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"As in any alpine region, the weather is changeable, protection questionable, route-finding bewildering, rockfall frequent and descents tedious. In short, it's everything you could ever ask for." — from the Canadian Alpine Journal, 1993. Day 7. I sleep well and the sun wakes us up late- about 7 AM. Even without having to break down a tent, we are slow getting going. We still have lots of ground to cover, a glacier to descend and a ridge to find a food cache to raid and the hike out. We work our way down the glacier following Neal, descending into the clouds below us. Visibility is limited to about 200 feet, making route-finding a bit hard. Neal is starting to bonk now and Isaac takes up the lead on the final crevasse crossing. We gain a spur on the Curtis Ridge, our “highway” home. We climb up some of the ridge and start making for our campsite from night two where we‘d left our “extra” food four and a half days earlier. I am really focused on that food, but at this point some soft leather would work for me. Temperatures are on the way up and the snow is getting wet, causing Isaac to worry out loud about wet slab avalanches. We are following the 7200-foot elevation line back to the cache and we end up on some very steep slopes. We see signs of recent avalanches in front of us and decide to ascend above the slopes and away from danger. Some tricky climbing over rocks and a steep snow climb puts us above it. Neal is now quite a bit ahead as he moves toward the stash. Isaac stops to coil the rope and do some gear adjustments and I hurry to catch up to Neal. I keep a steady pace; food lies ahead. I catch Neal and ask him to pause for a moment. I can tell he’s struggling a bit and figure I’ll break trail for a bit if I can get by him. After asking him to pull over a few times, he pulls up while I step above him and start breaking trail. As I pass him he gives me a note of encouragement, which in turn gives me a little adrenalin burst. The deep snow was really killing me at this point, but I am light enough for much of the crust to hold me up. Nonetheless, every few steps finds the crust breaking as I sink in. A few longer stretches hold me up well. I find it mildly humorous to think that Neal is probably wondering why I was “breaking trail” when his greater weight caused him to have to do it all over again. We steadily make our way along the 7200-foot line until the camp finally comes into sight. I hit the cache and immediately suck down two gel packs. Neal invites me to share his power-type bars. This stuff really tastes good about now. Even the two Vanilla Gels (15th and 16th I’ve eaten during the climb) get literally sucked down as I savor their taste. Isaac and Neal are eating power bars of some sort and the food is making for a relaxed group of climbers. By now it’s starting to sink in: we really did climb it. We look back at Liberty Ridge above us and trace the route we had taken. I feel elated, even joyful. We make jokes and take lots of pictures of ourselves and the Ridge. I even have some highly uh, shall we say, questionable pictures of Isaac on a rock with Liberty Ridge behind him with only a helmet to cover his “parts.” (While not included in the post trip DVD, these photos just might have been leaked…!) We gather on a rock for a few group victory pictures, some post-summit pictures of us standing in front of Liberty Ridge. Neal has to sprint to get into the shot after setting the timer. And then, as if on cue as the final picture was clicking, the ice cap above Liberty Wall lets go for the first time during our trip with the biggest, most spectacular avalanche I have seen so far. If you look closely above our heads and to the right in one of our victory pictures, you can see this avalanche just getting rolling. We watch this bad boy rumble down the mountain, covering in moments a distance that took us days to climb. We still have at least 6 miles to go and a plane to catch. We pack up and head off down the ridge looking for, and finding, our first cache from days ago. We dig out the snowshoes and strap them on. I grab my two trekking poles, stashing my ice ax between my backpack and my back. We start trudging down the final portion of the Carbon Glacier looking forward to the finding the car. You would think that going down would be easier than going up, but I’m not having any fun. The temps have soared. Every step leaves slush packed into the snowshoe’s crampons and piled on the toes of my boots. Anything more than a gentle slope becomes an adventure as the snowshoe threatens to slide down the slope like a runaway ski with no edges. I have to concentrate on pushing my toes down so the crampon teeth have a chance to bite. If I can mange to avoid getting my weight back on the tail of the I can avoid little impromptu skiing sessions a the odd tumble here and there. . We all take more than one fall on the way down. I quickly develop a technique I now call “teleshoeing” (because it feels like teleskiing), pushing my downhill snowshoe ahead of me while dragging my other toe behind me. This is working well and gives me a nice glide between steps that helps me keep up with Isaac and Neal. By this time we have un-roped as we are on what feels like a safer portion of the descent. We are following as best we can our previous ascent path but over the days it has become hard to follow all the time. I am walking about a foot or two left of Neal’s tracks so my snowshoe footing is easier. All of a sudden the snow is rushing past me as I fall into a crevasse. A snow bridge that we had crossed on the way up and probably never noticed has weakened because of the heat, and I am now the unlucky winner of a free crevasse tour. The fall stops, leaving me in a tangle of snowshoes, trekking poles, backpack, arms and legs. I have just managed to fall un-roped into my first full-blown crevasse, but relieved that I’m only about 8 feet down. For the second time on the trip I take in a breath and bellow, “CREVASSE”, waving a pole as far above the lip as possible. I look around and realize I’m not at the bottom of the crevasse but rather at a narrowing. To my left and right it gets wider and deeper. Isaac approaches from above and asks where the lip is stable, but I am facing the wrong side of it to give him a good answer besides “I think so!”. I untangle myself and start kicking steps with the crampons while pushing my backpack up the backside of the crevasse. Isaac offers me a trekking pole but I wave it off; I’m making good progress and finally get to the top where he’s standing just down slope with his hand out. At this point I am a human snow bridge with my feet on one side and my backpack on the other. He offers to haul me out and I’m thinking, “so, you’re going to haul me and my pack off my butt out of this crevasse.” He assures me he can, gives me a haul and out I pop. Whew, time to get out of here. Having learned the hard way we are not safe yet we rope up once again and continue moving down slope. The clouds have now caused visibility to drop to a hazy couple hundred feet as we follow Neal. We’re trying to find our old tracks in the snow, but have to resort to the GPS and some educated guesswork. Near the bottom we find we’re off track again and have a 150-foot climb up a steep snow slope to get back where we belong. “Food” having been consumed hours earlier, I’m exhausted again and the climb is killing me. My snowshoes either slide back or pile up pounds of slush on top of them. I get to the top and let Isaac and Neal go by. I follow them down, hating the snowshoes more and more with each step. The guys warn me not to take them off. Eventually we have to cross a creek and Isaac says we have maybe 100 yards more in the snowshoes. It doesn’t matter. My hatred for the snowshoes causes me to pull them off, preferring to cross the rocks and boulders of the creek in my boots. I cross the creek just behind Isaac and see that Neal is way ahead by now. I keep up ok, occasionally post holing up to my knee in the deep snow/slush. After negotiating a small avalanche zone, I find the snow deepening again and have to throw the snowshoes back on in order to catch up. My buddies have a laugh when they see me back in the snowshoes. “Sorry guys. I just had to learn that lesson for myself, I guess.” I bet they will still laugh about it when they read this. We finally gain the trail and shed the snowshoes, thinking we’re home free. We have about three to four miles of easy trail to get to the car. I cross the suspension bridge and start ahead of the guys, feeling weak and exhausted. My poles seem to be the only thing keeping me up. I have lost so much weight on the trip that the backpack no longer cinches down on my waist, instead sliding down to rest on my butt. It makes for painful trekking for both the lower and upper parts of my back and shoulders. Neal has passed me long ago, steaming off toward the car at a pace easily twice my own. Isaac offers to carry my pack. My systems are shutting down but this is MY pack, MY responsibility. He stays with me and tries to keep my mind occupied with conversation. Finally I put my trekking poles across my butt below the bottom of the pack and pull up. I get a lot of relief and my pace doubles. Then my shoulders start to ache from pulling up on the poles and I slow down once again. I tell Isaac to go on ahead and if he comes back I will take him up on his offer to carry my pack. He takes off and I stagger on. I manage to get about three tenths of a mile from the parking lot when Isaac comes back to get me. A deal is a deal, so I reluctantly give him the pack. A nice couple our for a short hike offer me some water and we chat about the climb. While I am happy for the break I am also antsy to be moving again. I’m just about done. I follow Isaac as fast as possible. Jogging in places that are down hill walking in the flats. I joke to Isaac that if I didn’t have those poles I would have face planted more than once. Finally I turn a corner and there is Neal loading the car jamming to the radio. We load the car and head out. We have one last stop to make - Wendy’s and a Spicy Chicken sandwich! We arrive - three guys in tights, sun burned faces, peeling lips and big grins. The same girl takes our orders and finally recognizes us.The back of the restaurant is abuzz with seeing us again, they look, chuckle, and chatter amongst themselves. I fall asleep in Wendy’s with my arm propped on a divider wall, three times. I think I am starting to learn Neal’s ability to fall asleep at will no matter where he finds himself. Neal gets us a couple of hours complimentary time in a room at the Marriot by the airport so we can get ready for the plane trip. Neal informs us that if you ask nicely and you are one of their preferred customers, they will be more than happy to accommodate you. We thought it would be funny but a bit rude to get on the plane with out showering. We clean up and shower off over six days of sweat, sun screen and grime. We have about two hours to clean up, into fresh clothes, return the car, check in and get on to the plane before it takes off. We had better hurry. We make the gate as the plane is loading. As I walk down the jetway, it is almost a surreal feeling I have, surrounded by all the people and the plane. I have a strong sense of satisfaction. I feel different. Calm. It feels like life may not be as difficult from this moment on. As I look around the plane at other travelers, I find myself thinking that everyone should be able to feel this way at least once in a lifetime. Of course I don’t just get to fly home and slide back into the “normal” part of my life. During the trip my glasses broke and my goggles irreversibly fogged and I picked up some nasty uv-caritosis- sun burned eyes a.k.a snow blindness. They started out really red but over the next 24 hours I become so sensitive to light I can't even look at a computer screen while wearing sunglasses and the screen dimmed. I actually have to call into work blind! Of course, as with any sunburn, my eyes gradually heal and become normal again. After it was all over and looking back at it I can call it the hardest thing I have ever done and worth every minute of it. I can't explain the emotions I had. They ranged all over during the trip. Anticipation, moments of fear, anxiety, determination, concentration, sudden adrenalin rushes, joy and elation. Feeling like you are looking down on the world from above the clouds was something I want to experience again. Somehow I feel changed. I was tested and I passed. I pushed myself harder than I ever thought possible and I stretched myself. I made myself something more than before. Now everyday stuff doesn't seem as hard and some things I use to find important are just not. I feel like I have defined a new me, a new me that is a bit more than the old me. I can't help but wish everyone could find something in their lives that can give them the moments of joy, pain and clarity I had on this trip.
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