From Boston Legal with James Spader (Windows Media Player – 16 MB).

…”I’ve got a rope.”

Bob and I peered down the face with Jack. We couldn’t see very far, since the walls of the cleft blocked the view of the lower cliffs. Jack continued, “Below that chimney, from what I’ve heard we’ll have to rappel.” That perked up my ears. I’d never rappelled before. Jack uncoiled his rope and showed us how you wrapped it around your leg, your waist and your shoulder. And then he pulled out some nylon webbing from his backpack, which he helped Bob and me tie around our waists.

One of the other hikers came over and asked us what we were planning. Jack told him. He introduced himself as Bill, and said that he’d climbed a little bit before, and would like to join us. He had even rappelled a couple of times before and had a waist sling of his own. So we welcomed him to the team.

After some fiddling with our knots, our boots and our packs, Jack led the way down the tumbled boulders of the cleft. Soon we were within a chimney four or five feet wide, and we descended with hands and feet pressing against the sides. The walls were blocky and full of solid footholds and handholds, so we didn’t feel the need to rope up yet. As we down-climbed together, we could see the slope steepening.

Jack told us that it was time to rappel. He tied a piece of webbing around a large projecting rock, and fed the rope through the loop. Bill, the other experienced rappeler, descended first. The route was not vertical, but it would have been hard to climb. (The guide books call this Kiener’s Route, and it’s rated 5.4, which would have been at the top end of my ability to climb at that time.) Bill shouted up that he was at the end of the rappel, and Bob descended. Shortly I followed. The rope slid smoothly and slowly around my body, just as it was supposed to, and soon I was on a ledge looking up at Jack. He rappelled quickly down, and with two of us tugging on one end, the rope came down from above. Now we were committed. There was no going back.

The rest of our descent on the rocks was relatively uneventful. Now and then we could see the vast vertical space of the Diamond off to the left, and further down we could see a wide snow-covered ledge crossing the slope below us. “That’s Broadway”, said Jack. Clambering downward, we eventually reached Broadway. It extended off horizontally to the Diamond on the left and to a snowy couloir on the right. After easy rock hopping along the broad ledge, we gained the couloir, and looking up to the right and down to the left, we saw it was a long snow gully that ran up to the right about 500’ up near Long’s Notch, and down to the left about 1000’ to the canyon floor just at the top end of Chasm Lake. For the first time we could see the the end of our route. Jack told us that we should rope up here, and he helped us each tie into the rope, Bill at one end, himself at the other, and Bob and I about 40’ apart in the middle. Jack stepped out onto the snow slope, and showed us how to “plunge step” in the snow.

Unknown to us, this was the infamous Lamb’s Slide, and many a climber has been injured or killed in an uncontrolled descent. The snow comes to a sudden end on the rocks at the bottom, and you can gain quite a bit of speed before colliding with the boulders at the end of the snow. The conditions of the snow itself were excellent for climbing. The snow was solid, but not icy, and an experienced snow climber would have had no problem. But we were snow lambs, innocents ready to be slaughtered at the end of the slide.

At first we progressed carefully and steadily. Bill or Jack would descend first, while the rest of us stood still, and then, one at a time, the other three would descend. But no one had an ice axe, and a slip by any one of us could pull the next person on the rope off his stance, which is exactly what happened. I can’t recall who slipped first, but a chain reaction quickly followed. Soon all four of us were sliding, butts on the snow, hands and feet digging for purchase. When one of us managed to stop he was quickly pulled off his feet. Pretty soon Bob and I were tumbling head over heels. Bob somehow had gotten the rope wrapped around him. Jack and Bill may have had a more controlled descent, but I couldn’t tell. We accelerated towards the rocks with no way to slow down. The slope suddenly flattened a bit, and I was able to get onto my stomach and press my hands into the snow ahead. Bob was completely out of control, and flew into the boulder field head first. As the snow ended, my extended hands abruptly stopped, and I somersaulted over onto my back.

We lay there on the rocks for a minute, and then Jack groaned, “I think I’ve broken my hip”. Bill also groaned, “My arm’s broken.” I checked my extremities, and found only bruises and cuts on my hands. But there was no sound from Bob. He was lying motionless on his back. We crawled over to him. His jaw was bloody, and he was blinking his eyes like he was trying to wake up. He reached his hand to his jaw, and opened his mouth. His teeth were badly broken. He muttered something incoherent about his dentures. We tried to get him comfortable, and discussed what to do. Bill volunteered to run down for help. We gave him Bob’s home phone number to call his wife. Then we watched him jog down the Chasm Lake trail towards help.

A couple of hours later, two search-and-rescue rangers came up the trail. While one assessed Bob’s damages, the other fired up a stove and made some hot soup for him. Jack had long since found that his hip was only bruised, and he could walk. By that time, Bob had regained his senses and mobility. One of the rangers gave him a walking stick, and he was able to walk out with us to the trail head. We were met at the parking lot by Bob’s wife and Bill. She hugged her old husband (he really did look old now), and looked at the rest of us disdainfully. Bob got into his car with her and waved goodbye.

Bill told us that his arm was only sprained, so of the four of us, by some miracle, only Bob had really been injured. Jack, Bill and I shook hands, and departed. I never saw them again.

• rakkity

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Brother Peter on Mt. Monadnock.

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Robbie, Hil, Jennifer’s youngest daughter, and Matthew

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For some reason, as soon as Diane leaves town, I head for the boxes of old photos. Here, Dan and Patti at our wedding way back in ought 84.

It was July, 1965, and I had just moved to mountainous Colorado from flat Illinois. Just about everything I owned was in my car, and I was camping my way though the mountains, postponing the day when I’d join the CU graduate school in Boulder. This particular day I had my eye set on Mt Ida, a “12-er” on the high ridge in Rocky Mtn National Park. It was an easy walk up to the 11,000’ plateau behind Ida, and a short “walk in the park” to the summit.

Someplace along the trail, I met a retired guy, Bob, who was walking back to his car. Bob asked me where I was planning to hike next, and not having any plan, I asked for suggestions. He said that he and a younger friend, Jack, were going to climb Longs Peak the next day, and I was welcome to come along. He invited me to his trailer in the neighboring town of Estes Park, where, since his retirement a few years ago, he and his wife moved up to from Phoenix every spring. They made dinner and shared it with me, while we all raved about the beauty of the Park. Afterwards, I left for the campground, with an agreement to meet Bob & Jack at dawn at the eastern trail head to Longs Peak.

The sun was rising behind Twin Peaks just east of the Longs Peak trail when I drove into the shadowy parking lot. There was Bob, and a younger guy about my age (24) with a rope over his shoulder. Bob introduced me, and we checked the contents of our packs (cheese, bread, candy bars and water, mostly) and hit the trail. It was a 3,000’ gain up to the plateau known as the Boulder Field, just north of Long’s summit. There was some snow in the shaded areas, but not enough to slow us down, though the north face of the peak seemed to be a plastered with rime. By then the sun was up high, and it compensated for the coolness of the altitude (12,700’). Above us, to the right of the summit, we could see the “Keyhole” formation through which the summit trail wound.

After a lot of boulder hopping and scrambling along the semi-circling trail, we found ourselves on the ramps approaching the south side of the summit—“The Trough” and “The Narrows”. This was the first place we experienced serious exposure, and it is often the bane of the flat-landers. I had climbed few mountains before, but for some reason the exposure didn’t affect me. Maybe the air’s lower oxygen content had reduced the number of my functioning brain cells to 3 or 4— as evidenced by later insane decisions. The slope drops off below the trail in long pinkish-grey slabs that disappear into Wild Basin. Apparently the exposure didn’t faze Bob or Jack, who scrambled up “The Home Stretch” to the summit, with me in their wake.

The top of Longs is flat, and about as big as a baseball field. If you batted a baseball from that 14,256’-high field, it would drop 3 or 4 thousand feet in most any direction. From the pitcher’s mound you can see all of the National Park, Colorado’s Front Range all the way down to Pike’s Peak, and the mountains of the Continental Divide to the west. It was a marvelous view, and we sat down and ate lunch while we tried to identify those peaks around us.

Other climbers who had just summited were also enjoying the scenery and their lunches, or were snoozing, but Jack walked over to the east side of the summit and looked down over Long’s East Face. We trundled over to look with him, and so did some other hiker/climbers. He pointed down towards a cleft through which we could see Chasm Lake, a tarn in the canyon some 3,000’ below us.

He casually said, “You know, I think we could descend this way to Chasm Lake. And I’ve got a rope.”

(to be continued)

• rakkity

It was July, 1965, and I had just moved to mountainous Colorado from flat Illinois. Just about everything I owned was in my car, and I was camping my way though the mountains, postponing the day when I’d join the CU graduate school in Boulder. This particular day I had my eye set on Mt Ida, a “12-er” on the high ridge in Rocky Mtn National Park. It was an easy walk up to the 11,000’ plateau behind Ida, and a short “walk in the park” to the summit.

Someplace along the trail, I met a retired guy, Bob, who was walking back to his car. Bob asked me where I was planning to hike next, and not having any plan, I asked for suggestions. He said that he and a younger friend, Jack, were going to climb Longs Peak the next day, and I was welcome to come along. He invited me to his trailer in the neighboring town of Estes Park, where, since his retirement a few years ago, he and his wife moved up to from Phoenix every spring. They made dinner and shared it with me, while we all raved about the beauty of the Park. Afterwards, I left for the campground, with an agreement to meet Bob & Jack at dawn at the eastern trail head to Longs Peak.

The sun was rising behind Twin Peaks just east of the Longs Peak trail when I drove into the shadowy parking lot. There was Bob, and a younger guy about my age (24) with a rope over his shoulder. Bob introduced me, and we checked the contents of our packs (cheese, bread, candy bars and water, mostly) and hit the trail. It was a 3,000’ gain up to the plateau known as the Boulder Field, just north of Long’s summit. There was some snow in the shaded areas, but not enough to slow us down, though the north face of the peak seemed to be a plastered with rime. By then the sun was up high, and it compensated for the coolness of the altitude (12,700’). Above us, to the right of the summit, we could see the “Keyhole” formation through which the summit trail wound.

After a lot of boulder hopping and scrambling along the semi-circling trail, we found ourselves on the ramps approaching the south side of the summit—“The Trough” and “The Narrows”. This was the first place we experienced serious exposure, and it is often the bane of the flat-landers. I had climbed few mountains before, but for some reason the exposure didn’t affect me. Maybe the air’s lower oxygen content had reduced the number of my functioning brain cells to 3 or 4— as evidenced by later insane decisions. The slope drops off below the trail in long pinkish-grey slabs that disappear into Wild Basin. Apparently the exposure didn’t faze Bob or Jack, who scrambled up “The Home Stretch” to the summit, with me in their wake.

The top of Longs is flat, and about as big as a baseball field. If you batted a baseball from that 14,256’-high field, it would drop 3 or 4 thousand feet in most any direction. From the pitcher’s mound you can see all of the National Park, Colorado’s Front Range all the way down to Pike’s Peak, and the mountains of the Continental Divide to the west. It was a marvelous view, and we sat down and ate lunch while we tried to identify those peaks around us.

Other climbers who had just summited were also enjoying the scenery and their lunches, or were snoozing, but Jack walked over to the east side of the summit and looked down over Long’s East Face. We trundled over to look with him, and so did some other hiker/climbers. He pointed down towards a cleft through which we could see Chasm Lake, a tarn in the canyon some 3,000’ below us.

He casually said, “You know, I think we could descend this way to Chasm Lake. And I’ve got a rope.”

(to be continued)

• rakkity

Matt

Emma

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Kate and Flo

Vernon Robinson running for Congress in North Carolina. (2MB QT movie)

Windows Media Player

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Googling Mars

Dear rakkity,

I’m blogging this, even though I fear you’ll jump in with an equally horrible Mac tale. A customer, now friend, called to say AOL was offering DSL for $24.95 a month, only four dollars more than she was paying for dial-up. She wanted me to help with the conversion. I’d already set-up their brand new Hewlett Packard 3 GHZ PC running XP, which Dan had picked out for them at Costco, so I agreed.

I couldn’t get to the very first step, which is to read the instruction CD, because it wouldn’t display on the screen. The install software senses an AOL connection and asks me to first quit it. AOL, mind you, is neither dialed in nor even launched. Again, I called my main PC man, Dan, and he tells me to kill all the AOL processes. Start menu >control panels > services > processes > kill, kill and kill some more), which I proceed to do. (Incidentally, is there anything anywhere as silly as that services panel?) Doesn’t help a bit. The error message won’t go away and now I look as dumb as the homeowner.

I call AOL and get stuck in an infernal robot loop. I answer all the questions asked, desperately waiting for the step which will take me to a flesh and blood human – of late this is an Indian in Mumbai, by the name of Steven Jones. My seventeeth instruction is a plea to call back if I’m talking on the line I will then be using to connect to the internet. I hang up and redial using my precious cell minutes, and while I’m waiting for the first robot, I crawl under the computer desk to make sure all my wires are in their proper ports. I roll over on my back as soon I hear that impossiblly irritating sing-songy voice.

“What is your telephone number?”

“blah blah”

“What is your user name?”

“blah blah.”

“Good, we know who you are and we’re accessing your account.”

In the past, I’ve circumvented robots by mumbling something unintelligible. They eventually short circuit and allow me talk to a fellow biped, however the real problem is I’m impatient and I’m losing it. I’d anticipated fun computer time and here I am again in Cyber Wasteland, recalling the last new PC I set up which wouldn’t read its own install discs.

“Go to Hell!”

“What did you say? I can’t understand you.”

“Forget it.”

“Can you describe your problem? Say something like, ‘I have a connection problem.’ “

“No, I have a PC.”

“Please repeat. I can’t understand you.”

“I said if I had a Mac I’d be leering my favorite porn site and not talking to a blithering robot.”

“I heard you say you are connected. Is that right?”

Under the table I have my right hand on my forehead and I’m about to stamp my feet.

“No! I said I hate you and I want you to burn in hell with Bill Gates.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.’

“I said it’s six degrees out, I’d planned to work outside until this cushy indoor job came along, and now I want to pull my hair out, kill everyone in this house, and then slit my throat.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you.”

“You know what? Quite often these days neither can my wife. I said I can’t get a connection because my stupid computer won’t read the CD. You offered DSL for what you said was a great price and now I’m married to an inanimate object while lying on my back in a dark space. My wife is away, my mother is in failing health, my son barely talks to me and you’re asking me a line of inane questions at a pace guaranteed to drive a parish priest insane.”

Long pause. “I’m sorry,did you say you can’t get connected? If that is what you said, please say yes.”

“I said Fu*k You. What about Fu*k you do you not understand?”

From under the table with my hand now covering my eyes I hear the pitter patter of little feet. It’s Amelia who asks, ”Michael, is everything alright?”

Humiliated, I surrendered that afternoon, but I skulked back to Amelia’s the following day. Some computer genius I am. This time, however, I’m conversing with a living being, an AOL rep by the name of Katherine, who uses words like cool and awesome. Though a bright young college student, she proves as infuriating as the mechanical female because she can’t match her AOL with the one installed in “my” computer, and she can’t stop saying click on blah no matter how many times I tell her blah does not appear on MY screen. This time Katherine surrenders. She says, “Call Verizon,” and with a voice as cheerily irritating as the robots, she ends with, “We’re having a special on broadband connections. For only $24.95 a month, only four dollars more than what you are already paying, you can have DSL … .“

By the time I dial Verizon, I need a psychiatrist and a couch, or Valium and a bed, or a just a gun. Shonnica, at Verizon, bless her, pulls the gun out of my mouth, loosens my shirt collar, brushes the donut crumbs from my lap, and politely guides me to a working connection in ten minutes. For the last three of those minutes, I lean back and watch her remotely complete my set-up while we laugh about some of her inane support calls, commiserate about the recent snow, and generally stroke each other’s egos. When she’s finished, Shonnica asks, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“You’ve done everything but cook me dinner.”

“I’ll make you dinner if you make me lunch.”

*****************

About the title. Sometimes it’s harder to invent a title than a story. Jennifer addressed it in Foretelling. Well, I was listening to The Whistler the other day, and I thought why can’t I come up with interesting titles like Death Has A Thirst or The Body That Wouldn’t Stay in The Bay, or Death Comes With A Lunch Kit?