Heart of Ice by Carolyn Keene

together in two groups.”
    â€œWhen you feel yourself slip,” Tsu said, “hold your ice ax in one hand, with the sharp end facing out. I’ll demonstrate.” She took about ten steps forward, holding her ice ax in a ready position as she moved up the slope.
    â€œWhen you fall,” she went on, “you should always shout ‘Falling,’ so the people around you know what’s happening. I’ll demonstrate.”
    Tsu took a few more steps forward, then pushed her arms and legs out from under her. “Falling!” she shouted as she went into a spread-eagle position and jammed her ice ax and crampons into the icy slope.
    â€œWho wants to go first?” Kara asked when Tsu stood up again.
    â€œI will.” Anne stepped forward. She walked several feet up the slope, then did a graceful spread eagle, calling out, “Falling.”
    â€œNotice the way Anne dug her crampons into the ice at an angle,” Kara said. “That’s the best way to get traction.”
    â€œWho’d like to go next?” Kara asked.
    Nobody responded.
    â€œNancy?” Kara asked. “What about you?”
    â€œSure.” A shot of adrenaline pulsed through Nancy as she stepped forward, her ice ax in position for a fall. She began walking up the slope. “Here goes,” she muttered under her breath. “Falling,” she shouted, pulling her crampons out of the ice and letting herself slide down the slope. Her body slammed against the hard ice, but soon she was able to force her arms and legs into a spread-eagle position and dig her ice ax and crampons into the ice. In a matter of seconds she had stopped herself.
    â€œNice job,” Tsu said.
    Nancy smiled, feeling her heart rate drop back to almost normal. “Thanks.”
    Nancy watched while the rest of the group practiced falling. Eladio had a hard time because he was too worried about his new parka.
    â€œI hope he doesn’t fall on the trip,” Ned whispered to Nancy.
    Lisa obviously knows what she’s doing, Nancy thought as she watched the young woman take a fourth practice fall. She was always able to get her ice ax into the snow quickly, but she sounded frantic as she shouted, “Falling.”
    â€œLooking good,” Kara congratulated the group after about an hour and a half of hard practice.“Now we’re going to climb up to that ledge so that we can show you some rescue procedures.”
    â€œRescue?” Eladio asked, sounding nervous.
    â€œIt’s just routine,” Tsu assured him; “We take every precaution on the mountain. But if anything were to happen, we want everyone to be prepared.”
    After several minutes of relatively easy climbing, the group reached the ledge. “The first thing we’re going to do is a mock crevasse rescue. A crevasse is a giant crack in a glacier—sometimes they’re hundreds of feet deep,” Tsu explained. “We’ll pretend that this ledge is a crevasse and that someone has fallen in,” she finished.
    Nancy carefully leaned over the edge and saw that the drop from the ledge was about a hundred feet, but it wasn’t a ninety-degree drop.
    â€œI’ll play the victim,” Kara announced. “And everyone else, watch carefully.”
    â€œActually, why don’t-I do it? I’d like the practice,” Tsu responded. “You can work with the group, Kara.”
    Kara nodded as Tsu began to pound a three-foot stake into the ice. “This is a picket anchor,” Tsu explained as she worked. “It’s one of the few pieces of equipment that can really anchor a person to a slope.”
    Once the anchor was pounded into the ice, Tsu tied the rope around it, then stepped into a special climbing harness and tied the other end of the rope into the harness. She began to ease herself down the steep slope.
    â€œNow, if Tsu had actually fallen, everyone on her rope would immediately go into a