Decisions, decisions… – Part 2

As I reluctantly stepped out of the tent and into the cold, my spirits were lifted when I saw our next objective jutting into the bluebird sky. Mt. Bailey stood across Diamond Lake from us, taunting us with the current perfect conditions. ”Hey you guys, we’ve got bluebird!”

“Really?” came the reply from within the tent. Shortly thereafter the other two emerged. When it was pointed out that it was nearly noon, we contemplated the feasibility of actually summiting and skiing Mt. Bailey. Given the great weather I was game to try, and upon the agreement of all in the group, we quickly readied our packs and tore down our camp following our plans to summit Mt. Bailey that day. We loaded the car and drove over to the sno-park that gave access to Mt. Bailey.

Upon arriving at the sno-park, we began our excursion up Mt. Bailey by first digging out the car. ”Dude, how on earth did you think this was a road!?” exclaimed the other two. I had made the mistake of trying to drive the Subie up the snowmachine trail. Luckily, my car couldn’t make it very far, so our digging was limited to about five minutes worth of digging and about five years worth of jokes to live down. As we donned our gear, we made note of the clouds billowing to the south, provoking our weather window. We quickly began skinning and moved rapidly across the flat terrain. The cat ski operation that runs off the western side of Mt. Bailey left us a groomed cat track to follow, making our efforts effortless.

Before we had arrived in Oregon and were doing our research on the various volcanoes of central Oregon, Mt. Bailey presented itself as one of, if not the, easiest of all our goals. It was straight-forward and had a groomed track almost all the way to the summit.  Almost like skinning to the top of a resort – cake. If there is one thing that I’ve learned while traveling in the mountains, it is that nothing is straight-forward. Outkast said it best when telling Ms. Jackson, “You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.” Some picnics are just meant to be rained on.

Stopped at the base of Mt. Bailey, we prepared for the only uphill section we would have, the short 3 mile approach to the summit. As we began our siege, the ominous clouds were very much to south of us, and we focused on ascending the mountain one step at a time. Our plan was to get to the summit and drop into the SE facing bowl which would give us spectacular ski lines and send us in a direction to meet up with the trail closer to the parking lot, shaving distance off our trip out. The only concern at this point was possible wind slab formations on SE aspects being as the night before had seen high winds. The sun was giving us beautiful weather, but it would also be consolidating the snow pack, so when we heard the distant whumpf and rumble of an avalanche on the mountain it didn’t come as a surprise. When we heard the second avalanche the warning signs were becoming very clear.

Mother Nature must be a chess fan, and she was waiting for us to make our move before putting us in checkmate. As quickly as the storm clouds from the south blew in and surrounded us, heavy graupel snow began to pelt us and reduce visibility. I made the suggestion that we strongly consider turning around now and skiing the skin track – it would be longer, but safer. However, turning around became the dissenting opinion amongst the three of us. As we gained altitude, the visibility was reduced to no more than a couple of feet. We saw the cat approaching their drop-off point below us and when they got out, we discussed conditions with them.  In so many words, they helped convince our team that turning around should be the only option we should consider.

It is a difficult thing to turn around, to accept not achieving your goal. The real trick is knowing when to do so, and thus becomes the hardest decision making process for the mountaineer. Ed Viesturs once said “(Mountaineering) is a round trip. Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory.” For us, defeat came in reaching the summit and realizing it would be absurd to try to ski the line we had wanted to ski, thus having to settle for the easy out. Getting down is mandatory, and we were faced with decisions that could have adversely affected the outcome of us getting down. Within the decision making process also comes the inner thoughts of each person involved – different internal goals, aspirations, limits of acceptable risk. Making decisions to turn around are always hard, yet not defeating. Defeat comes in failure, and failure only comes when one stops trying. Mt. Bailey will yet again see our tracks…

We skied into the parking lot under the cover of darkness. We unloaded our gear into the car, and drove to Bend to be close to our next objective and to seek refuge for a short time in the comfort of a grilled stuffed burrito at Taco Bell.