Bird

Survival time. Again.

Mount Patterson consumes my attention—there is nothing else to occupy me. Perhaps I should not have come up here, a ‘climber without ropes.’ That was an earlier decision, back in the valley. A goal unworthy of over-planning, a modest task. A destination mentioned casually to a couple of friends. Why should those others care? They had other preoccupations, priorities, lives. My instructor told me years ago: “Don’t go into the mountains alone. If you do, you may regret it.”

If I don't master this lump of Sierra granite, I may . . . die. The word, the act, are unthinkable, unspeakable to those few adventurous souls who, like me, attempt these tests of mind and body, will and intellect. Yet the realization emerges unbidden from my subconscious as I bend my energy, training, skill, experience and attention to the task of extricating myself from the trap the mountain has set.

I immediately discard the thought of mortality as mere hysterics, hyperbole. I have trained for this endeavor over many years, mastered the tests from beginner to advanced. Then it was freedom. Now it is . . . fear. Survival time? Again.

From the south, in Bridgeport, 100 miles south of Reno, this chunk of the Sierra Nevada—its nature mostly hidden by peripheral rock outcrops, lesser foothills—seemed benign. Its residual frosting of snow would cover only the unseen north-facing slopes at the highest levels where the sun, at its seasonal zenith, could not reach to burn off the lingering winter white stuff. Surely those slopes would be gentle, kind. Up close, their nature is revealed: relentless, savage, uncaring of intrusion. I am irrelevant to this mountain, as to life itself. Escape to the south, to Bridgeport, is defeat, unacceptable. All the accessible paths of retreat are behind me. Each breath, each heartbeat, could be my last. Every move has to be right: win-lose . . . live-die. There is no easy way. Not in the mountains. Never has been. Never will be. This is an honest trade. Poor skills, bad luck, inferior judgment: welcome to eternity.

Hands. Feet. Eye. Will. Experience controls the reasonably possible, the rational risk, the reach upward into—into the unknown. These are the tools. There isn't anything else, up here. No audience, no applause or criticism, indeed no judgment whatever. Just the task, the attainment, the descent. That is always the implacable measure of a man against the mountain, in my experience. Over the crest to the north, Topaz Valley—my interim destination—should soon become visible as I climb. There, safe on level ground, life continues by the minute and hour the rest of humanity, at a comfortable cadence. Up here, at risk, existence itself is incremented moment by moment.

Over here, something? Yes. Maybe. No. Back down a little. Review. Reconsider. The day ending, the shadows lengthening on Patterson's flanks. It is already wickedly cold at 8,000 feet. In a few hours it will be dark. Without serious survival gear—‘unnecessary’ on this ‘easy’ little task—the conclusion is inevitable. Six hours ago none of that seemed to matter. Hindsight. Always 20/20. How . . . convenient? Potentially fatal hubris!

I am moving sideways, down a little. Maybe a better route upward might exist by retreating strategically, over . . . there. Inspiration through intuition? Am I failing, falling? It always comes through the fingertips. Touch, feel, the kinesthetics of the smallest act. My muscles knot, in spasm, letting me . . . down. My breath comes fast, shallow, labored. I have difficulty breathing, but it is not the altitude. A band of pain around my midsection is crushing me. Fear.

Down. No! Calm. Control.

Why am I doing this? Why invite the struggle, agony, risk? Because it is a challenge I had to accept, face, master. Unlike so many unnatural things in life that can be acquired for mere money, like gold chains or pinkie rings, silk suits or suntans, yachts or airplanes, mansions or trophy wives, this is beyond material.

Better yet, it can’t be faked, bought or sold. It must be done correctly and honestly, humbly. Do it right and live. That is bravado. Do it wrong and . . . ? I’m desperate, grasping for life and sanity by a thread.

“Over here, John.” When I am sure I can go no further, doomed to fail, perhaps fatally, I hear a familiar voice: Walter*. I look about carefully across the expanse of rock and see my friend, from earlier in the day, at my own level but over to one side. Quickly I move over to join my erstwhile companion, who waves a greeting. Walter has found the perfect ascent route. He is brilliant at this game, my mentor. His example spurs me, invariably, and humiliates me, always.

Joined only by example, we find ourselves in a virtual duet, as I climb in my friend's shadow. Walter makes it look easy. In 15 minutes—so short a time!—we are together on the mountaintop. Though now partners, each of us is alone, not linked by ropes. Northward we can now make out Topaz Valley, with the Carson Valley beckoning beyond, over the crest of Mount Siegel, barring their path if we get low.

Walter and I climb beyond the summit, up to cloud base at 18,000 feet, going on oxygen at 12,500 feet, long white wings dipping and weaving in air as we circle in a thermal that lifted us up, up into the inviting sky, its arms open now in an embrace. The kinesthetics of the act of soaring, the coordination of hand and eye, consumed every nerve ending.

Seemingly unattainable mere minutes ago, the climb now seems obvious, ordained. Now we can head north, streak straight over Topaz Valley at 120 knots, reach the airport at Minden in Carson Valley, the return to the assured

Really? I harbor nagging doubts, a warning bell sounding softly in the back of my mind. Pride coming before the literal fall, perhaps?

Walter makes it look easy, effortless. The long wings and tail of his racing sailplane are carbon-fiber, solid, yet they seem almost to flutter as he made minute aileron, elevator and rudder corrections, as he feels the air around him with his sensitive hands, as he leaves me behind in my machine of almost equal performance and soars up and away. I can see what Walter is doing, but I cannot emulate it no matter how hard I try.

A ‘natural?’ Hardly. Flying, as I have always known, is an unnatural act for humans, natural only for the birds and bees. Success for human interlopers into the birds’ and insects’ domain of the air come only via attention and work. Joy through pain. Walter has paid his dues, earned his skills the hard way, in contests.

In trying to keep up, pushing beyond my abilities, I have fallen into another of soaring's aerial traps: I am too low at Mount Siegel, a few hundred feet above the rocks, nowhere safe to land. Like Patterson. Now I must search for a thermal to lift us back up, with perhaps two minutes’ grace remaining, in terrain that offers no simple solution: scrub-covered desert or jumbled rock formations, equally unlandable. My parachute is only a final exit, unacceptable to competent sailplane pilots, are only usable higher than 1,000 feet above the patient earth, anyway . . .

I search for sun-warmed south- or west-facing surfaces, perhaps sheltered from the wind, from which a life-saving thermal may arise. I slow to best glide angle, pull up to convert speed into height; the hiss of high-speed air flowing over the sleekly sculpted sailplane dwindles to a murmur. I ease into the wind-shadowed canyons on Siegel's southern flanks, nosing around near stall speed, scarily close to those intimidating rocks, finally finding what I need: rising air pushing up one wing.

I dip my wing into the lift and circle, listening for the audio signal from the vertical-speed indicator, or variometer, as it tells me by rising tone that I am climbing. I alter my bank angle instant by instant, trying to visualize and ‘center’ this invisible column of rising air. The climb starts slowly, in severe turbulence—the thermal is roughly conical, its tip on the ground. As I climb, I know, its diameter will expand, it will become smoother, easier to use for the ascent.

After a 15-20-minute struggle I am back to 15,000 feet, looking over Mount Siegel to the valley beyond, to Minden. To the west, exploding into view with stunning clarity and beauty: Lake Tahoe’s shimmering blue.

Another mystery awaits, once I have rejoined my waiting friend. At 15,000 feet, Walter and I are circling on opposite sides of a thermal, climbing under the inverted bowl of a huge cumulus cloud half a mile in diameter. Lift here is tremendous—over 2,000 feet per minute, the vario screaming its approval. Suddenly, inexplicably, the air between us is obscured, a shadow flickering in air. I want to rub my eyes, unsure of what I am seeing, but my left hand is on the flap handle, my right on the stick, both fully occupied. Seconds later, the truth is revealed. Rushing upward in the rising air, wings and beaks flashing: a flock of starlings.

That slight obscuration is a swarm of insects, entrained in the thermal when it broke ground as a swirling dust devil two miles below, probably from an alfalfa field, minutes before. The starlings—perhaps a hundred of them—are feeding; we continue to climb, in the strongest core of the thermal, and vanish into the bottom of the cloud. “See that?” asked Walter over the radio. His words break the spell. “Yes, I see it . . . magic.” Save it for ever. We are almost home. Time to descend and land.

Now the milky vapor of cloud surrounds us, our upper wingtips almost in it. Blind flying in cloud, sans instruments? No! Walter and I turn as if on cue and dive away. As we penetrate the cloud's drooping edges we are inundated in heavy rain sluicing from its flanks, turning to hail that hammers on the nose and wings. The moisture will not reach the ground but will form only virga, a veil that will dry and vanish in the Nevada heat. At cloud base it is a firehose on the perspex canopy but at over 100 knots it vanishes as quickly as it came.

We burst out into the sunlight, almost side by side, at over 100 knots. To the left, a mile away, a jetliner flashed past, climbing out of Reno, its passengers belted numbly into their seats. I could not resist a joyful yell, expressing the birdlike abandon I felt at that magical moment.

Preparing to land at Minden, I enter the approved pattern, report in on the radio to the unmanned Unicom that informs other pilots in the area, check that my retractable landing gear is ‘down and locked.’ I align himself meticulously—no way to ‘go around’ without an engine—and float down, feathering the dive brakes for glide-path control, planting the single central wheel precisely where I wanted, on the runway centerline, with enough speed left to roll off smoothly onto the taxiway, clear of the active runway, energy dissipating evenly and under control. The wingtip kisses the tarmac.

Back safely on the ground, I unlatch the canopy, unbuckle and climb out, knees stiff after hours reclined in the cockpit. Here at ground level it is still warm. I swing the canopy open.

I glance into the cockpit for an instant—so simple and familiar, those instruments and controls. They represent perhaps the most difficult tests of my life, every time I fly. ____________________________________________________________________________

*Walter is a renowned thoracic surgeon and former soaring champion.