Not quite on the ice, on the moraine. So on the bit of rock on top of the ice. But it's cold, a lot colder than sleeping on tundra. And I had my new sleeping pad, the only one I have ever felt cold on.* But it's possible sleeping on the thin rock veneer on top of the ice cube was the highlight of that day.
We started by hiking up to the top of ridge, incredible, almost unfathomable views, and as it turns out 3G cell coverage.
That was the easy part of the day. Hanging out at the top was also easy and fun, even though my morale was low and my spirits were down. The views did manage to pick me up, but not enough since I had no idea what was ahead, terrain wise. My anxiety flags were out, scanning, sensing, looking for the route down.
It turned out there was a reprieve, and i reveled in it. And as much as I was in my element, bouncing down tundra, i hung back and exchanged deep emotional life trauma stories with Emily. So I cried big rolling sobbing tears as I took in the scenery through the soft warmth under my feet and the smell of grassy Alaska in my face. I talked about my childhood and its various challenges and fuckupedness and therapy and she talked about losing her twin and more recently her mom. It was like showing scars, nodding, sighing and carrying on silently, except exactly opposite, kind of. For me it was more of a slow emotional release that I did not know the bottom of. I did not know what I was even scratching at or if the surface had yet given way. I found myself wondering if this floundering, will-less oaf was the new me.
Then the reprieve was over. We came to the place where the steep but lovely tundra slope ended and the mass-wasting sites began, and we had to get down one of them. By the time we got to the bottom, via stepping, side-stepping, slipping, falling, catching ourselves and each other, and sometimes just sliding on the broken terrain slicked up by the previous 6 passers by my legs were shaking. I could hardly hold myself up. It took us hours to get down that slope. I'm sure we did not cover a mile. At best it was half that.
And there was still glacier to cross. An entire glacier. Not as big as the first day, but much more ice than the previous day. Also, over a portion our guides had never been on, we were crossing much higher than they usually cross. This being not the route we signed up for. And I hated it. I did not have it in me. Mentally, not even close. Physically, I was fine after a rest from the downslope, my legs had stopped shaking and they would hold weight, so walking was certainly within reason. But my emotional self could not take another step. Not on ice.
But I had to.
I have done a lot of scary, difficult things that I thought I could not do. I don't know if I think this one was the hardest simply because it is the most recent and freshest in my memory, or if the emotional challenge really made it so. It was a bad run day of epic proportions.
We made it across. Not without explaining in no uncertain terms that no, i would not take another step more than once. Not without being certain I would fall into a cravasse. And not without standing on the edge of a jakulhlaup. Which was a pleasant surprise. It was a 90 degree cornered cliff of ice. Then we walked on a bit and set up camp for our last night.
*And now I can't find it. Maybe I left it in McCarthy? I just can't believe I would have done that. But who knows, I packed up a morning after very little sleeping. I just didn't think I left anything in that room. Did I leave it on the glacier? Is it at the bottom of some moulin now, the great honey pot of the glacial traveling world.
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