By MILES CLARK | Moonshine Ink
It’s 2 a.m., it’s dark, the road’s rough. I turn around to see my client’s eyes are the size of dinner plates. He’s wheezing, coughing, and breathing shallow. He contracted high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) at 15,000 feet on El Pico de Orizaba, the tallest mountain in Mexico, and he doesn’t know if he’ll make it. I tell him he’s gonna be fine, that we’re heading down, that it’s gonna get better, but I’m as unsure as he is.
I uneasily look to my left to see our Mexican driver and fellow mountain guide, Oso, looking into the darkness. He then looks hard right with staring eyes. There’s nothing to see — just our headlights, blackness, and the occasional patch of dune grass. He looks hard left again. He’s searching for something.
I lean in close and whisper to him in Spanish so that my client won’t understand: “Oso, what are you looking for?” He takes a deep breath, looks down, and mutters, “La Anciana (the Old One).”
A chill shoots through me, pin pricks wave over my arms and neck, and I twitch. I look back at my client. He is spitting up blood. “You’re okay, Greg, you’re okay,” I tell him. “Keep breathing as deep as you can. In and out, as deep as you can. Keep it going. You’re gonna be okay.”
I look back to Oso, his eyes still searching the darkness. I ask him in Spanish, “Who is the Old One, Oso?”
I am in Mexico with three clients from Colorado to climb the 18,702-foot volcano El Pico de Orizaba, located 120 miles east of Mexico City. It is the third highest mountain in North America and the second most prominent volcanic peak after Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. In my five-year professional mountain guiding career, this is my first trip guiding clients independently, and it has quickly taken a frightening turn.
The day before our summit attempt we’d gone on a training hike from our base camp at 14,000 feet to a large patch of permanent snow above 15,000 feet. One of my clients complained of nausea and a headache at the beginning of the hike. The higher we ascended, the more his symptoms worsened. While practicing cramponing, self-arrest, and rope management techniques, his symptoms somewhat subsided but returned with a vengeance on our descent back to camp.
Not long after reaching camp, he began to show the concerning signs of HAPE. First, a deep gurgle of the lungs, then he spat up pink phlegm and showed it to me. HAPE is always fatal if left untreated and is the number one killer at high altitude. The only treatment for HAPE is to get the patient to a significantly lower elevation, fast.
I ran from camp to a nearby mountain hut where trucks drop off climbers from the high plains village of Tlachichuca. It was after dark but a truck sat outside the hut. I barged in through the hut door, breathless, and woke up everyone in the hut by yelling out in both Spanish and English, “Please, I need help. My client has HAPE. Whose truck is that? I need you to take us down the mountain. If we don’t get him down now, he’s going to die.”
In the dank black air of the hut a man groaned and said, “It’s my truck.” I looked over to see a large, rotund man who couldn’t possibly be a climber blinking in my headlamp’s beam. His black eyes, black hair, black mustache, distressed expression, and double chin came into view. His name was Oso. He owned a guiding company and had climbed this mountain hundreds of times.
By the time I’d carried my sick client to the hut, the truck was warmed up and ready. We jumped into the beatup 1979 Jeep Scout, which Oso would use to take my client to salvation and me to trepidation.
Driving down El Pico de Orizaba that night, Oso’s story of La Anciana blurs the boundaries of reality and the unknown.
“La Anciana is an old, old lady,” Oso shares in Spanish. “She wears a dress made of nothing but torn up old rags. She is very old, and I saw her near here once. At this elevation, at this time of night, on this exact road. I don’t want to run into her. That is why I’m looking for the Anciana.”
“Who is she? Why is she up here?” I ask.
“We don’t know. Many people have seen her on this mountain,” Oso rumbles. “There are many stories. She is lost. Her hair is very white, her dress is very torn, and she is always very hungry.”
“She’s real?”
“Yes. I’ve seen her twice. I also saw her in the hut.” Long pause. “I was making dinner for my clients. They were on a training exercise. I was bent over my stove when I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I turned around expecting a climber.” Pause.
“It was her. She was bent and old. She looked down at the floor. Her hand was extended to me, opening and closing. She said: ‘Dame comida. Dame comida. Dame comida. (Give me food).’ Her voice was deep and rasping. I was afraid, but also afraid not to obey. I grabbed some food in front of me and put it in her hand, which closed around the food quickly. Both her arms folded into the tattered dress and disappeared. She turned and walked out of the hut. I got up and walked to the door to see her go, to see if she was real. I saw the dark outline of her figure as she disappeared into the fog.” Pause. Breath.
“It always happens this way. She finds people alone in the hut. She comes in, reaches her hand out, and asks for food. Then she leaves and disappears into the fog. She might be a ghost, but she’s definitely real. She always comes back.”
It has been a long, heavy night. My head is swimming, and my client is suffering. But we make it down to the doctor in the village of Tlachichuca. The doctor examines my client and says that his lungs are damaged, but he’ll survive. My client’s ketchup-red spit doesn’t help me sleep, but exhaustion eventually sets in. We’ve been awake for nearly 24 hours, and not a second of that time was easy.
In the morning, my client goes back to Colorado, I go back to California, and Oso returns to the mountain. I’ve yet to return to El Pico de Orizaba, although I know I will someday. I don’t know what draws me back there, but I suspect I long for a chance to see La Anciana disappear into the mists.
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