Cold. Grim. Evil.
Our second bivy on Mount Alberta (not planned) was a simple matter of just passing the time until it was light enough to see where we were going again. There was no comfort other than the knowledge that we were out of harm’s way for the time being. I lay prone, alternating between shivering and doing isometrics to stave off succumbing to hypothermia. I tried to doze off from time to time as I was genuinely exhausted from the physical exertion, the lack of sleep, the mental anxiety, the BITTER cold, the monster approach, from Mount Alberta. I knew Steve was miserable, as well, but I also knew that he was in his “happy place”, as well. I was too. This is what we came for: complete submission to the beast, salvation through annihilation. Welcome to the church of real alpine climbing.
I knew that my body would somehow wake me before frostbite or hypothermia could take hold. The intermittent spindrift (our companion and foe during the descent down the gully) that powdered my face kept me from sleeping anyway. Lying there, on the tiny snow ledge, in our frozen and wet thin down sleeping bags, passing the dark hours of the night became a lesson in patience. It was a lesson that we had both learned countless times before but were still pupils of the study. Steve had the lighter sleeping bag so he got the small tarp to cover him. Our tiny beds were carved on top of a long, narrow snow ledge, perched below a slightly overhanging rock wall which seemed to offer some shelter from what may come from above. Feeling the allure of the immeasurably greater degree of comfort to be found in the nearby Lloyd McKay hut, Steve did not want to stay here another night. To him, bivying here was as appealing to lying in a ditch one had just dug. I offered him the tarp (it would not fit over the both of us, end to end, on this ledge) as an inducement. We both knew that to continue down this gully in the dark could get us hosed. We had not gone down the normal descent gully and what lay ahead of us was unknown and even more so now that it was dark and starting to snow. It would be better to continue in the daylight and we could definitely stay here for the night in relative safety. At least, this is what I had convinced myself of.
I thought about how cold my feet could get before I had “a problem.” I thought about how nice it would be when (if?) the sun comes up in the morning on this East facing flank of Mount Alberta, bathing us in the first warming rays of a new day. I thought about eating every calorie of food I had on me to give my body’s more fuel (I did this). I thought about the rest of the unknown descent. Would it go? Would the snow be stable? Would it be simple? I thought about the slog through the deep snow back to the hut from the bottom of the face. I thought about the food we had left there. I thought about the long ski in our climbing boots back over Wooley Shoulder and down to Steve’s camper truck on the Icefields Parkway. I thought about my son. I wondered how my girlfriend was sleeping. Shivering through the long hours of a late winter Canadian night there is plenty of time for thinking, too much time.
It may be clichéd, but to say that morning did not come soon enough would be an understatement. I knew from the clear skies above that one thing was sure: warmth, soon. We unfurled ourselves from our snow covered ice wraps and rapped off of the single 3/4” cam we had for an anchor. Several more and some downclimbing through snow saw us clear the bergschrund at the bottom of the face. A thrilling (fun?) glissade down the final slopes delivered us to the much welcomed wallowing, hour long post-hole adventure back to the hut. We had another half a day of simple movement to be released.
