MY TOUGHEST CLIMB

There have been so many mountains in my life, but the Laird's stinging rebuke brought to mind one of the most serious miscalculations in my career of alpine dilettantism.

I had decided to make the leap from team climber to solo climber, sharing Messner's deep moral conviction that if one is to dice with death, it is best to do so alone.

My first objective was the Sphinx of the Peninsula, the Forgotten Mountain, a bleak promonitory known mainly for its role as a Nike missile base during the Cold War - Mt. San Bruno.

San Bruno. Just saying the name aloud brings to mind its savage, even bullying, nature. Where Tamalpais hides danger like a courtesan with a dagger in her robe, Mt. San Bruno displays its primitivo for all to see. Scarred, defaced, its summit covered with antennae, it looms over SFO like the chin of a washed-up boxer.

It was Christmas Eve, and I meant to bag the mountain that very day. Like Everest or K-2, the journey to the mountain is nearly as dangerous as the ascent itself - in this case a traverse of some unpleasantness in Daly City was required. I moved swiftly toward my objective even as police officers in flak jackets shooed away curious and energetic locals.

Once on the mountain I gained fresh respect for its unique challenges. Ancient paths crisscrossed and diverged, and I often wondered if my relentless forward progress was toward the summit, the saddle, or the parking lot.

It soon became apparent that my engagement in the civil matter in Daly City had put me dangerously behind schedule. Afternoon was wearing on and the summit was nowhere in sight. I determined to push on, come what may.

At the summit, surrounded by television transmitters and radio towers, I viewed the magnificent sunset over the Pacific, looked north at graceful Mt. Tam (feigning innocence half in shadows), and south at the peninsular ridge, extending into fog and night. Sunset on San Bruno! How many can say they have experienced such a sight?

But now I was confronted with the choice that faces all climbers who ignore basic turnaround times. I could attempt a dangerous descent down a dodgy route in darkness and probably go, like Mallory, into that good night, or attempt an unprotected bivouac at altitude. Caught on the horns of a dilemma, I paused briefly to prepare my will.

As darkness began to make even that endeavor problematic, I heard an engine, and the darkness was cut through by two white high-beams.

"Hey! The park is closed now," shouted a friendly female ranger - "I'll give you a ride down!"

I have always climbed by fair means. But descending? In descending mon ami, there are no rules.