June 30

Two passes in one day, marching like a zombie across snow plains to approach the sheer icy walls of Pinchot Pass. Using our topographic maps we were able to aim ourselves correctly across the landscape of sun-cupped snow and into a glacial basin from which we would have to climb out of. For about a half-hour there was some debate amongst the group as to what peak was what and in what direction we should travel in relation to the surrounding landforms. Is that peak a thousand feet above us or only three hundred feet? Have we traveled a full mile or only a half mile? Where is that river on the map? What about the three lakes sitting somewhere just below the pass? When everything is buried under snow, travel becomes more complicated. A decision was made, which turned out to be correct, a testament to the effectiveness of the democratic process. While traveling along the side of the wall, gaining more and more elevation, planting the stem of my ice axe into the mountainside as I kicked steps into snow, working my way onto the higher slopes; I felt the nerves in my neck tightening into a knot, the muscles in my shoulders hardening and stiffening. My movement was becoming more rigid, like an old machine whose joints lacked lubrication. I was too wound up. Fear was having me concentrate too acutely on each individual step, thinking I was always about to slide away. Too much fire running through the grains of my muscles. Pausing to look up: ahead of me laid tracks in the snow leading upwards to the brink of a wall and below me dropped curtains of snow clinging to the drastic granite walls. I said this to myself, "Loosen yourself up, man. Be a god-damn ninja. Unhinge your shoulders, loosen up, move like a ninja over this mountain. Let your body glide." Immediately, something was released, leaving my body feeling decompressed, and I floated gracefully up the staircase of ice. I moved swiftly to the saddle, which revealed still more snow on the backside.

The other pass, Mather Pass, was even more hairy. Very fatigued by a series of river crossings in the afternoon, the sun threatening to set on us and harden the snow in a freezing darkness. We approached the base of the pass, cooked dinner to regain some energy, then argued about whether to wait until the morning to go up and over. While we argued, the rock loomed moitonless above us, waiting. Rabbit was scared, Elsa was crying. Batteries and Freight Train were both adamant above getting over tonight. I remained neutral, saying that I honored peoples fears and but that I also acknowledged the logic of crossing the pass tonight. Eventually, we decided to hit it and we started climbing. We cut horizontally below the pass, following its contour, kicking steps. After crossing the chunky remains of an old avalanche, we made it to the vertical rock face where the trail switchbacks were still buried in snow, forcing us to use our ice axes and ascend straight upwards. Again, kicking steps and using the firmly planted ice axe as leverage. This lead us to the top of the pass, over 12,000 feet, where a cornice of snow had formed from a winter's worth of storms, a lip of snow arcing like a wave of water over the rock, very difficult to climb over. As we dropped away, still in snow, darkness caught us on our way down, forcing us to make a quick decision to sleep on a crop of rocks, surrounded by an ocean of ice. Falling asleep, watching the milky way gradually fade into view against a jagged foreground of cold peaks, I felt that I was on another planet completely, hurdling through space. Feeling detached from the earth, enclosed in a foreign landscape, remoteness, rock and ice.