They oooohed and ahhhhed and forgot their troubles, and I felt good… but as I watched those far-away rope teams, I had a startling vision of THREE FINGERS and I understood Brent's weird look back when we had settled the spin. I'd thrown one finger, he thrown two… It was THREE FINGERS!! That was an ODD number. I had called "odds." I'd won! I'd won and that son of a BUCK hadn't corrected me! I shattered the early morning calm then with my ice axe raised in fury toward the heights of Mount Rainier… "YOU BASTARD OKITA!!!! I'LL GET YOU IF IT'S THE LAST THING I EVER DO!!!!!" I thundered and raged and kicked rocks and threw up sparks with my crampons… but then quietly and calmly went back to guiding my folks... who'd scarcely noticed my outburst.

Of course, it did not escape me that the inability to count three fingers was a good indicator that one should not be guiding people any higher up a dangerous mountain. "Three Fingers Okita" and I went on competing for years before he gave up and simply acknowledged that I was the much better man. We are the best of friends now and forever, but he gave it a good run back then. He summitted Everest three years before I could manage it, and for good measure spent the night out alone at 28,000 feet in the process. Determined to do him one better, after I summitted in 1994, I spent the night out alone even higher.

Curtis Fawley was on that expedition, and when everybody else got done begging and beseeching me via my little radio to stay alive and come down safely from my dark snowstorm on the Northeast Ridge, Curtis just keyed his mike and laughed at me. Standing up there figuring out my dead-end ledges in the night, I heard him and smiled. Having gotten my attention he said, "Just like Mount Stuart, isn't it Dave?" And it was at that, only easier because I didn't have to work the next day.

— Dave Hahn, MountainZone.com Columnist