They settled in, drops splattering on the skin of their raingear, with the eternity of evening to contemplate their purpose. From the comfort of a Seattle pub where this trip was born, that purpose seemed overwhelmingly simple: drive to the mountain, hike up its forested flanks, climb the glacier to the summit, and descend the snowclad pyramid. Descend -- there lie the true purpose. Curly would ski, Mo would board, both would rip.
But Mount Shuksan was proving itself a pariah of a pyramid. Their first assault in early winter terminated before it really began. Snow blocked the access road miles from the trailhead, rain clouds clogged the sky. The duo left the car, walked a 100 yards and then drove back to their pub where life was simpler, vision clearer.
They launched their second foray in early June, a saner time to pluck the ski fruits of the Cascadian backcountry. Now the road lay clear almost to the trailhead and they reached the path quickly. Equally quickly, they lost it and found themselves swimming through the legendary brush of Western Washington.
Had they known the main axiom of Northwestern backcountry travel (when the route looks hideous, you're lost) they might have retraced their steps to greener pastures. Instead, they thrashed deeper into a veritable, verdant Hell. Crawling through vine maples, bouldering mossy slabs, grasping the thorny stalks of devil's club, they crept through a Twilight Zone of misery.
Torturous hours passed and then, like a watermelon seed squeezed between Lucifer's fingers, they squirted out into the clear. Suddenly they found themselves on the subalpine ridge described in the guidebook. Equally suddenly, brewing rain clouds spat down their first drops. "Fold," said Curly. "Fold," said Mo. They agreed: they would toss this hand and ante up another day. But the third player in the game, the mountain, decided to play the hand out.
Curly and Mo didn't know this then, they only knew they weren't crawling down the same green sewer they had just exited. But there was a slight problem. They had not brought a map, nor had they condescended to carry a compass. So where was the fat man's route back?
They stood on the snowy ridge, a thin line of terra cognita, discussing what they remembered from the guidebook. Their memories differed. Curly wanted to drop off the ridge into the western drainage. Mo knew they needed to descend to the east.
Mo was right. But Curly won the argument and down to the west they went. Down in the wrong direction. Down into woods ruled by darkness at noon. Down into another nightmare. Hours passed like those in a dentist's chair while the truth slowly drilled through Curly's cranial cavity -- he had blown it.
A race was underway now. Beating darkness to the car grew dicier by the moment and fear preoccupied each: their clothes dripped from the rain -- they would grow hypothermic over night; they had no fire -- wild beasts would feast on their flesh. Curly, whose skis tangled in the brush and whose plastic boots weighted down his pack, made a panicked decision: he jettisoned both and made an all-out sprint for freedom.
But they could not escape the tentacled arms of nighttime and just before the black beast engulfed them, they stumbled upon the boulder with its cramped grotto. They wriggled in and contorted their bodies to dodge the drips falling off the stone roof. Then they shivered through the night telling themselves, "Man, are we lucky.".
They surprised themselves and survived the night. They surprised themselves again when it took all of the following day to hack an escape from their prison. They surprised me a few days later when they recounted their story and babbled over their blunders. They surprised me again by asking me along on the next assault. These guys, I thought, are like a bleeding tongue drawn to the sharp edge of a broken tooth.
It's 5:00 a.m. when Mo and I meet Curly at the trailhead. The sky is pale blue and will darken to azure as the sun climbs. It is because the day is beautiful that Curly curses. He spent yesterday on a Dantean Mission Impossible searching for the spot where he ditched his skis two weeks ago. Flecks of moss still cling to his ears, thorns of devil's club perforate his inflamed hands, but no skis stick out the back of his pickup. Now he knows that the penance for his sins -- for deserting his loved ones to save his own hide -- is just beginning. "Dammit, a perfect day," he groans. He closes his eyes and an image of suffering worse than bushwhacking flashes through his brain -- 5000 vertical feet of exquisite corn snow and no skis to carve it.
We head up the trail and immediately intersect the stream bed where the woes of Curly and Mo last started. I repeat their mistake and nearly disappear into a bushy Bermuda Triangle, but when the alders start fondling us, I remember the Northwestern axiom and backtrack. Soon we're back on a trail and as we climb I listen smugly to the duo behind. Mo: "This is so easy!" Curly: "Wouldn't you f----- know it? A perfect day."
Curly and Mo are both wrong. Above timberline we traverse onto the Sulphide Glacier. The sun beats down and the ice crust supporting us dissolves. No problem for me, I strap on the teli-skis. But Mo, shouldering his snowboard, and Curly, toting his bad attitude, wallow in trouble: they posthole to their thighs in slush.
The white pyramid gleams overhead. It's so close now that it taunts the two like the mirage of water taunting thirsty men. But the sun is ascending to its zenith far faster than Curly and Mo will climb to theirs. I consider their plight and finally chuckle. This is their karma -- for them Shuksan is not to be. But why should their karma be mine? I sever the invisible cord uniting us and streak up the glacier.
I ski to the glacier's source -- the point where it abuts the rock pyramid capping the peak. A steep snow gully splits the pyramid and most climbers crampon up this gully. The snow is drenched and ripe for sliding so I find a lunch spot below the summit. From my vantage point I look out over some of the best and worst backcountry skiing in the country. To the south, massive glaciers oozing off Bacon Peak start me salivating. A spitting distance to the west I drool over the white mantle smothering Mount Baker: it's late June but the Park Glacier still offers an alluring 7000-vertical-foot ski run. To the northeast, I covet the snowy line down Mount Ruth ... From this one viewpoint I study peaks that could accommodate a decade of dreams. Dropping my eyes to the green wreaths ringing each mountain, I also survey a century of horrors.
Four climbers scaling the summit snow gully interrupt my dreaming. I pull out my avalanche beacon in preparation for the worst. They make the top and later descend safely. Shuksan will do them no harm today, but they better be clear of these parts on the day when Curly and Mo arrive. Something ugly could occur when karmas clash.
I finish my lunch and then the fun starts. I link turn after turn and drop towards a black rock spire sticking out of the glacier like 300-foot splinter. The turning continues and soon the top of that splinter, a point I had looked down upon, towers above me. On I go to where I left the stooges wallowing.
Only Mo is visible. He has climbed a subsidiary peak along the ridge, witnessed the Omnimax view of Baker and has just started his descent. He carves graceful turns through slush and a liquid roostertail squirts out behind the board.
I learn Curly, with no fun ahead of him, has taken his bad attitude down the mountain. Mo and I, on the other hand, have miles of Cascadian concrete to mix with our sticks. We seek out the steepest rolls along the glacier and play James Bond. As we cut turns, the top inches of supersaturated snow break loose and flow behind us: no sweat if we stay upright but a built-in burial service if we Hoffa over the tips.
We splash down the glacier, watching that fearful band of green rising to greet us. Soon we enter the glades of the subalpine zone and then drop down among old growth trees draped with moss. We ski the obvious lines through the woods but those lines quickly dissolve around us. Soon we are busting through limbs that would happily rip open sucking chest wounds. We remove the skis and whack our way down.
The landmarks I expect do not appear. I study the map, make adjustments and we descend deeper into the trap. Still nothing looks familiar and I wonder when it was that I violated the Northwestern axiom and joined the fraternity of stooges. The map hops in and out of my pack as we play an ugly game that Mo knows all too well.
"How did I let this happen?" I keep asking myself. Then it strikes me. Karma. I'm in the presence of a force greater than myself. A devil's club stalk, bristling with a thousand needles, slaps me across the face. I smile: this was meant to be.
We bash bush for two hours and succeed in relocating the trail. I call this a victory -- we only passed through the shadow of an epic. I figure Mo must be jubilant, but on the path back he mutters a three-mile-long trail of obscenities. The broken tooth has rubbed the tongue raw.
At the car I help Mo toss his pack into the trunk. "So what about next week?" I ask. "Get some snowshoes -- we'll try it again."
Mo gives me a loathsome stare. "Never again."
I reevaluate him. Unlike Scott and Shackleton, he's figured out how to prevent bad luck. For a stooge, he learns fast.
