“You going to summit?” the fella asked. 

“Well, we’re sure going to try”, I responded. His eyes lit up with surprise, and I could tell that they were only thinking of reaching the top of the buttress. 

Max finished his pitch, and then we simul-climbed towards the large cornice that marks the top of the buttress, leaving the Japanese behind. We eventually summited at around nine PM. The winds were picking up, and I could see a bank of clouds moving in from the southeast. A familiar, uncomfortable hole settled in the pit of my stomach: here we were, spent some seven thousand feet above basecamp, with the weather possibly turning and a four thousand foot face to rappel. It was time to put our heads down and get the hell out of there. 

As we hurriedly down-climbed to the top of the buttress, I rounded a serac and there was the Japanese fellow, smiling, struggling upwards in his belay coat. I gave him a slap on the back and a “Good luck” before continuing down. When I passed the woman on the other end of the rope, she was feebly clubbing her way up a bit of serac ice, but she seemed happy, knowing that the summit was now close by. 

The Japanese returned to basecamp the day after us: it had taken them eleven – or was it twelve? – days to climb the Moonflower to the summit of Mount Hunter and descend. This is probably one of the slowest successful ascents of the climb, and in my opinion, one of the proudest. 

The next day, Ben and I shared a plane back to Talkeetna with them. Over the deafening roar of the deHavaillard Beaver, they fell asleep in their seats for the entire flight.