The Bear's Tooth

Failing Upwards - Climbing Downwards

Bear’s Tooth Peak, Summer 2016

The holidays for me have always been a charged time of year. The months of December and January contain some of my ugliest feelings, ones that lay dormant like a winter creek waiting for a couple days of spring rain to wash away the bank and flood your basement. What should be a time of cheer, celebration, and big family gatherings, is for me a time of isolation and judgmental reflection on where things might have gone awry, what I may have done to have my Christmas dinners contain a deafening silence where one can hear the blood in their ears with each faint clink of the silverware.

Like most kids at nineteen I was blinded by nothing, the world to me was whatever was three days away and under a hundred dollars in gas. My lack of a cohesive family oftentimes drove me into the mountains, a place, being from Montana, that has shaped my entire life up until now. The mountains quickly became an environment where I could push myself and even punish myself for things I unknowingly took the blame for, the guilt of leaving my father or the pressure of disappointing a single mother. It gave me a chance to learn who I was in some of the most pristine mountain ranges and cirques in the country, and be away from everything including who I was to others. Soon it was the only thing I lived for and it wasn’t long before I was finding friends who were all seemingly doing the same, we were drifting around the state climbing, mountaineering, photographing, and sleeping in our cars. I was happier than I’ve ever been, pushing myself to limits I didn’t know were possible. It wasn’t until a particularly ambitious alpine climb went wrong that I realized I wasn’t invincible and why now, at twenty-six, living in New York City, I’m still learning from that nineteen year old kid with a blind ignorance and a bit of an ego problem.

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My climbing partners weren’t your average dirtbags, most of them were hyper-intellectual quiet kids who read a lot and excelled in math and I was the guy with the camera who smoked joints, was in love with his English teacher, and made the trips more fun by documenting everything. As a climber I was progressing fast. I wanted to stay in shape purely just to keep documenting the trips, and finally I was propositioned with a climb that was going to be both extremely challenging and coincidently picturesque.

2:50am. Forest, a sharp faced kid with immense athleticism and an unbreakable focus, drove a small hatchback down an empty railroad-town street. He was my hero at the time, he was the kind of kid to disappear for weeks, only to reappear having climbed some of the most famous routes in the Northwest, some with partners and some completely alone. Next to him in the car was Stephen, a jolly mountain-man type with a lumberjack beard and wire-rimmed glasses. Stephen, having had childhood Leukemia, was joyful in every moment I’ve ever seen him in and was also halfway done with his college core classes almost two years before he even left for college. Alongside them was Eric and I. Eric was the stranger to me at the time, we never talked after this event and I no longer know where he is, but he was always lingering in the background, a ghostly observer that occasionally complained about his feet bleeding. He smoked an old oak pipe and was silent and contemplative in his approach to everything that trip. I knew enough about him to know he was a good man, and with a trustworthy recommendation, a good climber.

4:30am. Soon the car arrived upon a dark logging road, the moon still teasing its way through frosted summer pines. The Bear’s Tooth is a jagged granite peak buried deep in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana. Its symbolic mystique has given it a notable reputation for most climbers in the area. It’s a right of passage, a tick off the list of been-there-and-done-that's for some, and a monumental alpine climbing achievement for others [me]. For many it is a two day trip, backpacking in and camping overnight, doing the climb in the morning, and then leaving in the afternoon. It seems an almost ritualistic ceremony, sleeping under a tired god and making your offering when the sun rises, hoping that you are spared by its keepers as you descend back to a more enlightened existence. However Forest had a different plan, he wanted to do the climb Car-to-Car— a strategy when climbing where one simply attempts to do a two day climb in one, negating sleep and supplies in the name of vigor and a good story, a side effect of being a young man in a competitive moutain-centric town. “We’re not stopping once we start,” said Forest. His plan was to kneel at the steps of the divine, steal the sleeping gods chalice from under his nose, and use it for a cold beer, and we all wanted in.  

8:00am: We divided into two teams for the journey, Forest and Eric on one team, and Stephen and me on the other. We traversed golden vistas and late summer alpine prairies, gaining more elevation while trading fields of mushy tundra grass for jagged hills of scree rock. We were moving slowly and I soon realized how much Stephen and I had overpacked, my bag containing camera gear and his, a link of cured summer sausage and extra indulgences. We were slogging up the hills in sweat drenched t-shirts as Forest hopped and crawled the alpine terrain like a slick furred mountain goat, I was in awe of his ability to never tire.

2:00pm. Afternoon now, we emerged across a steep valley, one last 3 hour trek to the base of the climb and we were there, ready to begin our thieving. Stopping for a quick snack we realized we were behind schedule and we were making much worse time than we expected. After 11 miles of heavy vertical scrambling, I was starting to feel the fatigue set in. Stephen happily plucked away at a granola bar, Eric smoked his tobacco pipe, and Forest remained silent. Sitting across from us his eyes were fixed on the jagged tooth, never looking away, never joining the conversation. He seemed hypnotized by a viscus gaze, one that immediately changed his demeanor and turned him cold. Stephen and I exchanged a nervous glance.

5:00pm. The evening set in. After slowly traversing a seemingly never-ending expanse of rock, we got to the base of the Bear’s Tooth, towering rock slabs surrounded us in all directions, a coliseum of granite and snow isolating us from the sky’s breath, none of us had spoken since the snack break. Exhausted, we set our packs down and started to prepare our gear in an eerie silence. As I looked across my shoulder to grab my rope, a single snowflake fell on my shoulder, oddly delicate, reminding me that despite it being late in July, anything went. “We need to call it” Says Stephen, “It’s too late to start and we can’t go back from where we came if its dark, it's too dangerous.” I reluctantly agreed and looked to Eric who was also nodding his head in disappointment. “Well” Forest said faced away from us, “I am going to go do the climb then, you guys can exit the other side of the canyon and I’ll solo it and meet you at the bottom”. Stephen and I met eyes again and soon there was a pitter patter of discussion and debate, glances and shrugged shoulders. Forest was suffering from Summit Fever, a flu like daze only induced by a madness for completion, for a moment of pure, undiluted accomplishment. He refused to look at the lingering danger we were dancing around. We didn't have the vigor to fight him any longer on his decision, we looked up to him, we all knew he was going to do the climb whether we were with him or not. 

7:00pm. Forest attacked the mountain in a steep crawl as dark clouds rolled in from every direction, snow began to fall as we stowed away our bags and watched with concern at our friend driven mad by a god that was calling. We watched as he began, belaying himself up and placing his gear like a pirate hoisting a flag. The dead air was filled with the clinking of distant metal. Soon lightning struck just behind The Tooth as we watched on, Forest let out a blood curdling scream that echoed through the stone labyrinth, the scream not in pain but in disappointment. He can no longer climb, the weather system moving in will surely hit before he reaches his half way point, stunned out of his madness he comes too, halfway up a dream. He had been wanting to do this climb more than any of us, and his disappointment could be felt in magnitudes as we sat across the way watching. His chalice soon to be crushed into granite dust.

8:00pm. Soon he came back to our huddled group as we picked away at the half eaten summer sausage, mulled in our defeat. “We have no choice now but to exit through Black Canyon another 12 miles, and hope we can hitchhike back to our car” says Stephen. He pushes his glasses up on his nose and plops another bite of summer sausage into his mouth as we all exchange glances of exhausted agreement, buckling in for a headlamp filled night. I was too exhausted to even consider the realization that this would probably be the closest I would ever get to the mystic peak. I took one last look as it melted into a disappearing landscape, a mirage disappearing back into a snow-flurried landscape.

1:00am. A deep and encumbering darkness has wrapped around us. After exiting through Black Canyon we were approaching a sleepless 24 hours. As I walked behind Forest my eyes lulled on a swinging carabiner attached to his backpack, every sway glinting from my headlamp like a hypnotizing stopwatch, its clink clink clink feeling less and less near, a leaky faucet miles away. As I fell in and out of this trance I picked my head up, meeting two eyes in the center of the trail a ways ahead of us. I squinted up, certain that it was a trail marker for the end of our hike, but as we drew closer the eyes stayed, headlight sized orbs reflecting my headlamp back at me. I stopped the group and folded their attention, we were met in the middle of the trail by a dominating cow moose, standing as if it was frozen in time, its gaze meeting ours. It was unwavering, its ears pinned down and its eyes fixed in a cold alertness. Slowly as we stepped away it lulled back into the darkness of the forest in which it guarded, silently disappearing into the brush of mountain ferns and willow trees. Time ceased to move forward as the gatekeeper moved, as if being told by The Tooth, to allow us thieves to pass, for they have failed and their lesson requires no further teaching.   

3:00am With a sense of an end in sight it was decided that we would set up in a small wooden out-house awning and build a fire, getting some sleep and waiting for two unsuspecting hikers the next morning to drive us to our car. Forest was in bad shape, his eyes were sunken in and he was having a tough time staying warm, at that point it was evident to Stephen and I that there were many dangers creeping in that even our ignorant youth couldn’t stop. Our additional 12 mile detour was taking a toll. Proudly, I dove into my overpacked bag, removing my extra pair of socks and thermal layers. We draped the climbing ropes over Forest’s legs as Stephen and I started on the fire. Soon Eric chimed in and said he had enough energy to run down the road another 4 miles and see if he could flag a car from the rural highway, sick of the night and concerned with Forest we decided that it wasn’t a bad idea.

4:00am Relief…Eric had found an old man, a camp counselor in a lonely cabin with a single light on, and soon we were in a white truck heading up the same road to our abandoned escape car. The conversation with the man was blurred and pieced together, another totemic figure, our final carrier. His voice was soft, his hands aged by elevation. He looked at us with a faint smile, as if he already knew what we had been through. His calling for deliverance of these estranged thieves was over after tonight. My eye-lids fluttered from the 24+ hours awake and the 26+ miles of mountain scrambling. A smile crept onto my face as I looked around at my exhausted friends, each huddled around there own car heat vent. I had an experience I would never forget and an imprint of fortitude that would stay with me forever. I felt the dirt between my fingernails as the old man told us of a cow moose that had just last spring mauled and killed a child, disappearing to never be seen by state rangers again.

Now I sit staring at the same mountain range seven years later, packing to go back to New York City.  The mountains look so different to me now, the Bear's Tooth shrouded in clouds and sun in a distant horizon, beckoning to me. They ask me if i’m going to take another chance, a chance to have just enough of an ego not to care about the outcome and an enough ignorance to have a good time doing it. I am struck by a desire to be back in those mountains, reveling in the uncomfortableness I was privileged to endure, smelling the wild flowers and Eric’s rich pipe tobacco. As I grow older some of my ignorance has started to disappear, and with that so has my vigor for adventure. I think of this story now during the holiday season, paralyzed by thoughts of the future, hesitant to start new climbs in life, fearing a failed summit and an adventure for no good reason. I wish I could talk to that ignorant nineteen year old kid. I would scorn him for thinking he had to grow up so fast and ask him for advice. He’d tell me to do more things in my life Car-to-Car.

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Written by Cam DeMars

Edited by Corri Plunkett

Additional Photos by Stephen Torna

Forest and Eric - Black Canyon exit route, 2016

Snack Break, 2016

Eric and His Pipe, 2016

Forest, 2016

Early Morning Ascent - Forest and Stephen, 2016

Early Morning Ascent - Me, Forest, and Eric, 2016