29 JAN 2001
By Win Goodbody
The weather gods must have been in a good mood. Maybe they had a good New
Year's party. On previous trips to the Wind River Range I had grown
accustomed to spending large blocks of time in the tent, waiting for storm
after storm to subside. If one of every two days was suitable for venturing
outside, I considered it a bit of luck. But this time was different. In
the middle of January we enjoyed an amazing 18 consecutive days of good
weather for our 130-mile ski traverse of the Wind River Range.
The drive south toward Lander, Wyoming, revealed an alarming lack of snow, both in
the mountains and lower down where we hoped to start. This has not been a
good winter so far in the Yellowstone region. We wondered what
conditions would be like in the Wind River Range. Luckily, with the final gain
in elevation as we neared the Continental Divide and South Pass, there was enough coverage for us to ski away from the car with our daypacks and
70-pound sleds.
We started out with an approach of several days across lowlands — an
interesting way to ease into the trip. Instead of driving right up to the
base of the mountains, we had to work a little bit to get there. Even
though we were on open range with scattered trees, this was some of the
trickiest route finding we would encounter anywhere on the route.
Steep-sided drainages and mini-gorges suddenly appeared in the otherwise
mildly rolling terrain, requiring detours and delays.
"No more
holding frozen body parts over an open flame?"
For a few days, we thrashed across the prairie landscape, moving toward
distant peaks that didn't seem to be getting much closer. The 10 or 12
inches of snow on the ground were completely rotten, and our movement was
half skiing, half snowshoeing. Each step sank to the ground; ski tips
snagged in the exposed sagebrush. When we came upon a perfectly groomed but
empty Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail, we took advantage of it to
quickly reach the Little Sandy drainage, our entrance to the mountains.
By now we were settling into our routines: relearning winter camping skills,
dividing repetitive tasks, and adjusting to the cold. With only about 11
hours of daylight, our schedule was remarkably busy. It was a struggle to
get moving by 10 o'clock each morning even though we got up at 7am. Lunchtime arrived
immediately. Just as quickly, the sun dipped behind a peak, and it was time
to make camp.
After eating dinner, we scurried into our down bags for a 12-hour sleep. The days flew by, and we focused on putting miles beneath the
sleds while the good weather lasted, not knowing it would last indefinitely.
We were comfortable, but every waking moment was occupied and there was no
time for relaxing. We seemed to be always on the move.
The price to be paid for clear, sunny days is clear, cold nights. About a
week into our journey through the Winds, when we were up above 10,000 feet nearly all the time,
we had our first taste of real cold.
It was the night we camped in the
Cirque of the Towers, and we were in our floorless cook tent. We had
excavated a basement a few feet down to the ice of Lonesome Lake. Except
for the entrance way, all the sides of the tent were flush with the snow
surface. With both stoves going, it was pleasantly warm inside.
After dinner as we sat reading, I sensed some sort of change. Searing cold air was draining into the tent and spilling
across the floor like a poisonous gas. You could feel it cooling your face,
getting inside your clothes, turning your water bottle into a frozen brick.
I imagined my candle snuffing out, refusing to burn at such an obscene
temperature. I went outside to check my keychain thermometer under a sky
of blazing stars. The cheap gadget was maxed out; it was at least -25°F.
The cold was like a deafening air raid siren. There was no escaping it.
"The defining characteristic of a death
march is probably that you never intend to get into one to begin with..."
That same cold stayed with us most nights and mornings for the next eight
or nine days. In the evening before going to bed, I would check the
thermometer. All the red fluid was huddled in the ball at the bottom, too
scared to try for a run up toward the numbers. It was the same every
morning. The daily temperature swings were tremendous. We would go from
-25°F (or lower) to 20°F in a matter of hours in the morning. The warm
midday sun was always a relief, but it didn't last. Our joy at being able
to ski along in just a shirt was tempered by the knowledge that, soon enough, we would be
wearing every layer of clothing we possessed. In the evenings, as soon as
the sun went down, the temperature headed south with merciless speed.
Deep cold is to the sense of touch what the Grand Teton or Old Faithful or a
radiant sunrise are to the sense of sight. It is truly an amazing natural
phenomenon to be reckoned with. We marveled at it again and again, this
thing you cannot see or hear or smell. It is both beautiful and horrifying—
an undeniably authentic experience that leaves an imprint on your memory.
As the days went by, we became students of this strange, invisible force.
But of course we still got cold every day.
Our good weather continued, and we knocked off high pass after high pass on
our voyage north. Some days we even crossed two passes and multiple
drainages. For mid-winter, we were really moving fast. With so little snow
on the ground, at least we were not delayed by having to worry about
avalanches. Without consciously deciding to do so, we were in fact
traveling harder during the day, stopping later each night, and spending
less time readying a good camp. More and more we were going flat out all
day and then just collapsing at night to wake the next morning and do it
again.
"I wasn't asking, I was telling. As selfish as
that may be, I couldn't go on."
Our traverse was developing all the classic symptoms of what I
have come to know as a death march. Though a death march typically occurs
at the end of a tour when the desire to exit is so strong it can make you go
all day or all night without thinking of the consequences, a death march can
also occur at any time during a trip. For example, if you discover you
haven't brought enough food, you might need to go full bore for days on end.
Or maybe you hear a storm is coming and decide to turn on the after burner
to reach a safe haven.
The defining characteristic of a death
march is probably that you never intend to get into one to begin with. But there
comes a point when you step back for a minute, examine the evidence of your
daily life, and it suddenly dawns on you that a death march is in full swing
and you are powerless to stop it. The horror! The horror!
At the outset of our first leg, we put in good days because we wanted to
get up into the high peaks where the real trip would begin. Once we were
there, we wanted to put in good days while the weather lasted, to make
some progress before the inevitable endless blizzard that would surely
descend. After we had been going about 10 days and did some math based on
the miles we had covered and what still laid ahead, we realized that we would
not have time to exit as we had originally planned.
In fact, even after
cutting off some substantial passes and distance, it was still going to be
all we could do to make it out in the time allotted. So we decided to put
in more long days. We always had a reason for not resting, for going hard
day after day. One night, while thawing my foot out over the stove, I
realized we were not going to have a single rest day. We were going for it.
We had gotten sucked in. We were on a death march.
The long days alone would have been manageable, but we had a growing problem
that was interfering with our ability to recover and rest each night. Our
sleeping bags were filling with ice, which impaired their ability to loft
and hence insulate us. This is a common problem in extreme cold. As you
sleep, you radiate moisture and heat. The moisture passes through your
sleeping bag and escapes into the air.
"We silently gazed 10 miles down a classic, deeply carved, thickly
forested valley wedged between impassable rocks walls..."
When it is very cold, however, the temperature difference between the air
inside your bag and the air outside is too great for moisture to pass
through the bag's outer skin. As moisture goes to move that last millimeter
from the comfortable 70°F temperature inside the bag to the outside air, it
gets walloped with a 100-degree temperature difference (let's say it's -30°F
outside). Instead of escaping, the moisture freezes on the inside of the bag's
outer shell. This problem seems to be worse with high tech laminate
materials designed to impede the flow of moisture (usually rain) into the
bag from the outside.
This is a cumulative condition and gets worse each day as another night's
moisture is added to what is already frozen in the bag. Unless the bag is
thawed out and dried, there is no solution, and you will reach a point where
all insulating qualities have been lost and you are better off just sleeping
on your insulated pad in your clothes. We had already taken to wearing most
of our clothes inside our sleeping bags, and this just barely worked.
Still, more and more of each night was spent tossing and desperately
huddling into some new contorted position in an attempt to avoid feeling the
hideous cold of another clear night.
As light at the end of the tunnel appeared, our daytime efforts reached a
fever pitch. Day 12, 8.5 miles. Day 13, 9 miles. Day 14, 7 miles. Day
15, 9.5 miles. And these were by no means easy, flat miles. They were
trail-breaking miles up and down passes, all above 10,000 feet. Reaching the
entrance to Titcomb Basin, we veered northwest toward the origin of the
Green River at Peak Lake. Originally we had planned to go north from
Titcomb past Gannett Peak as far as Downs Mountain, the last peak above
13,000 feet in the Winds, before falling off to the west down Roaring Fork,
eventually reaching the Green River drainage. But because of time, low
snow, and a desire to live, we had altered our course to head directly down
the Green.
Going over the top at Cube Rock Pass, we caught a glimpse thousands of feet
down the Green River drainage. The end was near, but we were still looking
at another two days to get to the Green River Lakes campground, where we hoped
to solicit a snowmobile ride for the remaining 20 miles to our car in Cora.
"As I grew weaker, Joe
became unstoppable. He was increasingly pulling the boat over the final
days, and I was happy to let him."
The view down the upper Green as it plummets from near Peak Lake is
shocking. We silently gazed 10 miles down a classic, deeply carved, thickly
forested valley wedged between impassable rocks walls. Toward their
northern end, the Winds turn into a series of high, broad plateaus above
11,000 feet. The chief difficulty exiting is finding some way down.
Many of the drainages that cut this plateau are gorges, sheer cliffs, or
other features unfriendly to ski tourers with sleds. As we had changed our
exit route, we had not gone all the way north to the real plateaus. But
even here getting down was going to take some doing.
Day 16 was the first time we allowed that most cruel of thoughts to enter
our minds: perhaps this was the day we would get out. Eating pizza in
Jackson tonight? Sleeping indoors, not encased in an ice tomb? No more
holding frozen body parts over an open flame? Perhaps.
We slowly suffered
up Vista Pass, where the summer trail leaves the Green River for about eight
miles and descends a neighboring creek. I had gotten into the habit over the
last few days of proclaiming that some feature or other was "really going to
be the last uphill." Usually as soon as this sentence hit the air we would
round a corner to glimpse another uphill ahead. But I was undeterred by
past failed prophecies and once again suggested to Joe that "this is it."
He said nothing.
Whereas, early in the trip, I felt strong and had been happy to break trail
for hours at a time, the death march and lack of sleep had taken their toll
and the wheels were coming off. I had no enthusiasm for leading. I felt
like the walking dead and just wanted to follow, my eyes locked on a track
in front of me, legs trudging on automatic pilot. But as I grew weaker, Joe
became unstoppable. He was increasingly pulling the boat over the final
days, and I was happy to let him. Especially going downhill though tricky,
steep sections, he raced far ahead.
Perhaps it was a desire to escape my
singing that drove him forward. I sang many pop songs, past and present,
but refused to sing Neil Diamond, Joe's favorite artiste. As this disputed
issue festered, Joe seemed eager to put more and more distance between the
two of us.
As it turns out, Vista Pass really was the last uphill, and now it was time
to go down. After a few hours of easy traversing, we lost the trail and
decided to descend a steeply falling stream choked with enormous boulders.
Seemed like a good idea at the time I guess.
Joe was in front, skiing
straight downstream and stopping only for the most absurd drops. He was
soon out of sight. Following his track was a bit of an eye opener. It felt
like the cartoon where you come upon a set of ski tracks that split around a
tree. In leather boots and telemark bindings with a large sled, Joe was
sticking four- and five-foot drops. I stared in disbelief at the smooth sled track
that went over the top of a boulder, then straight down for a few feet, then
continued on. I had more solid AT gear, but there was no way I was doing
that. I was sure I'd break a ski.
"I would fall downhill over my
skis, planting my face in the stream bed. The sled then crashed on
top of me."
Later, Joe confided that the way he'd been able to descend these boulders
was to surf down sloughs of snow. As he went over the tops of rocks, snow
would slide off and cushion his descent and landing. But as the second guy
down the course, I enjoyed none of this extra padding. It was all gone.
Instead of using the Hartney-straightline method, I tried sidestepping down
from the top of the boulder and turning my skis perpendicular to the fall line
that my sled wanted so desperately to follow at great speed.
It didn't work too well. Shorn of most of their snow, the boulders, it
turned out, were covered with glare ice. Again and again, I would be just
about to take the final step down when my skis would slip. I would fall downhill over my
skis, planting my face in the stream bed. The sled then crashed on
top of me. I struggled to release skis and waist belts. Once I had to get
out my shovel and dig to find a pole that went astray in a particularly
juicy fall. To make matters worse, I was getting wet from these repeated
snow baths.
Sometime during this carefree afternoon, I looked down and noticed a grave problem
where the solid metal tow bars of my sled connected to the plastic hull. The connection points were tearing away from the
body and threatened to come off altogether. If that happened, I
would be reduced to fashioning a rope and stick contraption to bind the sled
to my body. I shuddered to think what such a caveman-era contraption might
do to our progress. I tried not to face plant as often on the rest of my
stream run.
At last, the track I was following left the creek, and I thrashed down into
dense woods where I found Joe looking at the map and having a snack. It
looked like he'd been there for quite a while. I waited for some sign from
him that maybe the creek had been kind of tough. Nothing. I acted
nonchalant: "That was fun."
"Yeah," Joe said.
"I broke my sled, it looks
like," I countered.
"Oh really?"
"Another key characteristic of the death march is
that one person wants to do it and the other really doesn't but just goes
along with it."
Finally, I had to ask. "Did you fall at
all back there?"
"What?"
He was looking at the map. "Oh, no. I did have
to slow down at one point though."
Here I'd spent the last hour egg
beatering down the creek like someone just introduced to skis. And Joe had
to slow down once on his downhill bombing run. The poor kid.
Needless to say, we didn't make it out that day. But we did make it to the
valley floor. Flat ground at last! Now I could claim that there would be
no more uphill or downhill. But all was not yet goodness and light, and we
soon found ourselves wallowing in some of the worst snow imaginable. Deeper
than the snow we had battled through at South Pass, it exhibited the same
general characteristics. Deeply rotten and unsupportable, yet dense and
heavy, it was nearly impossible to move through. We were snowshoeing again,
pulling our ski tips out of the snow at each step and stepping on the
surface, only to sink down a foot. Pure hell.
I decided to make a quick sightseeing trip to the other side
of the Green River to spice up what promised to be hours, and possibly days, of battling
our way out. After plunging through the ice and almost losing a ski
in the swift flowing current, I came back across and started sloshing along. I resolved to stay on the trail from now on. My skins
were now coated with ice which removed any possibility of sliding on them.
Oh well. That night we made a fire and fed it with prehistoric glee, which
somewhat warmed our outlook and dried my boots. But we still weren't out yet.
Day 17: Joe and I don't need to verbalize this, but it's just sort of
understood that there is absolutely no way we are not making it out today.
Not a chance of not getting out today. Nope. I mean zero chance.
We even got
up in the dark for an early start to ensure that no matter what the day threw at us (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteors, etc.) we were still
making it out. As I fled out of my ice bag, I noticed it was only -10°F down here in
the sultry valley.
Even though he broke trail most of yesterday, Joe is out in front again.
The snow is worse than ever. Somehow, even with a trail to follow, I can't
really keep up. I occupy myself with bitter, frivolous "at least
we're not getting attacked by a moose" kind of thoughts. I look around for
some small forest creature to curse at. Anything to divert attention from
the pain in my feet and legs. Damn pikas. Bloody chipmunks. But there's
nothing around. Staggering along, I feel almost like a third party to our
plight, like I'm watching it on TV. Tra la la. This is pretty fun, I lied
to myself.
But our suffering paid off. We came upon a lake. Could this be Green River
Lakes? We consulted the map. Surely, there must be some mistake. I waited for
Joe to inform me that we'd made a wrong turn and were actually in northern
British Columbia, hundreds of miles from the nearest road. But no. As if a
light had descended from parted clouds to our feet, the lake was
there like a highway. Trumpets sounded, angels fluttered above,
motioning us forward.
"I imagined the snowmobilers' responses: "You skied 130 miles from
where? Good lord, son, you get on this machine and we're going back to my
place for a full blown steak dinner right now."
Not only did trailbreaking become easier, we now had
certifiable proof that we were only four miles from Green River Lakes
campground, a snowmobiling mecca.
It was only about 1pm and clear and sunny.
Surely there would be hundreds of people out on a day like this, even if it
was a Tuesday. We had visions of having to fight back hordes of attractive
female snow machiners, all clamoring to be the ones who would give us a ride
back to Cora, 20 miles distant. We would probably need flak jackets.
We picked up the pace. Or rather, Joe picked up the pace. Apparently he thought
he might still have a good chance of competing in some nordic events in the
2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, because he was going down the lake like a rocket.
He wasn't even going in a straight line. He was swerving all over the place,
going like a madman for the finish line. He didn't care because WE WERE
GETTING OUT TODAY!
One thing I did have going for me was that I could plot a
straight course for the point where we would exit the first lake, so I regained
some time. We crossed the first lake. There were ski tracks in the snow.
Humans! At the second lake, where the wilderness boundary ends, I was about
as happy as I have ever been to see snowmobile tracks all over the place.
But strangely, ominously, there were no machines.
At 3pm we arrived at the campground. Snowmobile tracks were everywhere. It was just
a matter of time, I told myself. They'll be here.
We reached the far end of
the campground where the road heads off for Cora and to do some gear
rearranging, readying ourselves for that magic ride. We scattered things all
over the road, effectively blockading it. Nobody was getting by here without
picking us up. The sun was still shining and it was downright warm. As a
little joke, I took my sleeping bag out and set it on a tarp to begin the
drying process which, I imagined, would really kick into gear in about three
hours back in Joe's living room in Jackson. It was just a bit of fun putting the bag out like this. I mean, it wasn't like we were going to need the thing that night.
Total silence. Wonder where they are, these 'bilers?
Must be a local
tradition to stop at this time each afternoon for a moment of silence or
something. We started getting a little upset, almost indignant. Don't these
people know how to have fun? Where are they? A day this beautiful and no
riders out on their machines? Where was everyone? Off cross-country skiing
or something? Sun's going down now. For god's sake WHERE ARE THEY?!
And then, just as faint as the sound of a mosquito, we heard it — a little
buzz. Was that the wind? No, I heard it. Could it be a ... plane?
Buzz. Buzz. Buzzzzzzz. No sound could have been more soothing, more friendly,
more welcome at that moment than this: the sound of not one, but several two-
stroke engines heading our way.
We finally cracked. Screams, high fives, arms raised. Hysteria, release. We
knew it! We knew we'd make it out tonight! Victory was ours! We were going
to live! After a minute or two, I realized that maybe if I stopped shouting and
set about repacking the crap I'd strewn all over the road, we'd look a
little more appealing. A little more like someone these gracious, heroic,
good-natured 'bilers would want to pick up. I lowered my arms, wiped the tears
off my face, and started jamming the ice bag back into its stuff sack.
"These were my people! I was determined to try snowmobiling as
soon as possible. Maybe even convert. Screw this skiing stuff. I want
horsepower!"
We started cleaning up. In an instant, we were already mentally back in
Jackson. Back in town. Back indoors. As if transported by a futuristic
machine, we were no longer at a remote trailhead 20 miles away from a town of
maybe 200 people in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming. We were home. We were
warm. We were about to have dinner. Joe was in the shower. I was checking my
email. Beam me up, Scotty.
For some reason, the 'bilers (there were four of them) stopped almost a mile
short of our little shanty town and turned off their machines. Now
that didn't look good. The sun had just gone behind a peak, and in about
15 minutes, the temperature will go into free fall. We can't imagine why
anyone would come the 20 miles out here and not go all the way to the lake,
which was on the other side of us. They were probably playing a game of
rock-paper-scissors to decide who would be the lucky two to host us on the
ride back, but we sure were not taking any chances.
Maybe they just hadn't
seen us. Before I could suggest that he'd probably enjoy some brisk skiing
after such a slack 17 days, Joe stripped off his skins and skated
down the road toward our motorized friends to make sure all was well with,
uh, you know, the pickup and the ride back and everything.
I got out my telephoto lens to watch and maybe document this historic
meeting. I was sure that as soon as he got the A.O.K. I'd be hearing a lot of
noise from Joe. I imagined the snowmobilers' responses: "You skied 130 miles from
where? Good lord, son, you get on this machine and we're going back to my
place for a full-blown steak dinner right now. Here, I'll just call ahead
and get that in the works."
"Now wait just a minute there, Bill. Who said
we're going to your place? We're having it at my house."
"Jimmy, over my
dead body. We're going to my house and we're having a dinner and dance, and
then we're taking them to Vegas for a week. And if anyone else tries to
contribute one penny to the expense, there's going to be a fight. It's all
on me."
"Sorry, Bobby, but it's just not going to be like that at all.
We're going to my place, we're eating for two days, and then I'm taking them
to meet the governor before we head to Acapulco for a week. And I'll be
damned if my two daughters aren't coming with us."
I started to get a warm
fuzzy feeling. These were my people! I was determined to try snowmobiling as
soon as possible. Maybe even convert. Screw this skiing stuff. I want
horsepower! I started singing as I packed up my sled.
The first sign of trouble was when the four riders started their machines and
set off toward me, but Joe remained standing in place like a fence
post. He wasn't moving at all. I figured he was just so bowled over by all the
outlandish offers of hospitality we'd received that he was wondering how
we were going to be able to make it out of Cora in less than a week. What
with all the parades, barbecues, snowmobiling with the mayor, square dances,
and motivational talks at the high school, we might have to push back the next
leg of our Yellowstone traverse by at least a few days. Here came the
'bilers. Joe was still doing his frozen-in-place routine. This did not
look good.
I reluctantly cleared a path to let the four riders through our barricade.
Well, they might get to the lake, I thought, but they wouldn't get out. The
most worrisome thing was that they did not stop to talk to me, and only one
even waved. No eye contact at all. That's alright, I thought. Out of
consideration for us, they hurried as fast as they could to get a glimpse
of the lake, then they would zip back and get us. We'd talk back
at their place. They just didn't want us to spend a single additional minute
outside. How kind of them. That's why they didn't stop.
Then it hit me. The music stops, the needle goes screeching across the
record. We were in trouble here. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
This was just not how people who were about to bring us home to feast with
their extended family should be acting.
Joe was moving now at least. He took his skis off and walked back toward me at a very slow speed. I
shouted to him, "Well?"
No response.
"Joe?" "JOE!" I repeatedly shouted at
him as he approached within 100 yards. He wasn't answering. God, this looks
bad!
I instantly readjusted my internal fun meter from being back in Jackson
watching TV to DEFCON 5. I'd been yanked out of the shower, and I was at the
North Pole after just having been given the news that the pickup flight is not
coming, and we have to make the 1400-mile trek home by dog sled. And we don't
have any sled dogs, so we'll be using marmots instead. It was pretty clear we
were not getting a ride back with the boys.
Joe confirmed this with very few words when he arrived. The party consisted
of a Wyoming guide and three clients from Michigan. The guide mumbled some
bologna about how he could lose his license if anyone saw him giving us a
ride. Joe kind of tried to laugh this one off at first but then realized
the guy was serious. He did not want to help us, who knows why.
This
outcome was so unexpected and so incomprehensible to us that we just sat
there at first. It was like a truck coming across someone in the Sahara
Desert. "Sorry, I'd love to pick you up, but you might put your feet on the
dash and smudge the leather." Would any skier coming across a broken down
snowmobiler 20 miles from the road refuse to help, refuse to lend a hand in
any way? We couldn't fathom this. Where was the backcountry fellowship,
the shared camaraderie of a couple of hearty souls out in Wyoming's
wildness? Where was the love? Sorry. It wasn't there this time. We were
crushed.
The previously valiant ambassadors of world peace and brotherhood, now
hateful, bubble-headed practitioners of an idiotic, environmentally damaging
sport, came roaring back from the lake on their gas pigs. I stared at them
menacingly. They did not stop. Good thing for them. We spent 20 minutes
on tirades and diatribes best not recalled in print, and then we got out our
pathetic list of options. We had already gone about 10 miles that day. I
don't know about Joe, but after 17 straight days of going for it, I was a
mess.
It was 4pm. Another 20 miles separated us from the car and
salvation. We could either camp and continue in the morning, or keep going
a little further until dark. Or, of course, we could commit to the grand
finale death march.
We decided on the death march. We would eat dinner, pack it up, and go
until we got to the car. Just another 20 miles. It wouldn't be so bad. A
rational person might have pointed out that we were looking at a 30 mile day
(and night), but our thinking was not exactly sharp as a laser.
From step
one, I knew it was a mistake for me, but Joe definitely had the fire for
getting out. We set off at nearly full speed with evening coming on and
rich alpenglow coating all peaks in sight. Every step hurt. Every minute I
wanted to stop. I lasted about an hour before seriously considering
stopping for the night. Another key characteristic of the death march is
that one person wants to do it and the other really doesn't but just goes
along with it. It was clear who was in which role. This was sort of a new
experience for me, for I usually played the guy trying to get the other to
keep going. Not this time. I knew Joe was not going to be happy when he
heard I wanted to stop.
"Darkness. Temperature down to a cheery -10°F — real heat wave here in the
shadow of the Wind River Range."
For a seeming eternity I heard myself mouthing the words, "I think we should
stop." But I held on. Just another step. Take another step and see how it
felt. It felt bad. My feet were on fire. My legs were slightly numb down
the sides. I was hobbling. I felt about as comfortable on skis as Woody
Allen. But the worst thing was that we had no way to measure our progress.
We did not recognize the route, could not assess how much farther, had no
landmarks. It could be another hour or another 10. I had myself convinced
we could ski four miles an hour. By that math, we should be able to reach
Cora in time for last call. Or at least in time to round up an angry mob of
torch-bearing villagers to go hunt down the four 'bilers who were guilty of
crimes against humanity and would pay!
Darkness. Temperature down to a cheery -10°F — real heat wave here in the
shadow of the Wind River Range. It was another clear, windless night on the
range as we slowly, painfully made our way out of the mountains. The ice-hard road crunched under our skis, dead silence otherwise. At last, the
psychological brutality of simply not knowing how much longer this would take broke me. Two-and-a-half hours into the death march, even though I had convinced myself we must
be halfway, I mouthed the words. I wasn't asking, I was telling. As selfish as
that may be, I couldn't go on. I knew Joe was severely displeased, but he
agreed silently, and we stopped to set up the tent. In 10 minutes we were
huddling in the ice bags, praying for warmth.
Looking back, I was amazed we survived as long as we did on the trip with our
sleeping bags, considering the state they were in. Usually, the bag was a safehouse, a place to go when all else went wrong, a place to retreat to. But
in our case, it was the opposite.
Because the weather was so perfect, the
days were our sanctuary. In the sunlight, we could recover from our torment in the
bags and get warm again. Had it not been for the perfect weather, we could
not have lasted, but we managed to just barely hang on and tolerate our
sleeping bags as they became of less and less use each day.
Until they were of no use whatsoever. Inside the tent, we were both
thrashing around fully clothed in our bags. I put on my down jacket inside
the bag for the first time. Luckily, we both had down pants which we had
been wearing to sleep for more than a week. The bags were doing more harm
than good at this point, but the thought didn't occur to us to try sleeping
without them. It was obvious that neither one of us was asleep or headed
anywhere remotely near sleep. For the first time on the trip, I was not
satisfactorily warm at night. I would survive, but it was not going to be
comfortable. Maybe we would have been better off going for the car. I couldn't face that
unknown time frame. Another two-and-a-half hours? More? I realized we were looking at a
sleepless night: nine hours of waiting for the sun to come back around.
After an hour, Joe announced he couldn't sleep and wanted to keep going. He was
wet and cold and getting worse in the ice bag. We talked about it and decided
he would go for the car and I would stay the night, continuing at first light.
The thought of getting out of the bag, cold as it was, putting on frozen
boots, hitching up the sled and continuing almost made me want to get
physically ill. But Joe still had something left. He departed at 9pm, back
out into the cold, clear Wyoming night.
I drifted in and out of sleep. I actually did attain some warmth, but somehow
I was also getting wet. Must have slipped off my pad. Didn't care. I was
cramped and crippled, a few limbs needed blood, but rolling over acted like a
huge vacuum that took away any heat I had, so I lied still. My watch said
3am when I checked it. Only another few hours and I would be on my way. I even
considered getting up right then and continuing, but I didn't. I though of Joe and
the brutal death march he must have faced, or might still be facing. Hope
he made it. I drifted off again.
At 4:30am, I heard a noise that sounded like an engine. It was not high pitched enough to be a snowmobile.
Sounded like... a car! In the space of one minute, I
went from sleeping to wide awake and out of the ice bag. I knew exactly
what had happened, and I was ecstatic. It was Joe! He had driven the car back
down the snowmobile trail to get me! Bugles sounded and the cavalry
thundered over the hill. Flags were all around. No time was spent wondering
exactly how Joe got the car here. Before he had it turned around, I was out
of the tent and furiously packing my sled.
We had the tent down and my gear in the car in under five minutes. I slipped
into the passenger seat and wanted to cry when I
felt the heat blast from inside. Joe must have had the heater on high for hours.
We headed off with music playing and Joe handed me a glazed doughnut. The
contrast was too stark. It couldn't be real. I kept waiting to wake up in
northern Iceland with the tent blown to shreds and our bags frozen hard as
coffins. But I was awake, and we were homeward bound at last.
Joe happily related his tale like he was telling me who won the Super Bowl,
and I looked for a bullet to bite down on to stop my screams. He left the
tent to resume the death march at 9pm. We figured we were half way, so he
was looking at another two or three hours at most. More than five hours
after leaving the tent, close to 2:30am, Joe reached the car. It started.
Just the thought of going that long, not knowing whether it might have been
another five hours, was too much for me to consider. Suddenly all my past
death march experiences were transformed into happy jaunts in the country
with birds chirping in comparison with Joe's saga.
After starting the car, Joe made for a local convenience store to stock up
on junk food and coffee, then returned to the trailhead. At Green River
Lakes we had joked how the snowmobile trail was hard enough to drive on.
Noticing there was no gate between the parking lot and trail, Joe eased his
Ford Escort up onto the trail. The car didn't sink in at all. He kept
going and was soon whizzing down the trail. "So how far was it from the
tent to the car? Did you measure?" I asked. Twelve miles.
With the heater on full, the early morning of our 18th day started to show
itself in the rosy eastern sky. We pointed the car toward a breakfast of eggs,
bacon, and pancakes. We had gotten away with murder and we knew it. Never
in our wildest dreams could we have hoped for such good weather. We had
done nothing to deserve it. But with this unprecedented window thrown open
to us, we had breached the Wind River Range's defenses and squeaked through, in January.
Joe popped in a Neil Diamond tape and started singing along. I had some
things to learn from this guy.
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