Except I’d survived an avalanche, so I guess physics hadn’t fucked me yet.
Back to the telephone lineman. Every ten inches or so, he would lean in and slip the belt up the pole – otherwise one end of the belt would be under your armpits, the other would be around the pole at your waist, and you couldn’t go any farther. So you had to keep slipping the belt up to keep on going.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have one of those belts.
But I did have plenty of rope.
I pulled off my backpack and pulled out about 50 feet of rope that I normally would have used as a safety line. I wrapped it multiple times around me and the tree, giving myself plenty of slack so I could lean back, and then tied it off.
Voila – instant telephone lineman belt.
I put on my backpack again, but with it sitting on my chest, since I knew I would need easy access to it soon.
Then I started climbing.
My crampons dug into the bark, I leaned back, and I took a step up the tree.
Easy peasy.
I would get about a foot up, then I would dig in the spikes on both feet, lean in for a second, and nudge the rope belt up the tree – usually about ten inches – so I could continue climbing.
Step, step – lean in, nudge rope up, lean back – step, step, repeat.
It wasn’t quite as smooth an operation as an old-time telephone repairman’s get-up, but I’d take it under the circumstances.
Sixty seconds later I reached the first limb. I could have lashed myself to that branch, if I chose – after all, I didn’t think the wolves could jump up that far (although I didn’t want to take the chance). But I didn’t want to stay there for the night. I needed something higher, in case I fell asleep and fell off the limb, God forbid. Even with safety lines attached, falling off an eight-foot-high limb would put me several feet off the ground, basically turning me into a meat piñata.
So I got up to the limb, sat on it, untied my impromptu belt made of ropes, repositioned it above the limb, and kept going.
I repeated the process over and over at each limb I reached, until I finally got about sixteen feet up the tree. Above that point, the limbs started getting flimsier, and I didn’t want to chance one breaking under my weight.
The rope belt would be a good primary safety, but I wanted backup. I took another rope, fastened it to my harness exactly like I would if I were climbing up a mountain, and tied it to the limb.
One safety line to the limb, and the belt around the tree. Redundant systems.
Later, I could lash the makeshift belt tighter so I wouldn’t slip off the limb if I fell asleep.
I was good to go.
Good thing, too, because that was when the wolves showed up.
I heard their barks and howls as I began securing the line to my safety harness. By the time I finished cinching the rope, they reached the tree.
God damn.
They were big motherfuckers. They might have looked like black-haired Huskies, but they were the size of Great Danes.
They ran around the tree in circles. Some stood on their hind legs and put their front paws on the trunk. Others jumped in the air, their jaws snapping.
When they stood on their hind legs, they were at least seven feet tall – and when they jumped, their jaws reached ten feet in the air at least.
If I had stayed on the lowest limb with my legs dangling off, I would have been a goner.
I couldn’t see much detail. It was twilight now, and we were deep enough amongst the pines that the shadows made it hard to see. Basically the wolves were just a bunch of dark shapes against the snow.
BIG dark shapes.
I’d never seen any wolves that big before, and I’d seen a few over the course of my television career.
It was kind of horrifying, actually. Made me wonder if there was a nuclear power plant nearby, and if any of the colossal fuckers down there glowed in the dark.
I was about to find out – about glowing in the dark, I mean – because the wolves didn’t seem like they were going anywhere. They eventually settled down and sat on their haunches, or slowly padded around the tree.
They were going to try to wait me out.
Good luck, assholes. Even if I die up here, I’m hanging out till the rope rots through.
Come back in another ten years or so.
I hoped the survivalist wacko had made it back to his prepper bunker alive.
I could just imagine him, heating up a can of beans and franks over a Coleman stove –
What am I saying? That guy was a fanatic. He was probably feasting on his own homemade moose jerky right about now.
I considered pulling out my flare gun and shooting one off.
I decided to wait until it was totally dark. I wanted the red flare to be fully visible from miles around and not get lost against any residual colors on the clouds.
Man, what my old producer wouldn’t have given to have a camera crew up in the trees with me.
Next up, on a very special episode of SURVIVE! – will Jack Harrington get his balls ripped off by giant wolves?
I never was much of a writer. I guess the promo people would have to pretty up the language for me.
Katie was good at that, too. She’d been the on-site producer for the show – the ones who went out in the field with me and the camera crew. That’s how we’d met.
How we’d fallen in love.
I could just hear her voice saying mischievously, Now, Jack, you know we can’t say ‘balls’ in the promo.
I grinned in spite of myself.
It was good to think of her and not have it hurt.
Guess I wasn’t going to be reading her letter tonight,
