In the dull glow of our LED headlamps, the approach didn’t seem that bad.  Dawn, however, brought a severe reality check — we had inadvertently hopped the direct flight to choss-ville. Warm, above freezing temperatures had destabilized the lower slopes of the mountain — we found ourselves simul-climbing through forty-five degree gravel fields that were so loose we needed crampons for purchase.  

With only a minor injury due to rock fall, we reached the col at the start of the West Ridge proper by 8 AM. Now, surely our circumstances would improve.  But alas, the ridge turned out to be a low-angled pile. Still in simul mode, we found pitch after pitch of loose gullies and talus fields, punctuated by short, amusing steps of 5.8 rock. And those vaulted shimmering skies at midnight were now a flat grey. We reached the start of the steeper upper pitches just as the first snowflakes fell. 

It took only fifteen minutes for the thick Himalayan sludge to blanket everything — the rock, our ropes, ourselves. There was still hope — snow squalls are par for the course in this area of the world, perhaps this storm would pass in an hour. We waited. The snow lessened — and maybe that faint light overhead was the sun? No such luck. After two hours of sitting still, we began our retreat. 

The relatively low-angled nature of the terrain made the rappelling a slow, tedious affair. Darkness returned. Of course the ropes got stuck on the second-to-last rappel over a steep blank slab. Pat gallantly set off up the rope on prussiks; Dave and I were sleeping at the hanging belay when he returned an hour later.  

We had opted to descend the other side of the ridge to avoid the rotten syphilitic death talus we had negotiated that morning. Well past the 24-hour mark, trying to onsight a new, unknown glacier in the dark, we finally ran out of gas. With no sleeping bags or pads our options were pretty limited: we just lay down on the terminal moraine and shivered until light.  We staggered into basecamp at 10AM.