Freeze Up

Half-way up the fire watch tower I froze. Not just a little emotional hiccup. Not a momentary, “oh, shit”. It was a full stop, full body, full mental disconnect freeze.

I had been out boon docking around the numbered forest service roads on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge, trying to stay in the shafts of sun when they broke through the clouds. I had a USGS quadrant map on the passenger seat but it wasn’t there to follow. It was only there if I needed help finding my way back. One of those roads landed me at a concrete pad supporting a long-abandoned fire watch tower. I could look across the Columbia and see The Dalles, and I figured, if the clouds broke enough I might see Adams, St. Helens and maybe Rainier to the north and Hood, Jefferson, and the Three Sisters to the south. I have to go!

I had first discovered the advantage of elevation when my ten-year-old eyes beheld the sun worshipping glory of Mrs. Beesom from the roof of our garage. After that, height enhanced sights were much more interesting than ground-level views. From Mt Tabor I could see Portland laid out in front of me: almost as interesting as Bobby McNeil’s boobs . . . But I digress . . . Elevation became my friend.

Heights never bothered me. I loved to scramble up rocky inclines. Tall trees were my playground. I was a fireman. I climbed ladders all the time.

Yet, here I was, petrified, half-way up a perfectly sturdy 65’ steel tower.

The climb up started innocuously enough. It was a cool day with the sun playing hide and seek through the clouds. A little light wind. A perfect day for it. I had to jump to catch the lowest rung of the ladder that went straight up the tower. Hand. . foot . . hand . . foot. Nice and easy. Half-way up was a 4’ x 4’ platform that served as a landing. The light was a little more cloud than sun as I stopped for a breather. Still pleasant, though. When I started up the second ladder I noted the wind had picked up a touch. Then, no more than three rungs up, the sun disappeared and the wind began gusting as if Zeus himself had found the on-off switch. The temperature dropped like a rock, (bad metaphor at this point) as the strength and frequency of the gusts increased from one breath to the next.

If you have never experienced terror I am truly happy for you. Hyperventilation, panic, and damp drawers might be considered waypoints on a journey from calm to fear but I am here to tell you that the path to terror uses no map. There is no gradual. Terror is as immediate as your finger in a wall socket. One moment your self is climbing a perfectly reasonable ladder and the next your self is seized. Seized, as in grabbed by a giant fist. Seized as in seized up, paralyzed, unable to move, breathe or even think. Yell? Scream? Whimper? Nuh-uh! Your entire world has just shut down.

It was indeed fortunate that my hands had spasmed into a death grip (sorry, again) on the rungs. The intensity of terror’s arrival was more akin to a bolt of lightning designed to strike me from the ladder in a shower of sparks. But the result was more like being turned to stone. The wind, disappointed that I was still attached to the tower, took a deep breath and blew even harder. It was hard. It was cold. It was non-stop.

And now, the tower itself was getting into the act. It began to hum (A steady B flat, I recall). A rising shriek from the cross members created a discordant harmony. It was probably this dissonance that penetrated my brain. Slowly, I began to return to awareness. But the awareness I returned to was no comfort. I was now aware that I was part way up a 1000’ tower, buffeted by winds gusting to 300 mph. And it’s cold. Really cold. How cold was it? Cold enough to shiver. The shivers didn’t start at my hands and spread to my feet. Nor did they start at my toes and spread to my head. No. The shivers grabbed hold of my heart and proceeded to shake everything inside on the way out. Liver, kidneys, spine, everything was twitching. This was probably what saved me. Every molecule was being warmed from the inside out, every cell resuscitated. Blood, warm blood, was racing to the brain

And as the brain began to register what a predicament this stupid body had got itself into, it began to work out a plan. Digging through the relevant data files the brain accessed what it knew about climbing ladders:

Don’t fall - - - - Good, thanks for that reminder

Don’t look down - - - - No problem there

Climb by touch not sight - - - - OK, good. Can do

Don’t hurry, one rung at a time - - - - Yes, good advice.

Make sure you are solid before each move - - - - You got it, Red Rider

Lean back, and climb with your arms straight - - - - I don’t friggin’ think so

Lean back, so you don’t bang your knees on the rungs - - - - DID YOU HEAR ME?

Enjoy your climb - - - - HEY, TAKE YOUR ENJOY . . .

Now, now. Temper.

Now that the brain seemed to be fully engaged it was time to see if the body would follow. I assessed where each hand, foot, arm and leg were and very deliberately, slightly relaxed the grip the right hand had on the rung. With great concentration, I moved it and grasped the next rung above. Shifting my awareness to the left leg and foot, I perceived that the foot bone was connected to the leg bone. The leg bone was connected to the hip bone. And the hip bone was intimately connected to the ladder bone; possibly requiring surgical intervention. Moving to the next rung was not going to be possible given the then current state of connections. I was going to have to lean back, (YA, RIGHT), enough to allow my foot bone to ascend to the next rung. So, cleverly, instead of leaning back, I chose to pivot the right foot enough for the left hip to file for divorce from the ladder. There was now enough room for the cooperating left arm, right arm, and right foot to help lift the left foot to the next rung. (OK, Brian! You did it!! NO! DON’T CLAP, YOU IDIOT). Now, let’s see how that feels on the other side. Left hand up. Left foot pivot. Everybody pull. Right foot up. Good! Good! Everybody good now?

And so it went: hand and foot, hand and foot. Until I could roll myself onto the porch that went all the way around the cupola that was the actual lookout. The wind continued to howl. The tower continued to hum and the struts continued to shriek as I crawled into the interior. It was about fifteen feet square, maybe twelve feet high at the peak of the rafters. The top half of the walls were windows but the only shelter from the wind was where the walls and the floor met. The window glass had exited their frames years before and only glittering fragments decorated the floor.

Now that I was not in immediate danger of falling I could more leisurely assess my circumstances. The brain continued to assure me I was relatively safe but the body wasn’t havin’ it. The shaking that had served so well to warm me up had now taken a distinctly different path. As the adrenaline leached away, the shaking ramped up a notch . . no, two notches. The shakes transformed into full-blown, oscillating, limb-thrashing quakes that had me worried something might break. I still had enough physical control to roll myself fetal and trap my limbs between my body and the floor, my head wedged securely in a corner.

Thankfully, the shaking stopped before it did it did any major structural damage.

Now fully aware of how much I was going to need a fully functioning body to survive this situation I began to plot my descent. The logical half of my brain seemed to be working OK but the emotional half was a wreck. Getting that under control was proving to be a challenge as the howl and hum of wind vs tower had been joined by a distinctively structural sounding thump. I could now hear the wind interacting with the cupola. The blown-out window frames were rattling in their mounts and there was something else dully thudding, somewhere. The cupola itself seemed to emit shudders as the steady gale was now punctuated with gusts.

Over the next half-hour the storm wind steadily lessened as did my own emotional storm. When I felt confident that both had been sufficiently weathered I began the slow, methodical, one-rung-at-a-time climb down. The concentration required must have kept the terror at bay for I reached the ground with no repeat of the freeze-up.

I staggered to my car and sat, thinking that I might want to rest a bit before attempting to navigate out of the woods. So, I sat there and I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened:

I had been incredibly lucky

I was very grateful there had been no rain

I had been careless attempting the climb alone

The feeling of panic was just below the surface

Would I be able to climb a ladder onto a burning roof?

It was then that I realized I was going to have to climb that friggin’ tower again . . . now!