Our first steps toward home.

(Ivan beamed this photo back to the Dominican Republic by satellite phone the same day it was taken. The next day it was featured on the front page of the Island's largest newspaper. He is a Hero among his people, and the flag he carried was later handed off to the Olympians representing his country in London. )

The Team retraced it’s steps back down the ridge to the Tyrolean Traverse. The giddiness of summiting was soon replaced with the kind of sobriety normally reserved for Coroners and Russian Tea Exporters.  More familiar with the routine, we crossed the gap in much less time than it had taken on our way up. Copy and paste this URL to your browser to see video of myself crossing the Traverse. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki41vSxmeVk&feature=youtu.be

We then began down-climbing the rock face. This involved 
rappelling down the fixed lines we had used as safety during the ascent. These lines represented a variety of gauges, wetness, and disrepair. Thus the more typical use of a mechanical Grigri device for descending would not serve the task at hand. Each climber clipped a steel figure eight apparatus into his waist harness and ran the line through it. Then, leaning back out over the rock face, he allowed rope to feed through the figure eight, using his legs to push off and walk backwards down the rock face. There were 19 such lines strung end to end down the rock face.  

My leather climbing gloves were already warn through at the finger tips from the ascent.   The coarse limestone had chewed them off. Now it was a matter of making the leather palms last all the way to the bottom. At times the thicker line would load up instead of feeding through the figure eight. Then it would suddenly release, leaving me to sprint backwards as I crashed side to side off the rock. It was clumsy, but not awful. Occasionally I would dodge a rock loosed by a climber above me. A few bounced off my helmet with a loud "clack". Then the rain began. 

The lines refused to pass smoothly through the descender as they became increasingly soaked. A length would hang up, then zip through.  As I clenched the line back to slow, it would bite hard, leaving me to bounce like a squirrel on a bungee cord. The fissure we were working down became a creek of fast-moving water. The rocks grew slippery. I could see Dan working with Carol up above me. Denis was just below them, moving tentatively.  Ivan and Pal were already off the wall as I clipped into the second to the last rope. It was a modest grade that terminated at the top of the large round boulder formation. This had been the start of our climb the night before. The frayed outer casing of the line had not shown itself until I had already committed, swung out over the cliff to climb up the face. But now I would be denied the comfort of ignorance. I examined the line as I clipped into it. The inner strands were completely exposed like the tendons of an arm with no flesh. They were wet and filthy. But I knew each carried the capacity to withstand a considerable load, and collectively they were not likely to fail in unison. I backed out over the ledge and slowly released the first length of line. 

I lowered down to the level of our starting ledge and swung on the rope over to it. As my feet knew purchase I quickly unclipped and extricated myself from the area.  The occasional stones still whistled by and it seemed advisable to be out of their path. Denis was less willing to trust the frayed line. I watched him shuffle back and forth about the anchor point. Then Dan and Carol caught up with him. The rain was falling quite hard now, filling my hood and running down my chest as I looked up at the trio. A brief congress occurred among them, then Denis backed out over the edge. Soon we were all together on the ground, enjoying a short celebration. Then we started the trek back to base camp. 

The entire round trip ended up being ten and a half hours; a faster time than most expeditions I had researched. Back at camp we hydrated enthusiastically. Jaimie pan-fried french toast for us to eat. There was no syrup, which was just as well since it was not really french toast. The bread had been dipped in a mixture of reconstituted egg and powdered cheese mix from the boxes of Kraft dinner. But we were not inclined to be picky eaters. The sooner we ate something, the sooner we could collapse into our tents.  I could feel a raw area at the back of my sinuses and desperately hoped I was not coming down with the cold.  I crawled into our tent and removed my wet clothing, careful to sort the items I would have to wear again the next day. These garments would share space in my sleeping bag, where they might dry a bit overnight. I laid there in my sleeping bag; warm, comfortable, drained. The rain was falling hard on our tent. The sound reminded me of home. We were headed home now, and we would be taking with us what we had come here for. We had done it! I rolled to one side and reached an arm out the top of my sleeping bag. "Congratulations," I said, giving Denis a pat. "And to you," I heard him call back.