Chapter 1 - Eclipse

“It is darkness that allows us to see the light.”

Philip Regenie

It was in tribute to freedom that Len was willing to drive home late at night on New Year’s Eve. It had been an especially good night. He had spent the late evening hours out with Jack walking in the hills above the pipeline road.

How long had he and Jack been doing this now? Twenty eight years. Every year they put chains on all four wheels of a four wheel drive vehicle and tried to go as far up the pipeline as they could before getting stuck. Sometimes they would make it to the last turnout before the boulder-strewn washout. That was in years when there was hardly any snow and they were driving the Rover. Normally, they would get to the first major hill and the vehicle would get stuck. From there they would hike the remainder of the distance in the snow to the lookout tree where the best photographs of Los Alamos were taken in the 1950’s.

The hike itself was cold and grueling even for athletes as gifted as Len and Jack. Len was blond, blue eyed, chiseled, six feet two inches tall, lean, athletic, disciplined.  Jack had short dark hair, intense dark brown eyes, a softer rounder face, was five foot ten inches tall and possessed uncanny strength.  Many years there were more than three feet of snow on the ground. This year they had hit the base of the pipeline road going 65 miles an hour. Rocks and debris flew everywhere. Twice they careened off trees on the way up the road.  Eventually, the Land Rover high centered on a snow drift and they were stuck. Len and Jack got out of the Rover and put on their snowshoes. They put on their caving helmets with carbide lights so they could see in the moonless night. It took them two hours to hike to the base of the lookout tree.

The lookout tree was a 100-foot ponderosa pine. Nestled between three branches that forked at the extreme top of the tree was a platform devoid of any rails. The only thing visible that indicated there was something at the top of the tree was an old frayed rope ladder that extended from the ground into the darkness above. The ladder was attached to the tree by large wood eye bolts every ten feet.

Len took a flask out of his breast pocket, took a swig, and passed the flask to Jack. Jack took a short drink of the peppermint schnapps and passed the flask back to Len. A wind was blowing from the northwest when Len started his ascent. The cold breeze nipped at the exposed skin of his face. The rope rungs were either so cold that his hands would stick or encased in ice so they were painful to grab. Fifteen feet up the ladder Len felt for the next rope rung and it was gone. It was the first of three missing rungs. The stretch was long between rungs but Len pulled hard to reach the next rung safely. The first one was easy, the last torture. Len reached the platform and pulled himself up exposing his face to arctic winds. The tree swayed from side to side as he lay panting listening for Jack.
Jack arrived a few minutes later. They sat up and tied themselves off by attaching a rope to their wastes and to one of the tree limbs holding up the platform. The wind was bitter cold.  Len took out the flask and they both toasted the New Millennium.
Every year, at midnight, Len held up the flask and said, “To freedom.”
Tonight they forgot the cold, the lack of side rails, and the swaying tree, inhaled the fresh pine air and stared out at a crystal clear world lit only by the lights of Los Alamos in the distance.

Their climb down the ladder was harder than the climb up. It was mostly accomplished by feel. When they reached the bottom Jack and Len climbed up to the road and traversed down it in their snowshoes until they got to the car.
Both of them considered the way back a time for meditation and solitude. It was a rare year that any words were said on the way down the mountain. After a grueling lift and shuffle down the road, Jack and Len saw the Rover. They had forgotten how stuck it was.  It was centered on a mound of ice, rocks, and snow leaving all four wheels suspended in the air.

Len took a rope out of the Rover and said, “I’ll look around for a lever arm if you’ll get the fulcrum ready.”

Jack sized up the situation and tried to pivot the Rover on the high centered mound unsuccessfully. He took out the shovel Len kept in the Rover and used it to build up two mounds of packed snow reinforced by sticks, logs, and rocks in the front and to the side of the Rover.

Len yelled over to Jack, “I found a lever but I’ll need your help to slide it back to the Rover.”

Len had already tied a rope around the log’s limbs and had it wrapped around an aspen limb that was ten feet off the ground. They tugged on the rope until the 15-foot log was out of its hole and almost even with them. Len made a harness and they both pulled the log the remainder of the distance to the Rover.

Jack leaned on the car, panting, and said, “I figure we should rotate the Rover on the mound so that our initial thrust will be downhill in a forward direction. If we put the log over here on the side, we should be able to rotate the Rover easily.”

Len set himself to help rotate the car and said, “OK, Let’s do it.” They both wrestled the log into position. Len sat on the log while Jack turned the Rover. It spun easily and kept rotating until Jack let up.

“I think we need to clear a runway for this thing,” said Len.

“Hang on a second, let me catch my breath. Geez, I’ll be glad when I get into bed. What time do you have, anyway?”

“I’ve got 2:36. It’s definitely been a long one this year.”

Len and Jack dug out a path in front of the Rover. In front of each tire they laid evergreen limbs for 20 to 30 feet. They then shoveled dirt and snow under the four wheels.
Jack said, “Let’s do it. Don’t stop if you don’t have to.”

Len got into the driver’s seat and Jack manned the log and screamed. “Let her rip.”

Len turned on the engine and shifted into second gear. He started to give it some gas. When Jack saw the wheels begin to turn he rocked the Rover with the lever arm until the car started to slide off high center. Len felt the increased momentum and gunned the car. It took off down the road. Jack slogged along in the shoes for another couple hundred yards until the snow level dropped. Len had stopped for him down the road. Jack got into the car exhausted. He looked over at Len.

“I don’t look as bad as you do, do I?”

“Oh no, you look ready for a night out at the opera,” Len joked.

“Hell yes, you look as bad as me. I’m drained. Let’s get home.”

“Hey, want me to drive?”

“Nah, I’ve gone this far. I’d like to finish it. Have you in bed safe and sound in 5 minutes.”  Len drove Jack home to North Mesa and started on his way to Barranca Mesa. Coming down the hill Len remembered that they were out of milk.

“Might as well get it now rather than get up in the morning. Great, I’m so tired I’m talking to myself. If that’s not bad enough, I’m swerving and it’s beginning to snow hard.”
Len drove the two miles to the Hilltop store, the only all night store in Los Alamos, and bought milk. As he walked out of the store he slipped from exhaustion and fell in the driveway.

“Getting old is great.” Len got into his car asleep on his feet. As he turned out of the driveway he drove straight off the curb. Len was beginning to wonder if he would make it home.

Chapter 14 - Discovery

“The young men of this land are not, as they are often called, a ‘lost’ race—they are a race that never yet has been discovered. And the whole secret, power, and knowledge of their own discovery is locked within them—they know it, feel it, have the whole thing in them—and they cannot utter it.”

Thomas Wolfe

 Jack walked out to the pond behind the fence with a grin from ear to ear.

 “Come on Jack,” Len yelled as he held open the gate.

 As far as Jack was concerned he had just arrived in Oz. He ran through the gate and jumped on top of a rock. Jack looked around surveying his new found domain. Len shut the gate and looked over at Jack. A big smile crossed his face and he ran and jumped on the rock with Jack. They both started turning around and around on top of the rock. Finally, they stood face to face smiling. Len and Jack both knew, from that point on, they would be friends.

 Margaret and Ruth looked out at the two kids and Margaret said, “I think we are going to be very good neighbors. Would you like some coffee?”

Chapter 20 - First Ascent

“Winter quiet embraces our shadows, freedom from the harsh green of summer. We are owls in the night, riding the winds of change.”

 Silence felt the rhythmic slide of Len and Jack’s skis upon its back. They skied beneath the towering Cero Toledo mountain to their left and the rocky cliff faces of the Santa Clara Indians to their right. Hidden beneath their skis the sound of gurgling water slid by. The crisp fresh smell of juniper and pine aroused their spirits as a crow wafted on the winter thermals above the canyon. Jack felt the familiar sliding gate of Len in front of him like the rocking of a baby. Jack centered on his breathing and the flow of nature around him. That’s all there was. That’s all there would ever be.

 Len could hear his blood pounding out the rhythm of winter. A strong gust of wind blew sparkling snowflakes into a sunbeam. A squirrel eyed Len silently from a tree branch above the stream as the two passed. Len had been in this canyon during the winter of 1998 when he first decided to prepare a route that would keep his family safe in case of some disaster. The conclusion from his previous expedition was that this route was far too difficult for Maria to negotiate in heavy snow. It became his alternate escape route during the winter and his primary during the summer. Today they would go from a stream bed at 5400 feet to a high mountain spring at 9400 feet. To reach their first encampment, 8 miles from here, they had to follow Santa Clara Creek around Cerro Toledo until they could cross over the ridge between Cerro Toledo and Cerro de la Garita. The ridge’s lowest point was 9900 feet. Within one mile they had to traverse three quarters of a mile in either snow shoes or cross country skis. There was no trail or road over the ridge where they needed to cross. Between where they were and the ridge there were two stream sections that could be classified as waterfalls.  Every year they froze over into cascading blue ice that could only be climbed or crossed using crampons. Len let the work ahead fall from memory and then fell into the smooth swinging gait just as the winter sun hit it’s zenith. The New Mexico winter heat would warm his cold face for only a couple of hours before dropping below the southern ridge. Len and Jack both let down their hoods and unwrapped the scarves which trapped their body heat.

 “Let’s take a 10 minute break. We’ve been going for two hours now.”

 “Sure Len. Getting old?”

 “Yeah, that and around this next bend is the first waterfall. We’ll have to take off our skis and ascend it with crampons and ice pick. Even then, it’s going to be rough with this snow.”

 “So this is the last sun we’ll get for awhile. I think I’ll lay down.” Jack pulled up his hood, went over to the southeast side of a large tree and fell onto his backpack placing his skiis up on the tree. Moments later, a loud snore broke Len’s silent reverie.

 Len walked over to wake Jack up. He stood over him as a tear fell from his cheek into the snow. Len wiped his cheek and touched Jack lightly on the face with his glove. “Wake up Len, it’s time to go.”

 “Jeez, I fell asleep, huh?”

 “Jack, everyone knows where we are now.”

 “What do you mean, Len?”

 “You woke them snoring.”

 “Real funny. Real funny. You know I don’t snore.”

 “Sure, and I’m a saint.”

 Jack rolled off the tree and onto his skis. He threw on his scarf, fastened his hood, put on his poles and followed in behind Len. Just as Len had said, an ice blue waterfall fell from the top of a 50 foot cliff. Jack thought that this was not going to be easy. On either side of the waterfall were rock overhangs laden with five feet of snow that made it impossible to reach the top of the waterfall without going over it. Both Len and Jack shrugged off their packs and snapped out of their skis. They unloaded crampons and ice axes from their packs and packed up their cross country skiis. Len got out the rope and the ice pitons that he could pound into the waterfall.

Jack tied off the lower end of the rope and belayed Len as he ascended the waterfall. Several times Len slipped and regained his balance. Mid way up the waterfall the cliff flattened out and Jack climbed to meet Len. Immediately above their resting place, an overhang jutted out from the cliff face. Len climbed the overhang with difficulty placing pitons every four feet. He had to hang by one arm and pound the pitons into the waterfall surface. When Len reached the top of the overhang he was exhausted. There were no easy spots to tie off. He would have to tie off the best he could and hope Jack didn’t fall.

 Jack started his ascent with ease.

 “Are you going to be O.K., Jack?”

 “This is a snap, after you did all the work.” Just then Jack reached for a piton and his hand slipped off the end. Len held the rope as tight as possible but Jack plunged falling on his back ten feet from where he missed his grip.

 Len screamed out, “Jack, are you alright?”

 When there was no answer Len began to climb down. As he reached his first piton Jack said, “I think I’m O.K. Len. Just got the wind knocked out of me, is all. I’ll try again in a couple of minutes.”

 It was this tenacity which set Jack above the rest. He would fight and keep fighting no matter how long or what the odds. Len couldn’t have chosen a better friend. Instead, fate chose them for each other.