“I thought, dear, that you would rather have a live ass than a dead lion.”

- Sir Ernest Shackleton to his wife Emily, after deciding to turn back 97 miles from the Pole.

I spent Thanksgiving in North Conway, NH doing some ice climbing. The day after Thanksgiving, my partner and I headed to Mt Washington. Our aim was the well known Pinnacle Gully. I have climbed it before, but never led it. We were well aware of the reputation Mt Washington has for extreme weather.

After finally getting started around noon (several parties were ahead of us), we worked our way up. We reached the top of the third pitch late in the afternoon, with the weather clearly worsening above us. Only a short snowfield lay between us and the top of the gully.

But, with very strong gusts of wind coming down the gully (almost enough to buffet me around), it was clear the winds on top were quite strong, perhaps too much so to continue. I thought about the choice while I brought Sarah up the pitch. By the time she’d arrived at the belay, the choice was clear to me… we were headed back down.

In the fading light we donned our headlamps and started rappelling down the climb.

Before this climb, I had never failed on an alpine climb. Admittedly, my resume is small. But in all cases the weather was sufficiently cooperative and my fitness level good enough to complete the climb. Knowing when to turn back is a very important skill in a climber.

In fact, I am confident I learned much more from this failure than I would have if we’d done the climb successfully. I’ve learned things about managing a retreat, and perhaps more importantly, what I could have done differently to increase my chances of success. The climb ended succesfully in the most important way: the safe return of the climbers. And, I feel I’ve come away with some good experience which I can build on and utilize on future climbs.

EDIT (03 December 2008): Pictures have been uploaded to flickr: NH Ice Climbing on flickr