SAMAYA x SPENCER HARKINS

 

 

Spencer Harkins and Tashi Hackett, two high-spirited skiers, headed to Mount Rainier to ski the famous "Success Couloir." Braving the elevation gain and the cold, Spencer and Tashi remind us how vital it is to have the right gear in the mountains.

 

"The week of May 7, 2024, is one of the best in recent years for Mount Rainier, a 4,392.5m summit located in Washington State, USA. As the most prominent peak in the lower 48 states, Mount Rainier is regularly battered by wind, but this week promised to be perfect.

 

Seeing the good weather window, Tashi Hackett and I hit the road. Tashi is a medical student and one of the strongest mountaineers I know. Although I had never been there before, Tashi has already skied almost every face of Mount Rainier. He is one of the most humble people I know, but for this trip, he arrives with a little too much confidence regarding one aspect of the mission.

 

For my part, I was also confident. However, I still packed a sleeping bag.

 

Our goal is to climb the South Face of Mount Rainier, then ski one of the coveted North lines. With difficult access to the North Face, we will bivouac at the base of the line, let the snow undergo a fresh spring freeze, then climb back up, finishing with perfect snow on one of the lines on the South Face.

 

We carefully prepare our packs, carrying gear suitable for spring skiing, glacier kits, and equipment for spending the night. Although Tashi is a brilliant and experienced mountaineer, it seems his many hours spent in school have led him to listen to more adventure podcasts than to head out on expeditions. So, to lighten his pack and respect the fast-and-light mountaineering credo, Tashi decides to do without a sleeping bag, relying only on his down jacket, down pants, and a bivy sack to keep warm.

 

Hearing his logic as I stow my 0° sleeping bag in my own pack, I ended up supporting his decision. We both dream of climbing mountains far more complex and isolated than Mount Rainier, but this place seems perfect for testing our gear. Especially since the weather conditions are ideal. Even though I had reservations, I ultimately did not challenge his choice.

 

For my part, I opt for more traditional equipment, bringing a Samaya RADICAL3 tent, a 0° sleeping bag, and an ultra-light sleeping pad.

 

Anyway, let's skip to the part where Tashi was cold. That day, conditions on the North Face were far from ideal, if not outright very risky. Taking advantage of the exceptional weather and the presence of a tent to shelter us, we decide not to descend our planned line and instead choose to bivouac at 4,000 meters on the volcano.

 

The sun is still shining when we set up in the tent. Perched on an isolated volcano, well above the surrounding mountains, there isn't a breath of wind. At that moment, Tashi is still convinced he made the right equipment choice.

 

But then, the sun sets. Tashi, still comfortable in his bivy sack and mid-layers, finally decides to put on his base layer. He puts on his down pants, feeling warm, and keeps his down jacket under his head, using it as a pillow.

 

Around 10 PM, Tashi wakes up and gets out of the tent to pee. Everything is fine for him, and he even takes a photo of the city lights, which he finds so pretty in the distance. Upon returning to the tent, he finally puts on his down jacket—his last layer. Lying on his pad, Tashi feels confident in his decision and falls back asleep.

 

When he wakes up again, he notices the environment is even colder; he is shivering a bit. Tashi is a little cold, so he rubs his arms, tries to ignore the sensations assailing him, and falls back asleep. But thirty minutes later, he wakes up again and realizes the gravity of the situation. It’s only midnight and, despite all the layers he brought, Tashi is now really cold.

 

Fortunately, he understands that he is not in danger and that he is just going to have a terrible night. Armed with a true mountaineering spirit, he thinks about how to make the night less terrible. He then gets out of the tent and begins his first set of jumping jacks. He is sure that if he can get some blood flowing, he can warm up. Unsurprisingly, it worked. From midnight to 1 AM, Tashi sleeps until he wakes up again due to the cold. Knowing the protocol, he unzips the tent again, puts on his boots, and begins a new set of jumping jacks in front of the tent.

 

Now, like you reading this, Tashi begins to realize that this cycle will not work for an entire night and that he won't get any sleep at all. When he wakes up once more, around 2 AM, he feels much worse. His feet are cold. So, he does everything he can: he does more jumping jacks, then returns to the tent, puts his gloves over his socks, even puts on the liners of his ski boots, and shivers as he falls asleep for what will only be a few minutes of sleep.

 

Around 3 AM, Tashi starts to fear for his toes. He can no longer feel them, can no longer move them, and they are ice-cold to the touch. Tashi’s saga with the hand warmers begins then.

 

What is funny in this situation is that Tashi feels ashamed. He is embarrassed to be this cold, and the last thing he wants to do is wake me up or admit he has a problem. Rather than using his headlamp or snuggling up against me, warm in my sleeping bag, Tashi began feeling around in the tent in the dark. Digging into the storage pocket of the Samaya RADICAL3, he comes across a bag and thinks it’s my first-aid kit with hand warmers. But upon opening it, he finds only Ibuprofen, Benadryl, and other medications that are of no help to him at that moment.

 

But fortunately, he knows where his own warmers are. He unzips the tent, puts his boots back on, goes out to do a few minutes of jumping jacks, and finds his warmers in his backpack. Remember that Tashi is sleeping in 30-minute intervals, waking up to the sound of his own teeth chattering after an exhausting 3,000-meter climb. He is quite delirious and still thinks it is bright enough outside that he doesn't need to use his headlamp. Since we had been chopping spring snow to make water all evening, his ice axe is close at hand. Without a second thought, Tashi hurries to cut open the warmer packaging with the tip of his ice axe. And, of course, he punctures the precious sources of heat.

 

Without wasting time and without too much stress, Tashi peels a bit of tape off his ski pole and plugs the hole in the warmer. With little understanding of chemical reactions, he feels confident enough, even optimistic, that they might burn hotter, and puts them to use. Tashi gets back into his bivy sack and tries to sleep a little longer.

 

Unfortunately for Tashi, not only do the warmers not produce heat, but his feet continue to lose temperature. The warmers, wrapped in tape and placed in his socks, then in his gloves, and finally in his ski boots, cut off his circulation.

 

Eventually, Tashi accepts that he is not as tough as his idol Mark Twight and that he really needs to ask for help. Too embarrassed to admit his mistakes, he hesitates to wake me up. He waits another 30 minutes, getting closer to frostbite, before I wake up to go pee. Only then does Tashi dare to ask me for my warmers.

 

Fortunately, he is more careful opening them, and although it isn't comfortable and he didn't sleep much, my warmers allow Tashi to get through the rest of the night without too much trouble.

 

Despite the lack of training and a diet worthy of a thirteen-year-old American without supervision, Tashi is still stronger than me in the mountains. I will never forget the look on his face that morning at 6 AM when our alarm goes off and we have to get up. We have to climb back to the summit, then descend a 3,000-meter line. A big day awaits us. Tashi still claims he has never felt worse. It shows on his face.

 

Finally, after eating a bit and having some caffeine, Tashi starts to feel better, almost halfway through our ski descent. We ski the "Success Couloir" in near-perfect conditions, eat some hot pizza, and immediately start planning our next adventure. Everything is back to normal. But Tashi learned a lesson from this experience that he wants to share, so I will pass it on to you exactly as he said it:

 

"An important point I learned from this frigid night is that if you are in trouble, it is important to ask your partners for help. In the moment, I thought I deserved to suffer the consequences of my decisions to learn, but the reality is that no lesson is worth the risk of potentially putting yourself in danger, especially if it compromises the safety of the team."

 

So thank you, Tashi, for this entertainment and reflection."