Unbroken Chain | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Unbroken Chain

Today's Question
How do you make primitive snowshoes? answer

What should you do if you get lost driving in a snow storm? answer

Today's Question
What is the greenest ski and snowboard on the market? answer

Can I really damage a coral reef with sunscreen while snorkeling? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine November 2002

Page:

The Hard Way
Unbroken Chain
Every adventurer knows those magical moments when it all flows—and those wretched times when it won't

By Mark Jenkins


	(Illustration by Tavis Coburn)

BRYAN BORNHOLDT AND I WERE traversing the airy spine of the Bighorn Mountains, leaping block to block. We had ascended 1,500 feet before dawn began saturating the rock and the sky and the trout-shaped clouds with a deep pink. The first two summits along the ridgeline were already behind us. Only six more to go.

Bryan had been uncharacteristically lagging behind. He only passed me once, almost wearily, as I stopped to take some photographs. When he was 200 yards ahead, I yelled for him to turn around. It was windy on the ridge and I had to shout again before he stopped and struck the classic mountaineer's pose, a heroic silhouette against the immense, jagged skyline.

After the trip, back home, I found myself studying this snapshot. Odd how we instinctively trust the veracity of a photograph. The sharpness and clarity suggest reliability. A photo, at least on the surface, which is all there is in a photo, appears to tell the truth. Of course, in actuality, a photo reveals only a paper-thin slice of a single moment. It's no more truthful than a bullet before it is fired or a match before it is lit. In the next second, everything could be different.

When I caught up with Bryan, he was gingerly backstepping along a knife-edge arête. The exposure was startling: a 2,000-foot drop to either side. Where I stood the rock was still granite, but beyond a crevasselike fissure, the ridge abruptly changed to crumbling volcanic tuff. Bryan was out there trying to keep his balance. With each backward step, the stone disintegrated beneath his feet and gushed down in sick rock slides on both faces. His legs seemed unsure. At one point he pirouetted 180 degrees, wobbled violently, steadied himself like a tightrope walker, then raised his head and looked across at me. I was jolted. There was horror in his eyes, and his bearded face was a gray mask. But I could do nothing. We were unroped.

It is unsettling to discover a layer of fragile, unsound rock concealed between deep strata of solid granite, but not uncommon. In the geological life of mountains, all the internal pressures—the constant bending and twisting and subducting—are complex, and under extreme circumstances, weaknesses will inevitably come to the surface.

By the time Bryan stepped back onto solid rock, he was badly shaken. I'd never seen him like this before. He was the last person I could imagine losing it.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

I moved carefully out along the deteriorating ridge, going past where Bryan had turned back. "Well," I yelled into the wind, "there's nothing out here to tie a rope to." Then the rock began collapsing under my feet like a sand castle and I quickly retreated.

It was an impasse. Our once-sturdy backbone of granite had suddenly become spineless. We were forced to change plans.

Page: