“Rock!” the climber yelled as his foot dislodged a chockstone in the crack he was ascending. The climber stopped moving and looked down to make sure his partner, who was belaying from below, was unhurt. The baseball-size piece of limestone cascaded two thousand feet down to the base of Notch Peak.

“You OK?” the climber yelled down. His partner responded with an upraised thumb. The rock had missed him. The ascent could continue.

Notch Peak was a serious climb. The summit was easily accessible by a trail on the east side, but the west face, which they were ascending, rose three thousand feet from the desert floor. In the lower forty-eight, only El Capitan in Yosemite boasted a higher cliff. But Notch Peak wasn’t part of a National Park. It was situated in a remote corner of Utah, just south of a military test range in the West Desert. If a serious accident were to happen, the climbers would have no chance of rescue. The closest town, Delta, was a long hike and a fifty mile drive away. There was no phone signal.

The climber continued upward, wedging and torqueing his taped hands in the crack. To move a foot up, he placed his toes sideways in the crack, then turned the foot down, locking the sticky-rubber sole into the crack, allowing him to step up. Every few feet, the climber paused to place a cam or an artificial chock in the crack, attach a sling with a carabiner at each end, and clip the rope in. In case of a fall, he would only plummet about twice the distance between himself and the last piece of protection.

The rope swayed in the wind beneath him. The angle of this section was close to ninety degrees. After fifteen minutes he had negotiated forty feet of vertical terrain. His arms felt a bit tired. Soon he arrived at a break in the vertical rock, a horizontal ledge at which he could rest and belay his partner up. He prepared a three-way anchor, clipped himself to it, and fed the rope into his belay device. He took up the slack and yelled, “Climb on!”

“Climbing!” came the reply, and his partner followed the same line, removing the hardware that had been placed on lead. After several minutes, both climbers sat resting on the belay ledge, taking in the view.

In the distance, dust devils danced across the desert. An airplane was barely visible flying low to the ground, maybe twenty miles away. It nosed up abruptly, and three mushrooms of dust and smoke blossomed behind it. After a moment, the sound of the explosions reached the climbers like three consecutive sonic booms.

After a satisfying rest, the climbers dispatched the remaining pitches of their route. They arrived at the summit, which was a wide area that sloped gently on its eastern side. The cliff they had just ascended had a serpentine shape in plan-view, and formed the northwest face of Notch Peak. The hike down the east side would take them through Sawtooth Canyon to the base of the peak, where a car was waiting. They had taken two vehicles to the mountain, leaving one on the east side, and taking the other to the base of the west face. People were known to paraglide off the summit, but the climbers hadn’t wanted to carry the extra weight of parasails.

It was a perfect spring day. The breeze was strong enough to refresh a person after physical exertion, but gentle enough that the air didn’t freeze one’s perspiration on the skin. After a few minutes of sitting on the highest limestone knob that made up the summit, the sun became uncomfortably bright. They began to look around for a more comfy rest spot, a place with ground softer than rock.

Below the summit, an old scar of a path, revegetated but unnaturally linear, was visible, disappearing behind a copse of pines off to the east. It wasn’t the summit trail from the east side, for it didn’t terminate at the summit. The path led to the hidden north side of another limestone outcrop that complemented the summit area of Notch Peak. Upon closer examination, the path actually consisted of two faint trails that passed through a shaded, grassy area.

The climbers moved to the shaded area. The shade was cool and pleasant, and the outcrop that provided it blocked out the breeze completely. They sat down in the soft grass, which grew only in the small area on the north side of the outcrop. As they took in the view, the climbers noticed a cold draft in their backs. Only then did they turn and notice the entrance to the mine, partially obscured by eroded limestone that formed a collar around the base of the opening.

“Check it out,” the first climber said to his partner.

“You want to go in? These things can cave in, you know,” his partner replied.

“This looks way stable, like it’s been in this state for a hundred years,” the first climber said.

“It’s your call, man.”

The first climber stuck his head into the opening. He saw the workings extend beyond the reach of the natural light. The rock comprising the ceiling looked strong, and there wasn’t much fallen debris on the floor of the mine. He crawled inside, and was able to stand up after negotiating the entrance collar. There were small rails running along the floor, reminiscent of an old adventure movie. The climber imagined himself careening through the mine in a small ore cart, dodging bullets from behind. Then he noticed what looked like a footprint in an area he hadn’t yet walked over.

“Hey, someone’s been in—” he did not see the hand that went over his mouth, nor the blade that ended his life…