One of the casualties of having to use all fours to climb a rock face is the photo journal. I was so busy climbing the wall up to this mesa I didn't take any pictures on the way up. Frankly I didn't think we'd make it. My sphincter was permanently clamped shut the whole time. Each of us probed separate promising routes to the top. When one got ahead, the others would wait for the verdict before following. Going up was hard enough. None of us wanted to retrace our steps if at all possible (read flat out dangerous). Finally, John made the breakthrough and the rest of us followed up a narrow chute to the top (pictured).

In order to get a feel for just how tough this climb is to do without safety equipment, return to the previous slide and squint at the wall above John's hat. Needless to say, this qualifies as 'off trail' big time.

Andrew performs foot maintenance before we push on to our next discovery...