Angel Lake is Aptly Named it Seems--Part 1

Stardate: 7.23.2010.

Well, we learned some lessons and cranked up the adventure level to new heights on Monday. Sunday the eighteenth, after leaving Mill Creek, we headed into Battle Mountain, got coffee then rolled on to Elko where we stopped at WalMart hoping to get two front tires, but their compressor was out of commission, so we were out of luck. We picked up ice and some greens instead, and headed on down the road looking for another camp. At Wells we saw a sign for Angel Lake, so we headed on up the Mountain and discovered a beautiful bowl valley at 8400 feet. Lush and green with stunted Aspens surrounding a lake fed by springs and snowmelt still running out of patches of ice high up on the surrounding mountains. We found a campsite and hiked around the lake to the falls, meeting an older couple (Kent and Annie) from Bishop, Ca, on the way. We continued on with them, chatting about nature and life, and listening to Kent wander off into tall tales, luxuriating in the cool evening and the flowering herbs growing along the path.

At the waterfall, I dissuaded Susanne from trying to climb up through the tumbling wet on the rocks knee deep in the falls. She is a water sprite, like the mermaid who traded in her tail and gills for feet—for love of a sailor—always trying to get back in the water. Everywhere I go with her, if there is water, she gets in it even if it is freezing. Smiley is a lot of fun to travel with, though she often talks me into getting into water that makes me want to levitate out of it it is so bloody cold.

The mountains around the bowl are over ten thousand feet, and Susanne and I decide we want to hike up to the rightmost peak in the morning. We trace a possible route that looks reasonably safe up the side of the mountain, how to switch-back to get above that big rock formation, then follow the talus slope around to the right to catch the ridge below the peak from where it will be a relatively simple scramble to the top.

Kent is a retired heavy equipment operator, and Annie a retired middle-school teacher, they were married in 1960, eight years before I was born. They have been married for fifty years. There is hope. I pull out my bag of tobacco to roll a cigarette.

Kent asks, “Are you smoking marijuana?”

“Ha, nope, just tobacco. Cigarettes have gotten too expensive for me to buy tailor-made.”

“Well, I wouldn't care. I figure a guy should be able to smoke what he wants. I've never tried it, but I hear it is not as bad for you as alcohol, and that's legal.”

“That's a fact. I'm not gonna say I never smoke marijuana, but I don't smoke it often anymore.”

We talk with Annie about teaching, and tell them we are moving to Colorado to look for work. They are also going to Colorado, enjoying the country, and planning to visit old friends. We talk about stupid politicians, beautiful country, and D-9 Caterpillars. They are nice folk, and I enjoy their company. So does Susanne, but then she loves everybody.

After a while, we all head back to our individual camps, saying goodnight and we'll see ya in the morning. We make dinner, talk, read, and go to sleep.

The next morning we get up around eight, Susanne eats some yogurt and fruit while I drink coffee and smoke. We wash our faces, clean up campsite, use bathrooms, and pack water, Mountain Dew, sketchbooks, pencils and pens, pastels and cameras into our daypacks, and set off around the side of the lake that we had missed the night before on the trail from which we had decided to start our climb.

The crushed granite path takes us up out of the aspen groves and into low scrub brush and grass dotted with wild flowers as the lake shimmers and ripples below and the mountain rears its broken granite crown above us. We come to the base of the huge rock outcropping we had discussed getting around the night before and notice a steeper but probably easier path up the near side along the base, and we note that the granite is fissured and stepped in a way that makes it look eminently climbable. There are shelves running most of the length of the face at intervals, and what look to be fairly short, and thus reasonably safe channels between them. I ask Susanne if she wants to go up the side or to try to climb. She says that she was planning to climb it by herself before I said I wanted to go. She had been planning on switchbacking up the face towards the lake, but agreed that this side (which we couldn't see clearly from the falls) looked easier.

I came up behind Susanne once she was secure, and we stopped to rest. This shelf was not as good as it appeared from below, but there was a good place to sit, and we had been on the rock for over an hour, so we sat and rested and drank. We were tired, but (we thought) getting close to the top. The problem was that the crack that went further up was not safe. Nope. The shelf we were on sloped more than it looked like from below and was slick with glacial polish. The crack that led up was overhung a bit, and the glacial polish continued above it. Furthermore, to continue forward required crossing a channel of polished granite too wide to reach across and nearly vertical with only a few slick bumps of stone for purchase, like a devils slide into the rocks at the base of the cliff. After a while, we began to be seriously scared that we were trapped. Going back would be very dangerous because the ledge at the bottom of that last short climb was quite narrow and covered with little bits of gravel. Not a good place to catch yourself if you slipped. Whoops.

It was hot. I was terrified, and so was Susanne. She had climbed up to look at the way forward, I said, “Come back, you can't cross that high.” She froze.

After a few seconds she said, “Hold on, I feel nauseas.” A minute later she slid back down.

I said, “Ok James, get a grip, fear is the death of reason.” and took control of my breathing.

Susanne said, “Please God be with us on this mountain.”

“Amen to that! Ok, breathe.” I drank another Mountain Dew Whiteout, thinking again how much better tasting they were than the regular. Crisper, lighter, not too sweet. “Ahhh...” relishing the irony of drinking Mountain Dew stuck on a frigging mountain, and thinking that I am some kind of fool. A few minutes after that I stood up and said, “Through fear and out the other side. I think I'm ok.”

She said “what?”

“Let me look at this again.” I glued myself to the edge of the rock and crept forward. Carefully studying the protrusions, the slop[e, noting where on the other side of the trough the rock changed from the polished white granite, to a rougher and more broken reddish version. Noting a good sized step about six feet down with handholds above it. Too far for me to reach, no handholds on this side close enough. Wait, there is a good one, and this slopes away from the trough...Hmmm...

I backed down. “Susanne, come over here.”

“Ok, what'd you find.”

“I think I can get across if you brace me from here. If you lay down and hug the rock and hold tight to this ridge here you should be able to reach out far enough that I can reach across if I get my right foot on that bump and swing my left out to that one.”

“Ok, you want me to hold on here and stick my legs over?”

“No, if we tried that and I slipped my weight would pull us both down. I want you to lay on your front, with your shoulder here and your left hand holding this tight, your legs down this slope for friction see...”

“Ok, are you sure.”

“I'm sure that if I fall you'll be able to hold on to the rock, and you'll probably be able to slow my fall enough that I can stop myself on that ledge which is where I'm going anyway. Then once I'm across, I might be able to bridge you over, and if not, I can get down over there somewhere and go for help.”

“All right, lets try it.”

It wasn't really that simple or that clean, but the dialogue is pretty close. We often find ourselves talking in old sayings during times of crisis. It steadies the nerves I think. It worked, and I got across. I couldn't reach very far back towards Susanne and there were no good handholds that would support both our weight against a fall down the shaft. Susanne said, “I can hear God telling me not to try it.”

I replied, “OK, I'll go for help.” I had her send over both walking sticks, and her's fell. I ended up sending mine after it, deciding that it would be more hindrance than help. I took the camera and phone out of my pack and tossed it back to her with the last Mountain Dew.

She said, “Be careful.”

I replied, “I will Smiley, I'll be back with help as soon as I can.” and off I went. I ended up running into another dead end in a channel at about forty feet up with a very slick dangerous section between handholds. No good spot to wait here, I would fall from exhaustion before anyone could come get me, so it was my turn to pray, “Please God, don't let me fall off this fucking rock.” and I went for it. Hand on either side each pushing into the rock, legs dangle towards that one inch lip down there, back to the rock, face towards oblivion for the second time in an hour. Except this time I didn't have Susanne's hand to hold onto. But I had to make it, to get her down. Dip, stretch pray some more, drop. Caught, twist, grab, safe. Panting, catch breath, then move down, slowly, but it's easy from there. Move down the hillside till I'm under her, “I'm down. I'm going for help.”

“Good, I was soo worried.”

“I'll be back soon as I can, but it might be a while, depending on if anyone has rope or if we have to call out for help.”

“Ok, I'll conserve the water. I think I'll just sketch.”

“Bye Smiley...”

I jogged on down the trail.