Glissading
I went on an excursion with 6 other people from church to watch the meteor shower last night. It was originally going to be a cross country ski trip but for reasons I'm not entirely sure about, we decided instead to go hiking. We decided to go up Flattop mountain. The trailhead is an easy drive from Anchorage. Flattop is just over 1000 meters in height. The first 4/5 of the trail was nice. It was challenging enough to keep someone like my sister Bethanie entertained, but not treacherous. The last portion of the trail to the peak of Flattop is treacherous. Not only that, but the last 75 feet of trail before reaching the summit is this not quite vertical ice shelf. We decided that since we were so close to the summit, we might as well go all the way to the top. Afterwards we decided that it was a classic case of group think in which we made decisions as a group that we would never have made individually.
So going up that last 75 feet was treacherous, but doable. You just focused on the next toehold or fingerhold while trying to ignore the fact that you were at a kilometer of elevation in the middle of the winter. The view from the top was absolutely phenomenal. The half moon illuminated things tremendously, being reflected brilliantly by the snow. The meteors were brilliant. However, the wind absolutely howled up there and temps were around zero. We were all dressed for the weather, but it was definitely cold.
I was also beginning to feel like a cat who had climbed a tree only to realize that it couldn't get back down. The path back down looked so much more vertical from above than it did on the ascent from below. Furthermore, it was obvious that if you slipped, you were going to not stop sliding for quite a ways and would pick up a great rate of speed. 10 feet to the right of the trail was a precipice off which a fall really didn't look survivable. To the left of the trail it looked like the ice covered service extended down about 75 feet with occasional jagged boulders protruding through. I began to remember various trauma patients I had cared for and knew for a certainty that if a single misstep occurred while descending the ice field, I would be lucky to get away with just some chest trauma or an orthopedic injury. Did I mention that I really, really don't like heights?
Two of the guys who were along had a fair bit of mountain experience. It was obvious to me that they felt like we had made a poor decision in climbing to the summit with the inadequate mountaineering equipment we had with us. We really had no ice climbing equipment. We had lights, sleeping bags, and food but that was it. So they instructed us on how to basically crawl down the ice field with your back pressed against the ice. The technique basically involves lying flat your back. You attempt to maintain some sort of traction on the ice with three limbs while pounding a foothold into the ice with the heel of your foot. Once confident that the "ice step" you've created will hold your weight, you slide down the few inches until your heel is resting in it, and then begin the process all over again with the heel of your opposite foot. In this manner you descend a few inches at a time. Meanwhile, your hands being pressed against the ice sheet make you begin to wonder why you can't hardly feel them anymore. All this while the precipice is off to the immediate right and the boulders are immediately below.
Somehow we all managed to inch our way down the ice field safely with no major misadventures. As we got lower, the snow became deeper and covered the protruding death boulders. Then I learned how to glissade. If descending the almost vertical ice field was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done, glissading was one of the most exhilarating. To glissade is basically a fancy term meaning that you slide down the mountain in a seated position pretending that you are riding a sled when in fact you are sliding rapidly down the mountain in a seated position without a sled. In this manner we rapidly descended what had taken us a good 45 minutes of climbing.
It was a beautiful night. I was thankful to be alive and healthy and that all of the other climbers were OK. I even thought today about getting ice climbing gear and taking alpine mountaineering lessons. Then I thought about feeling like a cat all bushed out at the top of a tree and decided it was much more comfortable down here in the valley. However, when taking care of a busted up trauma patient in the future, I no longer have the right to ask myself "I wonder what in the world he was thinking." Instead, I’ll be thinking, “That could have very easily been me.”
So going up that last 75 feet was treacherous, but doable. You just focused on the next toehold or fingerhold while trying to ignore the fact that you were at a kilometer of elevation in the middle of the winter. The view from the top was absolutely phenomenal. The half moon illuminated things tremendously, being reflected brilliantly by the snow. The meteors were brilliant. However, the wind absolutely howled up there and temps were around zero. We were all dressed for the weather, but it was definitely cold.
I was also beginning to feel like a cat who had climbed a tree only to realize that it couldn't get back down. The path back down looked so much more vertical from above than it did on the ascent from below. Furthermore, it was obvious that if you slipped, you were going to not stop sliding for quite a ways and would pick up a great rate of speed. 10 feet to the right of the trail was a precipice off which a fall really didn't look survivable. To the left of the trail it looked like the ice covered service extended down about 75 feet with occasional jagged boulders protruding through. I began to remember various trauma patients I had cared for and knew for a certainty that if a single misstep occurred while descending the ice field, I would be lucky to get away with just some chest trauma or an orthopedic injury. Did I mention that I really, really don't like heights?
Two of the guys who were along had a fair bit of mountain experience. It was obvious to me that they felt like we had made a poor decision in climbing to the summit with the inadequate mountaineering equipment we had with us. We really had no ice climbing equipment. We had lights, sleeping bags, and food but that was it. So they instructed us on how to basically crawl down the ice field with your back pressed against the ice. The technique basically involves lying flat your back. You attempt to maintain some sort of traction on the ice with three limbs while pounding a foothold into the ice with the heel of your foot. Once confident that the "ice step" you've created will hold your weight, you slide down the few inches until your heel is resting in it, and then begin the process all over again with the heel of your opposite foot. In this manner you descend a few inches at a time. Meanwhile, your hands being pressed against the ice sheet make you begin to wonder why you can't hardly feel them anymore. All this while the precipice is off to the immediate right and the boulders are immediately below.
Somehow we all managed to inch our way down the ice field safely with no major misadventures. As we got lower, the snow became deeper and covered the protruding death boulders. Then I learned how to glissade. If descending the almost vertical ice field was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done, glissading was one of the most exhilarating. To glissade is basically a fancy term meaning that you slide down the mountain in a seated position pretending that you are riding a sled when in fact you are sliding rapidly down the mountain in a seated position without a sled. In this manner we rapidly descended what had taken us a good 45 minutes of climbing.
It was a beautiful night. I was thankful to be alive and healthy and that all of the other climbers were OK. I even thought today about getting ice climbing gear and taking alpine mountaineering lessons. Then I thought about feeling like a cat all bushed out at the top of a tree and decided it was much more comfortable down here in the valley. However, when taking care of a busted up trauma patient in the future, I no longer have the right to ask myself "I wonder what in the world he was thinking." Instead, I’ll be thinking, “That could have very easily been me.”
Below is a picture from the internet of how Flattop looks during the day this time of year.
posted by The Mad Hatter at 11:02 PM
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