4 a.m. came surprisingly fast. Three guys, eating breakfast (oatmeal and Earl Grey), putting on their boots, and going to the bathroom is a bit like a nightmare game of twister. By 6 a.m. though, we were out the door and climbing. The climbing was spectacular — a handful of serious mixed leads (thankfully, most weren't mine!) with lots of snow climbing mixed in between to allow us to make timely progress. After 15 hours of climbing, at 9 p.m., we were standing on the summit ridge looking off the other side at tundra beyond. Though the summit of the Fin beckoned, maybe another two hours away, a thick soup of cloud simmered over the rest of the range. We started a brew and considered our options.

Was the weather getting better or worse? Who knew? We had no forecast or way to communicate with the outside world. Come to think of it, in two weeks we hadn't seen a single plane. I thought about the 20-odd rappels we needed to establish back to the cave, and then the winding ski past all those seracs and over all those crevasses, and then carrying my skis up and over the icefall and downclimbing that snow couloir… Most of all, I thought about being stuck back in that cave if the weather did shut down on us, running out of food and fuel as we were slowly asphyxiated and buried by a giant, wet stuffed panda bear.

We decided to head home. It was the best decision we made the entire trip, even if we broke the rules. ...

Ben Gilmore, Peter Doucette, and I were awarded a Mugs Stump Grant (bdel.com/mugs_stump/) and had support from Mountain Hardwear (mountainhardwear.com) for our expedition to the Yentna Glacier.