Matt: You said you said you were known for three Colorado sends, did we miss one?

Jim: And the other was the Emperor Face. So at the end of that sort of free-climbing time, I got interested in mixed climbing. And I went to Europe and climbed the Eiger and started doing ice climbing. I climbed Bridalveil. I think Mugs and I did the second or third ascent of Bridalveil, maybe the third. We were doing new ice routes in Utah, basically doing a lot of waterfall climbing. The way Mugs and I met was, he was just a kid and I was going on the Hummingbird Ridge, and he found out about it and got himself invited. He told me later he wanted to climb the Emperor Face because he wanted to get known as a climber, and he thought that would be the way to do it.

Matt: That would be the stepping stone…

Jim: I was the step on his stepping stone to be known as a good climber, so he and I ended up on the Hummingbird Ridge, and it ended up being much harder than we expected it. So, I would lead all day one day, and he would lead all day the next. And the other people were just moving gear basically. So, when we came down from that, that was when he told me that was his plan. He knew I had been trying the Emperor Face for a number of years with good climbers – Duncan Ferguson, Mike Weiss.

Matt: Were you just making a pilgrimage up there every summer to do the thing?

Jim: Yeah, well I had gone in there with a group of people after I had done the Eiger. So it had been probably ‘75 or ‘76 and was amazing that there was a face that big that had not been climbed in the world. And then I started going back. I went in the wintertime with Jim Donini, and some other people, Mike Munger, Dicker… made a winter attempt. When I was there with Mike Weiss, my knee swelled up and I was still basically really afraid of it and didn’t want to go on it. I went in with Duncan, and it snowed. I went in the winter time with Wayne Goss, and it was really cold. Then I went back on a winter attempt with four guys, so basically I’d sort of probably put more energy into it than anyone else.

Matt: Over how many years do you think?

Jim: Three years maybe.

Matt: Three years and how many trips?

Jim: Four, I think. And in the four trips, two of them we never even got on the face. It’s the kind of thing where I think a lot of people go in and think about it and look and it and go, “Huh, I think I’ll walk back out.”

Matt: What’s turning them around, do you think, per se?

Jim: It’s really committing. It’s harder at the top than at the bottom. You can get way up on it pretty easily. Nobody is going to come get you; nobody knows you’re there. You know, it’s 8,000 feet tall if you start at the bottom.

Matt: That’s huge.