, suddenly made a trip to the Arrigetch seem very real. We spent painstaking months planning every aspect of the trip. Every day was carefully mapped, and we compiled what little beta we could find about the climbing in the Arrigetch.

Five of us would go on the trip, and our goals represented the different skills we had acquired. Skyler had worked as a river guide for the last several years and was a talented kayaker, so he would help spearhead the river portion of our trip, which involved a 125-mile float back to society in packrafts. Charlie Robinson and I were the climbers, so for us, an important part of the trip was trying to climb something in the Arrigetch (we later decided that something would be Xanadu, the highest peak in the Arrigetch). Lastly, Charlie Good and Liam would join us, both of whom were experienced backcountry travelers, but not climbers.

“We are very much out here,” I thought. “Better not fuck up.”

We joked that we could probably get almost anywhere in the world easier than the place we had chosen to go. By the time we finally stood alone on the shore of Walker Lake in the Brooks Range, we had been traveling for several days and taken four flights, the last two of which had been in bush planes. The final flight had been the moment when the reality of where we were set in. The sky was overcast, and our pilot wove up broad valleys where thick forest went unbroken until they met the rocky peaks that sat above the plane. The complete and total lack of anything, all bathed in an unnatural and unbroken grey light, hit me hard. “We are very much out here,” I thought. “Better not fuck up.”

We landed and quickly threw our gear onto the beach. Ten minutes later our pilots pushed the planes off the shore. “So, we aren’t picking you up, right?” said our pilot, Tom, before he hopped into the cockpit. With that, they were gone, and we finally stood alone in the Alaskan bush.

The planes pull away and we are left alone. [Photo] Nick Penzel

I can’t remember exactly what we said as we stood and watched the planes disappear, but I imagine it was along the lines of, “Well shit, here we are.”

We all had a moment of manic insanity as the whine of engines faded. We laughed and spent several minutes skipping rocks out onto the glassy surface of the lake. I had imagined how it would feel to finally be standing by ourselves on the edge of Walker Lake. The sense of fear and excitement and adventure I felt as the planes disappeared eclipsed all my dreams. Everything we needed for the next 24 days sat on the shore. Despite all of our careful packing, it seemed like a meager amount of food and gear.

Most people approach the Arrigetch Peaks up Arrigetch Creek, which is accessed to the northeast of Walker Lake. We had gotten the idea, possibly misguided, to approach up the Kobuk Valley which would put us on the south side of the range. We hadn’t heard of anyone ever doing this and didn’t know if it would work. The best info we had was from satellite images, which seemed to suggest it was possible. Luckily for us, it was possible, but there is a great deal of difference between being possible and being easy.

After the first day, it seemed we might not make it into the Arrigetch at all. The terrain was swamp and thick brush, and it took us four hours to go two miles. Once we reached the Kobuk River, the going got easier, as we could walk in the river and along the banks to avoid the brush.

In the upper reaches, the river was at times little more than a stream and could be waded across in most places. Broad gravel bars provided amazing camping, and as we moved further towards the headwaters, peaks began to pop up around us and inspire our imagination.

The first time that we saw the Arrigetch proper was on our second night along the Kobuk. We had pushed hard that day and made 15 miles. A few casts into a deep pool had yielded beautiful Arctic grayling which were a nice supplement to the rice and beans we had cooked. We were putting our food away on a knoll above our camp and had a view over the trees and north. The clouds that had been hanging in the valley all day cleared, and in the waning sunlight I could see the broad top of Whichman Tower and other sharp peaks poking up around it. It was an amazing sight. The mountains looked like they belonged in a Dr. Seuss book rather than standing there tall and austere.

Only the sight of those mountains could have washed the pain of the last three days away from me so quickly. The wetness and the hip belt of my pack had been slowly working away the skin on my hips and left massive blisters. That morning, I woke up to find that I was stuck to my pad where my blisters had burst in the night. I pulled myself off the pad, but a bloody skid mark of skin was left behind. That ritual would continue for the next several days. My feet also hadn’t been dry in days, and despite my constant battle to keep them healthy, by the end of the trip mild trench foot would remove feeling in my toes and leave a numb tingling instead. But all that was worth it when I saw the Arrigetch.

In the weeks leading up to our trip, the thought of climbing Xanadu had become all-consuming. I imagined how it would feel to stand on top of Xanadu with the glaciers and peaks and valleys stretching out below me. I wanted it so badly, and the knowledge that most likely we would spend our time waiting for a good weather window and not actually climbing did little to curve my expectations. As we hiked, I could feel the pull of that desire. Every step brought me closer to Xanadu. Months of planning and effort were all being put into action as we worked ever upwards into the mountains.

Every corner was a complete surprise and the views seemed to be constantly trying to outdo each other in their spectacular wildness. When we found ourselves camping high in a cirque near the top of the Arrigetch, nothing I had ever seen could even compare. As Charlie Robinson simply put it, “This is the most spectacular place I have ever been.”

Summit Push.

On our second day in the Arrigetch, Charlie and I set our alarms for early in the morning. We intended to wake up before the rest of the group and leave to climb Xanadu…

The night before we had discussed logistics with the rest of the group. We were taking our only means of communication for rescue in the form of an InReach. While that meant we could call an evac if things went wrong, it also meant that for the first time we were going to be completely isolated from our three friends.

A beeping alarm woke me to the sound of pattering rain on the tent fly. Looking out, I couldn’t see more than 50 feet through fog. We sat in the tent until two or three when the rain finally cleared. By six that night sun was poking through the clouds. If you want to climb in Alaska, when you get even the smallest weather window, it means it’s go time. We threw our gear into our packs and headed towards the pass that would lead to Xanadu. There was an air of anxiety in the group as we left. We had power in numbers and now we were separating.

There often seems to be a certain moment when expectations clash with reality. That moment, for me, happened to be standing on the saddle as we approached Xanadu. I think at that moment Charlie was facing a similar level of existential dread.

“I’ve just been asking myself what my motivations for being here are.” He said as we stood catching our breath. “Are my motives actually pure? Do I want to climb this for the right reason?”

I felt similarly, and it was a hard thing for me to accept. I had pondered all the things that would keep us from climbing: weather, the route, our own skill and strength, but I had never considered how I would feel about the climb. It was not so much my expectations of the experience we would have that crumbled as we crept towards Xanadu, but rather my expectations of myself that seemed to fall apart. Perhaps it was the machismo that so often seems to dictate climbing, but I had thought of myself as a constant I could trust in a situation where everything else was beyond my control. Now, maybe even that wasn’t true.

It was nearly midnight when we reached the base of the climb. The never-ending twilight of an Arctic summer combined with clouds painted the headwall in washes of gray so that it seemed even more lifeless and massive.

“I looked at what we had done and was unhappy with the number of times I felt I could have died.”

The weather was still imposing, and it looked like a summit push was out of the question. Still, we figured we had come this far so we might as well sleep at the base of the climb and then we could retreat back to camp in the morning. We spent a cold night bivyed together in a mylar bag pressed up against a rock. I slept very little that night and at some point, Charlie ended up pressed against me and I was thankful for his body warmth. I kept thinking about how woefully unprepared we were for this. Normally, before a big climb I feel a mix of excitement and nervousness. That night, I was just nervous. The amount of effort it had taken to get to this point weighed heavily on me. More than any other part of the trip, that night I felt the remoteness.

The morning greeted us with clear skies, so we figured we would give it a shot.

Xanadu is a massive granite peak with slabs at the base that steepen to a several thousand-foot vertical headwall. We tried different paths up the broken and loose slabs at the base, but many of the most promising options were still wet from the rain, and the prospect of wet slab climbing unprotected and exposed turned us away from these options. We spent more hours picking our way through talus searching for a way up. Eventually, we opted for a loose looking corner. We roped up and began to move upwards.

I pulled over a small bulge and set up a sketchy belay in a small corner. Charlie quickly climbed up to me and we stood squished together and stared upwards. The wall was less steep above us and looked manageable. We unroped, since the lack of protection and bad rock meant that it would slow us down and not add that much safety. Then we began to climb up. We stuck basically on top of each other so that the rock we knocked onto each other wouldn’t have time to pick up speed and do damage. We slowly gained elevation in this fashion until we reached a ledge where we could relax.

Below the headwall on Xanadu. [Photo] Nick Penzel

We were perhaps a pitch away from a ledge that would hopefully provide easier travel and a way to gain the summit ridge of Xanadu, but we had already wasted hours of precious time and weather was moving back in.

Above us the wall steepened again in a broken mix of wandering fractures and loose chunks. Staring at the Jenga block-like rock above us, it seems like a route up it must exist, but finding it would undoubtedly involve multiple backtracks and more climbing on wet, questionable rock.

The prospect of having to downclimb exposed slabs in the rain was an easy excuse to bail, but Charlie and I both knew the reality was that we were scared.

I thought a lot about my family on that climb. The idea of dying has always resided in my head as an abstract event that happens to other climbers. But on Xanadu, it was suddenly real, and I was painfully aware that I wanted to hear my sister laugh and see my mom and dad’s smiles.

I never felt like I was in imminent danger, but I was angry that I was in this situation. There kept being moves where a mistake would probably be fatal, and although they were easy, the stakes were high. I looked at what we had done and was unhappy with the number of times I felt I could have died.

Sitting on a ledge, I turned to Charlie. Half-jokingly I said, “Shit man, I don’t want to die. I want to see my family.” Even if framed as a joke, the sentiment was there, and I think that I could see the same sentiment reflected in Charlie.

As anyone who climbs knows, that’s not the right mindset to be in when you attempt something hard and scary, so we decided to bail, and the weather provided a nice excuse. We sat for a while admiring the view, eating chocolate, and talking of small things like relationships and food we missed. Charlie took the opportunity to scribble in his journal and I snapped a few pictures.

“It's incredibly humbling being out here, and really has me thinking about that risk line and what I am willing to sacrifice in the mountains,” wrote Charlie. “At this point our tolerance for risk out here has reached the line, thankfully we have not crossed it.”

We had both reached a point we were unwilling to cross. Even though we knew we were making the right call, the reluctance to admit failure pulled strongly on us. It was a complex emotional moment for me. The view in the early morning showed nothing but serene peaks stretching out for hundreds of miles, but the view was bittersweet. This was the best view we would get. No summit vistas in 360 degrees, and no feeling of a great accomplishment.

We descended and began the long walk back to our camp. When we reached the end of the technical climbing, we both felt relieved. Even though the long haul back to camp would hurt, we were safe.

It turns out that it was good we bailed then, as it decided to rain for the next 15 hours. Although it made our retreat even more miserable, we were both glad that we weren’t facing down the storm on the climb.

It was an immense relief to finally crest a large moraine and see our camp below us. The megamid we had been using for a cook tent looked more inviting than anything else I could think of, and the prospect of my sleeping bag, dry and warm, brought a smile to my face. We let out a holler as we descended and Charlie Good, Liam, and Skyler emerged and waved. In the megamid we all packed together and stripped off our wet clothes. I spooned powdered hummus and crackers into my mouth before retreating to my tent and the call of my warm bag.

We left the mountains soon after. As we walked back towards Walker Lake, I felt as if I had a persistent itch I couldn’t scratch. I had failed as a climber, and somehow this felt like I failed as a person. I wasn’t as brave as I thought. I felt certain that I would be able to compartmentalize any fear I had and push bravely through uncertainty towards the summit just like my heroes who had brought me here. Yet now every step took me away from Xanadu, and it seems unlikely that I will ever get a second chance at that peak. I had had one opportunity, and I failed because I was afraid, or at least that’s what I told myself.

I’ve thought a lot about when Charlie asked if his motives in wanting to do that climb where pure. I always find myself trying to understand how much of my motivation to do something comes from an internal love of the mountains and the sport. I think my motives are usually pure, but sometimes I worry about being corrupted and pursuing an objective because I feel like I should, rather than because I want to. I strongly believe that all motivation to climb needs to be purely intrinsic, and if you do something because of external pressures, you shouldn’t be doing it. I know that both Charlie and I wondered if we were on Xanadu for the right reasons, but I think that the fact that we blocked out external pressure and bailed when we did is a testament to being there because we wanted to and because we love climbing.

Still, it’s so much cleaner when your goals die for a reason. It’s easy to point out the moment that something went wrong and draw a clear relationship between events and failure. But how do you process failure when your chances slowly fizzle out? Since returning from Alaska, this has been something I have asked myself over and over. Empirically our trip was a success. No one was hurt, our route and logistics worked beautifully, and we exited the wilderness under our own power. So why did I feel like I failed?

Paddling the Kobuk.

Even though we had made it through the mountains, which were theoretically the toughest part of our trip, the next half still managed to test us…

The first day in boats, wind turned the surface of Walker Lake into a frothy mess. In classic form, the wind was blowing directly from the outlet of the lake. After briefly trying to paddle into the wind we were blown back onto the shore. Dragging the boats through waist deep water for five miles ended up being our only recourse. After all the effort of getting into the Arrigetch, it felt it should have been easy to leave and paddle downstream.

Soon after, the weather turned fowl. A day was spent paddling in cold rain before I felt my body start to give in. I had the worst drysuit of the group and it was still wet from the slog across Walker Lake. I could feel myself start to shut down as we frantically set up the tent. It became hard to finish sentences through my shivering, and my fingers felt like clubs as I struggled to strip off all my wet clothes. When I climbed into my sleeping bag everything was wet, which made the next several hours I spent getting warm difficult. Not for the first time, I felt amazingly lucky to have my friends with me. I have rarely been around people who I trust so totally.

Seeing all of your food and tents disappear downriver is a rather unpleasant experience…

The next morning, we woke to find inches of water running around our tent. The river had risen throughout the night. We probably should have realized we were camped too low, but we were too preoccupied with getting me warm. I scrambled out of the tent and just managed to grab my crocks which had floated out from the vestibule and were making a break for the ocean.

Our last trial came later that day when we encountered the last rapid on the Kobuk. We scouted it the best we could, but it was in a steep gorge and we couldn’t see around the corner. We decided to run it based off some sketchy beta we had received that it gets easier at high water. Little did we know that high water meant a Kobuk that was several dozen feet above where we stood as we scouted.

When we came around a bend, I saw that we were in for one. Skyler was ahead of me and he disappeared in a trough and then reappeared on the crest of the first lateral wave. I turned to the other three behind me and screamed, “paddle hard!”

We had prepped on some local rivers to get Liam and Charlie Robinson, who had no whitewater experience, up to speed. This was way over their heads though. This was over my head, and I felt pretty comfortable in a boat.

I dug deep into the water and picked up speed into the first waves. My little packraft felt like a marshmallow and I could feel it nearly buckle at the force of the wave. All I could do was desperately paddle and try and keep my bow facing into the waves.

The last wave spit me into a slower pool, and I looked upriver. Liam and Charlie were both out of their boats and gear and paddles were floating around them. I saw them swimming to shore, then directed my attention to the boats that had just floated past. There was another horizon line below us and I could hear the rapids and see the spray they kicked up. Seeing all of your food and tents disappear downriver is a rather unpleasant experience, and I knew that losing either of those boats would probably mean a helicopter ride home.

The adrenaline was pumping hard now, and I frantically paddled into the next section of rapids. No time to scout when all those precious calories were floating away. More waves tossed my boat and broke over my head, but then it was done, and I could see one boat floating ahead of me. The other had been sucked into some rocks and looking back I could see Skyler pulling himself up onto those rocks. It took nearly an hour, and quite a bit of work, until we were all together with all of our gear. We made camp and marveled at how quickly shit can hit the fan and laughed at our luck. We were all safe and the only gear we had lost was a bear spray and my pair of camp shoes.

A Quiet Float Home.

The next week brought bluebird skies, beautiful camps on football field sized gravel bars and easy miles drifting downriver…

The wildness of the landscape that had seemed so horrifying as we climbed was now something we could ponder in wonder. The Brooks Range sat to our north and framed the river and trees. The river grew until it was hundreds of yards wide and slowed like a giant meandering snake moving through the landscape. We were in a place that seemed to defy time. It had existed more or less as it did now for ten thousand years since the glaciers began to retreat. Two golden eagles soared over the river and must have been confused by our bright little boats floating down the river. To be part of a system so pure and perfect, to see it and exist in it but not change it, is the ultimate feeling of harmony. The vibrancy of life was so near the surface that it was infectious, and I would find myself smiling without any reason.

Charlie and my failure on Xanadu was insignificant. It was a tiny blip. Multiple times, we mentioned that we were both happy with every decision we had made and would make those same decisions again. We could have been bolder, maybe we could have even summited, but we had decided it wasn’t worth it for us. I have always climbed because it makes me feel free and alive, but in our failure, I realized this feeling was only part of it. There is something to be said for the glow of standing on a summit, but there’s also something to quietly floating down one of the largest rivers in the Arctic and watching the birds screech as you disturb their roost and moose calves and cows cautiously watch you as you intrude on their rituals. There’s something to be said about the smile of friends who understand how magical the present is and are content to share it with you. I thought I knew these people well before we left home, but now I know them in a way that only shared misery and happiness can cause.

I had come to the Arctic looking for that first feeling. I wanted the glow of the summit and the feeling of accomplishment. I did eventually find that feeling in part, but what really sticks with me is the latter feeling: a feeling of comradery and simple happiness. A peaceful feeling of floating and talking under a sun that always seemed to be setting on a river that looked like it had never been seen by anyone else. As those last days blended together, the five of us might as well have been the only people in the world.

When we finally rounded a corner and saw the village of Kobuk, it felt as if we could drift all the way to the ocean without a care– those last few days were so perfect. Pulling our boats up onto shore in the village, there was no sense of finality or finish. It was simply over. Like when you wake up from a dream, and you know you can never actually describe it, we all knew that what we had just experienced would only remain between us. The dream was over, but there are a million small secrets we can look back and smile on.

alpine rockalaskaarrigetchpackraftingwell shit here we are fear and doubt in the arctic

CC Outdoor Journal .