eyes on it.
They were both waiting for me to answer, and so I did. “I’ve guided high school aged kids for the past five years in the Medicine Bow, the Tetons, the Never Summer Range, the La Salles, the Wasatch, the Sangre de Cristo—”
“Sounds great. I’ll pick you up in a few days.” Brad said.
“I don’t want a job. I want to get up to the Wrangell-St. Elias.”
“Let me be honest,” Brad said. “You don’t have many prospects. From the looks of things, you’re going to end up camped here for the better part of the summer.”
“She’ll take it,” the mechanic said.
“I don’t need you for another four weeks. But you can catch a ride with me in a few days.” Brad smiled. “Sorry I was being an asshole.”
I watched the car pass without stopping. It wasn’t looking up. What was the difference between one ice field and another when you had nothing to compare them to? It would at least give me something to do, some experience out on the ice while I worked on finding a way up to the Wrangells. The season was short, fall up here might as well be winter. I was wasting days.
“Alright.” We shook hands and the mechanic slapped us both on the back.
I asked the two cars that came through in the next few days, but did not find a ride north. When he came back, I packed my gear into Brad’s truck, said goodbye to my van and left it for the mechanic to use for parts. As we got on the road, I rested my hand inside my sweatshirt pocket on the bear spray.
“How did it go with the sister?” I asked Brad after awhile.
“She’ll come around.”
He headed southwest. The tundra held on until it couldn’t any longer. It gave way to a steeper, greener landscape that eventually gave way to ice.
I was surprised to find Brad’s guiding service was actually legit. He pointed it out as we drove into town. It was in a small skinny building that looked like it might have been a house of ill repute in the previous century. All the buildings of the small town had the same old-timey façade. The town sat on the shores of a blue-green lake that one of the glaciers of the Ice Field spilled into. This was the jump off point for his three week trips. He had four planned for the summer, all of them full. He was making a decent living. Owned a house in town that he had built himself.
When he pulled up in front of it he said, “You can crash on the couch while you get your gear organized. I expect you’ll head out soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
“The grocery store’s not open today or tomorrow. You’ll have to wait until Monday to provision. This isn’t down south.”
I pushed open the passenger door and walked to the back of the truck to start collecting my gear. He came around the truck from the driver’s side. In a nicer tone he said, “We can go to the office tomorrow. I’ll give you some aerial photos, you can spend some time out on the ice familiarizing yourself with the route you’ll be leading.”
The next morning, we walked the wooden sidewalk from his house to his office. The front door was narrow, just like the whole building. Inside, it was organized and clean. Brad pulled maps and aerial photos from a series of wide flat drawers.
“You’ve spent a lot of time out on the ice?” I asked him as he spread everything out on the old wooden table.
“Twenty years.”
“Why don’t you lead trips?”
“Tired of kids.”
He set his finger down at the toe of the glacier by the lake. “This is the easiest place to get on the ice. There’s a trail that goes from town around the lake to right here. You’ll see a little spur to your right. Take that and you’ll end up on the ice. The lower part of the glacier is dry, free of snow, that’s where you’ll stay with kids and as long as you’re by yourself. Get too far north and snow covers up the crevasses. That far up, you’ve got to be roped up with someone you trust can pull you out if you fall in. No kids up here.” He tapped the northern section of glacier with his finger, “You got it? And you stay out of the snow, too. I’ve seen plenty of hot shot ice climbers like you come up from down south, way too confident. Glaciers are a whole different world.”
The next day I stepped onto the ice under a fully loaded pack. The glacier originated on one huge peak that towered far ahead of me. From there, it flowed between mountains in the way of a wide, deep river. I spent the next three and a half weeks hiking through smooth blue valleys of ice, up and over rolling white hills, around towers of leaning ice, jumping the narrow crevasses and peering over the edge of the deeper ones. I marked each on the aerial photo I carried, so that I would know where these yawning holes were when I had a line of kids following me. The peaks overhead were sharp and snow coveredwhen I could see them, lost in a hazy gray fog most of the time. I loved the all-day sound of crampons against ice. An agreement outside of gravity.
I hiked the route Brad wanted me to lead the high school kids, twice. It was a big loop on the lower, less dramatic part of the glacier. After that, I spent the rest of my time below the snow, but higher up where there was more force on the ice. The crevasses were deeper, the uphills steeper, the mountain peaks rising out of the ice, closer. I had to go back to town a couple times to buy more food, but each time I only stayed one night. I felt more at home out on the ice where there was the right step and the wrong step, the safe way and the dangerous way, the ice and the sky and nothing in between.
I walked back in to town the day before I was to report to work.
“Thought we were going to have to send out Search and Rescue after all,” Brad said when I opened the door to the office.
I sat down across from him. “How many kids coming in? The trip still full?”
“I’ve never known anyone to spend four weeks on the ice by themselves,” he said, peering at me from behind his desk.
“I like it out there.”
“Ten kids. You’ll be working with Jason. He’s guided for me before, but it’s been a long time. You’ll be the lead guide. You hiked the route?”
I nodded. “Twice.”
“You can either sleep in the shop here tonight or on my couch again. Whatever you want.”
“Cushions sound better than a hard floor.”
“You’ve been sleeping on ice.”
“Which is why cushions sound great.”
The kids all arrived the next day. There was only one flight a day into the nearest airport, six hours away. Brad picked them up in a fifteen passenger van and drove them back to town. That night, we gathered to pack gear. I moved through the sea of gear on the floor of the office, from one student to the next helping them go through their personal gear to make sure they had what they needed and to talk them out of what they didn’t.
“You don’t need nail clippers, or this razor,” I said to Elizabeth. “Or this watercolor set.” She was seventeen, with long dark hair that spilled evenly over her shoulders. She had on tight jeans, a tank top despite the cool temperature, and a push up bra.
“Yes. I do.” She jammed all three items deep into her brand new backpack. “I’m a painter.” She narrowed her green eyes at me.
“Or this full-sized towel. I have another, smaller one—” I stood to grab a more lightweight towel.
“I’m bringing my own towel.” She got to her feet as well so that our faces were inches apart.
“You’ll have to carry whatever you bring. No one’s going to carry it for you. And from the look of things, your pack is going to be the heaviest one out there.”
“I want my own towel,” she said slowly, evenly spacing her words.
“Fine.”