A Dose of Familiarity

A Dose of Familiarity

That familiar feeling creeps back into my consciousness.  The biological metronome of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.  The movement, a flash of timber at my periphery, the slow smolder of lactic acid building, the muffled stomp of human hoofs, the splashing torrent just off trail.  Here it is again, the answer to that ceaseless prod...  But how easy it is to forget such a simple fix?

A dull sun carries through the clouds and window waking me.  Rubbing my eyes I gradually sit myself up on the couch my feet finding the woven fibers of my living room rug.  Slowly I stand; there is lingering tightness in my hamstrings.  I cross the 15 or so feet to my stove top and fire up the kettle.  Fresh coffee beans, a potent blend, are ground and a cut of quality butter added.  I can hear Matt and Tommy stirring in the room off the kitchen.  The yield is a hot, high lipid brew.  Just the kick we need.  Tommy and Matt groggily find their way into the kitchen.  I hand them each a full mug.

After polishing off two French presses, my brother and I walk the few city blocks to and load into Tommy's Nissan Xterra.  In the back lay a few pairs of worn trail shoes, a running vest, and a few sweaters.  The SUV is well worn, a worthy companion for this morning's mission.   Dust and dirt blanket the tires and the tail lights, a small nod to the thousands of miles previously covered.  The engine comes alive with a glugging grind.  The morning is dark, grey and damp.  Gregory Alan's The Weatherman quietly plays… "that howling wind, she’ll take everything but she’s easy on the eyes".

By the end of the fourth track, Tommy pulls the mandatory and still illegal U-turn into the trail-head lot.  I can feel the morning's caffeine and remnants of last night's alcohol.  Sitting on the lip of the trunk, I strip off a layer.  Despite the damp air, it’s warm for December.  This will be Tommy's first cruise through the Wissahickon which has been, for a long time now, a sanctuary of mine.

"Go ahead Mike, lead the way".  We set off at an easy pace, quickly closing the gap between the car park and the trail head.  Niggles in the knee and hip start to settle.  The plan is to take a well-known route, a trail system I’ve covered many times before.  A half mile down Forbidden Drive we reach a stone arch bridge blanketed in fog.  Banking to the right, we take our first steps on true trail.  The first quarter mile is ascent, carrying us up and away from the river.  The effort wakes us up, the cool air cuts at our lungs.  The gurgle of the river softens as we climb.  Soon we top out with Matt taking the front.  At the crest, the trail quickly arcs its way back to the river.  Soon, the three of us are swiftly moving through the heavy mist, running parallel to the river, the easy dirt track slowly transitioning to more technical, challenging root and rock.

Running in a short line, we traverse a timeworn foot bridge and come into a small clearing.  Opposite us, atop a modest rock outcropping sits the Toleration statue.  We make the traditional class 3 scramble to the top and tag the elaborate cairn stopping to catch our breath.  A leafless forest sits a hundred feet or more below us, flat light reflects off the river.  Only the subtle swish of wind through the dormant trees, the birds and our breathing breaks the silence.  The descent from the statue requires a low traverse and the game trail is wet and slick with fallen leaves, slowing our movement a little.   We slide from tree to tree using the trucks for support until we reach the bottom, jumping the final six feet to return to the riverside trail that we had previously abandoned.

Once again we are off plummeting down this natural alley towards Devil's Pool, Matt and I's predetermined turnaround point.   Tommy is training for his first 50 miler and will log more miles than us today.  We splash down an antiquated trail, a former river bed, struggling for footing.  A slow trickle moves through a myriad of streams underfoot.  Our focus is pulled to our feet as we work to stay upright and dry.  The river bed trail pulls us towards our destination.  I become aware of the aural rush of Devil's Pool.  Our pace quickens.

Skipping rocks into the pool I think about the time I've taken away from the trails.  Why?  This is what I love.  Matt's skips a flat stone off the pool's surface, the rock cracking with a thud against the spring's far wall.  It’s here, stomping out the miles in the woods or mountains that I feel most at ease. Matt's next toss drops heavily into the depths of the pool.  Ironically, it's running here, an action with almost no practical benefits, where I am most sure that my time is being well spent.  

"You want to head back?" "Yeah guess we better should".  Leaving the pool behind, we begin the round trip back to the trail head and the Xterra, thankful for the dose of familiarity and the reminder of the solace and solitude offered through miles spent on trail.

Welcome to the pain cave: El Alto in Bolivia's Cordillera Real

We didn't come for fancy hotels. We didn't come for fiestas or for cheap cerveza. We came for the mountains. We came to climb--sans Diamox, sans bullshit.

The smell of trash and smog floats through the small crack in the car window; a 1990 Toyota rattles down an unpaved road. Three days of acclimatization in La Paz and Copacabana culminate with a 4 hour drive into the mountains.

My brother and I are eager to get to the Cordillera Real: a portion of mountains in Bolivia which are part of a larger range called the Cordillera Blanca. Crowded roads and the smell of pollution fade as the Toyota bounces toward the mountains. I watch old dogs and old men alike shuffle through trash on the side of the road: el desayuno.

We arrive in the valley at the base of the mountains and we latch our extra climbing gear to three donkeys. We begin our trek toward Lago Juri Kota. Fresh mountain air replaces smog, and mountain passes replace crowded roads. The mountain air we had wanted so badly proves less refreshing than expected: it is thin and unforgiving.

As we approach 5000m, a pounding settles at the back of my head. I breathe heavily and I think about the mountains that await in the coming days: the Condoriri Group, Pequeno Alpamayo, and Huayna Potosi. The pounding in my head worsens. I hate this, I love this.

We reach Lago Juri Kota in the afternoon. Stoves fire up in the cooking tent, donkeys arrive with the climbing gear, and the sun settles behind the Cordillera Real. I climb into the tent and try to sleep. I glance over at my brother and shake my head. He is struggling to keep down dinner but manages to offer his thoughts:

Welcome to the pain cave. This is what we came here for.

I unravel the headphones rapped around my old iPod nano and zip up my sleeping bag. The string plucking of Ben Howard can only partially overshadow the pounding in the back of my head. I close my eyes slowly, taking in a last glimpse of the great mountains that surround our first camp. My head spins and I squeeze my eyelids tighter, hoping that it will settle the nausea. I give in, embracing el alto, settling into a light sleep. Only the thought of the mountains and the climbing that awaits eases my mind. I hate this, I love this. The pain cave that is our tent becomes home and I finally rest.

Matt Bryan

To Save a Wasp

In the wind at 17,000 feet you can't hear the sound of vomit hitting the snow.  The hood of a down parka insulates well.   In this casing of down and nylon stubborn cross wind is drowned to an air-conditioning hum.  The world sounds as if I'm standing at the bottom of a huge aquarium tank, muffled and suffocated.  Alpine starts are an abyss.  Light flashes schizophrenically at the edges of my vision.  Turning around I can see Matt hunched over, leaning on the head of his axe.  "Are you OK?” "Yeah... I'm good".  It's almost a lie, the convoluted self-assessment of a man both choked of oxygen and unwilling to quit.  There's something wrong with his eyes.  Have we pushed the acclimatization too fast?

Decisions are made quickly during a summit bid.  Who will lead this pitch?  Is this descent steep enough to warrant a belay anchor?  Do we abandon the expedition here?  Silverio.  Yes.  No. 

I've never seen the adze of an ice axe used to cover puke.  I think briefly how weird it is that courtesy holds up in sharp moments like this.  Another pair of climbers stand a few feet from us, the French woman and her guide.  They ignore Matt's sick-spell.  Matt pulls a drag off my water bottle and gags.  At this altitude it's too exhausting to drop your own pack, anchor it in the snow, undo the straps and remove your own bottle.  Much easier to simply reach into the back of your climbing partner's.  If Matt has a virus I have it now.  We give Silverio the go, "listo".

Despite our tattered state we lead the party of climbers ascending from High Refugio.  Silverio's pace is taxing for Matt and me.  We are comparatively weak and unacclimated but I'm not yet to the point of counting steps, that trick I want to save for the summit ridge.  For now it’s all "chop wood, carry water", "kiss or kill", "summit or bust".  Mantras I repeat to myself as the three of us grind our way up this lower grade section of Huayna Potosi's Normal Route.  There comes a point of fatigue in climbing where you grope for the off-switch like a man in a dark room he's never been in.  On a good day, if you’re lucky you can find this switch.  At seventeen-five I flip it to "off".  Linear time relaxes.  My breath and movement fall into sync.  A few minutes pass by like this or perhaps a few hours? 

I can feel Matt's weight in my harness.  It's not a good sign.  There's the taste blood in the back of my throat. "Matt- how we doing?" "I don't know."  We take a breather 200 feet short of the crux, a Bergschrund passable via a 60 foot section of moderately steep ice.   Matt dry heaves off route.  This section will be a bear in our already depleted state.  Maybe were not strong enough?  With Matt on my belay I get my first good look at his face.  Sunken and blood-drained.  But then again I probably look like shit too with the better part of the last week spent at threshold altitude.  I'm tired of breathing through coffee straws, waking in the middle of the night out of breath.

No. It’s the 1,000 yard stare that startles me, blankness in the eyes that only the deranged and those teetering on the fringes of consciousness have. 

What happened?  Just three days ago we topped out on Pequeno Alpamayo.  It hurt but not like this.  We weren't this sick.  Is this the edge we came out here to find?  How much do we need to hemorrhage before we feel fulfilled?  Why do we push it this far, why do we seek out the suffering? 

…There is a wasp that falls into a pond.  A man sees this wasp struggling to free itself from the water, fighting not to drown.  Wishing to save the wasp the man reaches down into water but is stung and drops the struggling bug back into the pond.  Despite the sting, the man reaches back down to free the wasp for a second time but again he is stung.  Recoiling in pain the man hesitates.  After a moment he reaches down again to free the wasp…

"I think this is the end for us,” I mutter.  It's half question.  Matt nods in the way of a drowsy person.  This is the highest we have been.  The highest we will go.  I lift a heavy, gloved hand to my face and read the altimeter: 18,566 feet, 400 vertical feet short of Huayna Potosi's summit.   We’ve topped out mentally and physically.  Few words are exchanged.  Looking down on the descent I can see the headlamps of other climbers crawling below us, a billion more bleed light from above.

  “To Save a Wasp” was my attempt to honestly portray not just the experience of our expedition to Bolivia’s Cordillera Blanca but to expose the internal grapple that comes with the complex and insatiable desire to push personal and physical limits.  The wasp represents that deep part of our (collectively as an outdoor loving community) mind or soul that desires something more, that thirst for fulfillment.  For Matt and I, true fulfillment is often only found at the stinging end of some climbing or running pursuit in the mountains or forests or oceans.  We have found that wild places both stoke the flames of adventure and ease the psychic malaise that too commonly affects people in this modern age.  For us this expedition represented both our last major trip together before my brother’s 4 year military commitment (an end of an era for us) and a conduit for self-exploration.  Above all, this trip was another excuse to do what we love, namely to enjoy wild places with friends and family and to experience these landscapes and memories in as refined and as true of a manner as humanly possible.  This trip was a sufferfest.  Perhaps we were a bit bull-headed and under experienced.  But for us that is also what these wild places offer, risk and growth and an authentic canvas in which to push the borders of who we are.  Would we do it again?  Absolutely.  In a way we are powerless, magnetically drawn to keep going back, to keep reaching down to once again save the wasp.

Reversing Tarnish

The accumulated weight of florescent office light bulbs, deadlines and painfully hollow conversation leaves me disoriented as if I've been set at a slow spin in some overpriced office chair. The late spring sun works its way through the trees and into the parking lot like coffee through a clogged press. A drafty north-south wind cuts across my face as I pull open and fall into the driver's seat of my RAV4. A second hand 60m climbing rope, chalk bag and beat up trail shoes sit hodgepodge in the trunk, subtly giving away my true life-blood. I pull a pair of old running shorts from the second row floor and dust them off. The engine hums, almost with excitement, yanking at the hem of the shorts I've just pulled on, nudging at me to drop the gear into drive. Heeding the prod, I pull the car out of the homogenized business development and onto the highway. Mason Jennings' Ulysses spins.

With one hand on the steering wheel I hack away at the buttons on my oxford, supplanting the 80/20 cotton/polyester armor of my day job with a ratty old race shirt. It feels right, weirdly appropriate on an almost existential level... but smells slightly off. As if the accumulated miles in this half-sour/half-kraut marathon T somehow worked its way into the fabric's DNA, rendering the T now immune from discount Tide detergent and high efficiency spin cycles. The minutia of 9-5 M-F begins to settle, like particulate in a glass. The churned waters of some primordial fish tank easing off, shit and sand and old scales falling slowly and shiftily in a feather dropped from hand descent. By the time I pull the regular (and illegal) U-turn into the trail-head parking lot, my post-hurricane-waters, Ganges polluted brain is now roughly half tempered. More of an Ocean City in September clear but not yet the sans OxiClean™ clarity of an alpine tarn which is what I'm craving, quite desperately. Soon, soon.

My pollen strewn SUV is one of 3 vehicles in the trail-head lot. Maybe the drivers are part of this eclectic outdoor oriented tribe? or maybe the cars are spill over from the low income neighborhood juxtaposed to our parking spots. The "store your valuables out-of-sight" sign offers mixed messages. I awkwardly pull a thumb knuckle-filleted-by-inner-heel from my running shoe and begin the slog across the 4-lane highway to the physical trail. A few more scales settle.

The dirt single tracks of PA's Wissahickon Valley reach like the capillaries of a frost bitten hand, at the outer edges they dwindle into almost non-existence, overgrown and peripheral they require near absolute awareness to navigate. As the steps accumulate these constricted foot paths open, running in tangents across the forest floor. Finally, here it makes sense. I toss mental baggage like an underpaid American Airlines handler. The trail gains relief. My heart rate and spirit follow the ascent. I choke down damp air, grasping for it, needing it, a blind man in the dark. Hypoxic pain nudges out subtle but chronic psychic malaise. There is only so much room in a man's head. My breathe reverberates in that open hall between my ears. My lungs ache signaling that deep, boiling burn of lactate thresholds ignored. Finally, here it makes sense, swallowed again whole by the forest. Sand and shit settle. The office chair's carnival spin stops. The present moment has friction. I am, finally, alive once again.

Fading

Sun light cuts across the tree tops throwing broken rays through the open field I'm crossing.  A murder of crows beat the sky.  Over a deafening silence, the sound of the breeze crawls it's way into my ears.  Dry wind pours softly through the meadow.  I raise my arms and run both my hands through the high, dry grass.   My eyes are glazed and weary, squinting from the fading sun.   Bringing a heavy arm in front of my face I read my GPS watch.  It's dead.  My own grasp of time, much like the watch's, has begun to slip away.  The frequent and insidious flow of thoughts that I experience in the everyday has slowed like that of a dwindling faucet.  I've slid into an ubiquitous existence.  At times hours blow by like minutes.  At others a single moment hangs seemingly forever.  This is what I came for I tell myself.  With each step greater pain sweeps up my legs, offset by a subtle and growing elation in spirit.  The wind falls away and the meadow slows it's dance.  Silence and the tree line re-swallow me.

Briarcliff Peekskill FKT: Lost, Dehydrated, and Stoked

Matt cut the engine of his F150.  We got out, stripped off our layers and figured out what bare essentials we needed to bring.  The plan was to yo-yo the Briarcliff Peekskill Trailway, starting at Watch Hill Road. We would run the subscribed 12 miles down to Ryder Road, and then repeat the process in reverse order back to the truck.  The trail wasn’t too tough to find so we synced our watches and set off.  Following green diamond blazes, we quickly realized how poorly marked the trail was, and how the fallen leaves had obscured any semblance of a worn-in footpath.  Tripping on roots and rocks were a necessity we accepted as our heads and eyes were always up and alert, looking for the next blaze. The trail goes through an old rural section of New York east of the Hudson River, and crosses winding back roads many times.  These intersections with dirt and asphalt were where navigation proved difficult.  Few roads were blazed, so many times we had to guess if we were on the right road or not.  Using the small map I brought, we guessed right most of the time, but the brief moments of deliberation and occasional wrong guesses lost us time and momentum.  Perhaps the most scenic section of the trail was the crossing of a large dam.  The reservoir was half-lit by the cloudy sky and provided us some inspiration after some frustrating road crossings.  The rest of the way to Ryder Road went without trouble, expect for a 0.25 section that was extremely overgrown with briar.  Forced to a walk, we slowly navigated through the thorns and popped out at Ryder Road 1hr35min32sec from start time.  To our surprise however, both watches read that we had had covered only 10 miles, rather than the 12 that every website and pamphlet I read had stated.  Our knees and calves were cut up, but physically we felt fine at the halfway point.

The return trip to the truck was mentally exhausting.  Somehow we got off the trail and ended having to take a road back to an intersection we remembered.  Thank God I had signal on my iPhone. Dehydrated and tired we made several wrong turns on the return trip.  Blazes and intersections that were obvious to us on the way South, became vague and blurry in our depleted state heading North.   We reached the truck with a return split of 1hr45min; 10 minutes slower but we added at least of mile of mistakes.  Total running time worked out to be 3hr21min21sec, but mistakes and all we were on our feet for 4hr6min4sec and reached the truck right before it got dark. The last couple miles had taken a lot out of us.  There were no cheers or high fives at the end. We stripped our vests and sat in the bed of Matt’s truck, silent, wondering why we do this to ourselves.  After five minutes of silence Matt asked me, “You ready?”  I said, “Yea.” And that was it. We took the winding road back to school.

Fastest Known Time (FKT) is what it sounds like; a way of keeping track of the quickest times on various trails around the country that do not have races associated with them.  This is mostly due to national park regulations that limit the impact of large groups on their trails.  In a world of paying $120 to run a marathon, Spartan Races, and other hyper-commercialized events, FKT’s distill running to its purest form.  No aid stations, no sponsors, no medals, no stickers to put on your car.  Just you and your watch. 

I found the trail on the FKT ProBoards website. There was no FKT for the trail so I guess we now have it with our Southern split of 1hr35min32sec.  I’ m sure someone with more experience in this area can beat this and I hope they do.  My Strava data is below for anyone interested in planning a run or looking at the mistakes we made. 

http://www.strava.com/activities/208932443 

Recollections from the Ridge

2:43 am.  I'm shivering. The night breeze blows its coldness into my bones.  I take a uneasy step onto the aluminum ladder.  The crevasse is too long to jump.  A deep breathe and silence.  I'm across.  I steal a glance upwards.  First to the sky.  The universe puts on a show for us, thousands upon thousands of stars ignited. Their light with the moon turns the glacier into broken glass.  The faint ghostly ribbon of the Milky Way stands smeared across the horizon.  My eyes travel down to earth and this stubborn ridge.  Above me dance the headlamps of other climbers, strung out, as if on a line, we wind our way steadily up.  The airs thin.  A dull pressure builds behind my eyes.  A step, a breath, and then another.   I kick loose a stone.  It tumbles, haphazardly, oblivious to it's fate off the steeps behind me.  1000ft it tumbles.  I become more conscious of the 9mm rope holding me to my brother and of the crampons grinding and scratching their way into the rocky, icy spine of the Disappointment Cleaver.  Like a skeletons back it cuts up the glacier.  A rocky ladder.  A gravel gauntlet.  Tension builds in the line and in my stomach.  A deep breath, a step, and then another.  Cold air swims down my collar.  The light of my headlamp bounces in front of my eyes, illuminating the others roped to me.  All of us sharing the risk, sharing the experience.  And still we snake our way up.  20 steps I count, another 20 more.  I slip into a hypnotic delusion.  The figure 8 knot in my harness reflects the knot in my gut.  I drink in the air, my lungs always thirsty.  Never quenched.  Another 20 steps another breath.  My head's splitting now.  The silence envelops us.  Red glow spills over the horizon.  A fleeting glance behind me reveals our altitude.  Adams, St. Helens, Hood.  All shadowed on the horizon.  All welcoming morning.  The rope comes taunt.  My axe whines as I pull it from the snow.  I steal a final glance upwards.  A grin on my brother's face.  Heart pounding in my chest, I count my last steps to the summit.