Have you ever seen a climber caught in a web of his own devising? No, I’m not being figurative. This isn’t some kind of morality play. It’s safe to keep reading.

I see Todd’s foot slip, the right foot I think later, though it’s more of a reaction than a realization at the time. Surprised because Todd never slips. Surprised because this is only 5.9. Surprised because, even though he said the move was hard, he seemed so in control until the moment he started to slide.

I brace myself for the impact. I never know whether I’ll fly or not–depends on how much drag is in the system and how hard the fall is. I duck my head, turn my non-belaying shoulder into the wall, wait for it to come.

It doesn’t.

After a moment I lift my head. Why don’t I feel him? I’m half afraid to see Todd fall past me, his rope cut, his knot undone, something drastically wrong, and half expecting him to be hanging on somehow, annoyed because I have him locked off.

What I see is him trapped in a criss-crossed hatch of slings and rope. He untwists himself and drops the last foot or so onto my belay. He has what turns out to be no worse than a stubbed toe, though inside a tight pair of Anasazi’s he wonders if it’s broken, a wicked rope burn across the back of one knee–I can see it from where I’m standing–and assorted scrapes and bruises. In terms of damage, it’s the worst fall I’ve ever seen Todd take.

And this is only the start of the epic.

Things started off well, although we should have guessed there was a good reason we’d never heard anyone mention Exit Stage Left, a 5.9 that pulls the Modern Times roof “directly”, before. Certainly the start was disgusting-looking enough–a mossy, chossy corner followed by vague wandering up to the GT ledge–but we fixed that problem by starting on Jim’s Gem, a 5.8 that starts just to the right of Exit Stage Left and crosses lines with it somewhere before the GT ledge.

I led this improvised first pitch, finding it tricky in some places and a little runout in others but never enough of either or both together to worry. Reaching the ledge I felt both good about my lead and nervous about Todd’s. The roof to the left of Modern Times, the one we were supposed to pull “directly”, is very deep. Deeper than anything I’ve ever pulled. On top of that, the nice day was going bad as isolated clouds turned into solid sky cover and thunder rumbled in the distance.

“We could just do Modern Times,” I suggested as Todd reached the belay.

“No,” he said.

Twenty minutes later Todd is hanging from the rope pulling off his shoes to see if any of his toes are broken. A raindrop hits the dust beside me.

“Do you want to come down?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

He decides to aid through. There follows a whole lot of shifting and squealing, orders of ‘take’ and orders of ‘slack’ and for all that he doesn’t seem to be any higher. I keep waiting for him to say ‘climbing’, to have reached a hold from which he can continue free, but it doesn’t happen. Just ‘take’ and ‘slack’ and him hanging in the same place.

“You want me to do it?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

It’s not that I have any illusions that I can lead something Todd can’t. It’s just that I’ve at least done a tiny bit of aid climbing, which compares favorably to his none. The people whose ineptitude we’d been monitoring on High E are all gone. There’s just us and the steadily increasing pitter patter of random raindrops.

“We could leave gear,” I suggest.

“No,” he says.

Stubborn, that’s what he is. Anxious, that’s what I am. But eventually he does get it.

When I stick my head up over the roof and see all the gear I have to laugh.

“You’re supposed to put each piece higher than the last piece,” I explain to him later, “not put a whole lot of pieces next to each other.” Of course there weren’t any other places to put gear. “What were you doing up there?” Switching to shorter and shorter runners apparently.

It has started to rain and I know I should be pulling on gear, slapping on prusiks, doing whatever I need to do to get over the roof and to his belay so we can get down. Still, I can’t help but try it once. It’s not raining on me.

I get all the gear I can reach out of the way and commit to the move. It’s about a mile’s worth of move. I’m reaching endlessly for the next horizontal, fruitlessly trying to bounce my feet beneath the roof, get a heel hook, mantle off my low hand, freeze myself with body tension. Anything.

“Grab the orange sling!” Todd yells.

Obsessed as I am with getting the move, the term “orange sling” fails to translate for me. I fall off. Oh. The orange sling. The draw. Right.

Luckily I’m high enough over the roof that I can get back on. From a hanging position I make it to the next hold, but I doubt I ever could if I had to start from beneath the roof. I make a frightening traverse over to Todd’s belay and then scramble the last twenty feet up to the top. Just as Todd hits the grass the drizzle becomes a downpour.

We have three raps to get down. By the end of the second rap, we’re as wet as we can get. We put on dry shoes, which some stranger has been kind enough to hide under our packs for us, and shuffle back to the car, beaten by a 5.9.