EDITORS NOTE: Sandi Doughton wrote this story of photographer Peter Haley’s near death experience on Rainier in 1999. Doughton no longer writes for The News Tribune. Haley still works as a News Tribune photographers. He returned to the summit on assignment in 2005.

Two a.m. on the summit of Mount Rainier is a bone-cold hour.

For the five of us packed into a four-person tent, fear sharpened the cold to a cutting edge.

We were waiting for daylight.

We were wondering whether one of us would be dead before it came.

Swathed in two mummy bags in the middle of the tent, our companion Peter Haley moaned and twisted. The rapid-fire rasp of his breathing held us transfixed. All too often, the sound would choke off for several heartbeats, jerking us upright in alarm. Then, with a snort, the strangled rhythm would resume.

We all knew Peter's body was struggling vainly to suck oxygen from the thin air. His mind had switched off hours before.

Sitting just to his left, I kept my eyes on Peter's face, searching for hopeful signs.

His skin was gray. His lips were bloodless and chapped. Salt-and-pepper stubble covered his cheeks.

His breath smelled sharp and acidic. His chest fluttered like a panicked sparrow. When I touched the big artery in his neck, his pulse pounded as if he were fleeing a predator.

"Circling the drain," I thought, using a phrase I had just learned. In the blunt lexicon of mountain rescue, it describes a death spiral.

My stomach clutched as I realized the weak respirations ruffling Peter's lips might stop even as I watched.

It was still more than three hours until the sky would lighten and allow a rescue helicopter to take off from Fort Lewis, 50 miles away.

Suddenly, I felt like I was suffocating inside the crowded tent. I squirmed from between the tightly packed bodies, unzipped the flap and hefted myself out onto the snow.

My feet were clamped into plastic climbing boots as unwieldy as plaster casts. I was layered in long johns, fleece and Gore-Tex. A wool cap was pulled down over my ears, and my hands were jammed into gloves so thick I could barely bend my fingers.

Still, I felt the cold but relished the freedom to move around.

One of the things I had looked forward to most about camping on the summit was the prospect of stargazing at 14,400 feet.

I hadn't imagined so exquisite a scene.

Even on those infrequent occasions when the skies are clear, the top of Mount Rainier is usually lashed by winds that chase climbers off the summit after a few miserable minutes. But on this night, the air was still. The black-silk sky was splashed with a profusion of stars never seen from the light-polluted lowlands of Western Washington.

This was the mountain at its most benign.

We hadn't been blasted by blizzards on this trip. We weren't swept up in an avalanche or battered by falling ice. No one tumbled into a crevasse.

And yet, on a night of rare calm and beauty, Peter lay on the brink of death - pushed there by the mountain's indifferent power.

***

Our expedition had set out three days before from the White River Campground on the mountain's northeast flank. Peter, a photographer for The News Tribune, and I, a reporter, were along to do a story on vulcanologist Francois Le Guern and his research on the steam vents that had carved out a little-known network of ice caves under the summit snowpack.

The exuberant Frenchman had greeted us warmly at the campground, pausing to offer hot chocolate and tea as he dashed about assembling the mountain of gear we had to carry on our backs.

There were foot-long battery packs, collapsible floodlights, a video camera in a metal carrying case, cases of sample tubes and an inflatable raft for exploring a subterranean lake at the summit rim. There were three stoves, three tents, snow shovels, a saw for carving out blocks of snow, eight skeins of multicolored climbing rope, flashlights, ice axes. For sustenance, the French researchers had brought along slabs of bacon, packs of sausage, cartons of boiled eggs and canned sardines.

Already crammed in our packs was the array of cold-weather clothing and personal supplies required for any climb. Peter's load included an additional 25 pounds of cameras, lenses and film.

And unlike most climbers, who make the final push to the summit with light day packs, we would be be carrying everything to the top, where we intended to camp.

The distance to the summit was only about 71/2 miles, but we would be gaining more than 10,000 feet in elevation, the equivalent of taking the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building eight times.

Our group numbered 11. Francois was accompanied by his two sons, 17-year-old Fabien and 20-year-old Cedric, and a colleague, Emmanuel Ponzevera.

Orchestrating the expedition was Bill Lokey. As the former chief of emergency management for Pierce County, Bill had spent years obsessing over Rainier's volcanic potential. As an avid mountaineer, he had been among the first to systematically explore the summit caves more than two decades before.

Bill had recruited three volunteers from Tacoma Mountain Rescue, a local search-and-rescue group, to help carry supplies and scientific gear up the mountain: Roger Ternes, Maria Level and Mike Mixon. Also along was Jon Castro, a University of Oregon geology professor who was interested in Francois Le Guern's research, but a novice to mountain climbing.

My resume was only slightly less flimsy: One training run up 12,277-foot Mount Adams.

I took comfort in the experience of others on the trip. Bill had scaled Rainier 35 times. Francois had navigated peaks from the Alps to Antarctica. Even Peter had climbed Rainier once before.

We were taking the road less traveled to the summit. The so-called Emmons route is longer than the beaten path from Paradise. It attracts about a quarter of those who attempt the climb each year.

It was mid-July, and the first 31/2 miles of the trail were dry and hot. Sky blue lupine, magenta paintbrush and buttercups luxuriated in the sun.

We wilted in the heat.

The 57-year-old Francois was bent double under his load like a Sherpa, sweat dripping from his nose. Underneath his pack, strapped to his back was a leather and plastic brace to ease the pain from vertebrae fractured by flying rock during an eruption on the island of Guadaloupe. Strapped to the top of his pack was the video camera, in its metal carrying case.

Passers-by gaped in amazement.

As the smallest person in the group, I carried the lightest pack, toting three camp stoves and a big flashlight in addition to my own gear. It felt like a load of bowling balls. On a sulfurous slope called Yellow Death Hill, I fell to the back of the line. Panting, I glared at Peter, who was running back and forth like a puppy to snap pictures.

It didn't seem fair. To prepare for the trip, I had put in hours on the stairclimbing machine and hiked around with gallon jugs full of water in my pack. Confident of his abilities, Peter had hardly trained at all.

He also didn't share any of my fears about the trip.

Since being invited along two months before, I'd lived in a state of nervous anticipation. In bed at night, I'd replayed mental videos of myself hurtling down an icy slope. I'd imagined the suffocating weight of an avalanche and the horror of plummeting into a crevasse.

Equally awful was the possibility that I would be unable to make it to the top. Not only would I fail to bring back the story, but someone would have to leave the group and escort me down the mountain like a chastened child.

My first up-close encounter with a crevasse didn't calm my nerves.

Just beyond a lush campground called Glacier Basin, we crossed abruptly into a world of white. Behind us were the familiar features of nature: grass, trees, flowers and dirt. Ahead was nothing but snow, ice and rocky outcrops. Already steep, the trail now tilted upward at a dizzying angle.

We strapped on harnesses and roped ourselves together in teams. Theoretically, if I lost my balance, my rope-mates would arrest my skid by jamming their ice axes into the snow. I wasn't sure I would be much help to them if the tables were turned.

Like a slow-moving chain gang, we slogged upward.

Just below Camp Schurman, our destination for the night, Maria, who was leading my rope team, turned back to me and pointed her ice ax at the edge of the trail.

"Crevasse," she said.

I crept forward warily, like a cat slinking past a big dog. And a big dog it was. About 3 feet wide at the surface, the gap opened into a vertiginous blue cavern that made my knees wobble.

My patient rope-mates waited while I gathered the gumption to sidle past. Several more crevasses split the glacier on the final approach to Camp Schurman. As we pulled wearily into the camp, eight hours after we had set out, I cursed myself under my breath. What was I doing here in this treacherous terrain? What an idiot to think I could climb this mountain.

*

The words "Camp Schurman" have a homey sound to them. The spot was named for Clark E. Schurman, a Scoutmaster and climbing guide who liked to recite poetry celebrating the camaraderie of the campfire.

The barren saddle of snow where about 10 other tents were already pitched was about as cozy as an Arctic outpost. Tucked at the edge of a rock vee called Steamboat Prow, the site is only marginally sheltered and marginally level.

A stone-faced Quonset-style hut commands the high ground. Built by Schurman and an army of volunteers between 1958 and '63, it is occupied today by Park Service climbing rangers. The only visitor amenity is a solar outhouse reached by a steep, zigzagging path.

Compared with lowland campgrounds, congeniality is in short supply. Most people are pooped by the time they arrive. Many have headaches or nausea from the 9,460-foot altitude, and a climb to the outhouse can seem as strenuous as a 100-yard dash.

Folks pitch their tents, boil water on their camp stoves and try to choke down a freeze-dried dinner. They eyeball other climbers to check out their gear and physical condition. Then they usually go directly to bed and try to sleep until midnight. Most people prefer to set out for the summit well before dawn, so they can head back down before the sun turns the snow to mush.

If there's not much neighborly chatting, there's virtually no sharing of food or water. In a place where everything is carried up on your back, supplies are precious. It can also be dangerous to give someone else a piece of gear that may be crucial to your own survival.

When another climber asked me for a spare battery for his headlamp, my more seasoned companions advised me to barter for it, which I did. My price was two bottles of water.

As the rest of us began to stomp out flat places in the snow for tent platforms, Peter grabbed his cameras to photograph the extravagant sunset streaking the sky with bands of crimson and purple.

A wiry man with curly, dark hair that he cut at least once a year ("whether it needs it or not"), Peter had been a news photographer for nearly 20 years. At 42 he still approached assignments with the enthusiasm of a rookie.

A member of the Haley half of Tacoma's "Almond Roca" Brown & Haley dynasty, Peter was by no means the most eccentric of the clan. His father is a perennial candidate for political office, running on a platform whose planks have included legalization of marijuana, abolition of the military and introduction of a phonetic alphabet.

But Peter, too, was renowned among his friends and colleagues for his quirky ways.

On the road, he'd stroll naked around shared hotel rooms. He flossed his teeth during interviews. An avid - but not always successful - punster, he was as likely to leave his audience grimacing as laughing. He kept a written file of more than 100 of his favorite jokes, which he loved to recite with theatrical flourishes.

Originally a natural sciences major at the University of California at Berkeley, Peter viewed the world with a scientist's objectivity and curiosity. He started taking pictures during post-high school travels to South America and decided to make it a career when he realized he was spending more time on photography than anything else.

Outside of work he helped organize a public education campaign against domestic violence and volunteered his photo skills for other causes he considered worthy. A cherished T-shirt bore the words: "I am Salman Rushdie."

He enjoyed using his laser-beam logic to dismantle ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum - a tendency that irked many of his targets.

Behind his Spock-like intellect beat the heart of a cornball romantic.

He had dated methodically for years, searching for his ideal woman. At the age of 38, he found Toni, a family law attorney who had, herself, nearly given up on finding a soul mate. During their giddy courtship, they left love notes and seductive tokens in each other's briefcases or coat pockets. "You still light my fire," said one - a charred piece of paper Toni slipped into Peter's gear when he and I traveled to Eastern Washington to cover forest fires.

They married on the beach in 1995, and became foster parents to a 4-year-old boy named Christopher.

When Bill Lokey had first asked him to come along on the research expedition, Peter was jazzed. His only concern was that an ankle he had twisted four months before might interfere with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to photograph the ice caves. Unlike me, he had no doubts about his ability to climb the mountain. He and Toni had reached the summit in 1995.

Now, in Camp Schurman's thin air, his breathing was labored. "I can really feel the altitude," he told me, pausing to rest after a short walk across the snow.

On our way up to Schurman, Francois had cached some heavy gear at Glacier Basin to lighten the staggering loads his crew was carrying. The next day, the men set out to retrieve it. The distance wasn't much, but it meant retracing one of the steepest portions of the trail with backbreaking packs. Despite his problems with the altitude, Peter went along to help.

Those of us left behind - Maria, myself and Francois' two sons - were assigned the task of melting snow for drinking water. It was tedious work, but I learned a valuable tip: Avoid the yellow-tinged snow close to tent sites.

As we crouched in front of the camp stoves like peasant women, I shared my anxieties about the climb with Maria.

I'm an avid outdoorswoman, not easily fazed by the perils of wilderness travel. I hike alone in Montana grizzly country and I'm usually the one who's always urging my friends to go farther and higher on our backcountry outings.

But I'd never been drawn to mountain climbing. I considered it a self-indulgent sport of wealthy thrill seekers - the kind of people who were willing to risk their lives and their families' futures in a contrived test of prowess. It seemed like every mountain climber I had met or read about had watched friends die, but each was convinced that his intellect and skill would allow him to avoid the same fate.

To me, their cockiness was laughable. Mountains were dangerously unpredictable places where nature could snuff out the most experienced climber with a backhand slap.

Yet here I was.

In my 15 years as a newspaper reporter, I'd had some wonderful adventures. I got to ride an oil tanker into Anacortes and spend time on a fishing boat in Southeast Alaska. I'd waded into waist-high swamps with frog biologists, held a struggling bald eagle in my arms and visited islands on Washington's wild Pacific coast where white people are rarely allowed.

When the opportunity to see Rainier's summit steam caves came up, I was excited and terrified at the same time. Now, on the eve of our departure for the mountain's upper reaches, my palms were sweaty and my stomach churned.

Maria probed gently, asking me what it was that I feared specifically.

It was mainly the unknown, I realized. I had never been to Camp Schurman, but I had been as far as Camp Muir, the climbing camp on the other side of the mountain. From Muir, I had watched rope teams of climbers navigate a crevasse-scarred saddle and disappear behind Cathedral Rocks. It felt to me as if they were heading onto another planet.

Soon, I would be crossing into that unfamiliar territory.

And the journalistic detachment that so often served as a shield, allowing me to remain aloof from the people and situations I reported on, wasn't going to help me now.

***

The men trudged back into camp by midafternoon. Many, including Peter, were exhausted. To give them a few extra hours' sleep, we decided to push our departure the next morning back from midnight to 3 a.m.

It was still light when I crawled into my tent and tried to sleep. The mountain loomed above the camp, and in my imagination. Just a few weeks before, 11 climbers had been swept down a cliff by an avalanche on a clear, sunny day. One died - a young man on his first climb. I had covered the story, and I couldn't stop picturing myself in his place.

The wake-up call came at 1:20 a.m. I had barely slept and was already wide-eyed, listening to the clank of crampons and ice axes and the crunching of snow. Reluctantly, I abandoned the warmth of the sleeping bag and began piling on layers of clothes.

Everyone moved ponderously, as if gravity had doubled. Each little task -- lacing boots, strapping on crampons, packing water bottles - took three times as long as normal in the thin, chill air. It was nearly three hours before our group had cooked a noodle soup breakfast and packed our gear.

The mountain gathered and reflected the starlight, hanging above us like a pale projection of the real thing. A few hundred yards up hill, the headlamps of a large chain of climbers glowed like a string of party lights. We followed in their tracks.

Near the head of the group, I was roped up with Bill, who led the way, and to Peter. To ease my worries, the loquacious Lokey had assured me repeatedly that he could coax anyone up the mountain. Even his mother had made the trek when she was 50 years old. The trick, he explained, was the rest step.

Mountain climbing, I had already discovered, has little to do with climbing and everything to do with plodding. The rest step is the ultimate plod.

Climbers walk in one another's footsteps, creating a kind of snowy staircase. They travel that way because it takes less energy than breaking your own trail - and saving energy is Job One. The rest-step is another conservation measure.

Each step is a three-part process. First, you lift your leading foot and and plop it down in the next foothold. Then you heave your body - and the weight of your pack - upward maybe 6 inches, jamming your other foot into the next "stair."

Then you rest, with your weight resting on your back leg.

One breath. Two breaths.

Then you do it all over again. And again.

Climbers doing the rest step look like escapees from "The Night of the Living Dead."

Hindered by our heavy packs, our group lumbered like wounded elephants falling behind the herd. Other climbers, carrying only day packs, eyed our loads with disbelief.

I began counting steps obsessively. I'd get to 500, start over at zero, and try to convince myself that I was making headway.

The only evidence of our upward progression lay in the landmarks around us. We were beginning to gain on Little Tahoma, the jagged spire that pierced the sky to our left. Glaciers and river valleys fell away below us. In the hazy, blue distance, other Cascade peaks looked puny.

Lifting my head to look at the scenery seemed like too much effort. Mostly, I stared at my feet.

Shortly after we had left Camp Schurman, the crescent moon rose at our backs. Peter, who was feeling much better, dropped out of line to get a shot of our group with headlights blazing.

The sun followed closely on the heels of the moon, sending a golden blush across the surface of the snow.

When I looked back to the east, the sun was a red ball, suspended in a salmon-colored band of light anchoring the sky to the horizon.

After about six hours of steady plodding, it was clear we wouldn't make the summit. Peter was dragging, and several others were nearing exhaustion or were sick from the altitude.

We stopped at about 12,600 feet, on a pitch that approached 45 degrees.

"There is no problem," Francois said, grinning. "We will make camp."

Throughout the trip, the Frenchman had kept the group entertained.

During rest breaks, while most of us were gulping air, he would fling back his head and yodel. "This is how scientists communicate in the mountains," he said, unleashing a string of notes that rang in the clear air.

The oldest member of the group, he always carried one of the heaviest packs and took the shortest breaks. He made sure everyone else had a cup of hot tea before he would take a drink. He regaled us with his stories of his scientific exploits: How he had used explosives to divert a lava flow in Italy; his four-month expedition to Antarctica; his plans to dive among underwater fumaroles in Japan.

Later, when Peter was slipping away, Francois would nurse the photographer as tenderly as a father.

Now, he directed us as we began carving a broad platform on which to pitch our tents. He grabbed a shovel and started scooping out chunks of snow.

Several of us took turns wielding a saw, which sliced through the snow like butter, carving it into igloo-style blocks. The rest stomped on the snow, to pack it down and flatten it out.

When someone spelled him on the shovel, Francois pulled a ham and a 2-pound block of cheese out of his pack. He walked among us, slicing off slabs and urging us to eat.

He also inquired after everyone's health, asking questions like a family doctor and peering into your face as you answered. "Are you sick? Does your head hurt? Did you throw up?"

Nearly three-quarters of the people who climb Rainier experience some of the symptoms of acute mountain sickness, brought on by lack of oxygen and inadequate acclimation time.

My head had been pounding most of the day. When I pulled out a jumbo-sized bottle of aspirin, several other people sidled up and asked for pills.

On an expedition like ours, each individual's physical condition becomes a matter of communal interest. If you can't go on, it affects the whole group. Someone might have to stay behind to help you down the mountain. Someone else might have to carry extra gear if you can't shoulder your share.

Peter had been too weak and winded to help make camp but appeared to rebound after resting for a while. He told a clever joke about heaven, hell, Italian lovers and English cooks.

Life-threatening forms of altitude sickness are rare on Mount Rainier. Lulled by Peter's good humor and our collective desire to make it to the summit, none of us realized that his symptoms were signaling something serious.

***

The next morning, Bill and I took some of Peter's camera gear to lighten his load. The three of us roped up together and took the lead, moving into an area riven by crevasses.

Some we crossed via snow bridges - narrow spans, softening rapidly in the bright sun. Each time, I'd hustle across with my skin prickling, expecting to punch through the snow at any instant.

Others, we had to leap.

The worst blocked our path as we were traversing a slope on a snow ledge less than a foot wide. The gap was about 4 feet and uneven. To get to the other side, we had to not only jump over, but up. Instead of widening out, this crevasse narrowed to a tight wedge at the bottom, about 30 feet down. These, I had learned, were the most dangerous. Climbers who fell in became wedged in the snow, often suffocating just out of reach of their helpless companions.

Adding to the sense of danger, a larger crevasse snaked across the lower reaches of the slope, waiting to swallow up anyone who lost their footing.

I stood on the edge for nearly 10 minutes, while Bill waited patiently on the other side and tried to reason with me as if I were a small child. I was on a rope, he said. If I fell in the crevasse, he would pull me out. If I jumped and slipped, I could stop myself from sliding by digging in with my ice ax and crampons.

My skin felt clammy.

I backed up, took a running step and leapt.

My foot crashed down on the other side and slid off the narrow path. I started to skid down the slope. I jammed my ice ax into the snow and twisted my crampons around to bite in like a cat's claws.

I stopped about 15 feet below the trail.

Embarrassed now, as much as scared, I scrambled back onto the path.

Peter followed nonchalantly, then positioned himself to photograph Francois as he made the jump. They were the last photos Peter would take on the trip.

Soon after, he began to suffer in earnest. He was moving slower than anyone else, and Bill and I had to stop every few minutes to let him catch up.

He staggered like a prisoner dragging a ball and chain. His tongue was lolling and he appeared dazed.

"Rest step, Peter. Rest step," Bill would remind him.

We emptied out his pack, adding his clothes, cameras and food to our own loads.

By this time, we were only about 1,000 vertical feet from the summit, but it would take us another two hours to get there.

I fell back into my counting routine and watched my feet.

When I was moving, I was so hot and sweaty I could have been traveling through a jungle. When I stopped, the cool air chilled my skin.

The final stretch was a white wall that seemed nearly perpendicular.

As we stood at the base, a group of climbers headed down assured us we were only a half-hour away.

Step. Breathe. Breathe. Step. Breathe. Breathe. Step.

Then we were on the crater rim. Bare rocks, kept snow-free by the steam vents, ringed the bowl. The center was a smooth, white expanse.

I felt no exhilaration - just relief and fatigue.

It was about 10 a.m. There was no wind, and the snow-filled crater focused the fierce sunlight like a magnifying glass.

We pitched a tent so Peter could escape the glare.

Like 10-year-old boys on a field trip, Francois and Bill were itching to explore the ice caves. The vulcanologist was intrigued by Rhun-yeah - his Francophone pronunciation of Rainier - largely because of the extensive cave network carved out under the summit snow cap by steam vents. By collecting gases from those vents, he hoped to learn more about the volcanic processes going on in the mountain's bowels.

A similar expedition the year before had been cut short by bad weather.

Maria Level and Jon Castro, the geology professor, stayed behind to watch over Peter while the rest of us tromped off to find the entrance to the caves.

Rainier's summit actually consists of two interlocking craters. Our camp was in the larger, eastern crater. Our destination was the far side of the western crater.

The entrances to the caves are tucked into a formation called "the moat." Like its medieval namesake, the moat rings the summit crater -- a wet, muddy gap between the warm rocks of the crater rim and the snow and ice that fills the crater bowl. A person can scramble along in the moat, rocks on one side and a honeycomb of dripping ice on the other. Like mythical portals to Hades, some of the melted openings in the ice lead into the cave network. Without a guide, you could search all day and not find the right ones.

Francois relied on his memories and his nose, sniffing like a bloodhound for a whiff of sulfur. He vanished under the overhanging ice, then popped up like a prairie dog in another spot, whistling and singing.

He finally found what he was searching for.

"This is it," he said. "I know the smell."

We crouched down and followed him into the darkness.

Inside, the rocks were slippery and water dripped from the icy roof.

Twenty years before, when he first explored the caves, Bill wriggled down a narrow passageway he called the "rabbit hole." His companions tied ropes to his feet so they could haul him out if he got stuck.

Since then, the rabbit hole had grown in diameter. In some spots, we had to get down on our hands and knees to pass through, but mostly it was a matter of bending down and scrambling like orangutans over the slippery rocks.

The deeper we went, the darker it got. About 50 feet in we switched on our headlamps. The weak beams dissolved in the gloom. After another, 80-foot scramble, the walls opened up abruptly. The cavern we entered was so large that our lights didn't reach the far wall.

Francois and his crew unloaded their heavy batteries and hooked them up to powerful floodlights. The cave blazed into view, expansive as a concert hall. The ceiling and walls were pale blue ice, curved and scalloped. The floor was rock and mud. A small crescent lake formed by the meltwater hugged one wall. At its tallest point, the cave was about 30 feet high. We were more than 150 feet below the snow we had walked across to reach the cave entrance.

Francois pointed out a cluster of steam vents ringed by yellow sulfur crystals. It's the heat from these hissing vents that carves out the cave network, he explained.

The French scientists went to work, measuring the temperature of the vents and filling tube after tube with gas. Bill pumped up the inflatable boat, and Francois paddled out into the frigid lake. He scooped up water samples and probed the ice wall for passages into another chamber.

We spent nearly three hours in the cave. By the time we emerged, the sun was about to set and a chill was spreading like goose bumps across the summit.

Peter seemed about the same, tired but rational. Prostrate in the tent, he still made cheerful comments and wisecracks.

Roger Ternes, one of the Tacoma Mountain Rescue volunteers, had been monitoring the photographer closely, checking his pulse, peering into his eyes and asking him questions to see if he was still alert. Well-versed in high-altitude illness, Roger started getting more worried as the light continued to fade.

Peter's heart rate was climbing, and his breathing was fast and shallow. Even though the air was growing colder by the minute, he kept unzipping his sleeping bag and insisting he was hot.

I leaned into the tent and offered him some tea.

Everyone who has spent time with Peter has, on occasion, been left scratching their heads after a conversation. So it took me a few seconds to register his response to my query. Spoken in a normal tone of voice, the words were pure gibberish.

High-altitude cerebral edema, or HACE, is one of the most dangerous forms of altitude sickness. Experts argue over its precise mechanism but agree on its manifestation: The brain swells and begins to falter. One of the main symptoms is the inability to think clearly.

If the victim isn't immediately moved to a lower elevation, death can occur with a few hours.

I didn't know that at the time. But I did know that when a man like Peter can't form a coherent sentence, something is terribly wrong.

Like a crowd of people slowly realizing that the popping sounds they heard weren't firecrackers, but gunfire, our group began to grasp the situation.

Peter's eyes were glassy. His pulse soared and his respiration rate was four times normal. He drifted between lucidity and incoherence.

Mike Gauthier and Dee Patterson, two Mount Rainier climbing rangers who were also spending the night on the summit, dropped by our camp. A veteran of countless mountain rescues, including the June avalanche, Mike quickly concluded that Peter's condition was grave.

The ranger pulled out his radio and tried to arrange a helicopter rescue before the light faded completely and it became unsafe to fly. Impossible, came the reply from Fort Lewis. A CH-47D Chinook, the only helicopter powerful enough to navigate Rainier's summit, couldn't be dispatched until morning.

Convinced that Peter couldn't survive that long, Mike and the others weighed our options. There weren't many.

The only way to get Peter to a lower elevation was to bundle him up and lower him down the mountain on ropes, like a skier with a broken leg. It was dark by now, and the snow was glazing over with a slick layer of ice. Many of us were worn out from the day's climb and cave exploration.

When asked if I could help move Peter down to safety, I said: "Yes, if necessary." But the prospect of venturing onto the frozen mountain filled me with dread.

Mike evaluated our chance of success and decided the risk of an accident was too great.

That left one hope.

If someone could deliver oxygen canisters to the summit, it might be enough to keep Peter alive until the helicopter arrived.

A ranger and guide agreed to make the climb, setting out from Camp Muir on other side of the mountain at about 10 p.m.

By cell phone, Mike also conferred with a doctor about Peter's symptoms. He warned us to keep Peter conscious and get him to breath more deeply.

Inside the tent, Bill and I took turns alternately trying to cajole and bully Peter into complying. To keep him awake, we asked questions about his wife, his foster son, his plans for the summer. We badgered him to tell us jokes. We tried logic, explaining his dire condition and the possible consequences if he gave up.

Nothing worked.

"It just doesn't make any sense," he said with irritation, after I harangued him to take deep breaths.

Like a parent with a sick child, I felt fear tinged with helpless anger. As Peter spiraled further and further toward unconsciousness, I shook him roughly, almost violently.

Earlier in the evening, Francois had cradled Peter's head in his lap, feeding him tea with a spoon. He had helped Peter to his knees, holding a bottle for the photographer to urinate into. Now, he dived into the tent and took Peter in his arms again. This time, he clamped his mouth on Peter's and blew air into his lungs. Over and over, he repeated the process -- a variant of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation called assisted breathing.

"Mmmmmm. That feels good," Peter said drowsily, between breaths.

"Don't tell your wife," the Frenchman joked.

The benefits were short-lived. Within half an hour of Francois' ministrations, Peter was unconscious.

The two climbers picking their way up the mountain with oxygen tanks had estimated they would arrive about 12:30 a.m. Shortly after midnight, they radioed to report that their progress was slower than expected.

The cold had driven everyone into their tents. Francois, Bill, Mike and I kept watch over Peter and tried to pass the time with conversation.

About 2:30 a.m., Mike's radio crackled one last time. So many new crevasses had opened on the route from Camp Muir that the two climbers were forced to turn back.

There would be no oxygen.

After gazing at the stars, I climbed back into the tent. Francois and Bill were snoring. I wedged myself next to Peter and dabbed at his lips with a damp cloth. It was a useless gesture, but all I could think of to do for him.

Finally, I, too, dozed off.

Bill shook me awake with the news that the chopper was on its way.

It was nearly 5 a.m., and the sky was lightening. The summit was wreathed in clouds, which would make it impossible for the helicopter to land.

I grabbed Peter's clothing and cameras and stuffed them into his pack. The clouds drifted away, then returned.

I thought of Peter's wife and how long it had taken them to find each other.

The clouds blew apart, like wisps of tissue paper swept away by the wind. The sky was clear.

The whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter echoed faintly across the crater, growing stronger by the second.

Bill and Francois shoved cameras into my hands. "If Peter makes it, he'll be pissed if we didn't take pictures," Bill said.

Like a steel angel, the chopper rose above the summit rim.

It hovered overhead, whipping up a whirlwind of snow. The men grabbed Peter's sleeping bag and hauled him toward the landing spot like a sack of flour.

Dwarfed by the crater's vastness, the helicopter floated to the ground like a hummingbird settling into an oversized nest.

I snapped photos with one camera, then the other.

Peter looked lifeless as the chopper crew strapped him into a litter and pulled him on board.

I started to cry.

My vision blurred by tears and my shoulders shaking with strangled sobs, I continued taking pictures.

The chopper rose straight up, then pulled away and was gone.

***

We slogged down the mountain in silence. I would have loved to crawl aboard the helicopter with Peter and be whisked home, but the mountaineering code decrees that people who can must walk down on their own.

It had taken several hours to break camp, and the sun was high and hot. The snow had the consistency of oatmeal.

I floundered on every other step, sliding onto my knees or slipping forward in the slush. Clumps congealed in my crampons, rendering them toothless.

Our cell phones weren't working, so we had no news about Peter, who had been taken to Madigan Army Medical Center.

About halfway back to Camp Schurman, Bill finally got a call through. He and I were alone, the rest of the party stretched out farther down the mountain.

"It's not good," he told me. "They don't think Peter's going to make it."

I felt like I was going to vomit. How idiotic we had been to venture so thoughtlessly into a world where human beings don't belong.

From Tacoma or Seattle this day, the mountain must appear postcard perfect, the embodiment of nature's beauty. That beauty seemed to mock me now.

After the recent avalanche, the renowned climber Lou Whittaker had helped retrieve the body of 29-year-old Patrick Nestler, who died from exposure dangling from a rope. It had been the young Connecticut man's first mountain-climbing trip.

I had quoted Whittaker in a story on the accident, and his words about Mount Rainier now echoed in my head. "We love it," he said, "but it doesn't necessarily love us."

Bill's information had been bad. My cell phone had come back to life when we reached Camp Schurman on the descent, and I had called The News Tribune. I was told that Peter had taken longer to recover than most victims of altitude sickness and was still in intensive care. But his life was not in danger.

He went home the next morning.

When I called him later that day from home, he sounded weary, but alert. He said he didn't remember anything from the previous day. Then he chastised me mildly for not using his camera gear to photograph the ice caves myself.

I wanted to shake him like an errant child, to let him know how he almost died, and how much he scared us all.

The flash of anger passed, and I chuckled to myself. Peter was going to be fine.

(Published June 27, 1999)