Three Doves - 5.8

Late December afternoon, sun going down. So cold that I took a whipper on p1 (10 feet on the pin) after my hands turned to insensate blocks of ice. I was about 40 feet up when I ran into a patch of handholds that were coated in a thin film of water/ice that had dripped from icicles before we lost the sun. Within minutes, my hands were almost completely useless. But I was close to the end, so I kept climbing. Around 20 feet higher I hit the crux - it was little crimpers with a big reach to the next hold. It was hard to tell if my hands were on the crimpers properly, because with no feeling in my hands, I was placing my hands completely by visually inspecting them to see if they were in the right shape and on the rock correctly, and the crimpers were high up where I couldn't see them. I spent a long time hanging on those crimpers until I knew I had them properly. Then I couldn't tell if my hands were getting tired or not (I knew I should be feeling the burn, but wasn't feeling anything). After I fell, I shoved my hands in my pits to warm them for a few minutes. The second time through the crux was no problem at all, as I was able to feel my hands enough to get my body in the right position for the next move. Trip report if you're interested: http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.climbing&safe=off&selm=bsl30b%24940%241%40reader2.panix.com