Saving Sandy

Chapter 26 - Sandy's Story about His Journey To and On Everest

"AHH!"

I fell into a deep pocket of snow that went over my head. Many of the men in the team shouted my name as I stared at nothing but white and brought my hand up through the powder. My gloved hand reached air, and someone immediately pulled me out. My body tumbled onto the man, and I unsurprisingly saw that it was Sandy.

"Katie, are you alright?!" he demanded as I remained where I was, feeling his chest move up and down.

"I'm fine. Well, that was a doozy."

Sandy helped me stand up, and I immediately put on my skis, not bothering to brush the snow off of me. I had taken them off for a minute to rest, and then I took a step and went through.

"I'll say," Fritz commented. "When your hand poked out of the snow, it looked like something from a thrill novel."

"Yeah, that will teach me not to take these off in the deep snow," I said. "I didn't anticipate that the snow was going to be that deep, though. I think that was the deepest I've ever been in. It went over my head."

"It shouldn't be that deep as we get closer to the hutte," said Henry. "We have maybe a kilometer left, and then we are there. Good thing, too, since the sun is lowering."

"Agreed," said Mac. "Let us head on."

We all went to it and skied for about an hour before we came to a hill and looked down it to see a little wooden structure at the bottom of it. I gasped and pointed. "Oh my gosh, there it is!"

"Indeed, Katie," said Henry. "Ladies first."

I pointed to my chest. "You want me to go there first?"

"At least go down the hill first," Sandy put in. "He never said about getting there first."

I gave him a competitive glance. "Oh, is that a challenge, Mr. Irvine?"

"Indeed, it is. How 'bout it?"

"You're on. Ready, go!"

I zoomed down, and Sandy and the others followed after. Both Sandy and I zig-zagged down the hill, like on the slope at the resort, and the hutte came closer. The closer we came, the more I saw that it was a log cabin the size of a small house. I skidded to a halt at the door, and Sandy came a couple seconds after me. I rose my poles in the air.

"Victory!"

Sandy laughed, and the others came up to us, laughing as well. "Well," Sandy said, "you won the challenge."

"I did."

"You two, really..." Henry laughed. "Well, we are here. The Egan von Steiger Hutte."

Sandy and I backed up and saw a wooden sign above the door that said the name of the place.

"Well, shall we go in?" John urged. "I am eager to start a fire and have something to eat. It is right cold out here."

"Me, too," said Tony.

Henry opened the door, and the seven of us came into a room about as big as my suite back at the hotel, and there were two bunk beds on either side of the room, and a little table with four chairs around it on our right. There was also a fireplace on our left.

"Homey," John commented.

"There has to be a pot of snow somewhere in here that we can heat up," I said.

"Pot of snow?" asked Mac.

"Yeah, you know, hut etiquette," I said.

"She is right," said Tony. "It is only polite that the last people to leave the hut leave a pot of snow ready to warm as to hydrate the incoming travelers." He went over to the fireplace and saw a pot sitting on a metal pedestal in the fireplace. "There it is. We just need to start the fire."