Peter Pottersfield, The Mountaineers Books

"I still don't like this, Doug," I said, and jokingly added, "I tell you, my love of life is stronger than my desire to climb Chimney Rock." I was now experiencing a powerful negative foreboding, but when I looked out over the benign landscape, I could not figure out why. The ledges were loose and unattractive, but we had negotiated worse. There was no rational basis for getting psyched out so, but there it was. Sitting down on the rubbly rock a few feet from Doug and his anchors, my doubts gnawed on me. I declared: "I think this might be my high point."

"Look, it'll probably get better around the corner," he said, as he sat in his belay stance, the rope piled at his feet, a few yards stretching between us. "We're almost around to the standard route by now. Let's check it out, anyway. OK?"

Clearly Doug wanted to press on, and given the perfect condition, I couldn't argue with him. To pansy out now would be bad form--I hated it when climbing partners did that to me. We were more than halfway up and moving well. We were actually ahead of schedule, maybe an hour and a half from the top. The weather was good and the morning young. Reluctantly I agreed to continue on.

There were two routes from Doug's belay stance that looked feasible, though neither was particularly appealing.

"The one on the right?" Doug suggested, as he adjusted the ropes and anchors to belay from a different direction as we swapped the lead. On close inspection, the right-hand route definitely looked more likely than the other to take us where we wanted to go. I checked my gear, cinched up my pack, and climbed past Doug onto new ground. He was ensconced in his stance, back against the rock, the rope piled at his feet. His new belay device, a "Tuber," was unfamiliar to me, but he had shown it to me on our last climb and seemed to like it.

My concentration was now on the rock. The ledge on which I stood was covered with loose rocks, and a little farther on narrowed and became increasingly downsloping, much harder than our previous ground. From there I could go left and up or down and right. My uneasiness did not abate. I wondered if we were off route. Moving cautiously, I set out on the lower of the two ledge systems, angling slightly downhill from Doug's belay. As usual, so long as we remained in sight of each other we dispensed with voice signals.

Leaning out around a corner near the end of the ledge, I could see another ledge, big and grassy, about 13 feet away. The face in between was thin, but looked as if it would go. I figured to make a descending traverse of the face on small holds, and reach the big ledge. From there I could move farther around the mountain toward the normal route.

Thirty feet or so from Doug, I hung a sling on a small horn of rock protruding handily from the face and clipped the climbing rope to it with a carabiner. Since I was actually below Doug, my safety factor had improved. If I fell on the thin section I would essentially be top roped--held from above--and if the sling held, would face, at worst, a short fall. If the sling failed, I would pendulum across the face to a line directly under Doug, but with only 30 feet of rope between us, still not take a serious fall. I moved off around the gentle corner, leaving Doug behind and above as the rope paid out. Out of sight now of my partner, I moved down by strenuous moves on decent holds to the rock face between my protection--the sling--and the grassy ledge beyond. It was harder than it had looked. Although there were good holds above my head, there wasn't much for my feet, and my boots scraped the rock before I saw some nubbins on which to place the tips of my Vibram soles. Another couple of moves over the thin face, not too bad, and I was halfway. And I knew I was in trouble, for I could see a blank stretch of rock offering no good holds. This climb isn't supposed to be this hard, I thought. We must be off route. By then I had one decent hold for my left hand and nothing but friction on a little bulge for my boots. I thought about trying to reverse my moves back to the narrow ledge, but knew I was kidding myself. I was in trouble and realized I was about to log some air time, a really awful thought. I have fallen only rarely, and then on bombproof-belayed practice crags. The idea of peeling for real scared my mule.

I hung on, looking everywhere for an idea, my left hand cramping up and beginning to slip. There was nothing but a small face hold I had seen before, marginal at best, barely out of reach of my right hand. Better holds just beyond it tempted me to try. I stretched out as far as I could and made a kind of controlled lunge. It wasn't enough. My fingers slid across it and down the rock. I was coming off, as my last manoeuvre had pulled me out of my previous hold. "Falling!" I yelled, and off I went.

It was a bad moment, but I had time to realize that it could be worse--I could have been way above Doug and have faced taking a long leader fall. As it was I expected a short fall before the rope, passing through the sling above, stopped my fall when Doug locked the rope in his belay device.

When I peeled, the attitude of my body was sideways--my head way out to my right side where I had reached for the hold, my left hand coming off the one hold above, my feet sticking out to the left. The face here was quite steep, and I just launched off, pretty clean, straight down. Below, the face steepened to overhanging, so I did not bounce or tumble. But the rope kept running through the 'biner above me as I sailed through space with only minor, scraping contact with the rock. I prepared for the jerk that would come when the rope caught me. But it didn't come, and I wondered why it was taking so long.

Then I smashed against the rock face. The blow knocked the breath from me and completely turned me around. I heard bones break. The violence of the impact was unbelievable, the pain spectacular. Another impact followed in rapid succession, worse than the first. I felt more bones break in my left shoulder, heard them crunch and felt my body give. It was nightmarish. So this is what it's like, I thought. After the second collision, I started tumbling down the steep face. My sensations were of cannon-loud explosions as my helmet crashed against the rock, and sledgehammer body blows as impact after impact jarred and tossed my body. I saw nothing after those last desperate moments looking for holds. I ultimately lost my sense of orientation as I hurtled downward, smashing against the south face as I fell.