The "Cringe"

For those of you who want some interesting history about hang dog flyer here goes.

I went there with Kauk to watch him do the second ascent. When out of the woods came Ray Jardine who as you know, did the first ascent. He tells Ron he’ll never do it without friends. Now at this time in history there are none. Ray is the only person that has them since he’s the inventor and they haven’t been manufactured yet. As I recall we’ve never even seen them yet.

We go over and check these things out that would later revolutionize the state of protection in climbing. Ray tells Ron that he can use the ones he brought. Ron politely declines with the understanding that since no one else has them that he’ll continue to use what’s available to everyone else, “Hexes”. Ray’s now kind of disappointed and tells Ron you’ll never do it with hexes. Just the words Ron wanted to hear at that moment. Ron is now determined to prove Ray wrong.

Ron goes on to lead the second ascent of hang dog flyer with hexes.

Oddly enough, after their entire self-mutilation vacation came to an end, I can’t clearly recall whether the old gods smiled and were sated at the bloodletting allowing the lads passage or not. Once Friends could be had by one and all, the price of submission moved elsewhere leaving to the mists of time the hard sought gains of three brave men, Friendless in the embrace of the Crimson Cringe.