Stranded on Mount Thomson

“I think we might have to bivy up here,” I tell Phillip listlessly.

It’s 6:30 in the afternoon, and, already, the pale October sun is crashing into the snowy mountaintops, converting the last rays of sunlight into glittering alpenglow. The situation is bleak. We’re on the second false summit of Mount Thomson, a 6,554-foot, bell-shaped mountain that sprouts out of a large basin just eight miles north of Snoqualmie Pass.

I started out before dawn with two friends, Phillip and Brandon, with hopes of climbing

Mount Thomson’s West ridge, a five-pitch affair leading to the main summit and an easy scramble down the East ridge. After three miles of slippery, snowy trails, Brandon abandoned the outing. His hiking shoes, borrowed from my brother Paul the same morning, were causing him painful blisters. Assuring us he’d be okay, he limped back down the trail by himself, consoled by resplendent views of Mount Rainier. Saddened by his departure, but bolstered by the knowledge that we’d work quicker as a two-man team, Phillip and I continued. We hiked another four miles past the Kendall Katwalk, climbed the drainage over Bumblebee Pass, and rappelled down into the basin south of Mount Thomson. It was slow going, and we were behind on our itinerary as I broke trail across the knee-high snow in the basin. We post-holed onto the scree slope leading to a small col between a rocky outcropping and Mount Thomson, stopping on a boulder for a quick lunch, and reaching the start of the climb around one in the afternoon. It was late in the day, but we still had six hours of sunlight -plenty of time to dispatch the supposedly easy five pitches of 5.6 to the summit, and then scramble down the eastern ridge. All we’d have to do then is hike back, which could easily be done in the dark by headlamp.

But unexpected difficulties arose. The first pitch was soaked, which forced us to take an alternative, difficult start to the climb. The climbing was harder than 5.6 -more like 5.8 or 5.9. Several parts of the climb were wet and slippery; in other parts, cracks were gummed up with ice, forcing me to make committing moves hundreds of feet above the ground, often with little more than psychological protection. Large

sheets of snow sometimes covered the rocks, and I had to kick steps in my climbing shoes, soaking my feet. We got completely off route while meandering around the difficulties, even getting our rope stuck on a pitch that involved two sharp traverses. Phillip courageously self-belayed on a prusik loop to get our rope unstuck, allowing us to continue. It was hard, scary, and committing, but I wasn’t truly afraid until we reached the first false summit around six o’clock. I’d been certain it was the summit, but instead we stood below another long, stretching traverse, and then another pitch of steep climbing.

Rappelling the West ridge was a sketchy proposition, and just two pitches above, the promise of an easy scramble down the East ridge awaited us. I made the decision quickly -we kept on going. Phillip belayed me across the traverse, which I executed just below a running pace, placing protection only when I absolutely had to. Phillip soon joined me below the last pitch, which I dispatched quickly, and, to my horror, pulled onto a second false summit. I belayed Phillip up to me, and we stood there dejectedly. Finally, the true summit of Mount Thomson rose a hundred feet above us, shining a deep ochre in the evening light, at once beautiful and terrorizing.

That’s where we are now. Stuck in a situation I’ve sworn to myself a million times I’d never find myself in: high on a mountain at dusk, with no real overnight gear, low on food

and water, exhausted, far from rescue, and having seriously misjudged the entire climb. It’s my fault -Phillip’s on his first alpine climb.

Just four days prior I was at a rock climbing gym in Ballard, climbing alone on auto-belays. When I handed the automatic device over to the guy patiently waiting in line behind me, I spontaneously asked him if he needed a climbing partner. That’s how Phillip and I met. We hit it off pretty quickly, discussing our passion for the big hills while trading climbs in the gym. Phillip told me he’d never been on a big alpine climb, and so I invited him to climb Mount Thomson with me. He broke into a broad smile and showed me his Facebook background photo on his phone: a gorgeous shot of Mount Thompson’s jagged fang sticking into the sky on a blazing summer day. Phillip said he’d join me and Brandon on the climb, but warned me that he didn’t lead trad. I told him it wouldn’t be a problem, that I’d lead the whole climb and make sure we all got home safe.

And so I’ve been the one making the calls, and I’ve made the wrong ones. Somewhere along the line, I screwed up, and worse of all, got Phillip into trouble too.. It’s my fault. And we’re about to pay the consequences.

Between us and the top, a snow-covered notch plunges thirty feet onto a razor-thin ridge, leading to a face climb completely gunked by snow and ice. Hard climbing, made even harder by the growing darkness. Retreat’s no longer an option -rappelling the West ridge, which would have been dangerous to begin with, would now take several hours, forcing us to execute risky maneuvers in pitch darkness. Ahead of us, what would normally be an easy scramble is actually a dangerous mixed pitch above a two-thousand-foot drop into an icy gully -I seriously doubt I can climb it in the dark, but what are our other options?

Phillip and I talk it out. Again, I suggest a bivy here. The climbing ahead’s too hard to do in the dark, and rappelling down the way we came isn’t an option. But can we survive a night here? The ridge is raked by wind, and already,

as we stop moving, we begin to feel the effects of the cold. We have no stove or sleeping bag, just my light, one-man bivy sack, an emergency blanket, and a tarp. Not enough for a serious bivouac. It’s about thirty degrees, but I know that as soon as the sun disappears completely, the temperature will plummet and then the wind will have its way with us. We need to at least get off this ridge, and that means taking on the mixed pitch in the dark.

“Let me try,” I tell Phillip. “I think I can do it. We can’t bivy up here.”

I build a bomber anchor and Phillip lowers me down onto the knife-edged ridge and into the snow. I was hoping it’d be solid, but it’s powder -my legs sink into the bank up to my knees, freezing crystals pouring into my climbing shoes. My toes instantly go numb.

“Wait, wait!” I scream. “Hang on. I gotta put my boots on. It’s too snowy.”

I climb back up and dangle on the end of the rope, fumbling with my climbing shoes. It’s too dark already -I can’t see what I’m doing. I take my headlamp out and strap it to my helmet. When I switch it on, it flickers and goes out.

“Fuck, fuck,” I mumble, taking off my pack while still dangling on the rope.

I rummage for my spare batteries, find them, and pop them into the headlamp. I hit the switch, and nothing happens. I feel a steady panic rising in my chest. Without light, I’m as good as dead up here.

“My headlamp’s broken!” I yell over to Phillip.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

I’m now on the verge of panic, but I force myself to take a deep breath. I open the lamp and take a look: the batteries are upside down. Steadying myself, I turn them around, careful not to drop one down the two-thousand-foot chasm below me. I get them turned around, and my lamp clicks on. I’m back in business. I switch out my rock shoes for two pairs of socks and rough hiking boots, all of which are soaked from the long, snowy approach. I still can’t feel my toes, but there’s no time to worry about that now. Night has fully arrived, and now I can only see what the small globe of light from my headlamp illuminates. I shine it forward, trying to keep the fear at bay, focusing only on climbing the pitch.

The first few moves are terrifying: a committing traverse on pencil-shaped holds, onto which I can barely squeeze the tips of my big hiking boots. This kind of climbing requires finesse, and I feel as though I’m wearing wooden clogs. I place protection every couple feet, aware that a leader fall on this pitch could have dire consequences. Once I’ve traversed onto

the face, I shine my light up -the pitch is mortifying. Two featureless blocks bar access to a crumbling snow slope which seems to continue endlessly into the night. This would be challenging in the daytime -never mind by headlamp. I can’t see Phillip anymore, and I feel very alone on this terrifying pitch, surrounded by rock, snow, ice, and darkness.

Gathering my courage, I push past the first block with a series of stemming moves, finding a restful stance by kicking a foot into a patch of hard snow. I’d hoped to place protection in the crack between the blocks, but it’s completely filled with ice and snow. I can’t get anything in it. I climb on, now a good fifteen feet above my last piece. A fall now (and Christ, a fall on this treacherous terrain while wearing hiking boots seems so damn likely) could be a death sentence. I know Phillip would catch me, but I’d first fall thirty feet into the gully. What shape will I be in then? Will my legs or arms be broken? Will I be conscious? How will Phillip get me out of there? Will I just dangle there through the night, injured, freezing, until the cold takes me?

I have no answers -I’ll just have to not fall. I can’t fall. The leader must not fall, I remind myself of the old mountaineering adage. For me, it’s never been more vital.  

I execute another two moves to the top of the second block, where I find a beautiful, ice-free crack. The rope, which is now running down from the false summit, across the col, along the traverse, and back up the face, is encountering major drag, tugging at my waist and threatening to yank me off the face with every movement. I can’t go further -time to bring Phillip over. I stuff two more cams into the crack, tie them off with a cordelette and anchor myself to it.

“Phillip!” I scream into the wind, “I’m off belay.”

I’m already colder from having stopped for just a few seconds. Luckily, hauling the rope in is a tiring exercise, and I feel myself warming up and even sweating as I pull the sixty meters through the points causing drag. The rope goes taut and I hear Phillip screaming. I click the rope through my reverso and screw the carabiner shut.

“On belay!” I scream back towards the ridge.

I feel the rope go slack, and I know Phillip’s making his way down to the col and across the ridge. I keep him on a tight leash, all too aware of how easy it’d be for him to slip on the traverse in his hiking boots. A few minutes later, he’s next to me and secured to the anchor. I make a couple jokes and try to keep the mood light, stressing that we’re only a few feet below the summit and the salvation of the East ridge, but Phillip’s not in a joking mood. We both know how serious the situation is, and I admire his courage in the face of what was supposed to be a fun, easy-going first big climb for him, and has turned into a fight for our lives.

He hands me the gear, puts me on belay, and I head past the second block and onto the last few moves of the climb. I place one piece of protection, and then placement opportunities run out as I tackle a steep snow slope -a fall here would send me hurtling down onto Phillip, possibly injuring both of us in the process. I can’t afford to slip up. I kick steps for a long time, but the snow is too sugary for any of the moves to feel secure. I come close to falling twice, my feet slipping out of the snow, my arms only staying attached to the slope because I’m taking great care with my hand placements. There’s a small sapling near the top, and I know if I can just reach the trunk I can pull myself off the slope and onto low-angled terrain. Within reach of the tree, I feel my feet crashing out of the powdery buckets I’ve kicked -I make a quick lunge and wrap my hands around the small tree, barely keeping myself connected to the mountain, and avoiding a thirty-foot fall. I pull myself up onto an easy snow slope. I shine my light up ahead, but I can’t see the summit yet, just more snow disappearing into the night. There’s nowhere to place protection, so I just run the lead out, plowing into ankle-deep snow. It’s only another thirty feet. At last, I stand on the wind-battered summit of Mount Thomson.

No time to rest. We have to get down. I plug two cams into a small crack and link them with a sling, not even bothering to tie myself into the anchor. I put Phillip on belay and, within minutes, he’s standing besides me.

“We did it. Hope you’re enjoying the view,” I joke.

The surrounding mountain ranges have been swallowed by a deep, dark night. I can only see what our headlamps light up. I snap a quick selfie to immortalize our summit. Later, I’ll see that the flash didn’t go off -only the two bright dots of our headlamps appear on the picture. But that doesn’t matter now. It’s eight o’clock. We have to go down, and even though the East ridge is supposed to be no more than a scramble, I know it’ll be no easy task in the dark.

We put on microspikes for extra traction, and I lead off across a thin arrete to another sub-summit, grateful that the night is hiding the two-thousand foot drops on either side of me. There’s no way to protect it, so Phillip pays out the rope carefully, ready to yank me back upright if I lose my balance. Once on the sub-summit, I reel the rope in and return the favor as Phillip makes the traverse over to me. We look down below us, and I immediately know we’re still in trouble.

The broad shoulder of the East ridge unfurls below us, a mess of rocks, snow, and ice spread out in all direction, blurring into the darkness. Which way is right? There’s no way to know for sure -we just have to go down. I tell Phillip to stay put and pay out the rope while I do a little exploring. Plunge-stepping down the loose snow, I wander towards what I think is the southern side of the ridge. This should lead us back down towards the basin. I’ve only gone down a hundred feet when I’m stopped by a steep, rocky drop all around me. I follow the edge for about twenty feet to a small notch in the ridge, and, to my great relief, I spot a rappel station.

It’s only a few old slings tied off around a couple trees, but I know the rappel ring through which they’re threaded indicates the way off the mountain. Comforting my decision, they’re angled towards the southerly direction I’d identified earlier.

“Phillip!” I yell up. “Come on down! I found the way."

Phillip soon joins me and tells me that he’s lost his belay device. I curse our luck -we’re just down to my reverso, which has now become indispensable. If we drop it, we’ll be forced to rappel on a munter hitch, which is much less secure. We can’t afford to slip up. I’ll have to toss the ropes, rappel down, then tie off my reverso to one strand of the rope. Phillip will then haul it back up to him, toss the rope back down, and rappel down to me. It’ll cost us time, but won’t endanger us in any way.

I throw the ropes

overboard and into the night, which immediately swallows them whole. I clip into the rappel, tie off a prusik loop to arrest my fall in case I lose control, and start going down. It’s an uncomfortable rappel over a steep rock band and I can feel my microspikes grinding awkwardly into the stone. I continue lowering myself into the darkness, hoping that this is indeed the way down. About a hundred feet down, I spot the next rappel station: a similar collection of old slings with a rappel ring, all tied off to a large tree trunk. I breathe a sigh of relief -this is the way down. All we have to do is follow the rappels, and we’ll land back in the basin. After that, all we have to do is hike a few miles back to the car, and this whole misadventure will be behind us. We’ll link up with Brandon, go get food, and forget this ever happened.

I anchor myself to the slings and tie off my reverso on a clove hitch. Phillip hauls it up to his position, uses it to rappel down, and clips himself to the slings too. I can see he’s tired and scared, just like I am, but I do my best to tell him another dumb joke and to keep the mood positive. I remind him that now we’ve found the rappel route, we’re home free. But I don’t linger. I start the next rappel as soon as I get set up, passing through another steep rock band. This rappel is longer and more awkward, traversing across vertical faces and slippery snow ledges, and I wonder if we’ll have enough rope to reach the next station. Finally, I spot a snow ledge, on which the very ends of the rope are resting -just enough to make it. I get there, go off rappel, tie my reverso into the rope, and soon it disappears above me as Phillip hauls it up to him. I take a few steps and explore my new position.

This snow field is narrow and sloping, about twenty feet long (from top to bottom) but as wide as a football field (left to right). I can’t see off it both because of the night, and because a tangle of saplings borders its entire edge, hiding the rest of the route. More alarmingly, I can’t find the next rappel station anywhere.

Phillip rappels down to me. The fear is back, and he can probably read it on my face. We’ve lost the rappel route, and therefore our guide off the mountain. No time to waste -we’ve got to find the next rappel. It has to be somewhere on the snowfield. Picking the path of least resistance, we walk off to the left where the cliff slopes more gently, again plowing through ankle-deep snow. At this point, both my liner socks and thick wool oversocks are heavy with freezing water, and my boots aren’t faring any better. I haven’t felt all my toes in a while, but I’m not too concerned about it. The feeling keeps coming back in some of them periodically, then leaving again, then coming back in others, then leaving again, as if my body is distributing blood to them in a secret pattern only it understands. I’ve had a bout with frostbite before, and I know what to expect in terms of digits going numb from my time ice climbing in New England. If I can’t feel any of them for a longer period of time, then it’ll be time to take off my boots and massage the feeling back into them. Until I reach that point, I can’t worry about it. We’ve got a much more important job: combing the snowfield for a way off the mountain.

For an hour, we scour the left side of our last rappel, cutting trench after trench into the snowfield, our tracks crisscrossing vainly -there’s no way down Every time we find a gap in the barrier of saplings, it’s only to be faced with a straight drop into the basin. I can’t quite see how high up we are from the basin in the night, but I can tell that the vertical drop-offs far exceed the length of our sixty-meter rope. Frustrated, I thread the rope around a cluster of young trees and fight my way through three feet of thick vegetation, eventually tossing the tangled ropes over the edge. I crash through the trees, click into my rappel, and go down a foot or two -I stop right away. My headlamp’s beam illuminates about twenty feet of vertical drop, and below, straight down, there’s nothing. I can see the snow cover of the basin gleaming  two-thousand feet below me -this isn’t the way off. I climb back up hand over hand and sit down in the snow to collect my thoughts while Phillip coils the rope back up.

It’s starting to look hopeless, but we’re not ready to give up yet. Not without a fight, anyway. I look up to the vertical rock bands we’ve just rappelled. Could I climb back up? Did we take a wrong turn somewhere, or rappel down the wrong gully? But I know there’s no way back up. Even in broad daylight, and with all my strength, reversing the rappel and climbing over the rock bands would be challenging and dangerous, pushing me to the very edge of my technical ability, especially on traditional gear. We’re stuck here -our only way is down. We have to find a way off this snowfield.

We move on to the right side of our rappel, but there’s nothing there either. The slope falls off abruptly towards the basin on unstable ground, covered in wet snow, loose boulders, and scree. It seems too dangerous to me, but Phillip bravely attempts to cross the slope against my advice. He makes a couple of tricky moves from boulder to boulder, climbing over ice and across dangerous snow. I’m mortified watching him, since I know a fall here would be fatal. Without an ice axe, he has no hope of arresting a fall, and there are no trees guarding the drop-off here -he’ll plummet two thousand feet to the basin floor, his body splattered by the sheer force of the impact. He’ll not only be dead, he’ll also be disfigured and dismembered. These thoughts are going through my mind when Phillip calls over.

“I’m think I’m fucked,” he says, an edge of panic in his voice.

“No you’re not. You’re fine, you got this."

But internally, it’s hard to disagree with him. He’s attempting a precarious downclimb off a boulder and onto an icy rock ledge, and I can tell how sketchy the move is, even in the darkness. Phillip’s tall, but he’s struggling to reach the ledge, his foot searching, fumbling in the dark, still high above the ledge, his hands clinging to cold, broken edges. He’s about to fall, I’m sure of it. I continue to encourage him, but my heart drops. At no point, during the entire ordeal, will I be more horrifyingly scared than I am at this very moment, watching a terrified Phillip trying to find solid ground, both of us sure that he’s about to fall to his death.

Images flash through my mind. I imagine his fall, the enormity of it, how paralyzed I’d be up here by myself, and how guilty I’d feel for the rest of my life for having brought him here. And then, more selfishly, I don’t want to be left alone, stranded on this snowfield without my climbing partner.

Against all odds, Phillip makes the move and finds his way across the right end of the snowfield. He looks around and comes back.

“Nothing. More dropoffs,” he says.

He finds a less sketchy way around the traverse and comes back to my position. We both know the game is up. We’ve combed every inch of the snowfield. There’s no way down, and no way up. We’re stranded here, at least until morning when sunlight might reveal a secret way down. We have to bivy.

First we touch base with our loved ones (our friend Brandon, my brother Paul, and Phillip’s girlfriend) to let them know we’re going to bivy. Luckily, we’ve had cell phone service, so we’ve been keeping them updated on our situation throughout the night, and we know that a rescue is mobilizing. In fact, both Phillip’s girlfriend and Paul had called for rescue before we even reached out, since they expected us back by a certain time. I always leave a detailed itinerary with my brother, so the rescue services already know roughly where we are. We’ve been bullish about the rescue, but now we know we’ll absolutely need it. There’s no telling what condition we’ll be in after a night out in the open. But there’s no choice. It’s midnight, and we’ve been on the move for eighteen hours. We’re struggling to stay lucid, and an exposed snow platform two thousand feet off the deck isn’t the place to make a mistake.

I build an anchor around a tree, and we both tie into it on double-length slings, which will allow us a wide range of motion while keeping us tethered to prevent a fall. We carve out a small platform into the snow as best we can, but it’s hard going without ice axes or shovels. Eventually, we manage to create a tiny ledge into the slope, mildly resembling a level platform, and just big enough for us to lie down side by side. We lay out the rope and Phillip’s tarp to insulate our bodies from the snow as much as possible, and then we both put on every stitch of clothing we have, including rain jackets and puffys. I know it won’t be enough. We’d been going for a light, one-day ascent, and we don’t have any serious bivy gear. I empty my pack into the snow, step into it, and cinch it shut around my knees to create a little warmth around my frozen toes, and then we both

squeeze into my one-man bivy sack. It won’t close because we can only get into it up to our waists, but at least this will allow us to retain our communal body heat. For our upper bodies, the best we can do is to wrap the emergency blanket around our torsos. It won’t insulate us, but it should retain some of our body heat as well. We then call 911 and the rescue service and give them both a full report on our situation. They advise us that rescue has mobilized and will begin at first light, but there’s nothing they can do for now. We have to get through the night, and then give them a call back. Luckily, they now know our exact position from triangulating the signal from our cell phones. There’s nothing to do but try to get some rest.

The night passes by in torturous stages. At first, Phillip and I talk. We talk about so many things. How fucked up it is that this is happening. How fucked up it is that this is happening on Phillip’s first alpine climb. How I’m sorry. How I hope he doesn’t blame me. Our family. Our friends. Whether we’ll ever see them again. Our girlfriends. How we both would give anything to be laying in their arms right now, instead of huddled on this tiny snow ledge, where I start falling off towards the void every time I turn over. Our plans to climb Denali in a couple years, and whether Phillip still wants to go. How fucked we might have been if we’d bivied up on the ridge, exposed to the wind. How glad we are that we at least made our way five hundred feet down the mountain. We talk and talk, as if we can stave off the night and the cold by the simple act of giving voice to our fears and our hopes, all hanging precariously in the proverbial balance.

Eventually, silence replaces our conversation. We’re too exhausted to talk, and the cold is seeping into my bones. I can feel the icy touch of the snow even through the tarp. My toes and fingers keep going numb, and I keep on wiggling them throughout the night, making sure they don’t fully lose feeling for too long. My body’s keeping all my warm blood around my core, which holds the vital organs, as a self-preservation measure against the cold. As a result, there’s no blood flow to my extremities. It’s the very start of frostbite. In another effort to generate warmth, my body sends my muscles into painful, convulsive shivers. I’ve never shivered like that -it’s uncontrollable. My legs and arms twitch back and forth at high speeds as if I’m having a seizure, and my teeth chatter like a machine gun. The sound is right in my skull, so loud it hurts my brain, but I can’t stop. I’m a man possessed, shaking like an epileptic. But even then, I’m so exhausted that I do drift in and out of sleep. I don’t ever remember falling asleep or waking up, but sometimes I feel myself jolted into fuller consciousness by another episode of shivering. Later, Phillip will tell me that I slept in 15-minute increments, and even managed to snore. The night is long, time passing slowly. Will the sun ever rise? I look at my watch. It’s been forty-five minutes already! Time is still passing, still uncoiling towards morning -it’s hard to believe. The night stands as an impassable obstacle, something that should go on and on, infinite, ungraspable...and yet the clock is ticking. In six hours, the sun will crest the peaks to the East. It’ scarcely believable, but when I look at my watch again, another forty-five minutes have gone by. I get my shaking under control long enough to tell Phillip, who’s wide awake, and seemingly suffering less from the cold than I am.

“Okay,” he says again.

I turn onto my stomach because my back is frozen. Underneath the tarp, our body heat is melting the snow, and I feel the liquid fighting its way through the nylon fabric. We’re losing precious warmth to melt snow below us -the thought is untenable, but what can we do? I can’t think about it much, because soon I collapse into another spasmodic fit of shaking. My teeth hurt from the chattering, like I’ve been grinding them for hours, and my muscles are sore from shaking -I start getting painful cramps in my thighs and calves. I keep reminding myself that the night will pass, that the sun will rise, and that we’ll come through the other side. I just have to hang in there. The next time I look at my watch, it’s three in the morning. I inform Phillip again, and he says “okay” again. I’m telling him more for me than for him, as if affirming that time is still ticking makes it more real. A part of me still believes that the night will never end, and I need to fight this part of me, to expose it as a liar.

The rest of the night goes by in the same fashion. A few snatches of sleep here and there, punctuated by endless bouts of shaking. I wiggle my toes and my fingers, monitoring their numbness, ready for action if they ever go fully numb. Every hour or so, I tell Phillip what time it is, and his answer is always the same: “okay.” I think my report on the time is annoying him, but I need to tell him so badly. Who knows what he’s going through? I can barely understand my own internal process, let alone what this person, who is lying down right against me, might be going through. I pat his back comfortingly a couple times, but it’s to make myself feel better, as if to prove that I haven’t lost it, that I can still be optimistic. I know I’m in bad shape.

Eventually, I notice that the night is no longer a deep black, but rather a hued, dark blue, in which I can distinguish a few colors.

“Phillip,” I say, poking him. “The sun’s rising.”

The sky pinkens, slowly revealing a long row of snow-dusted peaks in all directions. Soon, right across from us, a small, yellow disk levitates off the summits, sprinkling warm light into the world. I’ve never felt anything as good as those first few rays of sunlight -I sit back, letting their warmth wash over my face. My body still feels cold and distant, but my cheeks are burning, and I’m no longer shaking. For the first time since we sat down, I’m approaching something resembling comfort.

For breakfast, we eat our last bit of food: a Clif Bar each. It’s the only thing we’ve eaten since our lunch the previous day, and we’re both depleted. From now on, we’ll be drawing on our reserves -there’s nothing left to replenish our stock of energy. Phillip still has a few ounces of water in his camelback. He sips from it and offers me some, but I turn it down, saying I’ll have some later. I’m not sure why I turn it down. I’m thirsty, but I just can’t be bothered to drink. This worries me -if I stop taking care of myself, things will go south in a hurry.

We call the rescue services back. A nice woman assures me that not only are climbers hiking into the basin, but several teams are also being inserted near the mountain by helicopter.

“We’re not gonna have to spend another night here, right?” I ask childishly.

“Absolutely not,” she tells me in a tone that exudes confidence.

I’m relieved. There’s a snowstorm coming in tonight, and I don’t think we can survive another night in the open, at least not without losing some fingers and toes. It’s critical that we get off this ledge before the weather comes in. We hang up, turning off our phones to save battery. Mine keeps dying from the cold, and then coming back to life when I stick it in the inner chest pocket of my fleece. All we can do is wait. We sit there, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. There’s nothing to do besides look out at the mountains. I try to remind myself that in other circumstances, this type of view is the reason I get up in the morning. But right now, I’d pay a million dollars to be in bed, watching Netflix or messing around on Facebook.

We keep our ears out, listening for the approach of a helicopter, and we’re rewarded around nine o’clock when we hear the unmistakable humming of rotor blades. It grows louder and louder, like an oversize bee buzzing through the air, and suddenly we see it: a large helicopter dashing across the mountains. But will it spot us here, lost on the enormous East ridge? The helicopter makes a few passes around, then charges right at us. We wave our space blanket at it, hoping to attract the pilot’s attention, but they don’t see us. My heart sinks, but the helicopter makes another pass, and then another less than a hundred feet above us. This time, Phillip sees the pilot waving back at us; they’ve spotted us! Our nightmare is about to come to an end. Now, surely, they’ll hover above us, drop a cable down, and winch us into the air.

The helicopter zooms around the basin, makes a few more passes, and then disappears. Its bee-like noise continues, growing fainter, and then vanishes too. I feel like crying, as if something inside me is broken. Where have they gone? Why didn’t they land? Or drop off climbers? Did they not see us? Are they leaving us? The feeling of abandonment is poignant. But then Phillip’s phone beeps. It’s a text from his girlfriend, who informs us that the helicopter has spotted us and is going back to pick up more rescuers.

I breathe another sigh of relief. Again, all we have to do is wait, and we’ll be saved. More time passes, and I find myself growing impatient. I have a very hard time with our whole situation being out of my control. The rescuers have advised us to stay put -they’re rightfully worried that, in our weakened state, we’ll make a fatal mistake up on the ridge. So we’re staying put, waiting and waiting. I start to unravel. Last night, when I was the one climbing, setting up ropes, rappelling, making decisions, I still felt in control, still felt like it was my fight. Now, it’s in the rescuers’ hands. I know they’re professionals and extremely good at what they do, but I very badly want the control back. I get very anxious and frustrated, and I keep asking Phillip if we should call them back. We do call them back several times at my insistence, and every time we’re given the same, frustrating (but, I’ll understand later, extremely wise) answer: stay put, don’t move, stay as warm as possible, don’t do anything stupid.

Around eleven thirty, when no one’s gotten to us yet, I start to really lose it. I’m weak, very cold, shaking again, and I keep asking Phillip if he can call them back. My own phone is about to die, so I can’t do it myself. Phillip can see I’m agitated.

“Come on man,” he says. “What’s the matter?”

“Waiting,” I tell him. “I can’t stand this waiting.”

We both keep hearing voices above us, and we both keep calling for silence.

“Wait, hush! Did you hear that? Voices on the summit, right? From above, right?”

But there are never any voices. It’s wishful thinking, and every time we hush up and listen, or yell for help, we find that the voices above us were nothing more than our imagination. To make things even scarier, I’m suddenly jarred by a huge thunking noise on my helmet, which reverberates into my cranium. I’m confused for a second, then I understand that I’ve just had my bell rung by a falling rock. Good thing it landed on my helmet! I shudder to think what might have happened if it had hit me in the stomach or the crotch.  

The wait continues. I still have a little juice in my phone, so I use it to answer a few texts I’ve let accumulate. No one besides Brandon and my brother knows about our predicament, so they’re all very banal: a text from my mom sharing a picture of her presenting at a conference, one from my best friend Pierre about a soccer game, another one from my girlfriend about our plans for the night, and so on. I answer some of them, in a banal way as well. The thought crosses my mind that it might be the last time I speak to these amazing people, that maybe I should tell them what’s going on, how much I care about them, maybe even say my goodbyes. But I don’t. I’m not sure why -I think my brain is craving normalcy. Or perhaps I can’t emotionally handle the idea of not being rescued, and so refuse to say my goodbyes. I tell my girlfriend I’ll be over at nine o’clock, and I hope, I hope so very hard, that I will be. And then, during another call with the rescuers, my phone dies for good. It’s over -I’m truly cut off from the people I love. If I do die here, this will be the last they’ve heard from me.

I long ago understood the inherent risks of climbing, that someday, perhaps I wouldn’t come back. I’ve got a letter written and safely stored in my journal, and my brother knows to find it if something were ever to happen to me in the mountains, so at least I know my family will have a comforting final message from me, and that brings me comfort too, and then I dump it out of my mind. We’re going to be rescued, so no need to think about it further.

And then, around noon, Phillip gets an unfortunate text from his girlfriend: the teams on the mountain know roughly where we are, but they can’t find us, and getting to us is proving more difficult and, more importantly, time consuming than they’d initially thought. We call back the rescuers, and they advise us to blow our whistles. Phillip has one on his backpack strap, and I have a very powerful one in my emergency kit -we both blow them like crazy for two minutes. We then get a call back from the rescue service.

“Could the rescuers hear that?”

“Not yet.”

“...you guys are gonna get us out today, right?” I ask, fearing the answer.

“That’s still the plan,” the rescuer says. “We’re doing our best to get to you.”

“But we’re not gonna have to stay out in the storm, right?” I whine.  

“The plan is to get you out today. But if you have to stay out, you have to stay. Now turn off your phone; you need to save the battery. Last thing you want is both your phones dying."

The situation is really bleak. Phillip and I start talking about how we can improve our bivy if we have to stay out a second night. There’s not much more we can do -he can step into his pack too, we can dig out the platform even more, we can build snow walls to block out the wind, but if the storm really unleashes, we don’t stand a chance. We can try to melt water in the sun in a bottle, since being more hydrated will keep us warmer. We kick around the idea of lighting a fire to get through the night, but again, I know if it’s truly dumping snow, we don’t stand a chance in hell of keeping a fire going.

At one o’clock, we begin seriously talking about an exit strategy, should they fail to get to us. The conversation is difficult for me, because to discuss this is to admit that we might not be rescued, and I have very little emotional energy left for that. My watch indicates that we started our climb thirty-one hours ago, and I’m nearly at the end of my rope. I’m grateful that Phillip is keeping it together, just like I know he relied on me yesterday to get us over those final two pitches and down the rappels.

We agree that if they haven’t found us by three o’clock, we’ll try to make our way down on our own. Better to die trying than to freeze to death during the night. Our death will be quicker and less painful, and at least we’ll go down knowing we gave it a fair shot. Phillip stands up and thinks he can see a way to rappel down from our ledge onto a snow slope, which he thinks we could traverse over to some low-angle terrain leading down to the basin. He asks me to take a look, but I strangely refuse.

“I’ll look at three o’clock, if we have to do it,” I tell him.

“Seriously?” Phillip says, annoyed. “Are you not willing to just stand up and take a look?”

“I’ll do it at three, man. Until then, no point.”

I’m being weak. Again, my brain won’t consider the possibility of not being rescued. Developing our exit strategy would be to concede that possibility, and that’s not something I can bring myself to do yet. I’ll do it at three, but until then I need to protect my damaged psyche.

One-thirty comes around, and still, nobody can hear our strident whistles, which we execute robotically every few minutes. The sun’s moving around and will soon be out of sight, disappearing around Mount Thompson’s large western flank, but for now, if I sit back just the right way, I can still catch a few rays on my face. So I lean back into the snow, savoring the warm caress across my cheeks and forehead. I know it might be the last bit of pleasurable sensation I’ll ever have -better enjoy it. The rest of my body is so cold. I can’t feel my toes anymore, and some of my fingers are starting to go. Will I even have the strength to move come three o’clock? I’m not so sure anymore. I haven’t eaten or drank anything all day, and we’ve been out for thirty-two hours. Slowly but surely, I feel the painful shivers coming back into me. My arms and legs shake, and I feel the last few drops of sun scraping off my cheeks. Soon I’ll be cold again, and then what? I learned in books that death by freezing is a pleasant way to go...I’ll withdraw within myself even more, become distant, lose interest, and eventually fall asleep, never to wake up again. Perhaps it won’t be so bad. It might even be easy, simple. It’s easy to die, after all. And fighting is so hard. So tiring...

I realize that I’m praying, and I immediately stop myself. I’ve always thought of religion as fairy tales used to avoid looking at unpleasant truths, and now that I’m staring down the barrel of those truths, I’m begging something I don’t even believe in. I tell myself to go to my grave an atheist, just as I’ve lived my life. The thought calms me a little -I still have some control over events. Not much, but just enough.

I feel a sort of peace come over me. I haven’t come to terms with my death yet, but at least I can envisage doing so in the near future. I wonder what Phillip’s thinking of, but I don’t ask him. We’re too busy blowing our whistles. I realize that I barely know him at all. We met at a rock climbing gym four days prior, and it’s our first climb together. It’s likely to be our last. It saddens me to think I might die sitting next to a near-stranger, but there’s no time to get to know each other deeply. Simultaneously, I know we’re bonded by the intensity of our experience together. He’s been brave and composed during this ordeal, collected when I couldn’t be, and I’m grateful for that. I also feel tremendous guilt that I’ve roped him into this adventure, and that because of me he might never see his loved ones again.

If only I’d gone home that night in the gym instead of asked the only other guy on auto-belays if he needed someone to climb with. If only I hadn’t invited him to climb Mount Thompson with me. If only we’d turned around when Brandon did. If only we’ve given up on the climb when we saw the first pitch was wet. If only we’d brought more bivy gear. If only...

I sit up with a jerk. Phillip and I look at each other. This time, we haven’t imagined it -voices! Voices somewhere on the mountain. We stop blowing our whistles and yell out for help as loud as we can. Where are they? For a while, I think they’re coming from the summit, but then we realize they’re echoing up from the basin below. My heart sinks. It’s probably just hikers yelling up to us after hearing our whistles. And yet, something like hope starts swelling in my mind, fragile like a newly formed soap bubble. We shout and shout, and more shouts echo back to us. Are they getting closer? No, it’s gotta be another illusion. Wait, are they? No, they can’t be. But they are. Soon, we hear a voice calling to us. It’s far below, strained and distant, but we hear the words clearly.

“Are you Jean and Phillip?”

“Yes!” we scream back.

“Is anyone hurt?”

“No!”

“Okay, stay put! We’re from Seattle Mountain Rescue! We’re coming!”

Around two o’clock, four climbers pull themselves onto the snow field and make their way towards us. I can barely express what I feel as they carefully scramble across the wet snow, fixing a handline as they go. The soap bubble inside me explodes, triggering sheer and utter joy as I’ve never felt before. Hot tears leak down my face, blurring my vision. I’m sobbing like a kid -I can’t compare this feeling to anything else.

Kissing a girl for the first time, scoring my first goal for my college soccer team, finishing my first novel, learning to climb, sending my first 5.11b sport climb on lead, leaving for a six-month road trip to climb across the USA, standing on the summit of Mount Rainier on my second attempt -all these moments, the happiest ones of my life, fade into pale, shallow emotions compared to this explosive burst of relief that inundates me with the power of one single, intoxicating thought: I’m going to live!

What happens next defies my wildest fantasies of being rescued. With incredible professionalism, expertise, and selflessness, these four fellow humans, who volunteered to risk their lives today, give us spare clothing, pump us full of food and fluid, and give us a thorough medical assessment. Phillip and I eat everything they hand us, and we each drain half a liter of lukewarm gatorade in just a few seconds. I realize how famished and thirsty I’d been, and the nourishment brings me back to life, literally filling me with warmth. I can feel my fingers and toes again, and I’m no longer shaking like a lunatic.

The climbers helps us stand, pack our gear into our packs, and put on microspikes. They keep referring to “subjects” and “patients” over the radio, and soon I realize they’re talking about us. I learn from their communication that Phillip and I are uninjured, but mildly hypothermic, and that we’ll all be heading down to the basin, where we’ll rendez-vous with the helicopter.

Our rescuers usher us across the handline, making sure we’re efficient and careful, and then guide us down a sliver of a couloir snaking its way through the vegetation and over a crumbling rock band. Fifty feet down, I spot the bundle of slings marking the next rappel. It’s only about a hundred feet from where we spent the night, and maybe twenty feet down from where we spent hours desperately searching for a way off. I’m frustrated, amused, and horrified all at once.

I feel stupid for a little while, but then I realize how impossible it would have been to find the couloir in the dark. I’m not even sure we’d have found it in broad daylight, and I’m bolstered when one of the rescuers tells me they took two hours to find it when doing the climb in summer. We rappel down onto a broad, gently-angled snow ramp, and we downclimb carefully with the rescuers, paying close attention to each step.

They fix another handline for us when we cross over another rock band, and continue to give us food and drinks. I can’t stop thanking them over and over again, telling them how much it means to me that they’re here, that they came for us, that they got us out before the storm that would likely have claimed our lives.

We continue climbing down and down, the basin growing close and closer. Phillip is way ahead of me with another rescuer, and I wonder just how he’s able to still move this quickly. I know I’m dragging ass compared to him, and I’m again impressed by how well he’s come through this ordeal. I can’t stop chatting with the rescuer climbing down with me. He’s from Vermont, and we’ve done a lot of the same rock and ice climbs, especially in New Hampshire. The feeling of kinship with these people, who are not only fellow humans, but also fellow climbers, only grows as we talk about life, climbing, and the mountains.

We get to the basin, where we meet other members of the rescue team. I thank all of them and shake their hands. I don’t know how to properly thank them. The words alone seem paltry. My gratitude grows when the helicopter approaches. I tell the rescuers I don’t have anything to protect my eyes from the debris kicked from the rotors, and, without a hint of hesitation, the climber from Vermont takes off his expensive pair of glacier glasses and hands them over, telling me to leave them with someone from the rescue service at the trailhead. This simple, trusting, and above all incredibly selfless gesture almost brings me to tears again.

Phillip and I climb into the helicopter with two of the rescuers, and we take off so suddenly that I haven’t even figured out how to put on my seat belt yet. I look down to the rest of the party -the helicopter will be back for them after dropping us off. I dearly hope to see all of them again.

The ride is bumpy by my whimpy standards (I’m terrified of flying) and I’m so scared that I barely have the wherewithal to admire the mountains of Snoqualmie Pass unfurling below us. The rescuer sitting next to me calms me down and talks to me about winters in the Northwest and the best places to ski, and again, I’m touched by his kindness almost to the point of tears.

We touch down at the trailhead, where several people await us. I realize how badly I’m longing for a familiar face, but I don’t recognize anyone. A girl walks by without seeing me, and I can see emotions waging a battle on her tortured face -I know without needing to be told that she’s Phillip’s girlfriend, and I smile as they collapse into each other’s arms.

Behind her is Brandon, my kind, loyal friend, who waited for me at the trailhead for over twenty-four hours. Brandon, who wanted to be with us so badly and had to turn around with nasty blisters. He slept in my car, mad with worry, shaking with cold, racked by guilt because he couldn’t share in our pain. And now he’s here, the first to welcome me back into the world of the living.

I lose it as I walk towards him, erupting into a flow of hot tears. He wraps his arms around me and I bury my face into a puffy square of his North Face jacket.

I know, at last, that I’ve come home again.

* * *

I’d like to end this account with a final message to the incredible community of Seattle Mountain Rescue, of whom I often think on cold, rainy nights as I sit on a comfortable couch watching Netflix, cuddle in a warm bed with my girlfriend, or find myself hiking or climbing in the mountains again.

I can only say this: I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life. I only have a “rest of my life” because of you, whether you found us on the snow ledge, flew the helicopter, organized the rescue, climbed the west ridge and didn’t even meet us, or even just made a donation that allowed the organization to keep on going. I’ll be grateful until my dying day.

When I think of you all, I’m often reminded of a citation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the great French pilot and author of “The Little Prince.” He and his copilot were rescued by bedouins several days after crashing their airplane in the Libya desert, mere hours before dying of thirst. The translation from the original French is my own:

"And as for you who saved our lives, bedouin of Libya, you will nevertheless be forever erased from my memory. I will never remember your face. You are simply Mankind, and you appear to me wearing the face of all humans at the same time. You have never looked upon us before and yet you have recognized us. You are as a beloved brother. And, in turn, I will also recognize you in all humans.

You appear to me bathed in nobility and kindness, a great lord who has the power to grant the gift of water. All my friends and all my enemies walk towards me within you, and I have not a single enemy left in all the world.”   

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars