Above

me was a hanging dagger of ice. Recollections of the stories about it breaking off and nearly killing my friends years ago f lashed through my mind. As Anna Pfaff belayed me, I focused on climbing what looked like the most dangerous pitch of my life. I was going to go for it, without bolts and onsight. No one had ever tried that mixed corner before, the other attempts worked up discontinuous blobs of ice to the left. My line led to the same unstable massive stalactite of ice that hangs from the top of this 220- metre cliff. I felt sick in my stomach from the anxiety.

I could hear nothing but the roaring Newfoundland gale. My numb fingers and thumbs clutched the grips of my axes, after eight consecutive days spent hanging from them, they seemed like extensions of my arms. I dragged my right ice tool down the coarse granite wall of the corner. Spindrift parted around my axe and arm. The sharp bird-beak tip of my pick caught a friable, crystalline edge. I tested the security of the hook. The sounds of my steel blade ground upon the brown granite. Gradually, I shifted some of my bodyweight to the hook. With downward pressure, I