Mitch cruisedhis way up the first pitch, moving from one crimp hold to another, flagging with his right leg to maintain balance, the toes of his left foot tucked into a tiny pocket. He reached for a pinch, tested it, then grasped it firmly with his left hand, moving his right foot up to catch the edge of a thin flake.
He was in the flow now, his mind blank, his attention focused solely on meeting the challenge of the rock, Megs feeding him slack from below. This was what life was about—fresh air, vertical exertion, and being with the woman he loved.
Megs led the second pitch, a long crack system that angled to the left and ran up to a ledge. They took a short water break there, turning to look out at the rugged beauty of the canyon, the river a green ribbon 500 feet below them.
Megs pointed. “Mountain goats.”
White shapes moved down a gully across from them in defiance of gravity, handling the vertical terrain with a grace no climber would ever master.
Mitch glanced over at Megs, the top of her helmet barely reaching his shoulder. “Did you think we’d still be doing this forty-eight years later?”
She smiled. “What—spending time together or climbing?”
“Smartass.” He loved that about her.
“Back then, I didn’t think about much beyond the next climb.”
Neither had Mitch. Climbing was life. Life was climbing.
And then Megs had arrived.
He could still remember the first moment he saw her. She’d pulled up to Camp 4, stepped out of her battered, red VW Bug, and stood staring up at El Capitan. She hadn’t seemed to notice them—the dirtbag climbers who’d made Camp 4 their home—not even when some of the guys catcalled her. With the dignity of a woman who didn’t give a shit, she’d gotten her gear out of her vehicle, found a camping spot, and set up her tent without glancing their way.
He hadn’t known it at the time, but his life had just changed for the better.
Mitch led the next pitch over good rock on a solid 5.10. It ended in a stretch of third-class scramble they could hike up. They could have untied from the rope, but they didn’t. They’d rescued enough climbers to know better than to take chances eight hundred feet above the ground. One slip could be fatal.
Megs led the next pitch—a 5.7 crack that unfortunately included an overgrown thorn bush that had somehow made its home there. “Ouch! Fucking bush.”
That’s one reason they wore long sleeves.
“Can you work around it?”
“Don’t think I’m not trying.” She ducked below one of the bigger branches and inched upward. “It’s better than being bitten by a damned bat.”
“Yeah. No shit.”
Megs had been bitten several years ago when they’d been climbing in Utah. She’d had to get a series of rabies shots. She wasn’t the first climber to end up in the ER with bat bites. Bats roosted in these cracks.
They pushed on through a chossy 5.9 section into the first 5.11 pitch. Mitch took the lead here, transitioning into a complicated layback as they edged upward toward the infamous chopper flake—a large flake of stone so loose that it creaked and moved.
“Watch out below!” Mitch didn’t want it crashing down on Megs or other climbers if it chose this moment in history to break from the rock.
He made it past the flake, mantling onto a small ledge, where he switched to a belay stance. A short time later, Megs stood beside him. The sun was high in the sky now, so they slammed down some calories and hydrated.
Megs looked down at the section of wall beneath them. “That flake is a funeral waiting to happen.”
She led the crux pitch, climbing toward an impressive overhang called The Roofs of Mordor, Mitch belaying and watching her progress as she moved cleanly upward. She climbed like no one he’d ever known, part athlete, part artist. She—
Crack!
From above came the ominous sound of stone breaking from stone.
“Rock!” Megs shouted.
“Rock!” Mitch repeated the warning just as something enormous hit the roof above Megs and broke into smaller pieces. “Rock!”
Unable to do anything, Mitch watched as Megs hugged the rockface, stone hurtling past her, hitting the wall, and heading straight for him.
