Higher....

I should have known not to climb with people that I don´t know, who are from a country that has nothing but a moderate incline with a peak elevation of 200m.  Since Nick needed a couple days of acclimitization at BC, I hitched up with a couple of Brits to see if they would be interested in letting a little American climb Toc with them.  They immediately questioned my climbing abilities... it was I who should have questioned their climbing abilities, never seeing cascade ice in their lives.  We made a high camp around five thousand meters and left the next "morning" at one right as a storm had cleared out leaving six fresh inches of snow.  We were cruising over the glacier and everything seemed peachy until we reached the one pitch of AI 2+ to gain the ridge.  After I led to the summit ridge, only 200m below the top, the Brits were unable to second my lead after two hours of bickering.  I even fixed a line for them to prusik but they still couldn´t figure out a concept nick and I like to call the French Free Technique (Jeff Davies Inspired).  This was the exact same spot I had to turn back on last year and Toc and I are becoming pretty good friends at this point, maybe in a few more weeks we´ll have another date.  The Brits left the next day and gave me all their snow stakes, I´m not sure if it was because they were leaving or because they knew they would never climb anything that needed them!