Photo taken by Colin Read.
The grainy image shows Ken on the first pitch of the then unclimbed line of Zeya [E6 6b5c]. I remember Ken recalling his attempt...sounded very serious. He was accompanied by Johnny Adams. They had spotted the line and thought the steep corner to a resting ledge on the right would go ok! Ken soon found the corner harder and steeper than expected with his rope hanging ten feet out from the rock! With tiring arms, and suspect protection, Ken was looking forward to a rest on the ledge he has seen from below...unfortunately, the ledge turned out to slope steeply and offer no resting place! He tried to place a peg but could not find a crack...instead, he hung a 3mm dia cord over a tiny flake and lower to the ground.
Johnny Adams took the lead and climbed to Ken's high point...imagine Johnny's horror when finding the tiny sling was half cut through! Unfortunately, with no more thin slings he had to be slowly lowered to the ground on the dangerous cord. Wow!
The route was not climbed and named Zeya until 1983 by Martin Berzins and Chris Sowden.

Excellent! I can remember watching water dripping off the crag and falling away from the rock. Gravity sure is strange there ...

Yikes! Narrow escape. An iconic photo though and a great story.

Tremendous tale, Tony! It always amazed me how deceptive

... the East Buttress is!

Kodakchrome 64, a stunning film for the time but you had to be spot on with the exposure, which meant a Weston meter.

Thanks for your comment Sean... These old photo's were all taken on cheap, fixed focus, 35mm film camera's, everything was manual. No exposure meter...the exposure had to be guessed then f stop, speed, and distance set manually. Results were variable to say the least...to have a sharp well exposed photo was rare! The other downside was that we had to wait a couple of weeks while the film was sent away to Kodak for processing before you could see the results...how lucky we are today when you can see the image instantly!
These old photo's usually need a fair bit of computer work to improve the exposure / correct dust and scratches.