On our hike in we had been treated with magnificent views of Johannesburg Mountain. While we were doing the traverse, my room-mate Tom was climbing the exposed rib descending directly from the summit in this picture. In what might be classified as an error in judgement, we had each told the other to call mountain rescue if we did not return Sunday evening.

On Sunday morning, Chris and I continued on to the summit of Forbidden but did not make good enough time. We began our descent from the summit via the exposed Northeast Face late. As the sun was setting we had not made it to the notch to climb onto the south side of the ridge, do one rappel and hike back to the car. I found a ledge measuring 3 feet by 5 feet and decided we needed another bivouac rather than risk continuing in the failing light. Although the ledge was small for two people, it had a beautiful crack running across just above and we were able to put in lots of pitons and clip our gear and ourselves to the mountain. We were short on food and even shorter on water. The night was not particularly uncomfortable, but we were worried the weather was deteriorating and we might be embarrassed by the appearance of mountain rescue the next day.

We woke at first light and completed the final two leads downclimbing the Northeast Face route. As we crossed through the notch, a light snow began to fall. We rappelled and hiked at a fast rate back to the car, then drove madly to the nearest restaurant in Marblemount. There we hoped to satisfy our hunger and find a phone to call Tom and tell him mountain rescue was not needed. We walked into the restaurant and decided the first priority was to order food. With the order out of the way, I started back to the front where there was a pay phone, but someone ran in the front door and grabbed the phone before I got to it. It was Tom! They had taken a day longer than planned on their climb of Johannesburg and were convinced I would be calling mountain rescue to report them missing. We all settled down to a nice breakfast and shared our respective stories.