"Epic Adventure"

I just climbed Rainier for the 27th time via the Emmons Glacier with my brother John and my son Jason. It brings back many memories of the many trips we made together and with others from Camp Sheppard. As I was hiking out from Glacier Basin I was thinking of one trip in particular that was classic in the annuls of Camp Sheppard.

Every winter during Christmas break the staff would undertake some foolhardy and overly ambitious adventure. Max was always there to encourage and support these crazy ventures and for this one he even supplied the transportation. Our plan, if there was one, was to snowshoe into Camp Shurman and spend New Years in the hut. Yea! Sure! Seemed so simple then but as I hiked out that trail yesterday I have not the faintest idea why we thought it was even possible in 1970. But when you are 17 and 18 years old anything seems possible when you are immortal.

We all met at the camp and loaded up packs with typical Camp Sheppard food; macaroni and cheese, an old McKinley tent, a Coleman two burner stove, ropes and snowshoes, put it all into the green truck and off we went. I don't remember everyone who was there but I think there were 7 of us. Chuck, Ed, Terry, I think Denny, Dave Dillard and me, who were all foolish enough to think this was not only possible but was even going to be fun. Max dropped us off at the White River ranger station, the road was snowed in from there and wished us luck and admonished us to be safe. Yea, sure. What else would 5 teenagers do but be safe! (This by the way is the same thing I tell my son when he leaves on one of his hiking or climbing trips and I get the same glib answer).

We hiked those many miles to the White River Campground and bivy'd on the porch of the entrance building. We were a tough bunch. It snowed all day, big big wet flakes. We were experienced, so what the heck, what was a little snow. So what if it covered our tracks by the next morning. Off we ventured hiking up the trail we knew so well in summer time. We didn't need to see it, we knew it and every turn in it we had hiked it so many times. (It still seems twice as long coming out as going in even today.) Somehow we made it all the way to Glacier Basin, how I can't imagine looking at the side hills and steep terrain, but we did by God. We were so tired however that we made our first and only real mistake. We decided to camp just below the established campsites along the creek bed. It was a white out, it was still snowing, hadn't stopped all day or all night, and now the flakes were light and fluffy, dry and powdery, still falling at the rate of over an inch an hour, but we were tough, we were Sheppard staff. It was an adventure to be sure.

Now if you remember correctly, those McKinley tents were four person tents and we only took one for 7 of us because we were going to dig snowcaves. We picked the side of the creek bed to dig the cave and ran into the first unanticipated problem. You see it is really hard to dig a cave in 4 feet of powder snow. It does not stick together. After Ed was buried a couple of times and after Terry was buried in the collapsing cave we gave up, cooked dinner and crawled into the McKinley. That's right, 7 in a four man tent. A bit cozy but really quite warm. Now of course there is no room for anything in the tent but the 7 of us so we left all of our gear outside.

Sometime shortly after we were all stuffed in the tent the avalanche hit. A big one. We heard it, kind of like a passing freight train. We knew what it was the instant it hit us. The tent collapsed in around us, nylon fabric pushing on top of our feet and heads. Someone said, Avalanche, the rest said, Sh--! Yes Max, we did use that language sometimes. We managed to all sit up in what space remained and found a flashlight. The tent remained upright and in place but now the space was reduced to about half the original space after pushing and pounding out the tent walls to make at least sitting room. The debate lasted about five minutes. What to do, It's to dark and stormy and scary to go outside, besides everything is buried now. Better to wait for morning and hope a second avalanche does not come down. So, we made the best of it. We somehow found room to lie down and the phrase, "fit like spoons" became famous. In order to rest you had to lie front to back curled up with your knees pressed against the back of the knees of the guy in front of you. God forbid if you had to turn over or if you got a cramp. Somehow I ended up under everyone else in a small hole and actually slept some. Hard to believe now since after just a couple of hours lying on the ground on a soft Therm-A-Rest mattress is pure agony for my aged bones.

Well, we survived the night and somehow in the light of day found all our clothing, boots and assorted gear, stuffed our sleeping bags, (thank god for Eddie Bauer down and the great discount deals we got through George Uchida.) When we opened the tent entrance to get out we found a wall of snow. We had to dig out by pulling snow into the tent. When we exited through the tunnel we found a sea of white snow covering everything except the top 12 inches of the McKinley tent. Yep, everything including the stove, food, fuel, snowshoes, packs was buried, even the shovels. Was this a desperate situation? Nope, just one more epic adventure and another problem to surmount.

Never giving another avalanche a second thought, (now the thought is enough to scare me to death. Ignorance is bliss.) We began the job of digging for our gear. For the next several hours we dug and we dug and we dug. We found everything, well almost everything. Terry found the fuel can, with the pointy end of his ice axe. So we had the can of fuel, just no fuel in it. We never did find one half of my borrowed snowshoes. Being an ingenious group of adventurers, that was nothing to worry about. (Easy for those with two snowshoes to say). We took the grate from the Coleman stove and wove bamboo wands through it to form a makeshift snowshoe that had only about half the buoyancy of the real thing. And with that strapped to my foot we began the death march out of there. Believe it or not there was some discussion about continuing up, but the loss of the fuel quickly ended that crazy notion. We somehow managed to find our way back to the White River campground. Our tracks from the previous day were completely covered now, and going back, finding the trail was a bit of a challenge. Walking on one snowshoe on the surface and plunging into my knee with the other was an experience that one does not wish to repeat but the thought of having to tell my scoutmaster that I lost one of his prized snowshoes was an even worse thought.

Somehow we all made it back to White River campground where we prepared to spend our third night out. Unknown to us at the time there was some concern back home. During our absence the worst winter storm in recent memory had now managed to close all of the mountain passes in Washington from heavy snowfalls and avalanches. Meanwhile at the campground darkness was approaching and a decision had to be made. Break into the ranger cabin which is federal property and obviously commit a federal crime or set up the wet sloppy tent and sleep in wet sloppy sleeping bags. After a difficult debate that lasted all of 15 seconds Terry succeeded in breaking into the unlocked door to the cabin. We scrambled inside where we proceeded to cook our favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese with the remaining fuel left in the Coleman stove. Great meal but we used up all the water we had remaining to cook it. Leaving nothing to drink and no fuel to melt water. A desperate search for water ensued to no avail. The creek was scouted and there was plenty of water, just a mere 10 feet down in the snow pack. We had no way to get to it to fill water bottles. So we wrestled each other for the right to drink the left over water from draining the noodles. Starchy recycled noodle water never tasted so good.

The last and final day found us slogging through almost 3 feet of new powder snow. As I drove that route yesterday I forgot to clock the miles but it took me a good 10 minutes to drive what we walked that day. I remember it well, thinking all the way that Max would be so proud of us that we had survived and how miserable we all were but we never gave up and we never for a second thought about not making it out. We were a team, we had survived another epic adventure. When we finally reached the ranger station we found it abandoned and had to hike out to the hiway were we flagged down a highway department road crew working to clear the road to Cayuse pass. We called Max and he came up to pick us up. I remember to this day his comment as he helped us load our gear and listened to our harrowing story. He said something about Mt Ruth being a bad avalanche slope and that he had wished he had mentioned that to us. He said an avalanche was what had destroyed the old mining buildings there and closed down the mines. Good information to have if you ever plan on hiking into Glacier Basin in December. But the one thing he said that I remember to this day is "that any adventure that you live through is a good experience." That it was, a good experience. Just one of many that I remember to this day. An experience that taught me so much about myself and my friends.