When the blizzard caught Lambert alone on the mountainside at seven thousand feet, he knew he'd stayed too long.
The day changed from clear sun to pelting snow in less than half an hour. Worried about his tenure chances, the weather had not been a priority. He'd been told to watch the west as winter approached, but his business had him on the east side of the ridge.
The storm had blind-sided him.
He had spent the day trying to pick out spots on this mountain that would have been likely campsites four thousand years before. Now he was trying to find his own campsite of only hours before. Trying to save his life.
The temperature had dropped ominously two minutes after the clouds began to cross over the ridge. Hiking in shorts and sunscreen, Lambert noticed the chill right off and snapped out of the daydreamy world of archeological speculation. He had checked his pack instruments, startled to find the thermometer's liquid sliding perceptibly down the tube. The barometric pressure stood sharply lower than it had that morning. He pulled his phullu out of his pack, the same he'd worn in Tibet, and worked it over his head, still deliberate in his motions. Then he had set off at a sharp pace for camp, three miles back down the trail.
His heart was thumping uncomfortably hard, and he had to breathe through his mouth. The trail climbed and dropped every twenty yards, which made hiking the short distance wearing on the joints and frustrating. Chill breezes on his legs made him shiver, and threw off his attempts at an easy, regular stride.
When Lambert had gone only a mile, the temperature was in the fifties, the sky had turned an ugly blue-black, and bursts of snowflakes plummeted through the trees. By the halfway point the falling snow had cut off his view of the tent, its bright orange useless in the circumstances. With only a mile still to go he had to stop and put on both extra shirts and the second pair of rock gloves: all the clothes he had. The thermometer read in the twenties, the barometer still fell, and the wind was picking up. Slinging the pack back over his shoulder, he found his tracks already disappearing behind him.
Ten minutes later he lost the trail.
)
