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Narrow Escape We had left the hut too late that morning. When we stepped outside, the sky beyond the mountains to our east was already livid with color. It meant the day would be a hot one, and the warmth would loosen the rocks that were gripped by ice. As soon as we stepped out to the face, it became obvious this was going to be an awkward route. The main problem was talus, the debris that collects on mountainside. Talus is despised by mountaineers for two reasons. First, because it can easily be pushed off on to you by people climbing above. And second, because it makes every step you take insecure. For about 30 minutes, we moved steadily up the face. The rock was in poor condition. When I tried to haul myself up on a block of it, it would pull towards me, like a drawer opening. My hands became progressively wetter and colder. Then came a shout. Cailoux! Cailoux! I heard yell from above, in a female voice. The words echoed down towards us. I looked up to see where they had come from. There were just two rocks at first, leaping and bounding down the face towards us, once cannoning off each other in mid-air. And then the air above suddenly seemed alive with falling rocks, huming through the air and filling it with noise. Crack went each one as it leapt off the rock face, then hum-humhum as it moved throught the air, then crack again. The pause between the cracks as they fell and skipped towards me. A boy who had been a few years above me at school had taught me never to look up during a rockfall. Why? Because a rock in your face is far less pleasant than a rock on your helmet, he told us. Face in, always face in. | 
