Snowy Day on All MIxed Up

And yet I’m certain that man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Suffering – why, this is the sole cause of consciousness.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

All Mixed Up
December 17th, 2006

The alarm clock went off at 4:15 am, just as planed. I had gotten a solid two and a half hours of sleep, and desperately wanted more. This type of climbing is all about suffering and overcoming, so I just figured I was getting a head start. The day’s objective was All Mixed Up, an alpine ice route in Rocky Mountain National Park, which I had attempted a year before with my dad. This time it would be with a guy I’ve never met before who I knew only as Ross. A trusted partner had referred me to Ross, so this date wasn’t completely blind.
As I began the drive up to the park, I noticed several clouds in the sky that looked like they could produce some snow. By the time I reached Estes Park, it had been snowing for about half an hour. I was somewhat apprehensive about trying the route that day, and was honestly kind of relieved that the weather was going south, maybe now I’d have a legitimate excuse to bail. After entering the park I began to worry about my van getting stuck in the snow. About a mile away from the trailhead I was having enough difficulties driving to warrant turning around. On my way out I saw another vehicle coming up the road. I succeeded in getting the car to stop by flashing my brights. “Would you happen to be Ross?” I asked.
“Yes, and you must be Buster” The man responded.
I explained my situation and asked him what he thought about the weather. He said the report called for light snow flurries all day and that we should be all right to go. He followed me back down to the visitor’s center just outside of park boundaries where I parked my van and hoped into his four-wheel drive subi with studded snow tires. Ross appeared to be in his early fifties, and I could tell by his face that he had spent many days in the mountains. The legato sound of Pat Methany’s synth guitar filled his car, and I knew that if his personality matched his taste in music we’d get along just fine.
After packing our gear we began up the trail. It was 6:30, half an hour later then planed. We carried 9 ice screws, a single set of cams to a #3 camalot, a set of nuts, one snarge, some pins, and one 70m, 9mm rope that had never been climbed on before. I was wearing 3 base layers on my torso (t-shirt, long sleeve, zip-tee) and one layer on my legs. Over that was one layer of shell gear with my puffy down “wuss coat” and extra gloves in my pack as a reserve, and a single pair of fleece gloves for my hands. I figured that we would probably just do most of the approach and then decide to bail. We were not the only party heading up that day, there were two more in the parking lot, including one team with a climber named Eric who I had met two days before in the gym.
All Mixed Up is a full day out. It begins with a 2.5-mile hike up through a forest covered in deep snow and across a frozen lake. After that is a 1,200 ft slog straight up a steep hill that takes you through trees, bushes, hidden ice flows, a small rock band, and up talus to the base of the climb. This is the most physically grueling part of the route and has turned many parties around. We made good time up the trail and found a ski cache at the edge of Mills Lake. Not willing to cross the lake directly, we stayed close to the edge and crossed it at its narrowest point. It was still snowing, and we could only see about half way up the approach slope. We heard voices in the woods around us as we started up the slope, figuring that we had caught the party that skied up ahead of us. Even though the hill was covered in fresh powder we had little issues with post-hole-ing. As we made steady progress up the hill I took out one of my ice tools because I was wasting a lot of energy sliding down hill after each step. The snow was starting to worry me more and more, and I decided to confront Ross before we got much further. I had it all planed out in my head. I would tell him that I don’t climb in bad weather unless I had no choice, and that I was worried about avalanche danger with all the new snow. I would tell him that I hate to be the guy who decides to turn around, but it was in my better judgment to do so. We had been switching off the duty of trail breaking, and I spoke up when it was my turn. “Well, what do you think?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO I THINK!” He barked back. I was totally surprised at his aggravated response.
“These are normal snowy conditions, we’ll be fine”, he reassured me.
Shit, that went well. We continued upward. I wanted to turn around because it was snowing heavy now with no sign of letting up. My shell gear and my gloves were soaked, and my hands were starting to freeze. My instincts were saying, “go home”, but I was also curious about what it would be like to actually climb in this mess. I, like a lot of climbers, suffer from ambition. I want to climb some big, gnarly stuff in my life, and I need experience to do so. Ross made it seem like he climbs in bad weather every day, so I trusted his judgment. I convinced myself that I was just being a pansy and should suck it up and keep going.
About two-thirds up the slope we decided to take a small break and wait up for the party behind us. One of the climbers said he lived in Baily, so I will refer to them as “team Baily”. They had never been on the route before, so Ross and I pointed out the way. We hiked as a team of four, switching off trail breaking duties. At lower elevations, there is often tension between climbers competing for the same route. Up here, it is often in the climber’s best interest to work together and look out for each other. We were total strangers, but we behaved like long time friends, creating a good vibe that gave us all some extra energy. Shortly after joining forces with team Baily, Eric (guy from climbing gym) and his partner caught up. Now the six of us groveled up the slope, anxious to see what kind of shape the route was in. As we reached a small bowl below the route a spindrift avalanche quietly fell of a 300ft cliff to our right. “ See, that’s what I’m worried about”, I told Ross.
“I hear you Buster”, he said back. I was relieved that Ross was agreeing with me. The one thing what was in our favor was the wind. It had been completely calm all day, but that also meant that the avalanche was caused by too much snow and was not just spindrift kicked up by the wind.
At about 9:30 we reached the bottom of the climb. It was unclear how fat the ice was because it was covered in snow. The vertical sections of the upper pitches look good enough, so we started to get ready. Ross got all of his gear on in the time it took me to eat a frozen cliff bar and change my gloves. It was so cold that anything metal would stick to fingers. By the time I put him on belay he was 25 feet up the route putting in an ice screw. Team Baily decided to climb about 20 feet to our right on a slab covered in veraglass. Team Eric hung out on a snow slope 50 feet below us and waited for their turn.
Ross climbed smoothly and quickly, placing a screw every 25 feet or so on the 65-degree ice. Team Baily was moving much slower, with the leader occasionally finding enough ice to get in half of a tied off screw. By this time I had put on my down coat and was jumping up and down to stay warm. I took of my soaking wet fleece gloves and replaced them with some neoprene ice fishing gloves. I tried to dry out the fleece gloves, but they froze solid before I could do anything. I threw them in my packing knowing that they where now completely useless. My hands were cold, but I was especially having a lot of trouble with my left middle finger. It was totally numb, and I had to continually shove it down my jacket in to my armpit. It would later occur to me that my finger had poor circulation because my knuckle was swollen from bashing it the day before ice cragging. Ross intended to make full use of the 70m rope, climbing past the belay for the first pitch, up a 15-foot vertical pillar, and up a low angle ramp before building an anchor. I stuffed my down coat in my pack and began running up the ice. I was climbing leashless with dummy cords attaching my tools to my harness, which allowed me to clean the screws quickly and enjoy better circulation to my hands. Even with this system I had to stop after nearly every screw and re-warm my hands. I passed the leader from team Baily, climbed the pillar, and arrived at the belay. “You made pretty good time”, Ross told me. I told him that I like to climb really fast when seconding alpine pitches, almost to the point of being out of control.
Ross offered to lead the next pitch, which was steeper and more sustained then the first. I said that I’d take it and began grabbing gear from his harness. I think this surprised him. All day he’d been telling me things like, “don’t put anything metal in your mouth”, and “tell me when I have 20 feet of rope left”. Now this whining 20 year old that he’d dragged up here actually wanted to lead? I took 7 screws, a few nuts, and the pins. He wondered why I didn’t want all of the rock gear; I wondered why we had so much rock gear in the first place. It was now time to prove myself to Ross that I could indeed climb, and that I needed no rope gun. I knew from last year that there was a 100-foot snow slope above this pitch, and I said that if I had enough rope I would run it out up the snow to the base of the last pitch. I set off, climbing quickly and placing a screw to protect the belay after about 15 feet. Before a vertical section I dropped a screw while trying to place it, which luckily landed in the powder next to Ross. I needed 2 screws for the belay, had already placed one, and had dropped one. This meant that I had only 3 screws to protect the last 200 feet of this pitch. I ran it out, resisting the temptation to put in screws before pulling over bulges. At one point both of my feet popped while pulling over a bulge. While running up slabby snow covered ice, I set off a small powder avalanche. It sounded like a waterfall as it fell towards my belayer and the parties below. I thought to myself, this is what you get for deciding to climb in this shit Ross. It was still snowing, but had cleared a bit. I could now see down to Mills Lake 1000 feet below, and started to feel happy with the climbing and the quick progress we had made. I placed my last screw before committing to the snow slope, knowing that if it avalanched I would go with it, taking a 200-foot whip on to an ice screw.
I had to dig through a foot of vertical snow and about 6 inches of ice to find something solid enough to build an anchor in. After constructing a textbook, 2 screw, vertically oriented anchor, I clipped my pack to it, put on my down, and put Ross on belay. As he began climbing I just realized what I had done. I had climbed 460 feet of alpine ice and snow in one practically non-stop motion. Badass, I thought, we might just tick this thing.


“Good Judgment is the result of experience, while an “experience” is the result of poor judgment.”
- Mark Twight


I was admiring my surroundings, looking at the 1,600-foot drop to the lake when all of a sudden the world turned white. I had no warning, the slide sounded like being in a shower, only louder. Totally startled, I jumped up and then froze. After a few seconds it was over. I had gone from the best I’d felt all day to pant loading fear in half a second. Hmm, so that’s what its like to be avalanched, I thought. As Ross continued to climb upward, a few smaller slides hit me. God Damn it! We have got to get moving! I hated being in the slides, but was also relieved that they weren’t killing me, and that they were hopefully preventing the build up and release of anything bigger. That was when the biggest one so far hit. It pushed me from my stance and on to the anchor. I could see a couple rocks fly past. I couldn’t breathe in this one, and it was lasting longer. I tried to push my self out from the wall in an effort to find some air. After it ended I stood there shaking from fear and cold. I still had to periodically re-warm my hands, and there was a real possibility that I could lose a glove in a slide. As Ross reached the belay, the wind began to kick up. “That was a good lead”, he told me, with a certain tone of respect that had been missing before. Spindrift began coming at us from all directions, and visibility went down to about 10 feet. Sense I had no screws left the switch at the belay was fast. Ross set up the last pitch. This would be pitch 4 or 5, but by stretching the 70 we had cut the route down to 3, long ass pitches . The last pitch of all mixed up it a sustained grade 4 ice gully, about 80 feet tall. Above that was a steep snow bowl that was certainly thinking about avalanching. This was the crux lead, and now the weather was getting serious. Ross disappeared into the white abyss, leaving me to enjoy more spindrift. I started to worry about the other parties below us. I could tell that Ross had pulled over the crux and began running up the avalanche bowl by how fast the rope was moving. So far the slides had only been spindrift, producing no warning sounds. This one was different.
All I could think when I heard the low pitch rumbling sound above was, “that can’t be good” Too afraid to look up, I huddled against the ice and waited. When it hit I felt like a linebacker had tackled me. In an avalanche time doesn’t slow down, but your mind certainly speeds up. I fell onto the anchor and rag dolled in the current. The slides before had turned the world white, but this one was so thick all I could see was black. I tried to clear a space around my head to breath, but there was no air to be had, only snow. Now I knew why I had to dig through so much vertical snow to build a belay. Shit, what about Ross! Had he triggered this? If so, was he coming down with it? Was he about to take a 200-foot avalanche powered whip onto a screw? I waited for the sensation of the rope pulling tight, the anchor failing, and being violently ripped off into space. I was sure I was going to die, but for some reason I wasn’t that upset about it. I was so aware of what was going on that there was no room in my mind for fear. When it stopped the fear came over me in a huge, chest-tightening wave. Damage report, I thought. I still had my gloves, but there was a lot of snow packed between my down coat and my shell, as well as down my neck. There was even snow packed between my glasses and my eyes. Oh no! My pack was gone! I was half buried, and started thrashing around, desperately wanting to be out of this snow. I discovered that my pack was still there; it had just been buried, along with my tools. The rope came tight, my signal to start climbing. I was glad that Ross was well enough to belay me. I put on my pack, but was afraid to unclip from the anchor that had held so well in the avalanche. I thought about traversing off like I had a year before because Ross could walk off from where he was. Then I heard more rumbling.
This one wasn’t as bad, but it really pissed me off. How much more snow could slide, and why do they keep getting bigger? I cleaned the anchor and began climbing like my ass was on fire. The ice was caked on my glasses so thick that I could not see anything. I looked down under my specks and saw a member of team Baily about 20 feet below me. What are they doing still coming up? I literally could not even see the ice in front of me, but was glad to be moving again. The only way I could tell that I needed to clean a screw was when I climbed past it and felt the rope pulling me back down. I unclipped the sling and just left it hanging on the rope. I clipped the screws to whatever random carabiner I could find. I had to stop a few times while getting slammed by more spindrift. I was really curious as to what position Ross was in. Did he find something solid off to the side? When I reached the snow bowl I began running up the slope. I looked up, only to see the rope disappear into the white abyss. I took my glasses off and stuffed them down my jacket, not really caring if I ever saw them again. There was Ross! He was under a 15-foot cliff at the top of the avalanche slope. He had built the most beautiful belay anchor I have ever seen. Two bomber pitons backed up by a bomber nut. This reminded me of why you should always carry a few pins in the mountains. The only reason I had climbed that last pitch is because it was the quickest way off. I stopped climbing All Mixed Up and began climbing away from death.
“OK, NOW WE ARE IN FULL CONDITIONS”, Ross yelled at me. The wind had really picked up, and it was time to get the hell off. We packed up our gear, minus one pin Ross couldn’t get out. We now had to traverse the avalanche slope to the talus slope that would be salvation. I set off, soloing over a cornus. The wind sculpted snow offered good purchase. It was then time to run across a gully to the rocks. There was a fracture line covered in powder. Should I go above the break or below it? The difference could be life and death. A fall would mean ending up at the base of the route, 700 feet below. I decided to climb up the gully and then angle down towards the rocks. I could go down faster, and could maybe lunge for the rocks if the slope went. When I reached the rocks, I was quite happy. Ross followed in my tracks. We were now off of the route.
The 30 degree talus slope was covered in about 10 inches of powder, making it impossible to tell where the gaps between the rocks where. We stumbled like drunken hobos over hidden rocks that caught our crampons. We tripped often. After climbing up and left for a couple hundred feet we reached the slope that would take us down. We removed our crampons and were on our way. The wind was so bad that you couldn’t see anything if you looked up, and couldn’t breathe if you faced into it. I knew that we had a long fight ahead of us to get down, but we where finally safe. Over the course of the day I wondered what time it was, but it was not worth pulling off my gloves to check. Knowing what time it was wasn’t going to change any of our decisions anyway. What time was it? Time to go down.
We had to descend about 800 feet to reach the base of the route, then another 1,200 to Mills Lake. The talus was ruthless, only 3rd class but with 4th class consequences. The adrenaline powered burst of energy I had enjoyed on the last pitch wore off. Progress was made by slipping on a rock, falling into a hole, and getting up to repeat the process. Sometimes one of us would trip; one leg would stick between two rocks, and the momentum of body weight would wrench the leg in a direction it was not meant to bend. This felt like being kicked in the shins by a marine wearing combat boots. We continued for what seemed like hours before reaching the gully that leads back to the bottom of the route. Ross went first, butt sliding down over rocks. I went on my side and lost control, stopping by slamming into a pile of rocks.
Ross chose to leave his pack at the base of the route, so he had to climb back up to get it. I told him that I have a rule against splitting up in the mountains, and would traverse to the trail 100 feet below, always staying in sight. I looked up and saw a climber, probably from team Eric, on the last pitch.
After waiting for what seemed like an hour Ross began down the slope. Half way to me he fell in a hole up to his chest. “Shit” was the only thing he could say.
“Can you dig yourself out?” I asked.
“I hope so”.
Down we went, phase two of the decent. More bone jarring snowy talus led up to a series of ramps and drop offs. I was happy to see Mills lake get bigger and bigger. At one point Ross glissaded down a gully and hit a hidden ice flow. He rocketed down hill for 15 feet and landed in a powder bank. I followed, not willing to test my luck on another way and end up in a pile of rocks. Ross had brought along a GPS, and was using it to try and find the exact way down. I just pointed my self at the lake and went.
Snowshoe-ers had been walking right across the middle of the Lake all day, so I decided to trust the ice. After crossing the lake we sat down for the first break of the day. I finally had a chance to check my watch; it was 3 pm. I could finally take my harness off and get packed up for the hike out. The buckles on my leg loops where caked in ice, forcing me to pull them over my boots. Every buckle between the two of us was frozen; I couldn’t even adjust my pack. We tried to eat frozen energy bars, and I shared some of my water, which was mostly frozen. The break took longer than anticipated due to the constant need to re-warm fingers. My shell gloves froze solid, but it didn’t matter. We were back in the woods, and my neoprenes would be warm enough.
It was dark when we reached the trailhead, but we didn’t need our headlamps. We where walking popsicles, every layer of clothing was stiff and frozen. I had fallen into a creek on the trail and my right boot was incased in ice. My gaiters couldn’t take the abuse, ripping free from my boots and riding up my legs.
Ross’s car was a testament to how much snow had fallen. Sweeping off the rear window with my arm revealed a cross section of new snow a foot thick, and it was still coming down. As if we hadn’t had our daily dose of fear, fate handed us one more obstacle to deal with. About 40 large elk were occupying the only entrance into the parking lot where my van was parked. From our seated perspective they looked 9 feet tall. Ross was afraid one would charge or even try to climb his car. Luckily they were easily scared off.
In retrospect, it really was a good day out. The main reason I wrote this trip report is so I don’t forget the lessons of that day, and so that if anyone else reads this they might learn something as well. Had the day been uneventful I would have learned nothing. I now have an expanded perspective and more experience, increasing the chances that I live through the next adventure. Probably the greatest lesson from that day is that you must stay true to yourself, and not ignore that little voice in your head telling you when things aren’t right. I tried a serious route with someone I had never met before, and although things worked out, that was a mistake. I do trust Ross now, and would climb with him again, but I was reminded about how important it is to be on the same page with you partner on alpine routes. In the mountains the rope is more than equipment. It is a symbol of trust and love for your partner, a sign that you respect each other’s judgment enough to turn around if one person is scared or having a bad day. Every so often a climb will transform a person. I returned from All Mixed Up a different climber. I can’t wait until my next mountain adventure, but you can bet the farm it won’t be in a snowstorm.

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