The first rope line to head down was Henrik, me and Wayne, in that order. Henrik Jones, a brainy kid in the MBA program at Harvard Business School, went over the edge as I eased my way closer to it, waited for him to go lower, keeping the line taut lest he fall. I waited; and waited.  The second line was impatient for us to move over the ridge. Gordy walked up to me and shouted over the gale, "Mike, what's going on?"

​

     "I don't know. I'm waiting for Henrik to move lower," I said.

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     Gordy walked over to the edge and there stood Henrik on the rim of the abyss. He was waiting for me–afraid of pulling me over if he continued lower.

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     Gordy bellowed, "Henrik, get your ass moving!" and down we went.

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     Fine snow swirled around me and larger chunks of ice and snow fell on my head from above, down the vertical wind tunnel of an avalanche chute, where I dangled in space on the multi-colored rope. We were enshrouded in cloud; couldn't see anything beyond the rock and ice face, that pinkish pastel rope and each other–not a bad thing.

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     I had not cut sufficiently large air holes in the bottom of the bandage covering my frostbitten nose.  I felt like I was suffocating, and Wayne, despite of my hollering up at him, continually allowed too much slack in the line causing it to get dangerously entangled in my crampons.

​

     Arriving back at Camp III, Scott Wollems, another Denali guide said, "If I had been your guide, you would never have summited."

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     "What do you mean?" I asked.

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     "I don't do nighttime summits," he said.

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​

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