Our first view of the objective.
Roping up. Note the state of the art packs and climbing gear.
Mt Baker, Coleman Glacier
Saturday, Jun 6, 1989. With
Fred, Todd, Monte,
Mark, Patty (Mark's wife),
Al, his son Aaron.
The first real mountain climb I ever went on. I'd hiked up Mt. Si before, and had messed around on Mt. Rainier above Paradise, but that's about it. I was a bicycle racer in those days, and trained pretty hard, and so I figured it would be not especially difficult. But it kicked my ass, more thoroughly than I've ever been thrashed, before or since.
A big part of the problem, I think, is that I hadn't thought it through. When you do a bike ride, or a race, no matter how long or difficult it is, once you're done, you're done. And on a road race, if you have to abandon, there's a sag wagon to pick you up. (I've only had to do that once.)
But when you climb a mountain, the summit is only 2/3 of the way (maybe even less.) I had been focused on the summit, had been mentally prepared for the summit, and then when I had to descend for several more hours, well, I just wasn't mentally prepared at all. I probably ate too little, and drank too little as well.
By contrast, Todd, my roommate, had done basically no training for the climb more intense than walking around Green Lake a couple of times. But he managed to get himself up to the saddle by sheer mental discipline, and if we'd done it in two days, he would certainly have been able to summit. It was a revelation to me, of the importance of the mental aspect of climbing, and from time to time I get the lesson refreshed.
One of the guys on the climb was talking about how you could get your palms sunburned, and the roof of your mouth, so I was pretty worried about that, and kept my mouth closed as much as I could, and kept my hands closed, too. (Later I learned getting the roof of your mouth, or your nostrils, sunburned only happens at very high altitudes, in places like the Himalayas, or Denali.)
When we got back to the car, I was beat. It was, at the time, the most difficult thing I'd ever done. I was so tired, it didn't feel any better to sit down, it made no difference at all. We drove to this place (I still don't know the name of it) that's supposed to have the best hamburgers on earth, and I was too tired to eat. I did try to choke it down, but I had no appetite; I just curled up in the back of the car, and let Todd drive home.
Later, we learned that Patty was six weeks pregnant at the time of climb.
Roping up. Note the state of the art packs and climbing gear.
