Plans, fantasy;Waassuuup?

[Biff]

I wanna do a lotta Alpine rock this year-I belay like a Mo-Fo, and I never fall-Any one up for Forbidden?

[ScottP]

“How many times have I been up this trail?”, I ask myself as I stumble up the rutted spur road. I think back through my past ill-fated trips into this basin in search of the elusive twentieth classic.

“Well, there was the first time...” Two days of cold, misty fog. Drinking vodka, smoking hash. Wandering around in a cloud-induced funk, taking pictures of wildflowers, my ice axe, Kevin’s bivi tent with him warm, dry, and fast asleep inside. Two long nights of misty fog, cowering in a leaky bivi sack, dreaming half-awake dreams of deserts while soundless lightning flashes Out There somewhere. We eventually end this masochistic endeavour and retreat to drier climes in the Enchantments.

Round two: The sun does arrive, after two days of snow. Phil and Mike and I get on the route early carrying what could aptly be described as a sunny-day-in-cut-offs-on-a-5.5 rock rack and two short, ancient nine mils to find that; a) our hands and feet are quite numb and b) the north side traverses are coated with rime. We retreat, with me making ample excuses. At the base of the Coulior , I am beaned in the forehead by a fist-sized chunk of ice that comes out of Nowhere. But the sun is out, and we spend the rest of the trip lounging around, ignorantly traversing dangerous wet slab snow slopes, acquiring hellacious sun burns, almost climbing Sahale.

“Third time’s a charm.”, it's been said.

Kevin and I bail from the top of the technical root pitch on the approach trail after an hour of testing our positive mental attitudes against the torrential flushing the slate gray sky is bestowing on the entire state. “Never again.” I mutter as my soaked boots simultaneously cut loose from the wet clay beneath my feet.

[Biff]

Well, the hash and vodka were good. And the memory remains, albeit hazily. If at first you don't succeed....

[Szyjakowski]

does p=pita?

if so