Chapter 1: Rising to the Challenge

The approach to Hole in the Wall inside Glacier National Park

In the pre-dawn light on May 15, 2011, the swirling clouds lifted—and my heart sank. In the distance, my destination beckoned: Hole in the Wall, a large, snow-filled, bowl-shaped cirque rimmed by ragged, black peaks and saw-toothed arêtes. From where I stood—alone, beyond help, beyond reason, in front of my tent just west of Brown Pass—I knew that the gleaming, untracked snow of Hole in the Wall awaited, an oasis of gently rolling terrain in an otherwise near-vertical world. The distance from my camp to Hole in the Wall was a mere three-quarters of a mile. But I knew that those 4,000 feet were tilted 70 degrees or more, punctuated by cliffs, ravines, and avalanche debris. The snow there was deep and untested—poised to crack, primed to fail. The pit of my stomach went hollow with fear.

The only reason I was standing in this spot was to traverse the slope ahead and enter Hole in the Wall. During summer, hikers stroll here on a well-worn trail cut back into the steep angle of the mountains’ flanks, skirting cliffs and contouring easily into the cirque, then on to Boulder Pass and the Kintla Lakes drainage to the west. But May in Glacier’s high country is still winter. Seven months of accumulated snow rest uneasily on the mountains, temperatures dive well below freezing, and fast-moving storms dump more snow on the unstable slopes. Park rangers and managers had warned that Hole in the Wall was inaccessible during winter; no one had ever entered the cirque under winter conditions. No one was crazy enough to try. If the deep snow and miserable weather didn’t stop an intrepid backcountry traveler, surely the trackless plunge of the traverse from Brown Pass to Hole in the Wall would bring a person to his senses. The sheer slope offered no protection, no safe haven. In short, if you didn’t fall to your death, one of the frequent earth-shaking avalanches would surely finish the job.

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