The Search for Wilson, May 2016

The view of Mount Adams as Team Wilson Search and Retrieval set out.

Wilson's perch atop Adams

Wilson,
At this writing, only you, me and members of the Washington Branch of Team Wilson know the outcome of the search and retrieval mission last week. The donors obviously want to know whether that intrepid Mission Impossible team dug you out and retrieved you from the post you were tethered to atop Mount Adams last July.

And I'm going to tell them all about it.

But first, they deserve an update on the delivery of the One World Futbols they so generously sponsored last year.

Here's the tally:

• April 2015: 10 to Ecuador, distributed to an orphanage, Quechua natives and the black descendants of slaves owned by the Jesuits, living in a community called Valle Chota, which provided some of the players on Ecuador's national soccer team.
• May 2015: 4 to Tijuana, distributed to families (and an associated school) who were benefiting from homes built by volunteers from the Seattle area.
• July 2015: 2 to a remote village in China, transported from Hong Kong by an educator and food scientist with an interest in preserving seed stock from traditional farms. The villagers had never seen soccer balls.
• August 2015: 3 to Burma to support the school  at Mae Sot, a community of refugees living in a garbage dump
• October 2015: 3 taken by my Ecuador traveling companion, Melanie Wood, to a school in India that teachers girls a skill which can help them avoid working as prostitutes.
• November 2015: 23 to the Baobob refugee center in Rome. The center served African refugees.
• January 2016: 10 to Liberi Nantes, Rome,  which sponsors soccer for refugees.
• March 2016: 20 to Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences. Students there go to Zambia each summer. Last year, because of Wilson's participation in the Madison Street Marathon, the students raised money for One World Futbols to take to Zambia. This year Team Wilson donated the balls.

So, Wilson, you have been an inspiration, contributing to raising enough funds (and matching donations) that 179 fubols were sponsored last year. There are about 100 left to share.

August distribution scheduled

Three Seattle Community Colleges sponsor Global Impact, a program to send teams of doctors, health industry students and lay people into the third world to hold health clinics and improve health conditions for communities. In 2011, I went with such a team to Peru, where we conducted clinics, promoted water filters and built cook stoves with chimneys, replacing the open hearths that filled homes with smoke, damaging the health of the mothers who endured the smoke in order to feed their families.  In August, I will be going to Vietnam on such an excursion --  and distributing 10 One World Futbols to remote villages. Keep in mind that each ball is calculated to serve up to 30 individuals.

Vietnam Atonement:

I don't mind saying that there's something personal about taking the futbols to Vietnam. A generation ago, I was a young Air Force second lieutenant fresh out of college with money in my pocket for the first time and a spiffy sports car to drive around, Planes from McChord AFB in Tacoma made regular flights to deliver high priority cargoes to the war zone. I was a flyboy too-- as an information officer, I flew a typewriter for almost four years in Tacoma. I never heard a shot fired. For me, the war was almost a fantasy, barely a distraction from the good life.

Imagine how different it would be for those people if "Rolling thunder" had referred to the sound One World Futbols made when they hit the rice paddies, instead of what was really falling out of those bombays as the B-52s carpet bombed Vienam. Imagine what a difference it would have made if the persistent gift we left behind had been ecology-friendly One World Futbols instead of  land mines and Agent Orange. 

Every ball I take there will have our slogan on it: "Someone Loved a Stranger." It's small atonement for what we did, but as I explained to the Seattle Academy students, every donation of a One World Futbol is an act of love. That may sound corney, but it's true nonetheless. It is an act of altruism--brotherly love, something the ancient Greeks called "agape." And for us, it is almost effortless. It's just a better form of entertainment.

Well, that's what we've done so far and what we're going to do this summer. Having said that, readers want to know what happened with the search and retrieve mission.

Here's the report from Ana Elz, a member of the expedition that set out March 14 to find you:

Weather frustrates the search

We were unsuccessful in our quest to find Wilson.  From the start, I had my doubts about making this trip given the weather reports, but group mindset was ...optimistic and we headed to Adams.  

Team Wilson Selfie: In foreground, Jeremy, the trip organizer. Anna Elz is on the right with the baseball cap. The others, from the left, are Sean, Cory, Sara and Steve.

Friday we hiked in a couple thousand feet.  I thought we found a great spot to camp, protected, but our leader insisted we push on until 8 pm, which placed us in the wind tunnel for our first night of camp.  Good stiff breeze that night.  We struck camp and headed to the lunch counter in high winds.  Mind you we saw folks coming down saying it was bad up there.  At this point, while we were battling 30-40 knot gusts I suggested we follow suit and head out.  But again the group mindset was "well it could change let's get to the lunch counter".  (The "Lunch Counter" is a plateau with basaltic outcroppings. It lies at the base of the slope that leads to the summit.--ed)

Six inches to one foot of snow was predicted...  We made it to the lunch counter around noon, did the camp thing: melted snow, ate, took a nap.  During that afternoon we experience large hail and the first large flakes of snow.  Then by 6 pm we crawled out and reassessed.  

The mountain was socked in but the wind was calm.  They decided we'd assess at midnight.  Still optimistic that we could make it to Piker's Peak at least.  I crawled back in to bed.  At least I had my comfortable Double Z pad and a zero degree bag--very toasty.  The wind picked up around 11 pm and then dropped.  At midnight we awoke to snow--approximately 6 inches and more falling fast. The decision was then made to pack up and hike out rather than wait for daylight and more snow.   In the end that was right choice.  

Big snowflakes: The white streaks are snowflakes blowing past the camera.

We struck camp loaded up, and headed down in the dark with headlamps,  a GPS track,  and a couple wands to guide us out.  We had left our snowshoes stashed below the first camp when it was decided that we did not need them.  Now we could have seriously used them.  A tough slog out, but we made it and that's the most important part.  (And we found our snowshoes).   The group attitude was good although overly optimistic. 

   
Even though we were excited to go look for Wilson, I still would have made the choice to go down earlier.   I hope there is a future attempt in better weather and little more melted snow.  For now the Little Indestructible may still be there but we won't know for sure until we go look again.  

Robert maybe you do need to make that trek again... 

Anna  

Well, maybe I'll try again. It would be so wonderful to find you, Wilson -- there would be so much to share.

Love,

Robert

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Wilson! Wilson! Are you there?
It's more than 24 hours since a group of intrepid mountaineers were scheduled to ascend the state's largest mountain, to see whether you were still clinging to a building that is probably buried under several feet of snow.
And I've heard nothing.
Nothing!
Are you still lashed to that building at the top of that pile of rock, ice and brimstone that forms Mount Adams? Did the sun's ultra-violet radiation weaken your tether and the howling winds at the mountain top carry you off? Or are you still there, waiting to be retrieved?
There has not likely been such a memorable search since Stanley went into darkest Africa looking for Livingstone. Who cares? Some people do.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Well, OK, they would have wanted to know if I had told them ahead of time that a search and retrieval operation was under way. But I got distracted, and all of a sudden I realized March 14 was a couple days ago. That was the day that Anna Elz had pledged her commitment to see whether The Unbreakable was still clinging to a post atop Mount Adams, where they was left last summer. (Click here for the story.)
Here's one of the last photos I have of you since you made it to the top last July as the crowning achievement of your mission to raise One World Futbols for children all over the world:

As you faded into the midsts of legend, I hung on to the dream of looking for you again. I joined the Mountaineers. 2016 was going to be the year I settled my grudge match with Mount Adams by making it to the top after two aborted attempts.
But something happened in the interim.
I got older.
On my first training hike with the Mountaineers, I realized these people are animals. The first hike was a night hike with headlamps, and the pace was steady and upward. My quadriceps began to growl. I stopped to rub them. The Mountaineers trudged on. The night got darker. The quadriceps began to groan and quiver. I fell behind. The Mountaineers trudged on. After a couple of hours of trying to hush my quads the hike was over, I slid into my tiny sports car, and it was then that there appeared in both legs a pair of charley horses worthy of the Smithsonian.
It became clear I was not going to be able to find you on a Mountaineer hike this year.
But a month ago I attended a Mountaineers snow scramble field trip in which we trained to slide down hill upside down on our backs without dying and stomp through snow for a couple miles until I sweated a couple liters of water into my garments, too many of which I was wearing that day.
I made it through primarily with the help of instructor Anna Elz. Her photo from the Mountaineer's Web site is immediately below.

Instructor Anna Elz

Anna  just happened to mention that she was going to climb Mount Adams in May.
I just happened to mention that I had a friend up there.
Naturally, she was curious.
Inquiring minds want to know,
The rest is history.
Shortly afterward I receive the following message:

We are planning to climb on May 14. The road should be mostly open to the south route but we may have to tack on a few extra miles round trip to get to the trail head. With the snow pack, it is very possible that Wilson will be buried since we are going so early. The other thing I wondered, is that much will depend on what was used to secure him to the mountain. Even if he is indestrcutible, the material used to attach him may be worn or he could have blown off. It is still a great mission and we will report any sightings. I've told my team and they are excited too!

Missing Futbol Notice

As soon as I received that e-mail I made sure they would be able to identify you if they found you, so I forwarded this photo at the right from last year's Missing One World Futbol announcement.

Here's the latest e-mail I received from Anna:

Update..we are furiously packing and much discussion of the turn in the weather. Sounds like we are going for it but the summit bid may be in a snowstorm.. So we'll see what this adventure brings...maybe Wilson..maybe not but it will be fun,cold,and WET!!!We turn back if it is unsafe but if we do make it to the top it will require a hell of a lot of shoveling. 

Will send update

Cheers ,

Team Wilson

Well, there you have it, Wilson. Now we can only sit and wait ... and hope.

Love,

Robert