I’ve never climbed the third pitch of Maria (5.6). In fact, I didn’t even know Maria had a third pitch. I led the second pitch once and finished at what seemed like the top. We walked off at any rate and if that’s not the definition of “top” I don’t know what is.

But a thread on Gunks.com about favorite pitches has since made me aware that not only does Maria have a third pitch but that said pitch is supposed to be stellar. Todd leads Maria Direct and I follow him up to the belay. It occurs to me that I’ve never climbed the first pitch of Maria either. Maria, in my mind, consists solely of the second pitch, an easy, beautiful, well-protected corner.

“Go as far as you can,” Todd says as I’m leaving. Yes, yes, run the pitches together. It’s his mantra. So I intentionally run it out a little in this secure corner, knowing I need to conserve gear and slings. I pull onto the ledge that marks the end of the second pitch and look around. Above me the rock has ended but to the right I see another short outcropping.

I climb back down and extend the sling on my last piece, then walk across the ledge ten feet or so to where the route starts again. It’s a right-facing corner, short and capped by a roof. I climb as high as I dare before placing gear. I’ve been in ground-fall range since starting this third pitch, since the ledge beneath me is effectively ground. The concern, of course, is rope drag. I need to get high enough to allow the rope to form a straight line between my last piece on the previous pitch and my first piece on this pitch.

I place a tri-cam in the corner, throw four feet of sling on it and know that I’m still screwed. The rope runs from the end of the first corner, across the ledge, under a lip formed by the start of this corner, and then up to the piece I’ve just placed. Two right angles.

The sensible thing is to come down, set up a belay on the ledge and climb the third pitch independently, as it was meant to be done. I’m not feeling sensible. The top of the route can’t be more than 30 feet above me. Surely, there’s a way to get there from here.

Aha! There’s a horizontal on the left face around the side of the corner. I can place a cam there and keep the rope out of this second corner altogether. I clip the cam and unclip the tri-cam. I’ve been standing here forever already but it’s my duty to clean the tri-cam if I’m not going to clip it. It was a really good tri-cam (figures). Out comes the nut tool. Poke, poke, poke. Clean! Ooops!

Right. I’d unclipped the tri-cam. It slips backwards into the crack, bounces down the inside of the corner, falls out of the bottom, and lands somewhere on the ledge. I suppose I have to go find the damned thing. Todd is a million miles away and out of sight. There’s no way to communicate that he should look for the purple tri-cam on his trip across the ledge.

I downclimb. I find the tri-cam. I climb back up. I climb higher than the cam. Woo hoo! Upward progress for the first time in 15 minutes. I have to stop every move to reflick the rope out of the corner but my strategy has been successful. I’m rope drag free.

I go all the way up to the roof without placing any more gear. The pitch is so short, the runner on the last piece so long, that I’ve more than likely been in groundfall range the whole distance anyway. Don’t think about it. Protect the roof.

I place a piece, a cam in the crack beneath the roof, clip it with only two feet of sling. This is the scary part after all and rope drag be damned. I start the roof. I stop the roof. Roof hard. I place another piece, just over the roof. Two feet of sling, the last two feet I have.

I make another false start over the roof. I don’t think I’ve ever taken this long to climb 30 feet before. Todd must be wondering what’s going on. I wedge myself into the chimney-like alcove beneath the roof and try to place a piece even high. It’s nearly no-hands wedged in like that and I’m able to get a lot of height over the roof without any effort. I try to fish in a nut. Higher, little higher, little higher. Damn. You know, I’m practically over the roof at this point. I put away the nuts and pull over the roof in one simple move. My namby-pamby shilly-shallying has unlocked the mystery of Maria.

It is indeed a short distance from the roof to the tree line. Rope drag is bad from the last two pieces but its bearable and doesn’t have to be borne for long. But now we have a new problem. I’m out of slings and the only anchor options up here are trees. You can’t wrap a draw around a tree. I suppose I could make a draw chain but . . . No, that doesn’t seem like the way to go.

I decide to use the rope itself and start pulling it up. I need to pull up quite a bit to get it wrapped around the tree and tied off. Suddenly the drag changes from bearable to unbearable. I can’t pull up any more rope. Am I out? I just manage to tie off using the rope I have. I use my prusik’s girth hitched together to sling a smaller tree as a backup and anchor in.

The clock is ticking. If the rope came tight on Todd, he’s climbing now. It’s the rule.

“30 seconds,” he said the other day.

“Couldn’t we make it two minutes?” I argued.

The issue is how long Todd will wait before climbing after the rope comes tight when he can’t hear me. I feel an extra minute can’t hurt. He feels it shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds to stick the rope through the belay device. His argument doesn’t account for what has just happened, the rope going tight before the belay is finished.

Tick tock. Tick tock. I slam the rope into the belay device, give everything one last frantic look, and start pulling. Sure enough, I’m getting rope now. I pull until the rope stops and then yell down “Belay on” uselessly. He’s climbing already and I know it.

I pull in slack wearily, feeling like the old man in the Old Man and the Sea except that I’ve won my epic battle. I’m reeling the fish in now.