"Sure thing," I snort as my eyes go back to the circled couloir. Suddenly, I'm daydreaming. I can see the behemoth summits around me. I feel the production of adrenalin and suppression of fear as I enter the couloir. I see...
The computer's screen saver flashes on, bringing me back to my mundane reality. It occurs to me that trying to amass a bankroll of twenty-dollar bills, I've been sacrificing too many couloir experiences of late. I wonder: Maybe I'm unable to drag myself out of bed each morning, not because (as I fear) an insidious cancer is consuming me, but because I'm bored. I scribble a note to Scott, "Where is this? When do we go?"
The postcard arrives next. A color photograph depicts the same scene as the bill. I study the couloir. From the straight-on camera angle it looks vertical and the middle third is sheathed in ice. The caption on the flip side reads, "Moraine Lake and The Valley of Ten Peaks, Banff National Park."
Scott's note is brief: "Ski the chute before May and we'd need snorkels for the avalanches. After June we'd need ice skates for the descent. Leave the first few weeks of June open and we'll strike with the first window of good weather."
"I'm in," I write back. "Send more info."
During the next weeks I'm out of bed each morning. I jog, sprint intervals, crank out squats. My cancer, it seems, is in remission.
June is almost upon us when the letter arrives. Inside are photocopied pages from Accidents in North American Mountaineering. I scan the yellow highlighted passages:
"...found the climbers body at the bottom of the 3-4 Couloir...This was the fifth fatality in as many years on this particular route with twice that number of accidents...makes it by far the most consistently dangerous route in the Canadian Rockies."
"There is a serious accident in this couloir at least once a year."
"First one and then the other slipped. They fell to the bottom of the couloir and were killed....Fatal accidents are becoming common in this couloir."
"...he was swept away by a small wet snow slide, and fell all the way down the ice and several hundred feet out into the rocks. He suffered multiple injuries and died while being evacuated...."
Scott's note on the last page reads, "Thought you should be forewarned about what we're in for."
I sit at the computer and stare at the twenty-dollar bill I've taped to its CPU. That image--money and mountains--has been my reminder of the tradeoffs involved when spending the currency of time. After today's missive, the twenties on the corners of the bill are far more appealing than the couloir in its center.
The dream blesses me the night before the descent. I've skied half way down the chute and have hit glare ice. My hands grope for purchase in a slippery ice crack while my mind panics over how I will remove the boards and don ice gear. Above, Scott and Greg scramble down effortlessly on the front points of their crampons.
I'm impressed with the nature of the dream. It's a graphic, though not a gruesome, synopsis of the central question I've been asking myself: Should I really be skiing this couloir? The dream could have employed shock treatment, showing me missing a turn and cartwheeling down the chute, breaking bones and spilling brains during the slide. But I've been playing that film all week in conscious thought, why replay it in the subconscious?
I awake in the darkness of the predawn morning and ready myself for the deadliest couloir in the Canadian Rockies. An hour later the four members of our sortie make the short drive from Lake Louise to Moraine Lake--epicenter of our fatal attraction.
When The Valley of Ten Peaks--a location described in guidebooks as, "a world-famous beauty spot"-- first come into view, we all stare anxiously.
"Looks good," Judd says.
That's not what I was thinking. "How so?" I ask.
"No ice," he comments, flipping down the visor over the steering wheel where his copy of Scott's postcard is taped. "I've been stressing about that ice for the past month."
We park at Moraine Lake and in minutes a loaded canoe glides over the windless lake. Even by the dim light of the encroaching dawn, this world is incredibly peccant. Today the turquoise of the glacial lake is bluer, the outlines of the surrounding peaks are sharper, the freshness of the morning air is crisper than any day I can remember. This must be how condemned men feel in the hours before their walk to the gallows.
"It's too nice a day to ski," I observe as we approach the far side of the lake. "Look at this place, let's take a long hike."
The suggestion draws scornful stares.
Soon we are walking up the 20-degree talus slopes leading to the 3-4 Couloir, so named because here in The Valley of Ten Peaks it separates peaks 3 and 4. Apparently the surveyors beat the poets to the task of labeling.
Just before the narrow mouth of the chute, we don crampons, then climb over the mounds of snow that have sloughed off the high slopes and piled up at this constriction point. Through the thin crust of the evening freeze, we confidently kick steps up the ever-steepening grade.
While we toil down in the refrigerated shadows of the mountain, the great rock walls above us defrost in the rays of early morning. Ice breaking off these upper walls rain down on us and accelerate through the narrow barrel of the gully. One small nugget strikes Judd in the gloved hand and the ache caused from a tiny bullet emphasizes our vulnerability.
Occasionally falling ice dislodges stones the size of dinner plates, which speed past at lethal speeds while whirling like a buzz saw. We shift into double speed, trying to rise out of the shooting gallery before the rising mercury picks us off.
I relax slightly on the higher 50-degree slopes leading to the crest of the gully. In the center of this slope we are out of the fall line of debris disgorged from the walls imprisoning us. It's only when I peer between my legs and remind myself that we are here to ski the 2500 vertical feet below the crampons that new spurts of adrenaline course through my veins.
The ascent ends on a vast plateau of ice that connects five 10,000 foot peaks. An acute sense of freedom grips me as we emerge from the steep, shaded gully onto this sun drenched-plateau with its views spanning out over several time zones.
We wander to the Neil Coghlan Hut, base camp for climbing a half dozen of the surrounding peaks. From the porch I eye several summit slopes licentiously--it was a mistake not to tote along a sleeping bag and to spend a day bagging the local thrones. I weigh the possibility of spending just one extra hour vanquishing Mount Bowlen so near the hut.
I dismiss the temptation. Get greedy and that narrow window of time when we can ski the 50-degree slopes of the couloir without being flushed off the mountain in the sewage of a slide may be lost. Get greedy and by default we may be spending a night up here without sleeping bags.
We head back to the gully to fulfill our appointment with destiny. I'm pondering whether I shouldn't back down the upper 400 feet of vertical. Doubts demand to be heard. Can my ultralight alpine touring gear control the incline? Can I?
Before I'm even aware of it, we're skiing the entry slopes. There's no sudden lip; the initial turns are gentle and each carve of the skis grows progressively steeper as we follow the convex curve of a behemoth basketball. Over the horizon, the turquoise waters of Moraine Lake scroll into view, followed by the talus slopes rising out of the lake. The snow and rhythm feel good and I chant myself downward with a silent mantra: "One more turn."
The horizon disappears and the 2500-foot drop below the ski edges lies in full view. For the briefest of instances I remember the climbers who have slipped into the Big Sleep here: "One more turn." I fret over my lightweight equipment: "One more turn." Last night's dream percolates to memory: "One more turn."
And what turns they are. Emotions wiper back and forth like the skis themselves. The elation of freefall replaces the anxiety of initiating each turn. The surprise of being afoot after each flight is replaced by the anxiety of initiating the next turn.
Below the steepest pitch, we congregate and Scott discusses the pictures he wants to take. A truck-size patch of snow on a nearby east-facing wall unglues and thunders into the couloir a few hundred feet below us. Scott jams the lens cover back over his glass while the rest of us scope out dozens of other snow bombs that could detonate momentarily. By the time Scott has zipped the camera case shut, we have unanimously agreed the only thing we'll be taking is a bee-line down.
Now we engage in individual games of roulette. The snow is better to the left and the gully can be skied faster here, but the walls on the right lay in shade and are less likely to explode. Increased chance of rockfall on the right, increased chance of a skier fall on the left--take your pick.
I take the schizophrenic's line. A long radius turn carries me over to the left where I crank several short radius turns on good snow, then I traverse right into the shade for several better protected turns before venturing left again. I start playing a second game of roulette as well. My two preoccupations are to exit the gully fast and not to fall. But the pitch and tricky snows force me into energetic jump turns which rocket my pulse into anaerobic orbit. I push longer than I should, increasing the odds of a misstep. Then I rest longer than I should, increasing the chance of an encounter of the rock kind.
It is not a good day to die--we all squirt safely out of the gully onto the gentle slopes fanning down to the lake. Lazily we ski to snow's end where we sit on sun warmed boulders and look back at the couloir. The weight of anxiety has given way to the release of relief, the fear of failure buried by the satisfaction of success.
For an hour we compare observations, fears, triumphs.... Then Scott burrows into his pack and hauls out a climbing guide to the Canadian Rockies, "There's a hundred other lines in here worthy of attention."
We huddle together to ogle routes which, on the right day, could all deliver endorphine highs.
"Whoa, look at this one..."
The sun beats down on my bare back while a delicate breeze evaporates the sweat. God, life feels good. Sitting at home in front of the computer, earning those $20 bills, I'd forgotten just how good. Sometimes you've got to ski the twenty to remember.
Details, Details
The 3-4 Couloir rises out of the south end of Moraine Lake in Banff National Park. Walk or canoe to the route. Best skiing dates: late May to late June. Call the Lake Louise Warden's Office (403-522-3866) to ask about snow conditions.
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