Just fixed a broken ice axe handle with duct tape and hope

It was the kind of cold where your breath freezes in your throat before it even leaves your mouth. I was halfway up a frozen waterfall, gloveless, when the handle cracked like a dry twig. No time to panic—just taped it together with the kind of desperation that only comes after you’ve been on the ice for six hours straight. It held. The real miracle? I didn’t fall. Now it’s sitting on my kitchen table, wrapped in yellow tape, looking like something from a post-apocalyptic winter survival guide. Feels like a metaphor for everything.