Over the top!
Then it all went wrong. Not just a bit, not merely for an instant. Everything fell apart. I was fulfilling my dream, the next staging post on my ascent to mountaineering greatness, when everything collapsed. My best friend and climbing mentor was missing presumed dead, my gear lost, the light a distant memory, the weather cold, hard and downright nasty. And finally, the wall to which I was clinging, 1,000 feet above the valley floor, was starting to collapse. I had about 30 seconds to live and there was no way out; I knew I would be smashed to pieces in only a few seconds time.