Things done well...

This is a very long overdue update, but apparently a residency takes a lot of time and work. Who knew????  I promise to keep it short, I got stuff to read. :o)

In the beginning was the trip across the continent. Rainy Jasper all-nighter driving followed by smoke. Which actually kept the temperature down, but was very ummmmmm... smoky.

 Somewhere around here we had a big discussion about the zombie apocalypse, and which gigantic farm implement would be your best survival option. Until the diesel ran out, when we voted for a hill, a slippey-slide and a trebuchet. It was a long drive.

Smoke and pretty yellow stuff

A brief stop at my mom's in Ontario. These are her wild beasts. This picture may not have been taken in July......  but somehow I forgot to take pictures and I like this one.




Arrived in Massachusetts in a muggy heatwave, and I'm worried they call this summer. My non-air conditioned car was pretty horrendous, and we couldn't leave the dogs anywhere so did stints of running into stores with one person sitting in the car practicing tolerance while the other person went into air conditioned stores, or apartment hunting. The campsite was on a lake, which made it all better.



I found a place to live, but couldn't move in for 4 days. So we went climbing. Marc led the dicier pitch one of Drunkard's Delight and I played on the roofey bit. First lead since my ankle mutiny, which was fun but spooky when I had to use it to get over the roof and realized it doesn't bend that way yet. Marc led some other super cool stuff that I got to play on as a nicely safe second. Son of Easy O, Directissima - so much fun!!!!

Then I went for 3 days of teambuilding crap while Marc did some shopping for my new pad. We acquired a bike tree on day one, slightly before we found a bed. At least our priorities are mutual. Teambuilding is stupid. 

 A brief and awesome August visit had some of this

and this

Massachusetts does fall very well. Although this is New York, which does fall very nicely as well.

I had a visitor this fall, which was lovely. The visitor is a bit weird. 

 Seashells. At the seashore

Can't post a blog without her. 

 SO MANY SQUIRRELS!!!!!

Today I got my car registered in MA !!!!! YAY!!!!
this involved: 2 phonecalls to Nissan in May and several hours of internet research, none of which was truly helpful. 2 phonecalls to ICBC.  One trip to the licensing office, where I got the licence bit but couldn't get the registration bit. Many phonecalls to what is probably a dead phone in an empty office in Boston, but that's the number they gave me. Marc getting the right phone number. Phone Nissan. Get a letter from Nissan, then one trip to the Worcester office for border control (no where near any border) next to the FBI office btw. Quite a securely guarded building, I refrained from photography. One more trip to the registration office, instead of a 3 hour + wait I went mtn biking. Back today, 2 hr wait, got registration!!!!  Followed by mtn biking. Off to an inspection mechanic, who told me I have to remove the bike rack and scrape the window tinting off with a razor blade. To second mechanic, who took off the bike rack and didn't say squat about the tinting. Attached new plates and I'm finally legal!
Now I just have to send the old plates back to get an ICBC refund......
BTW. it's illegal to have a bike rack on your car unless it's in use. Should I: 1. store it securely in my car or apartment or 2. purchase small inexpensive bicycle to attach to rack?

next update in 6 months.....

What I learned on the sofa - late post - for biking go to next post

This was still in progress, so never got posted. Now it is. No drawings, pictures or deep insights, sorry.

1. Sofas are never as soft as they look.
2. You can rent chickens. You give them back in the fall.
3. Everyone is a liar. The biggest lies make the best TV shows.
4. Movies that have a ginger in them are always funny.
5. Tech bindings pre-releasing is common. For the rest of my ski career I will always check for crud in my binding, then put my toes in, rotate and wobble the ski until I know the toes are locked, then lastly kick the heels down and ski.
6. When we destroy this world we can terraforme another galaxy. It'll be weird, but we'll adjust.
7. You can never have too many knitted hats. In case anyone wants one, I may have a few extra.
8. 2.5 weeks is too early to load a broken ankle.
9. Some surfaces allow skis to slide. Some don't.
10. You can never have too many friends when stretchers are involved.

Weekend of Various Things, including avoiding Certain Death on several Occasions.

The sometime plan was to go riding in Cumberland before I move to the other coast for a few years.  Yvonne and Kenta thought they should torture themselves with the Twelve Hours of Riding the Same Trail Over and Over in Cumberland, and as friends we thought we should intervene. So a bunch of friends  jumped on their plan, skipped the race and rode about 12 hours over two days, which is probably the same riding time (so they wouldn't miss out on time-in-saddle), and picked many trails. I wish I knew the word for a "bunch" of people on bikes. Because that was us. And two dogs, of course. 

Saturday had some farcical entertainment at the back of the pack as I had to walk the sketchy hills. Unfortunately I didn't only try to deal with a recently broken ankle fortified with adhesive tape (courtesy of Angie), but also a non-functioning rear brake. Luckily Angie saved me from Certain Death by taking my bike so I could slither the hills while holding on to sturdy salal and trees.... Unfortunately my bike was a freight train on wheels, which made Angie work very hard and still was  slowly sliding backwards down steep rubbly hills, and was quite scary to watch. 

Yvonne was kind enough to investigate some mud.

She took LOTS of pictures of us, but this is all I managed. However, it was a very neat log, even if you can't see how long it is. 

There are a LOT of amazing new trails in the Cumberland woods. We picked Potluck into Canyon and down along the Trent River as likely to be a good choice, and the shady woods with a trail looping through the woods and down the embankment to the river and back up didn't disappoint anyone. 

The riding day sort of ended with this.

 Although then it got more interesting when Pippa thought she needed to rescue Matilda and I (from Certain Death), as we were obviously lost in the woods. We weren't, since we took a shortcut as Matilda's feet were very painful. Pippa and Marc and Andrew thought they should loop a few more laps to get all they could out of the day.  

The best bike shop EVER......  Simon's Cycles in Comox.....  Simon saved me from Certain Death by fixing my brake for me. Did you hear me say BEST BIKE SHOP EVER!!!!!! I can't thank Simon enough, that was definitely above and beyond. Sunday would have been really very terrifying without a rear brake, and instead it was super fun. But I'm getting ahead of myself, because we're not at Sunday yet. Focus Nikki!!!

I am out of drawings... and since I have a lot of packing to do I am going to do the unthinkable and steal pictures. Muhahahahahaha.......  

Darcee and Chris are good friends of ours from Comox that I never saw enough when we lived there. They insisted they'd like nothing better than to have a giant mass of dirty bikers visit them for dinner, so we did. And it was amazing. It was lovely to see Darcee and Chris, and I will miss them until they come to visit me in Boston! 

Picture courtesy of Paul

Incidentally, if you see this in a store....BUY IT!  Schnell, schnell! 

I was so tired I think I was asleep before I hit the pillow. So were Pippa, Matilda and possibly a few others. 

Sunday was another day however, and after a cup of really strong coffee I was feeling up for more punishment. So was the rest of the gang, although sadly we'd lost a few locals after Saturday. For justifiable reasons, but the group was a bit smaller. 

Becca saved Matilda from Certain Death by taking her for the day. I sincerely hope Matilda wasn't whining and being an ass all day which she did last time Becca saved her.....  I felt extremely bad for our rush at the end of the day, because I didn't even get to say hello to Becca, much less intrude for a visit. I'm so sorry Becca! I really wanted to see you! Unfortunately the ferries wait for no man. Or woman, child, group of very dirty unshowered bikers.... Or should I say, they're often late, full, annoying and have bad food, but we still really need them since my swimming skills are not up to the task. 

Sunday.... 

Team BiG DoG- Pic by Yvonne

Hot Road - also Yvonne's pic

Suzanne and the BiG DoG, as spied upon by Yvonne

I probably should think of more interesting and awesome things to say, but Marc just put a plate of breakfast next to me and my stomach is trying to strangle me. 

The short version - lovely to see everyone, especially the Islanders that I haven't seen in a long time. It was an absolutely brilliant weekend. Thanks to everyone who saved us and made it what it was! 

what really happened

I have been wrestling with my conscience these last few days. Do I tell the world what REALLY happened? Or stay silent?

I will forever feel guilty if someone else has this horrible experience and I have done nothing to try to prevent it. So I feel I must come clean....


I was skiing down the last bit of snow as I said in my blog. It had been a full moon the night before, which is relevant. The fact it was Easter may be important as well.

And then.......  

an encounter. Seemed innocuous at first........

but rapidly went horribly wrong.

I apologize for my lies and deception in not coming out with the real story immediately, my guilt will follow me forever and I hope my delay in coming forth will not cause further harm.

Easter in Wonderland

Easter..... the traditional time to go skiing.....

Andrew had the awesome idea of booking the Eldorado cabin in Tyax for Easter weekend, and we had the awesome idea of cornering him and hitting him over the head repeatedly until he agreed to let us come too. 

I didn't actually take any pics of the hut because the mountains were so pretty! This is as close as I got. The mountain in the background is bigger in the next pic.

Bigger mountain - the cornice overhangs "Guillaume's couloir" - which he never did ski so we have no pictures of that

 Mountains, and clouds. And some trees and rocks

Angie hated the whole trip

 more mountains and clouds

Yup, more

Tracked out, go to next pouffy mountain

 more tracks

Chris currently not actually making tracks. But he did cast a shadow which makes him look very high up. It was probably exciting.

Monochromatic moment. 

Not monochromatic.

Even less monochromatic

Chris not making tracks again. But still making shadows, which is important. I forget what you are if you don't make any, but you should check occasionally to be sure you have one. 

After which time he made pouffy tracks if you look closely at the treed ridge

"Go" means - this leg, do not cut into the other leg. It already has a plate on the fibula. 

The 'Go' story

Pictures say 1000 words. Words like "I am on the sofa" and "I am taking narcotics"or "I need to take more narcotics"as well as  "I am not an artist for very good reasons"  .... Please remember these words as you read....

Once upon a time I was skiing the last few hundred meters of snow down the logging road, with a pack on my back and quite possibly a smile on my face. Since there was only a ridge of snow down the middle of the road and dirt beside the ridge, I was snowplowing since I didn't want to hit 100 km/hr and there wasn't enough room for me to parallel turn without hitting dirt. 

Then my left ski fell off - why?????? This is me with one ski and dirt. The snow is white so you can't really see it. I have very red arms. 

Within a split second my right ski was at the left side of the road and hit dirt. Normally I would drop anchor - aka my ass - but apparently a split second was not quite enough time. 

My amazing artistic rendition of the relevant ankle bits

My foot twisted to the outside (green arrow at bottom), and I felt it "give" as it twisted - the give was the talus and tibia having an argument. The fibula holds the side of your ankle, and when the talus (big ankle bone labelled talus) spun around it snapped the end of the fibula off (which is the little essential bit that holds the side of your ankle together) 

Sproinging of ligaments was not audible btw. Cchlunk was noticeable. 

Since I felt the "cchlunking" - the first thing I thought was I need to twist that back before I think about it. So I grabbed my toes and did a backwards "cchlunk". Luckily the ski boot kept it from twisting further, or it may not have gone back into place so nicely. It was kind of a nasty feeling. I may have quietly whimpered at that moment. 

My lovely (and new) ski may have broken at that time. No one told me until Marc spilled the beans much later. Since the kilonewtons had to go somewhere, maybe it's good the ski took one for the team, but I'm very sad. My mom said "whatever, it's not like you'll be doing anything in the next 3 years anyway, you need to work out your priorities". Yes, mom. 

and now... for the fun part. Part two. 

Part two: Exodus

Kala and Guillaume run down the last 5? km to the truck, and drive to Tyax lodge where there is apparently an ATV that can help in case of emergency. Although that may or may not be true, no such ATV appears in this story. 

I am piled onto sleeping bags and covered with many down jackets and given hot tea and Advil. The rest of the group tries to cheer me up, but since that gets a bit boring and the wait is a bit long they start drinking and setting fire to things. That cheers me up. 

Kala and Guillaume return, and although Search and Rescue are going to come it'll be a while. We are also in the trees - so a chopper can't land anyway. 

Thanks to some inventive Wilderness First aid - Marc cuts two trees with Paul's snow saw for stretcher bits, and they get attached with Andrew's hose clamps into a rectangle. The middle of the stretcher is a pack (poles through compression straps on either side) and a jacket (turn sleeves inside out into jacket, zip up jacket so you essentially have 2 "tubes" in it to slide poles through). 

Lina splints my leg further - we now have a ski boot, sam splint to ½ calf area, and ski poles on either side to femur. Joint above being splinted got rid of the last rotation, and I can now move my own leg without whinging. 

I get piled on stretcher, feeling horrible as I watch 4 grown men sweat and puff as they try to carry me. WHY do I EAT SO MUCH??????????  The stretcher business goes amazingly well, other than that I can't believe we actually have to do this. And I don't know if Andrew, Paul or Chris can move their hands or shoulders yet. My suggestions for hopping are ignored..... Guillaume,  Kala, Lina and Angie carry 5 million pounds of gear to the road....

2 km from the parking lot Lina and a random guy that wanted to go for an ATV ride with his son appear. Apparently we took his child and will only give it back if he gives me a ride to the road. He does, and I think we returned the child? Did anyone check? Or do we still have one? It was kind of a cute one. 

At the road it gets silly, because chopper and ambulance have shown up. Realistically, we needed help to get TO the road. Once there - we have cars.....

Part three, the medical cluster- &*^%$

But... since the ambulance is there they want to take me. Incidentally, they can't talk to the chopper, and have no idea what it is doing. Fun. The chopper lands. Since the chopper came all the way out - they want to take me....

I inform the ambulance paramedics that I get motion sick, and they can't turf me out of the back of the ambulance fast enough. 

The chopper ride was brilliant!!!!! I wish I had pics, but my camera was with my pack. 

The chopper takes me to Pemberton hospital, where they confirm that I need an X-ray. They don't have an X-ray tech on weekends so I'm sent to Whistler by ambulance, where the dr and nurses stay late to help me. (the chopper asked to go straight through and were told not to, which I'm sure the late-staying medical people would be very happy to know) 

I get an X-ray in Whistler, and the Dr is awesome - phones around to see which Vancouver hosp can do sx asap. I get an ambulance to VGH - where Yvonne works! I really want to request her as my anesthesiologist, but I'm not sure that's something I'm allowed to do. And I'd probably need to ask her first to see if she would actually want to do that :o)

I go to VGH. It's midnight. 

Part Four -this could be still part three, because the description is kind of the same

Tuesday......  I'm told by several nurses I'll be in hospital until Wednesday for monitoring. I get taken to surgery early afternoon, and get a 5 second consult with 3 very tired looking residents. The surgeon comes over so they have no chance to tell me anything and I get a 21 second consult with the surgeon. I hope he understands I want to use my leg some more, and "good enough for government work" isn't going to cut it. I'm not sure he noticed me very much, so I hope he's good. He feels I can go home that night. The residents are gone.

Dr Yu is my anesthesiologist, and seems awake and has a confidence inspiring manner. Helpful in someone I'm trusting with my life. Yvonne comes over and we chat, which takes the edge off the surreal experience as well.

Fentanyl rocks.

I feel an endotracheal tube being removed and slowly come to. The nurse reminds me occasionally to breathe - either it's common to forget post anesthesia or this is just me, but this happened to me last time. And then I feel guilty for being so useless as to forget to breathe, and then I forget again. Useless twit - breathe!



I assume this is what they did. I "assume" because it was the surgeon's last day, and last surgery. Presumably why I'm home now, because just maybe he didn't want to have to hand off a patient to someone else? There are no surgery notes. No one from surgery talks to me or Marc. I am to be released "whenever" (which surprised some folks looking for me today to arrange home-care stuff ). The nurse calls a resident who calls Marc, but since that resident wasn't in surgery he doesn't actually know what happened and he can't exactly fudge it from the non-existent notes. No one can show me my X-rays so I can figure out what they did because they need a password. My discharge notes say to take Oxycodone and recheck with a different surgeon in two weeks, and I'm told to not take the splint off or weight bear on that leg. I guess those are instructions.....  and concise. Gotta give them that. Very concise.

So Marc picked me up, and now we're selling some Oxy cheap if anyone wants any. I assume the diagram below is what they did, since I was apparently the only person in the surgery room yesterday I figure I can make up whatever I want. Incidentally, I have a plate on the left fibula that looks very much like this one....







If anyone is still reading - your job is boring. And your boss just looked over your shoulder while you were trying to decipher stuff.

Snow in August

Back when we were young and pretty.... okay, we were young. Very young... Karen and Leo invited us on a trip to the Bugaboos, which sounded like a great place to go. After all, we'd climbed in Bon Echo, and New York - Gunks and Adirondacks, and Red Rocks....    

My guardian angel sent us a snowstorm as we were topping out on Lions Way (5.6) to reiterate just how unprepared we were, and we were (sort of) smart enough to leave. But.....   I promised myself someday I'd be a badass climber and go back - but never quite got to the badass part. I wanted to be able to lead 5.12 with a backpack....  that's badass. In case you're wondering - I can't. 

This year we decided we should just go back and see what we can do.  

Part 1. Carry all your crap to Appleby campsite. 78 lbs for me, 85 lbs for Marc, 950 m elevation gain including a ladder. Check. 

Marc taking a rest on the bridge just below the Conrad Kain Hut. Snowpatch is in the background, and I have to go back to get better pictures of all the beautiful alpine flowers at this elevation. But - onwards and upwards to rocks and snow....

Rocks and snow - and camping. Drying gear after the rain/thunderstorm/hail that greeted us. Several climbers got caught on the tops or descents of climbs, and one climber complained that the lightning left three little burny spots on his bum, and his partner's temple felt a bit odd. No exit wounds though, so he was pretty happy about that. The Bugaboo Snowpatch col is just visible on the right side - it melted out in the rain and turned to evil-ness. Unfortunately the col is the easy access to most climbs, and it's a lot bigger than it looks in this picture. :o(

The bathroom...

Home sweet home

Dinner hour, I put my bowl down and grabbed the camera for a few minutes. 

 Day One (and Two actually) - McTech Arete, 5.10, beautiful solid rock with an amazing crackline. For the next trip we have to remember to take all finger size gear we can for pitch 2, and doubles of green through yellow for pitch 4. Why 2 days? Because it's more fun that way. We tend to sneak up on climbs - then get them when they're least expecting it. Climbing 5.10 in Squamish makes me work hard - and shockingly, climbing 5.10 at almost 10,000 ft elevation makes me work very hard.

Day Three - the long walk to Pigeon Spire without using the col - lovely walk on snow to work on our overall conditioning, and some fun crevasse experience as there were various sizes and shapes, including one you had to step over next to the rock face.
Pigeon Spire however had a lot of ominous clouds, and since it would be a horrible down-climb on slippery lichen down a ridge line in the wet we decided to leave. So did the clouds. Lovely sunny afternoon followed.

baby crevasses in the foreground, with some large ones on the slope above

Day Four - re-supply and rest up since it was a rain day.  We were really tired from work and organizing and driving to get to the Bugaboos, and this seemed like the best day to walk to the car and read some books. Neil Gaimon is awesome!

Day Five - sneak up on Pigeon Spire again - and then actually climb it. 5.4 -- and taught us that we need to work on our alpine options since simul-climbing was overkill except for a few choice spots, but we had decided to climb it this way and were sticking to the plan...  Some "walking with rope" would have sped up the plan.

Marc at the summit bolts

Marc rappelling off the summit bolts - the descent starts with 2 short rappels, then re-trace your route

Marc gets two rappel pictures.... because he's cool 

Me sitting down on the job. Guidebook does recommend "au cheval", so I followed the instructions. Marc was much bolder and walked the ridge. 

The meander back through the glacier, again avoiding the col for a two hour walk. Marc felt he needed to speed up the descent and applied his personal touch to the day. We left two large slide marks all the way down the steep sections (except the crevassey bits :o)  )

Fun Crevassy bits

Day - I have no idea what day it is, I'm on holidays. This is one of the lovely tarns near the campground.

On our hit list was the NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire in the picture below - up the right hand side, across the top, down the left and back down the col or around Snowpatch and back to the campground. My initial plan was to climb the Kain route which goes up the left hand side and is the descent route - but the Kain route is directly above the col and to approach around SnowPatch would be a 3+ hour tour. So - we snuck up on the NE Ridge. And ran away. And snuck up more - up the choss filled gully to the top of the col, then up the ridge scramble to the base of the real climbing which starts at the obvious diagonal line you can see on the right side of the spire. And ran away. Too late in the day, and I had a melt-down about the epic we were about to have.

But.... the next morning we got up stupid early, crossed the snow, walked around the tarns, trudged across more snow - up the gully (the right way this time) and to the base of the route just in time for daylight. We got there at the same time as several other parties, and if you're going to climb one of the "50 most crowded routes" as listed in Roper and what's his face's book.....  that's the way it goes. And you meet cool people!

We "tied" a father and son team on the approach, and they were awesome. Son climbs 5.12, father has scrambled all kinds of crazy stuff all his life and was super fun to be around. Dad was grey haired but I can never guess ages. We let them go ahead as we could feel a humbling approaching us like a freight train, and didn't see them again until the next day. Directly behind us were Conor and Sam, two good climbers with minimal alpine experience. Sam had spent a night on this ridge previously, with his legs in his backpack and the snow settling on his shoulders.




The forecast was for a lovely day with some afternoon clouds, and rain the following day. That weatherperson has since been fired.
Thunder sounded off to our right around mid-morning, and my guardian angels were busy keeping it there. There was some scattered rain to get us climbing as fast as possible.

Lovely 5.8 pitch to start that Marc sauntered up, then 5.7 and 5.6 pitches. With backpacks containing boots, clothes, crampons, ice axes and some snacks this was actually really challenging. I got off the backseat sofa in time to lead the perfect crack line of pitch 4, and then into the chimneys we went. The first pitch of the "5th class" chimney was probably 5.6, and one of my favourite pitches. The rest of the chimney could be simul-climbed, but we didn't really have faith that it wouldn't throw a quick nasty move at us so we did a combination of pitching and simul-climbing.

Notes for next time - simul-climb from the second chimney pitch ....   At the top - oops, not the top yet, it's SO much further than you can see. Okay - finally - at the top. There is a rusty piton anchor and below and ahead you can see the easy well-travelled traverse trail on the east (left, campground) side. The North Summit is just above. Need to anchor, pitch right and down the V-slot, undercling the edge - it's just fine - up the other side and belay the second (rope drag pretty significant for this step around).  We ignored the summit (see entry re:RAIN and OH CRAP THIS IS TAKING A LONG TIME) and headed into the traverse. We did give Conor and Sam multiple opportunities to pass us, but they didn't ever actually manage.

The traverse across the top is lengthy - there is a lot of route finding, and the book keeps saying "scramble along the ridge line". This means - for next time - simul-climb/scramble, and keep dropping the other rope for the short rappels. We teamed up with Conor and Sam which had advantages - but without having worked together before and having to make up our own plan as we went along took a LONG time. We simul-climbed and set up via Ferratas, and somehow everyone kept being surprised that ropes were a good idea so we kept having to pull out a rope again and organize rather than just expecting it and leapfrogging ropes.  Somehow we thought "scramble" meant no rope - but although it's easy climbing, you're a small foothold away from a 2000 ft scream and a bug-on-windshield splat all over a glacier. Ropes for me, thank you very much.

The famous bit of the traverse is just behind Marc, where you have to step down on his left to get to the ridge he's walking. There are YouTube videos of this one :o) 

Conor on the traverse to the South Summit. Getting late in the day....

We got off the last rappel just in time for some more rain, and we all ran down the scrambly part of the Kain Route. Conor and Sam had a head start due to being off rope earlier, but they also only carried one pack between the two of them. They brought a tiny rack (likely why they didn't pass us earlier in the climbing) and one crampon each, no ice axes, and no warm clothes beyond light jackets. They rappelled the col in the rain with constant light rockfall, and ran back to camp. 

As we realized we were well off-route on the side of the spire you really don't want to continue down on very slippery wet rock we decided we would rather avoid an epic. We spotted a few sharp but sheltered rocks and huddled underneath with our emergency clothes and tarp. I was very glad Conor and Sam made it down, because there was no chance I was sharing. Incidentally, this sheltered area that is NOT where you want to be - is right next to a rock cairn. 

Behind us on the climb was a group of 2, who we talked to the next morning. They got to the col around midnight and "slid down it"....  without crampons, ice axes or dying. They have some kick-ass guardian angels! I would say ability - but I don't think so. Marc also has the image of the guy pulling the girl up onto the summit by one hand while not holding onto anything seared in his mind. 

We were still shivering in the rain when the party of 5 that was the last to start in the morning showed up and they provided us with the night's ongoing entertainment. They wandered all over the side of the mountain for hours, and how they managed to not knock off giant loose boulders is pretty amazing. Around 1 am they were at the top of the col. The rain had stopped and we were just hanging out overnight waiting for better light. The moon was very bright, and we could have tried to continue but it really wasn't worth it. We napped, woke up, napped some more - and watched the 5 headlights wander around the mountain. Sometime around 2:30 or 3:00 they changed their mind and went to the Snowpatch rappel route - but every half hour or so a headlight would pop back up as they continued to search the mountain for two small metal rings. Around 4 am was the last time I saw them until they came into camp after we had finished our breakfast. 

5 am it started to rain again, but was light enough to get moving so we decided to stretch a bit and start moving. Marc had been wanting to check out the col the whole time we were in the Bugs, and early morning when it's all frozen is the best time to rappel down it. We headed there, and with double 60m ropes we only needed 2 rappels to get us well below the crevasse onto the snow from where we could get to camp quickly - as opposed to 3*60m rappels down SnowPatch and a few more hours of walking. The col had been a lot less active over the last few days, and the rappel was actually very, very cool....  I had heard you jump the crevasse - but since it's 20 ft across that's not really going to happen. You actually get to the lip, rappel down into it, walk across the rocks and dirt clogging it, climb up the other side and rappel down the glacier again. I WISH I had a video, or at least a picture, but it just wasn't the time to pull out the camera. 

We pulled into the campsite in lovely sunny weather to get lots of questions as the other climbers had been watching headlights all over the ridge the night before. We were actually really happy with our choice of inaction, as it didn't involve us wandering around on a glacier all night, and we were home just in time for breakfast and a nap. Later that afternoon we walked out and headed home. I highly recommend the Wolf's Den in Golden for a Veggie Burger.