Alpine Scuba

By Eric Morris

The scuba tank shot down the icy hillside like a torpedo, heading straight for fifteen divers sitting helplessly above a cliff. That was the moment I realized that combining scuba diving with mountain climbing might not have been the best instructional decision of my career. Deception Pass is the narrow waterway between Fidalgo and Whidbey Island, a place that figured prominently in many of our dive adventures. The tidal current running through the channel—and beneath the bridge that connects the islands—is so powerful that in places the water actually appears to run downhill, reaching speeds of almost nine knots. My fellow instructor, Bud Gray, and I were co-teaching a divemaster class. As part of the course, we wanted our students to experience a real current—none of that wimpy stuff most divers encountered at other so-called “high current” sites. This was 1975, and instructors had a lot more latitude in what—and where—they taught. That chilly December our class met in the parking lot on Canoe Island, a small, steep rock island that sits mid-channel and supports the mid-span of the bridge. Our dive plan required hiking down a trail on the western side of the island, working our way along a set of rock cliffs near the base (where a slip could send you twenty feet down onto jagged boulders), and eventually reaching the northwest corner of the island where we could enter the water. We had done this many times before without serious trouble. But never this late in the year. On this trip we were dismayed to find two inches of wet snow covering the shaded west side of the island. The trail was steep and difficult even in good weather, and the snow did nothing to improve conditions. Anyone unlucky enough to start sliding could easily shoot off the twenty-foot cliff at the bottom of the hill and be killed on the rocks below. It was seriously dangerous. Intelligent instructors would have canceled the dive right then.We were not that smart. Bud and I decided that some alpine scuba would simply add another valuable challenge for our divemaster candidates. Fortunately, I happened to have 300 feet of 5/8-inch nylon anchor line in my trunk, destined for my sailboat but available that day for our class. We lowered Bud down the trail using the line. Along the way he tied it to trees and brush to create a kind of handrail for the students. The rope wasn’t long enough to protect the entire route, but we planned to untie and reposition it farther down the trail when necessary. Once Bud returned, the class suited up and started down the hill. Everyone was wearing bright orange Unisuit drysuits, which in those days were practically the only drysuit available. These suits had soft, sock-like boots with almost no tread on the soles—something that proved absolutely worthless for hiking on snow. Burdened with tanks, weight belts, and heavy gear, each diver quickly discovered that standing upright was nearly impossible. Without the anchor line our entire class would have slid down the trail and over the cliff to their deaths. Fortunately, fear has a remarkable effect on grip strength. Eventually the entire class resorted to sliding down the trail on their backsides, their tanks scraping through the snow like fat metallic tails. Bud reached the most dangerous section first—the spot where the trail turned sharply right and followed the edge of the cliff. He stationed himself there as a safety guard to make sure no one slid beneath the rope and pitched onto the rocks below. One by one, about fifteen divers assembled around him, resting awkwardly on the slippery slope before attempting the next treacherous stretch of trail that ran along the cliff and eventually down to the water. No one dared stand up. It was simply too slippery. I was last in line so I could untie the rope and let Bud pull it down to where we planned to use it again on the lower slope. When I started down the trail I was hurrying to catch up—and had no rope to hold onto. I foolishly tried walking. It worked for about fifty feet. Suddenly my feet shot up above my head and I crashed heavily onto my back, landing squarely on my tank. The impact was so hard that the cylinder squirted out of the harness like a banana squeezed from its peel.

My tank launched down the icy hill like a miniature torpedo, trailing the regulator and gauge hoses behind it like feathers on an arrow—keeping the cylinder perfectly aligned as it shot directly toward the cluster of divers perched above the cliff. “Oh s—t!” Bud shouted. “Look out!” Envision, if you will, a group of divers sitting awkwardly on a slush-covered slope with a lethal cliff immediately behind them—suddenly looking uphill to see a sleek steel torpedo slicing toward them through a spray of snow. From my vantage point above, I could clearly see a lot of dilated pupils. Fear instantly doubled in the hearts of the divemaster class. Divers crawled, rolled, and scrambled desperately out of the way as the tank split the group and sailed over the cliff in a graceful arc. It nearly made it to the water. Instead it struck the rocks below, bounced high into the air, and began cartwheeling end over end with a series of tremendous CLANG! and TWANG! sounds before finally tumbling into the water with a mighty splash. Everyone watched in stunned silence. The class stared at the water below, waiting for the inevitable geyser of bubbles that surely must erupt from the sunken tank—like a depth charge detonating beneath a submarine. The silence lasted several long seconds before a couple of the students began asking Bud for a refund. Shakily, I joined the row of divers peering over the cliff. “Hey, I can see it down there,” I said. “I’ll be able to get it.” Without my tank I could move much more easily, so I went ahead of the class with the anchor line and began breaking trail for the group. Crawling along the snow-covered rabbit path—with my fins looped over my forearms—and risking a long fall onto the rocks below was certainly not textbook scuba instruction, but I eventually reached the bottom and tied off the rope to a tree. The students were then able to ease their way along the cliff and down to the water. While the class negotiated the final stretch of trail, I snorkeled over to the crash site and recovered my tank. Miraculously, no bubbles were escaping from it. The plastic tank boot had split open, the cylinder bore a few scratches, and the valve had one small dent—but the regulator still worked perfectly and the pressure gauge read normally. I swam the tank back to where the class was assembling and asked someone to help lift it into my harness. Strangely enough, no one volunteered. Everyone seemed convinced that the cylinder would explode at any second and blow them to pieces like the shark in the movie Jaws. I eventually removed the harness and rigged it myself. Just because I had the tank back on did not mean anyone wanted to dive with me. Even underwater, my classmates were terrified that an explosion might send them all to that big aquarium in the sky. I spent the entire dive attaching myself to various teams of divers—who immediately practiced evasive maneuvers whenever they realized who was tailing them. I felt like a leper. The dive itself went perfectly well, although nearly everyone discovered that their drysuits had begun leaking in the seat area from sliding down the snowy trail. The return trip to the parking lot was not nearly as dramatic as the descent. Spectators watching from the bridge above were treated to the sight of a line of bright orange figures crawling up the trail on their hands and knees, single file. From a distance, I’m told we looked like some sort of giant orange caterpillar.