Quid pro quo on the mountain

Assistant Attorney General Domenic Turziano, 42, of Harrison, NY is a trial lawyer for the New York Attorney General's office, and lives a busy urban life. He has also been legally blind since birth, and a decade ago lost nearly all sight to retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. Experiencing a constant white phase out, he is unable to distinguish objects. This has not kept him out of the courtroom, nor has it kept him out of the mountains, which he learned to love as a 25 year ski veteran. Not satisfied with the limitations he found in blind skiing, compared with his former ski performance when he had better sight, he has now found a new challenge in the mountains. On Saturday, March 3, led by two mountain guides from International Mountain Climbing School, and accompanied by this writer, he climbed to the icy summit of Mount Washington. He had no mountaineering experience.

Domenic's climb occurred on one of those rare days when the wind was a mere 10 to 15 mph, though the temperature remained chilly. It was a hauntingly beautiful day as well; hazy clouds spit sparkling snow crystals on us as the winter sun slanted across the icy Boott Spur. As we climbed above the trees, we described the beautiful snow scene to Domenic, who 'saw' it with his primary sense: hearing.

Why did he go? He did an enormous amount of 'reading' of mountaineering literature before his ascent. This included audio books and using a Kurzweil Reader, a portable machine that scans magazines, and converts print to audio. At his office, his computer also converts all print to audio. A graduate of Lemoine University in Syracuse, Turziano has always believed that people can do what they dream by a disciplined process of planning and perseverance. "Life is too short," he said. "I have things to do. If you plan and go after it, you'll get it".

The Mount Washington climb was special for the two guides from IMCS, Andrew Coughlan and Curtis Cote, who fulfilled the 2/1 ratio needed for blind climbing. Coughlan was a competent guide on ice and rock, and had led many winter treks up Mount Washington; Cote was a paramedic and teacher at SOLO, as well as a seasoned mountaineer who had been to the Himalayas a number of times.

On Friday, the day before the climb, Coughlan met Domenic Turziano at the climbing store and took him on an ice climb in Crawford Notch, on the well known ice formation on the side of Mount Willey called 'Willey's" There, for the first time, Domenic climbed two pitches of ice in natural style, then rappelled back down. At one point on the approach, Coughlan tried to put himself in Turziano's shoes by closing his eyes briefly while in motion. The next day, Cote found himself doing the same thing. This exploration of the senses helped both acclimate to the task at hand.

On Saturday morning, Turziano was roped to a guide from the start of the Tuck Trail. At the bottom of the winter Lion Head Trail, he donned crampons, hard hat, and grasped his ice axe. On the first steep section, Coughlan went ahead 50 feet, and secured a hip belay to a tree. Cote talked Domenic up the pitch, which he did with the speed of a confident sighted person. In three pitches, we were up it. This set the pace for the day. Above the trees, the trio continued to perfect communication, as one guide led on the rope and the other walked next to Domenic and talked him around rocks on the trail. A verbal code developed; parallel for feet side by side, level for level after that, 18 for the length of a section before a rock, pack for deep snow that had to be packed down as you walked, and more.

After we passed a crowd basking in the sun at the top of Lion Head, we assessed progress, and decided to commit to the cloud hidden summit. Andrew led up the rocky summit cone; the pull on the rope helped Domenic sense the general direction to climb. Curtis calmly shot out directions. With Domenic's heightened sense of hearing, there was an instant response. Not once did he trip because of bad timing or inaccurate directions. He had complete trust in his guides, and consequently no fear.

He began to tire, but the summit was finally reached. "I felt a complete sense of satisfaction," he later said, "but I was a hurtin' puppy." We took shelter from a 20 MPH wind next to the front door of the Sherman Adams Building, and revived considerably.

The adventure was far from over. To avoid descending the rocky Lion Head, Andrew decided that we should go straight down over the Lip of the headwall of Tuckerman Ravine. With experience gained the day before, this went very well. Domenic expected steep ice, so when he roped down over deep powder, he thought it was a piece of cake.

As the four of us walked down the Tuck Trail in increasing darkness, a half moon rose. We described the scene to Domenic as the angular shadows of spruce lengthened, and sparkles of light reflected in the snow. He had helped us see better.