Tera deVroede
Staff Writer
Many Pepperdine graduates go off into the business world, or whatever world their degree is for. Some never get a chance to enjoy pure thrill and fear. Pepperdine alumnus Ryan Birch is not the stereotypical college graduate, he lives for fun. He is a local since he grew up in the Thousand Oaks area.
Birch, 23, is proud to have graduated from Seaver College with a degree in economics. Instead of doing something that was solely economical, he chose to be a photographer by trade. When he is not taking pictures, he is having fun. His idea of fun is a lot different from what normally is fun.
Last summer Matt Wahluman, a friend of Birch, confronted him with a “great” idea. Wahluman suggested that they go climb a mountain. Mt. Whitney is the one they chose, and it happens to be one of the tallest peaks around. They had heard rumors that it was “the” mountain to climb. It rises to about 14,600 feet above sea level. At a certain point, the air is too thin for trees to grow; this is called the “timber line.” The top third of the mountain is above that level. The trails rise to 8,000 feet above sea level.
They decided to go around mid-summer. It was warm and they did not take any over-night provisions. When they arrived at the mountain they made a bad decision. The altitude can be a problem to climbers so to allow the human body to get used to the altitude level, one is supposed to camp for a few days before climbing any higher, which is known as acclimation. Birch and Wahluman did not acclimate; they just started climbing the day they got there even though they knew better.
Their plan was to hike to the emergency shelter that was positioned near the mountains peak, rest and then see the view and get down. Birch had been a swimmer and can fill his lungs, but every step he had to take required that, plus and enormous amount of concentration because his brain was not getting enough oxygen. Their pace was too slow and soon they knew they wouldn’t make it in time.
Birch and Wahluman looked up and noticed two thunderstorms producing a lot of lighting. The first thing that is bad about that is at an altitude that high there is nothing around, so a human being standing on the face of the mountain is the tallest thing. Secondly, a human would be the only thing around that conducts electricity.
What made things even worse is the fact that the two storms were moving toward each other to form one big thunderstorm. With no shelter and no over-night provisions, they prepared for the worst. Two big rocks were leaning up against each other and that’s what was sheltered. They took cover under them. It was below freezing so the two men literally huddled together to share body heat, but the cold was so cold,
“I couldn’t even explain to you how cold it was,” Birch said.
To try to keep warm they layered on every piece of clothing they had and stuck their feet into their backpacks. Birch recalls his water literally freezing. Birch’s brain was shutting down and he cannot remember much except the fact that he “knew” he was going to die. He was so cold and dysfunctional that he didn’t even have enough strength to pray before he died. They only thing in his mind was the cold. He had no sense of time and the wind rushed in between the two rocks like a wind tunnel.
At one point Wahluman got fed up with the wind and gathered enough strength to walk out and gather rocks to plug up the hole. Birch was astounded that his friend had enough strength to do so. With the wind blocked the two men fell in and out of sleep until morning. They waited for the sun’s rays to hit their side of the mountain before the moved anywhere. Once they felt it was warm enough, they went out.
The rocks that Wahluman carried over to plug the hole were not mere rocks; they were boulders. Each probably weighed the equivalent or Birch and Wahluman put together.
“He turned into a Greek god!” Birch said.
With superhuman strength he moved the massive boulders. Wahluman himself did not have an explanation. They were so tired but they still wanted to “conquer” the mountain. After seeing the peak, Birch and Wahluman rested for a few hours in the emergency shelter to think things over. As soon as they felt they had enough strength, they made way down the mountain, and quickly. They were a still so fatigued that, on the way home, they had to pull over on the side of the highway and sleep for a few hours. By then they were driving through the desert, so they had the air-conditioning on.
Birch’s survival story did not make front-page news, but the word got out. Birch blames the Peppervine, although he enjoys sharing his experience with other people.
“I have a deep respect for nature now, especially for mountains.” Birch said. “You don’t ‘conquer’ a mountain: it lets you climb it.”
In the beginning it is fun, but when the fun is over, a lesson is learned. Birch was lucky to survive but he intends to try again. He said it was a lot of fun.
06-09-2006
