Once you’ve got your team together it is never too early to start training. Check out this literally hair raising report from Team #40 CWC Stadium Dogs. Sounds like they had quite the adventure!

CWC Stadium Dogs - Training Day Report
Grotto Mountain scramble, November 10, 2007
Story by Mike Melnick, with Joey Roa and Marlene Wiig

100,000+ 95,000 feet of elevation at PQ2008 means we need to train for the gain, right…so let’s get started!

Grotto Mountain’s 4,000 punishing vertical feet sits just north of Canmore in Canada’s beautiful Rocky Mountains and we had 4.5 hours in which to complete this training session and still make it to that evening’s martini party. A tough mission to be sure – the scrambles book lists it as a 5-8 hour round trip in good weather. The mountain looked remarkably devoid of snow when we parked at the Alpine clubhouse and got ready for what the book described it as a straightforward hike, no exposure, little navigation, just physically challenging. It was going to be a simple, uneventful workout and true to case, we almost flew up the mountain. We kept up a pace of over 2000 feet per hour up to the ridge and the final 200 or 300 feet of elevation.

Near the top, I snapped a picture of Joey with the western sky behind him. I would look at the picture later and see the storm that moved in, but at that moment I was blissfully unaware that our simple hike would soon become a survival exercise. About 15 minutes from the summit, the snow eased in. Initially, just a little snow and some reduced visibility, so no big deal, right? Suddenly - Zap! Ouch! I had never felt that before, but once my hair stood up I realized I was being struck by lightning! In a snowstorm! I ran a few feet down the sketchy trail, twisting my ankle twice as I tried to get Joey to crouch down. I didn’t want to get zapped again and we were in a terrible spot.

“What, what’s the problem?” he asked. I told him. We paused. “The summit’s right there though.” He pointed up; we were literally 30 feet from the book register. If we were going to get hit, it wasn’t going to be prevented by sitting here. We headed for the summit with me getting painfully zapped about twice a second and Joey not feeling a thing! Apparently he does not suffer from an electrifying personality like I do…

Joey signed the register and we proceeded down to the ridge. The temperature had dropped considerably, visibility had dropped to about 15 feet, and the wind was blasting the snow into our faces relentlessly. The storm was now swirling around us with full intensity.

Trying to remember the landmarks to follow to get along the ridge was nerve wracking, especially with the wind gusting and pushing us nearly off our feet. The ridge was pretty wide and sloped gently on the north side. The sheer and lengthy drop on the south side however, would likely have been fatal and we stayed well away from that edge. Progress was slow and deliberate until we reached the one and only narrow spot on the whole hike. I remembered this spot from when we passed it on the way up: about 3 feet wide and 6 feet across, a 300 foot drop on the south and a 10 foot drop on the north – not difficult on a bright and sunny day, but the worst possible spot to get hit by a gust of wind during a blinding snowstorm. Pausing briefly, I gauged the wind’s effects and how it would affect our crossing of this narrow band of rock. Minimize the exposure, visualize the situation and how you want it to go, believe that it will unfold as you need and then DO IT! With that in mind, I strode forward looking to get across as quickly as possible. At that exact moment, the wind picked up and blasted me from the right, trying to send me over the south edge and down the cliff. The brace against it felt easy and I calmly pushed forward through the blinding snow. And then the wind shifted, pushing me to the right, and suddenly I was braced all wrong. I wasn’t going to make it. I had two options - jump down the north drop and hope for not too many broken bones upon landing, or dive for the rocks in the hopes that I wouldn’t go over at all.

I belly flopped onto the rocks. My legs dangled over the edge as I scrambled for a decent handhold through my thick mitts. I struggled to get my legs up in a moment that felt like something out of the movies: blasting snowstorm, visibility near zero, deadly cliffs, and the hero of the story struggling to reach safety.

I dragged myself back up and across the rocks onto the middle of the wider ridge top, heart pounding and breath coming in ragged gasps. Turning to see where Joey was filled me with fear once again. I couldn’t see him through the storm! Had he been blown off into the abyss?? My body flooded with relief when I saw his silhouette through the snow to the left. He had climbed the several feet down the north cliff face and was traversing the narrow section below. And then the snow lifted and the clouds parted to reveal the brightest, bluest sky that I had ever had hopes of seeing again.

I made it to the martini party on time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Primal Quest, Teams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.