From this point, things started to take a turn for the worse (and as you can see we didn’t take any more photos until we were done the whole climb haha!). The wind was starting to pick up as forecasted, and despite it being sunny in the morning, the clouds were starting to roll in. Both of us began shivering a little, and bundled up to our warmest layers. I’d thankfully brought my warmest winter puffy and a windbreaker, but absolutely nothing could cut the bite of this wind. I also didn’t exactly have my warmest pants on, so despite my best efforts it was really hard to stay warm at any of the hanging belays. 

With my fingers being so chilly, I was not feeling super confident about leading pitch 3, so Mike kindly offered to take it over. This pitch I have to say is pretty spicy. I hunkered down for a little shiver fest and shifted around uncomfortably, hanging in my harness while he started up the pitch. It was slightly overhanging, with mediocre protection through a pretty cruxy section that involved some awkward jams, pinching, and slippery feet. It took Mike a few tries to pull through it, and with us both getting colder by the minute, the climbing was starting to feel near impossible. 

By the time I started up this pitch, I couldn’t feel my fingers at all. I felt okay with hand jams but it was impossible to crimp any holds, or squeeze my hands enough to pinch through these awkward moves. Mike ended up giving me an assisted belay through a couple sections, and I was feeling so beat by the time I got to the top of the pitch that I was almost in tears wanting to get off the route. I hadn’t warmed up at all while climbing, and was now in for a second shiver fest unless I took the lead. I wasn’t keen on leading either though, since Pitch 4 had originally been Mike’s pitch for the simple reason that it was offwidthy and he had bigger hands. So I settled down into a small corner, trying to get out of the direct wind while Mike bravely continued to lead us up. 

As I arrived at the top of pitch 4, I assumed we would be standing on the summit and ready to get the hell off, but we were still at the base of a pretty big headwall. I almost cried when I saw we couldn’t unrope here, but then I turned those would-be tears into a laugh about how ridiculous and cold our shared situation was. When I describe how I’m feeling, I can sure as hell tell you that Mike was feeling no better, seeing as he had even less layers than I did. With our frustrations mostly funneled into solution mode, we discussed how we’d get ourselves off here fastest. Mike was feeling confident he knew the way so he again took off on lead. Thankfully, this pitch was only about 30m of easy climbing, and then we were on the summit. We must have pitched the climb out wrong to end up with an extra pitch, but being so frozen-brained, we hardly stopped to worry about it.

We found a boulder on the summit that sheltered us from the wind for awhile, and sat down to switch shoes and quickly warm up with some snacks. We discussed our way down with rappels, having most definitely ruled out the idea of summitting Burgundy spire as well. After our short break we set off on our way, with a single rap to the col between Burgundy and Pasaino, some scrambling, and then another rap to get us back to the base. Once there, we were pretty sheltered from the wind, and so spent a minute repacking our gear.