Pro Guiding Service - No Absolutes

Yesterday, spring storms engulfed the high Cascades. Today, we ski toward the summit of Mt. Baker listening to the snows of yesterday rain down around us. The slides begin as delicately as wind whispering through fields of wheat and elevate to the churn of water spilling over boulders. Finally, when the avalanches launch over cliff bands, they thunder like breaking surf.

It's a thunder that crushes ambition. Two climbers perished last week on Mt. Hood in these very conditions--that knowledge makes the plum of being the first to ski the slopes before us less savory. In fact, I've tossed in the towel, but I ski upward into the cirque housing the Park Glacier Headwall, letting Martin draw his own conclusions. By the time we reach the bergschrund, the boundary between our safer glacial slopes and the avalanche-torn summit slopes, I know Martin and I are not of like mind. His eyes have scouted the rock outcrops interrupting the edge of the headwall--by moving between islands of rock he's confident he can ascend safely. It's a confidence I share. Descending is where our assessments diverge.

End of the road for me, I tell Martin. I'll belay you across the bergschrund.

The coward calls the brave man rash, while the rash man calls the prudent man a coward. But I am not a coward and Martin is not rash. We have both spent decades ski mountaineering and understand that safety here is anything but black-and-white. Mountain knowledge, ski ability, risk tolerance, and personal ambition can lead to opposite conclusions that are equally rational.

In all these categories Martin surpasses me. His avalanche training is a step above mine but avalanches, variable as they are, will happily stump either of us on any given day. His ski ability is years beyond mine. I loosen binding settings to survive my mistakes, he tightens settings to recover from his. His calm under pressure is a quantum leap higher when fear inhibits me to the point of creating the very destiny I fear, he understands there are times when one must be a little careless with life to keep it.

Finally, there's the matter of ambition. Long life is ultimately my bottom line. When conditions are ambiguous or I'm uncertain about performing flawlessly on lethal slopes, I weigh the gain of one day against the benefits of 30 more years of skiing. That gives me clarity. But for Martin, a Swiss-certified mountain guide, professional pride is wrapped up in knowing how far he can push without pushing too far. And there's a professional need to achieve.

From the far side of the bergschrund, Martin unties the rope nonchalantly. He tosses the umbilical cord back. He's cut free. I dismantle the anchor and traverse to safer ground where I can watch him kick up the 50-degree slope and, a thousand feet higher, disappear over the horizon.

His return is foretold by the avalanches unleashed by his skis. Small sloughs flow like water over the horizon, cascade down the steeps collecting speed, leap the bergschrund, and smash my abandoned belay platform with the force of an 18-wheeler. Martin scrolls into view, taking several turns, then edging to a stop to let slow moving snow pass before it gathers the speed to sweep him off the headwall. He skis the swath groomed by his avalanches but the snowpack is fickle and deeper layers of snow sliced by his edges continually peel away. A body sliding with any of that snow would have two, perhaps three seconds, to dig into stationary deeper layers before hitting terminal velocity. As far as I'm concerned, I'm experiencing the spectacle from exactly the right spot.

Martin feels the same about his vantage point. Several minutes later when he's threaded a bridge spanning the bergschrund and we rendezvous, he reports the onion layers of the snowpack forced him to scrap the urge to link continuous turns. He feels good adapting seamlessly to the conditions, I never felt out of control.

Me either.

He laughs, You'll live longer with your level of control. It's not a slam but a tribute to judgment, to keeping ambition subservient to knowledge and ability.

I think about the many crevasses we crossed on the lower glaciers making our way to this point, and to the several slopes with potential avalanche hazard we traversed making our way to basecamp, and to the idiot who almost broadsided us making our way to the trailhead. Even with good judgment, you can get nipped in the bud. Perhaps. I tell Martin, But you'll burn brighter.

The same thought processes spin through his head.

Perhaps.

We understand each other. There are no absolutes.

Martin is Martin Volken of Pro Guiding Service