Part 2, Tribute to Allan

It was also his death; his pitiable partner's too. The collusion of their friends and the Park Rangers and others to try to prevent that single most dangerous of escalades only added to its potential for excitement. Such barriers only augmented the imagined momentousness of their grand assault on that mini-mount, that bestial pygmy of a rock that happens to boast the worst wall in the West.

With a concentrated but completely disguised effort, he and his good buddy used misdirection and camouflage worthy of an ace magician to defeat the U.S. Park Service and all the comrades who conspired to stop them from making that stupid, fatal ascent. It was good ol' Kevin who got the idea to feint so neatly as well and then to ruthlessly attack the Rock.

The Rock. Not just a big dumb crag to scramble atop but she offered the Impossible Climb. One for a mountaineer to really follow his bliss, a fine lithic rainbow to pursue into the clouds, a rock-solid dream-catcher it was. And it had a name: Colchuk Peak. Its single worthy facet is considered the most dangerously unclimbable little mount in the whole Cascade Range. Seattle boy climbers had better beware of her sheer and crumbling shale cliffside that marks the North face. Yet the two pals knew, sincerely thought, deludedly dreamed impossibly that a victory on this wall would make history and make them instantly Everest candidates. Reynaud's syndrome and all. Incredible.

Just a fantasy and they knew it, really. Still...

Don Quixote and Sancho. Cisco and Pancho. They would defeat the old fraud of a hag yet who calls herself Formidable and who loves to dabble as the Deadly Witch. Much more deadly than any of the ladies Al and Kev chased, she is. The two were out to prove that she was in truth nothing but a sunny puff of warm summer solstice breeze. That is, on any date in mid June - on any of these the finest days of the year.

But it was June 20th, the summer solstice to be most exact; a day of portent, of great astral significance. It was the very tip top of the season to any astronomer or astrologer. Allan was both.