​by T. Duren Jones
​

Crawling Under a Rock

It’s exactly the kind of thinking that hikers have before removing themselves from humanity’s gene pool.

The storm moved in, with cheerless, thick clouds—like slow-moving waves spilling onto distant shores—swelling over the lower mountains west of us. Everything was lower than us at this point. And darker.

My brother-in-law, Kevin, and I still thought we could top our second 14,000 ft. peak that day and get down before the tempest hit. It’s exactly the kind of thinking that hikers have on these mammoth mountains before removing themselves from humanity’s gene pool. The storm surge rose toward us as we foolishly pressed on.

We hadn’t planned to climb two of Colorado’s fourteeners that day, but we had an early start up Mount Harvard, and a warm, sunny sky greeted us (with an unnoticed wink). I guess we kinda forgot that even in the best of conditions in the Rockies, it’s never summer above 13,000 feet.

The best we could do was to find a place to hunker down to ride out this maelstrom.

By the time we got back to the SUV, the storm broke up.

We kinda forgot that even in the best of conditions in the Rockies, it’s never summer above 13,000 feet.

… broken bodies at the base of a cliff, a look of combined confusion and regret on their frozen faces.

Having topped Harvard, and with the summit of the neighboring Mount Columbia within our grasp, we were slammed by a whiteout in August. Horizontal blowing snow stung our faces and reduced visibility to 10 feet. The temperature dropped 30 degrees. The blizzard was on top of us with no escape. We weren’t going up any higher, and we could not easily descend over slippery, snow-covered rock. The best we could do was to find a place to hunker down to ride out this maelstrom.

Kevin pointed to some vaguely silhouetted boulder piles to our left. We struggled against the wind to find some shelter. We both crawled into tight spaces about 20 yards from each other, our backs against cold rock.

Having well-stocked backpacks, we pulled everything out quickly and put on all the extra clothes we had, plus gloves, knit caps and rain ponchos. Blowing snow collected over my hiking boots that were exposed outside of my shallow cave. We waited. And waited. And shivered. Uncontrollably. 

It didn’t take a genius to recognize the first stages of hypothermia. But then, something less than genius had gotten us into this situation. I yelled through the din to Kevin to compare notes through frozen lips. He concurred about the danger of our circumstances, I think. His muffled voice may have shouted something about whose stupid idea this was. I wasn’t going to volunteer or accuse.

We had to do something. It was obvious that this storm wasn’t moving away any time soon. We made the decision to try to head down. Out of our holes, I looked up, or at what should have been up. It was only a few hundred yards to the top, there somewhere. It surprised me that Kevin agreed to my suggestion that we make a blast for the summit. It was so close, after all. This is another poor decision hikers make that sends search and rescue teams after their broken bodies at the base of a cliff, a look of combined confusion and regret on their frozen faces. 

After a few clumsy, stutter-steps upward, right thinking got the better of us. We chose to live and climb another day. We thought the mountain would still be there when we returned. Carefully, over wet, slick rocks, we worked our way back down. By the time we reached the forest, the snow turned to rain. 

We had found ourselves in a challenging situation, but (thankfully!) were ready, did the right things (finally!), and made it back to the SUV. Soaking wet, chilled, but safe.

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