 We moved down the Peters Glacier on Denali's West Buttress slowly, a sled between us loaded heavy with supplies. Twenty feet of rope linked us - too close, we knew, but required by the rough, undulating surface of the glacier with its hidden crevasses beneath our feet.
 Chris walked in front. I walked behind, righting the sled each time it flipped. Chris broke through the crust and plunged headfirst into a crevasse. I was concentrating on the sled. The rope yanked me into the air, then down into an icy void, "This is it," I thought, "I'm about to die."
The sled and I slammed on top of Chris. My shoulder was broken. Beating back panic I awkwardly took off my pack and squeezed it into an eighteen-inch space between the ice walls. I shoved the sled off Chris.
All I could see were his legs behind his large pack compressed to half its normal width between the walls. Suspended face down, he yells, "I can't move, Wick, you've got to get me out!" I grabbed his pack. "I will Chris, I promise." Hard as I pulled, he would not budge. I could do nothing more until I got out of the crevasse.
Back against one wall and crampons against the other, I inched my way up. Chris kept yelling, "You've got to get me out, Wick! You've got to get me out!" Between puffs and grunts I reassured him. Slow going. Falling back meant getting wedged also or injured worse. I had one chance to get out.
 At the top of the 25-foot shaft, I was able to flip onto the surface. Relief was cut short by the lowering sun. Night meant death. I pulled hard on the rope I had attached to Chris' pack and pulled again, and then again with one good arm. No movement. I anchored the rope and wen't back down.
I tried opening the pack to empty some contents. Compressed like wood, nothing would budge. I hacked at the pack with my axe. The fabric flexed to the blow without tearing. After two hours, I told Chris, "Sorry. This isn't working." I'm going back up to try to get somebody, anybody on radio."
I climbed the rope using ascenders. On a nearby knoll I called out for help. "Emergency! Can anyone hear me! We need your help! Repeated again and again. On this remote, untraveled route, our line-of-sight radio was useless. No one was coming. We were alone.
 I went back down with little hope of freeing my friend with the same maneuvers. Chris' incessant pleas subsided as he realized I could not get him out. We were to climb everest next year. "Climb it for me Wick. Remember me when you're on the summit." I'm stunned. My friend was about to die right in front of me.
Chris gave me messages to relay to his family and closest friends. I asked him if he wanted his body left in the crevasse or brought out. He said his father would decide. At 9:30, six hours after falling, he concedes, "There's nothing more you can do, Wick. You should go up." I told him I loved him and sobbed. As I left, Chris said simply, "Take care of yourself Jim."
Lying at the edge of the crevasse, I listened to my friend delirious from the searing cold. talking, sometimes singing to himself. At 2 a.m. he went silent. Chris Kerrebrock was twenty-five. I was forty. |
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The Good Life by Ben Seymour |
The idea for The Good Life came from an old couple who lived down the road from my wife and me in Saint Mary’s, Alaska. We had only lived in St. Mary’s for a year, but knew that though the couple was bent and elderly, they were famous for still taking excursions by snowmachine and four-wheeler out onto the land. The old man was a member of the Kazevnikov Family; no one presently living in St. Mary’s—even the eldest elder—could remember a time when the Kazevnikovs were not in the village. The Kazevnikov home was typical of what one often finds in the village—the yard was strewn with disused machines, pieces of metal, plastic buckets, discarded fuel canisters, sleds both broken and new, all that made it look to untranedWestern eyes like the location of a makeshift dump. However, to the owner of such treasures all this signified wealth. I had always been interested in the house and this couples’ lives, though I had never had interaction with them beyond a brief wave or nod. Their house had an energy about it, to me even more so than other homes in town. Often, they had bright laundry flapping in the breeze, contrasted with the angular buildings and dark black and white spruce as a backdrop to the scene. One day I was walking by the house; down the steps came the old man. He was “going out into the country” coming down the steps in his stooped way, struggling with a tote full of gear that he would need for the day’s adventures. His wife wasn’t with him. He was going out alone. This singular incident is what put The Good Life into motion. (Hit read more!) |
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