Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Death

The youthful self-congratulations I crowed from the mountaintop (of Nez Perce) have been tempered by sadness and time.  Shortly after I wrote that last post I returned to the state of my childhood, Connecticut, to visit family.   My good friend and climbing partner Bojan called me shortly after I arrived.  "Greg never showed up for beers Sunday night.  Did he call you?"  "No, not yet.  Nobody has heard from him?"

"No."

A normal night visiting: my parents and I, eating some good fresh food at the kitchen island as night fell outside, drinking wine and talking, dogs sprawled out on the floor and the chair.  I told my parents just hours after sharing the amazing ski adventure Greg and I had undertaken with photos and enthusiastic story that he did not show up to meet mutual friends at the appointed time.   Told them some of the very real danger of what I choose to do over and over.  What I measure my days by.  What earns me a living.  I usually shelter them from these dangers somewhat, but this time they were sharing it.  They were waiting too. 

Everyone went to bed.  As Tucker, the German Shepherd-Collie that remembers me from her puppy days and searches for me after I visit my parents, curled up on most of my bed I lay awake looking out my childhood window towards the west.  I used to look at the opposite valley feeling trapped by all that continent and unknown life between Marlborough and the mythic West.  I never thought I would get to live the life I am living.  Now, thousands of miles separated me from the people I loved and cared for, the people who I was living these dreams with.  I wanted to be there, but what could any of us do?  Search and rescue was doing its job.  I finally slept with a pit in my stomach.

The next morning my mom, who keeps up with the mountain news that reaches the national media (and whose awareness is particularly tuned to disaster) told me there was a search going on for two missing skiers in the Tetons.  These were my friends, weren't they?  Oh no.  The feeling crept up the back of my neck.  Over those same beers in the Brew Pub Greg had spoken with great excitement of his upcoming attempt to ski the Grand.  Warming had turned snow conditions from marginal to worse in the days I had been gone from Jackson.  I talked on the phone with Bojan.  We waited.

I went to New Hampshire.  My grandfather, who had just moved to assisted living, was as thin as I had ever seen him but still clear-headed.  He had fought a 20 plus year battle with cancer and had so far won, as he was still living.  He had become a celebrity in the assisted living facility for his performances on his keyboard of big-band hits that all the old folks knew and that quite a few could sing along to. Yet he was declining.  My grandmother, as sharp as ever but a bit more frail, knew it.  It broke my heart the way these two people who had spent a happy lifetime together knew it.  I had come to say goodbye, and they knew that too.  He told all the folks from the town where they had spent their retirement about his granddaughter the mountain climber at the formal cocktail hour.  I was heading to Denali to work for the American Alpine Institute.  He was proud of me.  How could I say goodbye?  I had said goodbye to my Gram, my mom's mom, before, and as she had Alzheimer's I think she knew what I was saying.  But this was different.  His health had declined but he knew what was going on.  I felt like the Grim Reaper.  When she visits from the West, it's bad.  There is love there, but things are not going well.

As I drove to my parents' I got the official news about Greg.  As a climber who knew the Tetons and had seen his motivation and acceptance of risk somehow, in some place, I already knew.  Buried in an avalanche while he and his friend slept in their tent in Garnet Canyon.  In their sleep.  He had just finished med school and was charging around doing big ski objectives before accepting a job.  He was strong and motivated, and headed for a life that balanced work and mountains with grace. 

I finished the Connecticut visit and flew to Jackson.  Said goodbye and drove for Seattle and my upcoming job in Alaska.  No time.  Just a week later I got the news that my grandfather had died.   We had known Burkett's time was short, but nobody expected it would be this short. There was no time to fly back for the funeral. Instead, I got on a plane and flew with two clients into the Alaska Range to meet the other 6 clients and 2 guides on the pristine snow of the East Fork of the Kahiltna for our Denali expedition.  We were the first trip of the year, earlier even than the Parks Service.  We battled guide health issues and bitter cold to get six clients and two guides to the summit.  I flew back to Washington and continued guiding for Mountain Madness on Baker and Shuksan, Olympus and Christie, Washington Pass and Leavenworth.  I groveled up the unrelenting Index cliffs on my off time, fought Seattle traffic, fixed Rosie Car, walked to pho and watched funny shows with Michael, and tried to rest from the whirlwind with June in my little Index apartment.   There was no time to think.  There was no time to process.  The deaths of Greg and Burkett flowed behind me into the river of my past, marking time, leaving sadness.  I won't pretend to wrap last spring up into trite conclusions about death and risk and life well lived.  The best way to honor this time and the loss of these two fine men is just to tell this story, and say that I cared about Greg.  I loved my grandfather.  I still do.

And I miss you both.