“Pe-ter,” Brian drawls. “We can’t eat here comfortably, there’s barely room to sit. As soon as we get around that shoulder”—he points south—”the traverse will be done and we’ll be at the pass.”
Peter takes in a deep breath, lets it out. “I need to rest.”
“O.K.,” Brian says, “do it. I’m just going to go around to the pass, I’m tired of sitting.” He picks up the other orange snowshoe, sticks his boot in the binding.
The third man, who is medium height and very thin, has been staring at the snow granules on his boot. Now he picks up a yellow snowshoe and kicks into it. Peter sees him do it, sighs, bends over to yank his aluminum-and-cord snowshoes out of the snow they are stuck in.
“Look at that hummingbird,” the third man says with pleasure and points.
He is pointing at blank snow. His two companions look where he is pointing, then glance at each other uncomfortably. Peter shakes his head, looks at his boots.
“I didn’t know there were hummingbirds in the Sierras,” the third man says. “What a beauty!” He looks at Brian uncertainly. “Are there hummingbirds in the Sierras?”
“Well,” Brian says, “actually, I think there are. But…“
“But not this time, Joe,” Peter finishes.
“Ah,” Joe says, and stares at the spot in the snow. “I could have sworn…“ Peter looks at Brian, his face squinched up in distress “Maybe the light breaking on that clump of snow,” Joe says, mystified. “Oh, well.”
Brian stands and hoists a compact blue pack onto his shoulders, and steps off the boulder onto the snow. He leans over to adjust a binding. “Let’s get going, Joe,” he says. “Don’t worry about it” And to Peter “This spring snow is great.”
“If you’re a goddamn polar bear,” Peter says.
Brian shakes his head, and his silvered sunglasses flash reflections of snow and Peter. “This is the best time to he up here. If you would ever come with us in January or February you’d know that.”
“Summer!” Peter says as he picks up his long frame pack. “Summer’s what I like—catch the rays, see the flowers, walk around without these damn flippers on—” He swings his pock onto his back, steps back quickly (clatter of aluminum on granite) to keep his balance. He buckles his waistbelt awkwardly, looks at the sun. It is near midday. He wipes his forehead.
“You don’t even come up with us in the summer anymore,” Brian points out. “What has it been, four years?”
“Time,” Peter says. “I don’t have any time, and that’s a fact.”
“Just all your life,” Brian scoffs. Peter shakes off the remark with an irritated scowl, and steps onto the snow.
They turn to look at Joe, who is still inspecting the snow with a fierce squint.
“Hey, Joe!” Brian says.
Joe starts and looks up.
“Time to hike, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, just a second” Joe readies himself.
Three men snowshoeing.
Brian leads. He sinks about a foot into the snow with every step. Joe follows, placing his yellow snowshoes carefully in the prints of Brian’s, so that he sinks hardly at all. Peter pays no attention to prints, and his snowshoes crash into and across the holes. His snowshoes slide left, downhill, and he slips frequently.
The slope steepens. The three men sweat. Brian slips left one time too often and stops to remove his snowshoes. They can no longer see the rock wall above them, the slope is so steep. Brian ties his snowshoes to his pack, puts the pack back on. He puts a glove on his right hand and walks canted over so he can punch into the slope with his fist.
Joe and Peter stop where Brian stops, to make the same changes. Joe points ahead to Brian, who is now crossing a section of slope steeper than forty-five degrees.
“Strange three-legged hill animal,” says Joe, and laughs. “Snoweater.”
Peter looks in his pack for his glove. “Why don’t we go down into the trees and avoid this damn traverse?”
“The view isn’t as good.”
Peter sighs. Joe waits, scuffs snow,, looks at Peter curiously. Pete has put suntan oil on his face, and the sweat has poured from his forehead, so that his stubbled cheeks shine with reflected light.
He says, “Am I imagining this, or are we working really hard?”
“We’re working very hard,” Joe says. “Traverses are difficult.”
They watch Brian, who is near the middle of the steepest section. “You guys do this snow stuff for fun?” Peter says.
After a moment Joe starts. “I’m sorry,” he says, “What were we talking about?”
Peter shrugs, examines Joe closely. “You O.K.?” he asks, putting his gloved hand to Joe’s arm.
“Yeah, yeah. I just… forgot. Again”
“Everyone forgets sometimes.”
“I know, I know.” With a discouraged sigh Joe steps off into Brian’s prints. Peter follows.
From above they appear little dots, the only moving objects in a sea of white and black. Snow blazes white and prisms flash from sunglasses. They wipe their foreheads, stop now and then to catch their breath. Brian pulls ahead, Pete falls behind. Joe steps out the traverse with care, talking to himself in undertones. Their gloves get wet, there are ice bracelets around their wrists. Below them solitary trees at treeline wave in a breeze, but on the slope it is windless and hot.
The slope lessens, and they are past the shoulder. Brian pulls off his pack and gets out his groundpad, sits on it. He roots in the pack. After a while Joe joins him. “Whew!” Joe says. “That was a hard traverse.”
“Not really hard,” Brian replies. “Just boring.” He eats some M and M’s, waves a handful up at the ridge above. “I’m tired of traversing, though, that’s for sure. I’m going up to the ridge so I can walk down it to the pass.”
Joe looks at the wall of snow leading up to the ridge. “Yeah, well, I think Pete and I will continue around the corner here and go past Lake Doris to the pass. It’s almost level from here on.”
“True. I’m going to go up there anyway.”
“All right. We’ll see you in the pass in a while.”
Brian looks at Joe. “You’ll be all right?”
“Sure.”
Brian gets his pack on, turns and begins walking up the slope, bending forward to take big slow strides. Watching him, Joe says to himself, “Humped splayfoot pack beast, yes. House-backed creature. Giant snow snail. Yo ho for the mountains. Rum de dum. Rum de dum de dum.”
Peter appears around the shoulder, walking slowly and carelessly. He spreads his groundpad, sits beside Joe. After a time his breathing slows. “Where’s Brian?”
“He went up there.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“I thought we might go around to the pass the way the trail goes.”
“Thank God.”
“We’ll get to go by Lake Doris.”
“The renowned Lake Doris,” Peter scoffs.
Joe waves a finger to scold. “It is nice, you know.”
Joe and Peter walk. Soon their breathing hits a regular rhythm. They cross a meadow tucked into the side of the range like a terrace. It is covered with suncones, small melt depressions in the snow, and the walking is uneven.
“My feet are freezing,” Pete says from several yards behind Joe.
Joe looks back to reply. “It’s a cooling system. Most of my blood is hot—so hot I can hold snow in my hand and my hand won’t get cold. But my feet are chilled. It cools the blood. I figure there’s a spot around my knees that’s perfect. My knees feel great. I live there and everything’s comfortable.”
“My knees hurt.”
“Hmm,” Joe says. “Now that is a problem.”