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Prussiks Are Cool
Ringringring, it's 2am and the alarm is going off so its time to get up. Crackrumblecrashcrashcrashsplash bits of the glacier fall off and smash on the slabs then fall into the lake we are camped besides. Mark hiked out yesterday and Jay and Jer and Michel are out attempting veryhardshit, so it is just Jan and me. We get up and start hiking across the moraine any through the boulder field and up the grassy slope, going too slow as Jan is feeling dizzy and lightheaded but some chocolate helps and soon we are in the talus above and then on the verglassed slabs very glad for the fixed rope we left the day before and then on the slabs and talus and snow above and at 5.30 putting on crampons and goretex and ropes and other fun stuff. 6 am the sun is just coming up and we take pictures and start across the glacier below Rinrihirka (a nice 5800m peak which were are planning to climb). Crusty snow which we break through to ankles, then as we step sink into sugar snow up to our shins or knees or occasionally more so we trudge up, go left or right to avoid the big crevasse and the next one and across the snow bridge and hmm, how to get around that one not sure maybe go left. So I step just like always and sink in a bit and a bit more and then more and then the sky, which before was very big and blue, becomes very small but still a pleasant early morning shade of blue. It is also blue below and left and right which is also a change, and slightly colder because I am 5m down in a crevasse, which is actually a much more pleasant place than I hade imagined, nice and dry, but not quite as nice as on the glacier above because the view of the early morning light on the mountains is not as good. I was not hurt, so I quickly set about to find my camera to take some pictures, then decided to try to prussik out. Prussiks are cool, they only cost about 5 bucks and can get you out of a crevasse. It takes about 15 minutes maybe longer depending on how hurt or cold and wet and miserable or just apathetic you are, but this is generally preferable to spending the rest of your life in a crevasse, which after the first few minutes become quite boring.
Anyway, after getting my pack off as I was a bit wedged I could get the ends of my prussik free and start climbing out, which was not too bad. I think Jan was quite happy to see me as she could not get a decent anchor in the deep sugar snow and was resorting to using her pack as a dead man anchor. But she missed the really good photo opportunity of me climbing out of the crevasse and I didn't want to go back in so later I had to dig a makeshift crevasse for a historical re-enactment of the event and photo opportunity. We decided seeing as it was 6am and we were falling in crevasses and could not build good anchors we did not want to be on the glacier in the afternoon when were tired and coming back down, so we called it a day and went bouldering instead.
Prussiks are cool.
