Surviving Logan by Erik Bjarnason Cathi Shaw

Author:Erik Bjarnason,Cathi Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rocky Mountain Books
Published: 2016-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

11Snow Grave

“The greatest skill I ever had, though, was the one I started with: being able to suffer for long periods of time and not die.”

—BREE LOEWEN

May 26, 2005 – Prospector Col

Relief and joy flooded through me. My friends were alive. I wouldn’t have to enact my desperate plan. They were coming for me.

As I waited for them, I vaguely wondered why had they not answered any of my radio messages, especially as I had become more and more desperate. I found out later that they had lost contact with me as soon as they disappeared down the other side of the col. Searching for a bit of respite from the storm, they had dug the snow cave on the north side of the col, where it was slightly less exposed than where we had pitched our tent. But with line-of-sight radios, it wasn’t until they started back for me that the radio kicked in and we had contact.

The silence on Don’s and Alex’s part also reflected the problems they, themselves, were facing. For a very long time, they had nothing to tell me. They were having their own troubles building the snow cave.

Logan is the second-highest mountain in North America and it is known for its severe storms and powerful winds. In fact, the winds are so powerful that despite the amount of snow that had fallen in the storm, there was almost no snow on the ground in the col area. Most of it had been blown away by the 108-km/h (67-mph) winds. All that was left was bluish-coloured ice, like the kind that made up the glaciers below us.

To make matters worse, our snow shovels had been lost with the rest of our gear when the tent had blown off the col. The only tools Don and Alex had to build the snow cave with were an ice axe and a pot lid. So they used the ice axe to chip away at the ice and then the pot lid to scrape the ice out of the snow cave. It was gruelling work in the freezing cold temperatures.

In those conditions, what would normally have taken only an hour or two, in a different climate with proper gear, took them six hours to build.

Happiness flooded me when they arrived. For a moment my joy overrode my despair. But I was soon reminded of the awful truth: my hands were gone. As Don tried to get me to move, I found that I could not physically let go of the rock.

“Erik! Come on, we have to go!” Alex yelled at me, not realizing why I wasn’t following him.

“I can’t!” I shouted back.

“You have to,” Don said. “We can’t be out here much longer.”

I realized that they thought I was refusing to let go of the rock. They didn’t know that I was stuck to it. “No, I can’t let go!” I shouted.

Don looked confused, then stepped closer and saw my hands. They were completely frozen to the rock. His expression was grim.

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