It was snowing.
I smiled into the darkness and pulled Lawson against me. He mumbled something that sounded mostly like my name, but he never woke.
I hoped the snow didn’t impede the final leg of our trip. Inclement weather would often close walking tracks in national parks, but we weren’t the public. We weren’t some public liability risk. We were national park employees on a work-related trip. We did this kind of thing all the time.
Plus, Lawson would be devastated to come this far and not be able to take the final step.
Knowing only time would tell if this expedition was over, I closed my eyes and hoped for a few more hours of sleep before we found out.
The sound of a zipper woke me up, followed by the trudge of footsteps as one of the other three got up, presumably to go pee.
“What time is it?” Lawson mumbled.
I lifted my hand and peered at my watch in the dark. The sky was beginning to lighten but only barely. “Five thirty,” I replied. I tried to stretch out a bit to test my muscles. “I’m not as sore as I thought I’d be.”
“Hmm.” He stretched his legs and rolled his shoulders. “Same.” He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face and let out a bit of a groan. “Though my back says hello.”
I chuckled, but then I remembered last night. “I think it snowed during the night.”
Lawson sat still for a second until it seemed he remembered what that could mean for our expedition, and then he was climbing out of the sleeping bad. “Come on. Let’s take a look at the damage.”
The damage was a light dusting of fine white snow and clumps of build-up driven by the wind around tufts of grass and rocks. It was a cold -4ºC on the thermometer, but the wind was, at the moment, thankfully, gone.
The mist was absent too, leaving behind an amazing view. Behind us, to the northeast, was a valley of forest and, further out, farmland, as far as the eye could see. The sun was just beginning to make its mark on the horizon with a light show of blues and pinks and yellows across the entire valley, and honestly, it was one hell of an impressive view to wake up to.
I stood there, not quite believing how pretty it was. “Wow.”
“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” Amy said, walking back into camp. It must have been her we’d heard earlier.
“What do we make of the snow?” Lawson asked. “Enough to call a stop to our trip?”
She looked around at the snow and made a face. “Honestly, hard to tell. We’ll wait until Connor makes a decision and how long we can put it off. We might just have to hold leaving off for an hour or so, but I’m just guessing.”
Within a few minutes, both Connor and Vince were up and out of their tents. Connor wasn’t happy about the snow, or maybe disappointed was more the case. But after breakfast, it was decided that Connor, Vince, and I would walk on and scout out the area. If it was too dangerous, there’d be no abseiling, and that was a decision I respected.
How long we’d wait it out for, though, would be the true test of patience for Lawson.
Leaving Amy and Lawson to pack everything up—and hopefully keep him busy and distracted enough—Connor, Vince, and I climbed up the rockface and trod our way to the edge of the cliff. There were a few clumps of snow but not as much as I thought there would be.
The view was . . . oh my god, it was beautiful. Connor had been right. We could almost see the west coast from the top. The hike, the difficulty, the aching muscles were worth it for the view alone. It almost looked like something from a movie. Obviously an extinct volcano, the rocky edges formed a somewhat-circular basin which was now a lake and rainforest.
I took out my phone and snapped some photos. “Wow.”
Connor grinned. “Nice, huh?”
“Stunning.”
“Never gets old,” Vince said.
“What’s your assessment?” Connor asked him.
Vince looked around, scraping his boots on the rock, and he peered down over the edge. Then he went to one point of the rock we stood on and scraped away clumps of snow to reveal a row of u-bolts drilled into the rock. He inspected them thoroughly. “Anchors look good. There’s no surface ice, it’s just powdery, and the sun’ll make short work of that.” He stood up and met Connor’s gaze. “I think we’re good to go.”
I grinned. “That’s gonna make someone very happy.”
Vince’s smile matched mine. “Do you reckon they’ve finished packing everything up yet, or should we give them a few minutes?”
Connor snorted and shook his head. “Get your arse back down there and help.”
He laughed and began the walk back to camp, and Connor rolled his eyes. “Kids, huh? If he wasn’t an expert climber . . .”
“I heard that,” Vince called out without turning around.
I chuckled as we made our way back, and Lawson had the tent put away and was staring at Vince. Then when he saw me, he rushed over. “Well, what’s the verdict? Vince wouldn’t say.”
“I wasn’t giving the news,” Vince said, trying not to smile.
Lawson was bordering on panic, and I could see the disappointment creeping into his eyes. Until I smiled. “Get ready to find your butterflies. We are a go.”
Lawson beamed, then shot Vince a foul look. “You made me worry.”
Vince laughed. “Let’s finish here and run through our safety specs and descent details, yeah?”
I rubbed Lawson’s back. “You wait till you see the view.”
“Amy, have we got a weather update?” Connor asked.
Amy read directly from her device screen. “Light southerly, three knots, tops. Temps today to reach twelve degrees, clear skies.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Storms expected to roll in around noon. We’ll need to be down the mountain by the time that hits.”
Connor looked directly at Lawson. “You have all of today and tonight to collect whatever you need, but we’re abseiling out of there tomorrow morning after breakfast. No questions.”
Lawson gave him a nod. “Understood.”
Vince had pulled out a large folded map of the cliff face with black lines drawn down it, and he proceeded to tell us how this would happen.
The mouth of the cave, eighteen metres down, had an excellent landing ledge.
Connor would descend first, then Lawson, then me, then all our gear, then Amy, and Vince would watch anchor and be the last to come down. Tonight would be spent inside the cave, and tomorrow morning we’d take the same order down to the two ledges as we made our way down to the bottom.
This wasn’t a difficult abseil. All abseiling was dangerous, granted, but in the warmer months, people made this descent every other week. It was listed as intermediate. The lack of wind was good and there were no overhangs. Vince had done much harder as a child, he’d boasted. But still . . . all abseiling was dangerous.
When we got everything packed away and made our way up to the top, the rising sun made the view even better. “How are you feeling?” I asked Lawson quietly.
He knew I wasn’t questioning the decision to do this or his ability. I was simply asking if he was in the right mindset. Yes, he was excited and eager to get down into that cave, but one wrong move and this could all end very badly. “Good, and you?”