The Mountain Climber

The blizzard flew in sideways at his goggled face as he panted heavily underneath his respirator. His 250 pound pack was digging into his shoulders. He heaved a heavy shrug in an attempt to readjust the load, but it landed where the shoulder straps had already landed. After a thousand readjustments throughout the day, there is only so much surface area to be had. He paused on the mountain, which meant he was slowly being buried by the blizzard, to turn up the oxygen on his respirator. Pure O2 had been known to possess mildly psychedelic properties, but all the climbers he knew refuted in earnest that it had any such effect on the mountain. They were all liars because he was soaring off those tanks. He was soaring off those tanks, and he liked it.

He had always climbed alone. He liked to keep his own pace and pause when he needed to. Trying to keep up with those young guns flying up the mountain only exhausted and frustrated him. "That's when people die, when they're in a hurry," he always said. So he sat, creating seat in the snow, and nibbled on the sandwich he had stuffed in his jacket pocket.

"This is just the light stuff," he thought as he treaded up towards the false peak. It seemed a mile away. He blinked his eyes and there was a thousand vertical feet left. Then there were two hundred. He closed his eyes for a moment as he lost himself to a flood of oxygen. The valve must have gotten caught on his glove. Dull light filtered through his goggles and imprinted upon his eyelids, displaying a fascinating kaleidoscope of colors and motion. He watched as he took one arduous step after another. 

"This is what I'm talkin' about," he muttered softly, only for the snowflakes to understand. The wind took a deep breath and he fell into the mountain. He laid there and laughed like a child. A passerby would have observed his gaiety with indisposed curiosity.

He sat up, looked around and noticed he could see much further up the slope due to the tempering blizzard, and the precipice stood just a few dozen meters further up the face. He hustled his pace while the winds were dull and trucked his way up the cross-hatch, or at least what looked like it might be, buried deeply underneath the drifts.

He reached the top and took another breather, doused his respirator, and sipped some water, but he didn't sit. He took a step towards the edge and peaked over the side. He stared into the deep blue depths of the ice. Glacier crossing was an inevitable necessity of the ascent, but he had to find a way to get on top of it. The ice bent back away from the ridge, as if trying to avoid the shearing friction, and left a gap too wide to cross.

A mile further up the ridge he found what he had been looking for. A thicker stretch of ice bridged the gap between the ridge and the glacier. Only four feet of space stood between him and the glacial mass, leading him to the summit trail and eventually the summit. He looked down. The gap dropped almost a hundred feet before it narrowed at the bottom. Contemplating how he would cross required a dose of courage, summoning an inspiration, a desire for respiration. The pressurized hiss of oxygen released into a deep wheeze as he loosened the valve.

Fifteen carefully counted steps stood between him and the edge. His eyes focused underneath the goggles and peered as deeply into the blizzard as possible but he still couldn't spot the take off. He took the first awkward lead into his trot and the cumbersome weight in his pack threw him off balance. He took a sidestep in order to catch himself. The courage was already mustered, it couldn't be used again if wasted now, so he kept running. 

"I'm not in a hurry" he justified to himself, pretending to believe it was true. His ice boots didn't make for a fluid stride, rather a choppy punctuated one, that left him off angle to his target. After ten steps he spotted the edge through the snow and focused on keeping his stride even. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. He stretched his right leg for the edge and planted his spikes into the twisted rock and ice. His ankle buckled under the weight and half his foot rolled over the edge. Being carried pack-first over the gap, he pushed away from the edge with both legs. Four feet wasn't far.

The weight of the pack swung under him and threw his body to the other side. He laid there momentarily with his pack hanging over the side of the ice before he started to slide. He reached and grabbed at whatever he could get his hands on, but it was all snow. It was all snow, and he knew it. So he stopped and tried to flatten all of his body weight against the ice, but ice curls around its edges, and he knew it. Plus the steel tanks strapped to his back weren't as light as they were earlier.

As he slid, time halted. The pack and the edge seemed ten yards away. His movement over the ice seemed comparable to growing grass and he stared up into the white sky. The snow was dancing swiftly through the air towards his face and he could feel each individual flake colliding like meteors into the surface of his unbearded cheeks. An entire life is supposed to flash before the eyes just before one dies. But nothing filled his mind but his current existence. He felt a warming comfort, laying there fully contented as the notes to an ominous song echoed across the ice each in perfect time with the falling snow. A warm breath coated his body and he embraced his fate. He felt empowered, and worthy. He wanted to live in this moment for the rest of his life.

Instead he fell, and it was like being dragged to hell. The tanks pulled his weight over the slippery edge and he cascaded down the chasm, fainting from every overwhelming sensation.

Awoken by a fit of pain with back broken and head cracked, his arms at least still possessed movement. His head was wrenched up towards the sky and his shadow-faded peripheral vision was dominated by the icy blue depths surrounding him. He closed his eyes and reminisced of the previous twenty seconds on the surface, while his hand reached back and emptied the tanks into his mask.

A strong fatigue gripped the back of his neck and pinched him to sleep. For the family, the snow buried him.