At a certain point, it becomes pointless to keep trying to nod off. For me, that was 8 pm. I switched from the Aeneid to my high energy playlist (i.e. Black-Eyed Peas, Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Clegg, Kanye, and Sheryl Crow to name a few…) Although it may have appeared that I was out cold in my sleeping bag, I was fully awake (and rockin’ out) when the clock finally hit 9 pm. And then 9:01 pm… Apparently I either missed the memo, or Doug decided to let us sleep a little later, because I had to rock out for another half-hour before everyone was fully vertical.
Outside the hut the sun had barely disappeared from the horizon, and it was warmer than normal at Muir that night. (I’d guess 40-45 F.) All our afternoon preparations made getting up and out a quick, almost mechanical routine: helmet, harness, crampons, pack, clip in. My blood sugar was rock-solid, but I played it conservative, reducing the basal and devouring a bar while putting the harness on. The next task was to keep things from freezing: I took the freestyle out of its case and slipped it in my pants pocket; as for the pump, I had planned a more elaborate system involving a passport pouch around my neck (good suggestion though David!) and hand warmers, but right before we left, I decided to do what any true-blue diabetic woman would do and just dropped it in the sports bra.
I started out in just base layers—capilene t-shirt with a long sleeve over it, my NF climbing pants, and long underwear. (Better to start a little chilly and let the climb warm you up, than overheat in the first mile and have to stop soon after to shed layers.) The first section of the climb was a straightforward hike across the Cowlitz Glacier. We kept the same rope teams that we practiced with the previous day, but for the summit climb the other rope took the lead. (We used walkie-talkies to communicate along the trail and would meet up during rest breaks.) The moon was out, but most of the dramatic landscape was reduced to shadowy silhouettes or completely hidden in the darkness. The only thing you could see clearly was the ground at your feet and whatever was in the beam of the other headlamps. An hour or so after leaving Muir, we reached the first of two rocky outcroppings, called Cathedral Rocks. The trail, after winding its way up through a gap in Cathedral Rocks (i.e. Cathedral Gap), evens out at 11,000 feet onto a wide snow plain called Ingraham Flats, the no-frills base camp for tent campers who would blue-bag it in return for a thousand-foot head start on summit night. It was around midnight, but the camp was alive with climbers preparing to head out. The wind was also picking up, so during the quick stop, I threw on the Patagonia pullover. Here, I tested in at 270. It came as a surprise because I’d been vigilant for lows this whole time and felt great. It could have been the bar at Muir, too much basal reduction, adrenaline, or any combination of the above. I only took a little more than half of what my pump suggested for correction, drank lots of water, and then got moving again to keep ahead of the impending onslaught from Muir and Ingraham.
The next section of the climb took us through Disappointment Cleaver, that 1,000-foot speed bump no one particularly enjoys, unless you’re a mountain goat or a rock collector. Of course, at first the terrain is an interesting change from the monotony of the snow-covered path, and scrambling by headlamp up a giant pile of boulders, ledges, and loose rock that resembles another planet is definitely a novelty. However, the novelty wears off very quickly (as the beautiful tune of steel crampons grating on rock reverberates through your skull), and you keep asking yourself if this was someone’s idea of a sick joke to run a route up the DC and then designate it as the standard route up Rainier. Reminds me of the British at Gallipoli.
About two-thirds of the way up the Cleaver, I felt myself slowing down for no good reason. I thought it might have been a lingering high blood sugar or perhaps trickier terrain, but I quickly realized it wasn’t the Cleaver, altitude, or dehydration—it was the correction dose from Ingraham Flats running me down like a freight train. On the mountain, I found it was much harder to distinguish between highs, lows, altitude, and general fatigue because they all had the same symptom: tired. I yelled up to Doug that I might be low, and he asked if I could hold out until we got to a safer rest spot above the Cleaver. We were only twenty minutes away, so I lowered the basal rate and ate what I’d thrown in my pocket. But not long after, it was clear that fighting the low was becoming more work than the actual climb. (Ordinarily a few minutes wouldn’t have mattered, but climbing drains the reserves much faster.) I asked Bobby, behind me on the rope, what he thought, and he also suggested we stop for a few minutes to test. More than anything else, I was more frustrated at having to stop so close to the top of the Cleaver, but the benefits of analyzing where I had come BG-wise since Ingraham, getting some quick sugar if needed, and regaining my strength far outweighed the momentary nuisance. I’m not sure how accurate the meter was, but it read 37. I didn’t feel that low but was certainly headed in that direction. No matter what, the treatment was the same: down as many shot bloks, gu packets, and/or sports beans in each mountful as humanly possible, and figure out the mathematics of it above the Cleaver. On a mountain, highs are always and incontestably better than lows. Another type 1 climber I know named Sebastien gave a sterling explanation, saying that he wasn’t looking to lower his A1c on the ‘08 Everest climb, but rather to err on the high side to be safe. I have come to appreciate that bit of advice. It’s not often I’d say this, but right then and there at 12,000 feet, I would have given anything to be 300.
It was a straightforward fix that I didn’t need any help with (as it is at sea level), but Bobby sat down beside me in the snow and while I knocked back the carbs, and we bounced ideas back and forth about what caused the low and how to cut the chances of another for the remainder of the ascent. I’m not used to having a sounding board, but it was incredibly helpful to get input from a veteran of diabetes and endurance sports. Had I been alone, I would have turned the basal down 70-80% and continued on, but Bobby suggested cutting the basal completely for the duration of the summit push. The thought of thoroughly eliminating the possibility of another insulin-induced plummet was appealing, yet I wasn’t a fan of the all-but-inevitable high that would sooner or later result from a barrage of bars, gels, and shot bloks tooling around my bloodstream. Nevertheless, at 37 (with a mouthful of glucose tabs and stock in the ClifBar company), my case to Bobby that I hated highs was just about as pointless as the Sicilian Campaign of 415 bce… In the span of five minutes, I was back in business, headed blissfully toward a three(hopefully not four)-digit BG, and ready to kiss the DC goodbye.
We reached 12,300 feet at around 3:30 am—a milestone for sure, but elevation-wise we were just about halfway. If you’re an optimist, you can tell yourself that in terms of straight distance, you’re now quite close (~1 mile or so) to the rim of the crater. And if you’re less of an optimist/live in the real world, you realize the remaining 2,110 vertical feet is gained in an unreasonably short distance through a combined force of 45° slopes and switchbacks ad tedium. It was still dark out on the Emmons Glacier, and I honestly don’t remember much from that section of the climb. (It’s hard to write a descriptive masterpiece when the extent of my material is as wide as the beam of a headlamp!) The upper slopes of the mountain were definitely colder and more exposed to the fine Northwest breezes; so electing to add another layer during a break, I pulled out the toasty NF fleece jacket and realized the shortcomings of my layering strategy. (At Ingraham Flats, I had thrown on the Patagonia windproof outer layer since I didn’t need a whole lot of insulation just yet. Now I did.) Faster (and windier) than Clark Kent in a telephone booth, I dropped my pack, whipped off the pullover, threw on the fleece, un- inside-outed the pullover, and put it back on over everything else. The whole process itself warms you up. (And then you try to take a victory swig from the camelback and realize it’s frozen solid.)
There’s a Zen-like place one reaches after a few hours on the mountain, in which climbing becomes semi-automatic (not the weapon). “Establishing a rhythm,” is how I heard it defined, and it very well might be the second cousin of the runner’s high or perhaps the great uncle of “being in the zone.” The physical demand is still there, but it recedes to the back of your mind and becomes almost mechanical. At the end of each switchback, you round the corner, step over the rope, transfer the ice ax to your uphill hand, take a couple steps, and pause to make sure the person behind you has time to do the same. The first few times are slow-going and not too graceful, but it’s just like the first car I ever drove; you figure out how to make it work. I got a lot of quality thinking, pondering, and reflecting done at 13,000+ ft. It’s strikingly tranquil and refreshingly primitive on upper slopes of the mountain. (Reminds me of Joseph Conrad without the band of man-eating natives.) When we came to a steeper section, I found a nice strategy. I thought of a friend or family member, like my Cousin Norm (a WWII veteran in his mid-eighties and who swore that if he were a few years younger he’d come with—I took his picture to the top with me); and I would tackle a section for every relative, friend, sponsor, and iD donor until I hit the top. The best part came around 4:30 am as we neared the final steep climb to the crater rim. I’d never been so happy (or so awake) to see those first gray shadows of dawn. The landscape gradually revealed itself in greater definition, and it was eerie to suddenly become aware of just how high we had come and take in all the stunning landscape of rock and ice that we’d passed on the way up. (The cleaver was a different ballgame going down, when we could actually see what was over the edge and how far down it was.) ...continued shortly!
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