Avid hiker Bryan Clements didn't realize he was in for a life-threatening epic when he left his Flagstaff home last month. A recent solo trip in the San Francisco Peaks proved that good planning could have gone a long, long way towards preventing an epic.
Hiking up the Weatherford Trail, Clements, normally an experienced outdoorsman, underestimated the effects of freezing and thawing in the Inner Basin. He crossed Doyle Saddle and picked his way along the narrow ledge trail under Fremont Peak. A sudden misstep shot him 80 feet down a near-vertical slope of ice.
"The fall starts in slow motion," he described. "Even with both feet sliding, you're going so slowly that you think 'I can stop. It's gonna be okay.' Even when your feet have gone out from you and you're clawing at the ice with your hands, your conscious mind is saying 'I can stop myself. I'll be alright.' But your instincts know the truth. They're saying 'You're screwed.' And then you pick up speed. I sped down the slope. I tried to dig into the ice with my fingers, even though I knew it was useless. There was a tree just below me, which I tried frantically to steer myself into, but ended bouncing off. I think I bounced off a few more before I finally jerked to a halt. It took a minute for my head to clear enough to figure out what stopped me. A tree branch snagged the shoulder strap on my backpack."
Clements was lucky. Even then, he had to carefully kick-step his way back to the trail, hanging by his toes over an 800-foot drop. He reported worried about slipping, hypothermia and the possiblity of frostbite.
According to Flagstaff mountaineer Eck Doerry, carrying an ice axe - and knowing how to use it - would have made this whole drama a non-issue.
Doerry, author of Glaciers! The Art of Travel and Science of Rescue said, "I just take one along anytime I will see some snow. I just take a mini if I don't want much weight. Nothing worse than the feeling that you have nothing but your fingernails to hold you on the slope."
