Tom, this is like the first picture of you in the 4 years I’ve known you…and you have to look away from the camera. what? u camera shy or something? :-)

I never carry a camera. This shot was taken (by Mike or Rob, I believe, in a desperate moment when some 5.10a was looking like it was going to get the better of me—there were literally no handholds for 8 feet above the horizontal crack, and no footholds below it!! Some of my routesetting ideas come from experiences like this.

Yeah, that was on Lost Face at D.L. We picked out a line that wasn’t an official route and Tom decided to climb it…a bit harder than 10a. As you can see we had Tom tie in to two ropes because he was so far off the original top rope route.

I’m looking left ‘cause I can’t believe that my next foothold is that high fractured pocket out to my left! Right. And no handholds above!