“Jim, the jetstream is moving south of the Uintas. North winds, colder weather today and a storm this evening. We don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay camped as high as you are. We recommend you go back to the roadhead campsite at Grants Spring—where you ran into the buffalo—and wait for a weather change there.”
“Let me see the weather charts,” says Jim.
“Here they are.”
Jim studies the display downloaded to his helmet. “Could the jetstream be splitting?”
“It could. This is the right time of year for a split jetstream but predicting a splitting jetstream is very difficult.”
“If the jetstream is splitting that changes the forecast, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does. This coming storm will split and the Uintas will not receive its full force.”
“I see a splitting jetstream in that weather chart.”
There was a sigh. “Jim, you’re not the expert—”
“Not the expert? I’ve lived next to these mountains for most of my life. My dad lived in these mountains all his life. You are a weather expert. I’m a living-here expert. You confirm for me that in this day and age you’re confident of about what the weather is going to be on this peak for the next twenty-four hours. Don’t tell me about what you will be able to predict ten years from now. But tell me that you’re confident that you can tell me about tomorrow’s weather here.”
Another sigh. “Jim—”
“I see a jetstream split coming. I’m going over Porcupine Pass today, Red Knob and Dead Horse tomorrow, and Rocky Sea the day after. I’m late for Mirror Lake!” Jim starts breaking camp.
“Jim, you can take the old National Rec trail by Moon Lake. It’s two thousand meters lower.”
“No, I know the route you’re talking about. I came to see the High Uintas, not the Middle Uintas. And I’m not going to buck that horse’s wilderness skirt through another fifty miles of forest.”
In ten minutes Jim is on his way. He walks towards a scatter of rocks that were once a shepherd’s high-pasture hut. A Bighorn ram standing on one of the walls bleats a warning. Moments later half a dozen ewes bound out of the ruin. Jim trudges grimly on.
At Tungsten Pass he turns northwest instead of northeast and crosses the snow-covered cirque headed for Porcupine Pass. Traveling is a bit tricky. Snow covers the still-unfrozen ground so the marshes are hard to identify and there are stumbles and wet surprises every few minutes. But the snow also smoothes the way for the wilderness skirt. Celeste is doing well. Being on the move again puts spring in her step.
On the far side of the cirque the trail climbs a cliff wall. The trail is a three-foot wide cut in the cliff-side. Jim leads Celeste over the rough trail. The wilderness skirt flops awkwardly over the edge but Celeste compensates nicely. Jim kicks hoof-threatening rocks off the trail. When they’re too big for that he levers them off with his shovel. The going is slow but Celeste seems to be getting her mountain legs.
The sun has been shining on the cliff side all morning and the snow is nearly gone. The sun is high when they reach the top, and Jim breaks for a simple lunch. At the top of the pass the trail skirts the side of a nearly vertical west-facing wall as it descends into the Oweep Creek valley.
As they rest Jim idly watches as rocks tumble one by one down the surrounding cliffs. Every few seconds another starts spontaneously. Some are fist-size, some are head-size, and once in a while a chest-size boulder starts tumbling down the face. They roll and bang along until they settle on the talus slope below the cliff. There the small ones stop quickly and the large ones roll on and on headed for the bottom of the cliff.
As he watches it occurs to him to say something. “These mountains are still active. Earthquakes still lift them higher and erosion still wears them down. On these high barren slopes erosion manifests itself as falling rocks. They come down all the time but they’re particularly common when the sun shines on frozen cliffs and thaws them. I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out for them as we descend.”
Rested, enjoying the sun, Jim and Celeste start down the trail. Jim watches carefully for falling rocks and sees many, but none come close. They reach the snow-covered portion of the cliff-side trail seventy meters above the cirque below. The snow makes the rock slicker but the ice is thawed. Celeste’s hooves cut through the snow and except for a bit of stumbling she’s doing fine.
Jim is two hundred meters along the trail when he feels it start.
“Crap.”
There is time for only one action. He dives for a niche he had already mentally marked as a rock haven. He hits the niche prone as the wave of slush and stone tumbles over the trail: Avalanche.
Avalanche! A seconds-long ice shower for Jim. His brain reels at the cold shock. He gasps for air, chokes on a mix of ice, rock, and air, coughs violently, chokes more, but his body stays put in the niche.
When he can stand it no longer, he lifts his head. Trickles of muddy water fall onto the trail. He’s lying in 20 centimeters of muddy slush. The trail three meters in front of him and fifteen meters behind him is covered.
Celeste! There’s no sign of her.
“Crap,” Jim mutters.
“Jim! Jim! Are you there? This is Control.”
“I’m here.”
“Jim! Jim! Are you there? This is control.”
“Crap,” Jim mutters again.
He’s freezing but he doesn’t get up yet. He looks around some more. The trickles from above are ending. The slush on the trail settles slowly. Shakily he gets to his feet and looks around. Three meters away the downhill trail continues with just a light snow covering but fifteen meters behind him the uphill trail is a mess of slush and rock. He’s about to continue downhill when he sees another avalanche cover more of the trail in front of him.
“Crap!”
The whole face is unstable!
He fights his way through the slush, headed back uphill for the pass. It’s damn tricky. Sometimes he’s on his legs, sometimes hands and knees to keep from sliding off the slush heaped deep on the trail. He makes it to the far side and sprints to the top. There he falls to his knees, dying for air. He looks back. Behind him, section after section of the snow on the cliff lets loose headed for the cirque below.
“Crap!” he finally gets the breath to say. “How can just six inches of snow avalanche!” he yells to the sky. “And why just as I’m going down? If I’d started down fifteen minutes later I’d have seen this and waited. If I’d come an hour later I’d’ve never known it happened!”
Below he sees movement. Celeste! It’s like a birth from slush. One leg, two legs thrash through the slush and a head breaks into view. Then it ends. She doesn’t stand. She doesn’t even turn off her back.
Jim waits a full minute. He buries his face in his hands and moans. “She didn’t deserve this.”
The mourning lasts perhaps thirty seconds before he can’t control his shivering.
Off come his clothes. He lays them out to dry while he walks and swings his arms. He warms in the bright sunlight but puffy cumulus clouds are building at mountain-top level and a haze is once more building high above. The sun won’t last long.
The clothes dry quickly. He puts them on. When he puts the helmet back on he hears, “Jim! Jim! Are you there? This is Control.”
“I’m here.”
“Thank goodness! You blipped out completely. No voice, no video, no Tinkerbell. What happened?”
“No Tinkerbell?”
“No Tinkerbell. What happened?”
“Avalanche. Celeste is at the bottom. I’m at the top.”
“Are you all right? Is she all right?”
“I’m okay—”
“We monitor you as mildly hypothermic.”
“Celeste has a broken back.”
“What?”
“See for yourself.” Jim watches the horse struggle feebly in the slush. The front of her is upright.
“Oh, this is bad, Jim. We’ve got the analysts working on it now. Have you got any ideas on how to get her out?”
“What?”
“You’ve got to pack all your stuff out.”
“I’m stranded above four thousand meters with a storm coming and you’re worried about how I’m going to pack out a dying horse? Get real, man!”
Jim stands. “But there’s equipment down there I need to survive. I’m going down.”
The slope has shed its snow; the trail is once again just a potentially dangerous mountain trail hacked out of the cliff face. Jim descends quickly to the talus slope then cuts across the acres of slush to Celeste.
Celeste sees him coming and whinnies plaintively. She struggles once more to rise, but only her neck and front legs are paying any attention to what her brain is requesting.
Jim pushes her inert rump around until he can extract her feed bag from underneath her. He puts it on, she starts feeding, and Jim strokes her forelock and mane briefly. Then he drives his knife deep into her neck.
“Jim, what are you doing!” comes from Control. He works the knife until he’s sure an artery is cut.
One sob of grief is all he allows himself as he pulls the knife out and cleans it on the slush.