The Return of Mule Man and Little Boy
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It doesn't look like much, does it? All I can tell you is that we were distressed. With the packs, the conditions and the exposure, we just didn't have a choice but to rappel. I don't think I would have liked to have downclimbed it anyway. Hard to say. And also: we were a long way up. You'll see later.
I came over the lip and saw James clipped in to one of two or our rap cords. He had slung the cord over a large, right-angling rock horn. I asked him what he proposed we do now, after I clipped in.
James: "Well, we have to go to the left, because the cord will pull off the horn otherwise." I could see a snow shoulder far to the left that we needed to eventually intersect, but getting to it would require a traverse to another anchor. The problem was finding that other anchor. I could see just about nothing. James was suggesting I head for a large boulder below, but the closer I got, the clearer that boulder, which was in fact a rock tower in a 15' deep cleft, and the feasibility of reaching it, became. I would run out of rope and have to downclimb into the cleft. And I had no way of knowing what was in there. Or what was not in there. Finally I decided to head left, aiming for a small root, the only feature protruding from the slab. It was hideous. I can't begin to tell you how unhappy I was to clip in to it. It was very, very bad. I'm not going to get in to it any further. James had been considering downclimbing, but had decided to rap down. That meant that we were leaving the cord. So be it. James joined me at the root and clipped in. Neither one of us had any illusions whatsoever about weighting it.
James: "What do you think?" James rigged his rap device and I got in a good stance just in case everything blew (having no idea what I would do in that case). James started to self-belay while downclimbing. There was one brief moment where you really had no choice but to weight the rope while stepping down and over a gap in the slab to the snow shoulder. As James did this, I watched the verglas crack into tiny fragments around the root. I said nothing. If the anchor had blown the fall probably wouldn't have killed you, but the resultant compound fracture and wait to be dragged out probably would. |
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