Soloing was still kind of scary to me, it took a while to untangle my mess and when I was finally finished I decided to hang my head and eat another can of fruit. Just as I finished the can of fruit and tried to start up the route again, I watched the same car pull up.

They jumped out of their car, and as I watched them I could practically hear them say, "Heyyy… look… that climber is still up there, lets see what he is doing now." Keep in mind that several hours had passed since they last saw me. They pulled out their binoculars and started looking. "What is he doing, huh, what is he doing. "Is he still hanging his head and eating a can of fruit? Come on, let me see with the binoculars." The other guy grabs the binoculars. " He has hardly moved at all! Now he is tangled up in his equipment."

They waved their arms in disgust and drove away in their car.

Without an audience of even a single person, I was able to focus mentally. I felt the same fear that I had felt on every single pitch of the climb as I started jumaring up the rope to my high point.

In addition to the fear, I had sores on both sides of my feet from the etriers, I was as mentally tired as if I had been taking a math test for days and I was out of water.

.