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the towel repeatedly sliding out from under us. We are at around 19,000 feet, a
third of the way up. At least there is a promise of sounder rock for the following
day.
Day three: We awake at dawn to the pattering of stones from above. The sun is
already at work on the frost, releasing this confetti of pebbles. The patter soon be-
comes a torrent, like road stone flowing into a truck, only there's nothing to catch
it, just three fragile humans looking on. Then it really starts.
Just a few hundred feet from our bivvy, the central amphitheatre once again be-
comes a galactic highway; we're caught in an asteroid belt, watching transfixed as
tons of stone falls past us each minute. The largest blocks have their signature
sound, like a Stuka bomber howling towards its target, like angels thrown from
heaven. We move hastily to a safer but much narrower ledge further away and
await developments. Alex says he would rather be on Blackpool beach with the tide
out. Voytek counts our pitons and realises that even if it were an option, we do not
have enough to retreat.
Our chosen line where the ropes are hanging gets its share of cosmic debris. Our
chimney is like a cyclotron. Particles of all sizes accelerate before being fired into
the abyss. All morning we pray that the sun will remember that this is a north-east
face. Once the sun moves past the east bit, we should return to north face condi-
tions. And so it comes to pass, at around one o'clock in the afternoon.
I have the worst possible job to start my day, jumaring the ropes left hanging the
scathed. Protective angels must have passed this way. I am halfway up the second
rope when a part of the wall I touch falls apart, just seems to evaporate. Except it
doesn't, and a hail of book-sized blocks, a full library shelf's worth, tumbles toward
Voytek just as he is starting up the first rope. They pass over his head and angry
Polish phrases float up towards me.
'Sorry, sorry, sorry!' I promise to be careful. Alex tells me later he expected to see
my body amongst the rubble.
Miraculously, both ropes are intact. They are our lead ropes and much depends
on them. Apart from them, we only have a static line - no good for leading - that
Alex jumars. He seems happy to leave the climbing to us. In the canyon, Voytek
takes off his sack and starts up the chimney, bridging most of it. The climbing
looks awkward in double boots, and spectacular. We agree later it is technical -
around English 5b (5.10a) - but we aren't really counting. 120 feet up, Voytek pi-
rouettes out and over a massive chockstone hanging far above our heads. I follow,
