Half Way Down

The Descent:

 I hate rappelling, and though I was so happy to have reached the top,  I couldn't feel the total sense of accomplishment because I knew that the we still had to rappel.  I really hate rappelling, it is far more dangerous in my opinion than climbing.  For instance while you climb, you are always tied into the rope and there is for the most part more protection placed in the rock, and your hands and feet  grip the rock. Rappelling puts you at the mercy of a single anchor, and your gear that connects you to that anchor, there is the possibility of going off the end of the rope, it is possible to miss the next rap anchor, you are constantly tying in, and tying out of the rope increasing the chance of a mistake, rapping a big route is done after a long hard day, you are tired, and it is easy to make mistakes,  and daylight is typically failing (as was our case),  the dynamic rope feels like a long rubber band and you bounce around in a most unnerving manner, there is always the chance that as you pull your rope through the anchor above you, that it will get caught in a crack, forcing you to abandon it.  And as they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

I hate rappelling.

The first two raps went well.  The third rap... well we ran into a little trouble.  We had tied a knot at the end of each of the ropes, to help prevent us from going off the end.  As Grant rapped down the rope, on a down bounce the knot got wedged into a crack, and on the up bounce, the knot lodge itself... arg!  Grant was almost stuck midway down the rappel.  It took us an hour to fiddle around in the failing light and steady sleet with our  third rope, before the knot was free.  We had to be so careful that we didn't get ourselves into any bad situations "if I untie here, and I'm clipped here, and the rope here meets the next anchor, can I get the rope back, and will Mark be able to reach me..." well we just had to make sure that we knew exactly what we were doing, there was no room for error.  Obviously all I heard from  Grant 50 m below me was a long string of the profane...

We finished 7 raps down to the ledge.  By the time we reached the ledge, it was just about pitch black, we were wet and cold.  We decided to spend another night on the ledge.  We huddled in our sleeping bags under Grants tarp, eating leftover food, sipping carefully at the last of our water, listening to the rain.  It rained on and off throughout the night, and when it stopped raining, we would peek out from under the tarp and look around at the view.  The moon was visible occasionally, and besides gusts of wind, everything was dead quiet and still.

We started off down the face being very careful not to break our chain of safety. We both had two daisy chains that we would clip into the belays. We also tied knots in the end of the ropes as another precaution. When I had done this in the past I had had problems and these days I didn’t bother. Today however I was very tired and we thought the extra precaution was worth it. Not so!

The bloody knot got stuck in a crack through the roof.  I could still descend so I got to the next belay before I started working on the problem. It was really stuck and the rope was being held under tension. I couldn’t get my belay device off the rope!  I was starting to get frustrated - You miserable son of a perverted goat molesting … etc. etc. ( I was now really frustrated ). In the end it took my full wrath, my entire obscene vocabulary, the third rope (I’m glad we brought it) and about an hour to get the thing free! It was now dark and those clouds had sprung a leak. We were being slowly but surely soaked by wet sleet. Not much choice but to keep rappelling. We made it to the bivy ledge in silence and just started getting out the sleeping gear. No one needed to say anything. It was obvious we were staying on the ledge for a second night.

And it was not a comfortable one. We lay there in the wind and the inevitable happened sooner rather than later and it rained - quite hard. We huddled under the little tarp/ground sheet I had brought up in place of a bivy bag and neither of us got any sleep and neither of us was stupid enough to take the tarp off when the rain stopped - lest we invoke the rain gods again. They let us have it again anyway several times through the night. The morning however was clearer and we were still kicking.  It could have been a lot worse.

Back to Camp

Day 7 - August 22nd, 1997

The next morning we awoke to the gray sky, stretched our broken exhausted bodies, and prepared for the final set of raps.  We decided to launch the haul bag off the ledge.  It was quite the sight. We just pushed it over the edge of our ledge and watched it bounced twice before it disappeared.  A couple of seconds went by, and then we heard the bag hit the ground.  The sound echoed against the walls surrounding us.  I hoped that my sleeping bag was okay, and that the haul bag had in fact hit the ground.  It would be awful to have to climb up three pitches to retrieve our bag.

We ran into another problem.  On the third rap below the ledge we pulled our rap rope through the anchor and it got caught on a flake above us... about 15 m above us.  "Do you want to climb up to get it?", "no, do you?", "no".  So we cut it, and used our third rope for the remaining raps.

Oh Shit! Its stuck.

We had packed our gear and committed the haul bag to gravity before we started down the remaining rappels on the lower tower. We kept the climbing hardware on us in case things didn’t go as planned and set off down the face... 
Things didn’t go as planned! A few pitches down the face the rope failed to come down all the way when we pulled it free from the station above us. It was stuck behind a flake and no amount of pulling would free it. We didn’t spend long on the problem this time. Neither of us cared to lead up on the “maybe feasible” face and we were way to tired to be bothered with the $100 rope (it was the haul rope) We just cut the blighter, stashed the bits we had salvaged, unpacked the third rope again and kept going down. We got to the ground and sort of wandered around packing up our gear quietly. Both very happy to have done the climb and relieved to be back on relatively level ground.

The Ground

I didn't feel that I had finished the climb until my feet actually touched the ground.  After 50 hours on the wall, my feet returned to the earth.  It was a relief; to know that the climb was over, that there would be no more rapping, and that we had accomplished what we had set out to do.  The solid, beautiful, safe, flat ground! it never felt so good.

We stumbled back towards our camp.  At the first opportunity, we filled our water bottles with clear, cool, clean water that ran directly off the glacier.  We drank and drank to our hearts content and water never tasted so good.  Further down the trail, a stream runs over a sandy bed,  the banks green with tufts of grass, it just begs to be swam in.  I stripped naked and... well it was a bit too cold to swim in but I did take a quick dip and it felt good.

We arrived at our camp, and the first thing on our minds was FOOD! and we ate and it was good, and we spoke to the groundhog, and we told him of our adventures and it was good.  And the mountain marmot listened to our story, and it was good.  And the mosquitoes and mice and goats and caribou and fish, they all listened to our story as it unfurled from our lips.  The whole experience was too incredible for words, it seemed that we had accomplished something of biblical proportions, and it was good.  Religion had been on my mind because during our drive up to the Yukon, there were long stretches where the only radio stations that we could find were hard right Christian. 

We actually didn't talk to the animals, we were too busy eating.  Including the weight I lost due to dehydration, I was probably at least 10 lbs lighter, well whatever it was, my ribs were mighty visible. 

 The climb may have affected our personalities somewhat...at least in the short term!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing.

We sort of meandered back to camp over the next couple of hours with our heavy packs. We had lots of eating and drinking to do. We were each more or less in our own little worlds and we would have little bouts of conversation reliving bits of the climb and sharing our success and relief. We lay all the wet gear out to dry and did a lot of resting. We interrupted the resting with repeated feeding sessions. There were two new climbers in the other camp site and the Americans had headed down to Glacier Lake, having run out of food and I guess incentive to complete their “new project” somewhere up in the second cirque. We introduced our selves and the telling of tales began again, only this time we were the givers of knowledge and they were sucking up all the info’ we could give them as we had done less than a week before.

Recovery

Day 8 - August 23rd, 1997

It was an ugly day.   Grant and I decided to head back down to Glacier Lake.  We had left some extra food down there and Grant wanted to pick up his tripod.  We decided that we wouldn't be doing any more climbing in the cirque, so we could ferry all the climbing gear (ropes, harnesses, rack, etc.) down on this trip.  That would lighten our final load considerably.  The hike was uncomfortable,  my knee began to bother me again, and I was still tired from the climb.  Grant and I had decided that since we had completed the climb, we had earned the right to blubb as much as we liked.  I seized the opportunity.

Down at the lake, we met the three climbers from the US.  They were waiting for the plane.  They were completely out of food, and they had been at the lake for over 24 hours.  Needless to say, they were feeling a little hungry and bored.  They were really nice guys, and we sat with them on the beach for a good 2 hours.  We shared our extra food with them, and they brewed some coffee for us.  We also exchanged stories about the Tower climb.  It was so much fun to sit there and share stories.  We threw Grants disc (firsbee) around a bit, I got nailed in the head.  We told them to pass the message on to the pilot that we were to be picked up on the 26th after lunch.

It took us three hours to hike back up to our camp that afternoon. 

Day 9 to 12 - August 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th, 1997

The 24th and 25th were spent exploring other areas of the cirque, hiking up mountains, photographing the sights, reading, eating, sleeping and recovering.  We met another group of American climbers, they ended up finishing the climb in one day on the 25th I think.  It was a long day for them, 21 hours from bottom to top and down again.  They were a strong team.  We have some photos of them on the wall, I'll have to make sure that they get them. They too felt that the climb had pushed their limits.  I filled my spare time reading a Tom Robbins Book, "Skinny legs and all", good book.

The next day the weather was glum again but we got the energy together to do a load run back to the lake. We scuttled off down the tallus, no mean feat after the previous days exertions. The tallus was just as we remembered it and Mark did a saulto down near the bottom when a boulder moved on him and then threatened to squash him where he landed. Disaster was averted but I think the tallus field was probably the most dangerous part of the whole trip. We got to the lake and found the Americans still there and completely out of food. We gave them some of our spare food in return for tricks. Sit boy sit.

 Well not really but we did trade them for some great brews of coffee and then sat around chewing the fat again. The hike back up to the cirque took a bit over half as long as it did when we did the big haul on the first day. We were only carrying a bit of food and some camera gear. We also took a different line through the tallus and came across a great patch of ripe raspberries - there goes an hour.

We spent the next couple of days drifting around in the cirque taking photos and generally relaxing and enjoying this beautiful little meadow.

Early on the 26th, Grant and I packed up our camp and headed back down the valley towards Glacier Lake.  We arrived at the lake at noon and found to our surprise, four beers waiting for us in the shack courtesy of the pilot.  We expected the plane to arrive mid-afternoon. 

The sun set at about 9:30 PM that night and still no plane.  We unpacked our sleeping bags and our stove and our food, and had dinner.  We were wondering what had happened to our plane?  I slept a full 13 hours that night.  At 11 am on the 27th, I got out of my sleeping bag, and began building  a dam to divert the river that flowed outside the shack we had slept in.  It was so quiet, and so boring.  There was a fishing rod in the shack and that entertained me until I lost the lure.

But the plane did come that day.  At 2:00 PM on the 27th, about 24 hours late, we heard the buzz of the beavers engine.  They couldn't pick us up yesterday because they had engine trouble.  We loaded onto the plane.  Our pilot this time was Warren.  He is one of the joint owners of the hunting lodge we stopped at on the way in to Glacier Lake.  He had a friend with him called Sam.  We took off, the ground dropped away, and we had a new perspective on the area that had been our universe over the last week.  We flew out over glaciers, we took a bit of a detour  because Warren was giving his pal Sam a tour of the area.  I think Warren is a bit of a showoff, he did some pretty hair raising moves with his plane. We swooped over heather clad hills, and through steep valleys, we flew by a Caribou standing on the top of a hill, it had a huge rack of antlers on its head.  There were a couple of times that my stomach felt like it had moved up to my mouth.

Warren took us to Inconnu Lodge. We spend the rest of the day there, and a good portion of the next day.  It got a bit boring, but we weren't going to complain.  We ate excellent food, played pool, read some books, sat in the hot tub, took long showers, and generally lived it up a little.

Day 13 - 17 - August 28th to Sept. 1st, 1997

We were dropped off at Finlayson lake at about 3 PM, we loaded our gear into the car, and noticed that we had a flat tire!  but that was OK because we had a spare, one of those little shit tires that are hardly good enough for paved roads, let alone 250 km of dirt highway.  Well, it was another epic driving back to Watson Lake but we made it. 

We took our time going back to Vancouver.  We actually took a bit of a detour, and drove through Jasper and Lake Louise.  We even did another climb at castle Junction, it was a 10 pitch affair, but nowhere nearly as intense as the Lotus Flower Tower.  We arrived back in Vancouver on the 1st of September.

We packed up our stuff and headed off down to the lake two days ahead of schedule. It may have been nice to do some more climbing, but when we tried some bouldering we found we were exhausted in minutes. The LFT had taken more out of us than expected. We headed down the tallus for the last time past a mountain goat and her kid. We got down to the lake and expected the plane to roll up that afternoon, but the skies remained quiet until the next afternoon. There was however beer waiting for us at the lake and this made up for a lot. The flight out was a fun one with the pilot flying low over and around the local hills. The vegetation had really changed colour and it was all beautiful yellows and reds and browns. We had had the first frost just two nights ago up in Fairy meadows. We then over-nighted at the lodge and got cleaned up before we flew back to the car parked at the edge of the lake near the gravel road in the middle of nowhere. Fiasco 97 was coming to a successful conclusion, but I will carry the memory with me for the rest of my days. Thanks to a great partner - Mark - and the smiling Gods.

Now what shall I do for Fiasco 98??

Afterword

Afterword:

So there you have it, my little adventure in the wild Canadian north.  I had a great time and I will carry its memory with me for the rest of my days.  I have to thank Grant for organizing the trip, he looked after most of the logistics, and it was his idea in the first place. He is a great climbing partner too, and has a good sense of humour thank God.

Nothing I have ever done stirs my soul like a wilderness adventure.  I love these experiences, and I hope that I will continue to explore throughout my life.  Climbing, skiing, hiking, I love these activities because they take you to wild places and they give you a freedom to explore, free from crowded roads and airports, engines and gas stations.  When I explore wild areas, I am forced to rely on myself, I am forced to deal with situations and problems with the limited resources that I have with me and I push myself  to my physical and mental limits.  I love these challenges.

This trip to the North West Territories pushed my limits.   It was a challenging adventure that tested my backcountry and climbing skills.  It required as much strength as I have, it required all of my endurance, it took every ounce of my mental focus and concentration, but I got back what I put in.

Cost of the trip                               $1400 each

Duration of trip                              14 days

Driving distance                             about 5000Km round trip

Most over used expression:            Mon Dieux!

Most under used expression:          That was easier than expected!