Fred the Guide. Photo: Dave Hahn

Neither Fred nor Spike needed to tell me that this turn of events was pretty well ruining my escape plan. I guess they could have figured that although my eyes were closed, my brain was running like a chainsaw...we'd taken down camp in what was hoped to be the cold part of the day so that the surface would be a little bit more firm for walking. That 2am start was not really making much of a good difference since the greater sky had remained cloudy, trapping heat and moisture over the lower Kahiltna. The surface wasn't frozen, which made for more than just a little more work at trail-breaking. It was dangerous... too good a chance for breaking crevasse bridges.

And now, if we were delayed further by fog, it would be full-on daytime, which can be hot in late July. More danger. Not so many choices though, really. No decent or safe place to camp where we sat, and food and fuel reserves were dwindling. Two hours slid by.

Finally Spike, Fred and I stood up, looked around and decided the fog was on the run. The next hour or so went pretty well, I made good time snowshoeing along and began to think that my work would be safely finished soon. In fact, Jay Hudson flew over in his Cessna and talked to me on the radio. That can be pretty encouraging, knowing that your pilot is waiting for you to get done so that he can fly you home.

But Jay wasn't all that encouraging. He circled and said, "Man, Dave, I don't know how you are going to get through the next part... be careful." On hearing that, I thought a couple of things. For one, I wished I could see the glacier layout from his bird's-eye view... Secondly, I thought, "What the heck does Jay know about it, he's a pilot, he just looks for places he can land an airplane...I'll get through." But Jay was right. Things got tougher and tougher.

To make it all worse, by the time I was banging into all of these soft crevasse bridges, I could already see up the Southeast Fork to the landing strip and where I wanted to finish. But I was worlds away from where I wanted to be. My pack was too damn big and my sled was too damn heavy. When I say that, I'm not boasting. More like admitting to a screw-up. In my zeal for getting the last day done, I'd taken the heaviest loads I could to make it easier on the gang... but that was dumb for the guy out front on a mushy day. And I wasn't into admitting my mistake and asking for someone else to take the weight.