Since leaving the summit the previous afternoon we had descended no more than 1,000 feet instead of getting all the way down to the glacier in the six hours which we had reckoned. I began to feel impatient. I was tired of this grinding need to concentrate all the time. The mountain had lost its excitement, its novelty, and I wanted to get off it as soon as possible. The air was bitingly cold and the sky cloudless; the sun burnt down in a dazzling glare on the endless snow and ice. As long as we were back on the glacier before the afternoon storms I didn’t care a damn what the weather chose to do. At last the twisting mayhem of the upper ridge eased, and I could walk upright across the broad level ridge which undulated away in whale-backed humps towards the drop at its northern end. Simon caught up with me as I rested on my sack. We didn’t speak. The morning had already taken its toll, and there was nothing left to say. Looking up at our footsteps weaving an unsteady path down towards us, I vowed silently to be more careful about checking descent routes in future.
