Chronick said:

I have been there on several occasions, alone, and I did not know what to think about it. I did not share it with anyone. I am sure I am not the only one either...

Last weekend, a group of young men including myself went deep into the mountains, with the goal of reaching the tallest summit on the Eastern side of the Olympics. We hiked up around ~4000' elevation and set up a camp at a beautiful lake. The night got really cold ~10F. By dawn we started climbing the steep loose slopes and cliffs to reach the summit. Lots of sharp, frozen objects went tumbling down the slopes and cliffs. The day length was challenging us to reach the summit quickly. One unwise 'group leader' decided that him and his two closest friends will go ahead because they thought my friend and I were not going to make it before we had to descend. This was unwise because we were the ones carrying the emergency supplies, and this was the most difficult mountain any of us have attempted. We laughed them off, and had a fun time in the now instead of racing for a destination and skipping the enjoyable part. We climbed the mountain with smiles, amazement and wonder. We saw the group ahead of us, moving very quickly and not carefully, I thought they were going to hurt themselves.

We met up with them when we were about twenty minutes below the false summit. They had decided that it would be stupid to try to make it to the true summit without ropes and latches, which I agree with. We still had plenty of daylight before we had to turn around so we all agreed to meet at the landmark below us after my friend and I climbed to the false summit and back. We climbed to the summit and saw the beauty of half of Washington, took in the experience and then started our descent. We did our controlled sliding down the mountain and climbing down cliffs to reach the landmark we agreed to meet at. They were not there. How nice of them to wait for us. We started going down the rest of the mountain, over the frozen rocks and through narrow chutes. For safety reasons we agreed to stay ~50' apart at minimum to minimize avalanche danger. There was a point where he was basically, directly below me. I slipped and fell on a teetering rock and the weight of me and my pack hitting the ground was enough to loosen up a sheet of small rocks. The small rocks would do no harm, they would run out of momentum before they even got 50 feet. The sheet was supporting a few larger rocks however, those, can keep momentum.

MOVE! ROCK! was what I shouted as I watched this particularly large rock rolling down the slope in the direction of my friend. His hearing range was in between two avalanches on either side and could not hear my voice. I watched in terror, this rock can kill him. He turned around at the last second and saw the rock coming right for him. He had no time to react before the rock swept out his left leg and he went down screaming...screaming...screaming... the haunting echo rang through the bare rock valley. While on the ground he was hit by another smaller rock in the back, it could have been a fatal blow if it hit his spine. I had to slide down extremely carefully so no more rocks would hit him, I got him to crawl to cover as I rushed to his side. He was screaming the whole time it took me to get to him, I was terrified of the possibilities.

I grounded myself in the midst of my adrenaline rush so I could assess his leg. There was a lot of blood, but it was quickly coagulating, and no bones were out of place. Possibly fractured, and definitely tissue and muscle damage. His back was okay, only bruised tissue. He could barely put weight on his leg and if his muscles moved he would wince in pain. I gave him sterile pads and tape to help keep dirt out and shared my pain relieving medicines with him. I gave him my staff to balance on until we found two shorter sticks that worked better for him.

I guided him step by step down the steep loose slopes. We slipped many times and he was terrified by the noise of falling rocks. After the slopes we went to the bottom of the rock valley where we would not slide on top of the larger rocks. The large rocks were fairly stable, but there were several teetering rocks that could easily make you fall. Rock by rock I guided him out of the valley and towards the lake. It took us several hours to get out of the valley, we were hoping the rest of our party was waiting at the lake. I was surprised they did not hear or respond to the minutes of screaming echoing through the mountains.

We arrived at the lake about an hour before dark, the rest of our group had definitely been there and left. We were alone, left to face another 4000' of climbing down steep cliffs and through a forest that suffered major fire destruction over the summer. We talked of sleeping for a night and heading down in the light, but he knew that in the morning he was not going to be able to move his leg at all. We both understood that we were going to have to continue through Hell tonight to get home.

We smoked marijuana and entered the dark forest. The fire never reached the cliff sides that we had to extremely carefully and slowly scale down. One moment of uncarefulness and the situation would get a lot worse. It wasn't very long until the forest was pitch black except for the small area our flashlights could reach. I gave him my headlamp because he needed his hands way more than I did. I was trying to give myself light while climbing down a cliff and I couldn't keep a grip on the rock and flashlight at the same time and so I had to let the flashlight slip out. The light dropped way down and kept tumbling down the mountain, it never turned off though. If it had turned off, we may have never got out that night. I was able to retrieve it after some very hard and scary work, one slip and I could have slipped down a cliff.

After many hours of forest cliffs we reached the fire zone. There had been strong winds during the day and it supplied the smoldering coals with oxygen and spread the fire. The ground was smoldering and putting up lots of smoke, the trees were lighting up the forest with their burning flames. It was an experience beyond comprehension. We turned off our lights so we could let the image set in our minds as we just watched in awe. We could have tried to find a way around, but after assessing the situation, we decided to follow the path we took up so that we don't get stuck in the fire in a place we don't know. We turned our lights on, covered our face and walked through the smoke and flames. The path had turned into a giant ash pit.

We emerged out of the fire zone and were relieved to breath freely. Following the path was many times easier than creating a path, but we often found fallen burnt trees blocking the path. For many hours we spent slowly inching our way through the agony. We both had the spirit and determination to get through. I gave him all my positive energy that I could so we could laugh about things. He was teetering on a negative outlook many times and I took it as my responsibility to save him. We arrived back at the trailhead at 1:00 am. No party members waiting for us. We packed our stuff into my friends jeep and drove home.

My friend and I both survived Hell this time. Hell is on Earth, you put yourself there. It is only eternal if you stop while you are in Hell because you are not determined enough to get through. I believe the reason we go to Hell is to learn things, there are things you can only learn in Hell.

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