Free Up by Patricia Ellis Herr Page A

They’ve just accepted what they’ve seen as the way things are and the way things always have been.
    But now it’s time. It will be upsetting, sure. But it’s time. Alex needs to understand that she must take these mountains very, very seriously.
    The girls sit on either side of Hugh and listen as he begins to talk in a quiet and gentle tone.
    â€œWhen I was seventeen years old—” he begins.
    â€œHow old is that?” Alex interrupts.
    â€œThe girl across the street is seventeen,” I say.
    Alex thinks for a moment, apparently trying to visualize her father as young as our neighbor, then says, “Okay.”
    â€œWhen I was seventeen, a friend and I climbed Mount Washington in the wintertime.”
    â€œWhat month?” Alex asks.
    â€œJanuary,” Hugh patiently answers. Neither of us discourages her interruptions, as we know she is only trying to create a more complete mental picture so that she might better understand.
    â€œWhy did you climb Mount Washington in January? Weren’t you cold?” Alex asks.
    â€œI did a lot of ice climbing back then. I started climbing ice when I was just a bit older than you are rightnow. I spent most of my childhood climbing mountains and ice.”
    Hugh is drastically understating his experience, but for the sake of our kids, it doesn’t matter. They won’t be able to comprehend the number of climbs and hikes he did before the age of seventeen. Hugh was considered a child prodigy in the rock and ice climbing community. He had his first set of crampons at age seven, and by age eight he had hiked 11,624-foot Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies and attempted 14,411-foot Mount Rainier with his father and two older brothers. The weather on Mount Rainier forced them to turn back, but Hugh returned to the peak when he was eleven and reached the summit. During his childhood summer vacations to various mountain ranges, he pioneered climbs that precious few adults could handle. By the time he was sixteen, Hugh was the first to ascend some of the most difficult routes on the East Coast. The climbing community assumed he would go on to have a very famous and fruitful mountaineering career.
    Then came the fateful trip up 6,288-foot Mount Washington. In January 1982, at the age of seventeen, Hugh and a friend, Jeff Batzer, decided to do an ice climb up O’Dell’s Gully in Huntington Ravine. To minimize the risk of being struck by an avalanche, they dropped their packs at the base of the climb so they could ascend lightly and quickly. Their intent wasto reach the top of the ice climb and then immediately descend.
    â€œAfter my friend and I climbed the ice, we decided to walk a short distance toward the summit. It was windy and snowy, but we figured we’d just go a few hundred feet.”
    Hugh continues to speak in a measured voice, but I know this can’t be easy for him. The decision to head toward Mount Washington’s summit was a spontaneous one. Hugh is not and never has been a peakbagger. He’s a climber. He likes to get to the top of a particular rock or ice climbing route, but he doesn’t care all that much about touching the actual summit. It was such a casual decision on that cold and fateful day in 1982. So what if they didn’t have all their gear? What could possibly happen? Why not walk for just a bit, even if the wind was starting to really blow?
    Unfortunately, both boys failed to remember that they were not carrying compasses. Since their original plan was to ascend an ice gulley, they had left their compasses at home. After all, to turn back during a vertical climb, one simply goes down. Navigation isn’t much of an issue. Once a person tops out from a climb and starts walking above tree line, however, the importance of a compass becomes paramount. The choices for movement now extend well beyond the simple up-down dichotomy. There are too many flat or moderately graded surfaces, and