I met Shelly today while climbing Pyramid Peak. I had seen her, but had not met her. I watched her
climb to the saddle at 13,000'. I watched in amazement as she crossed a very trecherous
cornice/ridge of snow.
I was perched in a tiny little rock area about 700' above her. The perch was about 3'x3'. It was on
the side of the face of Pyramid. I watched from my perch. I was decending the pale crux of the hill.
I started at about
3:30 in the morning. It was good I did because there was a lot of routing in the snow on the way up.
On the way down there is no other way but slow and careful. If you mis-step the first 1000' down,
you basically die.
I watched Shelly lose her footing and luge forward. She had turned back, and was going down. I saw
her legs sort of "flipper", then she was out of site. I wondered if my head was playing tricks on
me. She was a long way down. How could I have even seen something like that?
I packed up my jerky, and finished my hot soup. I tossed the last bit of turkey sandwich into my
mouth, and put my pack on. I did not move fast. There is no way to move fast. I began to continue my
downclimb. I could not hurry, and I would not hurry.
I came across Shelly at the exact point she impacted. She had been bleeding pretty bad, and her nose
was pretty busted up inside and out. Her wrist looked like it got smashed in a vault door. She was
actually doing pretty good considering.
We cleaned the blood, and I gave her the velcro splint I had on my own screwed up wrist. We laughed
about that. I gave her 800mg of Ibuprofen that I always have with me for altitude problems in
others. We began to climb down. On the way I told her about this group, mountainbikes, why I was
climbing, and about everything else under the sun I could think about. She was doing so well
considering. I tried to explain how well she was doing, but it always came out a bit morbid... hehe.
It turns out that she is primarily a mountainbiker. She did not want to go with the others from camp
on the Maroon Bells traverse, so she was doing Pyramid alone. We certainly laughed about that.
We got back to the trail, and I hiked her up to Crater lake, and her camp. Her entire party was
there, as they had to back off of Maroon early due to uneasy nerves of a few members.
Shelly was OK. She was a trooper. Her wrist actually looked OK after she took the brace off. It
certainly looked a lot better anyway. I knew two of the guys in her camp that were from
Carbondale. We exchanged some information for future 14er climbing. I had no idea they ever got
off the couch! (hehe)
So Shelly said she is sticking to mountainbikeing. I told her about the group, and I said I would
say a few words... hehe.
darsh