Climbing With The Guys: Trial By Fire and Ice

By Cali Bagby
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, March 3, 2008

There are two types of ice climbers: Type 1 climbers dominate frozen waterfalls, and Type 2 are still learning to tie their crampons.

I recently found myself seated in a white government-issue van surrounded by nine Type 2 climbers who, like me, were experienced in rock climbing, mountaineering and snow camping but had never climbed on ice. Unlike me, all of them were men.

"I see you got the woman salad," my bearded friend Rory remarked as we wolfed down our lunches.

"That's discrimination," I said, looking down at my lettuce, walnuts and cranberries.

"Dude, why do you hate men so much?" my other bearded friend, Kelvin, asked.

"I just hate it when men assign specific salads to women," I replied.

"Your salad has cranberries," said Rory. "Women, you know, eat cranberries for women's health issues."

Guys get urinary tract infections, too, I pointed out.

We had met for one class to go over the details of the trip. The boys filled the room with their lean, muscular bodies and dry, sunburned cheeks.

Our instructor said he had found an awesome crevasse on the glacier to lower people into. Broad grins hung on our faces as we imagined our ice picks spraying our faces with snow as our ropes swung against the sides of white-blue caverns.

As I looked at their dreamy expressions, I realized all my classmates had facial hair. I wondered if they had realized I didn't have facial hair. Were they worried I would slow the team down? Did I stick out like the hand of a man buried inches underneath an avalanche?

The instructor sensed my anxiety and approached me after class.

I might not have the same technical background as the guys, he said, but I had something special. "You really have a way with people," he assured me.

Most of the classes I have taken through the University of Oregon's outdoor program have been male-dominated, but this was the first time I was the sole girl on a weekend adventure. Like many other sports, ice climbing has been ruled by men, but women get their picks into the ice, too. Chicks With Picks in Ouray, Colo., teaches women how to climb while raising money for local women's shelters. So I am not the only woman who wants to venture into the sport, but sitting in the van, I worried. Did everyone expect me to bake cookies and smell like flowers? Or did they expect me to break wind and belch?

Arriving at the Three Sisters Wilderness entrance, we start out with a six-mile hike to our base camp. The forest trail looks dusty under the filtered sun. My backpack weighs as much as a teenage person, but I am able to keep up with the fellas.

At the base camp, there is a thin layer of white on the earth, and our fingers freeze as more snow falls. We shiver through a short lesson on rescue systems and then crawl into our sleeping bags as the tents flap wildly against the wind.

I mention to my tent partner, Jacob, that I need to change my underwear.

"You brought a spare pair?" he asks, as if I had told him I'd brought a toaster.

At 7:30 the next morning, we hike up the Middle Sister to the Diller Glacier at 7,500 feet. The sun is bright as we peer into the caverns of the crevasse. The climbing begins after we build our anchors.

Jacob is my climbing buddy for the day.

"You smell like a barnyard animal," I say.

"You snore like a barnyard animal," he replies.

He lowers me into the crevasse, then calls over the edge to tell me I'm doing great, to just put my heels down and nail the wall harder.

"My pick is stuck," I yell as I pull at the head of my tool. "And now the spike is stuck."

After 10 minutes I unstick the entire pick and muscle up two small overhangs. I try to pull my tired bones over the final ledge, while the boys giggle at my impersonation of a beached whale rolling in sand.

"Just doing my part to break stereotypes," I say.

The other climbers break through the ice with a touch of grace I lack. I watch Elliot fluidly swing his leg over a ledge and carefully push himself above the ice.

As I untie the rope from my harness, Jacob walks two feet away and goes to town on the glacier. As I look around, I notice three other fellow climbers are doing the same. All of a sudden my own bladder feels like an overstuffed backpack.

Jacob asks if I want some water.

I'm parched, but I cannot take aboard any more liquid.

Jacob points to a tiny hill about 200 feet and three crevasses away, and I decide to brave the long and dangerous trail to the so-called bathroom site. I walk as fast as I can in plastic boots and crampons along the edges of the crevasses. When I come to the last of the footprints, I can't believe the trail has ended. The hill slopes only about an inch out of the sightline of the rest of the group. I look around, but I am afraid to move farther down because everyone knows hidden crevasses can swallow whole helicopters. After 10 minutes of careful deliberation, I decide it is just not worth it. So I walk slowly back to the climbing area.

Jacob asks if I want to climb again, but I loosen my harness. All I want is a white porcelain bowl behind a door. Back at camp I find a large tree about a mile away that works fine.

By the time I get back to the campsite I am exhausted. I settle on a rock as Jacob feasts on cold tuna curry. I can't be bothered to unlace my plastic boot so I just pull until it comes loose, but somehow in the process I kick myself in the face.

Jacob cackles as I give him a bewildered stare. Then, "Oh my God, Cali. Did you break your tooth?"

I feel my face for blood but find only a chunk of dirt lodged in my front teeth.

Two days later, standing in the bathroom of my apartment, I had this horrid urge to blow-dry my hair and mascara my eyelashes.

Later, I met with the other ice climbers for our debriefing. I was all primped and polished, but all the boys looked the same as ever. At the end of the meeting, one of them asked, with brotherly affection, if I had noticed I was the only girl on the trip.

"I did and I didn't," I said, and headed for the gym to pump some iron.