Hopeless Rescue: Failed but for 5ft of rope...

My last save is inside 'Cave A', 30 seconds hike around a curving snowdrift to that final, awful rope climb to the summit.

It was hell getting this far. I have sacrificed everything I thought possible. And yet I'm on 1/3rd energy, and I have only 1.2 hrs remaining on the clock to lay my hands on the distress pistol I know is up there. I've ditched *everything* but my lightweight clothes, and slurp down the single, cold cup of coffee remaining in my pack and pray that it somehow contains strength enough to surmount this nightmare.

I exit the cave sanctuary, out into the bellowing wind of the mountaintop, make my way to the rope and start my desperate clamber up the titanic rockface.

My hands give out 5 feet from the top.

All my sacrifices were not enough to sate the mountain's murderous power.

There is nothing more to be done.

I fall.