After reading the Rock & Ice 6 things climbers should do before they die, I feel like I'm missing something out by never being benighted.
Despite limited climbing talent I still enjoy a good long route and have clocked up plenty of hours climbing in the dark, horrendous descents long into the night, etc, but in all cases me and buddy just keep going.
The closest I've come was when I teamed up with a Norwegian I met 2 days before to do The West Face of the Leaning Tower in a day. Not surprisingly, we topped out well after dark, and I assumed we were in for a cold night up there, but Ravn, Son Of Thor, declared he wasn't going to miss out on his post-summit-success beer in the bar and we started the epic 8 or 10 raps down a horrendous loose gully, with shards of death blocks coming down with us, to reach the bottom, then stagger down the boulder and scree slope, waited at the shuttle bus stop for half an hour until we realised it had stopped running several hours ago, and walked all the way back to camp and on to the bar (which was closed, it was 3am by then). But, technically, a benightment is an unplanned bivouac, so I remain a benightment virgin.
Tell us what happens? How do you decide who gets to be big spoon and the little spoon? Do you end the trip best of buddies or never ever climb together again???
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