Nighttime Revisited

The night was long and restless. He was cold inside his sleeping bag even though the three of them had worked so hard to make things cozy. And then, there was the wind. It blasted the tent relentlessly, and he was worried about getting blown off the ridge. “What would that be like,” he tried to imagine? There was no actual sleep for him. But there was a sort of vigilant grogginess. While his body was mostly still, his mind actively raced in a frenzy of hyperactive speculation. He was uncomfortable, and the situation was damn near depressing. But thankfully, he wasn’t outside climbing toward the summit- yet. That would happen soon enough.

The night sucked. Everything was frozen, it was loud, the tent anchors were worrisome, and he always needed to pee. If nothing else, at least the tent blocked  out the wind and created an orderly space.

It must be just as miserable for the other two, he figured. He looked at his watch and saw it was 2:34 am. He did the math, two more hours till wake-up time. He was intent on making it through the frigid pre-climb ordeal unscathed. It was only a matter of time till Summit Day rolled around, and it would begin to warm up. While High Camp was a miserable place to spend the night, the location had them well positioned for getting to the top. He felt good about where they’d be when the sun finally came up. “Some things are worth a little pain,” he concluded.

And suddenly, he was on top of the mountain. Standing on the snow covered summit with ice axe held high overhead. Time for a picture, he reckoned. Peaks rose in every direction. It was uncommonly warm, there was no wind, and not a cloud in the sky. The conditions were so good, it was almost spooky. He felt guilty that it wasn’t brutally cold. He’d heard that up on top it would be blowing a gale and snowing sideways. But this time, it was calm and pleasant, and the water in his water bottle wasn’t even frozen.

Then, inexplicably, he was back down at the bottom and tying in to the climbing rope, but he couldn’t remember how to tie the knot and panicked. “Why are there four loose ends of the rope and my fingers so stiff,” he wondered? He managed to wrap the ends loosely around bights in the rope even though his hands were like frozen wooden blocks. But when he cinched it all up, everything pulled through, and there was no more knot. It was all a mess.

Then, somehow, he had two separate ropes draped over his block-hands. He glanced over to the side and saw that the other rope team members were already tied-in and were staring at him. He felt their agitation. Time was of the essence, and he had to do something. So, he turned away where they couldn’t see what was going on, held the rope against his waist as if he was tied in, and said, “there.”

He was just going to walk along to the rope’s side and act like he was actually connected. The plan was simple- he’d create a jumble of rope around his waist that looked like a knot, and no one would ever know the truth. Yes, that would be faster, and maybe he wouldn’t even fall. But what if Shirley fell into a crevasse and he couldn’t self-arrest and hold her. He tried to figure out how to hold both the rope, ice axe, and her- all at the same time. He was sure there was a good way to do that, but he was confused by the various possibilities. Finally, after thinking it through for a few moments, he settled on a plan. And even though he didn’t fully understand the process, he was satisfied with it. And so, he moved on.

The 43-year-old x-ray technician then pondered how, before the tents were set up, there had been nothing on the ridge-top except for the wind, cold, blowing snow, and the view of the surrounding mountains and that’s how he envisioned it. A mountain world, devoid of a camp or people. “But who would be there to describe what it looked like,” he wondered? “Is a place that isn’t seen by human eyes even real? Is that what makes a place genuinely wild?” He had a lot of questions.

He looked around, saw that they were surrounded by mountains, and concluded the peaks would be there regardless of whether the tents and people were. The mountains were of all sizes. Some had rocky summits, others were capped by big snowy humps, and a few had spectacular craggy towers that rose above all else. Each had a name, but he realized he knew none of them. While that wasn’t particularly relevant to his current situation, he found it intriguing and began trying to come up with names for each.

It was cloudy, but he was confident the sky was full of stars. Along those lines, he assumed there would also be a bright, although not necessarily warm sun shining during the day. He felt the wind pick up even more, and it began pounding plumes of snow against the rocks of the North Face and heard it whistling through the West Ridge’s seracs. “Where are we,” he wondered? There was no West Ridge or North Face on their mountain. “Are we on the wrong mountain,” he questioned? It was a troubling thought. What if they’d spent a week getting up to High Camp on a peak they had never heard of? He thought about going outside and using the stars to establish their location beyond all doubt. But then he realized how cold it would be out there and that the wind would probably mess with the compass, sextant, or whatever instrument he was going to use. And so, he opted to stay in the tent.

His bag came partially unzipped, and the cold began soaking into his feet. His toes began to ache, but he did nothing about it. Suddenly, he was wading through waist-deep snow that was spilling over the top of his boots and making his feet wet. And then, miraculously, he slunk down to his head in a hot tub, and for the first time in days, he was warm. It felt good, and he relished the moment.

His mind abruptly snapped-to. His eyes opened, he flicked on his headlamp, looked at his watch, and saw that it was still too early to make a move—just after 3:00 am. Even though he’d decided that getting up and moving was what needed to occur, the reality of what time it was dictated he keep waiting. The guides had decided that 4:30 am was the alpine start time, and that’s what he was going with. He rolled over onto his left side and closed his eyes, but then the urge to pee hit him again. This time, wiggling his toes and tensing up his legs didn’t help. But that didn’t matter. He’d already decided that a warm and cozy bag was better than going through all the trouble of getting up, getting dressed, and going outside. But he wasn’t even warm, was he? Ultimately, he decided that he wasn’t going to spend his last hour of rest thinking about going out to pee, so he closed his eyes and thought of something else.

He tried to envision either a cloudless, calm summit or a giant cactus in a hot, dry desert, but instead pictured a toilet in a well-heated bathroom. He wasn’t getting any rest, and he once again began thinking it would be best to get up and go on outside and pee.

Like the others, he knew the mountain they were on was BIG and that they were close to the top. It had taken them a week of slogging around in the snow to get to that point. He considered that fact and realized it had actually taken even more time than that. Besides the actual climb, he’d been studying the task, buying gear, doing training runs, and talking about it for more than a year. Now, he was almost there, and nothing was going to stop him. He’d never fully comprehended the scope of what it would take to get up there. Now all of that was becoming clear, but he was determined to persist.

As a part of his decision to join the climb, he’d committed himself to successfully dealing with whatever pain and sacrifice he encountered along the way. That had not been a difficult thing to do back at home while sitting on the cliff overlooking the beach. At that point, none of his current hardships seemed so harsh. While back home, he enjoyed sitting out on his deck and reading mountain climbing stories while waves crashed into the rocks below. Many of those stories were filled with tales of frostbite, snow-blindness, and freezing to death. But it never even froze at his house, and it was hard to imagine a world of cold and ice. From the very beginning, he relished the probable triumph of the summit, while minimizing the potential pain and hardships. But now, he was a week into the climb, and the situation was real and not entirely comfortable.

Latimer began to reenter the real world when the stove was lit. He wasn’t really sure if it was the sound of the burner chugging away or the idea of the heat that woke him up initially. But ultimately, it was the roar and its avalanche mimicking sound that brought him to full consciousness.

Getting out of his bag and preparing for the day was inevitable. The list of what needed to happen before the actual climb began was extensive. But even after hours of thinking about the various details, he’d only become more confused. He was intent on not being the last one of his rope team to be tied-in and ready to begin the climb. To that end, he felt less pressure to do things quickly since Mark, who was remarkably slow and unorganized, was in his group. “Surely, I can get ready before him,” he reasoned.

Latimer was confident in what needed to happen in the next 15 minutes and how it would likely unfold. There was a lot to do, and while he couldn’t figure out how he would do it, he was confident it would get done. He realized that he would be nearing the summit, gazing out at the mountains, and watching the sunrise over distant peaks, in only a matter of hours.

He became preoccupied with trying to decide which layers to put on last since he anticipated they would be the first to be removed. While it was cold right then, he knew that once the sun rose and after hours of climbing, he would heat up and need to start removing clothes. But for the moment, none of that mattered, and he just needed to put on all the warm clothes he had. The hot oatmeal was more like a gruel of some sort, but Latimer gobbled it up and wondered why it tasted so good. He vowed to get the recipe. The hot drink was almost just as good, but its smell was overpowering and filled the tent with an unpleasant odor that only accentuated the churning in his stomach.

Within minutes, breakfast was finished. It was then time to make a move toward getting dressed for the summit. Time was ticking. Tick, tick, tick. Latimer picked up his getting ready pace and unzipped his bag, exposing his lightly clothed body to the cold. The move was a big one for him since, at that point, he was moving ahead with the climb. He looked around the tent with his headlamp for his plastic outer boot shells. Once located, he pulled his legs out of his bag and stuck his feet, with the inner boots already on, snugly inside. With still warm fingers, he pulled the laces tight and tied a double bow so that they wouldn’t come unlaced during the climb. But then, he realized his plan was hopeless—his bibs needed to go on before the boots and there just wasn’t any way to do that other than removing the footwear and starting all over. So, that’s what he did.

Once he’d done that and then put on various layers of fleece and Gore-tex, he was ready to go outside and rope up. Initially he wasn’t all that cold, but after finishing with the boot putting on and getting dressed ordeals, he began to really feel the cold creep in. Nonetheless, he moved to the door, unzipped the fly, and nimbly made a duck walk exit out of the tent’s warmth and comfort. He was suddenly out on the snow and in the clear, frozen air. While he wasn’t the first one out, he was thankful to not be the last.

Immediately the ends of his toes got cold even though he was moving around. He began jumping up and down in hopes that doing so would help warm them up, but it didn’t. He wondered if he was the only one already on the verge of frostbite or freezing to death. There was no doubt that it was frigid, and it was very early.

And then he once again remembered that he needed to pee. And he knew that sooner or later he would have to do the other, and he wondered how that was going to work. He also had questions once again about his tie-in knot and wondered where to put his water. Then, he realized that he’d completely forgotten about water. He didn’t even drink coffee, but suddenly wanted some. “What would happen to the tents,” he wondered? “What if George Ellis fell in a crevasse? What if the guides all became unconscious, and no one knew where to go?”

And then he turned on his headlamp, looked at his watch and was relieved to see that it was only 3:43 am. He was pleased to see that he still had almost an hour to sleep. And so he rolled over and warily closed his eyes.