Paul Gregg, a Boeing Engineer, took me on an epic journey up Wyoming’s Mt. Moran, wherein we had to canoe across two lakes with a short portage in between. We then hid the canoe and bushwacked our way to the Skillet Glacier, and bivouacked just below the bowl on its terminal moraine upon the narrowest spot.
At 3 am we awoke, set upon the glacier, roped up to climb across a jagged, rocky break in the glacier, and then headed straight up the Skillet's handle. At about 7 am, we crested the peak and waltzed to the highest point on its long, almost flat ridge. For about an hour, we ate a reward of breakfast sandwiches, oranges, and M&Ms, and we watched the sun's shadow creep across Jackson Lake. I looked over the side of the Glacier and asked how we would get down. "We slide," Gregg explained. I looked, again, down the Skillet's long handle. My head grew light, my stomach queasy, and my legs shook a bit. "We slide?" I asked. "Yes, it's easy. I'll show you."
He did.
With the faith of a child, and the confidence of the uninitiated, I followed him as he slid down on his butt. Halfway down, he waived me out of the central chute, where snow had built up and had almost created a small avalanche that would have carried him to the bottom and over the jagged rocks we had scaled that early morning in the dark. In a half hour total time descending, we were down to join up with our packs that we had left in the middle of the bottom of the Glacier. There was a large jagged rock that had fallen from a above and had stuck right in front of them. It was a little reminder from the mountain that safety is sometimes just an uninvited guest.
That's how I learned how to glissade.
Loren M. Lambert © December 25, 2017
At 3 am we awoke, set upon the glacier, roped up to climb across a jagged, rocky break in the glacier, and then headed straight up the Skillet's handle. At about 7 am, we crested the peak and waltzed to the highest point on its long, almost flat ridge. For about an hour, we ate a reward of breakfast sandwiches, oranges, and M&Ms, and we watched the sun's shadow creep across Jackson Lake. I looked over the side of the Glacier and asked how we would get down. "We slide," Gregg explained. I looked, again, down the Skillet's long handle. My head grew light, my stomach queasy, and my legs shook a bit. "We slide?" I asked. "Yes, it's easy. I'll show you."
He did.
With the faith of a child, and the confidence of the uninitiated, I followed him as he slid down on his butt. Halfway down, he waived me out of the central chute, where snow had built up and had almost created a small avalanche that would have carried him to the bottom and over the jagged rocks we had scaled that early morning in the dark. In a half hour total time descending, we were down to join up with our packs that we had left in the middle of the bottom of the Glacier. There was a large jagged rock that had fallen from a above and had stuck right in front of them. It was a little reminder from the mountain that safety is sometimes just an uninvited guest.
That's how I learned how to glissade.
Loren M. Lambert © December 25, 2017
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