Lambs Slide, part 2
…â€I’ve got a rope.â€
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 Broadwayâ€, 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 hipâ€. 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
“I’d never rappelled before. ” Speaking for myself, there is nothing that puts me at ease like walking off a cliff backwards ESPECIALLY if I’ve never done it before.
My first so-called foray into rappelling came back in ought 72 when my neighbor, Andy Vince, knocked on my door, rope in hand, and said, “Let’s rappel off my roof.†We climbed to the top of his house through a trap door in the ceiling of the third floor deck, and decided the best anchor was a metal soil stack protruding three feet above the surface. With the rope tied to the stack and around my waist, I backed to the edge and looked down, felt the blood drain from my face and said, “You go first.†Our footprints on the side of the red clapboards have been preserved by aluminum siding added a year later.
“Never saw them again.” That was a different era.
Comment by michael — March 21, 2006 @ 6:46 am
Jack went back to the Navy, Bill returned to Illinois, and Bob’s wife dragged her wayward husband back to Arizona, where he was never allowed to set foot on a mountain again (or so I guess) and lived happily ever after. (Bob would be about 105 now.) Since old climbers eventually pass through Boulder, either to visit or live, I may run into them again. For old times sake it would be nice to hike up to Chasm Lake and have a look at the snow couloir that almost did us in.
Comment by rakkity — March 21, 2006 @ 9:18 am
A heck of a tale, Sir Rakk, well worthy of the cliffhanger ending (sorry … ) to the first installment! Like all good scare stories, the setup — the rappel — turned out not to be the real boogeyman (though the rope played a critical part nonetheless). Your matter-of-fact narration belies the gravity of the situation, where sudden death by impact or a lingering one from exposure were very real possibilities. No emotional response? And do you always carry an ice axe into relevant conditions now … ?
But how does a rope secure enough from which to dangle one’s mortal shell come loose with a few good shakes from a long ways below … ?
Comment by adam — March 22, 2006 @ 7:53 am
I’ve often wondered the same thing.
Comment by michael — March 22, 2006 @ 8:04 am
The key to the rappel is to have a rope that’s twice as long as the distance to the ground. Then you look for a tree growing out of the rock and wrap the rope around the tree, dropping the rope ends into the void. If you’re lucky, the tree bark won’t have too much friction and down below you can pull the rope down by hauling on one end.
If there’s no tree, you look for an eyebolt hammered into the rock by the local mountain club, and you thread through the eyebolt. If no eyebolt, you improvise. Tie a sling around a rock, run your rope through the sling, and do as with the tree. You have to leave the sling behind, of course.
Better than using a plain tree is to tie a sling or short rope around the tree, hang a ‘biner on it, and run the rope thru the ‘biner. The metal has a lot less friction than bark, and you’re less likely to be standing for hours down below yarding on the rappel rope trying to defeat the friction. But, again, you have to donate the ‘biner to the cliff.
On virtually every popular cliff in North America there are eyebolts, chains around trees, cables, and whatnot for eager rappellers. On the East Face of Longs, there wasn’t any such thing, and so we left the sling (no ‘biner, since we had none.)
Wish we had the Elvish rope that Frodo used in LoTR.
It would make rappelling so much easier.
Comment by rakkity — March 22, 2006 @ 9:44 am
As for an ice axe…
After the Lambs Slide experience, I’d never venture onto steep snow without one. And with one I could descend without a rope in safety, because an “ice axe arrest” is better than a rope.
In our case, without ice axes, if we had had any brains, we would have done sitting belays and lowered each person down some distance. This could have been repeated over and over. In each iteration, the final belayer would have to descend without much security, since any slip on his part would only be arrested after he slid below the other 3, but 3 of us sitting on the snow probably could have even held such a fall from above.
But, as you might have noted, we didn’t have any brains.
Comment by rakkity — March 22, 2006 @ 9:59 am
Just remember, rakkity, brains don’t grow on trees.
Now, after reading “Deep Survival, ” it sure sounds like an ice axe arrest is better than a rope especially if you happen to tie yourself to a group of people. But, have I ever seen a mountain climbing movie without scads of hikers tied together? I guess you place the most sure footed guy in the lead.
Comment by michael — March 22, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
Mountaineers will typically tie themselves together and each carry a piolet. In the event of a fall, you’ve got a few extra persons to self arrest. It’s specially helpfull, I hear, when traversing glaciers as you want to be tied to someone on the top if you happen to fall into a crevasse.
Comment by Summit — March 22, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Piolet – an ax used by mountain climbers for cutting footholds in ice.
Great ending Sir Rakk. Confirming that I woulda dug my heels at the top and met you broken blokes back at camp hours later.
Comment by smiling Dan — March 23, 2006 @ 7:34 am
Now, but not then, Dan.
Comment by michael — March 23, 2006 @ 12:09 pm
Because we’re so much smarter now?
(Re. “now but not then, Dan”)
I don’t know about you guys, but I plan to spend my greyish years doing risky things like XC-skiing avalanche gullies, learning to parasail, climbing the 14-ers that I bypassed for one reason or another, learning to horseback ride through rough country, rafting some of the class-5 rapids in the Western rivers…. The list goes on.
After all, what is retirement for? Got to use up those last 10 or 11 brain cells. And someone’s got to supply the blog with near-death experiences.
Speaking of which, my 12th brain cell just reminded me I have two more near-death experiences to write about.
Comment by rakkity — March 23, 2006 @ 8:19 pm
I stand corrected, Michael: you’re right, then I woulda been over the edge and down the Lambs Slide in a jiff. And wiry me would’ve been clever enough to bounce off of Bob, rather than a rock.
Rakk, sounds exciting, can I come visti?
Comment by smiling Dan — March 25, 2006 @ 8:48 am