Keyboard of the Winds

By Alan R. Apt

Embark on an enthralling global adventure with this book, showcasing mountaineering in some of the world’s most magnificent and demanding terrains. Encounter an eclectic group of mountaineers as they tackle treacherous climbs along perilous paths, where every ascent is fraught with uncertainty. The author masterfully paints a vivid picture of these harrowing experiences, holding you captive in a world of exhilarating suspense. Delight in the exhilaration of traversing majestic mountains, from the Rockies and Cascades to the Alaska Range, Alps, and Himalayas, each described with breathtaking beauty and awe-inspiring scenery.

More than a tale of mountaineering, Keyboard of the Winds is a historical odyssey set in America, spanning the broad vistas of the 20th Century. Witness the lives of the characters as they evolve through realistic, sometimes humorous, and poignant moments, encapsulating life in America and Europe during the transformative decades of the 1960s and 1970s. This book not only captures the spirit of late Twentieth Century life but also the enduring human spirit of adventure and discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889109747

Alan R. Apt

Alan Apt is the author of three widely used Colorado guidebooks, Ski Touring, and Snowshoeing, Colorado’s Front Range, and Afoot and Afield in Colorado, a hiking guide. He is a former weekly columnist for the Fort Collins, Coloradoan newspaper. He has contributed trail, travel and trekking articles to the Denver Post and Boulder Weekly. He was the Publisher of dozens of innovative computer science and engineering textbooks with Prentice Hall. He has trekked and climbed in many of the world’s iconic mountain ranges, including: The Rockies, Alps, Andes, Sierra, Cascades, Alaska Range, Scotland’s Munroes and the Himalayas. He has climbed over 50 of Colorado’s highest mountains. He is an alumni member of the National Ski Patrol. He is a volunteer ski and snowshoe instructor with Ignite Adaptive Sports, and a Special Olympics softball coach. His descriptions of the natural world have been called lyrical. He lives in Nederland, Colorado.

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Chapter 1

Winter Ascent of Longs Peak-1974

Storms are fine speakers and tell us all they know, but their voices of lightning, torrent, and rushing wind are much less numerous, than the nameless still small voices too low for human ears because we are poor listeners.

John Muir, The Mountains of California

Longs Peak North Face View-Photo by National Park Service

Tim and Reinhardt never bragged about their accomplishments. They embraced the mountains to feel complete, not to compete with other people. They both felt that being in the mountains was the best slice of reality available It was much more real than the artificial environment of cities. The challenges of mountaineering planted them in the present moment.

The concentration required obliterated the regrets from the past and the uncertainty of the future with the rewards of the present. The camaraderie alone was enough to make the adventure worthwhile. They shared a bond of being mesmerized by the stark beauty and physical embrace of high mountain terrain.

Tim agreed to the mid-winter ascent, trusting Reinhardt’s judgment. He thought that the winter climb would be an excellent skill building experience for the glacier-riddled slopes of Mount McKinley-Denali that he was planning to climb the following summer.

After all, Reinhardt climbed Longs Peak every January, as a ritual for staying in mental and physical condition for the high mountains of the Andes, Himalayas, and his home country Alps. He climbed in one of those mountain ranges every summer, sometimes Tim tagged along.

Tim had climbed Longs several times. It was his favorite Colorado mountain, almost like a companion that never failed to lift his spirits. A winter ascent seemed extreme to non-mountaineers, but safety would be weather, gear and skill dependent. They had the right gear and the right skills and attitude, now they needed the weather gods to smile on them during an especially unpredictable time of the year.

Weather forecasts for the mountains were very unreliable. Using skis for part of the ascent was a bit unusual but not in places like Colorado and Norway. It would theoretically make a descent in deep snow easier because of their skill level as skiers.

It was a warm, spring-like day, early in the New Year, on January 15th, 1974 when they left Boulder with temperatures in the high-50s, not unusual winter weather in the Colorado Rockies. Downslope Chinook winds were providing mid-winter warming on the eastern plains in between storms. The weather forecast said they had a very brief warm weather window for their climb.

Mountain weather forecasts are not trustworthy because 14,000-foot mountains can create their own weather. Dramatic changes can and do frequently occur without warning, often with deadly results.

Reinhardt had a friend in Boulder who worked for the National Weather Service and he always consulted him before winter excursions. He told Reinhardt that he was cautiously optimistic, but that a cold front ‘clipper’ from Canada would be arriving in about 48 hours. This January’s weather was very unstable. He said they were gambling on the weather.

Winter mountaineering came with calculated risks, reduced but not eliminated, by being somewhat well prepared. Even the highly skilled were overconfident and complacent about the inherent risks. Three avalanche experts were killed in an avalanche near Loveland Pass, skiing under a steep slope of Mount Sniktau.

They should have known the risk was unacceptable, but group dynamics led to group hubris, and dire consequences. People make decisions based on their perceptions of the world that aren’t always accurate. Hopefully that would not be the fate of Tim and Reinhardt, two highly skilled, overly optimistic climbers.

They left Boulder around 11 AM and drove toward Allenspark and then north on the Peak-to-Peak highway toward Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park. When they neared the Longs Peak trailhead, they stopped in a pull out on the highway to look at Longs Peak and Mount Meeker. Longs massive fluted east side looked like giant, fan shaped granite hands reaching for the sky, and scraping the bottom of the firmament.

The uplift started 70 million years ago. The volcanic activity that created the granite cliffs was up lifted thousands of feet from the former seabed. said Reinhardt. He loved to rattle off hard to comprehend geology.

Tim said, It looks like a granite cathedral. Hard to believe we will be on top of that tomorrow.

Yes, we will claw our way to the top. The Rockies were 10,000 feet higher than they are now but have eroded over the millions of years. Glad we aren’t climbing up to 24,000 feet! Reinhardt was looking at wisps of snow floating off of the summit.

So, the Rockies were originally as high as the Andes, hard to believe.

It was late afternoon when they stopped at the backcountry office at Rocky Mountain National Park to talk to the rangers about conditions. The rangers hadn’t been on Longs for a few weeks. They tried to rescue a 25-year-old male tourist who attempted the mountain in late December, when it had become a technical climb because of snow and ice.

The tourist from the Midwest was scantily clad for winter mountaineering and had no technical climbing gear, or a companion, when he fell near the Keyhole. He froze to death before they could find him the following afternoon. The head injuries from his fall of 200 feet were probably mortal wounds in any case. Ranger Olsen disliked dealing with dead bodies, even when frozen. There was no way to close his open startled looking frozen brown eyes, before they zipped him into the body bag for evacuation by helicopter.

The rangers couldn’t provide any new information about the route except to say it would be much more challenging because of the recent snow that had dropped 30 inches on the route in the last two weeks. The snow seemed to have stabilized after some avalanches.

Rocky Mountain Park backcountry ranger and Tim’s family friend Uncle Paul Olsen said, You boys think you are well prepared but Tim I think you’re fucking crazy for following this wild man up there. He usually solos this route because he can’t find anyone foolish enough to go with him. No one has tried the north face in the winter without the cables. It is definitely going to be more snow loaded because of all of the recent storms. You’ll have to hope the recent avalanches on the north face have cleared away the unstable snow.

Tim said with a grin, You’re kidding, he said it would be like a stroll in Estes Park.

They all laughed.

We’ll give you a cut rate rescue fee if we have to come up there and save your bacon.

They tried to get a few hours of sleep at the Longs Peak trailhead in Tim’s van; they were cozy sleeping back-to-back in warm sleeping bags. They boiled water and brewed tea and coffee to wash down the fig bars. They started for the summit in the dark, long before dawn at 2AM, to save the short January day for the technical part of the climb.

A glorious full moon gleamed on the snow an hour above the horizon, surrounded by iridescent stars that grew more distinct as it descended. The gleaming snowcapped mountain looked austere and translucent as it waited for them in the magical full moonlight. Was it extending an invitation, or daring them to be fools and try to ascend the frigid, icy north face?

The light from their headlamps ricocheted off of the sparkling snow as the steep trail weaved through the forest, though they hardly needed the headlamps. The moon was backlighting the conifers and aspens that lined the trail, even casting a shadow across the trail it was so bright. The reflection off of the snow almost made it seem like daylight.

They skied up the Chasm Lake section of the trail and near tree line at 11,000 feet, the snow became looser and more unconsolidated with every mile. No one had tramped down the snow since the last storm that had deposited around 6–9 inches of powder. Breaking trail after a snowstorm was extra effort but they were able to get a little glide with each kick. The climbing skins on the bottoms of their skis were gripping well and not sliding backward at all.

The snowfields were breathing chilled air on them that descended from the almost vertical high flanks of the mountain. The Chasm Lake trail alternated between deep sasturgi, hard snow drifts of parallel waves carved by the wind, and wind scoured ice, as the slope opened up among the stunted, twisted krummholtz evergreen trees.

The west facing, wind blasted half of the tree was stunted and scrawny with few branches and pine needles, and the east side had full pine needles and branches. Some of the Engelman spruce and fern trees in Rocky Mountain Park were 1,000 years old, dwarfing the wisdom of the humans that beheld them in the moonlight.

They had to traverse a steep, hard packed snow and ice slope that angled away from the trail. Their skis and skins dug in and held their edge. They could save their crampons and ice axes for the north face. When they reached the turnoff for Chasm Lake thousands of feet of the breath-taking view of the vertical, icy east face of the Longs Peak ‘Diamond’ came into focus in the moonlight and starlight.

The trail temporarily became a gentle ascent and they traversed west above the Jim’s Grove tent campsite. Forty-five minutes of traversing later they approached the massive rocks in the Boulder Field. They had to shed their skis and stash them in an obvious place, and mark the spot with a bright orange plastic flag.

They carefully wound their way over, around and through the slippery ice and snow-covered rocks, and felt like they were clambering on the backside of the moon. Their cheeks were bright red, and their noses were running from the 10-degree temperature. They could see that much of the north face route was blown free of snow, with sections of glare ice and large humps of new snow glittering eerily in the faint moon glow.

When they reached the campsites at the Boulder Field at 12,700 feet, the rotating earth swallowed the full moon, and the countless stars of the home Milky Way galaxy became a wave of gold dust. Tim almost thought he could hear the starlight twinkling in the wind.

Longs Peak, Diamond East Face and North Face-Photo National Park Service

They put on their crampons for the steeper ridge of rocks and scree that was almost completely snow-covered. There were some icy bare rock sections from the Keyhole Route to the beginning of the north face cable route. They walked over to a much closer view of the towering and glowering east face Diamond called Chasm View. The mountain loomed like a sleeping giant that dwarfed them and made them feel like tiny insects, its frosty breath made them shiver. Their hubris evaporated in the breeze.

Tim understood viscerally why Native Americans feel that mountains have a spiritual dimension; he could feel the spirit of the brooding mountain in the crisp air. Tim felt the cold through his layers of clothing. He could also feel the challenge of the environment and its massive indifference to human endeavors.

He was taken aback by the sky that had turned to black velvet with the majestic unlimited horizon of stars and planets looking like a glittering Van Gogh painting in three dimensions of infinity. He could almost feel the earth moving through space at 68,000 miles per hour.

Reinhardt, the stars are mind boggling. Man, why would anyone want to sit in a city when they could be up here? Reinhardt had an ear-to-ear grin, chuckled, and patted Tim on the back.

Really man, I told you it would be worth it!

They were enjoying the unique intoxication of the adventure.

They had a breakfast snack as the edge of night and the dawn disputed the possession of the firmament and then the sky lit up in an orange-rose glow, and they could see the start of the route. The climb on the former cable route would be tricky for the first technical 160 feet because of a glaze of ice, and what appeared to be a highly unusual thick lip of ice and snow. During the summer months they could climb this 5.2 route without protection.

Reinhardt said, I have never seen this route with an overhanging cornice. Must be from the recent storms. Have to go around it. This new route will be at least a 5.7.

Tim said Awesome, but he was hoping he could turn his fear into adrenaline energy to keep up with Reiny. He involuntarily shivered.

The National Park Service originally had the route equipped with a thick cable, similar to via ferrate, iron path, cable and ladder routes in the Alps, like the one on Zugspitze in Germany. It was later seen as un-environmental, and there were too many climbing accidents, so the cable was removed.

The Keyhole became the somewhat easier, but still hazardous, standard route. Rocky Mountain National Park was trying to incorporate an untrammeled wilderness ethic. Some eyebolts remained and that made it easier to place protection.

They both loved rock climbing and scrambling. Tim always felt in full contact with the natural world when he was embracing granite, and feeling around for handholds to defy gravity. It was more tactile and satisfying in the summer to have bare hands on warm rock.

The warm rock was a tactile connection to nature, and made him sense the timelessness of the granite and natural world. It was a Zen experience, a meditation on his place in the real world of nature, rather than the artificial world of the city.

They had the right winter equipment, snow and ice experience, and so far, good weather conditions. The temperature was bracing, creating the ice and making the snow crunchy. This cornice problem would make the climb more challenging, not necessarily a bad thing.

They took the time to carefully place the protection on the new winter route, in case they slipped off of the glaze of ice and hardened snow. There was no need to rush, and potentially make mistakes on this relatively easy route that now required an awkward traverse to avoid the cornice.

The thin air between 13 and 14,000 feet slowed decision-making, especially given the exertion. The altitude imbued a different state of consciousness and Reinhardt wondered if it elicited a mild but exhilarating endorphin high. Living in Boulder at 5,000 feet helped his body adapt.

Their crampons clattered on the rock, and since their gloved hands were slipping off of the icy rocks, they used their ice axes to ascend to supplement their grip when needed. They took turns leading the route but Reinhardt led most of the pitches since he had climbed it in the winter.

This traverse is more vertical rock, and an overhang. Tim, we are in 5.9 territory! he yelled to Tim (Most climbs are rated from 5.0 to 5.10 in difficulty; human fly climbs are in the 5.11 to 5.14 zone).

Tim replied Wow, heavy! but immediately wondered if he was in over his head and muttered fuck under his breath to himself. He wasn’t an ice climber, but he knew how to use an ice axe and the crampons that were clattering and slipping on the icy granite.

The thin air required deep breaths to stay out of oxygen debt. Tim was more careful about every foothold because of the ice. The vertical exposure toward the Diamond was more intimidating for him. Reinhardt was a mountain goat raised on the glaciers and ice of the Alps. Tim’s home mountains required few snow and ice skills unless you were attempting a winter ascent, a rarity for him.

It struck Tim that they were climbing in a rarefied zone; everywhere they looked was mountains, rock, snow and ice. They were moving in a timeless dream. It was otherworldly and they had the mountain to themselves. It was a real treat compared to the busy summer crowd. Reinhardt was doing a great job of leading and placing protection devices methodically.

Tim was retrieving the protection as he climbed, sometimes struggling to keep his balance as he pried it off the rock face because of the glaze of ice. Tim really appreciated his lead when he saw Reinhardt having to place one foot high above and to the right of the overhang and then swing his other leg up and over.

Tim said, Damn, you didn’t tell me I would need a ballet move!

You can do it man!

Tim took a deep breath when he saw the hundreds of feet dropping off below him between his knees and tried to swing his leg as high, while hanging on with one arm. He was in a state of disequilibrium, wondering if he could summon the momentum in the right direction. He was awkward and his arms and legs vibrated from the effort in the thin, frigid air.

Tim was not sure if he was agile enough to duplicate the difficult move but lunged for it and grabbed a slick handhold. It took his breath away and he stood there gasping while his legs trembled after he made the move. He felt like it was a metaphor for his life, lunging from one moment to the next.

Damn buddy, that was fucking breath-taking.

I told you we would have fun! Reiny chuckled.

He loved the edginess of the unexpected challenge. He was completely confident of Tim’s ability to handle it, more confident than Tim. They had made more difficult rock ascents on McGregor Ranch, Lumpy Ridge, monoliths in the summer. Winter added a layer of suspense and drama for Tim, though he wasn’t an adrenaline junkie like Reinhardt.

As they neared the final summit pitch they had another vertigo inducing view of the Diamond. They made the summit in calm, balmy weather for January, with the temperature warming into the high 20s in the sun. They enjoyed an early lunch snack, and were very pleased with their ascent.

It was exhilarating to be on top in the magical winter realm. They were hoping the forecast was accurate and the good weather would last until they exited the mountaintop with a rappel.

The summit of Longs is expansive, so they wandered around and soaked in the views in every direction. The recent snowstorm meant that everything was dazzling white in the low angled sun. The mountains were always more awe-inspiring when snowcapped. They were glad they were wearing glacier glasses to protect their eyes.

Tim could see the brilliant snowcapped Mummy Mountains to the northwest, the knife-edge ridge undulating south to neighboring Mount Meeker, and the shining Indian Peaks beyond. On the west side were the pointy summits of Spearhead and Chief’s Head, and Mount Lady Washington to the East, with Twin Sisters beyond.

It was a stunning mountain landscape. A breeze was starting to create snow plumes on the nearby peaks, and exhaled on the snow all around them on the summit. It felt like an unwelcome premonition.

To go back down the old cable route, they would have had to do two easy rappels of 30 feet each. They were setting up their rappel back down the north face when they heard a low roaring sound similar to a high jet passing overhead. Tim looked for a plane but couldn’t see anything above them.

On the western horizon, above the Continental Divide, he saw massive green-gray clouds spiraling up like angry prophets, and swirling toward them. He was surprised to see a faint streak of lightening spider web out of the clouds. They could hear the distant rumble of thunder, a very rare sound in January. What looked like snow was slanting across the distant horizon.

Reinhardt, look at those clouds.

When Reinhardt turned and saw the rapidly approaching cerulean cloud bank, with the unfurling streaks of lightening, he knew they were in trouble.

Get out the tarp and bivvy sacks, we are going to get blasted.

The roar was high winds on the leading edge of the approaching Canadian cold front, arriving a day ahead of schedule. Swirling snow hit them as a fierce downdraft knocked them onto their knees, and tried to lift and roll them off of the snow-covered ledge. The 100-mph blast pelted them with snow, hail and dirt; their faces were stinging.

They instinctively flattened onto the snow and rock to keep from being blown over the East Diamond face as the wind tried to peel them off of the rock. They abandoned their rappel, and any attempts to exit the summit, and managed to get out the emergency tarp, and wrap it over their heads, as they lay side by side. The temperature plummeted 30 degrees, and the subzero wind chill stunned them in the white out. Their view was obliterated, and they could only see the tarp and their feet.

Fortunately, Reinhardt had insisted they bring down bags and bivvy sacks in case of the unforeseen, in spite of a good weather forecast. The wind pummeled them as they pulled their bags over their legs, and wiggled into the bivvy sacks. They tried to hold the tarp over their heads; as the wind tried to blow it to Kansas.

They were finally able to secure it a few inches above their heads with cord and tent stakes. Their hands were numb and aching from the cold and they shivered in their makeshift shelter, and wondered how long they would be pinned down.

They were stranded by a steady 60 mph mini-hurricane of snow for hours, with 90 mph gusts, as the cold front roared down from Alberta as a ‘clipper’. They could hear the mournful wind song on the Keyboard of the Winds on the west side of Longs Peak.

It had a mystical moan and groan as the wind ebbed and flowed around them and the desolate pitch changed from buffeting the rock formation. Tim thought to himself that it was the church organ of the mountain gods, and that very few got to hear it on the summit of Longs. It was a liminal melody.

Tim usually enjoyed fierce winds and strong storms when he was safely sheltered. He loved it when several feet of swirling snow brought civilization to a temporary halt and he could ski around Boulder as though he was in a Norwegian village.

He always wondered what the Keyboard’s wind song would be but didn’t expect to experience it so dramatically. Nature was showing how it could overcome mankind’s handiworks on a small scale but could also wreak havoc on much larger landscapes, threatening life and limb across thousands of miles.

The wind gusts were so strong and consistent that Tim began to feel that gravity had been altered into a horizontal force that wanted to expel them from the mountaintop. It was frightening to be at the mercy of the wind.

Any route down would be deadly with gusts strong enough to knock them off their feet. The snow eddied outside their tarp and danced in different directions as the wind shifted constantly, loudly rattling the tarp. It was surprisingly dark by mid-afternoon from the thick clouds and snow that enveloped them on the short January day.

Time crawled by, as the wind found every available crevice for the snow. The wind continued to whistle and moan and howl, at times it sounded like distant human voices or an almost inaudible choir, spirits from previous centuries, gathered together by the will of the wind. He wondered if Agnes Vaille’s spirit was among them and shivered. The intrepid mountaineer died descending Longs.

Mist and snow shrouded the final rays of the sun that seemed to be sinking early. A break in the clouds below and above them was infused with rays of yellow, violet, and orange light. Tim’s teeth were chattering, and he was overwhelmed, wondering what the weather would do to them next, anything seemed possible and life was tentative. They heard an echoing, bass beat rumble of thunder that shook the ground.

They put on ski goggles and face masks and watched plumes of snow shoot hundreds of feet into the air above and around them, creating a soaring crimson, ice crystal sunset they didn’t want to witness at 14,000 feet; as temperatures plummeted to 25 below zero with a wind chill of 50 below zero.

They both put on their down jackets and mittens that they always brought along on winter excursions and embraced inside their down sleeping bags and bivouac sacks desperate to warm up. It would have been a magnificent sight if it had not been life-threatening.

It was going to be a very long night that would test their survival skills. They wondered if they could withstand the fierce wind and frigid temperatures that were penetrating their warmest gear, causing uncontrollable shivers.

The wind whistled in their ears and made it almost impossible to talk. They yelled to each other over the wind, and decided they would try to descend by the standard route that didn’t require a rappel in the morning, whether or not the storm abated.

Now the wind sounded like a freight train as it gradually built up from afar and then swept over the summit, chilling them through the layers of down, and shoved them around like flimsy rag dolls.

In saner, safer moments, Tim doubted there was a god, but in this situation he promised the supreme life force of the universe that he would do more good than harm if he survived the storm. It must have been his religious childhood that temporarily converted him from an agnostic to a believer in life-threatening situations. He was a situational theist. He thought, everyone is afraid of the unknown. If we knew what was beyond death, we would not be afraid of it. He wasn’t ready to die.

Tim knew his survival was in the balance, and hoped that this was not the end of his short stay on the planet. Other people, who had died on Longs, suffered from similar delusions of immortality. Had the wind arrived 30 minutes later, and hit them during their rappel, death would have been likely.

They had been relatively fortunate so far, since they didn’t die on the rappel. If they hadn’t brought the down bags and bivy sacks they would have been hypothermic frozen statues, or popsicles for birds of prey. That might still be their fate if the storm was prolonged. Their equipment wasn’t equal to the fury of the storm.

Tim thought that they might die of over exposure in a January storm as did Agnes Vaille. She and Walter Keiner were the first people to climb the East Face of Longs Peak in the winter, January 12th, 1925. Even though she was one of the