Man versus mountain. (In real life: first-person America).(Brief Article)

CONWAY, WASHINGTON--Our journey began in earnest on the well-maintained switchbacks that carve their way through dense forest at the base of Mount Baker, in Washington's North Cascades Range. Two hours later, laboring under the weight of our 60-pound packs, we left the treeline and traced our way up through mist and alpine flora on a steep, rarely used trail. I caught my first glimpse of the mountain and its snow-covered moat when I crested the last yards of that path.

We had just covered five miles and nearly 3,000 feet of elevation gain. Now above 7,000 feet, we stopped to set up camp on a tree-rimmed plateau. After dropping our loads like millstones we rubbed sore shoulder muscles, slurped water, and surveyed the carpet of conifers beneath us. The valley was darkened by cloud shadows and spotted with lonely, lime-green meadows. A mere hundred yards away, set against a sky full of shifting mist, lay the mammoth toe of one of Baker's glaciers. Further up, amidst wisps of cirrus above 10,000 feet, lay the pearly snow of her summit.

During our first attempt to reach the top, inclement weather blotted out our intended route. We turned back soon after departing camp. On the morning of our second try, a forbidding mist again obscured the camp in a gray soup that hung a few feet above the snow and reached far up into the clouds. But on the third day we awoke well before dawn to an ink-black sky speckled with crystalline constellations. In the darkened valley below we could see moonlight shining platinum on Baker Lake.

After devouring a hastily cooked breakfast, we gathered our ropes and packs, flicked on headlamps, and quickly strapped crampons to our boots. As we filed along to the snowfields, the steel points scraped and sparked against bare rock. Once each climber had tied the shared rope into his harness the first team methodically ...