The hollow space between the edge of the snowfield and the large boulder was no more than two feet wide. But, how far the icy cavern went underneath the snow was impossible to tell. Moments earlier I had watched helplessly as my older brother slid out of control on that steep snowfield for 150 feet and slammed violently into the side of that boulder. In an instant he vanished, dropping straight down into that hole I was now staring at.

I yelled out again as I had several times already, “Kevin!”

Still nothing but dead silence…

I began to strategize on what I knew would be an extremely difficult, if not impossible, rescue effort. I feared he was already dead. I was certain that if he was not dead, he was lying unconscious, seriously injured, somewhere under that ice. And, there was no one else around to help me drag him out of there.

My brother and I had decided earlier that week to climb Mount Pilchuck. A popular mountain on the western edge of the northern Cascades, Pilchuk has a well used trail that climbs up its western slope. On any given weekend in the summer dozens of people will reach the summit via this relatively easy walk-up. But, I knew of another, lesser known, and much more adventurous route up the mountain’s backside.

It was a brilliant sunny June morning and unseasonably warm. We set out from the Pinnacle Lake Trailhead. The first three miles of our route took us along an easy, well-used, trail to beautiful Pinnacle Lake, where we stopped for a while and spied on a couple of trout cruising the edge of the water.

The easy first half of our route ended at this forest-ringed lake. Here began the real cross-country adventure. We traversed to the other side of the lake where a steep gully reached down to the waters edge. For the first few hundred feet, we had to fight thick bushes and slippery wet boulders as a braided cascade made its way to the lake. Then the slope opened up into a broad steep expanse with a snowfield on our left and loose dirt and scree to our right. This was “two steps up and one step back” hiking as we skirted to the right of the snowfield. We soon reached the top of the ridge. We had ascended 1,000 vertical feet in a little less than a mile and we now looked down upon a sparkling Pinnacle Lake from a very high vantage point.

The next section of the route involved crossing the large basin of Bathtub Lakes. The basin was still covered with one to two feet of snow in mid-June. This would make our trek somewhat more strenuous, but at the same time, more exciting. In knee-deep snow we picked our own path in between a half dozen partially frozen tarns and up and over gentle, rolling, snow-covered hills for the next 1.5 miles. It was an enchanting area and we were the only ones there on a Saturday.

At the far end of the basin, we began another steep climb up a short, but tricky, slope of large boulders and thick vegetation. We soon crested the summit ridge and peered north over the other side. Two thousand steep vertical feet down that ice slope was another lake, Lake Twenty-two. In the spring, many people make the easy 2-mile hike up to Lake Twenty-two to gaze up at the ridge we were standing on and watch for avalanches that are known to rumble down to the lake.

After a quick ridge-walk we began our final summit push, another 500 feet or so up a very steep trough straight to the summit. There, we were greeted by about a dozen other people who had ascended the more well-known western trail.

After a short rest, we began our return, along the same path as our ascent. While walking back along the summit ridge, we surprised a lone mountain goat. After a short staring contest, the goat effortlessly dropped into that near vertical north face and vanished like a ghost.

We continued back down the steep slope and into the basin of the Bathtub Lakes, where we occasionally took advantage of short slopes to slide down on our backpacks before being stopped by deeper snow or level terrain.

We were soon back on top of the first ridge, 1,000 feet above Pinnacle Lake. Knowing the characteristics of this slope from our way up, we were dreading the difficulty of having to descend on the slippery loose dirt and talus.

As we rested at the top of the snowfield that we had previously skirted on the way up, Kevin contemplated an easier and faster way down. I knew it was bad idea, but he had always had a little bit of a reckless streak, and once he got an idea, it was hard talking him out of it.

“I wouldn’t do it, man. Once you get going, you won’t be able to stop, I’m telling you.”

I scouted the fall line and predicted he would careen right into a large boulder on the left side of the field about 150 vertical feet below.

“You’re gonna slide right into that huge rock down there. It’s not a good idea.”

But, Kevin gave up a devilish grin, and began to inch forward on his backpack, seemingly to test the snow. That’s all that was needed. Immediately, he began sliding down the field. He tried to stop himself after only about ten feet, but it was already too late. Without an ice axe, his fingers and heels had no effect and he only accelerated more with each second.

Just as I predicted, his course took him right towards the huge boulder I had pointed out only moments earlier. For a second, I was actually relieved a little. This snowfield was easily 500 or 600 vertical feet. The boulder was only about 150 feet down. Had the fall line been in the middle of the field, he would have careened out of control the full length of the field all the way down to the jagged rocks below. He wouldn’t stand much of a chance if that were the case. It would be like getting thrown from a car at 70 miles per hour onto a huge pile of sharp rocks. Fortunately, although I knew this was ugly, I also realized that this 150-foot fall may not be fatal.

At about half way to the boulder, my brother started to vocalize his situation.

“Oh Shit!,” he said in a sort-of matter-of-fact way.

I could see him trying to dig his fingers and heels in as he continued towards the rocks.

Now, twenty feet away. “OH SHIT!,” This time with much more panic and fear.

A second later, he impacted, left shoulder first, into that rock on the edge of the snow. I watched in horror as his head bounced off of the rock like a basketball. From 150 feet up, the sound of the impact was audible, a fleshy thud barely disguised a slightly muted crack. I was sure that was the sound of crushing bones.

In an instant, he vanished. After impact, he dropped straight down into a melted-out space between the snow and that huge rock. Suddenly he was completely gone and there was a terrifying silence. It was as if he were never there. There was only a light breeze and my own irregular breathing.

Silence…

Oddly, my heart did not start racing, and I didn’t start jumping around freaking out like some actor in a movie. I just stood there for a couple of seconds, probably with a blank stare. The horror of what I had just seen took a moment to settle in.

I knew immediately that I had to make my way to a point below where my brother dropped in because there was no easy way to access it from above. Stupidly, I began walking straight down the middle of the snowfield. I should have walked up and around the snowfield, but for whatever reason, I began to walk straight down the middle. I was aware of the danger because each step was made with a methodical precision, making sure I had a solid foot-hold before proceeding. Because my path was wider than Kevin’s line of descent, if I slipped, my fall-line would have taken me much further down. It still sickens me to this day to think about the risk I took in walking down that steep snowfield.

As I got closer to the point of impact, I was keenly aware that there was still no sign of movement, no shouting, nothing but silence. I took this as a very bad sign. When I got within about 30 feet of the crash point, I began to yell out his name.

“Kevin!”

Silence.

There was the sound of spring snow crunching under the soles of my boots and nothing else.

Louder, “Kevin, can you hear me?!”

Still, just complete silence.

I continued my treacherous path to a point about ten feet from the edge of the snowfield and about twenty feet below my brother’s point of impact and subsequent drop into the icy underworld below. At this point, I was relatively safe, having made it to a point where, if I slipped, I would only slide about 30 feet to a peninsula of rocks and earth.

Looking uphill now, I continued to fixate on that hole between the ice and the rocks. For all I knew he could have tumbled violently another 100 feet or more through the cavernous melting tunnel below. But, that opening was my only hope and my only point of reference to what had happened.

Still no response after several yells, I became convinced that Kevin was either already dead, or very seriously wounded and unconscious. Then, as I just started to make my way up to that hole on the side of the ice, contemplating how I would possibly be able to pull him out of there, I couldn’t believe my ears.

“I’m okay!” My brother’s voice came faintly from beneath the ice. I was momentarily reminded of how the sound of voices become muted and muffled during a winter snowstorm. It was odd to hear this phenomenon on an 80-degree June day. But, Kevin’s response came through several feet of snow and ice. He sounded as if he were 200 feet away even though he may well have been literally right under my feet, right under the very snow and ice I was standing on.

A few seconds passed and he miraculously emerged from the same hole he fell into maybe three or four minutes earlier. He was drenched in ice-melt and his hands were beet red from the cold. Aside from being excruciatingly cold, he somehow, seemed okay. Still not convinced that this could be possible, I told him to stop and check his extremities. He checked his legs and arms for broken bones and looked for any sign of serious laceration. His left lower leg was bloodied, but it was nothing more than road rash. And, he had a decent scrape on the left side of his face. But, he was remarkably uninjured. I couldn’t believe it. But, I was enormously relieved.

Just as I let my guard down, my left foot slipped, and then I began to slide, feet first, rear end up. I found that the more I tried to get a foot hold the faster I accelerated. I could do absolutely nothing to stop or slow down. Fortunately, I had only about 30 feet to go before hitting the rocks. I managed to absorb the impact with my legs acting like giant springs. After making the initial contact, I then sprung backwards and took a very pointy rock to the fleshy part of my right butt cheek. I realized then how easily that slip could have happened when I was in the middle of the snowfield. Kevin would have emerged from his hole only to find my bloody carcass strewn about the jagged rocks 500 feet below. I felt foolish and lucky at the same time. But, my fall was just a miner incident compared with the near catastrophe of Kevin’s 150-foot fall and crash into the underbelly of the snowfield.

As we made our way back the remaining 3.5 miles to the trailhead, we theorized that he had made impact to the rock at precisely the perfect angle to avoid serious injury. 90% of the impact was absorbed by the meaty part of the left shoulder backed up by his body mass behind it. His head did hit the rock, but most of the energy had been absorbed by the shoulder and body so that by the time his head made contact, it was a relatively minor bump resulting only in the scrape on the left cheek. His angle of impact allowed him to drop feet-first into the ice hollow below. He had landed on his feet on the solid ground underneath and had gone into a sort-of fireman’s roll. Although he said he fell another 10 or 15 feet down the slope beneath the ice, his momentum had been greatly slowed by that time. It took him a couple of minutes to re-orient himself, find his backpack and climb back out. He said he didn’t hear me calling out his name through the ice and that his main concern was the thick ice shelf above collapsing on top of him.

Had he gotten turned around while sliding down the snowfield, he would have hit the rock head first. Had he hit the rock with his feet, a seemingly preferable position, he would have been up-ended as he fell down into the hole, landing head-first. And, had he started his slide just a few feet farther to the right, his fall line would have taken him on a course more down the middle of the snowfield and he would have fallen 500 or 600 vertical feet to an almost certain gruesome death on the rocks below.

Yes, he was lucky indeed. And, looking back, so was I for having had such a major lapse in judgment by walking down the snowfield instead of around it.

Not long after that trip, watching the local news one day, I learned that there was an accident near Snoqualmie Pass not far from Mount Pilchuck. Two brothers were hiking in the area and one of them took a fall of several hundred feet. He was killed. How easily that could have been me and my brother. Since that trip, I’ve become much more vigilant of the possible perils of back country travel.