Sniffing Ammonia

1/23/10
I knocked around camp the rest of the morning, surprised by my own anger, willing to decree to anyone who would listen to me complain about "what a sh#t hole this place is." Though proper sanitation is as hard to find as a good Amish Casino, the level of contempt I exuded seemed, even to me, to be overdone. After all, the snow-capped summits of the Andes lay scattered and complex below us in geologic testimony. On a better day back in Bellingham looking down on these would not be an option. "Look," I said aloud (I think) to myself as I stood with hands in pockets at the edge of the 3,000 foot drop-off that defines the southern edge of camp. "Look at those mountains and shake it off, Dave!" But I could not. Then I realized what was happening.
My Senior year of High School I turned out for the football team. Lacking speed, size, height, and strength, I was put on the team our Varsity squad practiced on. Myself, and the rest of the cannon fodder saw almost no actual game time as we were typically injured by Friday night. But we got to suit up and follow the real players around like a dog grateful to the master who kicks him. My favorite part of this was the pre-game locker room talk by the Coach; not so much for the words (few Coaches are very good at inspirational speeches) but for the behaviors displayed. My clearest memory is John Callahan, a five foot six defensive lineman who easily weighed in north of 250 pounds. John would sit there during the pep-talk and force himself to sniff ammonia strips, recoiling from each waft with a wild-eyed look that said "whoever just did that to me has got an ass-kicking coming!" Then he would take another sniff.
In my own way I was sniffing ammonia this morning   ...and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe I will need that wild-eyed fight when the time comes.

The AAI team moved into High Camp this afternoon. Now absent Scary Steve from Idaho, they are a team of six. There are four Climbers: Scott (a retired stockbroker from Calgary), Tony (a scrappy New Yorker who has summitted Denali and is clearly the best bet among the group to stand atop Aconcagua), Steve (a retired Engineer from Chicago), and Brian (my Kilimanjaro Teammate from Minnesota). Plus there are two Guides: The ever-affable and remarkably tireless Aiden, and the linguistically colorful Kevin. Ty and I chatted with the AAI Team as they set up next to our tent. I watched Brian carefully, evaluating his stability, efficiency, and energy. In a candid moment several days ago Brian admitted to me his concerns over how he would do up high. "I just want to make it to High Camp," he said, adding "that's my goal."
"That seems like a reasonable goal," I responded, adding "you can always see how you feel from there." I had a pretty good idea how Brian would be feeling and privately expected if he made it to High Camp he would not remain there long.
I was wrong.
Brian looked solid. His footing seemed confident, his strength intact, and contrary to the quiet inward persona of a sick Climber, Brian joked among his team mates, commenting, as is his habit, with too much information on his private body functions.
"We're all on Diomox," Kevin had commented earlier when I asked how they were doing. But Brian later came over to clarify that HE was the exception. "I just want you to know, I'm not on the Diomox," he told me, aware of my journaling and careful with the precision of posterity.
Steve from Chicago soon gathered up an altitude headache and retired to his tent. Unable to carry any loads between camps, he has already accepted the implausibility of attempting the summit. This will be his point of return. I would guess Steve to be in his mid sixties. That given, to suffer the discomforts of these days and grunt all the way to almost 20,000 feet is both courageous and impressive. He seems at peace with this outcome.

The AAI Team will rest tomorrow while Ty and I take our shot at the summit of Aconcagua. They are excited for us. We are vested in one anothers storylines and want nothing more than happy endings. It shows in their eyes, the looks that say "show us it can be done." Yet something stands in the way of actual words. That something is honesty. By the time a Climber arrives at this point he has whatever he is going to have. The state his physical strength and mental toughness are in are the best he could do. And if circumstances require something much more, it will have to come from who that Climber is deep down inside.  At this point encouragement is bullshit and we all know it.