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.
"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.
