Slice of the Pie
by Willy Hersman, Scree 5/83

Doug Van Etten and I were just itching for a first winter ascent of something.  We wanted a piece of the action, or "slice of the pie" as Andrew calls it.  Opportunities for such are everywhere, but the reality of having chosen Mt. Iliamna really hit home when I lit my last candle at 3 p.m. in our shrinking cave.  Iliamna must be a native word meaning "storm magnet".  Nick Parker and Gary Bocarde would agree.  They were probably mumbling similar complaints last winter as they probed through ten feet of new snow for their missing camp.

Our party of four included Peter Flournoy and Peter Reed. Things never really started out normal for us.  We were flying in with Dean Carroll from Anchorage in a ti Beaver.  The light was a little flat but Dean made a couple of touch and goes and decided to land.  We landed alright; upside down.  Just as we touched down one ski dug in and flipped the plane over.  Suspended from our seat belts I heard P. Reed exclaim something: "Hey, gasoline is running towards the engine!"

Forget those crevasses, man, I was out of my seat belt and gone!  Luckily no one was hurt and the plane never blew, but it sure left us shaken.

Anyway, Dean simply called for a taxi, and we went climbing.  Our route would be from the Tuxedni Glacier at 2500 feet, up to the north ridge, and along the ridge to the 10,000 foot summit.  The last 500 feet or so promised to be interesting ice climbing.  However, before this trip was over the tool most used would not be an ice hammer, but a shovel.

A two day storm on the Tuxedni had us burrowing into Cave 1 near the injured Beaver.  We also made an igloo to store gear.  A couple of days later we established camp on the ridge next to an unmistakable 30foot gendarme.  We were not gonna let a storm hide our camps, Jack, we had big markers.  The weather was excellent as we dug Cave 2 and a radio call confirmed at least three beautiful days to come.  We had it bagged.  Next day we took off with three days of food up the ridge.

Gradually visibility went to zero.  At about 6800 we started Cave 3 using headlamps (December gets pretty dark) and once again P. Reed was exclaiming something: "Hey, a crevasse!"

I stuck my headlamp down in and the whole floor of the cave lit up like Christmas Eve (which it was).  OK, let's dig that way.  Soon another crevasse.  Great.  Outside the wind was howling in the darkness.  The angle of our slope was 30 degrees, so tents would require a lot of digging.  On with construction!  It turned out that the crevasses were long enough and deep enough to reach the other side of our ridge.  A blast of cold air came through whenever one was uncovered.  We were on a knife edge of ice.

The cave was small to start out, but it actually got smaller every day.  Hemmed in by crevasses we could only shave the roof as it crept lower.  Outside the storm got serious.  A radio call to Anchorage told us that they had 90 MPH gusts on the hillSide.  I figure that was pretty close to our winds.  The tunnel entrance, when shoveled out, would seal off in about one hour.  Fear of blowing away like kites kept us ln the cave.  We stayed a wonderful six nights.  Ran out of food, ran out of candles, ran out of games.  Masochists note: Iliamna is a great place for Christmas.

Then at 4 a.m. one morning P. Reed again exclaimed something: "Hey, there's the moon!"