The  Echo of the Wind

Excerpt: Alpinist Issue 48 

Once I enter the waterfall, we’ll have to keep climbing to avoid hypothermia. I consider
bivying here and waiting until the next morning, but I know that when the sun hits, the rime will start tumbling. Once I enter the waterfall, we’ll have to keep climbing to avoid hypothermia. I consider
bivying here and waiting until the next morning, but I know that when the sun hits, the rime will start tumbling.

Once I enter the waterfall, we’ll have to keep climbing to avoid hypothermia. I consider
bivying here and waiting until the next morning, but I know that when the sun hits, the rime will start tumbling.

I let the pick of my single axe pierce the sheet of flowing water and strike the new-formed ice beneath. The point glides around for a moment and then sticks in a small slot. I have to move now. In another thirty minutes, that cascade will freeze and coat everything in verglas. Our few cams will skitter, useless, out of the cracks, and the aluminum crampons strapped to our tennis shoes will be more like skates.

My hand trembles. My ten-month-old son’s giggle echoes in my ears. I’d had this Romantic idea of pulling my family into my life of constant travel. So they followed me from Colorado to Argentina. Then, after two blissful weeks together in El Chaltén, the wind had calmed, and I’d packed. Fitz’s hands pattered across the dusty tile of the Centro Alpino as he crawled up to wrap his arms around my calf. I looked in my wife Becca’s blue-grey eyes. “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll be careful,” I said. I slid my callused fingers under her streaked blond hair and behind her neck. “It’s just a rock climb.”  

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