LOCALadk Magazine

48 Fall 2017 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk wouldn't kill me but a fall from one rope or anchor mess-up would! To his credit, Josiah did great, and through trial by fire we figured out safe climbing techniques. We followed a knife edge ridge a short way to the final summit – and we made it! A dream a long time in coming! The climb was only half over now – clouds were envelop- ing us quickly and we still had to descend. After a few quick shots on a phone (I hadn't brought my dlsr camera with me – the first time in a decade without it on a major climb), I hurriedly tried to coil up the rope to prepare for the rappel. My poor rope management would have been laughable if we had been in any less serious of a situation! We rappelled the summit rock spire in two 30 -meter pitches and were only too happy to leave behind some more anchors and webbing and carabiners. Now off the technical pitch, we were enveloped complete- ly in clouds, yet still needed to navigate the unfamiliar round- about route back. We felt the risk of climbing through the crevasse outweighed the risk of navigating an unknown gla- cier, even in whiteout conditions. We could only hope that the alternate route was less technical, and that we'd be able to find our way around crevasses and through the notch. No one had summited in the past couple weeks, so there were no tracks to follow. Thankfully, we had studied the first part of the route from the top and we were able to traverse around some crevassed regions based on memor y. But even so, as we made our way towards the notch, a dark shape came out of the fog: another large crevasse running from one end of the glacier into the clouds on the other. Normally a large crevasse like this would scare anyone tr ying to cross it, but at this point we figured that what we'd been through was probably way worse, so we gingerly stepped across a snow bridge and continued on, with dark shapes of ridgelines and crevasses coming in and out of the clouds. Then, a little lower, the clouds lifted just enough that we could see the notch, praise God! Once through the notch we quickly descended out of the clouds, traversing back to our footprints from the way up. I can't tell you how relieved and thankful we were to get back to this familiar point. We had taken a lot of risks in crossing the crevasse and in descending unknown parts of the glacier in the clouds. We returned to our camp after a 6,000 -vertical foot and 16-hour day, knowing we still had a 15-mile back- pack out the next day, as we were going to run out of food by midday on Day 6. The sole of my boot had come unglued on Mt Olympus' summit; I had many miles of a flapping sole ahead of me. Our last day, Day 6, we limped out with our heavy back- packs, soaking wet boots, sore feet, and no food. I'm sure we looked much as that poor fellow we'd seen on our way in, but we still made good time – 15 miles in eight hours. We'd had an epic adventure, and got out safely! As is so often true, the harder things in life are the most worthwhile.

• Cover