Decide to climb Klickitat mid-week. Plan poorly. Or better yet, do not plan at all.  Prioritize Seattle spreadsheets over calling the ranger. No avalanches periodically obliterate the south climb. No glacial crevasses have ever swallowed a whole rope team. Nod thoughtfully at this explanation. ‘Koko if you don’t believe me,’ says your roommate Moira. ‘Fuck you.’

You’ll want a technical meal for your last big dinner. But Moira’s prize candy bowl is the only food in sight. Devour it. Time to forget some gear. Arrange your tech like a loose raccoon in the pantry, scattering useful steel around your bed. Gaze intently at it all. Best to stuff your sleeping bag first. But you grow weak as synthetic presses back against you. Elect to finish packing tomorrow. A topographical map and tire chains remain in your closet. Also mountaineering boots. Surely you’ll remember them. For now, crawl into bed. Silence your blabbering brain with trip reports. The descriptions of mountains and snapped wrists seem to flail in pale hallucinations behind the page. This is unusual. Not since freshman bong rips have you felt such a vast, mind opening… Ah right. The dinner gummies. Thank you, Moira.

Begin your drive in the afternoon. Late afternoon. Moira needs the morning to approve expense reports and butt chug coffee. Or so she claims. Such activities ensure a certain mindset for departing from Green Lake. It lies somewhere between the manic thrill of escaping work early and the schizoid fear of losing key items in the rush. Fortunately, the most important gear can’t be forgotten on the sidewalk. Because it’s still in your closet. Don’t remember yet. Grasp the wheel of your 04 truck with confidence. Hit I-5 at a devil’s pace, spilling Moira’s chili. She wails from shotgun. Tip your cowboy hat to the new boy snagged in Cap Hill. Moira told you Abhay eats box well. Devours the clit, from her description. This spanks of confidence and skill on the mountain, to you. Bolster the man with physical complements. Offer him key decisions, like, ‘highway route or mountain route?’ Mountain route! It’s early May. You planned to hike to Lunch Counter this evening. And yet away to the West, the sun already dips towards the free-swinging Olympics. Cheer the cunninlinguist and his mountain route bravado.

Meet the first snow many hours from Seattle. It lurks under a cliff. Sunset has begun. Thrill in the soft backlit trees, a passing sign for Mount Adams. Sober at the widening ice gutters that border the track. Someone jokes about spring closures. But surely not this road! Brake before a huge barricade of slush. Attempt to ford it without chains. Swerve lazily into the ditch, with the whole cab cheering. Dedicate your remaining sunlight to coax the rubber back to gravel. Where too next? The Mount Adams drive turns off in another half mile. That half mile is impassible. To go around would take the full evening backtracking and looping down along I-5 through Portland. Abhay suggests installing chains on the tires. This reminds you he’s a man. Also of the chains, the map, and the boots in your closet. Definitely Abhays fault. Waste a long discussion about cancelling the trip. Abhay insists he must attend a baby shower Sunday.

“But we told you that we might still be gone Sunday,” Moira says.

“I didn’t realize that I had to go.”

“To your sisters baby shower?”

“I thought it was just girls.”

“You will also need a present,” I suggest.

“Shut your stupid mouth,” Moira says. “We are climbing Mount Adams tomorrow.”

Agree to the highway route. This also swerves you into a gear distributer in Portland. Buy mid mountain boots, you wasteful, capitalist hoe. And mid tacos from a truck outside. Feast in the car. Stuff the rest in your pack, no napkins. You’re storing grease for sunrise.

Arrive at the Mount Adams ranger station at midnight. It’s very dark. They’re missing the weird little pencils and envelopes. The forecast lists bad wind. Pay with a note made from your driving manual. Load it with smiley faces and apologies. You forget them immediately on the gravel drive, missing a few turns, bumbling through the woods. Meet the snow again. It blocks you just past the Morrison Creek Campground. Park on a sketchy shoulder. No time for a tent. Sleeping bags in seats. Abhay farts often. Forgive him. You only have time for one REM cycle, anyways. And you interrupt that to pee. Through the trees, a towering whiteness rises from the gloom. It nearly freezes the urine inside you. Wipe in shivering awe. What a place to vacation.  

Begin the climb in darkness. The closed road weaves between stumps and fallen branches. Curse your dim headlamp. Fall through icy tree holes and puddles. Moira establishes such a lung-dumping pace that Abhay must clip a bag of gummies to his chest strap. These are for his diabetes. Abhay assures you someone with diabetes once climbed K2. Shrug. Attempt to drink water. It’s very chilly. Turn off the road just before first light. Meander up banks and between gray trunks. Ask about being lost. Moira’s cellphone instructions say nope not lost. The device will soon die from the cold. It’s great to be not lost. You’re only delayed in the forest. Pause on a snowy promontory because breath. Also because Abhay just confirmed a dangerously low blood sugar test. He’s not walked straight in miles. Pump the man with candy while admiring the glowing blue plains below. Wyeast pricks the south horizon. Pink rays all in the snow. Purple taco shreds for breakfast. Moira tells you your headlamp got all the cheese. Damn.

Hit Lunch Counter by sunrise. Well, you think it’s Lunch Counter. It’s flat and counters are flat. Moira yawns at this logic. You hate that you agree. Above you, a faster group stumbles on steep snow fields. So you strap on crampons and practice self-arrests. Abhay could not arrest a squirrel. Not with that axe swing. So, climbing again, you recall to all a time when Moira fell on her axe and punched a lung and slid 1000 feet into a birch tree. The others just grunt. But at least Abhay steps deeper. His blood sugar is stable, he says. Stuff more power bars down his throat just in case. You are ascending. Toe steps into the crunchy, rising snow. The sky is very near now, the glare. You need your glacier goggles. Suffer on each switchback. Endure ecstasy between sucking inhalations. Suck on this, mountain! Rest on a rocky outcrop. Or on your knees. Moira will tell the same joke that you were thinking, only better. That bitch. On the next rim, the wind grips your air. Struggle to stand against it. Another pinnacle towers ahead.

You have either reached Pikers Peak or Lunch Counter. If, as you thought, the previous flat counter was Lunch Counter, then the vast white shoulder ahead is the summit. But many tents billow on this horizontal plain. So it’s probably the actual counter of lunch. Meaning the flat space below was Raven Ridge. Either way, Abhay must rest. He crumples beside some rocks to escape the wind. Burn yourself lighting a small stove. Boil water. Or at least get it hot enough to dump into a vacuum sealed Pad Thai meal. Pray some of the noodles cook. Discuss the mound ahead with Moira. Out loud, she says it’s the summit. Privately, she explains it’s not. You’re impassive about the possibilities. Understand that, right or wrong, neither option prevents more climbing. The great cape of snow and rock must be ascended. Drink water and test the Pad Thai. It cooked little. Share your feast, anyways. Abhay devours 89% of it without complaint. Moira whispers about the fiberglass texture. Smile horribly at the two of them.

With some hunger, forge across the plains. Attack the face. You’re sure words like forge and attack were invented for your hard body. Until you slip. Which you do often. Everything here feels very high and steep. It isn’t. Well, it’s about 10,000-feet and a 40-degree slope, or something. Stop midway up the mildly-long, crampon-ripping, ice-axe-dragging, sun-hammering your loose legs, climb. Dig a seat from the snow face. Plop in butt first and drink around your psychotic breathing. Abhay has barely started the zig zags below. His body language reads illiterate. Moira stomps closer. When she reaches you, scoop a second hole. Give her yours.

“He’s a shit climber.”

She hammers a few wild exhalations before speaking.

“We haven’t fucked in weeks.”

“I thought he sucked your clit?”

“So?”

“That’s a good reason to do it.”

“Last weekend he asked me to watch him dry hump the couch.”

“Did you?”

Her face, blotchy beneath the glacier goggles, gapes.

“Of course not.”

“And why not?”

“Fuck, Koko,” she says. “Why would I? It’s fucking windy up here.”

“I would have.”

“You’re a slut. For exhibition and mountains. For both.”

Leave her before Abhay arrives.

Cross the high cheek of Adams to avoid the brow. It’s too steep to go direct. Even the traverse is hard, the snow brittle. Skitter across in ginger lunges. Punch your axe deep. You’re not even very high. Blue air around you; blue sky on the plains. This must be what the Himalayas look like. Quiet your unhinged ego. Feel the slope cant upward. Above, is… Something tall. Something cold. Something old? Maybe not. ‘The stratovolcanoes formed as a result of cone-building eruptions less than a million years ago,’ says a guide voice in your head. You dislike that it is male instead of your own. Surely this is Abhays fault. You have not stepped in an age. Force a foot upwards. Watch ice hunks roll down, down, past you, past Moira, lost on the convex snow below. Keep moving. You are on the final rise. What a vacation. Pull on metal tips with anything you can. Crunch, crunch, right, right, almost to the top.

But it’s not the top. The globed summit of Mount Adams rises again, ahead, the bastard. Look back. Moira is making a snow angel. Abhay cannot be seen. Swirl some water in your mouth. Trickle your eyes down the ridges and snowfields. Realistically, theoretically, at this point you would rather fall to the bottom than descend responsibly. Imagine a great leap outward on the South Chutes, tumbling, tomahawking, through the golden snow. This is not feasible. To many camp dad witnesses. Resign yourself to a worried, suffering retreat. Every year climbers disappear in snow rivers. Every year a glissading arrest fails. On the way down, Moira will terrorize Abhay with these images. She subsists on power and fear. But for now, she simply arrives. Slogs, gasping over the lip. Points at the summit and slams her fist, laughing.

“How far down is Abhay?” you ask.

“Abhay? Fuck Abhay!”

“Is he lost?”

“How the hell would he get lost. We’re on a damn field of snow.”

“I can’t see him.”

“Halfway up I told him this was Pikers Peak. Not the summit. That finished him.”

She mimes a samurai chop.

“So we should go back? Now?”

“Of course.”

Nod and fill a final breath, high, higher than you were this morning.

Moira just laughs.

“I should have fucked him last night, too,” she says, turning to glissade.

It is time to slide. So remove your crampons. Tighten every pack strap. Nudge forward on the icy edge… Just… Closer… Slip. And scrape down the powder. Good. Your ass cheeks have earned this bludgeoning. Who needs an axe to control speed. You do. Slow down, snow-cunt. Or don’t. Sometimes whumping at great pace down a steepening snowfield is all the soul requires. Whoop past Moira. Also, Abhay. Abhay! Flip and gouge. Arrest successfully. Above, the man looks better. The sun helps. Abhay gnaws on jerky, relaxed. He points the shriveled meat down the slope and asks how. Moira has almost hit the bottom. What a pal. Turn back and beckon Abhay. The fact that he has never glissaded pleases you. What is the summit when you are with a helpless man? Direct your friend to squat. Watch him ease painfully down the first incline.

“You can flip over and dry hump if you like,” you offer.

He doesn’t hear. But he soon passes to the left, screeching and paddling his axe. Follow.

All of the day is beneath you on the plains.

The tumble never ends. It speeds and slows. Pass Lunch Counter. Pass tents folding all around. The mountaineers are cheering. Even Abhay grins. Even he can lead this part. Snow slushes in the spring heat. It trickles through the rocks beneath you. Which black points are starting to show. Your energy droops when you walk. Your joints stiffen. Each rise after sliding is a slog. Fight to catch Moira. Find her at the last ridgeline, at the forest edge. Lose yourself in the tree shadows. Moira is the path. Her footsteps guide. Poorly, of course. Lose yourself for real, all three of you. One shadowy cliff looks bad. No other climbers show. See Klickitat, lounging massive above. Understand the vastness of the land. You need to find a single road in this forest. Backtrack with exhaustion. Worry about the setting sun. Abhay is a shade again, weaker than before. Pile-drive one final granola bar through his dainty lips. Come to a place where all the trees are burned. It feels wrong. Fear the rising twilight. Then there’s a trail. And a river and a road, and you are here, suddenly, at your truck and the end.

That is, if there is an end.

Originally published in Rock Salt Journal;
Fall 2024 issue (free).