And what if it started storming? It did... Not that night, but the second. I woke up when the first drop hit my lip at 1 a.m. We put up the rain covers on the ledges in the dark. When I say "we," I don't mean I was good for anything more than ballast. I was scared, exhausted (my ascender technique had not improved), cold (the temperatures were in the low thirties), and thinking about how I was holding the guys back. Almost every time I opened my mouth I was apologizing, and they had to be getting sick of that.

Snow squalls funneled through the valley for much of the following day. The clouds were low and gray, and most of the other climbers stayed in their ledges, but we got after it. Conrad was always up before daylight. He also called home each morning and night. (Conrad married Alex Lowe's widow, Jenni, in 2001, becoming a father to their three boys.) The eighth anniversary of Alex's death happened while we were on the wall, and we talked about it. The avalanche that took Alex's life had nearly killed Conrad, too, and was about as life-changing an event as one could possibly sustain. I marveled at the way Conrad could still get himself up for some difficult and dicey leads—the way he did on that stormy morning—and exude calm competence. Jimmy thought it was a perfectly normal way to start a day. "Adrenaline, the breakfast of champions," he shrugged.

I was also impressed as hell by Ivo. He led the Central Latitudes pitch on that day, a very challenging traverse, and he did it smoothly, quickly, and with great skill. "You need to get it done, because no one can get you out of there," he said, always the philosopher. Ivo turned out to be great at working with my limitations, too, which makes sense—as he casually revealed one day, he's a fully certified mountain guide, trained in Chamonix and Bulgaria. I was in need of guidance. Not only was I a client; I was a bad client.