Sunday 3^rd

Cold. Very cold. I wonder what the others are thinking? Probably not warm fuzzy thoughts. Not when they're thinking about how I talked them into this. Too late now. Poor Giovanna. She has been at the same place for a long time now. Long enough for Wolfgang, waiting at the base, to wander off and come back - maybe ten or fifteen minutes. She's stuck at the hardest part of the route, only about five metres off the deck. They're talking. I can't quite hear everything. The wind up here on the ledge is buffeting and obscures much of what they say.

She want's to go down. I catch that much. I see Wolfgang reach for the radio.

"She cannot do this part. She is quite uncomfortable."

Hell. On Friday night at a party Giovanna heard that Wolfgang and I would be climbing today. I had half jokingly suggested that she should join us and was stunned by her unhesitating "Yes". Half-stunned anyway. I know she likes to climb, very much. But the cold would be the big factor today. We all knew that. It's why James and Lu passed. They had already done their duty in January. So Giovanna joined us this morning at ten. At that time it was three degrees below. By now the temperature should be up to zero, almost anyway. The wind, which had blown fiercely yesterday, is not too strong ... but it's chilling.

I don't want her to give up yet. "Tell her I will tension the rope. She only needs to push with her legs."

I pull on the rope, all the slings below me stretch as the line goes taught. The sheath blackens my fingers with dirt as I haul up as hard as I can. She comes up, past the hard place, then a little more under her own steam before stopping again. Wolfgang gives me the thumbs up. I wait. She's ok, but she isn't moving. He radios to me that she wants to rest and try to warm up her hands before continuing. I tell him to let her know that it's ok, she can take all the time she needs. I pull up my hood and stretch it over my helmet, try to protect my neck and ears from the wind. I want to put my gloves on, but it's easier to take in slack without them. Wolfgang looks cold. He claps his hands together a little and moves around. He has a light case of the flu.

Wolfgang responded to one of my emails about going climbing earlier in the week. I must have put enough misery into it for him to feel sorry for me and agree to this ridiculous adventure. I had been pestering my friends to join me on a climb for weeks. It's too cold they said. It's crazy they said. I'm not going to argue the point.

Wolfgang on the radio. "She's ready to continue."

Giovanna starts working up the rest of the first dihedral. It had taken me a long time to work out the sequence for it, so I can understand her difficulty. Giovanna hasn't climbed outside since August last year, when she and Lu and Wolfgang followed me up Whitehorse Ledge in New Hampshire. That was a much warmer day. A great day.

I see her finally get above the dihedral and reach the pocket before the next hard bit. On lead this section is a short traverse right that goes across a small high-angle slab with really crappy hand holds and frictioning feet. It used to be scary, but today I practically launched myself across. On top-rope one can creep up higher and then balance across, placing feet where my hands went. Lu did this in January. Giovanna does it now.

She is doing well, but the layback is coming and I worry a little.

Giovanna reclips the rope (she's tied into the middle of my 60 metre line) onto the sling I've wrapped around a big chockstone just above the traverse and steps up. I tell her that she has to go right, but she moves left and I have to call down a few times to correct her. She is very cold. As Giovanna regards the dihedral which demands a layback I point out how she can use a foothold higher on her right, where the ripples are on the left wall that she can also use as she gets higher.

I cannot recall having seen her have to do a layback before. I describe the sequence and after a while she has her hands and feet in position. Giovanna slips once but tries again. She does it beautifully. A real fighter.

I explain the last movements up to my ledge, how she must move her hands up a diagonal crack and poke her feet into tiny pockets beneath it as she moves across the last exposed face. This comes very smoothly and she scrambles up onto the ledge beside me.

There is a big crowd, maybe a dozen or so, above "Defender" away to the right looking at us and taking pictures. I clip her into the anchor and get her to sit down close by, telling her how I intend to move Wolfgang into place when he comes up to join us. She is in good spirits, but her hands are very cold. I give her my liners to augment her own fleece gloves, this helps a little.

On the radio Wolfgang says he is ready, he has his pack on and my nut-tool and a hex hanging from his hip. He slips early but after that seems to have little trouble with the climb itself. It's just the cold which is a problem ... and it is so very cold. It is good to watch him do the traverse, trusting his feet to friction across. He is still impressed by this application of surface technology. So am I. My hands are cold enough to require the gloves now. So when he takes a break before the layback I put them on. While doing this I notice that the crowd above "Defender" is gone. Wolfgang manages the layback, doing it exactly as I did it ... pushing a foot far left to the features which offer some help on that wall. It's hard work but he does it well. Once I tell him that the last diagonal crack is for his hands he races up it very quickly. The first pitch is over.

It is too cold to mess around. I rapidly flake out enough rope for the second (shorter) pitch. I get Wolfgang to give me all the slings and protection he retrieved for me, rapidly putting them into some rudimentary order and ask him to put me on belay. Within a few minutes I'm on my way.

Stepping out right off the ledge, holding a big handy flake, I swing out into space and start up on the far side of the big arete which is the rib in "Weissner's Rib". My hands are suddenly very cold. Much colder than they were on the first pitch. This part of the stone hasn't seen any of the sun that has shone brightly, although distantly, all day. It gives me a big scare.

When I climb now I hardly think about my hands. I don't worry about losing my grip anymore. If the hold is good, my hands will hold it forever. The strength of my hands is no longer an issue. But today is different. I do not want to fall. Not today. I trust that if I do fall ... Wolfgang will catch me. I know that he can do it, he will do it. But he is not so experienced that I am not thinking about him. I know what it is to catch someone and what can happen, but he does not and I don't want him to find out today. I am also thinking that while I know this climb very well (that's why we're here now) I don't know it so well that I can afford to be reckless. But my hands, which have for a long time done everything I wanted, are warning me now. I cannot trust them so easily.

The uncertainty makes me squeeze myself as close to the rock as I can. It is the wrong thing to do and immediatly I am too cramped. I free one hand enough to try and blow some heat into it, but this is useless. The wind blows the warmth away instantly. I get some protection in and look up. The crux, a traverse left around the big arete, waits for me. Nothing else to do. I push my body back out into space and go.

At the big pocket before the crux I find a place for my #4 camalot. The huge cam slides into a big crack and braces itself against the sides. There are so many different places for pro here that I could have used almost anything, but it's fun to use this big piece. One day I'm going to really need it.

I look left and I remember how this is supposed to go. Put both feet onto the left-most ledge, grip the last hold on the right and lean left ... reach around ... up a little ... almost there ... let go on the right and a heartbeat later take hold on the left. Swing the left foot up high, bring around the right hand, continue. Resume breathing. The finish is easy, I sweep upwards and then over the top of the lip and race over to the tree that I want to use as my anchor. Quickly I set up the belay and clip myself in, just as that's done Wolfgang is on the radio.

"You are off belay now?"

I know what he means by this ostensibly confusing phrase. He's asking me if I'm safely anchored so he can relax on the belay. I tell him that yes I am clipped in up here, he can take me off belay. I realize in my haste that I have left my gi-gi down below with them. So I set up a redirect and belay with my ATC, the gloves will have to wait. It is windy and cold at the top and I wish I could get at that thermos of hot chocolate I have buried in my pack. But that will have to wait too.

I pull up the slack and put Giovanna on belay. She does the early traverse off the big ledge easily enough, but there are difficult mantle moves between that and the big pocket before the crux. She is stuck for some time until she figures out that its ok to use one's knees.

Giovanna's expression is so strange. Usually whenever I see her she has this smile on her face which must be like sunrise over Tuscany. It is beautiful and warm. But right now whatever it is that is the engine behind that smile is working hard on something else. Her eyes have widened and focussed intently on the stone in front of her, her mouth is very slightly open. It is the unselfconscious look of someone who's internal universe has become very small. The cold is affecting her, later she will tell me it was so cold that thinking was difficult.

She gets to that pocket and rests a little. The next moves, towards holds that are out of sight around the arete, are reachy and demanding. The wind continues to bite. The world is still a cold place. Giovanna tries hard. The skin around her fingernails suffers, the skin at her fingertips suffers. But it's too far and she cannot see what I'm trying to tell her is there. She is left hanging on the rope. She looks up and smiles a little. It's ok. She's ok. After a moment she swings left a fraction and then gets back onto the route. The last moves come slowly, but not too slowly. It is hard work, she is too cold to do this much longer. She comes up and over and sits down a little way from the edge, she is happy, relieved, cold. Giovanna has defeated the giant.

Wolfgang next. We exchange briefly over the radios, I pull up the slack and put him on belay so he can break down the lower anchors. He is pretty fast on this pitch. The mantle problems slow him a little, but not greatly. He spends some time in the pocket removing the big camalot and resting. I look away for a second, perhaps two, it cannot be more than three and when I look back I see that he is on the other side of the arete. I missed his traverse of the crux! Wow, he did that fast! He comes rapidly up the last section, over the lip and is safe. We are done. It is finished.