Cairns #53
Beginning of the Long Days, 2008
The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth’s evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.

Monday: April 22^nd: My God, the swirling swarms of swallows! There were several stretches Saturday where the swallows were intensely thick, coursing above the river. The thickest places seemed where the river flowed wide, shallow and choppy. I hypothesized thin water allowed maximum sunlight and photosynthesis on the submerged rocks and the chop would stir in maximum dissolved oxygen so the area would be at a biological productivity maximum. Some sort of small insect must have been emerging/seething out of the river but I never saw them because the swallows were so thick. I could hear the swallow beaks snapping shut and so could hear which areas around me had the most insects. One swarm stretched out for more than 15 minutes, which was probably almost two miles of thickly swirling swallows (10,000-15,000 birds).

A Watershed Experiment

One challenge of my erosion work is measuring its effect. Results develop where I didn’t initially look. Each storm is different so its hard to compare draw conclusions following a single storm or season or series of seasons. However, this year, thanks to a wonderful small watershed I stumbled upon two years ago, I think I’ve come up with a way of measuring one of the more important premises in my work.

Erosion gnaws upstream; healing spreads downstream.

I know erosion gnaws upstream; I’ve been countering that process for years. But the reverse of erosion is more diffuse, harder to see. I would love to demonstrate the proposition, “healing spreads downstream,” because it gave birth to my optimism and hope by whispering that if I concentrate on creating upward spirals in the world around me, this work will somehow spread “downstream.” I can usually see the healing effect of my erosion work extending five or ten feet downstream in the form of greater plant growth but I’d like to document a more theoretical aspect of “healing spreading downstream”.

The shape of the land and the flow of water form a co-evolving dance. Change in one leads to change in the other. If my work retains and slows the flow of water out of the highest (first order) branches in the watershed, then that should lead to changes in the shape of the land, especially in the shape of the channel, downstream (the second order branches of the watershed). And, according to my theory of the Upward Spiral, some of these changes in channel shape should spread, slow and absorb future flows of water which will nourish more plant growth within the channels. But how do I measure this change? The change is very subtle and quite unpredictable as to where a significant, measureable change might occur. Also, erosion and deposition are two stages of the same process and so it is possible for me to be so on the lookout for a certain effect that I overlook counter-effects. How can I, in an unbiased way, measure the subtle changes within the entire system?

The new drainage system I’ve been working in (a) is small enough that the entire thing is within my working area without other people creating changes somewhere upstream, (b) runs north fairly straight for about a quarter mile with a series of tributaries on the east side, (c) has most of the work I’ve done in the first order branches of the watershed, not along the second order branches, and (d) has both erosion and deposition dynamically present in the second order branch so that its shape feels potentially responsive in either direction. This second order branch contains stretches of incised channel partially filled with gravel deposits, stretches of grassy swales of varying width, gravelly stretches of grass. This frequent alteration suggested a way to measure whether the erosion work in the first order branches was changing stream dynamics downstream. If erosive power decreases, then the shifting point between vegetated/unvegetated should change in a way that allows the vegetated sections of the channels to expand and the unvegetated, incised sections to shrink. So I have started walking the second order channel of the drainage after the spring growing season and measuring the lengths of stretches that are bare gravel and the lengths of stretches that are vegetated. If healing is spreading downstream, then the total length of vegetated sections should increase (at the expense of eroding sections) over the years even if I do no work directly in the second order branch.

Baseline Results:

November 21, 2007 – 26 transitions between vegetated and incised gravel in 1159 feet.

Total length of vegetated sections 299 feet

Total length of incised gravel sections 860 feet. 

Becoming Elves

When the winter rains invite me out, I go work on a wonderful, open series of fields and hills. Technically, I’m trespassing but it has an absentee landowner so I’ve never felt bad about it. Instead, I’m reminded of the fairty tale, The Shoemaker and the Elves. Each morning the shoemaker awoke to find that the elves had created beautiful shoes during the night, which he was able to sell that day and buy more materials. I feel like an elf out there, dancing around in each rainstorm when the shoemaker is “asleep”, doing the work of making his land a bit more prosperous.

But then, instead of the landowner’s being the shoemaker, maybe the earth is the shoemaker and we humans can be the elves, cavorting about, rearranging the rocks and leaves and rills so that more energy accumulates upon the earth and it grows more green and full of life.

That thought made me remember how envious my daughter, Dawn, was of the elves in Lord of the Rings. The elves get to be immortal. They have long sight. They cross rivers by prancing across a single rope stretched across. They shoot bows really well. They ride horses bareback by being able to talk with them. They get to teach the trees how to speak. They just get to do all the really cool things.

We can be the elves. We can do all the really cool things—we can make the earth more green, teach the rocks to lie in patterns that change the conversation of water, teach the rain to fall more often, teach the soil to grow deeper.

Painting the blinds gold

One of the things I love about Alexander’s A Pattern Language is how the design of the book enhanced the transmission of wisdom from author to reader. Because the book is about mindful design’s enhancing people’s lives, the book demonstrates itself. Part of the book’s design is that each pattern opens with a full-page photograph that illustrates that pattern. Most of the photographs are instantly charming. But the photograph for Filtered Light is of a small hovel with a tray of bean plants poised on a rickety table in front of the window. A few strings are tied up in front of the window and the bean plants are growing up the strings. A jarringly different picture.

In the text, Alexander comments that this photograph is one of the most important photographs in the book because it demonstrates that these patterns don’t depend on wealth. It doesn’t matter whether the pattern is created by an expensive architect or a ball of string. The patterns, themselves, enhance. The important thing is to create them in the world

That comment went deep. It made me realize that I have allowed the responsibility of searching for a home for Chrysalis to shunt aside large areas of my awareness. “Don’t have time for that.” “Don’t have money for that.” I was allowing the school environment to become ugly “because we are saving money up for future beauty.” But Alexander is saying that it’s often more a matter of attentiveness and caring than of money and time.

So I started paying attention to light and the potential for beauty. The front window of the middle school (a rented storefront) faces straight south. The light can be so glary and hot that white venetian blinds cover the window and remain closed. I started playing around with the blinds, slanting them open at times and more students started spontaneously hanging out there. Alexander had mentioned the possibility of changing the color of light by changing the color of surfaces it bounces off. The film industry calls the slanting light of evening “the golden hour.” If you want a romantic shot or hero shot, use the golden hour. If everyone in the room looked heroic, would we view one another more heroically? Act more heroically? So, as an experiment, some students and I cut strips of yellow paper and taped them to the venetian blinds. Definitely changed the appearance of the room. Some kids liked it; others did not. I liked it but it was a bit too yellow. So I bought some gold paint and painted the blinds gold. I spent more time on it than perhaps I can justify. But as I painted, I contemplated another gem from Alexander: Let each design decision be guided by the intention of making this the most beautiful expression in the world. If you act from a level less than that, you allow ugliness to creep in. That intention helped slow me down, take the time to lay down three coats of gold paint, straighten part of my warping from the heavy task of developing an adequate facility for the dream of Chrysalis.

Chrysalis Update

Continuing on about that heavy task. . . It’s been a very hard year for me. The responsibility to develop a better facility has been grinding me down despite my best intentions. I gnawed on memories of epic hikes—when I pushed myself to exhaustion but reached some place of incredible remote beauty where I then walked lightly in grace for days—until I had pretty much sucked all the marrow out of those memories. I never lost faith that something beautiful would develop; I just wasn’t sure I would survive the grueling trek to get there. As an example, this winter, the county required us to do a wetlands delineation of the Parkville property that unexpectedly added several months of delay and a couple of thousands of dollars to an already stretched budget. How long will the magic we all feel developing within Chrysalis have to wait, while Alysia must completely take down and set up her classroom 2 to 3 times each week and junior high kids can’t kick a ball because it will go over the fence or up on the surrounding storefront roofs? The struggles have made us strong but we can dream of how strongly we could fly if we were free of these chains. But it’s going to be at least another year or two. Then the state proposes 10% budget cuts in education and so maybe it’s going to be another three to five years and I’m staggering. How much longer must I, can I stagger under this burden?

Then suddenly, in late March, out of the blue, drops the possibility of renting part of a Catholic school that has been experiencing declining enrollment. The campus is a beautiful 40 acres with playing fields large enough for the strongest kid to kick the ball as hard and far as he can. There are enough classrooms for every teacher to have their very own with adequate storage space and still have three extra classrooms to use in special ways we’ve never been able to contemplate before. In addition, this campus is on the east side of Redding near Parkville . So we will start attracting families living closer to Parkville . And, for me, gone will be the incessant trying to figure out how we will find a place for our dream before we all burn out. The potentialities of Parkville can unfold gradually, naturally, beginning with a field station about 15 minutes from the Catholic school site. The synergy between the two sites could be beautiful. 

A fresh thought blossoms in my mind. If the lease is signed, what will come from the sudden, unexpected putting away of this burden/responsibility? When the load slips off, will I bound upward like a released balloon or will I remain permanently warped? How long can my spirit be compressed before I lose my resilency? Will I find strong wisdom and faith afterwards or have I burned myself out? And if the lease doesn’t happen, do I have enough stamina remaining to reshoulder the load? I really don’t know.

I had been planning a really wonderful Spring Vacation with some nice hikes and catching up on things. I got sick the first day of vacation and didn’t recover until the last day. I take that as a sign of how I’ve become more exhausted than I wished to  acknowledge internally. A couple of weeks later was STAR testing – the state standardized test. Without having to teach, it would give me time to do all the work of getting this lease set up and getting caught up with other things. I got sick again on Sunday and was sick through the entire testing period.

Over the course of my life, I’ve learned that each time I get sick, something interesting spiritually will probably happen somewhere during the shift from getting sicker to getting better and so I should try paying attention. I got sick Sunday and all Sunday night, and into Monday my feverish mind had one word going around and around (“appurtenant” – it’s in the lease documents). The fever abated on Tuesday, which usually means I’m getting better. But then a really nasty cough appeared and started going into my lungs and I felt myself getting sicker – wondering when, if ever, I was going to experience that shift from getting sicker to getting better. I lay in bed Tuesday and Wednesday, thinking about all the details that I needed to be working on but not having the power to rise and do them. Instead, I found myself circling closer to a hiking memory which has always stirred up my belly like some gag reflex, pushing me away from that memory. But now, in my weakened state, my mind hovered around the memory. Perhaps this memory was the more appropriate image for the journey I’ve been on with Chrysalis.

As my sick brain brooded on that memory, the thought arose that I should write this story as therapy and get the terror out of me. That idea added itself to the list of all the other details I really should be doing rather than just lying here in bed. I need to be working on the lease. I should be paying the bills. I should be planning our final month with the teachers. I should write the story of that hike. I could go watch a movie. But I just kept lying there with thoughts going around and around. Again and again my mind gnawed on the memory of that hike and again the thought would arise of writing and getting it out into fresh air. And one time when that thought rose yet again, I sat up in bed and typed for two hours with full energy. The next morning my body was on the mend. Which came first: the healing or the writing? And what connection, if any, exists between the memory and the healing? What follows now is the third draft of the story I began that night.

The Shriek Within

Two shrieks contend for the most terrifying experience in my life. The first was when I was around four. I was dreaming that I was in a snake cage full of slithering dark thick snakes. I tried to lie motionless so I wouldn’t disturb them, but the horror grew so unbearable that I finally woke bolt upright in terror. But when I bolted upright, my head smashed hard against the top of the snake cage. I was awake now and I used my legs to get up out of bed but I wasn’t in bed and I drove my head even harder into the top of the cage. I was absolutely wide-awake in the real world now, shrieking in total terror. Frantically, I dove to the side and smashed hard against a wall. I became shrieking terror and thrashing panic. Every panicked move smashed part of my body against some hard part of the small, confining cage, making me shriek ever louder. Then the light came on. As the youngest, I slept on the trundle bed that rolled out from beneath the bed above. In my sleep, I had rolled off the bed and under the other bed. In that space I had dreamed of a snake cage and in that tiny, unknown space I had bolted upright in the dark.

I’m sure you understand how terrifying that experience was to a four-year old child but I’m also sure that as you read of it, you did not start shrieking; you never came close to experiencing the terror that I experienced. You empathized but did not feel. So, when I tell you the story of the second shriek, I know that though you might gain some understanding through my telling, you won’t experience what I did, especially since you already know that I survived. I will describe how I got into the situation and what I did but I won’t be able to convey the actual knot of terror that I now find myself examining thirty years later. Different people might draw different conclusions from my story and knowledgeable people can point out a list of mistakes I made (though I will never classify “hiking alone” as a mistake). But I’m not telling this as a cautionary story. I’m telling it as catharsis.

When I was 16, I followed in my big brother’s footsteps and took my first solo backpack trip into the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon . The Wallowas are a small circle of mountains with a couple of 10,000 foot peaks at their core. My goal was to hike to the Lake Basin and, from there, dayhike the trail to the top of Eagle Cap, the dominating white dome of rock that defines the south border of the Lake Basin . I went in for five days and achieved my goals. While there, a fantasy began growing of how incredibly peaceful and beautiful the Lake Basin must be when winter snows pile up ten feet deep and all is white and bright and wouldn’t it be amazingly wonderful to spend a winter up there.

After college, some friends and I began to regularly cross-country ski up the Wallowa River valley. The snow remains cold and crystalline for weeks, making for months of just green and blue wax skiing. Sometimes we would ski to the Lake Basin . That required six gently climbing miles up the valley and then three miles of steep ascent to the Lake Basin (and nine miles back down at the end of the day) so we were up there for only an hour and never had time to really cruise around.

Three valleys radiate away from Eagle Cap. The Wallowa is the easternmost. One long day, Bob and I ascended to the Lake Basin , crossed part of it, and then skied down Hurricane Creek, the northern drainage. I had never hiked that shorter, therefore steeper, trail. Night fell as we were descending. Our skis followed in the tracks of others who had skied this trail. I remember gliding down through a vast glimmering meadow with a comet shining bright in the northeastern sky. The last part of the trail entered the dark shadows of the forest where it was hard to see but the tracks led us like a train back to the trailhead where we had parked a second car. We returned home very late that night.

My sister got married my second summer as a ranger/naturalist at a desert park in West Texas . I took a week off and flew to Washington for her wedding. I drove through Mount Rainier N.P., staggeringly astounded, after months in the sere heat of the Big Bend , by the rich greens and the sparkling snowmelt flowing everywhere. I had time to take a one-day hike before I flew back so I went to explore the Lostine, the third, westernmost drainage into the Lake Basin . A road climbs a long way up the valley to a trailhead only 6 or so miles to Mirror Lake , the classic lake of the Lake Basin , nestled at the base of Eagle Cap. In great shape, I hiked light and fast, blasting up a three-mile ascent that then leveled into an incredibly beautiful three-mile stretch of glacial valley with Eagle Cap rising at its head. I then ascended Eagle Cap, followed a ridge cross-country, crossed into another drainage and descended to my car.

Now a plan for getting some extended winter solo time in the Lake Basin began forming. I could put my supplies on a sled and pull it behind me so I would not have to ski with all the weight of winter gear on my back. Pulling a sled up the Lostine road would be easy. That would be one day. The next day I could cover the six or seven miles to Mirror Lake . I was really looking forward to skiing along that three-mile level stretch of valley, no weight on my back and white all around. Then I could spend two lovely days skiing about the Lake Basin , savoring the silence and stillness. Then on the fifth day, I would descend Hurricane Creek’s conveniently steep, short trail. Dad did regular deliveries over into the Wallowa Valley so he could drop me off at one place and pick me up at the other.

So one winter (I think it was 1978 but I’m not certain), Dad dropped me off as far up the Lostine road as he could go. Because the sled would help me transport more weight than I normally could have carried and since I had never gone this far into the deep winter mountains, I overpacked. The sled weighed 70 pounds for the 5-day trip. Lots of extra but I wouldn’t have to carry it.

The first day I made it to the trailhead at the end of the road. Right on schedule. My cheap plastic red sled worked fine. I had tied everything onto the sled, tied two ropes to the front rim of the sled and tied the other ends to an old hip belt. That spread the pull around my waist and the sled slithered ten feet behind me up the road.

The next morning I arose early and started the ascent to the Lake Basin . I did not have an accurate sense of this trail from my one time blasting up it fresh in the morning. The trail climbed longer and steeper than I remembered and twisted about. Trails become nebulous when covered with ten feet of snow and I soon was simply working my way upward as best I could. I tried to avoid forested areas because a deep hole surrounds each trunk. Snow that falls on the evergreen boughs cascades outward, not down, piling up a few feet away from the trunk, leaving a “snow crater” around the trunk that, in deep snow, could be three or four feet deep. I wasn’t afraid of falling in; I was afraid of my mindless sled, following after, sliding in. I had to plan a route so that my sled, ten feet behind, would not come near these craters. However, the terrain was too confusing and steep to go straight up so I would have to contour and every time I tried contouring across a steep slope, the sled would slide downslope of me, yanking on my uphill hip. If the slope was too steep, the sled might roll over. Then it became unpullable. I’d have to sidestep down, turn it over, and brush off the snow while holding the ropes to keep it from sliding down further. Then, letting out the rope as I went, I would side step back up to where I was when the sled rolled over and try to continue. So what I ended up trying to do was find a route that was more than ten feet wide through the forest so that I could be at the top end of the route, the sled would be ten feet below me, and there would be no trees in between to catch the rope or create a crater. But such routes didn’t really exist so I spent all day struggling up that first three miles. Dark snow clouds drew in. I really wanted to make it up to that level stretch of valley before night and snow fell. I made it, barely. I went only ten feet beyond the crest and in the dim fading light of dusk, successfully went through my highly-evolved, “pitching tent in snow” ritual. I had plenty of supplies, thanks to the sled, so I slept quite comfortably. I woke part way through the night to find the roof of my tent pressed down against my face. In a bit of a panic, I pushed up. The roof rose and I heard and felt many inches of snow slide off to the sides of the rain fly. The moment it slid, I could hear snowflakes falling quickly on the now-bare rain fly. I went back to sleep.

I awoke again to the same situation. No panic this time. This time I noticed how quiet it was beneath the overlayer of snow. I pushed up the roof, the snow slid off, the sound of falling snow could again be heard, and I went back to sleep. This happened three or four times. The next time it happened after that, I raised the roof but the snow could not slide off. The previous slides had piled up to the height of the rain fly. So I had to get footwear on, crawl outside, and stomp down the ridges of snow paralleling my tent to create space for more sheddings of snow off the tent. I paused to look around. The snow piling up on the dark evergreens in the winter forest was achingly beautiful. I was glad I was here. I crawled back in and went back to sleep. I was awakened several more times throughout that long night to push up the snow-laden roof but each time I easily slid back into lovely sleep.  I awoke the next morning excited to be able to do the next, beautiful stretch through fresh, pure snow.

But snow still fell heavily. Clouds obscured any view of the slopes around me. The falling snow was like a white fog, so that trees a hundred feet away were only dim outlines. I was behind schedule now but it should take only a few hours to reach Mirror Lake . I should have base camp set up by mid-day and still have 1½ days for cruising about in the beautiful, fresh snow. I set off and immediately learned that a 70-pound plastic sled does not skim over the top of two feet of freshly falling snow. It bogs down instantly. I gave pulling it a good faith effort but I quickly realized I would exhaust myself within a few hundred yards. So I took the pack off the sled, split my load between pack and sled, left my sled, put on the pack, and skied/trudged ahead.

This was classic deep Western powder. If I were on a steep slope, a descent through it would have been spectacular. But I was trudging on the level with a pack’s weight. I lift my back ski up onto the top of the snow, slide it forward, high above my other sunken foot, and then shift my weight to the new forward ski. It’s like stepping up a foot each time except as the weight shifts, the ski crunches down through the snow until I am a foot deep again in the powder. Then I lift the other ski up out of its hole (along with the couple of pounds of snow on top of the ski that can’t fall off to the side until it is out of the hole) and repeat the process again. After a hundred feet, I am tired. I stop, drop the pack, and turn back toward my sled. But I can’t use the luxury of my new tracks because I need to beat down a wider trail for the sled. So I must deliberately break fresh tracks next to the ones I just did. At the sled, I turn around, hook the sled on, and start back to my pack. By the time I return to my pack, an inch of fresh snow covers it. So every hundred feet of progress up the valley requires three hundred feet of hard trudging. It snows all day. As the day wears on, I realize I’m not even going to make it to Mirror Lake . I work all day and get close. I find a campsite out of avalanche danger, which is extremely high now, and fall exhaustedly to sleep with no time to sit and absorb the place.

I wake the next morning to blue sky! I see the spectacular glistening beauty I had longed to see. No trail stretches behind me; the night snow has covered it all. As the sun rises over the ridges, the trackless mountains start shedding avalanches down their steep couloirs bordering the Lostine. I soak it all exultantly in. I break camp and push on up the ridge and finally look down on Mirror Lake covered with snow. My original plan still gave me the rest of the day to enjoy the basin but I must now be on my way. Although going down Hurricane Creek through two feet of powder will be easier than going up, it will still be a slow slog and the half day descent I had planned for the fifth day is no longer realistic. So I start down the afternoon of the fourth day. Much of the trail is fairly steep and progress is not brutal. By the late afternoon, I’ve dropped enough that I’m moving out of the region of maximum snowfall. The fresh snow is thinning and by the next morning, on my last day, my sled is again sliding behind me and I have only 5 miles or so to the trailhead to meet Dad.

The trail is easy to follow and goes through open space for the most part. However, the valley drops quickly so the trail can’t follow the bottom. It’s easier to maintain a steadier gradient on the left-hand side of the valley, a few hundred feet above the stream. Again, I am experiencing my plastic sled slipping down the slope and dangling downslope of me, sliding sideways, sometimes rolling over.

The sides of the valley grow steeper. Downslope I can see the creek entering a rocky gorge. I’m not worried because I had skied this trail that magic night several years ago and did not remember any danger. So I continue on but there is no way the sled is going to follow behind me. It will be dangling/sliding below me, exerting its force downward, the entire way.

I continue on and the slope grows steeper and I realize that if I slip here, the consequence would be bad. I’d slide down the steep slope, pulled by the weight of both the sled and myself, and possibly slide into the icy snowmelt flowing at the base of the slope. I step carefully along. Part of the challenge is that the sled does not slide smoothly below me. It comes to its inertial rest and remains in place as I move ahead a few feet. Then at some unpredictable time, it slides ahead, jerking my hip belt downslope.

The slope grows steeper and turns nasty. For some geological reason buried by snow, the slope, ten or twenty feet below the trail, steepens into a rocky plunge. My sled is sliding along just a few feet upslope of this lip. If the trail draws close enough to that lip, my sled will slide over and I will have the entire weight of that sled pulling on my hips.

I pause to consider what I should do and it’s then I realize I have no options. I have to go ahead. It’s not because if I turn around, I would have probably two days of travel to go back up the Hurricane Creek and then drop into the Wallowa Valley and make it back that way. Dad and Mom would be worried and there might be an embarrassing search. I am aware of these consequences, of course, and it influences my thoughts but that isn’t why I can’t turn back. I am stuck because I can’t physically turn around. Each step I take must be exactly perpendicular across the fall line. If a ski is placed at an angle, it might start to slide and the weight of that sled could accelerate the slide down towards the lip of the gorge. I might lose my edge and slip. And my edge is tenuous. These are my long, wooden skis without steel edges. Their edges are hardwood worn by many miles of skiing over rough terrain. The only way to turn around is a perfectly executed kick turn, swinging the skis around on the downslope side. Even if I had the guts to do that, I can’t because the ropes hanging from my hip belt to the sled create a vertical “fence” that my skis can’t pass through. And I can’t take that sled off. I wear the hip belt backwards so that the padding is up front, like a yoke, for me to push against. If I undo the hip belt, it is still around me with its ropes stretched on both sides of me. I have to go forward.

I work my way carefully along and then I come to it. To understand what I met requires a digression. Snow ages. It begins as fresh sharp individual crystals. Over a few weeks, however, the snow settles as its weight squeezes out trapped air. In the heat of the sun, the thin points of each crystal can melt and refreeze near the center of the crystal. Gradually the snow compacts, refreezing icier and icier each night. Then another storm comes and drops a load of snow on top of the previous surface and the process starts over again. What often happens, however, is that the newly fallen snow can’t really bind with the solid icy layer it falls upon. Avalanches will usually shear along this weak contact between the two layers.

Up to this point, I had been skiing on the newly-fallen snow. It molded to the edge of my skis. But an avalanche, starting high on the rocky slopes above me, had swept down into the creek below and had swept all the new snow away, exposing the older, icy surface beneath. I had to cross a steep slope of ice.

The whole time I could look down, down past my carefully placed skis, down past that damn red sled dangling on my hips, down past the lip just below that sled, down to a steep-sided gorge of ice water probably a hundred feet below me. If my footing ever slipped just once, it would be over. I would slide (and be pulled by the sled ahead of me) over the lip. I would probably bounce at least once before hitting into the water. That bounce might not kill me but it would probably break bones. I would land in the water, broken, tangled and tied to the sled, my hands strapped to my ski poles, my feet clipped into skis. With all those attachments, my head would probably be underwater with limited maneuverability. I’d start freezing right away but, if conscious and not too broken, I would have to take off ski poles, hip belt, skis while trying to get my head out of the water. If I could manage that, I would then be stuck in a deep gorge of icy water without any place to get out. The only way out would be to remain within the icy water torrent for several minutes as it carried me through the gorge to some later spot where I might be able to finally pull myself out. Then I would have to drag my totally drenched body back up a steep snow to the trail and then hike out (probably with broken bones) four miles through the snow. I would freeze at some point. In other words, if I made one slip, I would slide toward inevitable pain and death. Death might be fast but probably not. Instead, it would be a painful, frozen thrashing about without escape. The moment one of my skis slipped, the pain and death must follow inevitably and that slip might happen at any moment. There would be, at the least, a few first seconds of slipping when the, by far, most terrified shriek of my life would explode out of me. I was very aware of that shriek. I could feel it coiled inside me, waiting for the slipping ski to slice it free.

So, I had to focus on not slipping, on making it across that icy slope. I had John Muir and Edward Abbey as guides. They both described experiences in which extreme peril focused their minds into preternatural powers that allowed their bodies to do what they had never thought possible. So I began. My right ankle held a ski’s edge into the slope. My two arms and ski poles kept me balanced. I’d bring my uphill ski forward about a foot. I’d slide the ski about, feeling for any evenness that might give it more purchase. Then I’d adjust the ski until I was sure it was pointing straight across the slope. Then I’d start stomping down and into the slope, trying to bash a groove into the icy snow. When I felt I had created a sufficient ski hold, I’d stomp the ski into place and then, breath held, shift weight forward onto that left ski. If I were going to slip and die shrieking, it would happen as I shifted my weight from the safe footing to the fatal untested footing. Not only did the ski have to hold my weight, it also had to hold the weight of that sled hauling down on my hips. The new step holds. Is the sled going to slide forward? Move the poles and downhill ski forward. Get completely balanced on the uphill ski. Use the ankle muscles to firmly plant that ski edge. Then bring the right ski ahead and start the work of bashing a groove in the ice for it. Keep the focus on that.

As I moved toward the center of the avalanche chute, the surface grew icier. It took longer to bash less substantial grooves. My ankle muscles ached for they were the strength that glued me to the ice. Once weight shifted onto a foot, that ankle had to hold firm until I was prepared to risk death with the next weight shift to the other foot. What drove this experience so deep was that it wasn’t the kind of danger that came at me. I had to step to it. Thirty, forty, … eighty, … times I’d place the ski into the new groove, most of them (because of the increasing ice) less substantial than the ones before and pause. I was focused on the contact between my skis and the icy slope so always on the lower edge of my vision is that sled and the plunge beyond, dangling death in front of the shriek within, coaxing it so that its eyes shine and its head lifts expectantly within my belly. Over and over again, I had to summon the willingness to shift my weight and step onto the beginning of that shriek.

I could go on with the details but you’ve always known that I made it across. As footing grew firmer and then the slope grew gentler, relief turned into exaltation, gratitude, love of life. I went on with my life, proud of how I had within me the focus to cross the icy slopes above death. Not until years later did I realize that the shriek, kept in check by that focus, still existed within. But this story is not about that hike. It’s an exploring of the connections deep within us and the impulse that led me to sit up in bed and start writing and healing.

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