One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: June 15, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1991_0705-14_HawaiiEclipse.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
One fine Sunday last summer I very nearly snapped my thread, leaving the rest to unravel into nothingness. "Well Alan, since you fell but didn't die, what now?" "Gee, I guess I'll blow off the rest of the summer having fun, and November remodeling my house." Whew, now that's about done, and it's about time I wrote up the story of my worst mountaineering accident.
On August 18, 1986, I had a wonderful solo climb of Capitol Peak. Five years later, to the day, it was not so wonderful.
Once upon a time I was called upon to lead some trips for the Colorado Mountain Club. It wasn't something I was thrilled about, but I rose to the occasion. Well after I planned and described the trips for the CMC calendar, the state Safety Committee nixed them. Lots of mountaineering experience didn't substitute for taking the Boulder Mountaineering School, they said, or at least working up through the ranks to the tougher climbs. Fair enough.
So imagine my surprise when I was called and asked to lead Capitol Peak, 14130', for the third annual Griffith Peak Challenge. "Me? You want me to lead this?" As it turned out I wasn't their first choice, but Wayne Webber had come down with... Lung cancer. My age, same occupation, non-smoker, and a more avid adventurer than me. Pretty scary.
Well what the heck, I thought. They need a leader and strict CMC rules don't apply because this isn't a normal CMC event. I can do it.
The Mannville Corporation sponsored this peak and one other. The sponsors donated to the Griffith Center, you see, and all we had to do was climb the mountain. Come to find out, the group of climbers from Mannville were quite competent and really didn't need much leading, thank you very much. So as it ended up, five of them met me and four others at our camp, high above Moon Lake northeast of the peak. The four others were a random assortment of my friends and their friends.
Now Moon Lake, 11720', was on the opposite side of Capitol's north ridge from the standard route via Capitol Lake. I'd wanted to visit the other side, and the Mannville folks did too, so that's why we went that way. Ugh, what a miserable backpack trip!
We started from the Snowmass trailhead, 8400', at 1105 on Saturday. About a mile up we had to ford Snowmass Creek to follow the trail. A couple miles later it petered out in a meadow. We side-hilled a long way with full packs cross-country to find it again. But after that it came and went erratically as we crossed timberline.
Upon finally reaching Moon Lake we discovered it to be pretty rocky all around. We ended up somewhat southwest of the lake in a lumpy but grassy hollow. It took 8:35 to gain "only" 3300' over about six miles. We arrived late, tired, and pushing sunset -- but at least most of the Mannville guys were already there and looking for us.
Would I recommend this route to Capitol? Sure... To someone I didn't like.
OK so now it's Sunday morning and we're rolling out hurting. The Mannville guys -- the official climbers -- took off just ahead of the rest of us and never looked back. Strangely enough though, two of them happened to be ham radio operators, so I kept in touch with them.
Fearless Leader (that was me) and his flock ambled along behind the VIPs. One of the flock dropped out after a half hour. The remaining four of us hiked on up around to "K2" (~13700'), the point north of Capitol at the other end of its knife edge ridge. Climbing up east and then south and then west around to it was not all that bad. Much better than the route from Capitol Lake.
"Some leader I am," I thought to myself. "I really don't have much to contribute to this trip. Except for one thing..." I remembered from the last time that I should have gone lower around the west flank of K2. This should avoid nasty downclimbing to reach the infamous knife edge ridge. So I led the group over the ridge edge well below K2. "See, there's a dirt track down into the gully." Plus a tremendous view down to Capitol Lake... Just over that 1500' cliff there.
Getting into the center of the large west flank gully was relatively easy. Getting back out the far side was not. We were at least 100' below K2, quite exposed to rock falls, on a 45 deg or so slope. Not a fun place to spend time. But there wasn't a clear exit ahead, just some very steep rock ridges with smaller gullies between them. A rotten rock mess. I scouted ahead.
Straight above looked too sheer to ascend. The next gully over was promising. I was ready to backtrack the group out of the gully, but figured we should check ahead just a bit more before giving up. "Let's see, I can drop 10' around that rock ridge to get into it, or I can go over the ridgecrest." Never one to drop elevation unnecessarily, I took the high road... And almost paid the ultimate price for a moment of carelessness.
Later, someone said on notes... "Ahh well, if I die, at least I'll have died doing something I love." That's how I have rationalized my mountain climbing for nearly 15 years. Then I nearly died. Now I'm not sure I love it so much.
I climbed toward the ridge and the next gully. I stopped just before crossing over it to check it out. I was above about 10' of vertical followed by the sloppy slope. It vanished below into a sinuous ravine over the edge of a cliff. The rock I stood on let loose -- suddenly. I didn't feel it let go. In an instant I found myself flying down the hill, facing out, toward a 1500' drop.
In less time than it takes to tell, I thought: "I'm falling! I might die! Try to stop, but don't hit anything directly so I break something. Shit, I'm really falling fast. I'm about to feel something break! (What a horrible sensation.) Huh, I stopped. Nothing is broken. Wow."
If I were more with it, I'd have said to the group, "I hate when that happens!" Or maybe, "No, don't go that way..." But I was rattled. I think I said, "My mountain experience just saved my life." Right... But what got me falling in the first place? Well I do know that I didn't panic as I fell, and that probably made all the difference.
I still don't know how I stopped my fall. Neither did the others in the party. They expected to see me tumble out of sight.
I looked up and was astonished. I'd dropped at least 20' in "no time". I quickly reassured the others I was alive -- after the rocks stopped bouncing past me. Then I reassured the Mannville climbers... Who called me on the radio from the summit a quarter mile away, to ask what was that horrible sound they heard of avalanching rock?
I assessed my injuries as we got out of the gully. Which way? Believe it or not, we continued out of there in the same direction, up a short but rather nasty climb. Loose and exposed. I don't want to think about it.
My physical damage was a badly bruised thigh, a nearly dislocated shoulder, and various cuts and abrasions. The mental damage? It took a while to sort that out. I was doing something I love, something I have done a lot and find comfortable. I misjudged a rock -- but how many times have I cheated death when a similar rock did not move?
I rested on the ridge for four hours while the others went on to the summit and back. Took aspirin and slung up my nearly useless left arm. Kept in touch with the Mannville group. Called Griffith Center in Denver through a phone patch in Glenwood to report in that they'd made it -- all 54 peaks were summited that day, but we were the first to check in! [2023 note: This was before the age of cellphones!]
I suffered through eleven hours of hiking down and then backpacking out to the trailhead: Three hours back to camp (1430-1730), and later seven more hours slogging down with full packs and a part-time trail. I don't want to think about that much either.
Our carpool driver insisted he had to be in Denver Monday morning... And we barely made it. 0145 at the trailhead, a miserable middle of the night drive home, and I reached Fort Collins at around 0700. I vaguely recall the sun coming up as we rolled downhill towards Denver.
Why didn't I hurtle down the mountain over the precipice? I don't know. I could just as easily have experienced a violent death, the snapping of my thread. I do not recommend it as a way to die! What an utterly helpless feeling.
[2023 retrospective: I dealt with the PTSD as best I could, but occasionally still awaken with a jolt recalling this memory. And every time I read about someone else falling to their death in the mountains, I shudder at what they must have experienced.]
(Next trip report: 1992_0712-19_LakePowell.htm)