LOCALadk Magazine

Fall 2017 LOCALadk Magazine 47 LOCALadk slope had been icy it would have been a sheer nightmare for me, but soft snow means you're not going anywhere too fast (up or down). Through the morning the clouds began developing about the tops, and by midday the summit mas- sif was obscured in clouds, deflating our hopes making it in time. Since we did not know the route we relied on visual navigation, so we made the difficult decision to turn around, resigning ourselves to a failed attempt this year. It started snowing, and we were anxious to retrace our steps down to safety. Though first, despite the whiteout conditions, we did a little email and online weather checking from on the glacier (oh, technology!) Sliding down the snow slopes was fast and fun, yet sad, and back at our Elk Lake camp in the forest, we debated wheth- er we should tr y for a crazy third attempt on Day 5, or start backpacking out as originally planned. For sure we had to be out by Day 7, as a couple days after that our brother was get- ting married and Josiah was the Best Man! As exhausted as we were after a 5000 feet elevation gain and 12-hour sum- mit attempt, we realized that we might never return to tr y again, and those hard miles in with heavy gear would be all for naught. So, we planned to wake up even earlier – at 2:30 a.m. – and tr y again. Sometime after midnight it cleared up again and in the ear- ly morning, under stars, we retraced our steps up that now- all-too-familiar section of trail. Going earlier in the morning meant firm footing in pre-made steps up the snow slopes, so in just 4.5 hours we were already at the point where we'd pre- viously turned around. Things were looking good – the sky was still cloudless! From the top of Snow Dome there's two possible routes to get to Olympus's summit: one that traverses around the head of the Blue Glacier, passing through a notch in a cliff line and then up the summit rock pitch from the backside; or a more direct route around a bergschrund (crevasse) and up a 45-degree snow headwall with what appeared to be a nice, safe, flat runout in case we started sliding. The main route went through the notch, but the map showed the di- rect headwall route also. Wondering why anyone would go the long roundabout way, we went for the snow headwall. Easy, fun climbing...until we topped out at the flat snow- filled saddle below the summit spires. In front of was a gi- gantic, deep crevasse in the ice, running from one side of the cliff to the other, completely cutting off our route across (and then up). This crevasse was a surprise because normal- ly crevasses and bergschrunds form where the ice and snow pull away from the rock face, usually on the steeper, convex slope of the glacier. No one had warned us about this prob- lem. We could have descended 1,000 vertical feet and gone around via the other route, but at this point we had summit fever and wanted to get to the top as quickly as possible be- fore the clouds enveloped us. I devised a plan to rappel into the crevasse, 20 feet down, gingerly walk across snow blocks filling up the bottom (or was it?), and climb up the opposite wall on what looked to be a little snow and ice ramp under a massive, dangerously overhanging block of ice. I knew ropes and anchors better, so we agreed that Josiah would go first. We put in a snow-picket as an anchor, and I belayed Josiah into the crevasse. He made his way across and, as he started climbing the ascending narrow ledge up the opposite wall, he put in another picket, the best he could, in case he fell. This would theoretically stop him from falling too deep, while I belayed him from the opposite side. Previous experience had taught me to be war y of commit- ting oneself, in the mountains, to something where there's no way out. Our plan was that if Josiah couldn't climb out the other side or got stuck in the crevasse, I would be free go back and get help. It was dicey. The ice walls of the crevasse were overhanging blue ice. But, thankfully, he made it up and out onto the far side of the crevasse! We only had one ice axe per person, and Josiah had used both to climb out. We now realized that because of an inter- mediate anchor Josiah had put in, our plan to tie the loose end of the rope to the axe and pull it across the crevasse back to me was not going to work. In a desperate move, Jo- siah tomahawk-threw both ice axes across the 40 -foot wide crevasse. It worked! Then it was my turn to rappel into the crevasse, using the sole snow picket as an anchor. I was so ex- cited to be putting my gear to good use – and to have a good reason to leave the 8-ounce anchor on the mountain, and not carr y it all the way back out – but it was a bit hair y rappelling over a 20 -foot ice wall with just the single snow picket as my anchor. The rope ran from Josiah on the other side, across the crevasse, through the picket anchor, and then down to me lowering into the crevasse. It was remarkably colder in the crevasse – not the shorts- and-short sleeve weather we had above in the hot alpine sun – but nevertheless I resorted to crawling on my bare hands and knees under the overhanging ice wall and across the snow ramp, before climbing up out of it. Traversing the crevasse had taken us two hours and clouds were starting to form around the mountain, but we pressed on; we were so close! Or so we thought. The final pitch was supposed to be an easy, class 4+ rated rock scramble. Well, we got up to the base of the rock spire and, looking up, I froze in fear at the sight of the steep exposure. I told Josiah that if he didn't lead climb and put in protection for me, then we'd have to turn around. Josiah has never lead-climbed or put in any rock protection, but he stepped up to take leader- ship and slowly we figured out the best ways to position our rock cams into the rock cracks and how to run the ropes to arrest a fall if we had one. It was tedious and slow going, Jo- siah learning to lead-climb and put in the anchors on the fly while I had him on belay and gave instructions. It turned out we needed to do three pitches, even though it was supposed to be only a 50 -foot climb. In all, it took us about three hours. I had evidently worn off all my sunscreen crawling through crevasses and could feel my face and legs burning, but was scared enough and so summit-focused that I figured sunburn

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