Friday, October 20^th

I called Leon at around 8.30 am. He was ready but I was still packing. He gave me a couple of hours before showing up with "the dude", his battered old Subaru XL. We said our goodbyes to Leila and roared off in a cloud of blue smoke … headed north. We were off to New York's Adirondak mountains to climb one of the tallest cliffs in the eastern USA, Wallface.

At around 3.30 pm we arrived at Heart Lake, home to the High Mountain's Adirondak Loj. After asking the Park rangers where we register (a few hundred yards after the trail starts) we put on the packs and get ready for a quick hike. The packs weigh about a thousand pounds each. Leon and I look at each other with dread, I realize that I have probably never hiked anywhere with a big pack in my whole life. We are carrying all the necessities for two days of camping plus two complete racks of climbing gear and two ropes.

The four mile hike along Indian Pass Trail between Heart Lake and Scott's clearing lean-to (our intended base camp) went pretty well. We stopped for a break after two miles, close to Rocky Falls, and took a couple of happysnaps with our el-cheapo kodak disposables (we bought these because Leila's little Olympus was getting battered on our previous climbs). The condition of the trail was a little worrying and it deserves some comment here. They must have had some rain in the previous few days because it was very muddy and wet. Just to make things interesting we were wearing sneakers (having decided against heavier hiking boots to save a bit of weight). So we spent a lot of time rock hopping along trails that looked more like muddy, swampy, streams. It was quite an effort (and not an entirely successful one) to keep ourselves dry. Apart from this the hike was beautiful. The fall was over here in the far north of upstate New York, the golden husks of dead leaves covered everything and the Park looked spectacularly stark under a brilliant blue sky. It was very cool, about 12 °C according to the day's weather report, but the walk was keeping us very warm. We reached Scott's Clearing lean-to at 5.30 pm, having covered four miles in two hours. Organized the gear, found out that there was a nearby thunderbox (outdoor toilet), hunted down some dry(ish) branches and bark for a campfire and actually had some warmth going just as it got dark. It was now getting quite cold. After having some trouble with my little gas cooker we finally got some dinner (cheese and potatoes with kielbasa sausage) heated up and made a little tea. We were pretty tired out and it wasn't long before we crept into our sleeping bags and off to dreamland.

The sky above was perfectly clear and packed with shining constellations. If we watched for it we could see the bright streak of a falling star every few minutes. Utterly fantastic.

Saturday, October 21^st

At about 7.30 am I woke up and, after borrowing Leon's sandals, lumbered off to the thunderbox with my breath steaming in the cold still air. Leon woke up shortly after and we shiveringly made ourselves some breakfast, eventually got the bloody cooker going and had some tepid tea. We organized our gear and consulted the topo map and found that we had about two miles to hike south along the trail. At 8.30 am we headed off, carrying ropes, climbing racks, food, water, extra clothes and the guidebook. Weather predictions for this day suggested a 40% chance for rain, and while it was very cold (probably less than 10 °C) the sky looked clear.

The trail rapidly desintegrated into a series of connected winter swamps. It took great concentration at almost every step to keep our shoes dry. The trailmarkers were spaced well out of sight of each other and we actually lost our way at least once. This was one tough walk. We were hoping to do this in about an hour, based on the previous day's hike to our base camp, but our progress was very slow. After crossing and re-crossing streams, and negotiationg our way up a steep and slippery boulder field, we finally came in sight of our target.

Awesome. Enormous. Huge. Frightening. It's difficult to convey exactly how we felt upon sighting it from across the valley. It is a cliff that dwarfs any other that I have seen before. From it's base Wallface stretches, breathtakingly sheer, 800 feet up into the sky. It's size is further enhanced by the depth, steepness and size of the talus field below it. Leon and I looked at each other and we could barely speak. We were about to take a giant leap into some really serious climbing.

But first, we had to find our route. We wanted to do "Diagonal" a 700 foot climb, rated at 5.8, near the southern end of the cliff. It was easy to spot, the big steep ramp that gives the route its name stands out like a giant slash mark half way up. Quickly working out where we wanted to begin we descended from the trail down into the talus field.

The talus field was amazing. With building-sized blocks of stone we felt like mice navigating through a maze of stone walls and heavy forest. A thick blanket of leaves carpeted everything, including numerous and treacherous holes between boulders. A couple of times we would plunge a foot through into one of these and grab desperately at a tree, or moss, or rock, or each other to keep from falling into the unknown nothingness below. Eventually we scrambled up to the base of the cliffs, it was 11.15 am. Late. We had taken almost three hours to get here from the lean-to!

The Climb.

Leon knew that we might not finish the climb, that we may have to rap down. At this stage I still badly wanted to finish it. Let's wait and see, I said. Leon accepted this and we got started. Scrambling up together we ascended (unroped) some 4^th class climbing about fifty feet to the first belay point.

I won the first pitch (scissors beats paper) and began to lead it up with my gold rope. I had not gone far when we heard voices. Two guys showed up and hailed us from below. Finding that they also wanted to do "Diagonal" we communicated that we wouldn't mind if they wanted to pass us, as we were likely to be somewhat less than quick. They replied that they were in no hurry themselves and told us not to worry. So I finished the first pitch, which was a little tricky at first but very easy at the finish, gaining a series of gentle ledges. For a bonus I spotted a pink tricam some previous climber had left behind in a crack, as it is accepted practise to claim abandoned gear for oneself I levered it out and added it to my set. I quickly built a three-point anchor in a comfortable stance and yelled down to Leon (who was carrying both the pack and the other rope) to take me off belay. I then drew up the slack and belayed his climb. When he reached me he said that the pack and second rope were very heavy to climb with.

At that point the leader of the following pair, who were using twin 9 mm ropes, climbed into view and said hello. He climbed up a little higher and set his belay position about twenty feet up and to our right.

Leon and I set up for his lead. We swapped a lot of gear. Flaking out his second (longer) rope and butterflying up my gold rope. I took the bag from him and belayed as he moved on up past the other fellow who was now belaying his second below us. While Leon climbed, this fellow and I engeaged in some friendly talk. The sky darkened with grey clouds considerably and I asked him if he thought it would rain.

"Yes." he said. Flat out. No hesitation.

The wind picked up and the sky looked worse by the minute. I could have wept tears of blood. Leon was negotiating a difficult arete high above me and moving right. The bloody rope was viciously twisted and it was a pain to unsnarl it and keep feeding it through my ATC. Eventually he had stopped moving up and must have started setting a belay anchor. The second for the other pair reached his leader and they swapped gear and the lead very quickly and efficiently, their rope management was a real pleasure to watch as I had not witnessed the twin-rope style of leading at close hand before. They were friendly and willing to chat too. They began their second pitch while Leon was still finishing his. By the time Leon had set his anchor, pulled up the slack, and called down for me to come up they were well into their second (somewhat shorter) pitch. I followed up, with both pack and spare rope weighing heavily on my shoulders. It took me some time to reach Leon. By then the other pair had started their third pitch, crossing over our line. Graciously they allowed me to creep under their ropes and out of their way and I reached Leon's side. It was decided there that we would have to find some other arrangement for transporting the spare rope and pack. From now on the leader would trail the second rope (not clipping it in), and leave the second to bring up only the pack.

Leon had some trouble with building the anchor for his semi-hanging belay. His first placement actually broke away some of the rockface and probably gave him a bad moment or two to boot. But, despite this, he did eventually get in a bomber-looking set up.

I lead the third pitch that takes us up to the ramp. It's a bit hard and the protection is a bit sparse but it's comparatively (and mercifully) short. I had to rest on a piece below the last dihedral before achieving the ramp. The last time I did this it scared the hell out of me, but I guess I trusted this particular placement (I don't remember what it was, probably a tricam) a whole lot. Anyway, after a short break I toiled up and onto the ramp. I was about 40 feet above the start of the ramp, where the other two were just beginning their fourth pitch. They congratulated me on my last pitch and reckoned that we must be some sort of hardmen climbers. Anyway, I hauled against rope-drag across the ramp a bit and found a crack I might be able to employ as an anchor. I got in a not so bomber set up, but there wasn't much else for me to use, then again my stance was comfortable and pretty solid so I was pretty happy with the overall situation.

While I worked at the top of the pitch, the sun came out from behind the clouds and bathed us all in its gloriously felt warmth. The heavy clouds had swung east and away from us into the direction of Mt Marcy and Avalanche Pass. It made me feel good, strong and sure.

One of the other guys lead it up past me and asked if he should go over or under my two ropes. I figured that Leon wouldn't take long and suggested that maybe he could creep under them before I finished pulling up the slack. After that I hauled up the gold spare and piled it loosely beside me and then took up the slack on the grey rope until Leon shouted "That's me!" As I put him on belay and waited for him to start up (after he deconstructed his belay anchor) I noticed the other leader was nearing the end of his pitch high up on the ramp. I worried that maybe his second would have to cross our lines before Leon got here and that would mean they would have to wait for Leon. Not good, I didn't want to annoy these guys (who were thus far very friendly and accommodating) with a dumb mistake like that. Leon soon popped his head over the lip of the ramp and allayed my fears on that score.

Clipped into the anchor we watched the other second climb by us and discussed our situation. Leon noted that it was late, I think it was somewhere around 2 pm and we were still just under halfway up (perhaps about 300 feet), and that we will probably be rapping off soon. His look told me that no argument I made could possibly defeat the logic of dwindling time. I mumbled something along the lines of let's-wait-and-see again and he made a face at this.

"No man, we will be rapping off. We are not going to top out." He stated this clearly and somewhat forcefully.

I nodded sullenly, there was still a small part of me that rebelled at the thought of preparing to bail out. It felt like preparing to lose. I did want to finish this climb, as enormous and difficult as it still promised to be. Leon probably knew what I was thinking. However, Leon's record in this sort of situation makes it hard for me to argue the point. In the end, this is why I felt secure attempting this huge climb with him.

Leon took lots of gear and the lead. We still had some time left, we should use it. Like a shot out of a cannon he raced up the ramp (which was probably between 65 and 70 degrees), placing no protection for the longest time. I was getting pretty nervous at the length of his run-out (it was nearing one hundred feet) when he probably started feeling the same way. I was muttering sub-vocal imprecations to myself until I saw him place in his first piece. I think he got in a second piece before stopping 130 feet or so above me to build his belay anchor. The other pair of climbers were together slightly below him, preparing for their fifth pitch. Leon pulled up the gold spare and then took up the slack on the other. I broke down the anchor and prepared to climb up to him.

I spotted two winged maple seeds helicoptering up on the breeze, they swung up by me and headed straight up to the summit. Too cool, even trees can climb this thing.

Following behind Leon I was surprised by how exposed it felt, wondering how he found it within himself to run it out so long on such a steep face. The friction was very good as the rock was some sort of granular composite and the chance of falling was diminished by that, but if he had fallen … goodbye Leon.

Anyway, I reached him and he clipped me into his anchor. The sun had started to swing behind the mountain and we were in shadow. I could hear a steady ticking sort of noise close at hand, and the ramp was a little wet. From way above us, from a massive overhang of stone, occasional drops of water tumbled down like diamonds flashing in the sun. Really beautiful.

The second of the other pair was working his way up to his leader at the end of their fifth pitch, somewhere just below the end of the ramp. I wondered what their intentions were. Leon and I agreed that we would bail if these guys did, feeling somewhat secure with another pair of climbers being up here with us and not really that far away.

I started the fifth pitch, trying to climb quickly and win as much hight as possible before we had to bail. I can't remember much about how hard it was or how many pieces I placed on the way up. But I do remember finding out something about myself on the way up.

I had stopped somewhere to place a piece or just take a breather. Glancing to the right I looked out over the edge of the ramp and became suddenly aware of just how high up I was. Birds were flapping along the valley below us, the giant blocks of the talus field looked small and the trees looked even smaller. It was like looking out of the window of an aeroplane. I small stream, looking like a line of quicksilver, snaked its way south to a big far away lake. This was probably just under 500 feet. I felt almost hypnotised by the altitude. Ah ok, I thought as the world seemed to swim before my eyes, this must be vertigo. Cool.

I was close to the other pair, and climbing up to them I asked them if they were going to continue. No, they were bailing. They asked me what our intentions were and I admitted that we were going to follow their lead. They said that we could use their gear to bail from, which was really generous of them. But some last tiny rebel within me wanted to go higher still.

We had seen several rappel stations from past climbers along the way up and Leon and I had hoped to utilise them (if they looked safe) and save using our own gear. Leon was belaying me from very near one such station and I must be closing on the full length of our rope. So there had to be a station very near, probably right at the top of the ramp which looked about 30 feet away. Asking permission, I placed a piece in a crack right over the top of these guys and said I would climb up higher and look for another belay station. They seemed happy about it and said that they would wait and see what I could come up with. While I was there I happened to ask them how long they had been lead climbing. One had been doing it for two and a half years and the other guy for over four years. They asked me how long we had been doing it.

"Since August."

It was hard to tell, and they recovered from the shock magnificently, but I'm sure that I saw the flicker of stunned recognition in their faces. They had suddenly realized that, at 500 feet up, they were in the company of madmen. With nervous smiles they gave me a few words of encouragement as I passed by.

The next ledge up didn't have any rap station, but I saw that the following ledge marked the end of the ramp. That would satisfy me, if I didn't find anything there I would downclimb back to the two waiting climbers. Moving out to the right I was over the side of the ramp, hundreds of feet of a vast empty nothing opened below me, I searched for a handhold to haul myself up onto this last ledge. Little did I know it, but I had about 15 feet of rope left and Leon was down below, out of sight, probably wondering where the hell I would decide to draw the line.

So, there I was, my feet edging on nubbins, my left hand frictioning on the rounded edge above me while the right reached over looking for a crack, or a block, or anything I could use to achieve this last ledge. Almost unbelievably, just as I was getting ready to give it up, my fingers crawled over the edge of a block. I hauled myself up onto the ledge.

It was pretty big, plenty big enough for four guys and all their gear. In the back there were heaps of protection opportunities so I set to work putting together the final anchor. There was also, blessedly, a bomb-proof looking rap station. I called down to the other two and told them the good news. With cries of "Great!" they got ready to climb up here with me.

I pulled up the spare rope, Leon figured by then that I must have stopped climbing and set up a belay station (and not a moment too soon, I had climbed almost to the end of my rope). The two guys between us were helping out by relaying our shouts (we couldn't hear each other). I started to belay Leon just as the other leader reached my ledge. Leon got up next and then the last guy came up, belayed by his partner. We all congratulated each other on the climb, took a few photos and took stock of our situation.

It was 4.30 pm in the afternoon. Things looked a little worrying for us, but we figured we could be well on our way back to the lean-to before it got too dark. After all we had brought along Leon's torch. The other pair rappelled down before us, we waited for them to go and pull their rope before setting ourselves up. While we waited we tried to organize our ropes, took a couple more photos and admired the view. We calculated that we must be close to 550 feet up from the base of the cliff.

It was while the other pair were rapping down from here that we opened the bag, ostensibly to get some water and a bite to eat, and noticed that Leon's torch was on. We don't know how long it was on for, it could have been burning for hours. This meant that we had no idea how long the battery had left to go. We had to get down fast.

The Descent

Flaking the ropes, we tied the ends together using double-fisherman's knots and hurled them over the side. We would have to rappel down at an angle, following the line of the ramp to the next station, but the ropes hung straight down over the side of the ramp. I got on rappel and started down, planning to pull the ropes across with me as I went. The bloody things got tangled and then caught over the edge and try as I might I couldn't yank them across. This was very scary. Somehow the ropes were caught and I had rapped down below the point where the ends were stuck somewhere over the side. I steadied myself on the rock and slowly managed to work my way back up the lines a bit and into a position near the edge. I managed to drag the tangled lines over and tried to toss them down the ramp behind me. The bloody things just wouldn't untangle and it was very difficult to keep moving down and trying to sort the ropes out at the same time. This wasn't the only problem, there was a much more serious one that had just made itself very clear to me.

We had been climbing on a 196 foot (60 m) rope, our spare (which we had tied to the end of the climbing rope) was only 164 feet (50 m) long … a differential of 32 feet. I couldn't reach the small rap station close to where Leon had been to belay my last lead. It was only five feet down but, even though the longer rope reached it easily, I just couldn't go past the end of the shorter rope … I would fall.

There was, however, a very small and shaky looking cliff tree growing close to the side wall to which I pendulumned across and reached with a sum total of maybe five inches of the short rope to spare. I girth hitched a sling around that tree, clipped in and basically sat with one leg around either side of it. I got off the rappel but couldn't let go of the shorter rope. If I let go of that and Leon rappelled down here there was a chance that he might go just a tiny bit too far and off the end of the rope. Then he would either be dead or badly injured, out of reach and my chances wouldn't look much better. I can see now how it is that most climbing deaths are a result of rappelling accidents.

Way below me the other pair had reached the bottom of the ramp and were preparing to rappel down to the next station underneath them. They were looking up at me, probably wondering if I was ok, I waved them off. We could sort this out ourselves dammit, and there wasn't much they could realistically do to help us anyway.

I yelled up to Leon to come down, wondering what he was going to say when he got here and found this really crappy position five feet above our next rap station (which looked pretty dodgy anyhow). I got tired holding onto the short rope after a while so I tied a knot in the end of it and clipped it to my harness with a long draw. Leon came down, his eyes wide with surprise, while I clipped him into my "anchor" I apologised for all the hassle and time I had used up getting down here. He told me not to worry about it. The remaining daylight was fast fading away. I untied the knot in the short rope and put away the draw.

Leon did not like my tree anchor, "Oh man it just moved!" and he didn't much like the rap station I was suggesting we use either. It was basically a piece of rock with a sling looped around it. While we discussed what options we had, we set about pulling down the ropes through the belay loops above us. That was achieved with not a little sweating either. The knot linking the two ropes together must have been catching on cracks or other features of the cliff. With more than a little cursing we managed to drag the ropes down for the next rap.

I lowered Leon to the little rap station and he set to work trying to improve it, adding one of our spectra cord slings around the rock and a locking carabiner. From his position Leon spotted a much more secure rap station about 25 feet further down. He said that we could rap down to there and set up again to reach the bottom of the ramp. Fine, fine with me … let's just go!

The goddamn ropes continued to tangle and get stuck. Leon tried to toss them down again, after clipping them into the rap carabiner, but the ends of the buggers just wouldn't slide down the ramp. Leon set up to rap down while I worked on lowering myself safely from the tree to the little rappel rock. Incredibly a knot had somehow worked its way onto the short rope. Gasping with frustration Leon said that he wouldn't bother with the close rappel station and he would just go for the base of the ramp, working the knot down with him as he went. It was slow, tortuous work. To top it off we were short again. Leon was about 15 feet away from the next rap station when he ran out of the short rope.

He wanted to pull the short rope through a bit, to use that 32 foot differential to even up the lengths of the rope. The reason that we couldn't really do this was that you have to set up a climbers rappel at the actual rappel station, and if you pulled the short rope through then the knot joining the two ropes would provide an exciting (to say the least) problem for anyone wishing to rappel down past it … you simply can't do this without seriously complicating the procedure. But Leon still had to equalize the ropes, and 15 feet would do it. So he leaned forward onto the rock and took his weight off the lines while I rappelled down a little bit (about 30 feet) to a big fat crack I could sit in. Into that gap I wedged tightly and took myself off the line so Leon could equalize the ropes.

Sitting there, leaning back and hardly breathing, I kept my hands on the ropes and let them slide through my fingers as Leon worked away down below. I didn't want to let go in case they skittered out of my reach and left me stranded. I should have anchored here, but I was tired and frustrated and definitely not thinking 100% straight. It did occur to me while I was there that, even though I felt very safe, I really should have anchored before disengaging from the rope. But after I disengaged I couldn't move around (to get the appropriate gear out) for fear of losing my stance and sliding off. I managed to otherwise distract myself by thinking about the torch and its who-knows-how-much-drained battery.

Anyway, Leon had the ropes equalized in about 30 seconds and while he re-engaged his rappel (without the appropriate gear, almost all of it was with me, he was forced to just cling to the rock while disengaged) I managed to get one of the ropes in on my ATC. Enough to secure me until he finished his descent. He got down to the bottom of the ramp and anchored to the rap station there and I quickly engaged the second rope and rapped down beside him.

Below us we could hear yelling. The other pair of climbers were waiting to see if we were ok. That was nice. That was way cool. We shouted down that we were going to be ok. They left, we don't think they had a torch. Fortunately their camp was just across the talus field and they still had a bit of light left.

However, it was getting darker all the time. Leon tried to pull the ropes through the rappel carabiner we had left at the last station and immediately the ropes stuck. The knot up there had caught on something again. It took both of us heaving at the rope with all of our strength to loosen it again, and there were a few moments there with the rope structure literally deforming in our hands before it popped free when we both privately thought that our luck (as bad as it had been) had finally run out. With the ropes down we fed them through this, the third, rap station and tossed the ends once again below. Almost immediately I noticed that we needed to swing back right this time to a rap station I remembered seeing early in the climb. The ropes were too far left, I would have to rap right and try to drag them across with me again.

Inevitably the damn ropes got tangled amongst bushes or something and I had to stop and try to yank them free. Even with all of my strength they wouldn't untangle. So I jammed a four cam unit into an adjacent crack, clipped into it and took myself off the ropes. The cam held my weight and I held onto the ropes. I yelled up to Leon that he had to rap down "the wrong way" to get to the tangled ends of the ropes, free them, and then rap back across and down to me. He did this pretty fast, telling me what had happened as he got close by, the now freed ends of the rope tumbled by. He stopped just above me and remained online while I reattached my rappel setup and removed the camming anchor I was using. I got down to the next rap station, quickly locked into it, got off the ropes and yelled for Leon to continue his descent. We had to heave at the ropes again to get them down. The daylight was virtually gone now, but we would still see by the early evening glow of pre-night.

I rapped down again to the last rap station before the bottom, furiously ripping the lines free of their constant entanglements with brushes all the way down. Leon hurled himself down after me and as darkness finally fell we set up the last rap and repeated for a final time what had been a tortuous sequence of descents. We had reached the bottom and we were still alive. But now, at 7.10 pm, it was completely dark, we were still far from our camp and our one torch may not have much life left in it.

The hike

On our descent from the cliff, Leon had tried to pick out a line that might allow us to avoid the worst of the talus field and get us up the other side of the valley to the trail. The thought of making our way through this minefield of deadfalls was frightening. But we didn't have much of a choice. Leon shouldered the back pack (I had carried it in that morning) and his rope, I carried my own rope, we both carried our own climbing gear. As ready as ever we plunged into the blackness, one of us in front and forging a path and the other following with the torch. I think I was in front for much of the way, pretty much blindly trying to cross the talus in as straight a line as the thickly forested terrain would allow. We wanted to move down and left, but we kept being pushed to the right and further south than we wanted, the talus was forcing us to go down the valley rather than across it.

At some point, as we struggled through the darkness, I stopped cold. I had heard something that sounded too much like a large annoyed mammal to be ignored. It sounded precisely, to me anyway, like the angry exhalation of a surprised bear. We were in the Adirondaks, this is black bear territory, although uncommon it is not surprising to encounter bears here. All I could think was that we had stumbled too close to a lair deep in the talus and now we were going to be visited on by its resident.

I asked Leon to listen and the sound came again. Leon said it sounded like way-off thunder. I couldn't tell if the sound was close or distant. We heard it again, now it sounded like some sort of far-away explosion. But I could not shake the feeling that we were making some large animal uncomfortable by being here. We could either stand here and be frightened or we could keep going and be frightened. We kept going. We didn't hear the sound again after that.

Somewhere in the middle of the talus field, as I was driving forwards through clawing branches, the light behind me went out. I thought Leon had pointed it at something else or, horribly, the battery had gone dead. But no, the branches beside me were lit up and in front of me was a big open light-swallowing space.

"Keith. Stop." Leon said. He came up beside me and pointed the torch down. We must have been crossing over a big block of stone, because we were standing right at the edge of a 30 foot drop. He shined the torch down and we looked around a little wondering what to do. I was tired of going backwards to go forwards and looked seriously for ledges or something that would allow us to get down there, I even crawled down onto a ledge I spotted to the right. Leon kept urging me to forget it, to come back up. I must have been tired in the head or something because he practically had to come down to get me. I followed him back away from the edge, which was scary, because now the guy with the torch (Leon) was in front and the guy behind (me) was just following a flashing dancing ever-changing shadow-show of branch-rock-Leon profiles. He found a little gully that would take us down to where we thought we wanted to go. He gave me the torch and led the way down for a while.

We were exhausted and breathing hard. Trying not to lose heart we kept talking to each other to work our way through it. Stopping to flash the light around whenever we got confused or turned around. Each of us deliberately holding back our concern. The torchlight seemed to dim. Branches kept catching on our ropes and gear at almost every step. This bloody talus field was taking forever.

Suddenly, we came up to what we thought was a wall of rock, and then when we got closer we saw that it was an upward slope in front of us. Finally, we were out of the talus! All we had to do was climb up that slope and find the trail. About halfway up I asked for a break. Leon stopped and turned off the torch while I grabbed some water and something to eat out of the pack. In the darkness and under a brilliant starry sky we talked quietly about our situation, I forget exactly what we said, but it was something along the lines of if we find the trail and our torch holds out we will probably make it back. The trail might be tricky to recognize given the difficulty we had in following the bloody thing during the daylight. We got moving again pretty soon because, even with our fleece and gore-tex jackets, it was getting very cold.

Amazingly, and not long after that stop, we did find the trail. There was even one of those infrequently placed trailmarkers nailed to a nearby tree. We felt elated, but that offered only a brief respite because we quickly recalled that during the morning it had taken us over two hours to walk the two miles of trail here from camp. Now it was after 8 pm and we were both very tired.

We followed the trail north, heading back the way we had come earlier. We moved a little faster now and felt relatively good now we were out of the talus. Just a few minutes along the trail we heard voices calling to us.

Two guys we had bumped into and chatted with briefly that morning, who had climbed nearer the north end of Wallface that day, had been watching our progress (they could see our torchlight) through the talus field from their campsite by the trail. They called out to us as we neared their camp and asked if we wanted water. We gratefully accepted their hospitality and sat down with them to talk and drink.

When they heard our predicament with the torch battery and learned that we still had hours of hiking to do they gave us a spare from their own stores. They refused any compensation for this generosity. So I gave them that pink tricam I had found during the climb, telling them that it's a trophy from the mountain and I wanted them to take it if nothing else. It was no repayment, but they wouldn't take anything else. So with profuse thanks we left them and continued on knowing now that it was only a matter of time. Leon made a joke about it the next day, it was like a mastercard advertisement "Cost of one 6 volt battery, $7. Cost of the piece of mind it gave us, priceless."

So now all we had to do was finish the hike. No more worry about the torch dying out somewhere along the way. No more concern about a possible night spent in the woods in near freezing conditions waiting for the dawn. Just one last long hard slog.

That's what it was. With our growing tiredness we got lost several times, but somehow managed to relocate the trail each time. At one point we were convinced that we were not following the same trail that we had used on the way in. And I had some wild idea about old forgotten trails or parallel alternative trails in an effort to explain it. I think my mind was in a parallel universe for a while. It turned out that we did follow the same trail all the way back, and we finally struggled into Scott's Clearing and our lean-to at just after 11 pm, fourteen and a half hours after we left it.

We immediately drank down the little packs of orange juice I had bought for the trip. That was it for me. Completely and utterly exhausted I could do little more than climb into my sleeping bag and watch as Leon somehow found the energy to fight with that damn cooker. He wanted a cup of tea, that's all he wanted, just one lousy cup of hot tea. He was cold and tired and this goddamn blasted cooker would not light! After a while he gave up and crawled into his own sleeping bag. I took the gas canister and put it at the bottom of my sleeping bag, perhaps I could warm it up and we would have less trouble in the morning. I shouldn't have bothered, the damn thing woke me up every time I touched it's frozen surface with my feet and it never, ever warmed up.

Sunday, October 22^nd

Woke before dawn and watched as the morning light slowly increased. My legs and shoulders felt some slight ache, I had a marginal headache, but nothing else to show for the trials of the previous day. It was freezing. I dragged out the gas canister, still stone cold despite a night at my toes, and threw it disgustedly aside. I grabbed the cooker and messed around with it while still wrapped in my sleeping bag. I eventually took the little bugger apart, smacked it around a bit and heard some pressurized gas escaping from the inlet pipe … so that was it, it had been blocked. I screwed the gas canister back in and fired it up, worked like a charm. So I made some tea as Leon woke up (it's hard to sleep when a sound like the launching of a space shuttle erupts in your right ear), made some hot chocolate milk from dried milk/coco mixture and poured it over a little cereal. After breakfast I got back into my sleeping bag to keep warm.

We both felt somewhat amazed that we had survived our ordeal. Although we still had to hike out four miles back to the car, this seemed like nothing compared what we had been through already. Then again, I was in no hurry to don the full backpack just yet, so I argued for another hour of quiet rest and reflection before we leave. Finally, at about 10 am we packed up all of our gear and left.

Despite the condition of the trail (it was iced up a little, temperatures must have really dropped in the night), the half dozen or so rest stops we took and Leon slightly twisting his ankle, we got back to the car in just over two hours. I was whipped. We grabbed something hot to drink at the ranger station and then agreed to drive 12 miles to Lake Placid and stink up some italian restaurant while we gorged ourselves on pizza or pasta or something.

We did just that, a pasta fest was enjoyed by both, and I'm surprised that the waitress didn't use a stick to hand us the check. We must have looked like sub-human wrecks and probably smelled worse. On our way out we noticed that they were offering scenic-flights from the Lake Placid airport and we convinced ourselves to check it out. If it's cheap and we can get them to fly us over Wallface, maybe we can get some aerial photos of the place.

It was, we could, we did. Too cool.

Drove home, took many hours. Leila was there to give us both a hug and make us feel human again. Most excellent.