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Beyond the glacier. The distant ridge was as far as I would make it – an old knee injury woke up and eventually was more than I could handle. My engineering root cause theory is torsion caused by digging in with the crampons on slanted ice. And aside from the injury, in all honesty I was not putting out enough horsepower to keep pace with the rest of the group.

 
Toby on the ridge.

 

Sophie and her frozen hair.

 
Chris took one for the team. He urged Sophie to change ropes, which maxed out that group’s client-guide ratio. Chris and Johnny (our guide) placed me between them on the rope and headed down. I felt terrible depriving Chris of the summit.

 

Johnny trailing me on the way back down.

 
Some climbers far below, nearing the top of the glacier on their way down.

 

Chris and I take a breather before heading back across the glacier. At this point I wasn’t exactly relishing the thought of bopping back across those crevasses.

 
We took a much-needed rest after clearing the glacier. In spite of the advertised insulation, my hydration tube was frozen solid. Note to self.

 

I think Chris and Johnny about froze to death waiting on me while I grimaced my way down. I finally hobbled back to the shelter and came to the grim realization that I was done for the week. It looked quite different around the hut from the day before, a reminder of how quickly conditions can change up here.

 
In the morning we headed back down to the trailhead.

 

About halfway down we ran across some Chamois – the guides told us that was a pretty rare occurrence.

 

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