The Summit Shortcut
A windblasted ledge at 21,300 feet on Annapurna's south face, where the fixed ropes end and the clouds begin.
Double and Bust are six hours past their turnaround time. The established route back to Camp 3 is a twelve-hour slog through deteriorating weather, but Double has spotted what looks like a clean couloir cutting diagonally down the southeast ridge — shaving off maybe seven hours if it goes. Their Sherpa guide, Pemba, said something about that couloir before he descended yesterday, but the radio died mid-sentence after the word 'sometimes.' They have one half-liter of oxygen each, four energy gels, and exactly enough daylight to commit to one option but not to change their minds.
“Pemba was probably saying 'sometimes it's the fastest way down.' Look at that line — it's practically a sidewalk. A sidewalk made of ice, but still.”
“He also could've been saying 'sometimes it avalanches at 3 PM,' and it is currently 2:47.”
The couloir turned out to be a perfectly skiable chute of packed neve — they glissaded 4,000 vertical feet in forty minutes, arriving at Camp 2 so early they beat the evening weather report. Pemba, already warming tea in the mess tent, finished his sentence in person: 'Sometimes it's the fastest way down, but don't tell the permit office because it's technically illegal.'
A sidewalk. Made. Of. Ice. I told you — when has a sidewalk ever let anyone down?
We committed a federal crime on a mountain in Nepal at terminal velocity, and he's calling it a sidewalk victory.