The Lonely Skier

by Innes Hammond

Once I did say, 'Do you think we ought to go over the top on to the glacier without a guide?'

Mayne was making a standing turn at the time. He looked down at me, clearly amused. 'It's not half as bad as landing on a shell-torn beach,' he grinned. Then more seriously, 'We'll turn back if you like. But we're nearly up to the worst bit. See how you make out on that. I'd like to get to the top at any rate and look down to the glacier. But I don't want to do it alone.'

'Of course not,' I said. 'I'm quite all right. But I just feel we ought to have had a guide.'

'Don't worry,' he said quite gaily. 'It's almost impossible to lose your way on this run. Except for a spell at the top, you're in the pass the whole time.'

Soon after this it began to get very steep. The pass towered ahead of us, itself like the face of an avalanche slope. And on each side of us, we were hemmed in by real avalanche slopes that swept high above the pass to the dark crests. It was no longer possible to zig-zag up the slope. It was too steep. We began side-stepping. The snow was hard like ice and at each step it was necessary to stamp the ski edge into the frozen snow to get a grip. Even so, it was only just the inside edge of the ski that bit into the snow. It was hard, tiring work.

But there was nothing dangerous about it so long as the skis were kept firm and exactly parallel to the contour of the slope.

For what seemed ages, I saw nothing of the scenery. Indeed, I did not even look up to see where we were going. I just blindly followed the marks of Mayne's ski edges. My eyes were fixed entirely on my rhythmically stamping feet, my mind concentrating on maintaining my skis at the correct angle. The higher we climbed the more dangerous it became if the skis faced fractionally down the slope and began to slide. So we progressed in complete silence, save for the stamp of our skis and the crunch as they bit into the icy snow.

'Snow's drifted up here,' came Mayne's voice from above. 'Have to take our skis off soon.'

A few feet higher up I saw the first sign of rock. It was a small outcrop, smooth and ice-rounded. Then I was up with Mayne. The slope was less now. I stood up and looked about me, blinking my eyes in the sunlight. We were standing on the rim of a great white basin. The snow simply fell away from under our feet. The slope up which we had climbed fanned out and mingled with the avalanche slopes that came in from either side. I could scarcely believe that those were our ski marks climbing up out of the basin — the tracks showed clearly like a little railway line mapped out on white paper.

I looked ahead of us. There was nothing but smoothed rock and jagged tooth-like peaks. 'That's Popena,' Mayne said, pointing to a single peak rising sharply almost straight ahead of us. 'The track runs just under that to the left.' The sun was cold — the air strangely visible, like a white vapour. It was a cold, rarefied air and I could feel my heart pumping against my ribs.