The Haul Bag
Christina O’Malley gently rocked back and forth in her lounge chair overlooking the north face of the Eiger mountain deep within the Swiss Alps. This foreboding piece of rock and ice stood touching the very heavens at well over three-thousand meters. The next morning she would be making a summit attempt to climb what locals call Mordwand, or the murder wall.
The more Christina thought about her climbing plans the more paralyzed she became. A seemingly ancient mountain resort dressed up in the finest of woodworking and perfectly painted colors sat at the base. Even as she lounged on the sun deck with a stiff drink in hand, the north face of the Eiger was taunting her. Waiting for her to be forced to retreat.
“Nervous for tomorrow Amerikan?” A voice shouted from behind Christina’s chair.
The wooden deck flexed as the voice placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see the overtly happy face of her Swiss guide Hanz. He was a pretty average-looking human. Dark hair, light eyes, not overly strong or skinny. His only defining feature was his largely tangled and wild beard and shoulder-length hair combo.
“No! I’m not nervous! If anything you’ll be nervous I’ll beat you to the top.” Christina said with a clearly nervous chuckle.
“You should be nervous Amerikan,” Hanz responded.
“Why? Haven’t you climbed the Eiger hundreds of times?”
“Not the north face. I’ve only climbed the north face a handful of times.” Hanz answered with a grim tone.
“Please Hanz, you’re just being humble. I mean how bad can it be?”
“Up there, on the climb. Temperatures will get down to negative ten or less. The wind will be whipping so fast, you’ll feel that you’re going to fly off into the void below. If you listen really closely, you’ll hear the tourists down here clink their wine glasses together as we are hammering in more pitons.”
Christina looked confused for a moment. “Pitons?”
Hanz’s smile faded on his face. “Just don’t kill any of us, Amerikan. When you’re done here come meet us inside the hotel. We can go over plans and you can meet the rest of the climbing party.”
Christina’s fears and questions were not alleviated from this remark but it was too late to back down now. Thinking about her brother’s ashes tucked into her rucksack gave her enough motivation to peel herself off the lounge chair and venture inside the hotel.
“Amerikan! Christina! Come on over.” Hanz shouted. “Okay, Amerikan meet the rest of the team. We have Mario from Italy, Dom from Austria, and Maire from France.”
The rest of the evening went on with a few too many glasses of wine and climbing plans. Christina would be in the middle of the group and be hauling most of the heavy gear. It was an unwritten rule in the climbing world. The least experienced member carries the heaviest pack. The party went to sleep shortly after the last sunrays faded from the cloudless sky.
Dawn came and Christina hadn’t fully processed what she was doing until she was cautiously tapping every piece of rock and ice she put her weight on as she made her snail’s pace climb behind Hanz. Mario was charging forward as the leader, followed by Hanz, Christina, and Marie, and Dom rounding out the team, picking up all the various pieces of gear.
Hanz flashed an “okay” hand signal before the radio on his rucksack began screaming in German. Like a flash of lightning, he picked it up and listened more intently.
“That was just the weather station! We have an hour before we get socked into a storm. We still have almost two-hundred meters until our bivy. So we need to climb fast, hard, and safe!” Hanz screamed to the team.
“Hanz! What the hell is a bivy? Shouldn’t we just bail?” Christina screamed back.
Dom rushed to answer her question. “Amerikan! A bivy is the emergency camp! Were you even listening last night? Oh did you have too much wine?”
“Screw you, Dom! Hanz come on let’s just bail!”
“Christina, we can’t bail! We have to make it to the bivy. It will take too long to downclimb.” Maire chimed in.
Christina felt paralyzed by fear but was snapped out of it by a pebble hitting her cheek. The party had to move on. Otherwise, they would be blown off the mountain. The next hour was the most intense climbing Christina had ever experienced. Loose rock was constantly falling, hitting everyone in the party on the helmets, axes, hands, and backs. The wind was picking up at a feverous pace, throwing everyone around the route. The temperature was dropping to dangerous levels.
The team was less than five meters from the bivy when Christina was forced to stop. Her hands were fully numb and on fire at the same time. Christina’s arms and legs were so full of lactic acid that every muscle was seizing up and begging for her to stop.
Mario and Hanz topped out first and set to work building an anchor for the rest of the team to come up to the microscopic ledge that would function as a camp for the next couple of hours. Right as Christina was about to grab the edge and haul her broken body on top of the ledge, her foothold gave away.
Under normal conditions, Christina would have been able to maintain her grip with only her upper body strength. However, with an incoming storm, the stress of climbing, and her fifteen-kilo rucksack there was nothing she could do but embrace the void and scream loud enough to make avalanches jealous.
She whipped past the rest of the team and fell well over ten meters until her rope and Hanz finally caught her. Christina was left dangling over empty space with only a thin, now freezing rope protecting her from a several hundred-meter tumble into death.
“PULL ME UP! PULL ME UP!” Christina screamed up the slope.
There was no response only the howling of the incoming storm. The rope began to move slightly but suddenly Christina was dropped another full meter.
“HANZ! MARIO! ANYONE!”
Still, no one could hear Christina. She started screaming until her voice went horse but nothing happened. Christina started to swing back and forth on the rope in an attempt to grab onto the face. She could see a small cave and was hell-bent on reaching it.
Through her swings, her rope was actively sawing against a small edge cutting deep into the core of the rope. At the last possible second, she managed to just barely grab the ledge of the cave as she pulled herself in and her rope fell behind her.
The cave was pitch black but sounded endless. She took a cautious step inside, before tripping over something. Quickly fishing out her headlamp from her pack she flipped it on to discover a body dressed in what looked like world war two clothing. Naturally, she screamed and backed away almost off the edge.
“Oh don’t mind him. Lazy bastard won’t get up!” A gruff voice mumbled.
Christina whipped her head back around to be greeted by a man leaning up against the cave wall dressed in a similar fashion to the possibly dead body at her feet.
“Hey! Get that light out of my eyes!” The man said.
Christina was too stunned to speak or move. The man simply grumbled and grabbed an old gas lantern and lit it; seemingly with no matches.
“Who are you?” Christina asked with a trembling voice.
“My name is Karl and that is Max.” the man explained.
“Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmeyer?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
Christina’s stomach dropped through her feet. “Oh god, oh god, I’m dead. I died. The rope must have snapped.”
“What are you talking about Frau?” Karl asked confused.
“You two are dead! At least you’re supposed to be dead.”
Karl looked around and then looked at himself. “Do I look dead to you? I know we’ve been up here for a while but still.”
“Yes! You and Max froze to death back in 1935…”
“You sure you didn’t get hit by a rock Frau?”
“Maybe, this could all just be a cold and fatigue-induced hallucination.”
Karl shrugged his shoulders and peeked out the cave opening. “Still quite the storm. You might be here for a while. Might as well settle in.”
Christina took one more look behind her at the now raging storm outside of the cave. Frustrated but exhausted she plopped down against the wall.
“So what’s your name Frau?” Karl asked Christina.
“Christina, but right now I should be called a dumbass.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Let’s see, I’m barely a hiker, and all because my stupid brother died and demanded that his ashes be spread up here, I’m possibly dead on the side of a mountain talking to a ghost.” Christina cried out.
“Aren’t we all kind of stupid?” Karl asked.
“Huh?”
“There’s nothing at the top of this mountain. Only thin air and snow. But yet your brother wanted to be left up there.” Karl explained
“It’s different. I want to let his spirit rest there. So he can look at beautiful views for the rest of time.”
Karl looked disappointed at her response. “So you didn’t do any part of this for you?”
Christina wanted to feel angry but couldn’t. “I guess not. But yet, here am I.”
Karl didn’t say anything just looked distantly at Christina.
“Can I ask you a question?” Christina asked.
“Sure,” Karl answered.
“Why did you and Max try to climb this? To your point, there’s nothing at the top of this tower but death, rock, and ice.”
Karl thought for a moment before responding. “Honestly…just to see if we could. The mountain was here and the journey seemed a fun challenge.”
“You cannot be serious. You put your life and your family’s sanity at total risk for nothing? Just to say that you can climb something that no one has climbed before.”
Karl smiled a cool smile at Christina. “You’re clearly not a climber. But answer your question it’s not about anyone else. This is a spiritual journey for yourself. Of course, there’s no point in climbing any mountain. However, it’s about pushing yourself to the limit to understand some greater truth about your life and the fleeting nature of the human experience.”
“Wow…you practice that in a mirror? That’s kind of a douchebag explanation.”
“Douchebag? I’m not sure I understand this English word.”
“Doesn’t matter. I guess there’s nothing left to do now but freeze to death.” Christina said with her tears freezing on her cheek.
