The sound of snow falling on my tent is soft and soothing. It feels good to be snug inside my sleeping bag - this feathered zeppelin - at the end of each day. I usually get Didar (our cook) to fill up one of my Nalgene bottles with boiling water, which I stuff into my sleeping bag - at least until it gets a little too hot. That's right, I said a little too hot. I can thank my Feathered Friends -60C Snowy Owl sleeping bag for that. Still, despite this short period of nightly comfort, even inside my tent the thermometer reads minus -25C and falling; and unlike the -25C in Minnesota, there's nowhere except a sleeping bag to get warm. Nowhere! And when we're on the mountain...well...
Many people would hate all this winter climbing stuff: cold hands and feet, biting wind, no refuge, plus the icy, windblown slopes of our objective looming above...waiting. The winds have been howling now for over two weeks straight, the constant roar through the clouds reminds us that base camp is the only survivable place right now. Our skin is dry and cracked around our fingernails. Our clothes are dirty and stinky. Everything is covered with ice. Yet somehow I find comfort here, feeling relaxed and appreciative, despite all the discomforts. At home I can satiate my discomfort easily; with the flick of a switch a heater comes on, the push of a button and the room lights up. Heck, I could KILL a Big Mac right now, which, at least in North America, at any time and place I am only 3 minutes from getting - if I were so inclined...;).
Some years ago I embarked upon my first major expedition to an extremely remote place - a 1500 meter high unclimbed tower in the Canadian Arctic, rising straight out of the frozen sea ice. I would attempt to ascend the huge, granite monolith, with a climbing partner from California, Brandon. Even then we had a small solar panel and a satellite phone - but it didn't work very well. My girlfriend at the time had a cow the entire time we were gone...but I guess some of the circumstances behind said "cow" were understandable: You see, one of the only times I actually managed to get the stupid satellite phone to work just happened to coincide with a few polar bears waltzing into camp. In the arctic, polar bears were our worst fear, as they were almost as common as rabbits in California, and wouldn't hesitate to eat one of us as an afternoon snack. So, just as the bears came towards camp, the satellite phone went dead, which just so happened to be during the very brief phone call with my ex. I think the last words I spoke to my ex-girlfriend were something like, "Oh, gotta go. Oh, no. Polar bears are..........."
Thing is, the satellite phone didn't work again for THREE WEEKS. In the meantime, all manner of nightmarish thoughts were going through my ex-girlfriend's head; one being that her boyfriend was now reduced to small, brown, steaming poop-piles, scattered across miles of frozen sea ice. (Before I left the States I tried to calm her fears by telling her that she didn't have to worry, because, while I knew that I couldn't outrun a polar bear, I could outrun Brandon - which was all I'd have to do. Somehow that didn't help her?) Anyhow, it just so happened that my ex's well-to-do family was very connected in big business, politics, and the upper echelons of the US Military. In fact, her uncle was a former Chief of Staff at one of the prestigious military schools in America. So after our extended silence following the polar-bear satellite call, her uncle made a few phone calls, and soon (to my understanding) something of an entire division of US Air National Guard troops were ramping up to assist the Canadian Army in their search for us - or at least for some steaming poop-piles in the remote Canadian Arctic.
About a month prior to this whole fiasco, my partner and I tried to hire 2 Inuit hunters to pack up a few dogsleds with our supplies and take us to this point on the map. They refused, saying it was too far for the dogs and that people never go to this place. We insisted, and after a few more dollars thrown into the mix, they agreed to take us. But instead of dogs pulling the dogsleds, they would use snowmobiles because of the extreme distance. One of the sleds was then loaded with fuel drums just for the snowmobiles. We didn't disapprove of this plan, thinking that it would be a little faster trip, which it was - but, also MUCH colder. I remember sitting on the loaded haul bags tied to the dogsled, traversing over the broken sea ice, shaking with cold, my goggles completely frosted over, my toes and fingers completely numb. Every 4 or 5 seconds the sled would slam into ice bulges. Each time it did, we were literally rag-dolled on and off the sleds, along with the rest of our gear, slamming into this and banging into that - all the while absolutely freezing my butt off in the -45C temperatures...for 5 days...nearly 400 kilometers. This was (and still remains) pretty much the worst period of physical suffering I have ever experienced in my life...ahem...at least until the ride home, when only ONE snowmobile and sled showed up to take us back to the village - which, when finally loaded, looked like the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas" sled after robbing Whoville. And, if it were possible, the trip back was even more uncomfortable, due to the frozen polar bear meat we had to sit on the entire way.
It has been said of some people, that the only time these individuals see any moderation in their lives, is when they pass it by on their way from one extreme to another. At times, this adage deeply resonates with me; although, even at the extremes there is joy to be found, contentment to be embraced. Many times in my life I have chosen endeavors where, for long periods of time, I have been either cold, hungry, hurt, tired, lonely, frustrated, or all of the above. But, it is not enough for me to merely endure these experiences, or, that they point me away to my life at home, and remind me of the "good" things - like the warm, fed, comfortable, rested, content times spent with family and friends. If this were the only benefit of enduring hard times, to remind us of the good, explorers and adventurers such as myself might be best described as those affected with a most severe form of Attention Deficit Disorder, or at very least, slow learners. (No comment.) I believe that it is in the explorer's nature to not merely endure or survive, but also to thrive. I think that we all possess a measure of this "thrivability," and most people have more of it than they will ever know, or will perhaps come close to finding out.
Here, on another expedition, I find myself on another adventure, rife with its own brand of suffering, but I count myself among the fortunate who are able to test their "thrivabilty."
To thrive in our hearts, when we can't feel our hands....
(....hence, the sloppy typing and spelling errors.)
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