Close call on Eagle Lake Buttress

From there, a flat section to a pair of more narrow, but still curving cracks leads to third class scrambling and then the summit block.

I chose to belay below the summit as I wasn’t sure my 70 meter would have reached the top. Turns out it wouldn’t have, so no worries.

Around this point, I start to notice that while it is still all blue skies above, the sun has been obscured to the west by another round of storm clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance and my pulse quickened a bit.

Amye reached me at the belay as the first fat drops fell on the slab I was sitting on. I knew it was time to get down and a short bit of 5.5 ish crack separated us from the summit. Amye clipped the anchor and I bolted for the summit.

Moving through a little chimney section to the jug on top, I sensed movement below me and saw that my sandal, previously clipped with it’s match to my harness, was bouncing down the slab to land in a crack. I calmly told Amye, that was my sandal, you’re going to grab it and bring it up to me. She agreed and I pulled through to the top.

Instantly, I was hit with high winds and could see that the weather was really about to get bad. I got in a depression with my feet in front of and above me and told Amye that she was on belay and to get up there like right now!

It was at that moment when all at once, hail the size of marbles came crashing down, accompanied with a persistent buzzing sound on my rack. I was scared. I felt a slight charge course through my body and got the rack to the other side of the summit block(read;threw it). Amye stopped to grab my sandal but no, it was way too deep into the crack to mess around trying to get it. I hauled Amye through the last section as if she were a rag doll and yelled at her so keep moving past me to the notch below.

The hail intensified and thunder rumbled all around us. Amye got to the notch, unroped and hunkered down as I grabbed the rack and scrambled to where she was.

All we knew was that the descent was a scramble down the west side of the buttress, so we headed down the wet slabs, water cascading off the granite all around us.

Within 10 minutes we were on easier ground, bushwacking down towards the ridge when the storm blew apart, finally allowing us to stop, breathe, and start laughing at both our stupidity and luck.

I went for the pack and met Amye on the ridge, wearing a chaco on my left foot and a climbing shoe on my right to begin the long walk back to the car.

A few falls on the descent owing to the unorthodox footwear and we were back to the cooler of delicious beer.

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