Snow Bridge

Rebecca Stone trudged through the knee-deep snow of Mont Blanc, France. She carried her equipment and samples from the expedition the day before in her large backpack. Her climbing axes, anchors, and clips clinked together as she walked. She was too exhausted to rearrange her bag the previous day and too anxious to get home. Three hundred and sixty degrees of rocky, snow-covered Himalayan peaks jutted toward the clear, cloudless sky. The mountains had been carved into razor-sharp cliff faces, slabbed with ice pillars hundreds of feet high. A climbing challenge she would have accepted any other day, but she had to get home. She had been away from base camp for twenty-four hours, searching for any indications of ice caves. When ice caves filled with water, they can produce lakes. As glaciers move, the lakes can break open and can wreak havoc on the villages below Mont Blanc. It was Rebecca and her teams' job to track the glacier's movements and find the lakes.

The snow had come in the night, erasing her tracks from the day before. The sun beamed high in the sky, but the temperature was bitter at minus thirty degrees. She had endured worse. The twin cliffs ahead reminded her she was almost back to camp.

Unzipping one of her many pockets, Rebecca pulled out her GPS. The tiny digital arrow showed her where she was, and how far she had yet to travel. "Nearly there!" She exhaled tirelessly. She shoved the GPS back into her pocket and replaced it with her satellite phone. The phone beeped to life as she was about to speed dial base camp, the earth shifted under her and she disappeared into the snow.

Rebecca gasped as her forehead collided with a solid block of ice. Landing on her arm, she thought the ordeal was over, but gravity betrayed her as she slid from the block. Her torso hit an ice shelf, and a cry escaped her lips as her leg slammed into the hard wall. Grasping at whatever she could, Rebecca finally came to a halt between two narrow walls of ice and snow. She had managed to lodge herself using her back and left foot. Luckily her crampons were attached to her boots. The sharp spikes were the one thing capable of such grip along the walls of an icy crevasse. She held herself firm between the two large walls, feeling the pound of her ever beating heart.

It was quiet in the crevasse other than the remnants of snow falling softly into place. She was just as silent, taking in everything that had happened. Her arm hurt, her leg was undoubtedly broken and it hurt to breathe. She touched her throbbing head and to her relief, her glove came back bloodless.

Rebecca scanned the dark, narrow crevasse of blue and white ice. One hundred feet above her, the surface of the drop boasted the clear blue sky. Underneath her, was another fifty-foot drop until the ice darted into another direction. Her heart began to settle, she closed her eyes, cursing under her breath. She was careless - too eager to get home. She should have been using her walking stick, which was tucked, retracted in her backpack. She dug into her pocket for her satellite phone and froze. It wasn't in her pocket. Her head fell back, sinking into her shoulders. That was all she needed for her coworkers to send help. She glanced at the ground on either side of her with no signs of the phone.

Rebecca needed to do something, and quick. The temperature would drop as night fell and with her backpack pressed stiffly against the wall, she couldn't access food, water or her flashlight. Nothing except her climbing tools. Her axes, rope, anchors, and clips dangled at her hip.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she praised herself for keeping them there. "Okay! I can do this. I have my axes for the climb, rope and..." She counted the anchor screws as they slid off her fingertips. "Ten screws, plenty of biner clips, one working leg and one working arm."

She blew air from her cheeks, her mind on her son, who was waiting for her at home. She missed him immeasurably. She thought of Justin, and how he would react if he received a call that there had been an accident and his wife hadn't made it. She prayed quickly to whoever would listen. "Help me get home."