Too High

If a person moves too quickly up to a high elevation, they can become very sick. Both pulmonary edema and cerebral edema can be fatal. People have been stricken at elevations as low as 9,000 or 10,000 feet. The cure for either malady is to move to a lower elevation as quickly as possible, but imagine this situation if you will.

Brian and I flew from near sea level to Bolivia and landed at El Alto airport at 13,325 feet. The next morning, we rode on a bus for 165 miles, and when we stopped, we were still very high, at an elevation of 13,710 feet on the Altiplano. If either of us had developed either PE or CE at that point, getting to a lower elevation would have been problematic. The closest way to have done that would have been to cross the border into Chile, necessitating a climb even higher, up to 15,388 feet, then traveling many miles before starting to drop to a low enough elevation to provide some relief. Time would not be working in our favor, or anyone else’s for that matter, in such a case.

A Night In Jail

I went one time to climb a big mountain in South America. It was after dark when the bus dropped me off in the village that was nearest to my peak. The only activity I could see was in a small restaurant  – the lights were on, so I dragged all of my gear in 2 large duffel bags over to the place. In the front door I went, and the place was hoppin’. I asked the proprietor if there was anyplace I could spend the night. He told me he had a couple of cots in the back off the kitchen but they’d already been booked by other climbers. Hmmm, what to do? I sat at a table nursing a cold beer while I pondered my situation.

Over in a dark corner sat a man who was obviously eyeing me. It was a bit unnerving when he finally walked himself and his beer over to me and sat down at my table. He said he’d heard me asking about a bed for the night, and that, if I wanted, he had a spare bed I could use at his place. Well, it was after midnight, I was exhausted and I was all out of options, so I said I’d take him up on his kind offer. We finished our beer and headed out.

In the pitch dark, he grabbed one of my duffel bags, I the other, and followed him a hundred yards to a small building. He unlocked the door and in we went – to the local jail!! He was the village policeman, and the bed on offer was the one in his jail cell. Hey, that was just fine by me. He put the kettle on and we had a cup of tea while I settled in to my new digs. And that, Folks, was the only time I ever spent a night in jail.

Messner At The Parador

Most people who go to climb Cerro Aconcagua in the Andes Mountains of South America end up in the village of Puente del Inca. Once there, it’s almost inevitable they’ll end up in a joint called El Parador del Inca. It’s a restaurant known by all of the climbers who pass through. Smoke-filled, noisy, crowded with climbers from many countries, it’s a great place to hang out and get the latest info on all things Aconcagua. The owner knows he has a good thing going, and he charges top dollar for the simple fare he offers because he can. In spite of that, it has a good vibe, kind of like the Prancing Pony in Bree. It’s also the first place most climbers hit once they’re off the mountain. There are postcards and photos that grace his walls, signed by climbers from all over the world. When I was there, I remember seeing a photo signed by Reinhold Messner after he had soloed the South Face. He had stopped by after his epic ascent to enjoy the warmth of the place.

Kidnapped

Back in the 1960s, I was a university student in Canada. While there, I participated in a kidnapping as a member of a gang, and here’s how it all came about.

There was an intense rivalry, verging on the insane, between the engineers and the sciencemen. Nothing was out of bounds, no stunt was too outrageous, as one group kept trying to outdo the other. I was a proud member of the sciencemen, and one time we cooked up a scheme that we thought would really make a lasting impression.

One of the members of the engineering students’ leadership lived with his parents all the way across the city from the university. A group of us drove in a van out to his place under cover of darkness. We had really done our homework and were well-informed of his daily habits. We knew that he would exit the house by the back door and walk down the back alley to reach a nearby bus stop, then travel by bus to the school. We were waiting for him. As he walked from his back yard into the alley, he saw us in our science jackets and started running. As he neared the end of the alley, our van pulled up and blocked the way. More of our guys jumped out of the van and grabbed him and wrestled him inside. We tied him hand and foot and put a hood over his head, then sat him in the back with our guys on either side of him. It was the better part of an hour’s drive to arrive at our school.

We had other guys waiting, and we hustled him inside the physics building. Each month, we had a major meeting in a lecture theater there which was attended by a large number of sciencemen. In a room off of the theater, we went to work. We untied his feet and put them inside a pair of gum boots. Next, we stood him up in one of those large galvanized washtubs, about 2 feet in diameter. A crew of guys mixed up a big batch of plaster of Paris, then put it into the tub all around his boots, packing it in well so there were no gaps. We had to work quickly, because within 30 minutes it set up hard. Our prisoner was completely immobilized.

We carried him into the lecture theater and removed his hood in front of the large audience, who had been promised a special treat that day. The crowd went wild, laughing and clapping. There he remained on display while we conducted the rest of our agenda. Once the meeting was over and the room emptied out, we contacted the engineers and told them where to go and get their guy. They arrived and broke him out of the plaster. He was free, with no harm done. All agreed that it was a well-done stunt which was talked about for some time afterwards.

Bulls

In the 1980s, I drove up to central Arizona to climb in the Juniper Mountains. It was an easy enough task, getting to the range high point. Part of the walk in involved crossing a large open field, and while there I noticed something white a few hundred yards away. It was a Charolais bull, and it moved towards me while I crossed the field. Before it reached me, I had gone through a fence where it couldn’t follow. Later, coming down off the mountain, I had to cross the field again. This time, the bull was nearer and seemed aggressive, trotting purposefully towards me. I got the heck out of there in a hurry. The bull was huge, and I learned that they are one of the largest breeds of cattle, with some large bulls topping out at an astonishing 3,600 pounds.

Over the years while climbing in Arizona, I’ve met plenty of cattle while on foot, and quite a few bulls among their numbers. Aside from the aforementioned time, none of them were Charolais bulls. Every time I met a bull, they all ran away from me – either they were scared, or just wanted to keep their distance. I got to thinking how it made sense, why such huge animals would run away from a human so much smaller than them. If you think about it, here’s what a bull could expect in his lifetime: a red-hot branding iron burning the rancher’s logo into his hide; a hole punched through one or both ears for an I.D. tag; needles stuck into him to deliver medicine; having his balls cut off while young. After all of that, one day he gets loaded into a truck and goes to an abattoir where he will be killed so we can eat him. Hmmm, can’t say that I blame those bulls for being wary of humans.

Lupins

You’ve probably seen lupins. In the U.S and Canada, where I’ve seen them growing in the wild, they’re always a blue color. I never knew that they could be other colors, though, like the blue, purple, white, red, orange, yellow and cream I’ve seen in South America. They seem to adapt well to cold weather, because I’ve seen them thriving in Tierra del Fuego and growing 5 and 6 feet tall, instead of only a foot or so in the U.S.

Public Transport

During the six and a half weeks we’d been traveling in Mexico and using public transportation, there wasn’t much we hadn’t tried. Mostly it had been buses, and they had ranged from beautiful air-conditioned coaches all the way down to small dilapidated rigs which accommodated livestock along with people. We had flown in planes, ridden in several trains and even hitched rides in private cars. We had traveled in large ferries and smaller ones, and even used small motorboats to cross rivers. A few times we had piled into the back of a truck for short trips in remote places. In all, over 8,000 miles (not counting air travel) logged in our trip which had visited all 32 Mexican states during the summer of 1972.

Au Cheval

Once before, I had tried to climb the peak. The approach bushwhack was so severe that I gave up in disgust after gaining only a couple of hundred feet, but the whole business stuck in my craw. A month later, I was back, convincing myself that it was all mind over matter and I could make this thing work. This time I had brought a friend who said he didn’t mind a little bloodshed on the thrash in, so long as we could get up to where the real climbing would start. Well, it was as bloody awful as could be, and 1,600 vertical feet later we stood above the tangled mess that passed for vegetation in those parts. We stood there staring at the final bits of the climb and it looked like a challenging finish.

It wasn’t more than 200 feet to the summit, but we’d have to earn it. It started with a steep climb up 60 feet of near-vertical rock with good holds. It went at 5.0 and was exhilarating to do un-roped. This took place at the end of a ridge, on a prow of rock pointing southwest towards higher peaks. Mike watched me tackle this part and said nope, he’d wait for me below. From there, it was about 1,300 feet along the top of the ridge, all of it easy enough but for one bit. There, the ridge dwindled to a knife-edge with sheer drops on both sides. It was a true au-cheval spot, maybe 50 feet long, and I took my time along it, legs dangling and ass dragging. After that, the route continued as an easy walk to the summit. There was no sign of any previous visit, so I left a register. Not likely anyone will be there anytime soon, as it was a stealth climb on an Indian reservation. My return to Mike held the same drama, the knife-edge and the downclimb of that 60 feet, but it was all good. I was in excellent spirits as we hurtled with a gravity-assist all the way down through the life-sucking brush back to the pickup.