THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

Ice - 1978

206 1978 Ice The wind, heavy with moisture, comes in off the Pacific and drives hard across the land, dropping snow where no one expects snow to drop. The snow falls in a hard, driven slant until it hits the thick evergreens and then it breaks into swirling, crazy patterns that make you dizzy if you stare at it too long. We keep our heads down and slog along the trail, gaining altitude, wondering if we are going to break out of tree line before we find the old lean-to. Wondering if we are lost. We will use the lean-to as a base camp for the summit attempt we will make tomorrow. But only if we find it. The snow builds quickly until we are knee-deep in it. At first it is thick and heavy on the ground and our bodies heat up from the effort of moving through it, from the effort of the climb. As we gain altitude, the temperature drops and everything around us become hard and fragile; the snow gets lighter. I notice that flakes that had melted on my pants have begun to freeze. Later, we will learn that the temperature dropped more than twenty degrees in little more than an hour. The Pale Light of Sunset 207 We are traveling light. We are prepared for the mountains and the cold, but not for this much snow, not this late in the spring. Knowing we will be on rock once we have left tree line, we brought no skis, no snowshoes . We take turns breaking trail, one of us plowing through, the other two following close behind. Whoever breaks trail can only last about fifteen minutes, and then we have to trade off. We can see no more than a few feet in front of us. I am leading when the trail seems to flatten out, to become eerily smooth, as though we are walking on a snow-covered sidewalk. This can’t be right, I think. There are no such trails as this. And I am right. I am walking on a frozen stream and I realize it only when the ice breaks and I shoot down into the water. I hold my breath, thinking I will be in over my head, but the stream is less than two feet deep, enough to cover my boots, to soak my legs to my knees. I stand in the water, stunned that I am wet in the mountains in a spring-winter that is not supposed to be here, thankful that I can breathe, grateful that I can walk out of the stream. I backtrack as quickly as I can, breaking ice as I go. In less than two minutes I cannot feel my feet. The snow on the bank is deep and dry and I throw my pack into the drift, pull off my gloves and begin to work at my boots. The others offer help, kneeling in the snow beside me, but there is little they can do. The laces are already stiffening and I have to fumble for a knife in my pocket, my fingers no more limber than the laces. I get the knife out and cut the laces all the way down the center of the boots. There are ice crystals on the boots before I get them off and my socks make tiny crackling noises when I pull at them. I am barefoot in the snow. I hang the socks in a tree: I know they will not dry; I just do not want to lose them in the snow. The others are still trying to help, but they are only in the way. I rummage in my pack and pull out some extra clothing and wrap my feet and legs. I have two extra pairs of socks. Lee Maynard 208 The snow gets thicker. If we are going to find the lean-to we will have to forget the trail and navigate in by map and compass. We can hang our ponchos on the open sides and create a type of cabin, protection from the storm. And we know we can make a fire there. We take shelter beneath a large evergreen that has lower branches held to the ground by snow weight, with more snow piling up. There is snow under the tree but not as thick as outside the branches and we...