I’m staggering into the wind. It’s wrestling me back from the summit like an animal defending its territory, pushing and feinting and easing and pouncing back stronger. The ground is a barren field of rock, with nowhere to hide from the air forcing the faintest gaps in my clothes. The harshest blasts make my eyes water so much I can barely see. I’ve taken my glasses off a long time ago. A gust could snatch them from my face and lose them in the infinity of rocks.
South America is the only land in the world at this latitude. Wind can screech over the rest of the planet without the resistance of other continents, and then slam into these mountains. It was an interesting fact when I read it in the stale air of a building. Now it’s an angry force; like the high-gravity machines in amusement parks, but more chaotic.
I plow onto the summit and see the lake near Cerro Torre. In the sun, the water glints like a hard green gem. Light flashes off the ice and granite of Cerro Torre itself, far above me still, stabbing into a perfect blue void.
Behind the lake, glaciers stretch all the way to the ridgeline in a 1,000 meter wall of ice.
But it’s not a wall. The glaciers are a slow-motion waterfall, overflowing from a lake of ice 350 kilometers long and 100 wide. The Southern Patagonia Icefield. It’s the fourth biggest mass of ice in the world, after Antarctica and Greenland and the Kulane – Wrangel Saint Elias system in Alaska.
In the other direction I see…desert. Brown, dull hills, rising on the opposite side of the valley and separated from the glaciers by a band of forest only a few kilometers wide.
I never thought those ecosystems could even exist this close to eachother–but my eyes are telling me that they can. I put the camera away and let the memory soak in. Soon I’m freezing, from sitting on the summit in this wind. Time to run down. No—time to fly down, since the wind will be at my back.
The next days are pleasant. I see friends from my climbing travels, people here to mountaineer. I love how small the rock-climbing scene is, how I could meet five climbers I didn’t plan to see, on the other side of the world. I have a random Tinder hookup. I see Fitzroy from several angles—close and far, near the forest, from the shores of a lake. I see a frog in the woods, maybe as big as my thumb, colored like a tropical creature. Wow. In the heart of Patagonia. Nature always surprises me.
And then the weather turns. By evening it’s raining hard. No, that doesn’t really describe it. Fucking downpouring comes closer. I can hear the throb of the water outside, as I sit in the refugio trying to write. It’s the purr of a sentient predator, a storm that knows I’ll have to leave this shelter eventually. I keep writing the blog, even as my brain hazes out and my sentences turn to shit.
Fuck it. I’ll have to go to bed eventually. Might as well do it now.
I pack my bag and stand in the doorway. The storm growls. I take a long, calm breath. Then I open the door and sprint.
Wind stings in slapping gusts . My legs churn through the slippery grass, and then I’m at my bivy sack. I frazzle with the zipper as the rain stabs down. Fuuuuck, don’t jamn NOW!!! I get it open with a livid, snarling burst of energy. I rip my shoes off, throw them under the tarp, jump inside my shelter and jerk the zipper closed. Damn. It is pissing rain. The weigh of it makes a monotonous roar on the sides of the shelter, six inches from my face. Well, it could have been worse. It’s not too wet in here. Mostly a damp humidness, with isolated patches of water. But my base-layer clings to my skin with a slight moisture. Fuck. I don’t want to go under my tarp in this downpour to find a dryer layer in my bag. Maybe I don’t need to. If I stay here, I should dry out eventually.
Over the next hour, my body eases toward sleep. Muscles relax into a pleasant oblivion. Thoughts thicken like clotting blood. But I can’t quite lose myself. I can’t quite get dry. I’m not quite warm. Almost. Infuriatingly almost. Close enough to hope I can sleep without changing my situation. One second stretches into two. Then I’ve spent another minute of my life, listening to the roar of the rain and the snap of the wind. Then an hour. And then, half the night.
In a tent I could warm up from sit-ups, but there isn’t space in the bivy sack. At the highest point, the shelter wall is six inches above my body. I’ll have to make do with raising my legs an inch off the ground. Even this makes my abs ache after a few seconds. That’s what I get, neglecting my upper body all these months since the climbing injury. The ache sharpens into a quivering pain. Hoooold it! My abs tighten more, into a spasming wreck. A little warmth gathers in my core and spreads into my armpits and neck. I relax into a mess of all-nighter patheticness. Then my self-control collapses, and I yell what I’ve been thinking for hours.
“Stop fucking RAINING!!”
I’m losing it. Yelling at the inside of a bivy sack.
You know what? I don’t give a shit. It’s four in the morning in a downpour and I’m lying on the ground in glorified plastic coffin and I’m cold and I haven’t slept. Why the fuck shouldn’t I be losing it? Yelling felt good. Good enough for round two.
“STOP FUCKING RAAAIIIIINING!!!!!”
Okay, that was a bit much. I don’t want to wake people up. If they’re asleep, if they have better tents, if they can hear through this wind. Hmm. I have some dry base layers, maybe. I can go into the bathroom and put those on.
In a second I’ve thrashed out of the bivy sack and into the night. The storm rips away the little warmth I’d earned holding the leg lift. I fumble under my tarp for my bag of gear, and then dash into the refugio bathroom. I put on all my clothes and start running in place. One minute; two; five. I probably look like a maniac, running in place in a bathroom at four in the morning. Maybe I am a maniac. I don’t care. Not with heat building in my core and pulsing into my fingertips.
Never again.
I’m never going to bed with damp clothes when I have something drier to change into. Actually, I’ll do better than that. I’ll get proper gear. Wool. Not fancy synthetic wool for athletes; wool taken from a sheep. It kept fishermen alive in the Atlantic Ocean off Canada; it protected shepherds in the Scottish highlands in winter. It’s probably what ranchers use here in Patagonia, in the winter, when all the so-called athletes who’ve come hear to climb leave, and they have to work outside all day anyway.
I’m buying the heaviest, itchiest, stinkyist wool jacket I can find. But not now. There isn’t a clothes shop in this bathroom. Now is the time to head back to my shelter and see if I can sleep in what’s left of the night. I calm myself like a sprinter ready to start. Then I dash back into the wet.
