Page 10 - 2016 AMA Spring

minus twenty, today was warm and the sun had chosen to melt anything exposed.
At the top of these initial pitches, we slogged snow for an hour in the fading light before climbing an M5 mixed pitch in the dark. Engulfed now by the last of the forest on the highest level of Mt Wilson, Jon’s description said, ‘two hours forty-five of snow-slope to reach the climb’. We had come this far, so we both felt it was pointless not putting in a track even though we were in the dark, high on a mountain in the deserted wilderness of Canada. We left ropes and some gear at the top of the mixed pitch and after five minutes we also left axes and anything heavy before attaching snowshoes and bushwhacking through thick forest. Eventually we escaped the trees and found the snow gully that lead up to the climb. At seven thirty we decided we had done enough to establish a track that we could return and follow in two days. Retracing our steps to consolidate the track, I walked in front with Greg behind until the edge of the forest was reached.
The moon had yet to rise and darkness wrapped around our two forms following a track glittered in the light of the headlamps. I kicked as the snow clung knee deep, we had stashed the snowshoes to make a boot track. Small spruce lined the edge of the forest and all I thought was how in two days’ time we would return, fresh from rest to attempt the stunning looking line we had taken photographs of earlier. This was one of the things that made me so feel so fortunate and alive, this being able to search-out the different, being prepared to forgo guaranteed in the hunt for esoterica, it was this experience that made my roving so fulfilling.
Greg was behind, and then I heard something that spun me...
I spun. Turned. Twisted. My headlamp caught blue as Greg flailed past, all arms and legs fighting deep snow... and just behind, just behind, but moving quicker with even bigger arms and legs than Greg, in the light of my headtorch, I could see a grizzly bear. Dark bottomless, fathomless eyes turned and latched my prone form. Erect ears, a broad snout, an open mouth full of brown teeth and attached to this beautiful powerful head, a head etched with pale flecks surrounding those fathomless eyes, was a muscular, bounding body propelled by pistons. The snow lapped the bear’s belly and didn’t appear to slow it. Frozen, terrified, my torch lit the snorting carnivorous freight train that was now rattling inches by, dusting me with spindrift, I stood. I stood frozen, terrified, helpless. Incapacitated. For a second, the bear looked at me, for just one second and for just one second I thought ‘this is it, this is really fucking it.’ Or I would have thought this if I could have formed thoughts, but I couldn’t, my mind was white noise, it was a TV screen in the times before twenty-four hour programmes, my mind was from a time when the screen became horizontal bars and the sound was a constant beeeeeeeeeeeee. And in that exact second the bear had seen Greg fall and continued past. I ran, I ran as fast as I could. I ran uphill. I ran in the opposite direction, as fast as the deep snow would allow. And my now functioning mind screamed and amongst that scream was another scream. Greg had fallen on his back and watched as the bear bounded towards him. Screaming and shouting, Greg kicked at Ursus arctos horribilis and it bit straight though his boot as if it were a carpet slipper. It lunged again and crunched into his shin while placing a paw on his other leg before lifting him from the ground.
“Nick, Nick, help, it’s got me aaaargh, HELP Nick, NICK HELP...”
I stopped running, and hearing my friend, the high pitched pleading, my mind screeched, ‘the bear has got Greg, let it eat him, run away, run as fast as you can.’
But on hearing the chilling terrified scream, my survival instinct subdued. I stopped and turned, but I’ll tell the truth, the thought of running back to face the bear, armed with only a ski pole slowed me. My limbs and mind were unravelling but Greg was shouting my name, I couldn’t stand there. I just couldn’t stand and listen to my friend as he was torn apart. I began walking toward the bear and
8 ARMY MOUNTAINEER
Greg knowing this was it, I was about to die, I was about to return to die and enter the stomach of another living creature, when out of the dark, out of the black, a shape came speeding toward me. The skin at the back of my throat tore. But the shape coming at me was Greg. My torch shone into his ashen face and I saw something I had never seen before.
We both yelled, attempting to sound big but feeling insignificant with primeval coursing through out veins. Feeling helpless, feeling a part of the food-chain, we ran into the woods following our tracks. The trees and branches, closed in, caught and ripped and tore as we crawled and clawed, and stumbled.
“Watch me, stay with me, watch me...”
After what felt like hours of waiting for the dark to ambush, we found our crampons and axes, which meant the ropes and the tree from which we could abseil and escape this ledge and the bear were five minutes away.
“Keep a look out.”
Greg packed gear into his bag. I stood, shining my headlamp while brandishing axes.
“If it comes, no running, no running, we stand together, were in this together, side by side, no running, hit the bastard.”
“Yeah, were in this together, hit the bastard, hit it as hard as fucking possible, in the head, in the eye.”
But in my mind we were now starring in the film Aliens and I watched the bear shrug an axe as easy as a bullet bounces from that slippery black alien skin. ‘They mostly come at night... mostly.’ And in my mind I knew, I knew if the bear attacked again we would
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