That made going around them necessary and we steered left, giving the remaining huge seracs a wide berth as we continued to quickly gain elevation. The snow was becoming softer and we were beginning to posthole now, with some distance remaining between us and the 'schrund. While the obstacles had been surmounted and all we had to do was close the gap up the remaining bit of glacier, it was becoming hot and it was obvious we were going to have to posthole all the rest of the way. Justin sat down. He'd had a busy week, little rest the night before and was now bonking badly. While he was a very good climber with a lot of experience, nothing was going to change this today. We had brought bivy sacks and rolled-up light fleece sleeping bag liners in our packs in case of an emergency, and I suggested we stop here, stomp out a flat area to set up a resting spot and either wait until later, or sit it out until about 3:00 am the following morning, then crampon up hard snow to begin an early start on the actual Skyladder itself under ideal conditions. But it was just noon, and he wasn't having any of that, not wanting to spend the night on the glacier. In some ways I could understand; storms and whiteouts move in fast on this peak, and to descend that icefall in a possible whiteout or snowstorm the next morning would have been most dangerous, making our climb up through it look like a walk in the park. We had to go down, the same way we had come up.
We had lunch in the hot sun, watching the Snocoach tour buses over two thousand feet below us as they ferried tourists in need of "adventure" out onto the huge Athabasca Glacier. The weather was perfect, other than too warm; the ice would have been in great condition once we got onto it. Taking one last regretful look at the Silverhorn, we began heading back down our trail in the now-wet snow. Snow balled up under our crampons and we slipped repeatedly, having to knock the snow off of them with ice tool handles on every second step. Negotiating the same crevasses we had crossed on the way up proved to be a whole new ball game now as snow bridges collapsed under us, the lip of the crevasses were prone to break if stepped on, and due to postholing we were largely unable to step back a couple of paces and take a run at the wider ones. Just before we reached the icefall I took two long "running" steps to jump over a wide crevasse with a manky, rotten looking bridge partially covering it, and leaped over it.
My right crampon barely reached the other side, landing on the edge, and the lip of the crevasse broke off clean, plunging me forward as my crampon bit hard into the ice while my foot slipped down into the inside of the crevasse. The effect was my toes felt like they were suddenly touching my shin and I fell forward in pain, landing face first as the snow bridge dropped into the black hole. I lay there on the glacier, calmly taking stock of the now-very unfavorable situation. My right ankle was sprained badly, though not broken, and I knew it was going to be a real joy for me to get myself back through the icefall lurking just ahead of us, then back down the mountain to the trailhead. Justin joined me. He had fallen a couple of times on our descent as I just had, although fortunately without injury. We rested a few minutes while I gingerly flexed the ankle to keep it from totally stiffening up. Standing up tentatively, I had no choice but to continue, although there would be no jumping over any more snow bridges for me. I basically had to hobble up and throw myself across several more, landing hard and hoping I'd clear them without falling in while Justin belayed me with pickets dug into the soft wet snow.
We reached the icefall and began to descend our trail through it, downclimbing with ice tools, although I was unable to kick the points of my right crampon in due to pain. Justin lowered me with the rope through a couple of the bigger seracs, and after what seemed like an eternity of me hobbling, crawling and climbing up and down over uneven seracs we reached the north end of the icefall and walked out onto the safety of the lower snowfields. At this point I got out a hiking pole and was able to walk steadily, albeit with difficulty and pain, to the lower moraines where the Snocoach station gradually came into view far below. I could see tourists milling about and the buses coming and going. Justin walked ahead and soon was well below me. He reached the station a good half hour before I came hobbling down into it, and I found he had talked with one of shuttle bus drivers and made arrangements for the driver to take us along with his passengers down the paved road a mile or more, and drop us off at the trailhead on his way back to the Columbia Icefield Centre. I was extremely grateful to the driver and thanked him as I climbed up onto the bus and dumped my pack on the floor.. The machine was already full of tourists, and we were all set to head down. Justin and I sat down in the front seat, next to the driver and I looked forward to just getting back to the trailhead and collapsing for a while. Then the driver reached down and picked up a microphone for the bus' public address system, and excitedly addressed his now-captive audience as we sat there, festooned in harnesses, climbing gear and coiled ropes.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome two real-life mountaineers who have just finished climbing Mt. Andromeda......" and so forth. Good God, we'd just failed up miserably, and this guy was giving these tourists the whole shtick, making us out to be Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I turned around to look at the other passengers, and saw a large tour group of mainly-oriental foreign sightseers, gaping slack-jawed at us like we'd just climbed the Magic Line of K2 or something. I smiled weakly, feeling like a complete idiot, and turned around again, as the driver pumped us for information and more juicy details to announce to the crowd, who seemed to be keenly interested. Finally he pulled up and stopped on the road next to the little gravel parking lot at the trailhead and deposited us at our car, faces sunburned purple, tired, and glad that our little adventure was over. We got off the bus with our gear, our new fans waving goodbye animatedly to us. Next time I would try this route later in the year, when the crevasses were open and the glacier mainly bare. If a climber becomes injured on this mountain, escaping its clutches can become difficult due to the technical nature of the peak and the difficult terrain that must be descended. The early season is a difficult time to climb these icefield peaks as much snow remains until later in August or September. But a bad day of climbing was still better than a good day at work, and this would stay with me as a good memory of a beautiful day spent on a big, beautiful and awesome peak. I'll be back!