The Fair Weather
Fairweather towering over Glacier Bay, Alaska. Photo by Mark Van Waes
The shadow of the overhanging seracs looms overhead as I feel the sun’s rising rays on the edge of my goggles. But I dare not turn my head to look at it. We are in the danger zone on our climb to Mt Fairweather (15,370 ft, 4,671 meters) in Alaska - a gully in our climb sitting directly underneath overhanging ice blocks of the glacier covering the peak - and we are not to stop under any circumstances. Timmy, our lead guide, is setting a relentless pace and the only sound you can hear in the early morning is the quiet crunch of snowshoes. It’s a desolate place otherwise, the middle of a vast swath of glaciers and peaks, devoid of all life and by extension, of any sounds of life. As the middle person on my rope team, with only inches of slack between me and the two men on either side of the rope, I’m intently focused on staying in rhythm with the climbing pace.
On the ridge, approaching the Fairweather summit. Photo by Dani Rudinsky
Quick selfie during a short stop on the climb
It’s almost 4am we’ve been moving for an hour. I’m thankful for the movement as the cold is looking for any exposed skin to latch on and bite. The metal head of my ice-ax is so cold that my fingers are frozen numb under the thick mitt. I switch it to the other side of my body to give my left hand a break from the frost. I am looking straight ahead and as I focus on my steps, I become intensely aware that we’re but at the beginning of what is going to be the most difficult day of my life in terms of effort and exertion. And I don’t even know if we’re going to make it. Timmy has told us in no uncertain terms that we’re turning around if any of the following happen - we come across a crevasse that doesn’t have a sufficiently stable bridge, he sees weather moving in across the Pacific Ocean and heading our way (even if it’s still sunny and clear where we are and even if the summit is a few feet away), someone gets altitude sickness or has an accident or is simply too tired to continue, there are signs of avalanches, or if we are not at the summit by our turnaround time of 1pm.
At a transition point during our expedition - I’m on the left with the red hood, chatting with Aaron and Timmy (orange jacket). Harry is tying a knot on the right. Photo by Dani Rudinsky
They are so many “if-thens”, the mountain feels like a fortress that’s luring us in but hiding many possible traps. I look up at her - I’ve talked to the mountain from our high camp for a few days now. In my mind only, of course. At night, as we lay in our tents, we can hear icefalls and avalanches shedding down from the glacier cap covering the mountain with a mighty rumble. Thankfully they happen mostly on the side facing the camp - we haven’t yet seen one come down over the gully that we are looking to climb on our way up.
I ask her again silently to grant us passage. The Tlingit, the Native American people of this area of Alaska have a lot of legends, all of them centered around the spirit of the animals. There are no animals to be seen or heard for miles in this world of ice, perched on top of Glacier Bay in Alaska - the largest collection of maritime glaciers and peaks in the world. But I do feel the spirit of the mountain. It is powerful, majestic and equanimous and I realize with humility we are at its mercy - no more than little ants tied with rope, scaling its sides. It would take but a strong gust on an exposed ridge or a small avalanche in the right spot and we’d be taken care of if the mountain spirit didn’t want us there.
These are the thoughts in my mind as we silently walk under the overhanging ice boulders. I am consciously filling my heart with reverence, replacing any vestiges of fear. I have come in great respect and I will consider myself fortunate to be allowed on any part of the mountain, a mountain which has been untouched by this route for two years. I’ve found out earlier on the trip that none of the three guides on our trip have submitted Fairweather. Timmy, our lead guide, was a guide on the last attempted climb two years ago when the group got turned around by a gaping crevasse with no bridges to cross over. None of the other guides or climbers has even set foot on the mountain prior to our expedition, with the exception of Daryl.
Daryl is a 66 year old retired postman from Canada who has climbed all seven summits, including Everest and almost all of the highest peaks in each Canadian province, except Fairweather. He attempted it a few years ago with a friend, caching gear on the col, but had not managed to climb because he had gotten sick when the weather window had opened. Daryl is one of those people who just follows his heart’s passion without too much fanfare. In addition to climbing the world’s highest mountains, he has hiked the length of New Zealand and done all the major trails going up and down the United States - the PCT, the CDC and the Appalachian trail. He doesn’t even have email and goes to visit his neighbor to check on any messages he may have received. Daryl is always kind, attentive and considerate of all the other climbers, all of him his junior - he’s an absolute delight of a human being that keeps inspiring me and giving me courage during a lot of the days when the chances of climbing the mountain look dim to nonexistent.
Daryl and Brent on the climb. Photo by Mike Shep
For a second, as the sun’s light touches me in that early morning hour under the seracs, my heart is filled with terror. We are under a wall of hanging icebergs! And it feels like we are moving too slow even though we’re going at a steady and focused pace. We’re barely at the beginning of our climb and I’m already feeling the burn. No sooner does that thought cross my mind that I immediately feel a warmth wash over me and I feel the presence of my dad. I feel him to the left of me and I feel him walking beside me, smiling and encouraging me. At that moment, I briefly look up and the sun-lit mountain and I instantly know. We are going to make it and I’m going to be fine. I know the mountain is granting us passage and if we turn around, it will only be because of something we do. I silently thank Fairweather and my dad and keep marching on with a light heart.
The fact that we even have a summit day feels like a huge stroke of luck. It comes at the 11th hour for our team of seven climbers and three guides who have been camped out on the glacier for over a week and are running out of time. As our allotted two weeks is drawing to a close, we are aware that we need three straight days of a weather window at this point to attempt a summit - one day for the guides to climb part-way up the route to scope the best line and check for hazards, one day for a summit push and one day to shuttle everyone and the gear on Drake’s trusty prop-engine plane back to civilization. Given our large group size, it will take four flights to get everyone and everything off the glacier, so Drake needs at least 5-6 hours of good weather.
Alaskan coastal weather could care less than we desperately need thee three days. Fairweather, despite its name is known for weather that’s anything but “fair”. Even as our group is flown up the glacier at the beginning of our trip, we get hit by a storm and a few of us have to wait in Haines while the rest of the group takes shifts digging their tents out of the snowstorm every few hours. Once all of us are up on the glacier, we are looking at a week of of low pressure system moving in and sticking around.
Arrival on the glacer. Photo by Aaron Friedland
The guides are eager to scope out high camp, so we move camp on the very next day following our arrival. This is not optimal for acclimating to the high altitude but is the only option if we ever want to have a chance to do a summit push. That involves snowshoeing a few miles up the glacier to scope out the site for high camp. We want to be in the foothills of Fairweather and just out of reach of any possible avalanches coming down the mountain and the surrounding peaks. The guides march us up there in three roped teams, dragging sleds full of gear. Once we arrive, they set a perimeter and probe for crevasses. We cache the gear under a pile of snow and retrace our steps back to Camp 1.
Moving camp. I’m right behind Daryl and Timmy is doing the hard work of breaking trail
The following day we wake up in a white-out and are grateful that the guides wanded the route. Wands are little sticks with bright flags on the ends, frequently used to mark the route in big mountains. Now we break down the lower camp, load everything up on our backs and sleds and start the move. Each rope team has its own call. For some reason, it’s all bird themed. There’s “puffin” and “pigeon” and “kea” and “eagle”. The ritual goes like this - if the leader or anyone needs to stop, they call out their team’s name and add “zero”, like “Zero Puffin!”. At that point, everyone else on the rope team replies “Zero Puffin!” and stops. When the team is ready to move, the same person yells “Climbing Puffin!” and the team replies “Climbing Puffin!”. The same call and response is repeated when the roped team enters a safe area. As the lead climber enters the safe space, they use the prussik to belay the second climber as he or she walks in.
We settle into a slog of a few endless-feeling days where we just sit elbow to elbow on crudely fashioned snow benches in the mid - a tent canvas covering our kitchen / eating / congregating area. We lie in our tents listening to the wind howling outside and trying to keep our water, electronics and boot liners from freezing by tucking them inside our puffy down-filled sleeping bags. The sleeping bags get so bulky with stuff that at night it feels like we’re sleeping on a spread of bags, gear and bottles. The tent is so low that we can’t even sit up without craning our necks and bending our backs. The only other thing to do is go to the bathroom in the a little corridor dug out of the snow with a pee wall and a lid-covered bucket for solid waste that the guides thankfully empty when it gets full of frozen poop, or walk around the perimeter of the camp like hamsters on a wheel.
Waiting out the weather in camp. Photo by Brent
But for the most part, we just lie inside our tents, read, nap or in the case of the “mariners” in the tent next door, talk about boats and sing karaoke. The mariners are Mike, who is second mate on an Alaskan ferry, Brian, his friend, who is an engineer on a Shell oil tanker and Mark, the captain of a NOAA ship that bears the name of Fairweather. Lying in our tent, I learn a thing or two about working on a boat, team dynamics and dating girls while sailing for months. Next to me, Brent is less amused with the situation. As someone who needs constant movement, Brent is battling frustration at not being able to do much outside the tent and the thought we may just have to pack up and leave without climbing anything. We are miles away from civilization, we haven’t seen the green of grass or trees in days and I find myself looking forward to the time when we’ll see vegetation and hear the sounds of life again.
We congregate in the mid for meal times, to refill our water bottles with freshly melted snow water or to keep our guides, who always seem to be manning the burners, company. Aaron, one of the guides, is so funny that one can always count on a good belly laugh if he’s around. His favorite is to tell funny stories of working with the cruise ship crowds in Skagway and taking people on boat rides or ziplines, as well as making fun of the ridiculous way climbing was portrayed in the movie “Vertical Limit”, known for its signature line “Cut the rope!”. Aaron has even adopted the movie title as a verb - to “vertical limit” someone means to do a stupid thing that no rock or mountain climber who knows how to work the equipment will ever do. Harry, the third guide, is charged with measuring everyone’s oxygen levels with a pulsimeter twice a day. Some people like Dani, our youngest team member and the only other female on the team, have fingers that get so cold, they don’t even register a pulse, so they need to rub their hands and breathe on their fingers for the pulsimeter to work. One of the benefits of sitting in camp for days is that we all appear to be acclimating well and running oxygen levels in the high 80s and low 90s.
Harry and Aaron at mealtime in the mid. Photo by Brian Matthew Nichols
As the days slip by and our climbing possibility grows slimmer, the silhouette of the mountain becomes a familiar sight - an elusive mirage, melding our intense longing for its ridge when it looks clear with our anxiety that the day may never come. After a few days of feeling intimidated by the heft of the mountain and its glaciers, I’m starting to converse with it anytime I’m out of the tent. I quietly ask it to let us through, but only if we’re welcome. It helps me feel at peace with whatever happens. All of us are obsessing over weather, checking the barometer hourly and listening to Timmy with baited breath as he briefs us on the latest weather forecast that he gets both from AMG basecamp but also, by calling Drake, our pilot and asking him what he’s seeing from the ground or from the plane (if he’s flying other parties).
Finally, on the night of May 27th, just a few days before we are scheduled to fly back, we get a glimmer of hope. Timmy announces that the high pressure system that was scheduled to move in just as we were departing, is speeding its arrival. And Timmy is going to take advantage of that window. He starts by performing an ECT (extended column test) to determine the risk of avalanche danger. Then he announces that he and Aaron will get up early the next day, check the visibility and possibly set off to scout the route while Harry babysits us in base camp.
I have a fitful sleep that night and in the early morning hours, I strain my hearing to make out what Timmy and Aaron are doing. I can hear them standing outside their tents when a particularly large avalanche thunders down the side of Fairweather. My heart sinks and I hear Aaron utter an expletive, followed by a soft “Daaaang!” by Timmy. I’m not sure if the avalanche has come down over the climbing route or on another side but I’m resigned to the fact that the whole thing may be over. But then, shortly thereafter, I hear them checking their satellite radios and setting off. My heart jumps with joy - it’s on!
Within an hour or two, all of us are lined up in front of the tents, staring in the distance and following the tiny specs of Timmy and Aaron’s bodies. We follow their every move, getting worried if they are stopping or going down or around and speculating if they are finding snow bridges or if they are encountering obstacles that may prove to be deal breakers. At some point, we lose sight of them as they go up to the col. The rest of the day seems to drag on with the anxious anticipation of the wait. Finally, at dusk, they are back. They seem spent but elated. They have not managed to scope out the entire route but what they saw looked climbable. As soon as they walk back into camp, Timmy goes into full on team leader mode. He rattles off directions to Harry about what to prepare and calls an all team meeting in the mid after dinner.
Timmy is the youngest of the guides and the second youngest of the group after Dani, who’s 21. Yet, he shows extraordinary maturity for his age. Even in business school where we had the best of entrepreneurs and leaders visit the classroom, I have rarely seen this degree of leadership and clarity. As everyone’s put away their camp bowls, all eyes are on Timmy. The silence in the mid carries the energy of a military camp on the eve of battle.
He proceeds to lay out the plan for the summit push, which is approximately 6 hours away. We’ll be waking up at 1:30 am and roped up and ready to go by 3am at the latest. He lays out the rope teams. Brent and I already know that the guides will put us on different rope teams and we’re okay with that. We understand the reasoning - communication among members on the rope team must be clear and unbiased. The mountain on a summit day is not a place for preferences that sometimes happen when two people who know each other well skew the dynamic of the group. Under pressure, one can easily go into protective mode of the other person, sensing that they “need a break” or need something else. The guides need to make sure they maintain control of the communication and each rope team.
Timmy navigating the way. Photo by Brent
Everyone seems to understand and be fine with the rope teams, except for one of the climbers. He gets visibly nervous and he explains that he joined the climb because of his friend and feels strongly he wants to be on the same rope team as him. His anxiety is palpable as everyone else is completely still and quiet. Timmy looks at him and diffuses the situation by calmly explaining that there are specific reasons behind the team selections and that it’s the best decision for everyone’s safety. I know that he’s going to have a chat with this person afterwards and make sure that he’s good to go. I also pull Timmy aside since the climber is supposed to be on my rope team. I explain to Timmy that even though I like this person, I don’t feel safe being roped up to someone with nervous energy. I’m keenly aware that any misstep or mistake has a high consequence to everyone else on the rope - and I don’t trust myself yet to maintain my focus if I’m not confident that everyone on the rope is completely calm and composed.
After dinner, listening to Timmy. Photo by Brent
Nobody seems to sleep well the night before our wakeup shortly after midnight. It takes us a good hour to get dressed, geared up and ready to go. We cannot afford to leave anything behind as every piece is critical to our success and even our survival. I am relieved to see that Mark, the NOAA ship captain and a former Navy guy ties in behind me. Mark has the confidence and steadiness of someone used to navigating a large vessel and managing a crew, and I trust him. Our rope team is lead by Harry, or Haroldas, a young Lithuanian and one of the most hardcore athletes I’ve come across. An ultramarathoner, he has run across countries and just before joining the expedition, he biked from Chicago to Haines, Alaska, to start his summer job. He’s got a huge smile and a big heart and I am happy that he’s going to lead our rope team today.
As we pass the serac section and gain the col, we swap our snowshoes for crampons. From now on, we’ll be walking on hard snow and ice, along the ridge and up the spine of Fairweather. There are hardly any breaks - five minutes max every hour or so and it usually involves changing gear, grabbing a bite to eat or a sip from the bottles tucked into our jackets to keep the water from freezing. It’s also the only opportunity to go to the bathroom, which has to be done in full sight of the whole team. I’m so thankful for my pee funnel which allows me to pee standing up without taking off my pants. It’s a sustained climbing effort for over ten straight hours on the way up. Most of the time, it’s putting one cramponed boot in front of the other, but the three roped teams soon reach a bottleneck of sorts where Timmy fixes a rope across a crevasse and a steep uphill section that we need to climb with our ascenders and ice axes.
Timmy leading a steep section where he’ll fix a rope. Photo by Mike Shep
The teams negotiating a snow bridge and a fixed rope climb. Photo by Dani Rudinsky
Aaron leading the third rope team up. Photo by Mark Van Waes
The last 1,000 feet I start feeling the altitude. Just like on Shasta, I feel it in my stomach. It’s a combination of nerves and eating small bites of frozen energy bars, interspersed with sugary slurps of Tang. I feel slightly nauseous and on the brink of throwing up. On the final stretch, as we are dangerously close to our 1pm turnaround time, I feel Harry steadily pulling on the rope as I try to gather my strength and not stop. He encourages me gently, which keeps me from barfing and I soldier on. There’s another factor I’m managing on my climb and one that I can only share with Dani - the only other girl on the team. On the morning of our summit day, I get my period and it’s the day when it’s full on. I have hastily swallowed two Advils and while I’m not in physical pain, I feel extremely bloated and sluggish.
Harry, the (cheer)leader of our rope team
The last stretch of uphill is the hardest. It feels endless. At some point, we hear the celebratory sounds of Brent’s rope team having reached the summit. They are yelling back at us, encouraging us up. I feel a sudden influx of energy, which transforms to a full on euphoria once we crest and we join the first four team members on the summit. The third rope team joins us in another 20 minutes. We have summitted at 12:55pm, five minutes before our turnaround time.
Brent and I on the summit
The Eastern Euros on the summit - first Bulgarian and first Lithuanian to ascend Fairweather. Photo by Mike Shep
Daryl, Mike and Timmy celebrating on the summit
The scene at the top is one of absolute jubilation. Daryl has unfurled his British Columbia flag, and Mark is posing with the flag of his ship. I silently thank the mountain for letting us stand here as I’m busy running around posing for photos with Brent, with Harry (as the Eastern Euro team) and with Daryl, just because. We’re standing on the border between the US and Canada - we can see a sea of peaks stretching around us in all directions and a layer of clouds covering the Pacific Ocean to our west. I kick myself for forgetting to bring a Bulgarian flag as I realize that I’m probably the first Bulgarian to stand on the summit. There’s no trace left of the stomach upset I was feeling on the way up. It’s just like Shasta - as soon as I set foot on the summit, the euphoria erases all signs of sickness and fills me with amazing joy, strength and vitality. It’s a huge accomplishment for Timmy and the guides, for all of whom this is their first summit of Fairweather. The mountain has allowed fewer than two hundred people to stand on its peak. Nobody has climbed it in the past two years and Timmy believes this is the first time a group as big of ours successfully summits.
Of course, as every mountaineer knows, getting to the summit is only half of the climb. One has to make it safely back down and the descent is usually when most accidents happen. Climbers are tired and tend to lose focus. On the way down, I’m keenly aware of our fatigue and I concentrate with all my might on every step. It doesn’t help that my stride is shorter than that of the guys on my rope team, so they are forced to slow down. Otherwise it becomes difficult for me to manage the rope, being tied in the middle of it. I need to regulate my pace so that it’s steady. I’m working on avoiding being pulled forward by Harry and managing the tripping hazard of the rope. I’m watching for the slack that sometimes comes precariously close to my crampons from Mark’s side of the rope.
On the climb back (yes, there’s a part where we climb back up before going down) Photo by Mike Shep
An agonizing 5 hours later, we’re safely back in camp. We’ve been on the move for 16 hours. Everyone is dead tired but the guides’ job is not yet done - they have to go and make food. Some of the climbers pass out in their tents before they have a chance to eat but I’m thankful for the soup warming my belly and my tired body. Timmy is already on the satellite phone with Drake, our pilot, planning our exit from the mountain the following day. The next morning, we’ll be breaking up the whole camp, packing up and walking down the few miles to our pick-up site.
Walking down to the site on the glacier where we were first dropped off, I remember the day we flew in, full of anticipation. At that time, there was another small group of climbers camped out on the glacier. Willi Prittie, a guy sporting a beard almost to his waist is one of the veterans of Alaskan climbing. He was joined by an American climber (the first one to solo climb Denali in the winter and someone who has done tons of first ascents in Alaska), as well as his Canadian girlfriend, who is an accomplished climber herself. Together with a climber-photographer friend of theirs, they had flown to the glacier a few weeks before us and were looking to summit on a new route from the North. Unfortunately, after a hard day of technical climbing, they had gotten pinned down on the ridge with gale-force winds. After an emergency bivouac in a snow cave, they were forced to turn around.
They were very happy to see Drake when he flew us in - they were ready to get off the mountain. As we were unloading, I told the Denali solo climber that I had some of his home-made bread with me. We were staying in the same bed and breakfast as them in Haines and Leslie, the landlady, had given us some of the bread to take with. So here was I, by the door of the tiny plane, on a glacier, having a conversation with one of the best American climbers about whether his bread contained nuts or not. We had a nice laugh about it.
Drake getting his plane ready to fly gear and climbers back to Haines. Photo by Mike Shep
On the way out of the glacier now, the landscape carried the sense of a promise fulfilled. I felt a surprising eagerness to get out of this frozen world. I found myself looking forward to seeing trees and grass and colors again. Finally, we saw the spec of Drake’s plane flying in the distance and heard the faint sound of the engine. He was looping around in a wide circle, maneuvering to avoid a layer of low-lying cloud.
Drake is a true character. A former pro racecar driver who competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, he gets super intense when on the ground. He has the impatience and concentration of someone on a mission and anyone flying with him knows to shut up and just do as told. While getting his machine ready, Drake touches, climbs and kicks different parts of his plane, all the while wearing the most intense “don’t mess with me” face. He’s prone to using colorful language and has been known to lose a few potential customers by insisting that he answer his own phone when people call to book flights. But the climbing guides love him - he can get in and out of the mountain in conditions when nobody else can, he’s an amazing pilot and he knows Alaskan weather better than anyone.
Once in the air, Drake relaxes in his element, turns on his playlist for everyone to hear through our headsets and transforms into a different person. He immediately turns to Brent and wants to know if Brent’s a pilot. He has picked up that Brent didn’t need help putting his seatbelt on and that he referred to it by its proper name as a “three point harness”. Brent explains that he has done some car racing, which is music to Drake’s ears and starts him on an excited conversation about cars and racing. While Brent and Drake are busy chatting away, I’m taking pictures, mesmerized at the sea of glaciers, remote ocean bays and mountain peaks that unfurl beneath us.
The glacial landscape gives way to green and lush mountainsides
Back in Haines, we are met by Aaron, who has had just enough time to take a shower and clean up. Leslie, our Bed and Breakfast host is relieved that we made it back. That evening, we meet up with the rest of the team on the sunny porch of a distillery for a drink and dinner to celebrate our trip. Everyone looks happy, elated, relaxed and very young. Even Daryl looks like a 20 year old with his clean shaven face. We laugh as we reminisce abougt all the funny and improbable moments we’ve lived and we talk about future plans and adventures. At that moment, I know in my heart that this is not my last trip to Alaska or its beautiful mountains. I will be back soon.
