Day 2 - Aletschgletscher...
And what is between the ridges is the abysm. Deep cracks. Sometimes man can simply step over, not thinking of the consequences of a false step, sometimes man jumps over, and sometimes they are just far too wide: you better turn back, find another way through. It is a Mynotaurus’ job as it is really a labyrinth and except for the guide’s instinct, orientation skills and comprehensive sight, there is absolutely no other hint or clue on directions.
When it comes to jumping, it is always of a moment of intensity. A moment of victory over something very ancient that still prevails in man. Everybody can jump a meter, or one and a half even, unless he is seriously blessed or handicapped. But how many can jump one and a half meter without the slightest concern if -very obviously- there is nothing (just a deep gap) between the two ends of that meter? We will belong to the group of those who don’t mind the dark void below and just jump. One more inveterate habit of the human psyche has been overcome. I am grateful to my crampons. Even if I don’t always manage to perfectly land on the top edge of the other side, they get a grip and stick me to the aimed shore, not allowing me to slip down into the crevasse. Oh yes, God’s special spiky Grace comes very handy at this moment. On top of that these jumps remind me of a Zen story that is absolutely applicable to our situation: 'with small steps one cannot cross over a crevasse', said once a master to a disciple when the latter one asked him about how to overcome attachment gradually.
At the edge of the glacier, towards the mid-section of it, at the place where the gap between the ice-blocks and the rocky body of a side-peak closes, although still far from the rocks, still balancing gingerly on the crusty back of an immense frozen labyrinth, we start seeing colours! Actually white and grey and only one more colour: blue. Light blue with all its nicest hues and shades. Sky blue, turquoise, cobalt blue, cyanide-like blue, peace-blue, sea-blue and what not? There are myriads of bluish hues each one appearing somewhere in the depths of a crevasse, a breach, a wide gap, a torn mouth of the glacier... Now the ice-sea reveals its nicest face, makes itself unprecedentedly attractive. But if one looks deep into these mystic blue depths, still it is depth, danger and death the one is ought to see.
This is Maya, the wonderful illusion of beauty and sublime forms, irresistibly drawing man towards herself. I literally have to force myself to keep my eyes on the guide, on the rope, on the next jump between two crevasse-walls, above yet another marvel-blue gap offering the perspective of ten or thirty or more meters of void below my feet. Thank God I was told before how to behave, thank God, my Master had spoken to me about Maya. This time there is no fall, I manage to cross all crevasses, avoid all treacherous snow-bridges and breath-thin ice-layers covering a two centigrade cold running water-stream... I just follow the leader, my eyes alternately moving from his step to the rope and then to my step, I faithfully trudge after him, raise arm, push the ski-stock and the crampons to where he stepped a few seconds before, go alongside small ridges, across crest-like hunches, just follow him silently, and I too am followed silently. The glacier doesn’t manage to devour any of us. One more hour and we reach the point where we cross from ice to rock first climbing down the gap and then up the wall. My crampons have an amazingly good grip on a totally smooth rock face.
Soon we find ourselves amidst a debris of boulders and a road up to some saddle of a mountain. Crampons and rope off, we will just walk up. (Of course this walk doesn’t exactly mean walk, but it is still a safe upward road, with no additional security devices needed, cables being installed through the tougher sections.) Only a hundred meters of altitude difference and we have a more complete, somewhat distant and therefore comprehensive view of the central sections of the glacier and its bend. Breath-taking, exhilarating and challenging. We try to look back to where we have come from, but that is lost somewhere in space. We see however the last one or two kilometre long wandering section of the glacier, the labyrinth we have been in. Thousands of ridges separated by thousands of crevasses, abysses, blue holes to loose yourself in… I feel a sort of self-contempt especially when we shake hands with the group leader and he congratulates us for accomplishing the tough parts without accidents. We thank him on our turn. After all, it was his skills, experience, knowledge of the mountain, instinct of the glacier and above all, attention and patience that dragged us along and across two glaciers in two days. He coils the rope and says nothing. The blueness of a summit-background sky is lost in his eyes, he is thinking of the next trip already...
Finally, the hardest lesson comes: we are off the glacier, far from the crevasses, gone through the moraine, rock-climbed one of the walls neighbouring the giant body of the glacier, as we gain height on the slope where thousands of boulders of various size were cast by some titan architect, we see more and more of this 900 meters (2700 feet) thick block of ice and snow AND yet the end is beyond our reach... there remains still slope after slope, half-vertical boulder-fields petrified before a fatal fall, then steep rock and then ice-covered rock and then a fresh-snow-covered avalanche field and only far above all these are the ridges, crests and cols connecting summits and high-points of our earth’s noble back.
The journey doesn’t end until it takes toll even on our absolutely last drop of strength, concentration, patience, swiftness and breath. Had it not been for God’s Grace in form of the guide, the map, the crampons, the avalanches that did NOT launch themselves to rush on us, it would be a total failure I have to report. But God’s Grace is somehow there, at the right place, at the right moment. I am prone to believe that this is our last and only chance... Final lesson for today, you may have a rest now, before embarking again.
In the meanwhile I would like to thank:
Sri Chinmoy - for the inspiration and support I am bathed in,
my friends Dharmaputri and Divaspati for their advices and understanding of my mountain ambitions
and also Jogyata who encouraged me to write.
My further thanks are extended to my colleague Laszlo who gave me the screw-driver for without that I couldn’t have adjusted my crampons,
as well as to Svetlana’s father who volunteered in sharpening the above mentioned (so important) crampons.
Kamalika