03.26.13 - 7:24 pm

DAY 2

mike let me sleep until 630 or so. i felt rested, but part of me knew that this was a sunday, and i was supposed to sleep in till at least 10 on sundays. mike boiled some water. made some coffee. keeping with my typical morning routine, i skipped the breakfast bar, went straight to the coffee. id just eat a hearty lunch.
this would be a tactical mistake as we packed up and moved on. the lesson i would soon learn was that my body is a high powered machine. i would need to fuel this machine every hour, or at least every two. the consequences of not doing this would be rapid deterioration of energy, blood sugar and stamina. and a insatiable desire for a nap. just a quick one.

the first trek of this day went fast. such an incredible day. i took my jacket off. i took my sweater off. i took my gloves off. mike would have done this shirtless if he could. in spite of the snow all around us, it was warm out. a cold warm, if you will. the sun was high and unobstructed. wide angle photographic lenses were created strictly for views such as this. cradled by the unforgiving walls of the crater, the lake glistened in its winter shade of blue. this place posed in silence, refusing to acknowledge a paved and electronic world beyond its rim. completely surreal.

the snow shoe road had long since faded to untouched virgin snowfall, with only the faint ribbons of a single ski trail marking the trail ahead. periodically tall wooden poles would mark the outline of the cement road buried several feet below us.

we used wizard island as a distance marker. as we straddled the rim, the island would slowly rotate its visual position. paired with the lodge across the water, i always had some frame of reference for the distance we had traveled. it never seemed less than remarkable considering the time and effort it took to accomplish it.

periodically i would have to stop and dig into my bags of treats while mike steadily hiked tirelessly ahead. i think i saw him eat twice the entire trip. however, it quickly became apparent i had been a fool while packing for my dietary needs:

sitting on the carpet of my mothers family room the night before i left, i put measured amounts of food into the bags and sealed them. judging by how much i eat on a typical work day, i felt there was no way i would need more just to snack on. besides, when I'm hungry, ill just eat the hot meals throughout the day, the snacks are almost like emergency rations. additionally i had also bought a loaf of french bread, sliced turkey meat, head of romaine and a brick of cheese for sandwiches. i would forget all of these at home of course. i would also forget the six pack of celebratory drop top beer. le sigh.

i was rapidly depleting my valuably delicious triscuit supply. this was very upsetting. little did i know that not only did it take a large amount of effort to boil water and then cook the hot meals, but mike only wanted to eat these at dinner time. he didn't care to enjoy a delicious hot meal every two hours. i should have anticipated this.

so it was another lunch of energy bars constructed of nuts and sticky glue like substances. i chewed with displeasure, the taste empty and joyless. i could have been eating shelled insects judging by the texture alone. there was no reward in these meals, simply animalistic. a primal need for energy as my body unsustainably burned itself out. i stuffed my face with as many different varieties of snacks as possible. i drank water melted from the clean snow of our trail side. i say clean, but when you need water, sticks and small organisms become consciously invisible. later, as my displeasure grew more spiteful for what i was subsisting off of and mike became less concerned with what he was melting, i would long for the sweet taste of pure tap water. ingesting these sticks, bits of debris and haze of wildlife was tolerated survival: the tortured separation of needs vs wants.

interestingly enough, i hadn't pooped since friday evening. i think i had only peed once yesterday. it was sunday morning. my body was using every piece of organic material i was giving it. and giving nothing back to the lake.

we moved fast and hard around the watchman and hillman peak at 7250'. these were very tall spires of crumbling rock. the watchman had a small stone structure perched at its peak. just looking at how much higher up that lookout was from my position was exhausting. in hiking shoes, it would have been a fun little jaunt up there. in snow shoes and a pulk, i was already calculating time and energy. it was absolutely out of the question.

this mornings pace had been great. the scenery was expansive and silent. and then the metal clasps that connect my sled to my body broke. the metal simply snapped. maybe it was the cold. maybe the excessive usage. maybe it was just crumbly pieces of iron ore glued together by a small handed child somewhere in asia. whatever the reason, this could have absolutely been the end of our voyage. two days in. i certainly wasn't going to hold on to the poles of my sled and drag it like a wheelbarrow for the next 30 goddamn miles. fortunately mike had a reserve of miscellaneous supplies: in this case two carabiners provided the material support necessary to continue.

shortly after the equipment malfunction, we approached a wide empty expanse and mike let me take the lead. straight across the plains of snow i treaded. a steady breakless pace. my legs felt strong. the sound they made as they punched through the snow i imagined as heavily geared machinery. a metallic AT AT walker from star wars methodically trudging onward. my sense of navigation was terribly misguided however. i would lead us down a pathway of ease and comfort. it should have been my first warning. suddenly the trail shifted into a wide, well maintained snow mobile road. it was flat. it was easy to walk on. and i was also leading us miles in the wrong direction.

the maps and the gps were not lining up. the trail marker was supposed to be coming up. maybe it still was. we had no comprehension of scale between our gps and the rudimentary map. maybe just a little bit further. once we find it, then we can stop and have lunch. another hour would pass. the road just kept going onward forever. where were the road poles? with hunger and a loss of direction and a desperate need to eat i took to focusing internalizing my physical struggles. one step in front of the other. when hungry: eat. when thirsty: drink. when tired: keep going. keep moving forward. momentum until the signal to stop, accept that it may never come. propel body until it burns through everything and collapses.

suddenly a small wave of snow mobilers flash past.

"maybe we could get a lift from them?"
"never!" mike would reply like alexander the great removing an arrow from his leg.

another lifetime of walking passes. two more machines approach and mike walks out to flag them down. they stop and we discover what had been a well known secret: we were miles off course. they graciously offered us rides back to our actual trail and we thankfully accepted.

mike seated himself on the woman's snowmobile, i took to the back of the mans, "don't be bashful, put your arms around my fat belly and hold on". this was not a man who went light on the mayo. but even with his body painted in thick winter gear, you could tell he was quite thrilled with his 500 hp mechanical sled.

with the pulk still attached to my back, and me grabbing tightly to the folds of his jacket, he took off like a rocket. i had not prepared for his speeds. i anticipated a slow pleasant pace, and packed my sled for such. but when he hit 50 mph, my sled was nearly airborne. at any time my shovel, my sleeping bag, my walking poles could have exploded out and away. as it was the exhaust from this machine was pure snow cement and it was pouring directly into my pulk.

he casually turns his helmet to the side and shouts over the noise: "are you holding on?"
"yeah," i said reassuringly, thinking he was just worried i might be uncomfortable.

no. he floored it.

i don't know how fast he got us, but it was terrifying. either my sled was going to get caught on something and rip from my torso, or its contents would be scattered for miles behind us. the masked man found his unexpected acceleration hilarious. he would never reveal his face, but he and his wife were exceptionally generous and saved us nearly four hours of additional walking and valuable energy. we shook hands to gloves, said our thanks and his parting words of cryptic wisdom were: "see? not all snow mobiles are bad." as if it was well known that their race was despised as the troglodytes of the mountains. so it goes.

i cleaned out as much of the melting snow from my sled as possible, repacked and double checked my inventory and looked up the steep hill mike was already ascending. this is where it began to get difficult. completely untouched snow. no ski trails to guide us. it was us and miles of 18" deep snow to wade through. like wading through yogurt.

up until this point no part of my body had felt any great discomfort. sure, my fingers would get cold from the snow if we stopped for any long period of time, but even then i would remain gloveless most of the trip. however, a slight pain in my upper thigh began to whimper. right where leg connects to torso.

7500'. it was a staircase without the stairs. even sledless this would have been a taxing hike. every step placed cause the pulk to catch in trough of my shoe imprint, stopping my momentum just long enough to give me a reassuring tug. a tug that incrementally jarred valuable energy from my body. every step. had it been a smooth drag behind me, i don't think there would have been much notice. but when it was a distinct and tug from the opposite direction from my forward momentum, it took its toll. resentment began to boil.

when we finally made camp on the end of a vista, my groin had become obnoxious. each pained step took me further and further away from mike who seemed to be tirelessly sprinting ahead of me. my body was approaching its apex for the day. the sky was dimming. there was nothing more the snacks could do for me, i needed a meal or i would die.

my head raced with thoughts of standing my ground and insisting we make camp instead of continuing. if i could ever catch up to mike, i would let him know that i wanted to be able to make that decision going forward. hours of imaginary conversation shouted through my mind. i would be firm. or i would be angry. or i would be diplomatic. can you sound like an adult without sounding like a whiny asshole? finally i saw him off the trail. stopped on a view point. finally. food and sleep. not necessarily in that order. just one of those two options would have satisfied me.

a breeze had started and a thin blanket of clouds grayed the skies over our evenings golden glow.

we stomped out a campsite the best we could. some places felt firm, others would have a knee deep hole. with the tent placed, mike proceeded with frozen hands to boil the water for our only hot meal of the day. god these were delicious. simply an incredible reward for the day. every bite was an overwhelming wash in flavor. every cell in my body felt revitalized. we sat on a large stone brick wall, our feet dangling over certain death.

then the wind came. there was a moment in time when i suddenly had the ability to see things as they happened, create a running dialogue of absolute terror and resolve and then reaction after considering all of the outcomes.

the breeze came. mikes eyes causally shifted from the slowly inflating bubbles of boiling water to the tent. i saw the surrounding trees bend slightly around us. a slow sting of crisp air on my face. then the tent was in the almost above me. all of the tent. its trajectory was to go over my head and then over the cliff out of sight some several hundred feet below us. we were watching the first step to the eventual decline in quality of life. my hands had been icy fists inside my fingered gloves, so using them to the best of their current ability i more or less clubbed the tent and managed to pinch just a bit of fabric. enough then to use my body weight to pin down. disaster averted, we quickly tied our structure to our sleds and ate outside with a gale of winds blowing through us. that evening our tent would rattle and billow the entire night. mike mentioned the possibility of being blown off the cliff by sudden hurricane force winds. but hopefully that wouldn't happen. yeah, hopefully.

you son of a bitch.

as i laid in my mummy bag running through how it would feel to die in a tent rolling down a cliff, it became soberingly apparent how remote we now were. how help would not come fast, no matter how dire the situation. danger was very real and we would either have to trek back the way we came, or wait til a search party was sent after we failed to check back in on friday. three days from now. i could break my leg. sprain my ankle. mike could fall off a cliff trying to photograph a sunset. heart attacks. diabetes. bees. all were possibilities for the remaining days of our journey.

with my body spent and drained of any remaining energy resources, i prepared to sleep. this was vitally important because it was incredibly cold at night, and if i could fall asleep quickly, i wouldn't develop the need to urinate. i wouldn't have to get up and crawl outside to pee solid ice. nor would i have to pee in a jar and potentially all over myself and the inside of my sleeping bag.

but this is when mike wanted to talk. and drink scotch. and have me drink the fireball flask he prepared for me. as absolutely thoughtful as it was to consider me for a congratulatory sip of alcohol at the end of a hard day of labor, my body had absolutely no desire for liquor intake. it was the absolute last thing i wanted to ingest. i had just consumed the most delicious meal i had ever eaten, and to soil it with the repugnant flavor of cinnamon or worse, scotch, was an abomination. what if i threw up? all of those nutrients, all of that energy being currently manufactured in my stomach would be lost and i would be dead by morning. so i listened to him swallow. i did my best to engage in conversation. but sleep and bodily repair was the top priority.

i crafted my wax earplugs, stuffed them deep inside and feel asleep with the tent walls billowing, maybe we'd get lucky with a hurricane force blast of wind tonight.

instead, i would wake up in the middle of the night in crippling pain.