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Jackson and Jeremy on summit Photo by Jackson Holtz
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We spent that evening and the entire next day preparing for our summit
climb. During the day we learned self-arrest techniques, how to walk in
crampons and walking as a rope team. The rest of our time was spent preparing our gear for the summit climb and
eating as much mountain grub as possible. Despite my usually insatiable
appetite, I could barely eat - a combination of nerves and altitude.
"Hey guys, it's 2:30 a.m.," my tent mate, Dennis, woke me up saying. "Aren't
we supposed to be up?"
We got up and quickly collected our gear and downed some breakfast. All I
could stomach was some hot tea and an oat bar. We were ready to climb. We roped up in the dark, and with head lamps ablaze, started to climb. Soon
we were high up on the glacier.
Every hour or so we stopped for a quick break. Since I was working hard, my
body and clothes were drenched with sweat, and I felt cold in the chilly
morning air. I also lacked carbohydrates and was shivering. I ate a
package of Goo, the thick syrupy gel that provides fuel for athletes. It
tasted good.
We kept going. In the early morning dusk, I watched Mount Rainier become
awash in the brilliant hues of the sunrise. I also began to see in fuller
light the route we were covering, including the narrow snow bridges over
seemingly bottomless crevasses. Somehow, no one mentioned eight-inch wide,
melting snow bridges in the marketing materials.
Steeper and steeper. I ate hard candies to pass the time and keep my sugar
level up. I added a layer as a cold breeze picked up as we gained
elevation. Finally, we set out on our final push and came to the Roman Headwall.
I kicked into the ice, and started climbing, like a ladder, one foot on top
of the other. My crampons held, and after about 20 feet of climbing, I was
off the ice and onto the loose pumice for the final 20 feet of the headwall.
Once I'd topped the Roman Headwall, the domed top felt easy, but precarious.
On one side was a several-thousand-foot drop into the crater of the volcano
where sulfur fumes seeped from gaping vents. On the other side was a huge
crevasse, several-hundred feet wide with a glacier the size of a city
skyscraper slowly breaking away.
Suddenly I realized I made it. I was standing on top of Mount Baker with
tears streaming down my face. I had set out to climb a mountain, and I'd
done it. I was fit, strong and standing on my own two feet.
Back down in the van on the way back to civilization, after 16 hours of
hiking, three days of hard work and standing on the tallest mountain in the
North Cascades, I had mountain climber's high - a mixture of exhaustion,
dehydration, hypoxia and spent ambition combined with the glow of meeting my
goal. Despite, and perhaps because of, being scared to death and pushed to
new limits, I knew then that I would do this again. After all, now I'm a
mountaineer.
-- by Jackson Holtz