Regan attached her two umbilical cables from her harness to the iron cable and stepped out onto the first iron peg, moving skillfully across the rock face. She looked back and saw Sam attaching the umbilical to the cable.
She reached the end of the Brett, unhooked her umbilical, and pulled her hiking poles from her backpack. She had fleeting thoughts about waiting for Sam to catch up but knew it wouldn’t be too long before they were together at the base of the Höllentalferner glacier. Besides, if the past two years were any indication, it would take Connors a painfully long time to cross the Brett, and Regan was not a patient woman. After the Brett, Regan knew, Sam would have no trouble with the remaining hike to the glacier. All that remained was to follow the trail over the meadows and scree-covered slopes leading to the glacier. Centuries ago the very same meadow was covered by the glacier. Now, recessional moraines deposited by the glacier marked the path from the Brett to the base of the glacier. There, they both could take a needed rest before donning the crampons to walk across the icy glacier to the Klettersteig. From the glacier, the remaining hike was nearly vertical and the most challenging.
Regan reached the base of the Höllentalferner glacier by 9:30 a.m. There were actually three glaciers at Zugspitze but this one, the Höllentalferner, was the only one with a glacial tongue. And at the base of the tongue was a small ice cave carved by the summer’s heat. Water on the glacier's surface flowed down through crevasses and fractures in the glacial ice melting out channels called moulins. These moulins transported the water to the base of the glacier helping it slide across the ground beneath. Last year, and the year they met, the ice cave was too small to enter without belly crawling through the ice cold glacial melt. But this year had been a warm summer in the southern mountains of Germany and the glacial tongue revealed an ice cave with an opening five feet in diameter. Large enough to venture inside without getting soaked.
Regan searched down the mountain and located Connors, a tiny speck trudging up the slope. She figured another twenty to thirty minutes before Sam could reach the glacier.
Plenty of time to take a look inside.
Regan stuck her hiking poles into the ground next to the opening forming an X-shaped cross, a signal to Sam that she’d gone inside. She bent over, and crept into the ice cave. At first she wasn’t sure how far inside she could go as the blue-green ice walls narrowed around her. At one point the passage constricted until she could go no further without removing her backpack, which she did, pulling it along behind her. She sidestepped through the confining divide, her chest and back both pressing against the ice walls. A large ice room opened in front of her. The temperature had been dropping the deeper she traveled into the cavern but once she entered the chamber, the temperature seemed to plunge. She pulled off her sunglasses and squinted at the glare from the ice. Her eyes soon adjusted and she pushed forward.
She reached the end of the rocky, earthen floor about fifty feet inside the ice cave. Her next steps would be on the ice. She grabbed her crampons from the side of her pack and attached them to her boots.
Ice crunched beneath her boots as she stepped across the solid ice. Ahead another twenty feet, she came to a blockage where the sides of the ice cave had collapsed, almost completely obstructing the path ahead. She considered turning back but her curious nature pushed her forward. She peered through a two-foot diameter hole and saw that the cave continued on as far as she could see. She stared at her watch and counted. She’d been inside seven minutes, which meant Sam was still at least fifteen minutes down the mountain. Five more minutes of exploring then back out with plenty of time to meet Sam at the base of the glacier.
Regan pushed her backpack through the small opening then squeezed through and into the next chamber. She walked forward another two and half minutes, crouching for the last two, when she spotted something sticking out of the ice wall twenty feet ahead. She shivered. Regan knew she needed to leave now to meet Sam but curiosity pushed her toward the brown object sticking out of the ice.
Her inquisitive nature had landed her in hot water on several occasions, both as a child and as an adult. Maybe it was her rebellious nature or her anti-authority attitude, it seemed she was never one to do the right thing and always the first to get in trouble.
Ten feet away she stopped. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
A human body.
She’d heard the stories of bodies from ancient times being unearthed by glaciers in this part of the world, but the closer she got the more she realized, this body wasn’t that old. Decades, maybe a century, but no older. The clothing was too modern. She could tell the body was a man; the ice had preserved him well with his face still buried behind three inches of ice. He appeared to be sitting when he froze, knees tucked toward his chin, left arm dangling by his side. His right hand was clutching his chest, maybe a heart attack she thought. He was half in, half out of the ice wall. Legs and chest almost completely exposed.
Curiosity, not fear, fueled her excitement and pushed her forward. “What are you doing here?” Ashley said aloud…as if expecting a reply from the frozen man.
She looked at her watch. Sam would have to wait.
“The bigger question is.” She said aloud again. “Who are you?”
She reached out and touched his chest. The fabric on the coat was stiff and unyielding and she could see his hand was clutching something underneath his coat. By the crease formed in the coat, she guessed it was a small box or book of some kind.
She pulled on his hand. “May I take a look?”
The ragged glove tore loose from his hand exposing his freeze-dried skin. She tugged again on his hand and it moved slightly away from the coat. She grabbed the top of his coat and tried to unbutton it. The fabric and the button were still frozen together, but pliable.
Most people she knew couldn’t stand the thought of touching a dead body. Certainly Sam wouldn’t have touched it, just gone in search of help and let someone else handle the situation. But she wasn’t like Sam. She was fearless, open to adventure, and full of curiosity. Always in search of a thrill. Always pushing the limits and challenging boundaries. And mischief found her at every juncture. It was her way.
As a child, she was a tomboy and played with frogs, lizards, rat snakes, and garter snakes. To her mother’s dismay, she would catch two small green lizards in her backyard in Charleston and let them bite her ear lobes and hang there. It didn’t hurt, just pressure, and as long as she kept moving the lizards wouldn’t let go. She’d run in the house and yell to her mother to come look at her new earrings. Her mother fell for it every time…or at least pretended to.
She worked the frozen fabric back and forth until she was able to free the top button. She started working on the second button when she heard a distant noise coming from the entrance to the ice cave.
“Ashley? Are you in there?” Sam's voice echoed through the cave.
Regan picked up her pace. She couldn’t let Sam know what she was doing without having to listen to another morality lecture on doing the right thing.
“I’ll be right out.” Regan yelled back. The reverberations of her voice inside the small enclosure made her uncomfortable as small chips of ice fell around her. She wondered if this man crawled up in here and made some sort of noise only to cause the walls of the cave to crash down around him.
She feverishly worked the second button free. “Let’s see what you have there.” She reached her arm inside his coat. It was cold and damp and for the first time she realized she was touching death…or at least something dead. She let her fingers feel around, deeper inside his coat until they found the item. She felt the edges. Leather, cold and wet. It was a book. She grasped the top and tugged but it wouldn’t budge.