We Fell into a Burning Ring of Fire

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We Fell into a Burning Ring of Fire


	The Crew: Team Desk Jockey: from left, Casey Vandenoever, Chris Keyes, Eric Hansen, Eric Hagerman, Kevin Fedarko, Marc Peruzzi, Tim Neville, and Nick Heil, all looking a little shell-shocked on day nine after more than 42,000 vertical feet of climbing and skiing Michael Darter

IT'S BAD ENOUGH to hear this kind of thing from a guide whom you're paying to keep you alive in the mountains, but Ingersoll's connection to our venture is far more tenuous: He basically invited himself along for the fun of it, an offer we accepted, thinking his skills would help to offset our weaknesses. Nonetheless, his assessment is painfully accurate. Ever since we left the parking lot, nearly 5,000 vertical feet below, inexperience has been swirling around us like spindrift.

At the trailhead we discovered that Michael Darter, our freelance photographer, forgot his climbing skins, a mistake that forced him to boot-pack the entire route to Muir. Less than two hours into the climb, three of us who hadn't bothered to break in our ski-mountaineering boots with fully loaded packs (see "Screw-ups," page 100) were desperately patching blisters with moleskin. Our collective lack of preparedness became most clear at Camp Muir when Ingersoll informally quizzed us on climbing knots. A few of us were able to produce a well-wrought butterfly, a standard knot used to tie in to the middle of a rope, but we all failed horribly when it came to equally important (and simple) knots like clove hitches and bowlines. If there was a point at which we felt that Ingersoll might be an overbearing egotist threatening to take over our trip, it was also starkly apparent why we needed him. He could tie a bowline with one hand; I couldn't tie one with two.

As I sat listening to The Doug and staring into my glutinous, rapidly chilling dinner, I couldn't help but think that what had started out as a classic ski-mountaineering trip was spiraling into disaster. The group had become laconic, even sullen—gone were the wisecracks and ribbing that were standard fare during the months of planning and training that got us here. Earlier I overheard two of my companions speaking in hushed tones about bailing out and going kayaking down in Oregon. We're doomed, I thought. Even if we summit Rainier, the fraternal fabric we've knit together has shredded. And, because both the trip itself and Ingersoll's presence on it were my idea, it's entirely my fault.

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