Lost Tent

Missing:

A yellow and blue winter tent. Made by Sierra Designs. Last seen approx. 3 miles W by NW of the Log Bird, pitched on deep snow on a densely wooded slope. May or may not be submerged in new snow or shredded by wolves. Finder's reward: The chance to spend a weekend at a trapper's camp on an alpine lake just over the ridge.

I went up the mountain as far as I could the Saturday before last and stayed the night in my tent. The slog up the slope and through the snow was excruciating yoked to the weight of the pack. I had been hoping to reach the ridgeline (sponsored by a Japanese automaker, would you believe it?) where I might have a line of sight to my destination--Nelson Lake. But it was not to be. Around 4 o'clock my legs simply gave out, forcing me to pitch the tent. The following morning, after deciding I needed to return to feed Tipper rather than continue the push up the mountain, I left the tent up on the snow platform I had tramped out to pitch it, along with a camping mattress, some food, a few sweaters and a first aid kit. The idea was that I'd be able to approach it with a far lighter pack the next time up. Toting no more than a sleeping bag and a camp stove, in theory. And the contingent idea behind that one was that if I could manage to reach the lake, I could spend a leisurely if cold weekend there, having done all the preparatory work in advance.

Yesterday, needing exercise and with nothing more pressing to do, I ventured back up the mountain to see if I could find the tent. This time I brought some red tape to blaze the trail. My tracks from previous slogs up had been all but erased by new snows, but I recognized most of the waymarks and could occasionally make out faint depressions where my snowshoes had gone. The problem was really one of time. I didn't get started on the walk until around 12:30, leaving only five and a half hours till full dark. The mountain was enveloped in swirling white clouds of snow that would occasionally part to reveal more distant swirling white clouds of snow.

I hurried along as well as I could, though, and had come within what I calculated to be a quarter mile of the tent by 4:15. Not only was the snow deep nearly the whole way up; there was also an icy intermediate layer atop which the new accumulation would give way and slide as if on ball bearings. I must have fallen on my face ten times going up. So at 4:15 I reasoned that it would be the height of foolishness to spend any more than 15 minutes looking for the tent in the woods above the clearing that told me I was close. I trudged up in a direction that alloyed memory and chance, and found nothing. At the half hour, I gave up and turned back as planned. Although I hadn't actually located the tent, I had made a good trail almost straight to it, and had blazed the path to hedge against deep new snows.

Going back was pretty near to skiing at some points, in the sense that skiing is more or less a controlled fall, and sometimes a plain old fall. The chutes and slopes that had been merely tiring coming up had now become grave hazards: I would not survive a broken leg on the mountain. On the steepest parts I simply sat down and slid, using my crampons for brakes. It was fun. By the time I'd made it all the way down to the Log Bird it was near dark and I was feeling like I'd been run through a tumble dryer. I would go up again today, but I'm not sure my legs would stand for it two days running. I'll save it for the weekend, and will today go downhill skiing instead: 16" overnight.