It was 2:30 a.m. The cold, full moon slowly rotated toward the western sky. The wind over the mountain ridge had stopped, and all was calm. Nobody was up, except nocturnal Alpine climbers. We had been off the route for an hour or so, and wandering into the south side of Brenva Spur. Under the dim light, we were unaware of the satanic power waiting for us in the dark.

About two hours earlier, we left our comfortable bivouac site on the Brenva Glacier. The first hour and half of our progress was at a pleasingly fast pace. We had safely crossed the crevasse-infected glacier to the other side, Col Moore at 3550 meters elevation, where Brenva Spur route starts. The route runs up to the shoulder of Mont Blanc at 4100 meters elevation. The lower part of the route is a steep rocky ridge, then the rest is an ice and snow ridge to the shoulder. Our plan was to reach the summit of Mont Blanc, 4808 meters, via Brenva Spur. Then, hopefully, we would reach the Gouter hut at the other side of the summit before the end of the day. It would be a long day, which was one of the reasons for the early start. About one hour ago, we reached the first point on the Spur. However, mistakenly, with no alternatives other than retreat, we had rappelled down to the south side of the Spur from the point. Then, the search for the route was hampered by horrible loose rocks. Our ordeal had just begun.

My British partner, Paul, had kept saying that the route should be very close, but we could not find it. I had felt something was wrong about this place; I had never seen any routes going up such a loose rock wall for hundreds feet. The entire wall consisted of a mosaic of large rocks grouted by ice and snow. Climbing on such terrain would require very careful foot placements. I had been climbing more slowly than Paul, and reluctantly wanted to keep up with his pace. As a result, I was constantly out of breath, and even worse, my foot work was sloppy. Finally, the first omen hit us. By headlamp, sometimes it would be difficult to tell how hard the snow would be. I accidentally slipped on a hard snow-coated slab, and fell about 15 feet but was stopped by a 9mm rope. We had been short-roped (i.e., tie together by a short rope) and moving together since the glacier crossing. At dangerous sections we took a simple belay by hooking the rope over rock horns, which stopped the fall in a short distance. In the falling, my rib cage was badly bruised and scratched. The soreness of the ribs made the left shoulder strap of my rucksack feel twisted.

As time went by, the bad feeling grew ever greater. Contrary to my intuition, Paul relying upon his interpretation of the guide book "traverse left" kept moving to the left. I couldn't argue with him since the route description was so vague. We were deeper into the mosaic wall and farther away from the Brenva Spur. Finally, Paul agreed with me that we needed to move back to the right. Soon, we were heading to the east but downward to the place where we had rappelled. At a steep slab, Paul made a full short rope length of downward traverse while I was belaying him. Now, it was my turn to traverse. It was a steep descent at first. Paul did not have a problem descending. Perhaps, that he was taller and the rope drag from the above made it easier to do so for him. To descend this part, I felt in need of a belay. However, he was still moving and the rope started to pull. "Hey, you got me?" He stopped and belayed me.

I had to hang on the handholds to reach a foothold 5 feet below. It was a scary move since the 30 feet of the rope ran down to him, and there was no gear (i.e., no brace or fasten to the rock) between us. Before my foot reached the foothold, suddenly the rock I was holding - and also dry-tooling (i.e., using ice ax as a hooking device on rocks) - came loose. In a split second, I was airborne and flying backward head first into the darkness of the abyss. The rock I pulled could be over my head. A fear of the rock smashing my face abruptly ended when my body hit against the rock slab about 10 feet below. Crampons attached to the back of my rucksack made a distinct metallic sound against the slab. My rucksack took the huge initial impact. The momentum of the fall did not end. Another eerie sound - the collision of my plastic helmet against the slab. Fortunately, my rucksack was tall enough to protect the back of my head and neck. My body flipped over and somersaulted. My head lamp went out, then it became totally dark. After the violent 20 foot fall, my body came to a stop. I was hanging upside down at the end the rope. Severe pains on my left knee and right elbow made me realize that I was still alive and ok. It was great relief that the rock I pulled did not hit me, thank heaven! My rucksack was clinging to me and uncomfortably pulling me down toward the darkness. With a desperate struggle I turned myself in a head-up position, and I was exhausted. My adrenaline was running high, which made my throat dry up. Paul asked me if any bones were broken. I grimaced, straightened my elbow and knee. With a few grunts and a dry mouth, I shouted, "No, just pain! I can't move." Paul shone on me with his head lamp and lowered me to a safer ground - a little horn at the end of the slab, there I collapsed. After the excruciating pains faded, I untangled myself and sat up. I was dazed and in shock. It was the worst fall of my life. Amazingly, my ice axe was still in my left hand.

After securing the rope, Paul came down and sat next to me. I told him I was not going to continue this climb. He agreed without hesitation, and said with smiling, "Well, last time I fell on the Eiger North Face, and this time it was your turn." We both laughed. My mind started calming down, and the pains gradually subsided. When he told me what had stopped my fall, my trust of Paul's judgement was not shaken a bit. The only belay anchor he could make in a short time was a single overhand knot of a sling jammed into a crack. Since we could not remove the sling from the crack, later we used it for a rappel anchor. It was three o'clock in the morning. Since continuing to descend with my bruised knee and elbow seemed to be difficult, we decided to wait for the daylight. Around five o'clock the eastern sky turned opal, but it was very cold. We figured it would take a half day to reach Torino Hut, and we could either stay at the hut or take a telephrique (i.e., cable car) down to Chamonix on the same day. Obviously we would have plenty of time. Also, after the accident our minds were softer and not in right order, so we decided to stay there until it was warmer. This turned out to be a serious misjudgement. The sun rose and turned the upper Grand Pillar d'Angle into red glow, but the lower Brenva Spur was still in blue shade. It was about 8 a.m. when finally the sun shone on us.

After enjoying the warm sun rays for a few minutes, we rappelled down the slab, and started to downclimb eastward. Then, small pieces of ice and pebbles began to fall on us. As we moved another 50 feet to east, the pebbles gave way to small stones. We had to dodge around behind large rocks to avoid being hit. We had to go another 200 yards to where we had rappelled down the night before. Suddenly, as if the mountain were crumbling down, a huge rock avalanche crushed down in front of us. The scattered rocks hit the large area, and covered most of our path. "Paul, I'm not crossing there now. I'm going to wait until it stops." "Me neither, let's find a safe place." "Yup." Luckily, there was a thirty feet tall leaning wall nearby. We quickly moved to the leaning wall and sat tightly against the base to avoid falling rocks. It was only 9 a.m.. Had we started crossing at dawn or even 30 minutes earlier, we would probably not have seen any rock fall.

We knew the rock fall wouldn't stop until the wall froze up again. It might occur after the midnight. Dreadfully we accepted a long wait since there was no other way to get out from this place. We were literally pinned down to the wall all day. Some falling rocks were invisible but left eerie wind cutting sounds and raised dust where they hit. Rock fall came down every few seconds all around us, and large rock avalanches came down every few minutes. We took some pictures of falling rocks. We wished we had a tape recorder. The size of rocks made different sounds - high pitch hissing to low humming wind-cutting sounds, and ricocheting-off sounds of castanets to a ground-vibrating heavy drum. The rock concert was in stereo and at full blast all day. With nothing else to do, I decided to check the injuries, and discovered a deep cut on my elbow. A physician, Paul cleaned the dried up blood, and said it should have been stitched up. Oh well, too late! I studied the frequency of rock fall as my pet project. Time to time, we dozed off, and woke up at the occasional megaton size rock avalanche. It shook the entire area, and vibrated our butts and backs. At beginning I was scared, but there was nothing we could do. Our sense of smell was over taken by gun smoke before noon, and we were covered with thick dust by the end of the day. The hot blazing summer sun in the cloudless sky baked us all day. Unfortunately, the tube of sun block cream ran out. We were in a forced sun bathing under the high altitude-intensified ultra violet rays, so we covered up our faces and necks with handkerchiefs like the French Foreign Legion. We were slowly dehydrated as if turning into beef jerky. Helicopters flew in front of us several times, but they stayed away from the wall. No pilot would expect two fools stranded in the bombing range.

We watched the sun slowly move across the entire sky. It was 7 p.m. and finally sunset arrived - our long awaited sunset. After sunset, the temperature suddenly dropped. The frequency of rock fall started to decrease and become irregular. However, huge rock avalanches still came down and bombed a large area including our escape path. It would have been stupid to venture out there to be killed after waiting this long. So, we patiently waited. Finally, at 9 p.m., the rock fall became very much rarer, but it was still daylight. We began to cross the bombed area one at a time. One kept watching above while the other ran across, as if we were in a battle field. Less than 10 minutes later, we were on the Brenva Spur ridge, congratulated each other for a safe journey back and shook hands.

We descended to Col Moore, then crossed the glacier back to our old bivouac site on the Brenva Glacier just before it became pitch dark. Strangely, we did not see any sign of climbers on the Brenva Spur route. Next morning, we climbed up to Col de la Fourche, and stopped at the tiny bivouac hut. We met a Spanish party who was going to Mont Maudit via Frontier Ridge route. In spite of a very popular route, the hut log book indicated that nobody had climbed the Brenva Spur for a while. After a long rest and quenching the thirst, we went down to the Torino hut, and returned to Chamonix in the late afternoon.

The English Information was sometimes sketchy in the French Alps. We learned later that nobody should be climbing on the south side of Mont Blanc such as the Brenva Spur. There was little snow fall in the spring, followed by a very hot early summer. As a result, the routes normally frozen in were dry and loose, and consequently it would be too dangerous to climb. Also, we were told that a part of the Brenva Spur was gone. Perhaps, a large rock near the rappel point was gone. Was that the reason we could not find the correct route?

Although the mobility of my elbow and knee recovered in a short time, the severe sun burn on Paul's face lasted longer. Several days later, focusing on rock routes rather than rotten (ice and rock) mixed routes, we climbed the Swiss Direct of Grand Capucin and the Gervasutti Pillar of Mont Blanc du Tacul. From the crowded summit of the Tacul we saw grey dust, like fog, rising from the other side of the Brenva Spur. Nobody else noticed but we knew what it was. It was too far to listen to the roaring sound of the falling rock concert, but days before we had the best seat in the house!

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