*When things go wrong in the mountains*

Hi guys, did you miss me? It’s been a while 😊

I have still been getting out but mostly for roped rock/ice climbing or lowish gain 13ers. I had major IT band flare ups in both of my knees, so that kept me sidelined for a while. Happy to say that I am doing much better after a summer of physical therapy and dedicated knee strengthening exercises. I am feeling like I’m finally getting back to normal again, so I hope to have a good season next year!

I have been wanting to share this story for many years now, and a final project for a college creative writing class presents the perfect opportunity! I needed to write a story to submit for publication, and what better venue than 14ers.com? Today I will be sharing a rather intense story that happened when I was 18 years old. Photos at the bottom. Enjoy!

The year was 2013. It was my first full season of 14er bagging. I was coming off a successful Decalibron loop mission in poor weather and decided to post about my day on the 14er FB group. A man who was unfamiliar to me reached out via DM and told me that he had also finished the four that day. Hundreds of people turned around and there were only four of us who summited each peak. He congratulated me and then informed me that he was planning to make a run at Capitol Peak and asked if I had wanted to join. I didn’t even know about Capitol when he messaged me. I had 8 14ers to my name at the time but still agreed to join. I may have been new to the alpine game but was in great shape and had ample scrambling experience from scaling the rocky crags around Canon City which is where I lived at the time. I had also completed Pyramid Peak, which was rated at similar difficulty. Why not, right? Little did I know, I would be signing up for what would become one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

The man whom I will only refer to as “D” for anonymity met me at the park n’ ride in Aspen. I noticed that he was probably about 50, and not in good shape. He seemed fairly experienced, so it did not bother me. We rode up in his vehicle and did not arrive at the trailhead until 9pm. As we were getting our bags together, we noticed that there was a thunderstorm punishing a nearby basin. It was an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come. We began our hike in, making slow time. This was before I realized that people brought water filters for overnight missions, so I was hauling 14 water bottles up the mountain in addition to my overnight gear. Oh, the difference that a 20-dollar sawyer filter can make…

We were trudging up the trail when suddenly, I heard D yell out “What is that?!”. I stopped in my tracks thinking that he may have seen a bear. We both began assessing our surroundings, when D noticed a black object in front of us and bulldozed me over trying to get out of the way. I scrambled to my feet thinking that we may be in the middle of a bear attack and quickly realized what was actually happening. The terrifying black object that made D knock me over like a defensive end was in fact, a cow. Yes, a cow. You know, those docile creatures that eat hay and go “Moo”. -_- No matter. I just hope that he is prepared for tomorrow. Our challenges would only become greater as we progressed.

We finally reached our base camp location well after midnight. We quickly threw together our rudimentary camping set ups in preparation for our morning that we knew would come much sooner than we would have liked. Before entering into our tents, we took a moment to appreciate the luminous starry sky that loomed over our heads. The Milky Way was on full display. The celestial bodies lit up the sky in dazzling fashion. I had never seen anything like it before. The moment was truly serene. I was hoping that the next day would be filled with similar experiences, but that would not be the case. The time of serenity had came and went. The time of war was now upon us.

The morning alarms came after just a few hours of rest. My dreams did not allow for peaceful sleep either. The anxiety that I was feeling permeated into them and allowed them to taunt me all night. Funny how dreams can make us suffer twice. We began to hike up the saddle that separates Daly and Capitol. The morning seemed tranquil enough, maybe things were going to go our way after all. I was hiking a bit ahead of D and began to see cairns shooting off to my right towards Capitol. That’s the direction that we needed to head, so I followed them. The cairns did not go up the ridge proper but instead led me on a very reasonable line that circumvented the elevation loss and regain associated with the boulder field. My line took me across the cliffs about one or two hundred feet below the ridge proper. There were some very exposed sections, but the difficulty did not exceed class 3. I was about halfway to K2 when I saw that D was in the boulder field far below me. I was not the beta fiend that I am today, so I had assumed that this was the way to go and that he was right behind me. Oops. I yelled down to him and kept him in my eyesight until K2. I saw that he was making his way up to K2 safely, so I decided to push at maximum intensity to tag the summit of Capitol and wait for him at the knife edge. I sped across the knife edge, walking as much of the way as I could for fun. I passed two guided climbers who were short roping the knife edge. One of them mentioned to me that it was his finisher and I congratulated him. After I passed them, I heard the guide say, “what’s a kid doing up here”? I was 18 but probably looked 16 at the time. I imagine that many people had that reaction to seeing young me sailing past them on technical 14er sections back in those days. I was once described as a “lone preteen in skate shoes and basketball shorts” by a freelance writer documenting our encounter on Pyramid. Lol.

A very short time later, I was on the summit! This should have been the high of my life at that point, but something felt amiss. A sense of unease began to overcome my body. This was exacerbated when I noticed a faint cloud to ground bolt far in the distance. Better hustle back to check on D. I flew down the 4th class ramparts of Capitol enroute to the knife edge. To my joy, I noticed D cresting K2 and making his way down there. We met up at the knife edge with high spirits. High fives were exchanged and we ate some lunch perched on the thin blade of rock known as the knife edge. I told him that I was going to chill right here and take in the views while he goes up and summits. He laughed and told me that my idea was preposterous. He was highly insistent that I go down and get some sleep while he descends since I move much faster. I was hesitant, but he pointed and said it’s just right there. He’ll be up and down before I know it, he said. I ended up agreeing and began to make my way back down. Some clouds were building in the distance, but not too fast. There was still abundant sunshine on my position. I stopped at the saddle for a quick break when something magical happened. A hummingbird landed on me! He stayed there for 60 seconds and agreed to a photoshoot. I took this as a good omen. It was not.

I got back to my tent and was out cold almost immediately. I didn’t even zip my tent up, just fell straight asleep. I woke up four hours later to hail hitting my body. Groggy and delirious, I was slowly preparing for our departure when I heard an incredibly troubling sound. A large death bolt had just struck behind Capitol. The thunderous echo shook me to my core. The way it sounded, I knew there would be much more to come. Sure enough, the lightning became more frequent. The drums of war beat feverously, as they marched on our position. Black death began to creep over the summit. We need to leave. Now. I started to yell D’s name at his tent. No response. I beat on the door. Nothing. Finally, I unzipped his tent, and to my absolute horror, he was not there. Oh ____, what do I do?! I raced up to the start of the saddle climb to see if he was making his way down. He was not. That told me that something happened. Four hours was way more than enough time for him to make it back down to the tents, and especially to the start of the saddle drop. I cannot express the wave of emotion that began to overtake me. Thoughts started swirling through my head, none of them positive. This was no normal thunderstorm. 13 years of alpine climbing since this day, and I have been through many thunderstorms. This one was different. Going up in this storm was asking to die. I knew that there was only one thing that I could do. Run back to the trailhead as quickly as possible to get a phone call to SAR out.

I hastily threw my rudimentary camping set up together and fastened it to my pack. In my haste, I managed to create a buoyant backpack. That is absolutely the last adjective you want to use to describe your overnight pack. I ran down the trail, and it bounced me around from one side to the other. I could have stopped to fasten it better, but I refused to stop for any reason at all. I had to get that phone call out. It was now my life’s mission. Any time that I was exhausted and felt like I couldn’t keep such a strong pace, I pictured D’s face and my feet continued to move. The lightning continued to ring out and was now right on top of me. Getting struck was a serious risk in a storm like this, but I wasn’t about to play it safe and take shelter while D’s life hung in the balance. I ran into a solo male climber shortly after setting off. He was clearly suffering in the storm but must have noticed that I was suffering far worse. He stopped me and I frantically spouted off my profound troubles. A brief respite then occurred unexpectedly. The man told me where his keys were located and said to drive his truck to the bottom of the mountain where I can get service. Since I did not have my own vehicle up there, this was an incredible act of kindness which was sure to shave off precious time in my pursuit of reaching phone service. There was now a glimpse of light in the midst of my dark trials. The human spirit shined through and paused my suffering, if only for a moment. I sincerely thanked the man before continuing on my way down. By this time, the storm had gotten even worse. There were menacing cloud to ground bolts striking the terrain all around me, and the hail had transitioned from somewhat frequent to an icy deluge. As unpleasant as my situation was, I just kept thinking about how D is dealing with the same thing except 2,000 feet higher on exposed rocky terrain. The thought made my heart drop. I kicked it into a gear that I didn’t even know I had.
Around that time, thoughts started swirling around my head. What if D doesn’t make it? What if he is horribly maimed? Do I ever even climb again if he doesn’t make it through this? My 18-year-old brain was scrambled eggs. I glanced to my right for a quick second when suddenly, a massive death bolt struck a tree on top of the hill just a couple hundred feet from my position. All I could see after that was red. My sight was temporarily taken from me. It felt like someone threw a flashbang right in front of me. I was on a fairly steep section of trail when that occurred, and I proceeded to tumble down it. I really didn’t notice the fall too much; the deafening roar and blinding light had overcome my senses. I laid there for a second, utterly mesmerized at what had just happened. Slowly, I began to scrape myself off the trail and resumed my mission. Wow. Now I was even more scared. That was super close and so impactful, even from a couple hundred feet away. What if one of those hits one of the trees right next to me on the trail? Shortly after that I began a section that was mostly open meadows. Uh oh. This is prime terrain to get killed right now. Got to keep pressing on for D, so here we go. I navigated the meadow with one eye on the sky. The next bolts struck a bit ahead of me, and I started to wonder if the worst of it was moving out. Shortly afterwards, I felt the first flickers of sunlight piercing through the malevolent skies. The storm was subsiding, but I was still cautious. I almost didn’t believe that it was actually moving out. Suddenly, I began to hear the voices of a large group. I hadn’t seen anyone since that lone climber near the lake that offered his vehicle to me for my rescue mission. I charged towards them, preparing to ask questions when I was interrupted. They just said, “You must be who they are looking for”. I instantly knew that SAR had been notified already! I sprinted the last tenth of a mile to the trailhead and was elated to see flashing red and blue lights! Yes!! I saw the highly impressive Mountain Rescue Aspen vehicle and yanked the door open and crawled in the already occupied passenger seat like a wet little mouse and began spouting off information to them. The lady in the driver’s seat smiled and handed me binoculars. “Look” she said with a confident tone in her voice. I put them up to my eyes and saw a dramatic sight. A helicopter was over the North Face and was lowering a climber down to D. She told me that he was going to be okay. A wave of relief swept over my body like a tsunami. Wow. What a powerful moment. I did not lower the binoculars once until I saw them fly off with D safely in tow. Somehow, he was able to utilize a sliver of signal to get the call out himself. Totally miraculous. She then told me that the guy who lowered down to D had watched his dad die on Pyramid when he was young and dedicated his life to saving people in the high country. What a badass. Three cheers for that guy! They brought me back to my vehicle at the park n ride and said they would have D contact me. Shortly afterwards, he sent me a message saying that he would be totally fine and that he just had early-stage hypothermia. Apparently, he had tried to descend the North Face even though we talked about what a crazy idea that would be on the approach. A guy with a similar name to his happened to get killed on the knife edge earlier that summer. We talked about the coincidence with the names. He then told me something else. I asked why he did that, and he told me that something traumatic that I will not repeat had happened in his life and he now had a death wish. He was planning to get himself killed up there. I was an 18-year-old kid at the time and had no idea why he would drag me along on his suicide mission. This was upsetting to me considering that I pushed so hard and risked my life to make sure that he was okay. I will go into no additional detail on this. It is what it is, and life is tough and can make people do strange things. All that matters is that he did not die on my watch, and we both lived to climb another day.
As I drove my car over Independence pass, I reflected upon everything that had just happened and how I had conducted myself in the face of unrelenting danger. I never slowed down. I never played it like a punk and sheltered knowing that D was still up there. When I was in the middle of my trials, I had a recurring thought that kept crossing my mind. Am I cut out for mountain life? As if my situation was at all normal. As I crested the pass, a faint smile manifested on my face. I then realized that no, I am not cut out for this life. I was born for it.