Alpine Ethos #5: Harte Tower Sneak-Peek

For the fifth edition of this blog, I'm releasing a chapter of my new novel, Harte Tower, a coming-of-age climbing adventure novel. This chapter offers a peek into the background of Joe, Ethan's grandfather, who spent decades guiding and climbing in the Alaska Range. I was fortunate to climb the North Buttress of Mt Hunter in 2014 with Chris Sheridan and Doug Shepherd, and I used that experience to build this scene. I hope you enjoy.

Mount Hunter's 4,000 foot north buttress shrouded in mystery. KIA basecamp, 2013.

CH 6 THE RESCUE

Denali National Park, Alaska

June 1997

—Joe—

His team decided to let the Brits die. At least that’s how Joe saw it and would always see it. For three days, they watched for glimpses of the two climbers through the storm that raged on Mount Hunter, the third-highest peak in the Alaska Range. A few times, the clouds rose enough for Greg to spot them with his scope, but only briefly. The upper walls of the enormous mountains surrounding them were concealed by clouds. He made out one of them in a red jacket hanging lifelessly at the end of the rope at the bottom of the McNerthney Ice Dagger, all but confirming their worst fears. Joe had climbed the route a few years prior and knew the dangers of that section intimately. He remembered the sinking feeling in his gut as he led that very pitch, constantly eyeing the icy blocks looming above.

“Was it Liam in the red jacket?” Greg asked.

Greg then spotted the girl perched on an ice ledge at the top of the pitch, at the entrance to the Tamara Traverse, which led around to the right to avoid continuing up the gulley below the mushrooms. She appeared to be alive.

“I think the girl’s in her sleeping bag.”

They could see it all playing out in their minds. Charlotte was the stronger climber, just off a strong winter season in the French Alps, so of course, she would be leading that section. She would have wanted to move fast through this part because it had killed before. They had all doubted her choice in partners. Her boyfriend, Liam, was a newb and clearly in over his head. They had joked about how she would have to drag him up the wall.

Charlotte and Liam were caught on the most exposed portion of the route, climbing below the “death mushroom” that always formed under the giant roofs when cascading snow coursing down the face collided with updrafts and swirled under the colossal eyebrows until accumulating into white tumors weighing several tons. Eventually, the weight would break the bonds between rock and ice, and large chunks, sometimes the entire giant snowball, would break off and crash down the wall below.

The small crowd of American climbers around him peered up at the massive wall of black rock laced with ribbons of ice. But seeing something as small as a man on that goliath of a mountain was hopeless without Greg’s scope. Greg squinted harder to see through the dim light, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of life-affirming movement, but the clouds crept back in and obscured his view once again. Within minutes, the entire north buttress of Hunter was engulfed.

The Kahiltna basecamp had a dozen parties camped out, mostly Denali hopefuls geared up to attempt the grueling West Buttress route. Joe had flown in with Greg and Roger to attempt a new route on the short, though technical, ridge between Hunter and Denali. They had thought it wise to stick with a smaller objective since they had a short weather window the week before their clients arrived. Katherine had taken the kids on a raft trip while he was in the range. The storm had arrived early and hadn’t stopped for three days. They shoveled snow off the tent in shifts to keep it from collapsing. Roger had tried to talk the Brits into waiting for a better forecast, but they brushed him off. They’d be at the top of the wall in forty hours, they said. But fate would only give them twelve.

“We can’t just let her die, goddammit,” Joe insisted.

Roger shook him by the shoulders, gripping the rigid Gore-Tex in his big hands. “We all have kids at home, Joe. They knew what they were gambling. They made their choice.”

Joe’s eyes searched the camp for anyone he could rally for the cause, but he quickly realized the three of them were the only ones capable of mounting a rescue, and no planes would arrive with cloud cover this low. A rescue would require a degree of skill well beyond the basic mountaineering fitness to snowshoe up Denali with a heavy sled. Hunter’s legendary north buttress stood four thousand feet tall, nearly vertical, and was webbed with steep, technical ice.

Joe slid out of his sleeping bag around midnight. He hadn’t slept a wink. The air was cold and damp, but it had stopped snowing hours before. The upper half of Hunter hid in the clouds in the dim light. He knew in his bones that the snow had stopped up high. He felt it. A little bit of fog and clouds can’t kill me.

He remembered, vividly, the Brits walking by, elated to start their climb. She was all smiles. Her boyfriend, not so much. Joe had asked her about the small, stuffed tiger cub hanging from a key chain loop on the back of her pack.

“My dad gave it to me for good luck. He always called me his tiger cub.”

Joe wondered how her parents would take the news. He could picture an older couple taking the call in their cottage in the English countryside.

Doug Shepherd making his way back to KIA basecamp after a 56 hour roundtrip to the top of the wall. May 2014

He quietly rounded up his gear and stuffed layers and some food into his backpack. He threw in his puffy jacket. He didn’t bother to bring his sleeping bag. Continuous movement would keep him warm. And, if Liam was already dead, as it appeared he was, then Joe could use Liam’s sleeping bag when he reached them. If he needed it. It was a cold calculation, but every ounce counted, and he’d have to plan smart if he was to be successful.

Joe stepped into his skis and skinned out of camp without waking anyone. Although he suspected his partners heard him but just decided not to fight him anymore. Perhaps they were glad he had chosen to head up. Perhaps it eased their consciences knowing someone was trying.

The lazy glacier steepened near the base of the wall, and Joe slid out of his skis and stabbed each firmly, perpendicularly, into the snow for the glacier to hold until his return. He donned crampons, pulled his axes off his pack, flaked the rope out loosely, and tied into one end. He brought a few ice screws to belay himself through any tough sections, but he didn’t intend to do that if the ice was thick enough. He often dragged a rope from his harness when solo climbing to trick his mind into believing he was being belayed by a partner. A placebo of safety.

Before crossing the gaping bergschrund onto the wall, he put on his headphones under his fleece hat and pushed play on his Walkman. He typically listened to what his teenage son called “hippy music” when he was in the range, but for this trip, Chris had made him a mixtape of his favorite rock songs.

The blaring horns and deep bass of House of Pain filled his ears as he sized up the short, overhanging ice wall that led to the lower flows. He opened his jacket once again and turned the volume up as loud as it could go. The deafening cacophony blocked out the wind’s unsettling howl and sealed him up in a capsule of invincibility. He matched his flow to the rhythm.

Boom, boom.

Swing, swing.

Boom, boom.

Kick, kick.

Joe followed the path of the Brits, swinging his axes into the same holes and kicking the same divots to save energy and move faster. The imaginary pull of the space below weakened the higher he climbed. He focused on the beat and the efficiency of his movement. He analyzed each swing of his picks as they entered the ice. The solid thud traveling up his arm told him to trust the placement. His tools and crampons were old friends with whom he had bonded over many battles. They knew and trusted each other well.

Climbing alone was dangerous and irresponsible. A reckless pursuit for a family man. But for an impatient man, which his wife assured him he was, it had its advantages. No small talk was ever necessary. No one to compromise with over plans or grand ambitions. It wasn’t a habit he embraced as a beginner climber—only something he later came to appreciate once he had the skill and confidence. There were plenty of times when he really needed to get away and think. Climbing was a great way to chew on ideas and problems he was working on. He often got lost in his mind when climbing solo. About controversies at work. Politics. Disagreements in the family. Growing up in the rural Ozarks had taught Joe not to fear being alone. He learned from an early age that he could tackle problems without much help from others if he was smart and resourceful.

From a practical standpoint, he saw climbing partnerships as a tradeoff. There were plenty of climbs that Joe would never attempt on his own. A partner, or sometimes two, could help in splitting the weight needed on a climb. Tents, food, stoves, climbing gear, and ropes. All of this added up exponentially. If the route was big and technical, then a partner could take half of the leads while he rested and belayed. Having a solid belayer below him, rooting for him, tied to the other end, could instill just enough confidence to truly go for it and push himself beyond what he thought he was capable of.

The downside to the tradeoff was often time. Climbing with a partner just took longer, especially if the terrain wasn’t all that difficult. It automatically doubled how long a climb took because each of you spent half of your time belaying while the other climbed. That wasn’t the case when you were free and cordless.

After three hours of climbing, the wide and gentle ice flows of the lower wall gradually steepened and narrowed as he approached “The Prow,” a hatchet blade of granite marking the beginning of the hard climbing. He guessed he was about two hundred feet below it, which he knew was roughly fifteen hundred feet above the glacier. He allowed himself to look down past his front points to the valley below. He tried not to think of how four thin points of steel, each a few millimeters thick, were all that separated him from the life he breathed and the void below that would love nothing more than to choke it out.

The runnel leading to The Prow posed a problem. The ice obviously narrowed near the top, and Joe knew it might not be thick enough to support his weight. He kicked out a small shelf in the ice where he stood to get a more restful stance and free up one hand to turn off his Walkman and store his headphones in his chest pocket. He needed to listen to what the ice was telling him. Thin ice can detach from the rock in big sheets if struck in the wrong spot. He would need to hear those hollow sounds that alerted him to gaps behind the ice.

“Alright, let’s get to it,” he said aloud. He tried to reestablish his rhythm, but the short break had interrupted his flow. The cold wind rustling down the wall whispered frightful, discordant tones. He took deep breaths and centered on the truth that he knew. The only move that mattered was the next one. That’s it.

Swing. Swing. Kick. Kick.

Halfway up the runnel, the ice thinned to arm’s width, but each swing and kick still felt solid. He hung from his left axe and unholstered his longest ice screw with his right hand. He spun his hand around the handle, driving it seven inches deep, then clipped it to the belay loop on his harness and hung directly on it. He pulled up the rope, tied a knot on the end, and secured it to the screw with a locking carabiner. That way he could belay himself up the rest of the pitch and place more screws if possible. He fed twenty feet of rope through his belay device and tied a knot on the brake strand. He would be stopped at the knot if he fell. The thought of taking a fall that big still scared the hell out of him, but it sure beat the alternative. The ice thinned on the last half of the pitch, but he was able to place shorter screws every fifteen feet and made it to the ledge below The Prow without incident. Once there, he found a piton anchor with cord to tie his rope into and lower down to retrieve his ice screws in the runnel. He brought an ascender to climb the rope back to his high point.

Joe knew the McNerthney Ice Dagger hung just above him, to the right of The Prow. He had an eerie feeling knowing that one of the Brits was likely hanging dead at the end of his rope so close above him. He thought of calling up to them to reassure them that help was close, but he knew they would never hear him over the wind, even if they were alive. The sky had brightened a little, and he knew the morning sun was up there somewhere above the clouds. He was tired from climbing all night, but he knew he needed to keep moving.

The two-hundred-foot-high prow stuck out of the wall above like a murderer’s axe sticking through a door in a horror movie. When the ice ended, he torqued the steel blade of his axes in the granite crack and scratched his crampons on tiny edges of the face. He used the same system to belay himself, clipping a carabiner to each of the pitons driven into the cracks by previous parties and left behind. Clouds once again rolled in and obscured any view of the wall above or below him. He found it comforting to not see the glacier more than a thousand feet below him, nor the looming colossus above, with its hanging daggers and seracs waiting for the slightest vibration to send it careening down the wall on top of him. He found a three-piton anchor at the top of the pitch and fixed his rope. He again lowered to retrieve his gear, then ascended the rope to his high point.

Joe now had to lower and traverse to the right to reach the Ice Dagger. He rappelled slowly, keeping a tight grip on the rope with his left hand while delicately stepping to the right, scratching his crampons for purchase and pulling on any hold he could reach with his right hand.

When he turned the corner that dropped into the Ice Dagger, he saw Liam hanging backward from the rope, legs dangling lifelessly, head and arms swooped backward. His red jacket covered in spindrift. Definitely not alive. Joe reluctantly followed the rope upward with his gaze, preparing himself for what he might find at the end of it.

At the top of the gully sat Charlotte in her sleeping bag.

“Hello!” Joe shouted above the wind.

He watched as a small, gloved hand poked out of the small opening of the sleeping bag and pulled it down, but she didn’t reply. Joe was overjoyed to see the movement.

“I’ll be right up!”

Joe finished lowering down to Liam’s body, attached his ascender to their rope, and hung from it while he pulled his own from the anchor. He then trailed it below as he ascended to Charlotte, who silently watched. In his mind, he worked through a plan to evacuate her to the glacier. If her rope was fully intact, then he could tie it to his and get them down in fewer rappels. Depending on her condition, he could lower her from above and wait for her to place ice screws and come off the rope, while he then lowered to her and repeated the process. However, if her injuries were significant enough to render her incapable of building an anchor and taking herself off belay, then he would need to attach her to his harness while he rappelled. It all hinged on her condition.

He introduced himself softly as he reached her. “Hey there, Charlotte, it’s Joe.”

She didn’t reply. She didn’t even make eye contact, and that worried him.

He slowly unzipped the mummy bag enough to pull it over her head. Her helmet was cracked, and the left side of her face was battered and swollen. The ice must have clobbered her while she belayed. With head trauma like this, he was surprised she was able to get out her sleeping bag at all, but that was the only reason she hadn’t succumbed to the cold already. He talked to her in a sincere, caring tone, as he did with his own daughter when she scratched her knee as a child. He knew that brain injuries could make people act erratically, and he wanted her to know he was there to help.

She held her left arm protectively against her. He could tell the forearm was broken by the swelling. He would need to address that before they lowered, or else the broken bones could cause more damage, even cut a vein or artery if she were to try and use that arm to brace herself. He had no splint, so he carefully unzipped her puffy coat and the shell jacket she wore underneath, then pulled her arm out of the sleeve. He laid it against her torso and then used his small knife to cut two small holes in her shirt sleeve. He then worked a carabiner through the holes, clipped it to the collar of her shirt, and zipped her jacket and coat back up.

He thought about looking for frostbite on her feet and hands but decided he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it right then anyway. It was a foregone conclusion that someone pinned down for multiple nights alone in this environment was going to lose some toes at a minimum. And even if he took the time to warm her appendages, they would likely freeze again as they descended, which would compound the problem.

“Alright, we’re gonna get you out of here now.” Joe talked her through his systems while he rigged the ropes and positioned her on a tether to his belay loop. He hoped his explanations would soothe her, but mostly it was for himself. Her eerie silence made him feel alone, but hearing his own voice helped ease the tension.

They needed to rappel fifteen hundred feet to reach the glacier. Their ropes would get them down two hundred feet, so they would have to repeat the rappelling process about eight times, maybe nine, depending on where he found good places to cut V-thread anchors.

Joe had to stop when they reached Liam and take him off the rope because they needed both ropes to get to the ground. He had no choice but to leave the boy there on the wall alone. He would be someone else’s problem. He had to get the girl down. Cutting the rope and simply watching the boy sail down the wall was not an option with Charlotte in such a fragile mental state. He had no idea how she would react to that, or the trauma that would cause her later. Joe placed one of his ice screws just above the body and clipped Liam’s harness to it with a sling. His weight still hung from the rope, making it impossible for Joe to untie, so he pulled out his small knife and cut the rope just above the knot, and the weight of Liam’s body slammed violently into the wall.

The first rappel went slowly, but Joe adjusted as problems arose. He noticed that Charlotte had a hard time holding herself upright with her one good arm while sliding down the wall, so he stopped and attached a sling around her chest that held her upright when clipped to the rope. Also, her tether was too short and kept her so close below him that he had to be careful not to kick her with his crampons while lowering. For the second rappel, he lengthened her tether just enough to avoid that, but not so much that it would be out of reach if there was a problem.

At the end of each rappel, when he neared the knotted ends of the ropes, he stopped and placed two ice screws, then clipped into those so he could lower their weight onto them. Then he twisted his longest screw into the ice at a forty-five-degree angle, then removed it and cut another hole to the side at the same angle so that it intersected the first. Next he fed the end of the rope through until he hit the knot where the ropes were tied together. Once he put them back on rappel, he pulled the two screws and slowly lowered them. It took them about an hour for each rappel. Joe had to move slowly enough not to harm Charlotte any further, and he also didn’t want to rush the process and make a simple mistake that could cost them time, or, worse yet, their lives. Not having a partner with him to check his systems or share the workload placed the responsibility on him alone.

While setting up for the last rappel, he heard voices from below. A dozen climbers had skied and snowshoed up to help them back to base camp. Greg had alerted the teams when he caught sight of Joe and Charlotte through his scope once they broke below the cloud line. Joe was relieved to see them, roped together in pairs, crossing the ice field. He would not have to steer Charlotte across the ice by himself in a flimsy sled for two and a half miles.

Every Christmas, Joe receives a card from Charlotte, thanking him for what he did that day. Her road to recovery was long and painful, but most of her mental faculties returned once the swelling in her brain subsided. She lost all her toes and a few fingertips, but six years later she married, and soon after that she gave birth to the first of three daughters.

Word of the rescue spread quickly through the community of mountaineers. Journalists reached out to Joe for comment, but he refused to speak of it. Of course, Joe never saw himself as a hero. He simply did what he was supposed to. What any person in his shoes with the ability to do it should have done. He knew it was the same feeling his own son felt when he ran back into the firefight to save one more. And Joe wished every day that Chris hadn’t been so brave.

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