ferrying climbers to a small stone hut at 14,000 feet on Orizaba’s northern flank. We pitched our tent in his yard for the night, then as we enjoyed (for the moment) his wife’s special Our Lady of Guadalupe tamales, Joaquín pointed out a notation in his dog-eared register by none other than Alan Bard and Tom Carter, who’d first conquered these peaks on pins in the late seventies.
“Sharpen your edges and your minds,” it read simply.
The entry seemed pertinent; it was only two weeks old.
“It doesn’t say anything about a rope,” Merl offered.
In the hut on Orizaba we endured a fitful, heart-pounding, rodent-ridden night. At some point I dreamed I was with Cortés’s men when they’d descended into Popo’s crater.
“Señor, can you throw me a rope,” a silver-helmeted conquistador cried up to me as I gazed down from the rim.
“I thought you brought the rope,” I called back through cupped hands.
In the cold dark of 4 a.m., we tamped down ominously churning bellyfuls of intestine-eroding tamales with raisin-and-rat-turd-peppered oatmeal, then started our summit bid.
We climbed through a spectacular fuchsia sunrise, not a sailor-be-warned portent of any approaching storm but merely the supercharged murk of distant Mexico City’s ever-lapping smog. Reaching the toe of the glacier around 6 a.m., we changed from (freezing) canvas running shoes into (freezing) leather telemark boots and ill-fitting crampons and began the long, upward slog toward Orizaba’s ragged rim. As we stood wobbly atop the volcano around 10 a.m., we looked east to the blue of the Caribbean, while behind us, reclining elegantly in cinnamon sheets on the western horizon—smoking seductively—lay Popocatépetl.
We stood there for what was only a moment but seemed like forever, foolishly enjoying the dangerous hubris of having ascended with no rope, before one of us came to our senses.
“Let’s get the fuck down,” said Merl.
Our wheezy breathing and occluded thinking were possible signs of deadly high-altitude pulmonary and cerebral edema, and it was indeed clear we had to get lower in a hurry. Moving fast, however, was neither possible nor a particularly good idea: mountain descents—whether by foot or on skis—are notorious for exploiting and claiming victims of exhaustion, inattention, and, particularly, hubris.
My crampons were strapped onto my boots in a series of figure eights, and fumbling them off with frozen hands took forever, stowing them an eternity. Bending to slip the toe of one flimsy telemark boot into the always difficult rat-trap ski binding, I nearly blacked out and had to sit down. Merl was having similar difficulties. Getting our skis on was like repairing a watch while drunk. When we were finally ready, maybe, we checked each other for loose objects. Sanity seemed the only thing not locked down tight.
I had the honor of going first this time and was determined not to repeat Merl’s fall on Popo. But Orizaba was a different story; its extra 1,000 vertical feet of glacier were steeper by far. My first few turns on its linoleum surface were on close to a fifty-degree incline that dropped me mockingly into a crevasse field. I made one heart-pounding hop turn, then two, followed by a quick but unsteady traverse to avoid a couple of crevasses. Legs shaking, I stopped to hang over my poles and catch my labored breath. Another vuelta and then . . . disaster. Setting up for the next turn, I caught the edge of my inside ski on a tiny, unyielding piece of rock embedded in the ice and was thrown off balance; before I could react, the weight of my pack carried my center of gravity past my feet and tipped me over, downhill. Just like that I was sliding headfirst out of control.
Damn, we should have been skiing on a rope here!
Of course it was too late for that kind of thinking—or any thinking, really. Instinctively I wormed my body around on the snow, working to get my head uphill and my feet below me. Even with that accomplished, the edges of my skis found no purchase on the slick surface. With no ice axe at the ready to self-arrest with, I struggled a mittened hand out of its pole strap and slid it down the pole’s metal shaft, grasping it above the basket with both hands, rolling onto my belly, and digging the metal point in with all the strength I could muster. My clothing bunched up, exposing my stomach to the abrasive ice and rock, but I could feel myself slowing, giving me impetus to dig even harder by pulling myself toward the pole basket with flexing elbows. And then, miraculously, I simply stopped and it was silent.
I lay hanging onto the pole, huffing lips pressed to the snow as if, somehow, more oxygen might be found there. I had the presence of mind not to try changing positions, pending evaluation. Looking down, I saw that my ankles and skis hung over the edge of the crevasse that, while not large enough to disappear into completely was big enough to snap a leg.
Merl skied down tentatively.
“Touché,” he said in the understated way naïve idiots often respond to anything of consequence. We were Dumb and Dumber before it was even fashionable: still alive in spite of ourselves.
After this incident, things improved. The slope mellowed below the crevasse field, the skiing became easier and our turns wider. The surface had softened enough in the muted sunlight to send small sprays off the tails of our boards as we arced slowly toward the toe of the glacier. Our frozen feet, pounding headaches, and dizziness evaporated at around 17,000 feet, and back at our starting point, we suddenly felt strong again. When we took off our skis and looked back at our tracks—kindergarten finger-wiggles through the soft icing of the lower glacier—a huge sense of accomplishment enveloped us. Bard and Carter may have been here first, but we were the first Canadians to descend Orizaba on freeheel gear, and second best was always good enough for us.
Back at the hut, Joaquín awaited, as promised, with cold beer. It was Miller time, Mexican-style. Bouncing toward Tlachichuca in the back of his truck, I stared after the massive form of Orizaba hunched on the horizon, and all I could see was Killer Hill’s gentle shoulders. Skiing really could take you from your backyard to something that approximated the moon. After a long, winding, snowy road of some ten years, the seed planted by my parents’ coffee-table book had come to fruition. A quest fulfilled.
Or had it only started?
What I really feel is that, if on a pair of skis . . . I forget everything except the joys of living . . . Well, why in God’s name not stay on skis? VISCOUNT ANTHONY KNEBWORTH in a letter to his father, Earl of Lytton, 1924
IN THE morning after a heavy rain, Santiago, Chile, was sort of like the basement of paradise. Its ubiquitous smog had been washed down gutters, the acrid smell of diesel exhaust replaced by musty garden scents and flowers. On downtown paseos, businesspeople rushed from coffee and morning papers toward whatever encuentro awaited. In surrounding neighborhoods, distant horns crowed over eager milkmen pushing ancient, squeaking carts and clanging bells to rouse customers. Towering above the city to the east loomed snow-capped heaven: when you could see them like this, the Andes formed a monolith of surreal scale.
It was usually magical anticipation that followed me out of the city on such a day, but that morning found me glancing over my shoulder at the sound of every footfall, certain I was being pursued. Shouldering my pack, I fought my way onto a bus and out to the police barrier that marked the start of most mountain roads in this country, seeking a ride up to Farrellones, the ski town I then called home. After my passport was approved by a couple of grim-looking carabineros, I joined a sightseeing Israeli couple in a collectivo taxi on the familiar heart-stopping ride up the canyon. Settling
