Anyway. The wet, slimy pitch went most free, and I free-climbed the pitch up to Block. Again, we left the bag and went free climbing. Max freed the pitch to Sous La Toit, and I freed the next one. We rapped back to the Block for the night. Some guys who had been following us came up to Block, and we told them that if they didn't fix higher and pass us that night or next morning then they would be behind us for the foreseeable future…and we didn't know how long that would be. 

So, we wake up on the Block, hang around a bit for those guys to get ahead of us, and then we jug our lines. When we get to the top of our lines, one pitch below the roof, the guy yells down that he didn't think we would be able to free that pitch; we looked at each other and laughed. Again, Max Jones, best free climber in the world, goes to work on it, falls a bit, lowers to a no-hands stem rest and frees the pitch. I follow it on my first try. We rate it .12b. I rack up for the roof, free-climb out to where it takes off horizontally, make a few moves and call for the aid slings. I was sort of having an off biorhythm time of my life and was not too brave. Bummer for me. Max comes up, follows a few feet farther free, and then batmans the rope to the anchor. He racks up, takes off and easily frees to the first overlap on that first full headwall pitch. He goes up a bit, falls off, lowers off, rests and goes back up and frees to a little pedestal on the left — probably 20/25 feet below the anchor — and aids the rest. He hauls the bag, I'm sitting there in my butt bag waiting; the rope comes tight, and I go off. I think I fell once but didn't go back down, and maybe free-climbed a couple moves farther than Max did. 

We didn't think the beginning of the next pitch would go so we didn't even try it, but I went free as soon as possible and free-climbed to Long Ledge. The next day, Max aided a bit above the ledge and free-climbed the rest of the pitch. I followed, free-climbed the next pitch; Max free climbed the last pitch and I followed it. 

All in all, we figured we had used aid on only 300 feet of the route. We had led and followed every pitch but never traded working on a pitch. We never did any variations or placed any bolts. From Heart, we were on the route four and a half days, spending nights on Lung, the Spire, Block, and Long Ledge. 

As far as a sufferfest — well, it wasn't. We had beer, and we were out there free climbing and having a great time. 

All in all, we knew we had taken a step and we expected others to take further steps and that eventually it would go free. We figured 90 feet of it might never go. 

When I saw [Paul Piana’s] article in Climbing years later, I cried. 

That's pretty much it. 

—Mark Hudon