James Rush, a friend from our Yale days, sent me an email a few months ago. He is now living in San Diego, working a research angle for Novartis. He wrote that he was going to be in the vicinity of Switzerland and would like to visit Leila and I for a few days. I suggested that he do just that so we can go climbing and relive our glory days of Connecticut alpinism. It was stipulated that he bring his climbing shoes.

When the time came I had settled on going back to Mt Pilatus to climb the Gultigernturm again. The last two times I was up there to climb I had agonized over having to meet tight time-schedules. But on this occassion there was much less pressure and I got to actually enjoy the experience.

We borrowed Jorge's big jeep (which I have christened "der weisser Panzer" because it is monstrously huge) and spent CHF140 to put 80 litres of diesel into the tanks. Thus fueled and cash-depleted we rumbled off towards Luzern and then Alpnachstad. Having parked the "Panzer" we sorted our gear and strolled over to the cog-wheel station to purchase our passage. At about that moment James revealed to me he had not brought his climbing shoes. I think I might have said something about the impertinence of having so little respect for Euro-climbing as to not bring rubber shoes being a bit rude. After a moment of stony silence I shrugged and figured that James was probably not going to struggle too much anyway. The climbing wasn't technically challenging. So with expensive tickets in hand we rode the little zahnradbahn (lit. "toothed-wheel train") up to the top of the mountain, passing our intended climbing area on the way. James thought being in a train creaking straight up a 44° incline was quite interesting. As we passed the climbing route his attention was not to be broken, not even for the hugely-horned steinbock grazing in plain view on the other side of the tracks. I pointed out to him the series of "towers", they were actually stone ridges rising out of the side of the mountain, that we would be following. James uttered a few monosyllabic responses to the effect that he thought it looked very cool indeed.

Up top we slopped on the sunscreen, adjusted our peril-sensitive sunglasses and hoisted packs onto backs for the walk down to where the climbing starts. It was a pretty nice stroll (the weather was gorgeous) and just before we got to Mattalp we had the opportunity to marvel at the improbably large headgear worn by a couple of nearby steinbocks (mountain goats). At Mattalp I pointed out the imposing headwall of the Mattalp-platte which I had climbed with Jorge and Guilia a couple of years ago. This time however, I opted for a brief trek along a cutting which went up and around to a spot above the Mattalp-platte wall, I didn't want us to climb this one (regardless of James having shoes or not) because I didn't want to be yet again pressed for time at the end (the last train back down the hill was at 5.30pm and if you miss it you have a multi-hour struggle to get off by foot).

We were in place and ready to begin climbing at 11.10am. I took the first short pitch, an easy 3b (5.4 in YDS), and then brought shoe-less James after me. Despite being clad in footwear designed entirely for running along exceedingly flat surfaces he didn't have any trouble whatsoever. Therefore, I asked him to lead the next pitch. There was a moment or two up there when it seemed that he might be regretting the lack of rubber on his feet, but it soon passed and James didn't take long to finish it. He brought me up, we exchanged gear and then continued on. We would swap leads like this throughout the day and whenever we could we would string two pitches together to save a bit of time.

The first tower went pretty well and we stopped for a bite of lunch after that one. The views were magnificent and the weather was very warm. We went over to the second tower and I grumbled about the next short and crappy, but unavoidable, pitch. James went up the next one, and then let me lead off the last traverse along a fairly thin slice with big drop-offs on either side. The first pitch of the third tower was for James, and it would be the only lead to rattle him. Without sticky rubber his friction coefficient was approximately zero and the beginning of this pitch required a bit of frictioning to do easily. So James had to bite his lip and haul himself about on his arms instead. For a moment I thought things could go badly, and indeed his feet did threaten to let go at least once. But he made it to the clip in the end and I didn't have to call the rescue service to come and help me collect all the pieces. The rest of the pitch became steadily easier and he went on with the next one without pausing. The last two pitches were long traverses along the knife edge, which really give me the willies because the distance between bolts can be up to ten metres and your moving along something no wider than 30cm with big drops left and right. In any case we got off tower three safely.

Cloud had been blowing in from the northwest and it did look a bit threatening. I had reviewed the predictions this morning and this area was supposed to get a bit of thunder in the afternoon. James asked me what I thought and I figured it wasn't looking too bad. The shade it brought was a nice change. We couldn't hear any rumbling so we decided to chance tower four, it would go quickly enough anyway. Tower four starts with the hardest pitch of the whole route, the 2nd pitch is the second hardest, they're fairly vertical but on the whole not too challenging if you've got rubber shoes on. I led them both and then belayed for James as he employed his mighty arms to overcome the fact that his feet were of no real use. He led it up over the third and final pitch to the top - we were finished. James and I packed everything away and then followed a trail along the high ridge from which we could look down over the Vierwaldstättersee (lit. "Lake of the Four Forest Cantons" but better known to english speakers as Lake Lucerne).

After a fairly unrushed hike, James got to the tourist center where he only had to wait 10 minutes for me to drag my exhausted frame into view. That's it, I'm never climbing here again.