Flailing to Independence
Zero Zero
Big Changes

Flailing to Independence

Several years after we began our trips, we decided to travel to the remote highlands of Irian Jaya, a huge island near Australia. A territory of Indonesia, Irian Jaya was inhabited by Yali tribesmen, all cannibals up until the midsixties, and I had heard one of the Rockefellers had dis-appeared there, most likely winding up in a stew. Before flying Cessna planes from the last outpost, Wamena, Mark and I walked into the market. Much of it was roofed by a large thatch, with the insides dark enough to make Mark wonder just what things were. He turned to me and described the scene in a hushed tone. Small dark women and men squatted in the dirt selling pineapples and bananas. Strips of dried pork hung from the ceiling, resting places for flies. On one table lay a series of tools: axes and hoes with wooden handles and stone blades, the items looked over by Indonesians and a few western trekkers. Wamena was a place where two very different times in history met, and I wondered if this clash of cultures would benefit the local people or ultimately destroy them. The men were barefoot, the pads of their feet flat and as thick as the soles of our shoes. They wore nothing but long hollow gourds strapped over their penises. The women went topless, wearing six-inch grass flaps, placed over front and rear. For thirty years, Christian missionaries had been hard at work, persuading the people against cannibalism, but also drawing them away from their traditional dress. Every tenth local, instead of grass skirt or penis gourd, wore western shorts and T-shirts with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Pepsi logos. The Indonesians were also hard at work selling the Yali's sacred land to giant foreign companies interested in ripping old growth timber from the area and cutting the tops off of mountains to extract copper.

Our small plane bounced down on a grass airstrip on the outskirts of the small mountain village of Koserack. Mark's first words outside of the plane worried me. "Wow, this is freaking me out. They're all staring at us and they don't look very friendly. Holy shit. This could be it. Maybe we only think this is a family vacation, but really we're the main course." In the village, we were greeted by the chief, who wore a three-foot penis gourd, much longer than anyone else's. That set off an endless string of gourd jokes from Mark that lasted the entire trip. "Hey Erik, careful, that little dude behind you's trying to poke you with his gourd."

"Erik, this guy's gourd's so long, it's dangling over the campfire."

He even nicknamed our porters, Gordy, Gordon, and Gordo, according to the length of their gourds.

For the next two weeks we crossed the high rain forest, over rushing rivers on fallen tree-limb bridges, and descended steep cliffs on hundred-foot rickety trellises used by the Yali. When the path was easy, Mark would say, "Easy cruiser ahead as far as I can see," and I'd forget concentrating for a while and we'd just amble along.

"So, if these people decided to become cannibals again," I asked Mark, "who out of our family would they catch first?"

At some earlier point, Mark must have taken time to ponder this very subject, because, with no hesitation, he launched right in. "You'd definitely go first. They'd catch you in about two seconds, you stumble-bumbling along. Dad wouldn't last much longer than you, bumble-clodding along. They'd catch him in about five seconds. Next, Eddi. He's too big and muscley to run very fast. He'd wear out quick. I'd give him about ten seconds. And me ... well, I'd probably make it. Eddi'd feed the whole village for a month, and that'd give me time to haul ass. I'd hide in trees, live off the land. It would only be a matter of time before I'd become the leader of the tribe, because I've got the biggest gourd."

One day we had been traveling over a rolling trail on which the topsoil had been washed away by the spring rains. The trail now consisted of exposed roots with radically different shapes and sizes, jutting out at different angles, all slippery with rain. At least twenty times an hour, I would take a step and slip several feet through the network of roots, landing on the uneven forest floor or squishing knee deep in mud. Only occasionally would I land squarely on my feet. Usually, my twisting flailing body, trying desperately to recover, would crash down, perhaps a foot touching first but then knees and shins, and sometimes elbows. I was scraped and gashed from ankles to thighs, and my arms weren't much better. At moments like these, and these were most moments in the mountains, I hated hiking. I couldn't imagine anything worse or more difficult. I was mostly mad at myself for agreeing to come on the trip in the first place. After hiking all day, I was sure if I could see, I probably could have looked back and seen where I had left from that morning. For others, this was a vacation, but for me it was miserable, unforgiving labor. The hunters we encountered along the way, who ran across sharp rocks in their bare feet and climbed seventy-five-foot trees as quickly as a panther, must have puzzled over this young blind foreigner clumsily stumbling and crashing down the rough trail. When I'd hear them nearby, I'd force myself to smile and hide my misery.

Late in the afternoon, without too much progress, I asked Mark, who was trying to guide me through the impossible maze of roots and mud, "Is it really hard to guide me?"

Mark was almost ten years older than me. He owned an aquatic lake-scaping business in Orlando, Florida, which meant frequent twelve-hour days of back-breaking work, standing waist deep in murky lakes and retention ponds, hauling away huge loads of imported plant life carelessly set free into the lake system and now choking off native species. "I could do this all day long," he replied. "Compared to hauling a thousand pounds of Maluka trees, guiding you's a breeze. Actually, wait a minute. What the hell am I saying?... I have done this all day long, and I did it all day yesterday too, and the day before. That's it. I'm ditching your sorry ass." His voice revved into high animation as he shook my shoulders roughly.

Then as we struggled silently forward, I sensed Mark was in deep thought. Softly, Mark said, "You know, Erik, if there was some kind of operation to get your sight back, I swear to God, I'd give you one of my eyes. I wouldn't think twice. Then, I'd have one and you'd have one. We'd walk side by side. You'd check out the topless babes on the right, and I'd check 'em out on the left. But, if they're cute, I get first dibs." I knew Mark meant what he said, on both counts.

An hour later Mark and I realized at our present slow pace, we would not make it into camp before dark. Mark asked our guide, Rudy, "Any problem with hiking in the dark?"

"Panthers hunt at night," he responded. "I will help." He blew into a horn and the deep sound echoed through the jungle. Soon, Yali porters were running up the trail toward us. I felt like I was in a Tarzan movie. They took out knives and began cutting down small bamboo trees and lashing large elephant leaves and vines through them. Before long, they had erected a makeshift hammock. "They want me to get in that thing?" I laughed in shock. "They might drop me." Rudy translated my concern and a Yali replied, "He will be easy to carry. He is much lighter than a large sack of yams."

As the Yali team lifted me up on their shoulders and began to chatter back and forth in high, quick voices, Mark said, "Erik, I'm serious. These aren't our guides. I don't recognize a single one."

"Come on, Mark," I pleaded, "I know you're just joking around."

"These guys are total strangers," Mark insisted, allowing his voice to grow frantic. "I think this was all a ploy to get you tied up."

"Shut up, jerk!" I shot back, trying unsuccessfully to free my arms from the tightly lashed vines.

As the Yali began running with me on their shoulders, Mark called out behind me, "As long as I live, I won't forget you, little brother." From my hammock, I could feel we were flying at breakneck speed over the treacherous trail. Many times I heard crashing, foaming rivers churning below and knew they were carrying me over slippery tree-limb bridges. Please don't let them drop me, especially in the crocodile-infested river, I thought. Mark scampered along behind us, barely keeping up, snapping pictures and singing a parody to "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain." His version went, "They'll be carrying him over the mountain, when he comes."

A few days later, as we approached Anganook, horns blared and villagers ran hours from far distant places to gather under a large thatched roof, two hundred people in all. The women sat on one side, clad only in their grass "flaps"; their children beside them, bellies extended by undernourishment and disease. The men sat opposite, bedecked only in penis gourds, some a mere eight inches but others a curved, rather exotic three feet. My family, Rudy, and I sat very quietly in the back, wearing shorts and hiking boots, and not knowing at all what to expect. A high priest, brilliantly bedazzled in body paint and with colorful bird feathers in his hair, spoke in local dialect while Rudy translated: "Today we sit proudly with a blind man who has come many days across our mountains. We would never have thought such a journey was possible. The blind people of our villages sit in their huts and weave baskets. Maybe we have something to learn from this blind man. Maybe there is a better way for the blind people of the Yali."

Listening intently to the words, I realized that scrambling over boulder fields and sludging across glaciers took on a greater meaning than I had originally thought. That although I was blind, and probably would be forever, I had the ability to teach those around me, not by my words or my intentions, but by my actions. Afterwards, I smiled sheepishly as the village priest presented me with an honorary penis gourd. It was much longer than I needed.

Zero Zero

At eleven thousand feet we were socked in by a storm that dropped fat wet flakes as big as dimes. We spent hours in the megamid, an eight-foot-square room we had made by digging a hole, building snow block walls, and attaching a slanted nylon-framed roof on top. We'd swap stories and pass around an immense bag of little slimy sausages. Chris told us about moving to the wilds of Alaska and building his own log cabin house in Wasilla. "I stole the logs from a family of beavers," Chris said and then laughed, "and I stripped the bark with my own teeth." During his first winter, snowdrifts piled up to his roof and his favorite husky dog was eaten by a pack of wolves. When he told us his mailing address, swearing he wasn't lying, we all laughed.

Mile 12.2 Sourdough Lane
Third Dirt Road on Right
First Log House on Left
Wasilla, Alaska 99287

Throughout the day, different Alaskan guides whom Chris hadn't seen since last year in a similar storm would drop in and soon they'd be best friends again, laughing and telling large Alaskan tales. I loved listening to their stories, which expertly blurred the line between folklore and truth. "I was floating down the Aragatch when I rounded a corner and there they were, a herd of caribou, a thousand thick if there was one."

"Have you ever heard the story of Hue Glass? He was tore up by a grizzly and left for dead, but he crawled thirty miles with his guts falling out all over the ground and when he found that old cod who left him for dead, well ..."

"Did you hear about that moose that gored that old boy up near Valdez? Stomped him flat and then damned if he didn't spit on the poor soul."

"I was up near Fairbanks last winter. It was so cold, my tires froze into squares. You ever try driving on square tires?"

"Ever poke around in the Chugatch Range? Rock ain't much. So soft, you can carve your name in it with your finger. Call it Chugatch crud, but there's enough unclimbed peaks to keep a fella busy for quite a spell."

Chris, by far, had the best Alaskan adventures. I loved listening to his rough twang, relating his narrow escapes of giant avalanches in the Talkeetna Range, his treacherous fordings of the McKinley River when he was swept, pack and all, down the churning rapids, and his isolated float trips, catching Dolly Varden and Arctic grayling above the Arctic Circle. I imagined Chris as a larger-than-life frontiersman, straight from the Alaskan bush, riding caribou across the tundra with Daniel Boone, together fighting grizzlies and taming the land. "You must be a burly dude," I said to Chris.

"How do you picture him?" Jeff interjected with a hint of a grin in his voice.

"About six foot two and maybe, two hundred fifty pounds, with a big bushy lumberjack's beard and arms of steel."

Jeff cracked up, rolling back and almost choking on one of the slimy sausages. "This time, Super Blind, your extrasensory perception is way off. Six foot two? Two hundred fifty pounds? Arms of steel? He's more like five foot eight and a hundred fifty pounds soaking wet. Picture a little weasely runt with a shiny bald head, and there's Chris Morris for ya." I couldn't believe it. My brain couldn't put together Chris's burly voice and Jeff's description. I felt the way Dorothy must have, when Toto pulled the curtain back and exposed the Wizard of Oz. Chris jumped up, deepening his already rumbling voice. "He's lying, Big E! He's just jealous. I'm six foot four if I'm an inch and at least two-eighty. I'm a big burly sucker, just like you pictured me, and don't you let anyone tell you otherwise." Needing to know for sure, I jumped up and grabbed out for Chris. My fingers swept across his bald scalp and then locked around his biceps, which, despite Chris flexing them as hard as he could, were well shy of burly.

Every so often, someone would poke his head out of the megamid and report, "Yep, it's still snowing." And once a friend of Chris's said, "Ain't gonna be no traveling today. It's zero, zero out there."

"Zero, zero?" I asked.

"Zero zero's what a climber gets when it's all socked in like it is now. The sky gets so gray and flat that you can't tell it from the snow. If you're caught out in it, you're in a mess of trouble. There's no tellin' whether you're walkin' on the sky or on the earth. You get so dizzy, you can't tell which way is up or down or sideways. Climbers'll walk right off a cliff, and won't even know they're fallin' till they hit the ground."

"Come to think of it," Chris said, turning to me and slapping me on the shoulder, "you're in zero zero all day long."

Big Changes

Throughout the school year, people who had seen the McKinley climb on TV called, asking me to speak to their various groups. One call was from the Texas Lions Camp, an hour south of San Antonio, requesting me to spend a couple of days with 250 disabled campers. The camp was free of charge to all the children accepted, and for each session, they swam, camped, and rock climbed on an artificial rock wall. I was there to help the camp run a high ropes course, adapted so that campers in their wheelchairs could complete it.

At the opening campfire ceremony, I met the Dane family. All three brothers were born blind and mentally disabled. The youngest, Nathan, who was the most severely disabled of the three, was constantly connected to an array of complicated and obtrusive equipment, which kept him alive. He wore heart monitors to keep track of his irregular heartbeat and a mist collar so his skin wouldn't dry out. He had to be fed through a gastric tube placed in his stomach, and at night, every half hour, a nurse used a tracheotomy tube to perform deep suction on his throat so he wouldn't choke. When I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied boldly that he wanted to be an astronaut. I envisioned him, connected to his gastric and tracheotomy tubes, his heart monitors, and mist collar, blasting off into space. Unlikely, I honestly thought, but then I reconsidered. Who's to tell? I decided, except him. Standing away from her children, Nathan's mother told me, "Asocial worker once looked at my children and told me they would only be a burden on society and asked me why I didn't abort them when I had the chance. I'd told her, "Come to my house. Spend a little time with the children; see how much love they have to give, and you'd understand."

During the opening ceremony and under the stars of a clear Texas sky, the camp director asked each camper to find a stick. "Now," he continued, "make a wish, something you want to accomplish this week. Maybe, it's making a new friend or overcoming a fear or trying something new. Your stick represents your wish. Hold it in your hand and feel your wish taking form." Then all the children were asked to line up, shuffle past the campfire, and throw their sticks into the blaze. I sat on a log, listening to the long line of children slowly moving forward. The clearing was too small for a straight line of 250 campers and a hundred more counselors, so it curved around in a massive, spiraling circle. The line represented disabilities of almost every kind: paras and quads, blind and deaf, birth defects and mental retardation, spina bifida and muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, and autism. Every child held their greatest hopes and dreams in their hands and then tossed them into the fire. The mountain of small sticks fueled the flames as the heat rose. "Now, your wishes have been ignited by the fire," the director said. "The great possibility of your lives has been unlocked and is rising up into the Texas sky, now, only to be realized." That night I cheated and threw two sticks into the fire. I didn't want to believe that life was an either/or, that if you chose one thing, you couldn't have the other. Then I sat back and listened to the fire crackle and roar, picturing the sky crowded with wishes, rising up over the earth, like Nathan's rocket ship.

My first wish was to climb a few more mountains. Actually I had a tick list of mountains a mile long. Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa, would be a perfect climb for Ellie and my dad to experience the beauty of the mountains the way I had on McKinley. I thought Kilimanjaro would especially appeal to the explorer in Ellie, since from its base to summit is the only place in the world where one can pass so quickly through the earth's five distinct vegetation zones: the cultivated fields of the lower slopes, forest, heath and moorland, alpine, and finally, arctic. Plus, I might be able to bribe Ellie with a Serengeti safari afterwards.

I also wanted to try a technical rock climb. On McKinley, Sam and I had discussed the idea of El Capitan, a 3300-foot rock face in Yosemite Valley, California, the tallest exposed-granite monolith in the world. El Cap was a climber's dream. What a way to spend a summer, in a climber's Mecca, Yosemite Valley.

Down the road, I wanted to climb Aconcagua, the tallest peak in South America. Aconcagua straddles Chile and Argentina and is located at the southern tip of the Andes. At 22,850 feet, Aconcagua is a full half mile taller than McKinley, and the perfect next step. The only problem was that Aconcagua was typically climbed in the South American summer, the North American winter. Falling right smack in the middle of the school year, it would be unfair to my students for me to take an entire month off. I had also begun to get the attention of the outdoor gear industry, so with a few sponsorships and with the money coming in from my slide shows, I thought I could actually make a living.

I even dreamed about a greater challenge, one so immense, I didn't even speak it aloud, for fear of sounding ridiculous. Recently, I had read a book entitled, Seven Summits, by Dick Bass. In his fifties, with relatively little climbing experience, Bass had become the first person to climb the highest peak in each of the seven continents. Supposedly, McKinley was the second hardest, a far second, of course, to Mount Everest. I wondered if I really had the capability to climb them all. The rational side of me warned, "Hold on there, tiger. You've climbed one big mountain. Let's not get carried away." But when I thought about climbing mountains all over the world, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures, my life just one great adventure, I found it impossible not to get carried away. After Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua, there was Mount Elbrus, highest peak in Europe, Carstenz Pyramid, highest in Austral-Asia, Mount Vinson, highest in Antarctica, and finally, Everest, a word that made me nervous just thinking about it. I would need to gain a lot more experience in the mountains.

But I couldn't stop asking myself, What if I fail? What if I make it to the top of six but find that Everest's summit is simply beyond my reach? With failure, the sighted world would immediately point to blindness as the culprit. "Well, of course he didn't make all seven. The guy can't see." Although the failure might have come from a dozen other, more pertinent reasons: sickness, injury, or simply my limitations at high altitude or as an athlete in general. Pushing the world's assumptions aside, I felt determined to rise to the level of my own internal potential, and if my potential fell short of seven, then at least that would be a more honest path than being talked out of something before I even started.

My first wish, to climb mountains, however, would have been meaningless without the second. I decided to propose to Ellen. I had never known happiness like I had around Ellen. I had a tendency to live in the future, to make a long list of goals and then scheme and conspire about how I would get there, but when I was with Ellen, I existed fully in the present. With her, the past and the future seemed like distant abstractions. Whether we were snuggling on the couch on a Saturday night, or standing on the top of a mountain, I was filled up with the richness of the moment, and I couldn't imagine being anywhere other than with her. I asked her to marry me on a perfect, sunbaked, Arizona day atop the Praying Monk, a two-hundred-foot rock formation, overlooking the city of Phoenix. For several months, Ellen had expressed interest, in her subtle way, in getting married. Off on a great hike in the Grand Canyon, all of a sudden it struck me that Ellen had been very quiet for an hour. It was obvious something was wrong, even though Ellie stubbornly denied it. After an hour of detective work - false starts, dead-end leads, and a long series of haranguing questions - I finally got to the core of issue: throughout her long bout of silence, Ellen had been hearing the loud clang of wedding bells in her head. Then one day she started talking about a special ring she had seen in Santa Fe. "I just really like it," she said. "It's not like I'm asking you to get it for me, I just like the looks of it a lot."

It seemed fitting that we began our marriage plans on the Praying Monk. From Ellen's classroom window she had a perfect view of the formation, which apparently looks like a cloaked monk kneeling and praying to the larger mountain. I knew Ellen had always wanted to climb it and I wanted to be the one to lead her up the climb. Hidden in the bottom of my climbing pack along with the climbing gear were two plastic champagne glasses with snap-on stems, a small bottle of chilled Mumm Cuvée Napa Valley sparkling wine, a ring made out of candy, and two tickets to Santa Fe, for ring shopping.

Leading the Praying Monk entails clipping the rope into rusty metal bolts that have been drilled into the rock every ten feet or so. The route begins with a slight overhang, then moves around a corner onto an exposed face at which the ground has dropped away and you are suddenly situated hundreds of feet above the city of Phoenix and the expansive desert floor.

I planned to lead us up the route, but Ellie, who needed to spot the bolts for me to clip into, could only see the first three bolts, losing sight of the rest as the route rounded the corner. Worried that my plans for a memorable day were washed up and with our champagne losing its chill, I encouraged Ellie to give it a try. "I'll get us past the hard part, clip in, then you can lead the rest," I told her. Ellie and I had been rock climbing together for a year but she had never lead climbed before. I knew, trying it for the first time, she'd be a bit intimidated. I wouldn't blame her if she opted out.

Ellie took the lead, never faltered, and before long, she yelled a confident, "ON BELAY! You can climb now." I climbed the entire route with a proud expectant smile on my face.

It was my turn to be nervous, when faced with the proposal. The top surface of the climb, the head, shoulders, and upper back of the monk, is smoothed by time and wind. The sandstone has small pockets and flat platforms that are perfect for sitting and relaxing. Warmer wind passed us by, drifting down from another mountain, muffling the city sounds below. Ellen had asked to start her descent, and I encouraged her to sit with me a little bit longer. I think she sensed something was up because my voice cracked. Finally I drew her near me and told her how much she meant to me. "Ellen," I said, my voice becoming strong and sincere. "You are the most important thing in my life, more important than any mountain. I think back at all the fun we've had together and I can't imagine not being with you. I think from the first moment I met you, I knew I loved you then. I hope you haven't waited too long for me to tell you that I want you always in my life. I want to be with you forever." I had rehearsed all morning what I would say. Once I started, the words flowed easily. "I want you to be my wife," I said. "Will you marry me?"

It doesn't matter how much time actually passes between this type of question and the answer. For me it seemed an eternity. "Yes," she said softly, and I touched her face as I sometimes did when I thought she was crying. Her cheeks were moist. Then I took out the champagne and glasses. Ellen popped the cork and it sailed forever down. "There goes the tradition of keeping the cork," she said as she poured us each a glass.

For an hour Ellie and I sat back, basking in the midmorning sun and listening to the city noises that floated up from far below. At the Lions camp, I had made a wish to marry Ellen and to climb mountains, but I worried that I had taken on too much. Maybe I was greedy to expect so much out of life. My mind spun with the magnitude of change. Leaning back, I reached out and took Ellie's hand. I didn't want my life to be a conquest. Goals seemed like false summits; you reach what you thought was the top, only to discover a higher summit. So, you continue to climb higher and higher, always finding another summit a little higher, and you never find what you are looking for. The magic of life had to exist beyond a perpetual series of summits. How could I expand the breadth of my own life beyond the tops of mountains? I thought about something our Balti guide had said when I hiked in the Karakoram Range in Pakistan. One day we hiked to the top of a seventeen-thousand-foot peak, high for our standards, but in the Karakorams, so puny as to not even have a name. It was a mere bump on the massive landscape, and as we moved up the rolling terrain, my brother Eddi not seeing the top, asked, "When will we be on the mountain?"

"We are on the mountain!" the Balti replied, a little puzzled. "We have always been on the mountain." Why did people, including myself, envision a mountain as only a summit? It was like looking at an iceberg and only recognizing the part above the water's surface. I thought about all the wonderful moments I had experienced on mountains: hiking with my brother Mark through the high rain forest of Irian Jaya, playing baseball with ski poles and snowballs on Denali, and now, sitting with Ellie on the top of the Praying Monk, feeling the light buzz of champagne. These moments seemed frozen in time, and I could bring them up to the surface whenever I wanted. They were like snapshots, which defined the essence of who I was, what I wanted, whom I loved. Maybe the real beauty of life happened on the side of the mountain, not the top.

In a philosophy class at BC I had studied the work of the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, who had given the advice, "Follow your bliss." Were these gigantic, sweeping changes in my life the quest to follow my bliss, or did they represent the inflated ambition of a Walter Mitty pipe dream? I honestly didn't know. So, instead of trying to predict the future, I would rely on two principles which had led me to this point, and one new principle I was just starting to recognize: I would set myself in motion, have faith in my vision, and never lose sight of those precious moments of bliss along the way.

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