Jim Davidson - The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier

Copyright 2011 by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan
Title-page photograph copyright iStockphoto.com / Brett Despain

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this work were originally published in different form in the
Rocky Mountain News.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission
to print previously unpublished material:

Scott Anderson: excerpt from a card from Scott Anderson
to Jim Davidson from 1992. Used courtesy of Scott Anderson.

Joanne (Markowski) Donohue: excerpts from the journals of Joanne (Markowski) Donohue. Used courtesy of Joanne Markowski Donohue.

John Madden: note from John Madden to Jim Davidson.
Used courtesy of John Madden.

Don and Donna Price: writings, including journal entries, by Mike Price. Used courtesy of Don and Donna Price.

The Ruess family: quote by Everett Ruess. Used courtesy of the Ruess family.

Mark Udall: excerpt from a letter from Mark Udall to Jim Davidson from July 1992. Used courtesy of Mark Udall.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Davidson, Jim.
The ledge: an adventure story of friendship and survival on Mount Rainier /
Jim Davidson, Kevin Vaughan.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52321-1
1. Mountaineering accidentsWashington (State)Rainier, Mount. 2. MountaineeringWashington (State)Rainier, Mount. 3. Davidson, Jim. 4. Price, Mike. 5. MountaineersUnited StatesBiography. I. Vaughan, Kevin. II. Title.
GV199.42.W22D38 2011 796.52209797782dc22 2011010515

www.ballantinebooks.com

Jacket design: Daniel Rembert
Front jacket images: Alamy/Marc Muench (background),
courtesy of Jim Davidson (climbers)

v3.1

Dedicated to
Mike Price

June 23, 1992

Dear Mike,

Jesus, man, Im sorry! I cant believe this happened to you and to us I swear to God, Mike, I didnt mean to fall into that crevasse and I certainly didnt want to pull you in behind me

Everyone tells me that it was all an accident and that it could have been the other way around just as easy. I suppose theyre right.

I really enjoyed our climb Godwerent our bivouacs wild? We were like real alpine hard menas you said, this climb should make some great stories

I apologize if my nervousness made you mad or frustrated. Perhaps it was a lack of courage. Perhaps it was foreboding. My crevasse fear did build and build right up to the last few hours and minutesperhaps I knew.

I assure you that had you gone in first, I too would have dug in for all I was worth and then would have gone right in behind you. I think you know that, though. I truly felt we were friends and partners

I shall strive to take this second chance Ive been given and unfurl my wings and fly with it, not turn inward into a dark ball. I shall strive to live a strong, forward-moving, vivacious life in your honor.

Take care, Mike.
Your friend,
Jim

I peer off the ledge into blackness. Pressing my gloved hand against the ice wall for balance, I tilt my head to the right and stare past my boots, half-buried in loose snow. Squeezing my left eye shut, I look straight down my right hip and leg, as if Im sighting along a rifle barrel. I am desperate to see the bottom of this dim cavern.

Nothing. Empty space drops below us and vanishes. My stomach clamps tight, and I swallow hard.

Even through my thick climbing gloves, cold seeps out of the ice wall and stings my fingertips. I pull my hand back and exhale a ragged breath.

Fear forces me, for the moment, to block out the ominous space looming around and below, so instead I study the ledge were on. Its been a few minutes since the collapse happened and we crash-landed here. My eyes have now adjusted to the muted blue light filtering down from far above. Our frozen shelf is about seven feet long and two feet wide. Mike lies on the snow ledge lengthwise, his feet dangling a few inches over the far end. Im standing next to him, with the toe of my left mountaineering boot touching his climbing harness.

I step back to give him some room, but right away my shoulder bumps against the frozen wall behind me. When I reach forward, my hand hits the far ice wall before I can straighten my arm. A mild wave of claustrophobic tension ripples through my chest, but I push it away and shuffle about to find more space. But with Mike, his pack and gear all jumbled across our small ledge, theres nowhere else for me to stand. One long strand of yellow climbing rope loops off the ledge just beyond Mikes head, so I bend over to reel it back in before it snags on something.

With my head down low, I feel wetness drip off my nose. I run my forearm across my face and see dark smears on my jacket sleeve. Blood.

Retrieving the rope forces me to confront the dark space beneath our ledge. Fighting to stay calm, I focus on trying to figure out where we are inside the glacier, and how much deeper the crevasse stretches beneath us. The rope droops down at least twenty feet without touching anything; beyond that, I see nothing. Deep below me, the glacial sidewalls are nearly as black as the crevasse itselfI can distinguish them only by the glint of weak light reflecting off the ice. The walls pinch closer until the gap between them is less than a foot across.

Im not going down there.

To my right, the crevasse stretches laterally away from me as it tunnels more than one hundred feet farther into the mountainside. Its like looking into a dark, narrow alley, just two feet across, squeezed between towering buildings. At the far end our fissure burrows even deeper beneath the glacier and the gloom fades to impenetrable black.

I turn and look in the opposite direction, along the crevasses long axis as it stretches down the mountain. Peering out over Mike, I figure the crevasse extends about two hundred feet that way. I pull in a sharp breath and hear my hiss echo off the ice wall. This slot is enormous.

Slowly, I face the awful truth: Were stuck on a tiny ledge, trapped alone inside this miles-long glacier. God only knows how far down we areI havent dared to look up yet. But theres no question about it: Were deep, deep inside.

It happened so fast. One second we were descending the mountain, nearly finished with the most remarkable alpine climbing experience of our lives, just hours after summiting Mount Rainier. Then a step, a single treacherous step, in the wrong spot.

A snow bridge collapsed, and in a second, I was falling, fallingdragging Mike in behind me. Falling, falling.

And now, this. Trapped in a crevasse.

I drop my head and stare at my green plastic boots. Im shocked by the massive space below us, on both sides of us, above us. It feels as if the weight of all the air in the huge cavern is squashing me.

By looking down and to the sides, I had hoped that I might find a simple exit. But now its clear: The only way out is up.

I steel myself to face that reality, to determine how far the distance to the glaciers surface really is. Leaning my forehead against the ice wall, I close my eyes, blow out a long breath, and try to find some calm. I need a minute before I can look.