By Peter Rieke
I woke with a start to the sound of voices and the clank of mountaineering gear. It was the crew coming up from the low camp. "Wreatha, get up." I said, prodding my wife, "We've over slept. What time is it?" I found my headlamp and saw that it was not even 2:30 am - they weren't supposed to be here for another hour.
"Come on you slackers" Dave Blanchard yelled shaking our tent "We've got a mountain to climb!" "We're up, we're up!" I replied testily and started the familiar morning routine -- chew a dry cookie, pull on some polypropylene underwear, and take a swig of water. The water wasn't frozen, hardly even cold. I checked the cook pot sitting on the snow in the tent foyer, not frozen either. Bad news! The snow was going to be soft, mushy, not good for Snow Pod traction.
Outside the boys organized gear, flaked ropes and uncovered the Snow Pod. "You ready Peter?" "Yeah" I replied and scooted out the tent threw my legs over the edge and grabbed hold of Ira's shoulders. "One, Two, Three" and we're in the Snow Pod. I snap on the safety or belay lines and we are ready to go. My belayers and I call to each other, "Belay on!" "Cranking!" "Crank-On", and we start up the Hogsback ridge. It is 700 vertical feet of 45-degree slope leading to the 11,200' summit of Mt. Hood. In the quiet of a windless, star-lit night, the mountain seems like an old friend.
Like a hand cranked cycle, the Snow Pod is totally human powered. Mostly bicycle components and two five inch wide sections of snowmobile track, it operates like a small tank. It can climb a 45 slope, if it is well frozen and straight up. Today the slope is soft, barely frozen and the "Bergschrund", a huge crevasse extending across the mountain, forces us to side-hill around. Up we cranked, slow and steady. The belayers figured out a system to manage the safety ropes. This is our first real test of the pod and of ourselves. The pod slips on the very steepest sections and the track grinds a groove in the mushy snow. Three of the fellows "dog" the pod by pushing down on the frame to add weight. It works, the 2 inch long titanium track studs bite-in and we're climbing again. The shadow of the mountain forms a perfect pyramid over the Oregon forest 5000' below. Soon the sun catches us and the snow turns instantly to mush; but we are over the steep slope and now it is a straight run to the summit.
It is a beautiful morning on the summit - sunny and calm. I've been here a dozen times before. It should be old hat -- but today I can barely talk, a few tears stream down my cheeks unnoticed by others. I'm not the only one who thinks it is a special day. It has been a long 4-year journey since the "climbing accident". A journey I could not do alone, a journey so many of my friends willingly signed up for knowing it would be a long haul. We spent thousand of hours building the pod -- building three separate prototypes actually. Hundreds of hours training in the gym, on my racing chair, and cranking the pod down endless snowmobile tracks.
From the summit of Mt hood you can see Mt. Jefferson to the south, Mt. Adams and remnants of Mt. St. Helen's to the north and between them Mt. Rainier. At 14,400' Mt. Rainier is a huge behemoth compared to Mt. Hood - ten times the mountain. Can we climb that one too? Sure, today we have done what no one else has done - crank a mountain.
In the beginning, even while still in the hospital, it was preposterous to think that I could climb under my own power the 14,500 volcanic massif of Mt. Rainier. Nine months after my injury, a massive infection at the surgery site, and after multiple hospital stays, it was tiring to simply sit up for a few hours. Working at a bench sawing, grinding, and drilling simply proved exhausting. Regular thirteen second spasticity was like Chinese water torture. It took forever to accomplish the simplest mechanical tasks.
For my first post-injury birthday, Wreatha, my wife, my savior, bought me a nice shiny tool chest set. As it came out of the box I thought, "What a waste of money". The tools would be well stored, neatly organized - and unused. Towering above me, I could not see into the chest's top most drawers. I smiled gamely at my friends who had helped me unpack this monstrosity and snorted sarcastically in order to keep from crying.
Nearly two years post-injury, it was still preposterous to think about climbing, but we had built the first Snow Pod. Clumsy, inefficient and slow, it never went more than a few hundred yards, never climbed more than a hundred feet of elevation gain. It was impossible to steer and had no way to change gears. After hundreds of hours of work and a few hundred dollars in parts Mike Poole and Greg Coffey and I had created a piece of junk only slightly more "all-terrain" than my wheelchair. Distinctly an engineering failure, it would never climb a mountain. We only went a couple of hundred yards from the pickup but the cool feel of spring snow and the smell of budding pines made me realize that this was further than I had been before.
Greg and I got serious for the second prototype. The first prototype taught us what we needed; it defined the technical criteria. We argued for hours over the finer points of design. When we came to loggerheads, we asked Mike usually to find we were both blind to a simple solution. More often, one of us simply gave in to the other knowing that we were probably both wrong. We worked hard through that year, considering every detail, worrying about weight efficiency, traction, and most of all thinking about a transmission. A reliable transmission would be the key component. It was necessary to be able to drive each track forward or reverse - independently. It had to work just like a tank or bulldozer. The result was not pretty. A clumsy 35 lb. box of aluminum plate, heavy duty chain, clutches, and gears all mounted on the back of an other wise sleek lightweight frame. But with continued tinkering it worked. We could turn on a dime and go forward or backward, left or right and all with only a flick of a lever .
June 1, 1997, almost three years to the day after my injury, we set out for White Pass, the local ski area 40 miles West of Yakima, Washington. With plenty of snow still and a beautiful sunny day, we set off up the slopes. Four hours later we had gained 500 feet elevation and covered nearly 3/4 mile with only minor problems with the snow pod. From our lunch spot we could see Mt. Rainier peaking through the low clouds. What would it take to climb Rainier? Clearly Mt. Hood had to be first. Could we even do Mt. Hood? No, not yet! I wasn't strong enough - a half day of cranking left me tired, sore and ready to turn back. The snow pod was too inefficient and the weight distribution was all wrong. The transmission was too heavy and consumed too far much energy. Both I and the Snow Pod would have to get a lot better. But it was possible. Maybe, just maybe we could try Mt. Hood in August. All in all it was a good day; we headed down and loaded the snow pod on the roof rack of the car.
I looked up from the newspaper to see the road-side reflector pole smack into the car hood. "John!" I yelled, but he was already awake and instantly the car headed back across the two lanes of traffic. A vision of a car slamming into our side flashed through my thoughts; but John fought it back straight and I felt the frame suspension relax under us. "Come on John you can do it" I thought. But no - instantly we were skidding backwards down the freeway at 50 miles-per-hour. We went over the roadside edge, slower now, the car tilted and started to roll. The roof came at me, the seat belt held, and I experienced an oddly pleasing moment of weightlessness.
We stopped rolling suddenly and settled back on the side. A moment of silence and then a pandemonium of shouts. "Are you OK?" "Turn off the car!" "The dogs?" and "I'm OK!" was repeated all round. Even as the dust settled, the doors were open and passing motorists hauled me up and handed me down. John pushed on my behind to help. We had been lucky, not a scratch on us and only one very scarred dog. The Snow Pod that had been strapped on the roof had saved us from rolling completely over. It was mangled and twisted. Any dreams of climbing this year were gone.
Greg and I pondered the wreckage. A new frame was needed; some ruined parts needed replaced. It would be a lot of work. Even after the wreck, the transmission was the weakest link. A new more efficient transmission was needed - back to the drawing boards. By fall we had a new even lighter frame and a simple, robust, transmission design. By November 1997 we had racked up a $3000 machine shop bill for transmission parts and by Christmas 1997 we had a new Snow Pod, painted caterpillar yellow, sporting a highly efficient 49 speed drive train, and a 10 lb. transmission. It looked cool. One Editor later described it as a "Rube Goldberg" contraption. It was nothing of the sort. It was a highly efficient, reliable, state-of-the-art, human-powered machine; and after a few field trials, I knew that the pod could climb Mt. Hood and even Mt. Rainier. I was now the weak link.
Dates were set, April 1998 for Mt. Hood, and June 1998 for Mt. Rainier. Friends, fellow climbers, and work associates began to organize. We dubbed the effort the Crank Rainier Project. Every weekend was spent cranking. Three nights a week in the gym, Dave Pfund stacked weights while I pumped. The pod performed flawlessly and I started to bulk-up. New records in elevation gain and distance covered were set weekly. Wreatha organized dozens of climbing friends for weekend training trips, menu planning, gathering climbing and communications equipment and worrying about safety and team logistics. We partnered with the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate by selling T-shirts and recruiting corporate sponsors with the slogan, "To Build a House _ Climb a Mountain". In the end we raised about $9,000 which we split with Habitat for Humanity.
Finally the date for Mt. Hood came - the summit achieved at 7:48 am on April 20, 1998. El Nino gave us the most beautiful weather. From the summit we all looked solemnly north to Mt. Rainier. Bigger, taller, steeper, more crevasses, a place where world class mountaineers train for the Himalayas, Alaska and Patagonia. Mt. Rainier kills a half dozen people each year. They freeze to death, fall in crevasses or simply disappear. Fear and uncertainty crept into the pit of my stomach.
The top of Mt. Hood is in a wilderness area and technically the Snow Pod might not be legal. We had tried to find someone from the U.S. Forest Service to give us permission. After weeks of futile effort, we decided to make the climb and ask for forgiveness if it became an issue. They hardly noticed. The climbing rangers were gung-ho and kept checking on us mostly being curious about the snow pod. The Forest Service did get a bit worked up about the news helicopter that flew over us covering our descent. News of our climb was carried in a week long series of news paper articles in the Tri-City Herald, complete with the Herald reporter, John Stang and a Herald staff photographer Andrei Raneri, accompanying us to the summit.
Meanwhile, our proposal to the National Park Service to climb Mt. Rainier was stirring up a hornets nest of bureaucratic controversy. It was precedent setting and feelings ran high. At one point the snow pod was erroneously described as having five-foot wide track and assumed to have a gasoline engine. They seemed not to be able to envision a 55 lb. human-arm powered tractor that left less imprint in the snow than a boot print. But seeing is believing; we met with the park service officials at the Mt. Rainier park headquarters and let them try the pod - they became believers and argued for our cause. However, Department of the Interior lawyers in Washington DC thought otherwise. Using the U.S. Forest Services "Wilderness Access Decision Tool" they argued the Snow Pod was not legal. Our legal team argued to the contrary and perhaps in the end the Dept. of Interior lawyers felt a public relations fiasco would be too detrimental. Still we had to put our best foot forward, obey all the rules, and not make it impossible for others to try similar climbs.
Thursday, June 11, 1998. I slept well at car camp the night before our departure, but rose instantly when the alarm rang at 2:30 am. I did not want to be late. NPS Rangers, John Cranbrink and Rick Kirschner, beat us to the parking lot and helped us unload the pod. John was in civilian clothes, Rick in his NPS uniform as he would be our official watcher for the first day. John just wanted to be there and wish us well. Even so they made me nervous; I wanted to make a good impression, to crank twice as fast as possible. My arms burned after a few hundred yards trying to go too fast; I had to slow before keeling over in exhaustion really impressed them.
The first obstacle is the rise to Panorama Point perhaps 35 degrees maximum slope and only a few hundred feet, it proved disastrously embarrassing. It got hotter by the minute, the snow had turned to mashed potatoes and we had stripped down to t-shirts. The pod would go nowhere without dogging. Four handles at each corner of the pod added after Mt. Hood made weighting easier. The doggers sank to their knees in the snow and even with dogging the pod churned deeply into the pudding like snow. We slather on the sunscreen, cursed the sun, and exclaimed our stupidity at not starting earlier. We futzed with the belay ropes and argued over the best micro route. All the while Rick sat on a rock atop the hill watching. I wanted to scream. Word would get back of our difficulty. Would an over conservative bureaucracy in Washington, DC decide to pull the plug on my dream; on the first day out?
At the top Rick did not seem to care and I began to calm down some. The rest of the day was slow and steady and in the soft conditions hard work. Finally came camp and food and shade. At an elevation of 7200' and with a 1700' vertical gain, it had been a respectable, although not stellar, day. Sipping a cup of tea I watched a massive thunderhead form below us. Underneath the cottony, white anvil shaped top, lightning flashed through the dark base.
Friday, June 12, 1998. Without a watching ranger and getting a 3 am start, I felt more confident. We had only minor terrain problems and made good speed. Again a rising sun turned the snow to mush and the drudgery began. At 8 am the crowds appeared (we had missed them yesterday by choosing an alternative route.) But now they came looking. "Show time for Peter" I thought "put on a smile, warm up the gimp-makes-good speech, crank up the enthusiasm as well as the pod".
Two young women told me I was their hero and wanted to shake my hand. One had just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She had had few symptoms so far but she knew what the future might hold for her and brutally understood that she might not even be able to crank a Snow Pod some day. Some visitors just stared intently at the pod, coldly evaluating the mechanisms, trying to determine if I was super human or just a little bit nuts. Super Human: No, Nuts: Probably - they would conclude but admittedly the pod looked fairly cool. "Wager a few bucks on the outcome" I thought. Skepticism was not uncommon even among my friends. By 9000' and early afternoon, I was tired, backsore, and talked out. We made camp at moon rocks. Another good day's effort.
Saturday, June 13, 1998. The third day we started even earlier , had beautiful hard snow and witnessed a magnificent sun rise. Climbing alone with one of my long time climbing partners, Ray Erbeznik, we alternately bantered about whatever struck our fancies and then fell silent for long stretches, watched the sun rise and listened to rhythmic squeaks of the Snow Pod. It felt good to be on a mountain, solving technical problems, and pushing my body again. By 9:00 am Camp Muir was reached. We could go on but the next stop was too far to try in warm conditions.
Ahead, across the first real glacier from Camp Muir lay the steep and stony Cathedral Gap. Viewed from afar and skewed by our angle of perspective the gap looked much too steep and treacherous for the Snow Pod. I had to rationalize my worries away, telling myself that many rank novices ascended and descended the gap each day -- it could not be as foreboding as it looked.
Two boys, 8&10 years old, came out to meet me. They had passed by me the day before and spent the night a Camp Muir with their father. They were excited to see me. I do not quite understand why, but kids seem to appreciate both the magic and the courage of climbing. Perhaps the mountain summit is as inaccessible to them as it is to me. Not inaccessible, not a physical barrier but rather something beyond the conscious imagination. They know that climbing to the summit is feat of great accomplishment and import, something which their friends at school would envy and would covet even the chance to try. As it is for me, it is for them, - a goal just this side of impossible and just the far side of our imaginations.
Once ensconced in the tent I was trapped for the rest of the day and it was always a hard choice to make. Should I stretch out and get off by butt? or Stay outside where the action and views are? But at 10,000' even a gentle breeze and inactivity forces one inside. Still I got a good nap, melted and boiled snow for water, and boiled and bagged a batch of catheters. Most of all I wanted to stand and look out over the snow wall around our tent and study Cathedral Gap. The gap was both a technical and environmental impact crux. The only section of the climb with exposed rock, the NPS was interested in any environmental damage we might cause as well as evaluation of how well the pod performed on exposed loose rock.. It was also a bottle neck in the route and we had been warned about impeding the progress of other climbing parties
Sunday June 14, 1998. We set out early from Camp Muir, a little bit nervous for this was the first glacier crossing with crevasses. The first time out on such terrain, each undulation in the snow seems to hint at a thinly covered gaping maw ready to swallow up your entire party. We made good time getting to the exposed rock and things slowed down. Mike, Ray and Ira worked hard pushing and lifting. We made it through the zigzagged 150' patch of small boulders in about an hour of slow hard work. This type of terrain is not the Snow Pod's forte. Back on snow we started up a very steep 45 degree section just as Wreatha, Dan Hansen and a ranger came down from Ingraham flats. In the shadow still, the pod climbed the rock hard snow effortlessly, no dogging required and we made it look easy. The ranger was impressed. I was ecstatic. At the top the sun was up and the snow soft and but for a couple of steep sections things went well.
As I made the final turn to into our camp the left track drive gave out. We struggled and limped the last sixty feet into camp and I wondered if we hadn't blown a transmission - one of the worst possible scenarios. Fortunately the transmission and drive chain were OK but the plastic drive cog was irreparable. We phoned down to our base camp near the park entrance and Greg acting as base camp manager, started a replacement cog up the hill; while Mike worked on a puller to get the old one off. It took nearly three hours, heating with a stove, devising a puller from snow pickets and spare bolts and a good whack with an ice hammer but Mike got it off. The new cog only took 10 minutes to reassemble _ but it had taken a full day to pack it from base camp to Ingraham Flats.
Tuesday, June 16, 1998. On day 6 we made it around Disappointment Cleaver and up the Emmonds glacier. Only a 1000' was gained to 11,600' but we had traversed far around the mountain. The flat spot for the tents was still a 25 degree slope and required considerable excavation for the tent platforms. As we settled in we heard shouting, almost like shouts for help, from the Disappointment Cleaver where other climbing parties were descending from the summit. The shouts were not repeated and we could do little from where we were. Wreatha called up using her cell phone and informed us an avalanche had swept a party of 10 over a series of cliffs. In the end one young man died of exposure while trapped on an inaccessible ledge. All afternoon huge chinook rescue helicopters thundered overhead and tiny TV-news helicopters buzzed about. We dug a snow pit to check the stability of the slope where we were camped but it seemed solid enough. My wife received a Red Cross "Wilderness Hero" award for her role in the rescue.
Wednesday June 17, 1998. We set out that night before midnight after 3 hours of restless sleep and cranked through the night. It was very steep ground and much time was wasted futzing with the ropes in the dark. As day dawned, a huge crevasse field blocked our way and forced us to traverse left on steep ground. Everyone was tired and ornery. Finally at 12,600'; it is clear we could go no further without extensive route finding and decided to make camp. It has been good going with hard snow but the night travel had every one chilled and lack of sleep made us prone to stupid errors. Dave Blanchard and Greg Kimmel, two of the most experienced mountaineers on our team, went out for a short reconnaissance and reported back on a massive crevasse system. We would have to traverse right, it would probably take an entire day of work with no elevation gain and we might not find a route through the crevasses. We built the walls up around the tents as the wind was tenacious and threatening.
Thursday June 18, 1998. In the first pale morning light, Dave and Greg set out for a more detailed reconnaissance. The wind howled and from inside I listened for their return. The din of flapping tent fabric amplified the wind to a gale, the ground snow blown into the tents seemed like a malevolent ice storm. Everything outside became more terrible for not being able to go out and see.
They struck out one way and came back much too soon. They went out another way and again returned too soon. And again they went out and back. The fourth time they were gone for nearly 1/2 hour. I wanted them to find a way and I wanted them to fail. I wanted to forge onward, but I also wanted to go home. This was our eighth day out. I was tired, bone tired of wind and snow and sun and heat. But only two days from the summit and easier terrain ahead - I thought, I hoped. I knew I could do it, I knew the Snow Pod could do it, and I knew the rest of team could do it. Some members of the team were tired but some were fresh and strong, and reinforcements would arrive from below. The logistical support and supplies from base camp was strained but good enough to rush the summit and retreat.
I could tell from Dave and Greg's banter coming back that they had found a path through. It held a tune of hope and of possibility. They described a tenuous path through many crevasses, huge seracs or cliffs of ice and a final snow bridge. But Greg warned that Dave had punched through the snow bridge when he wandered too far from the center. Dave said "Lets go. Lets do it. Lets try". Greg nodded his assent, dubious and skeptical, but he was still willing to try. Greg warned that the snow bridge might weaken in the coming days, trapping us and forcing a descent via Camp Sherman, a four mile crank out on dirt and 20 miles the wrong side of the mountain. It was not a pretty option, doable but agonizingly hard work and the NPS would not like it one bit.
While debating, we heard the voices of Wreatha and the rest of the crew coming from below and their arrival brought shouts of greeting and cheers. Friends we had not seen in a year were with them. The shouts quickly became that of debate and argument, then finally became shouts of organization, forming teams and sorting gear.
As I listened from inside my tent, the wind formed a knot of worry deep in my belly. Nothing, nothing carries more fear for the mountaineer than the unrelenting wind. It brings bad weather, hypothermia, frozen toes and fingers, forms avalanche packs, rips tents from their tenuous foundations and confuses the mind. It wears on the soul; the wind seems to blow the spirit from the body.
We are ready and finally I'm out of the tent and in the pod. It's bright and sunny and, despite the biting wind, beautiful. We traverse a steep side-hill by a tedious process of zigging up and down like tacking a sailboat into the wind. Our techniques have been honed and things move smoothly. As we come to a rise, Dave points out the route shouting commentary above the wind. Briefly a cloud above us descends obscuring the view. It draws my attention to wonder about the conditions on the summit. The belay crew moves past the first series of crevasses. Greg and Dave are cautious but more importantly Ira Hickman is nervous, he follows directions and doesn't put in his own two-cents. Ira's a strong rock climber, used to huge heights and horrible exposures and too easily dismisses these mountains as trivial. Now his usually cavalier movements toward "alpine slogs" are slow, silent, and deliberate. It is not normal.
Doug Clark, another experience mountaineer, shooting photos and leading an alternate rope team, came over the rise and also saw the terrain ahead. Perhaps that was the final straw and he began to shout about the weather voicing logic for retreat without actually suggesting it. We paused and each person voiced their own opinion shouted over the wind. I listened to each in turn. It was not a democratic vote for behind each opinion is a body, a mind, a spirit. Some of them are too cautious, others too cocksure, some strong and fresh, some tired, some knowledgeable, some still learning about themselves. But now too many of them were out of character.
In the end, they looked to me, and Greg asked for them all " What's it going to be, Peter?" For a few moments even the wind fell silent. I looked above at the lenticular on Mt. Rainier, ahead at the crevasse field, at the dicey snow bridge, at the faces waiting for me to decide. And I looked south at Mt. Adams and what I saw frightened me. A lenticular is a cloud formed like a hat on the mountain like a beret cap tilted to the lee side. Mountaineers know that a lenticular means high winds and the coming of bad weather. The question is how high, how strong?
Mt. Adams had lost it's beret, blown off, the lenticular was 2-3 miles from the summit. I had never before seen so detached a lenticular. After eight days of relatively clear weather, the mountain was preparing to test anyone left on it with even higher winds and plunging temperatures. I looked across the crevasse field to the ridge beyond and imagined myself- my able-bodied self- standing there impatiently looking back at my new self "confined" to the Snow Pod. And once more I received a bitter lesson on the meaning of disability.
I looked around at the crew all waiting for me to make the decision and pointed back, we would go back, we must go down. And while Dave and Greg organized the retreat, Mike and I cried.
What more can be said about defeat, the details of retreat are only of interest to those who engage in the endeavor - it saves lives. The public has no interest, they are fickle and can collectively only see the glory. We did not make the summit. But we made the climb, we made the attempt and true mountaineers know that the climb is more important than the summit. I was out there, further than any wheeled gimp had gone, climbing with my buddies. It felt good; I made the decisions. I was once again a mountaineer.
Two days later on the way down; another rescue chopper thundered overhead; two able-bodied climbers would have to be rescued from the same route because they had become lost in the high-winds and succumbed to hypothermia. It was a bad week on Mt. Rainier for the NPS; but we were not part of the problem.
Still, at home, late at night I rise and sit in the light of the refrigerator and graze upon leftovers and tasty tidbits. (One of the great benefits of having a comfortable chair with wheels.) And in that quiet, pale light I plan, I plan to do it again.