Jim: So, just going up and down on it is a pretty big deal. I had been up and down on it a few times, so I was getting pretty comfortable. I think going in the wintertime helped even though it was snowing all the time and avalanching all around us, and we barely lived through it. So, anyway Mugs and I went on Hummingbird, failed and had a good time, and came back out. And this is when Mugs told me his plan to become a famous climber, or well-known climber was to do the Emperor Face with me, and would I go with him? And I said OK, he seemed like a really good climber. And so that winter then, we were ice climbing all around and rock climbing, and just doing different things. And we went up there that summer with the intent of doing it, and then we had to camp up under the face across the river, and then we got a spell of good weather and went ahead and were able to climb it.

Matt: How long did you guys camp for before the weather opened up for you?

Jim: About two weeks. We went up under the face once and it rained on us. Everything got all wet; we didn’t have Goretex or anything like that, and you know leather boots, bamboo axe and all that kind of stuff. So, we went back to Jasper and got more supplies and went back. We were up there just a few days and it stormed. It snowed. We woke up, and it was clear weather and we had a little radio. We could listen to radio reports and for good weather. The base had a lot of ice on it, a lot of rind, so we thought we could climb on that.

Matt: The blocks were kind of frozen together.

Jim: Yeah, kind of frozen together and stuff. It turned out to work, but it was really scary climbing. The face was characterized by 60-degree snow slopes intersected by vertical steps of limestone that are 20 to 60 to whatever feet tall. So, when we were on the rock steps, they were covered by a thin layer of ice. And you had to climb on the ice and not knock it off, so there was no protection, so you were climbing 20, 30, 40 feet above these steep snow slopes with your only protection being a couple of screws at the bottom.

Matt: At the top of the snow? 

Jim: Yeah at the top of the snow, so you would put in two screws at the top of the snow and then start up these things and hope something might develop, protection-wise, but and nothing did.

Matt: So, it was pretty crackless rock?

Jim: Yeah I just talked to Steve House, and cams work. And we didn’t have any cams.

Matt: Did you just have pins and nuts?

Jim: No, nuts. We didn’t take any nuts.

Matt: Strictly pins?

Jim: We just had pins; we had 16 pins.