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.