13 Steps to the Summit:
A Mad Dash up the Legendary Swiss Nordwand

First Pillar: A 500-foot crumbling tower used as the first major landmark while approaching the face. It’s dark, and we don’t know where the hell we are.

Difficult Crack: A 150-foot, steep, flaring crack. I’m trying to free-climb everything, not knowing that everyone aids (or French-frees) this stuff. My ice tool pops out of a pin scar, and the hammer hits me squarely in the eyeball. Blood drips onto the ice.

Hinterstoisser Traverse: A 150-foot, left-leaning, sloping, traverse above huge roofs. We stare across at a hanging mess of fixed lines and hardware, some new, some ancient. We half-expect to see a body mummified within.

Ice Hose: Water-ice runnel and névé connecting the First and Second snowfields. An “ice hose” should have way more ice. Second Snowfield: Snow and ice, four pitches long at circa 55 degrees. We simul-climb 700 feet sideways, not up.

Death Bivouac: A chiseled snow shelf sheltered by overhanging rock. Eerie. Someone has been sleeping in this bed. Steve and I try to guess who.

Waterfall Pitch: No water or ice this time — only 70 feet of steep rock. Three Italian alpinists we meet here ask us to fix their line up the corner. We wonder if they have fresh espresso in a Thermos, though we don’t ask.

Brittle Crack: Vertical choss with a crack through it. The “Brittle Crack” is more difficult than the “Difficult Crack,” especially if you’re a “stupid American” who tries to “free-climb” everything.

Traverse of the Gods: Approximately four pitches on a horribly rotten window-ledge traverse. We simul-climb (sideways, again), clipping a few old pitons along the way.

White Spider: A 600-foot-tall, branched ice field that gave the title to Heinrich Harrer’s famous book. Fat ice and névé, and we are going up fast. But it’s getting dark.

Exit Cracks: Approximately six pitches of confusing, but solid, limestone dihedrals. “We’re off route again, I think,” yells Steve. “Jonny, can you hear me?!”

Conti Bivouac: The top of a broken pillar, big enough for two people. We have our little international conflict.

More Exit Cracks: “I think we’re off route Steve!” I yell down. “Steve, can you hear me?!”

—JC