I haven't slept a minute.
Around midnight I started shivering so badly I began to worry about my future. I don't see how things can get any worse than this. We won't be able to last through another night. Especially me, as I have really blown it with the sleeping bag. But I am far from being the weakest link. If everyone is going to stay here, then I shall too, even though it is endangering our lives. I'm not the only one; no-one else has any dry clothes either. Fatal hypothermia threatens us all; conditions are perfect for it: cold, wind, rain, wet clothes and the impossibility of getting warm and dry.
The situation is getting very serious.
We have to work something out as no goat is worth being carried off the mountain in a body bag.
As a last resort I unfolded my survival foil during the night. It helped a little, but my wet feet just wouldn't get warm. I put my wet socks on my stomach; according to old arctic explorers, they will dry during the night. Every 10mins. I shift in my sleeping bag, praying that, at some point in my life, I will feel warm again.
I am awfully cold.
I've never been so cold before.
Everything is wet. Outside the wind is howling. What will it be like in the morning? What will it feel like when I have to leave the relative comfort of this sanctuary? I don't have a single dry item of clothing left. R. can't sleep much either, though he has a warmer sleeping bag than I have. What is going to happen to us? And how will the hunt end?
Slowly, it gets light. I'm not going to move until I've got a really good reason for doing so. It was hard to muster this tiny bit of warmth, and I'm not going to lose it.
At 8.00am Greg puts his head in and says: - Come out quickly and quietly.
I leap out of my sleeping bag - it is so cold! - and step into my wet, rock-hard boots, which crackle with ice. I'm afraid that they'll freeze to my feet.
There is a goat above the camp, not more than 900ft. away. We can see it quite plainly from here.
Greg says it is a billy.
He decides R. should have a go.
This is what I was expecting; we discussed it yesterday. R. can't climb any more mountains. He'll try for the goat that is nearest.
That's the way it is.
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I once read that, in war, the best trained soldiers have the lowest chances of survival. The better troops can fight, the more dangerous the place to which they will be sent. Hunting is like that.
Whoever has trained and prepared well, will be given the most difficult game. And whoever looks for pity, and can't manage the fight, will only have to move a couple of feet from the tent.
I quite understand Greg's reasons. He must get a goat for everyone, his good name depends on it. And R. will either shoot this goat, or nothing at all. He staggers from the tent, examining his gun: he is always tampering with it.
They set up a rucksack for him, and show him where the goat is. R. lies down, I put on my ear-defenders. Meanwhile Greg asks me if I managed to get any sleep and if I have any dry clothes.
The answer is no to both questions. It's not very reassuring to see that all his clothes are wet,too; he doesn't seem to be in very good shape. R.'s gun has a compensator so it is even louder than normal guns - I heard it while we were testing them - and Greg puts on ear-defenders as well...
He takes a while to aim…Bang!
Nothing.
The goat is lying down - the poor thing is probably trying to get some sleep in this awful weather; it doesn't even wake up. The noise of battle might be giving it bad dreams. R. tries again… the goat gets up. It must have worked out something is going on because it moves off nervously. A third shot… it strikes above it. A fourth… it is a definite hit, we can see its convulsions but it wasn't a clean shot. If a goat has been shot properly by a bullet from a .3000 WSM, it isn't going anywhere.
Greg lets Randy shoot… the shot lands above it. Meanwhile, R. is busy reloading ... Randy has a second try… again it strikes above it. He's shooting in the right direction, but all his shots land 8 -
12ins. higher than they should. I think the problem is that when taking aim, he is only taking the
"real" distance into consideration, not the distance measured horizontally. Ballistics, however, aren't affected by how much higher above us the target is because, as the bullet drops in flight, all that counts is the distance horizontally. That's why wise old chamoix hunters say that when shooting uphill, or down, you always have to aim a little low as, irrespective of how far the chamois is, from a bal istic point of view, it is as if the target was nearer. This is what Ottó always told me, too. Randy, of course, is an experienced shooter who, after his second mistake realises what is causing his shots to go high. With his third shot - R. is still fiddling with his gun - the goat falls. It tumbles down for at least 60ft. and is quite dead by the time it stops.
R. is looking at his gun, shaking his head, but no-one is interested. He just doesn't fit in. There are no congratulations. When men go off to the mountains they form a team. It is quite normal that there are clients and guides; that difference never disappears. There are jobs which must
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only be done by the guides, and the clients don't have to help because they are the clients. But the guides have to know that they can rely on their hunters. And R. cannot be relied on.
We are not going to collect the goat.
We all agree that we have to return to the boat today, and time is running out. If I don't bag anything today we can still come back, and there should be enough time for another try. On the ship our clothes will dry out in a day, and my plane isn't leaving until the 30th. Though the best thing would be if we didn't have to come back up here. So now we must try and find a goat for me, but where we are going to find one in the next 4-5hrs. - if I shoot any later, there'll be no time to get back - I don't know. If I get my billy soon, there will be still time to collect the game already bagged. As I have already said, our camp is on a saddle. At either end of it there is a peak - that's what makes it a saddle… R.'s goat was standing halfway up one of the peaks. Before the first shot we had seen two more goats on the opposite peak, but all the shooting has been too much for them. And now there is no trace of them.
We have just one chance left.
We must climb the peak.
We just have to hope that we will find at least one on the other side. We put on our climbing irons and set off to the mountain…
And, there on that mountain, Hell was waiting for us.
Alaska had decided that it would not let us have any more goats. No-one can imagine what the conditions on that mountain were like. I don't think I'm really able to describe them: the blasting wind is stronger than ever. It is not just raining, it is pouring. The terrain is merciless. We have to study the elevation in front of us to work out where to start climbing. The cold is terrible. The rain soon turns to sleet. My hands are numb with cold, even the skin on them is beginning to wrinkle.
And my gloves are still wet from yesterday. I don't have a dry pocket; there is nowhere to put my hands to warm them up. How can I shoot like this?
We start our climb.
The climbing irons on our boots are useless. We are constantly sliding backwards, but here there are no thickets every few feet to stop us. Whoever starts slipping here, will slide all the way down to the sea. We have to consider every single step. Greg is always telling me exactly where to put my feet, but I can't hear anything he says. If I'm more than a couple of feet away from him, the storm drowns out everything he says. The wind is so strong that we have to move on all fours: we cannot stand up. It presses our wet clothes against our bodies. We are on a very steep climb, but I'm still not sweating. This is a bad sign. Once, when I looked down, the landscape started moving in front of my eyes.
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I am staggeringly cold.
Greg comes up to me and says something, but I can't tell what. I try to focus on his mouth but I can't see it properly. Randy is behind me, I glance back at him… his color doesn't look too good.
All three of us are shivering. I'm hungry but I don't want to eat. I'm thirsty but I don't want a drink.
The ground beneath our feet is one continuous stream and our boots sink into it. I drop my flask into the water; I must drink something! But after a couple of gulps I feel sick. I fall down and the water from the mountain runs into my clothes. I try to stand up but my climbing irons won't grip, so I fall again. I get on all fours and continue by crawling on my stomach. Part of one of my fingernails comes off. The icy rain is running down my neck. Every stone is covered with moss and each one is more slippery than the last.
There's not a goat in sight.
I can't tell where we are heading. What makes us think there are going to be goats, or any living creature, up here? The mountain is never going to end. We shall be climbing it for the rest of our lives. After each rise we see another, even higher. The wind almost blows us down into a chasm.
I can't feel my hands at all.
I can hardly believe it, but we have finally reached the top. I lie down on the wet rocks and wait to see what's going to happen. Greg crawls forward… he signals with his hand for me to stay put.
He creeps back to us.
There is a goat here.
At the moment it is 1350ft. away, but by using the ground cover we should be able to get closer.
This is my only chance. If I don't shoot this, we won't be able to look for another. There will be no time. Then, either I will go home without a goat, or - weather permitting - we will have to come up here again. We don't even want to think about that. We creep towards the billy under the cover of a ridge.
Randy crawls up to me.
How will we get back to the camp, I ask - how will we get back to the ship?
Don't worry about that now, he replies, it's not your job. Your job is to shoot the goat. Understand?
Yes - I answer.
So? - he asks.
I must shoot this goat!
Then shoot it! - he says, pointing at the rucksack.
I crawl forward and Greg keeps his eyes on the billy. He asks if I can see it. It would be hard not to see that white coat against all the dark gray rocks. I pass my gun forward and he slides it onto the rucksack. I crawl up beside him. I take of the front lens cap. The back one was lost a long time ago and I remove some grass from the lens. This gun has been out all night in the pouring
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rain, half-submerged in water. I also had a bad fal while I was carrying it…
696ft.
Not far.
It wouldn't be a difficult shot for a relaxed hunter in good mental and physical condition, who is shooting in fine weather with an accurate gun on a proper gun rest. But for me, right here and now, it is almost impossible. But here I am. It's why we're all here. It's why we're putting up with this cold. I must do my best. The wind has dropped a little, but I can't tell where it's coming from...
The goat is shielded by a pine tree. Its white coat glimmers through the branches. It starts to move; now it is a clear target, but it keeps on moving… It has stopped...
The Blaser has fired…
The goat collapses, as if struck by lightning, and starts to slide towards a chasm that is over 300ft. deep… worried shouts - it mustn't fall in there, as we'd never be able to reach it today… it is stopped by a mountain pine at the very edge of the drop.
Now we can celebrate, and I put down my gun. It is a very good little gun! It can still hit its target, even in these awful conditions. It hasn't lost its settings, and it didn't give a damn about the weather! It spat the SST exactly where it had to go. Hugs all round and general euphoria. But our celebrations don't last for long. It has not got one degree warmer and the goat is in a place that will be very hard to reach. Greg and Randy go off to check out the possibilities and I remain where I made the shot.
It takes them 15min. to get there.
But what are they doing?
Have they gone insane?
They are crawling towards the goat!
I'm no mountaineer, but even I know you shouldn't go out on that ledge. Not without ropes and harness! Especially in this weather! I am shivering with cold and nerves. The goat should be left where it is! I don't want anyone to go onto that ledge on my behalf. We can say that I missed it.
The birds will demolish it in a few days. No-one will ever know. No damn goat is worth the life of a human being!
They go even further out onto the ledge. Beneath them is a bottomless abyss.
And then the goat solves the entire problem. A huge blast of wind comes, suddenly shifting the goat's center of gravity, and, inch by inch, it slowly turns towards the chasm until it topples in and falls to the bottom, bouncing against the rock wall several times as it goes. I give a huge sigh.
Greg and Randy come back. We start our descent to the camp. There's no chance of getting to the goat today. We just have to accept it. There is still tomorrow; it can be found then. Now we
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should just scram, and right away! But this descent… I haven't done many things more dangerous than this in my life. 80% of all mountaineering accidents take place during descents.
Exhaustion and lack of concentration always go together, so I really try to keep focused. I carefully plan every step, always picking the safest path, even if it is the longest. I have my goat.
No-one is going to remove it from its current position before tomorrow. The task at the moment is to get back safely to camp.
There will be enough time to deal with anything else later.
Greg goes on ahead to show us the way.
According to the rules of mountaineering, Randy is bringing up the rear. We have to make several detours as what was more or less a safe path on the way up, is not, on the way down.
It is 2.00pm when we reach camp.
The guides go to get the first billy, and I lie down in my tent. Before they leave, they give both of us a packet of Mountain House freeze-dried food, and a Jetboil camp stove. I'm not feeling at all hungry, but Greg won't take any arguments: we're not going to leave until both packets have been eaten. That's a good enough reason for me to force it down my throat. As it's not worth getting out of my wet clothes into a damp sleeping bag only for 11/2 - 2hrs., I keep them on, and just wrap my survival foil around me. I lie on my back and hang my boots with their climbing irons outside the tent entrance and wait for the two guides to return.
This was not a bright move.
I didn't notice that my legs were pressing down the front of the tent, letting the water running down the mountain seep slowly in. I finally realise when the water has risen over the inflatable mattress. I feel an entirely new type of cold on my back, which rouses my suspicions… our tent is practically submerged.
I cautiously tell R. the bad news. And, to his credit, he stays calm. We check out the damage. On the one hand, nothing has managed to evade the water; on the other, it doesn't really make any difference to us. All of our clothes, which were already dripping wet, have just got even wetter.
Greg and Randy return with the goat. They have already skinned it and put it in bags. R. hit it twice; one shot was a meat shot, in a back leg, and the other was an entrail shot in front of its thigh. Randy hit it precisely, in the shoulder.
We start dismantling the camp.
Greg and Randy have to carry the skin, meat and trophy. According to custom, the one who bagged it, must also help to carry it. It was like that at Brooks Range, in Canada, and should be the same here. But, knowing R.'s attitude so far, there's a fat chance of that happening. So I have to help out. Greg throws a bag of garbage and one of the tents beside my rucksack. I tie them on.
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Next stop, the yacht! We begin the descent.
Each level has its own difficulties. There is one danger, however, that is common to all of them: sliding. Without our climbing irons we wouldn't be able to move. There is the danger of broken ankles with every step. When we get to the thicket level, the job begins to get a little easier. We turn our backs to the chasm and use the branches as climbing ropes, descending like that. Every step we must force our climbing irons firmly into the earth. The water surges around our feet. But in one place I make a mistake. The wet earth rips from underneath my climbing irons, I fall on my backside, and start to slide down quickly. I can't slow down, my heavy rucksack is pushing me on.
Hearing my yell Greg looks back, forces his climbing irons and ice axe into the ground, and, just as I slide past, jumps on me.
I stop.
6ft. from a small boulder.
Beyond which is a 60ft. crevass.
I'm puffing heavily; Greg was in exactly the right place. It takes a while for the adrenalin to leave my blood.
This is why you should only go up in the mountains with the right people. With people who don't just look on helplessly, or yell uselessly, but, in a fraction of a second, can assess the situation and act. I wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for him.
Twilight is getting near, and we are still a long way from the lake shore where we left the inflatable and the kayak. We always have to wait for R. Not just now and then, but all the time. We aren't making any progress, we have to stand around in this miserable forest, cold and wet, as R. is always wanting to rest. Why he needs to rest so much, I have no idea as, when we were struggling up the mountain, he was lying in his sleeping bag.
I can't make him out.
I usually feel that someone who is weaker than his companions deserves to be helped. That is the right thing to do.
But it gets really annoying if they start to take advantage. All three of us put R. in this category.
We have never seen him even sweat. He never gets out of breath. If a group member is doing his best not to hinder his companions, then the others won't feel any antagonism towards him. I'm certain of that, I've seen it happen many times. There are even cases where people, who might have been physically weak, but were mentally strong, and resolutely struggled on, have become the favorites of the group.
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Up in the mountains everyone appreciates it if the others are determined and make an effort. The end result is not important: it is your attitude that counts to your companions. And this is where R.
fails. Sometimes I feel that he is just taking us all for a ride. As it is now, he doesn't have to carry anything but his own bag, and he can't even do that - at least he pretends that he can't. Randy has even taken his sleeping bag, but it hasn't made much difference. We could have reached the boat ages ago. We can't keep up a good pace, we can't make much progress, we are cold and fed up. We have to sit here on the wet ground, waiting for R. to catch up and announce, in a tragic voice, how old he is.
Once I was in a base camp on Mt. Everest with a man called Tibi. Among the younger members of the group I was the only one who wanted to undertake the last stretch from Gorak Shep shelter, and to their shame, apart from the sherpa, the only man prepared to accompany me was Tibi, the oldest member of the group. Tibi was three years older than R. and I could hardly keep up with him. Honestly, I really had to make an effort not to be left behind. Fitness can easily be maintained over the age of 60, but that is not R.'s problem. Today is not about physical ability.
50% of a man's ability to function in the mountains depends on his state of mind. I've also had some difficult moments, and today can't have been a picnic for Greg and Randy, either.
But I've made it.
I might have needed a few words of encouragement now and then but, even so, I've made it. I never tried to slyly dump my problems onto the others, and I'm very unhappy that this is exactly what R. has been doing. He must have many good points but if he knows that he can't handle tough situations - it can be, we're not all the same - then what is he doing on a goat hunt? What did he expect to happen here? Just to sit in a comfortable hide and have the goat wander up to him? And then a cheerful sing-song around the campfire in the evening?
I can see that Greg's patience is also wearing thin. He resorts to a method that often works when up in the mountains with a team member like this: he will not allow any more time for rests. We won't even give him a chance to sit down and bore us with his moaning. As soon as he reaches us Greg sets off. This method is working, we are starting to move faster. Over the last stretch I feel that if I sit down once more on something wet, I will freeze there, and never get up again, so I ask Greg to let me go on ahead. We will meet on the shore of the lake. So that's what I do, and I get down 10min. before Greg. We wait for R. and Randy. But they don't appear. Now we are really getting angry. It is obvious that it isn't Randy who can't keep up. We try and guess what might have happened.
Randy finally arrives. He is carrying two bags! He has taken R.'s bag, though it was practically empty as R. had already given us most of the contents. R. has nothing to do now but walk along
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flat ground, but he's not even capable of doing that. I say nothing, it's not up to me to deal with the situation. Finally - I can hardly believe my eyes - he appears.
We get into the boats.
We have no replacement for the broken oar, so it is decided that Randy will tow us with the kayak. It doesn't really work, so we separate. Greg rows with one oar and we stare at the landscape.
It is still pouring with rain.
We moor on the strip of land between the lake and the sea, and start loading the equipment into the motorboat. The Ruffinit is only moments away! There is only one more ordeal left: Greg drives the boat fast and the wind starts to freeze our clothes to us. I'm almost in a state of hypothermia.
It is after 8.00pm when we get on board.
The longest 36hrs.
That's a short time for anyone spending it in the comfort of their own home, but it seemed almost endless when hunting goat in the Alaskan mountains, struggling through 11/2 days with no sleep and frozen to the bone. Alaska has thrown its worst at us. The vegetation: dead, uprooted trees, slippery moss and thorny bushes. Sometimes all at the same time. The mountain and terrain: steep inclines, loose rocks and boggy, marshy ground. The weather: fog, wind, rain and cold.
Alaska did not yield its goats willingly. But, eventually, we won!
Now comes the nicest moment of the day… I get on deck and go inside and the warmth hits me in the chest! Lovely, dry warmth and Bob's welcoming smile, too! There's no wind in here, and the rain can only patter vainly on the roof: it can't get in. With every step I take, I leave a huge puddle of water behind me. Bob - the cook, guard and crew, all in one - can hardly keep up with his mop.
I go down to my cabin and start to peel off my clothes. Without a doubt, I am soaked to my skin.
Everything I'm wearing, down to my underpants, is wet. I stand under the small shower and let the warm water gush over me... there is no better cure for a frozen body! I wash the cuts on my palm, which I got while grabbing at bushes. After 15min. I'm a new man.
Tonight I really love my little cabin. It has its own heating and I can regulate the amount of heat coming in by opening the vents. I open every one wide.
Bob is cooking lasagne for dinner.
So that is how my goat hunt went. After bagging my Dall sheep, when I asked Greg about goat hunting, he said: the goat hunt starts where the sheep hunt ends.
I didn't believe him. But it's true.
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On Board the Ruffinit