Spring Catch and Release Part 1

I said goodbye to mining this fall and took off on a bit of ab alpine climbing bender.  April 1st I flew up to Anchorage to meet up with Sam Johnson.  With the help of the Mugs Stump Award we intended to climb the East face of Mt. Hayes.  Unusual weather kept us in town for more than a week.  When the weather finally did break a severe cold front moved in.  Ignoring the minus sixty degree ambient summit temps we flew out to the Trident glacier with Rob Wing out of Fairbanks.

It was cold.  Extremely cold.  Cold enough that our naked approach to climbing this peak became unacceptable.  We spent a night talking in the tent and decided that the risk to our extremities was too great for our chosen style.  The next morning, as is usually the case, we took one look at our overloaded bags and decided we could do without a few toes as long as we didn't have to climb with those monsters on our backs.  Our efforts were stymied by a huge overhanging-unconsolidated bergschrund.  We tried, in vain, to cross it for a couple of hours before giving up.

Our time was almost up.  I had been fighting a chest cold for a few days and I was losing the battle.  I spent the whole night awake coughing.  The next morning sucked.  I felt like crap, Sammy was anxious so with my blessing and support he took off to solo a route on a neighboring face.  Watching him fly up the 7000ft face made me extremely jealous.  I was happy for him, but realistically I felt like shit and just wanted to go climbing and was super jealous.

Sam made great time.  My good-for-nothing ass just sat in the sunshine watching him consume vertical all day.  Then night fell and temps dropped.  Hours flew off the clock and I couldn't see Sam. Midnight passed, the stars were out and I couldn't spot his headlamp.  He was doing the East ridge descent onsight, alone and night.  All the horrible scenarios that I'm sure my parents usually have running through their heads when I am in the mountains were running through mine.  Was he in trouble?   Should I go find him?  If I don't go looking for him now, and he doesn't appear in the morning, is this going to be the moment I go back to when I realize I abandoned my friend?  It sucked.  Then his headlamp appeared.  He was moving slow.  Way too slow.  I threw a hot drink in my backpack and took off after him.  I'd be lieing if I said I wasn't a bit freaked. That is until I saw him.  Turns our the ground he was on was decievingly technical.  He had his usual ear to ear grin and all my worries subsided.

Sam's ascent was amazing.  He soloed a 7000ftish face round trip in something like 18 hours, onsighting a gnarly crevassed descent alone and at night.  Sam is finishing up his Phd this summer and is kinda out for the bigger trips for a bit.  I hope that ascent carries him through until we can tie in together again.