Mount Hector ONE, Steve ZERO

by Steve McCartney

[Steve didn't send any pictures, and after reading the story you'll understand that his attentions were probably elsewhere. These pictures are from 2004, and show the summit in July and the great view from there.]

We were nearing 10000 feet and 100% focused on avalanche hazards. I mean 110% focused on avoiding avalanche hazards. My partner and I were below the last ski-able section of Mount Hector. The avalanche bulletin was considerable. On the way up I noticed the new snow was shearing 15-20 thick off an icy crust. I was 110% focused on not putting myself or my partner into a place we might regret. I was thinking about avalanches and nothing else.

There was another party on Mount Hector that day. We talked briefly when we stopped for a short break after skinning up a sustained section of a crusty icy windswept layer of white and discussed our options of getting to the top. I thought we could avoid the final steep face by boot-packing up the climber’s left hand side. The likelihood of skier triggered avalanches was considerable I remembered. Our route would follow a rocky ridgeline, hence no avalanches. The other group didn’t have any objections to my idea but decided to follow the standard route. We parted ways and continued on for only 15 minutes until we stashed our skis and put on crampons. Roped up I started traversing to my objective, a rock out crop maybe 20 meters away. I was 100% focused on reaching my destination now. I would be on the summit in about an hour I told myself.

When I began to walk, I noticed the crusty icy layer was gone and the snow was becoming soft and suspect. My location had all the characteristics of a snow bridge- but for some reason I shrugged it off and continued on telling myself that I’m probably wrong. My axe penetrated deep, with the same amount of force required to break through three or maybe four pieces of toilet paper. But for some reason I was only going forward; perhaps because I was only seconds from my objective. I took one more step and my foot kept going. I lay down immediately, trying to distribute my weight as much as possible. I called to my partner below me, "Dude, back up NOW!" "What??" he replied.

"Dude, go downhill – get the rope tight, I’m standing on air!"

"Are you serious?" he replied.

With every motion I made, my sense of security diminished like the snow disintegrating below me. I was able to get my axe stuck in a small piece of an ice lens maybe an inch thick. "Dude, where is my picket?" "On your right side" he said. I reached awkwardly trying to find it but it wasn’t there. "Where is my picket!?" I said. "Sorry, your left side" he said back. I remember thinking "why doesn’t he know left from right?" I pulled it off my pack quite easily. I learned many years ago to avoid attaching pickets to a pack with a ‘biner for this very reason. Had it been clipped on, I would have been screwed. An arm’s reach away I found some hard-packed snow and punched the picket in about half way, when I heard an eerie hollow sound. "Am I still on the bridge? What the heck is going on?" I wondered. From previous experience, I knew the sound was bad. It was distinctly insecure, analogous to an ice-climber swinging into sketchy ice and immediately a rush of adrenaline saturated my nervous system. I tied myself off to my "faith-stick" and then inched forward. I was mad at myself for being in this situation. I felt stupid.

With my foot no longer dangling in space, I found security standing on some really firm snow not far from the rocky outcrop that was my earlier objective. Pretending like what had just happened was not a big deal I said to my partner, "Just traverse lower, you should be fine". He began to move. My words almost became an epitaph. I just lead my partner to the gates of hell and knocked loudly at the door. "Steve, I’ve got nothing here man. What’s my move??" he said. "Uhmm, you gotta go two more feet- you can do it" I said as I laid flat on my axe. I muttered "don’t you dare fall in" quietly to myself. He inched his way to his perceived safety. He stood up and said "What the heck are we doing?" Just then to gain security from his crampons, he stamped his foot hard on the dense snow. I was still lying down and heard the thud and felt the vibration. We were at the devils front door - knocked once, and just knocked again.

"Dude, we are in a world of hurt if we don’t get out of here now. What’s our move?" I said. I remember thinking "if we can just get to those rocks, we’ll be fine". For some stupid reason I was still hell bent on going forward.

"Holy cow man, look at where we are! We’re on the stupid bergschrund. What the hell is going on?" I yelled, scolding myself. My brain had finally caught up to the gravity of our situation.

"I’m going to build a T-slot and we are going to rap over this mess, and get the hell out of here" I said. I started to probe around only to confirm that we were both standing on a time-bomb.

By some miracle I found a really dense section of snow and was able to build a good T-slot anchor. It gave us legitimate security. Slowly I began to lower myself but stopped at the edge of a "McCartney-sized" black hole. At that point I remember taking stock of our situation. Some thirty minutes ago my partner and I were about a 2 hour return trip from the summit of Hector; our year end objective. At present we were essentially in the middle of a mine field. I probed around my current location and found some relief in the marginal resistance of the probe going through the snowpack. With the anchor set and on rappel, I inched closer towards the hole. What I saw was unsettling. I managed to cross and my partner shortly thereafter.

Back at our skis we discussed how our decision making tree took us out to the weakest branch on the highest limb. I remember using a lot of curse words. We packed up our skis on our backpacks and proceeded to walk down our steep icy up-track. My partner was in front probing his way down when we found some more problems. His leg punched through the crust in three different locations in less than a minute and not because he was fat. We had unknowingly skied over these crevasses on the way up because our weight was distributed over a larger surface area. Not two minutes later he punched through again, but this time with both legs and up to his butt. His legs were dangling in space. By some freak stroke of luck the basket of his ski pole (that was strapped to his pack) got caught in the wire loop at the end of his probe. His weight arched the probe like the poles of a dome tent. He was literally sitting on the edge of a crevasse, like bait on the hook about to be swallowed by the crevasse. It was both frightening and humorous at the same time. The probe was stuck slightly behind him, arching over his shoulder with the wire looped around the plastic ski pole basket. I jumped uphill landing on my axe not knowing what was keeping him and potentially me from going over to the darkside; his butt on the edge of the crevasse, his probe tangled on his ski pole, or my axe. He managed to get back up on his feet and we both escaped yet another near-miss.

We put our skis back on and made a rapid and awkward exit. Skiing downhill roped together is not something I’ve done very often because it sucks and my partner was new to backcountry skiing and was much better going uphill than down. We "skied" towards what we knew was a safe spot but on the way we actually had to launch ourselves over two more small slots, all the while hoping neither of us would fall down while we were still tied into each other. I was still trying to figure out how I walked myself into the biggest gong-show of my climbing career. The whole ordeal took maybe an hour or two. From the time we ditched our skis on the way up to the time we felt safe again. The party of three had already been to the summit and were distant figures way down in the valley.

For some reason on this particular day all I could think about was avalanches and what I would have to do in order to avoid them. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Somehow I convinced myself that any decision I made to stay out of avalanche terrain was a good decision. This is not always the case. My partner and I critiqued our day, and we both agreed our decisions seemed like the right ones at the time but back down at the truck they seemed like textbook rookie mistakes. We deviated from the normal route because of the new snow on top of an ice layer, and evidence of slab failure on the way up. However, we neglected to analyze the "big picture" and see that our deviation took us further up a glacier and into a very large and wide bergschrund. We were guilty of looking at our boots and not the mountain.

A few months prior I took the ACC Winter Leadership course; we both recently completed the Level 2 Avalanche course, and had been out almost every other weekend. In fact we just took 3 days to complete a ski traverse that is usually done in 4 or 5 the weekend before. We were confident but not cocky and we pictured ourselves on top of Mount Hector as a great end to a great season.

While discussing our day back at the truck we both clued in on a few factors that were different on this particular day. We were both tired, more so than usual. We are so evenly matched with respect to fitness that we are never more than 10 steps apart on the approach, and we hardly stop for more than a swig of water and a rude joke or two. On this day we were sucking wind, and we both could see it in each other but we kept on going because we can be stubborn sometimes. I remember not knowing where I was twice - thinking that my compass was wrong. Once when we were trying to start our day and another time higher up when I looked at the map. I’m usually pretty good with that stuff. I also remember being dizzy a few times and we both commented on how yellow our urine was. Working long days, climbing every weekend, and juggling domestic responsibilities finally caught up to us. We were simply tapped of energy and really, really dehydrated. All this culminated in some excitment that we feel was caused by the following. First, we deviated from the standard route. There is a reason why it’s called the standard route, a really obvious good reason. Second, we were roped up for glacier travel but we were only thinking about avalanches. Just because there is a lot of snow doesn’t mean the crevasses magically disappear. Mountaineering hazards are always present, some more than others at different times but nonetheless they are always present and thirdly, being dehydrated. It is clinically proven that dehydration can lead to a loss of energy, a loss of balance, and subsequently poor decision making. Things we were both symptomatic of. What was most frustrating was we both knew better.

My buddies and I climb to get home; we are not afraid or embarrassed to turn around. In fact we joke that we should write an "approach" book because of the amount of times we do turn around. This day was different and we found ourselves "in the suck" and it was not cool.

In conclusion I don’t have anything profound to say that we don’t already know but with the summer season underway maybe reading this might prevent someone from making the same mistakes I did. Don’t ever think "that won’t happen to me" because sooner or later it will. Drink plenty of liquid (and not just beer). Get adequate rest. Listen to your body. If you can’t tell east from west, if you start to trip because you are dizzy, or if you’re whizzing stinky yellow turpentine it’s probably an indication to go back to the tent. If you don’t like the standard route, perhaps you should reconsider. Ruminate on terms like "the big picture", "situational awareness", and "perceptual narrowing" and how they apply to mountaineering. Ignorance is not bliss.

I’m embarrassed about what happened to me on Mount Hector, but I think someone said experience comes from bad judgement. I was almost not going to share this story for fear of ridicule but I thought maybe it’s for the best. I did however purposely exclude my partners name because if his wife found out what I got us into that day she might not let him climb with me anymore.