Matt: And you were up there three days?

Jim: Yeah.

Matt: And which day did you do that crux lead?

Jim: That was the end of the third day.

Matt: So that was at the very top, basically.

Jim: Yeah it was the very top. The route that Steve and Colin did… So they didn’t know where we had been because the guidebook description was completely wrong, because no one had ever asked us where we went, so they just made something up. And it was interesting, over the years as I would see pictures, the line kept moving to the right in the middle. So, we got better. Every time someone would draw a picture, we got a little better. The line in the guidebook had become the drop of water from the top to the bottom. So, we did pretty good. And I’ve looked out there — someday when someone does climb that, it will be pretty impressive. But nonetheless, we were following lines of weakness on the left side, which is where those guys also were. And we merged through the only realistic exit from the face up high and probably climbed three, four, five, six pitches of the same climbing. When I talked to them, it sounded very similar. But, we had a really miserable bivouac way up high, two pitches high, where it avalanched on us all night. So, you’d fall asleep and lean forward, and the snow would come down and push you out of your little seat. It was all heavy, wet snow. You’d have to clean it off and get it out of your bag and kind of get your seat hollowed out so you’d try to go back to sleep, or not go back to sleep or something. So, after that, then the next day Mugs lead a pitch up to the base of this hard dihedral up high. And then I got that pitch.

Matt: And this is the M8?

Jim: Yeah, and I just talked to Steve. And he had called it M8. We had a discussion on grading, and how do you actually grade stuff, you know? But, anyway, I think everyone who would really go up there, and it is as hard as you can climb. And you just have to do as good as you can.

Matt: Cause you’re way up there, and that’s your way off the face?

Jim: Your only way off the face is up. For us, I don’t know if he got more protection in it, but for me, it was about 45 feet of very hard free climbing using tools, trying not to fall off.

Matt: And how long were you on the pitch?

Jim: Yeah we didn’t have a watch, so we have no idea. I was on it for what seemed like all day. And then I got up to this stance and put the two pins in that Colin found and shut the pitch off and hauled the pack. It overhung the pitch by 10-15 feet. And then Mugs jumared up to me and started leading easier pitches, multiple pitches. And I was done. He would go up, and I would just try to stagger up.

Matt: You were exhausted?

Jim: I put everything I had into that.

Matt: And what were your tools for the pitch?

Jim: I only had a Chouinard ice axe that Paul Sibley had heated up in his shop and bent it down, and it had a bamboo shaft that had been broken. We put fiberglass all over the outside. I still have it.

Matt: Was the shaft broken deliberately to make it a shorter ax?

Jim: No, it was broken cause I hit it against something while I was doing something, and it cracked. And we didn’t have any money, so you didn’t get a new ax. So, essentially a lot of our tools were customized at that point. It seems like we intended to make things. There was an ethic to it, like when we made the Logan Hook.