Our expedition set off for Camp IV on the South Col in the early morning hours of May 15th. After a strenuous but relatively smooth climb, we reached the last camp five hours later. A stiff wind was blowing down the Col towards Tibet, visibility was poor, and we received word from Base Camp that we only had a very small window to climb to the summit and return to relative safety at the South Col. “The wind is going to pick up at around 11 AM,” warned Henry Todd, “it’d be good if you could descend to Camp II instead of resting at Camp IV.” The pressure was on. After a few hours rest, we got on our way at precisely 9 PM. The team had decided for the use of supplemental oxygen due to the various problems Anita encountered while acclimatizing over the previous weeks.

The climb towards the so-called Balcony was easy and we managed to pass about twenty-five other climbers. Kenton Cool, always at the front, had to pull the lines out of a thick blanket of snow that had fallen overnight. Clearing the way, he made a herculean effort normally reserved for the Sherpa. After a change of oxygen cylinders at the Balcony, we pressed on hard, stil ahead of the other climbers by about thirty minutes. An hour into the climb, right beneath a near-vertical section of exposed rock, Ang Namgel Sherpa tapped me on my shoulder. “Mike, oxygen leaking!” he yelled. I had heard a faint noise for some time, but because it didn’t grow louder, I wasn’t alarmed. Namgel began the process of changing bottles again. We had plenty of backup between our Sherpa, but it was still a nuisance to be pinned down, the other climbers catching up steadily. After the change, Namgel determined that my regulator -the device that controls the flow of oxygen from a cylinder- was broken and set about changing it for a spare regulator.

By now, this was all taking too long. Right behind us, a ridge dropped a few thousand feet down towards Tibet. In the course of multiple regulator and bottle changes, Rob and Namgel were treading too close for comfort to the ridge line. Then, when the final change was complete and the equipment restowed in our backpacks, Namgel attempted to put on his very heavy, oversized backpack. I was finally able to turn around and face him, my field of vision having been restricted during the change-over because I was facing the rocky area. This is when I noticed that Namgel was unclipped. Just at that moment, he strapped on his backpack and made an attempt to regain his footing, when he slipped and began sliding towards the drop. A panicky, desperate scream came from the young Sherpa who then cried “please, please, I’m not clipped in, please clip me in!” My heart sank as Rob tried unsuccessfully at first to attach his carabiner to the fixed rope. Finally, after pulling strongly on the rope, we managed to clip Namgel back in. Later, Namgel would say that it was the closest he’d come to falling in many years. I was ready to throw in the towel, having just witnessed one of my best friends almost die, but Rob did his utter best to convince me to keep going.

The rest of the climb went smoothly until we reached the rocky ledge just before the Hilary Step. I had just watched Rob hold on to the wrong rope during the crossing of this section and just as he got across, the anchor came out of the wall and the rope flew in his direction. “No way, this is it for me,” I said to Rob and began turning around. “Mike, you’re less than an hour from the summit, what the hell?!” retorted Rob. Anita looked at me with a smile and motioned for me to go on. Even watchmakers have egos, so I decided to do the macho thing and continued on. Fourty-five minutes later, we were on the summit. Had it not been for an hour-long delay during the oxygen bottle change-over, we would have beaten our last summit times by a good hour.

Everything looked magnificent from the summit and we enjoyed an unobstructed view 360 degrees around us. After snapping pictures of us with two Navy SEAL flags, we hurriedly descended back to Camp IV. An hour after arriving there, we continued our journey to Camp II. It was around 6 PM when we reached our camp site and by now we were no longer using supplemental oxygen. It was then that Anita began complaining about shortness of breath. She had been weak all the way from the bottom of the Lhotse Face to Camp II, but this was more serious. “I cannot breathe,” she kept saying, but we all assumed that she was just experiencing difficulties coughing up phlegm. We were all suffering from the effects of the cold, dry air and the high altitude, so we assumed Anita was just being more sensitive than the rest of us. When she began growing panicky, we grew a little more concerned but did not much more than reassuring her that she would be alright.

Then, at around 7 PM, disaster struck. Anita fell down flat on the large, sharp rocks outside our mess tent and passed out. Within a few minutes, she turned blue and stopped moving. I thought “what the heck, how can we have done the same thing last year without incident and now we’ve got this mess on our hands?” I called Rob, our team doctor, and asked him to bring an oxygen bottle. “We’re out of oxygen,” Rob yelled, as he began assessing Anita’s condition. “Shit, we don’t have a pulse, she’s not breathing, what happened?” he asked. After checking her eyes, which stared straight up, Rob determined that there was no reaction to strong light. Rob got on the radio, which was crackling with other activity. “Break break break, this is Camp II, we have an emergency, patient is unresponsive, no pulse, no respiration, suspected case of stroke.” My heart sank, my palms began to sweat, and my mouth was suddenly very dry, despite the gallon of tea I had drunk in less than an hour. Rob looked up at me and said “we might have lost her.” Shock. I yelled for Namgel and Thundu so that we could carry Anita into the mess tent and place her on something soft, but my voice was gone, the result of the cold, dry air that comes out of the oxygen cylinders. Hence, I ran out to their tents, banged on them with all my might, and when their heads appeared, told our trusted Sherpas in a whisper that Anita was dying.

Rob, Thundu, Namgel and I spent six hours getting Anita back to a state where she was lucid and could drink. Down at Base Camp, a team of doctors had assembled in Henry Todd’s tent and were going through every possible scenario with Rob to determine what had happened and how to get Anita back on her feet. A rescue was organized, a helicopter booked, and arrangements made at a Kathmandu clinic specializing in mountain medicine. Miraculously, by eight the next morning, Anita’s condition had improved so much, that after lunch she was back on her feet and able to get down to Base Camp, albeit with assistance. I had almost lost my wife of less than a year but thanks to the remarkable responsiveness and skill set of Dr. Rob Casserley, and the formidable nursing skills of Namgel and Thundu, Anita’s life was saved. A helicopter flight dropped us off in Kathmandu, where we have been able to visit a well-staffed clinic to attend to Anita’s bizarre episode of high-altitude bronchitis. The shock of what happened is now beginning to wear off and we are slowly able to reflect on the success of reaching the summit one more time, albeit with the use of supplemental oxygen.

Expedition doctor Rob Casserley put his skills to the test at Camp II, where he saved the life of Anita Kobold.

Much has been written about the natural beauty of Nepal and particularly about the majestic Himalaya. Nepal really is one of the most amazing places I have ever visited, but it is also a place lacking political stability, a constitution, and a national leader who can turn this country around. With one notable exception, Nepal is also a country in which it is impossible to find a good steak. Steak is the one food item the entire expedition has been longing for and it is most likely never going to turn up at Base Camp. The phenomenon behind our daylong dreams of a juicy, well-seared slab of meat (preferably from an American restaurant, like Morton’s) is quite simply that one’s muscles deteriorate rather quickly while living at altitude. In just over five weeks of living up here, we have lost 20 lbs. on average.

Here, at Everest Base Camp, we live at 17,500 feet. Every day, our bodies shrink and our muscles become weaker. To add insult to injury, the food at Base Camp is not exceptionally good. Most Westerners wouldn’t volunteer to eat the odd Nepali concoctions our main cook, Pemba, dishes out. As a result, our bodies long for protein and other nutrients…and for tasty food! Enter the 48 oz. bone-in filet…it is everything our bodies want to eat and yet it’s 8,000 miles or more away. As a Hindu country (formerly the world’s only Hindu monarchy), Nepal isn’t big on steak or any other products derived from a cow. Luckily, however, there is one place -call it a pit stop- where we can feast on this forbidden delicacy.

The Hyatt Regency Kathmandu is not only the biggest freestanding building in this tiny country (far bigger, for example, than the now-defunct royal palace), it also caters to Western palates. Hence, while we are resting our heads on pillows the Hyatt’s staff generously gave us at the beginning of the expedition, we are dreaming of a return to Kathmandu, where will deplete their stock of red meat. A comfortable bed, a proper toilet, and a shower are all secondary to our craving for a good meal, complemented by a big, cold glass of fresh milk.

Of course, these are just dreams for now as we sit around waiting for the stormy weather to clear. In the meantime, the reality is rather bleak. Kenton’s wisdom tooth is better, Anita no longer suffers from AMS, my high-altitude bronchitis is clearing, but we are all starving day by day, wishing for things other than yak burger (for which one needs a mini chain saw rather than a knife and fork), dahl, and other local delicacies.

The Hyatt Regency in Kathmandu is the largest freestanding structure in Nepal. It is also serves steak, which the team are craving.

We have just learned that a rather large weather window is expected to open around the 23rd of May, almost two weeks from today, during which the winds on the summit of Mt. Everest are relatively calm and temperatures steady. This would mean a new opportunity to reach the summit and, since the climbing season ends on May 30th (per our permits from the Nepalese government), this will probably the last such opportunity this season.

Very few mountains are climbed using weather forecasts, especially ones as sophisticated (and expensive!) as those that are used to predict the conditions on Mt. Everest. However, the quality of these forecasts deteriorates significantly after a few days, which is why our team must rely on daily updates from the same weather center that supplies the European Space Agency with predictions that help it set launch dates for shooting satellites into space.

Still, two weeks is a long time to sit around Base Camp and dream about life back home. In order to help pass the time, we were subjected to an extensive scientific experiment by Dr. Richard Birrer, (USN Res.), who is conducting research into the effectiveness of pressurized breathing systems. As part of this, we had oxygen pumped into our lungs, sucked back out again, and had our breathing analyzed. Called HaBiPAP, the experiment is supposedly going to help devise new oxygen delivery systems for climbers. The benefit of having high levels of oxygen pumped into your lungs is that you can see more clearly (things appear to be sharper and more colorful), feel warmer, and, of course, have more energy to move around Base Camp.

We are also planning on going back up to Camp II and then climbing up the Lhotse Face to Camp III in a few days. Last year, on two occasions, we almost slid down part of the Lhotse Face because of several spots of blue ice. This year, the Face is even icier, so we will use extra caution. Particularly, as we just learned of the death of a Russian climber on Lhotse who died during the ascent two days ago.

Aside from this relatively happy news, things remain quite mundane here. Helicopters swoop in daily to collect injured climbers; our Nepali cook, Pemba, continues to crank out a most impressive adaptation of popular western dishes; the expedition members keep fretting over the latest weather news; and plans are hatched for our return to Pittsburgh (obligatory stops at places such as the Strip District’s Pamela’s, Shadyside’s Thai Place and downtown’s India Palace included).

Michael Kobold during the HABiPAP experiment at Everest Base Camp. The ECG showed Kobold's resting heart rate at a low (for 17,500 ft) 86 BPM while his natural oxygen saturation level was an astounding 93%.

Melancholy has set in with several members of the expedition. Although we are sponsored by Kraft Foods and have literally hundreds of their very delectable Mozartkugeln (chocolate-covered hazelnut and pistachio marzipan truffles) at our fingertips, as well as plenty of Country Time lemonade, the team members are bored out of their minds. Sick of waiting around Base Camp, where every move takes an extra effort; where basic things like going to the toilet are so cumbersome that we all hope for indigestion; and where the temperature fluctuations are so severe -within minutes- that we are mostly either shivering or sweating, the team is longing for a summit window.

We need good weather on our side, otherwise the expedition will have to be scrapped without another summit attempt. In 2005, it wasn’t until the second week of June that climbers returned to Kathmandu. We’re hopeful that our expedition won’t suffer the same fate. We have already have had a number of mishaps and nuiscences on this trip. Anita, who is now finally feeling better and strong again, had been ill with altitude sickness on three separate occasions. Kenton Cool had a big problem with his wisdom tooth, which got worse with altitude. (Luckily, Pittsburgh’s Dr. Piccolo and his assistant Anita took great care of all my dental issues before we left the U.S., but Kenton decided to delay dealing with his aching wisdom tooth until his return to England.) All of us have had gastro-internal problems, which have been more severe this year than in previous years that we’ve been on the mountain. After reaching Camp II, I began suffering from high altitude bronchitis, which is a condition that can easily spell the end for any climber’s ambitions. To boot, one of our Sherpa had to be evacuated after he suffered Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS).

There is not much to report on a daily basis from Base Camp, other than that one or two climbers are evacuated by helicopter ever day (due to broken limbs, etc.), expedition organizer and “big boss” Henry Todd repeatedly wins at Monopoly no matter how poor his odds, and that I have organized a cooking competition at Camp II with two of our cooks. Very trivial, downright boring facts, so nothing to write home about. We do, however, recognize the importance of writing something at least every few days, so that our loves ones at home don’t think something terrible happened to us.

The biggest problem with sitting around Base Camp for so long is that we become weaker over time. Week after week, our muscle mass shrinks, our athletic condition worsens, and we stand less of a chance at reaching the summit. However, most of the effort required to reach the summit of Mt. Everest is of the mental kind, which is why we spend a lot of time trying to keep each other motivated. Perhaps the ever-inventive Dr. Richard Fuisz (www.fuisz.com), one of our sponsors and the man who made last year’s expedition possible, could come up with a novel method to beat high-altitude blues. In the meantime, we’re reading, playing cards, losing at Monopoly, telling tall tales of taller mountains, and eating horrendous food (aside from those Mozartkugeln) made better only by a generous portion of Heinz ketchup.

Chocolate is one of the few things that help keep the blues at bay.

Since Mt. Everest was first conquered by Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, more than 4,000 other climbers have reached its summit -most, like Hillary and Norgay, with the help of supplemental oxygen. Each year, more and more climbers travel to Nepal or Tibet (with their respective South and North ascent routes) to try and climb the majestic mountain. Much has been written about the ethics of climbing Mt. Everest, about how it’s becoming too easy to climb this mountain, and about the commercialization of the adventure sport of high-altitude mountaineering. More on this in a later blog; for now, let’s take a look at how much safer -or less safe- it has become to climb Mt. Everest. We shall focus mainly on the route from the South Side (Nepal).

Before Base Camp, there are a number of dangers that can wipe out an expedition. The many lodges that line the route to Base Camp throughout the Solukhumbu Valley serve not only climbers but also hordes of trekkers. This is where a healthy climber can be struck by infectious diseases, particularly in the absence of running water and sanitary lavatory facilities. Some long-term trekkers tend to be poor and take little care of themselves, because they have not much to lose. Their bodies are premier hosts of easily-acquired, hard-to-rid diseases. “Stay far away from any trekkers, particularly the ones trying to look like Jesus Christ,” said Henry Todd, our big boss, last year. The main problem with this strategy of avoidance is that trekkers tend to be supremely chatty and their interest appears to revolve around climbers, particularly of Mt. Everest. “Don’t speak about climbing and don’t ever wear sponsor’s logo patches on your clothes,” warned Henry, “they attract trekkers like honey attracts bees.” Dodging trekkers has become a specialty of mine.

Of course, between Lukla and Base Camp, we are all trekkers as we make our way up the valley. If you survive the flight into Lukla, that is. Several groups of trekkers and climbers haven’t been so lucky, since the approach to and take-off from Lukla is regarded among commercial pilots as the most dangerous anywhere. (A YouTube-search of Lukla Landing will yield interesting results). The experience is not unlike landing aboard a Navy aircraft carrier. Then, the higher one treks up the valley, the steeper the ravines become into which can quite easily fall. If one ascends too quickly (typically it takes 8-9 days to trek to Base Camp), AMS sets in. Acute Mountain Sickness is dangerous and required immediate attention. If a helicopter can’t land nearby, a horse, donkey or yak must be rented and the patient is dispatched to lower altitudes. Two year ago, a horse tripped on its way down valley, fell into a ravine and severely injured its AMS-ridden rider.

Once you reach Base Camp safely, you still have to content with the plague of trekkers, because their goal is to see Everest Base Camp at least once. Hence our camp site sits far removed from the trail which trekkers use to come and go to Base Camp. As you settle down, you will most likely have trouble sleeping as you are constantly woken by a sensation of being suffocated. That’s the high altitude and it only gets worse as you climb up the mountain. Lack of sleep leads to lack of attention span, which is precisely what you don’t want as you negotiate the deadly Khumbu ice fall. Statistically speaking, one stands a greater chance of dying in the ice fall, on the way from Base Camp to Camp I or back, than on any other route along the mountain. Crevasses -some over 150 feet deep-; avalanches; collapsing ice blocks bigger than big-rig trucks or as small as mini van; as well as imploding sections the size of multiple football fields all contribute to the ice fall’s deadly reputation. We have to make at least four round trips through the ice fall in order to acclimatize sufficiently before we can go for the summit.

Make it through the ice fall and you may still fall into one of the many unsecured crevasse between Camp I and Camp II, especially if it just snowed and the once-visible openings are now covered by snow bridges. In some places, crevasses are not covered by aluminum ladders (which can break or flip around, landing you in the very crevasse you attempted to cross), but must be jumped over, even if they are 3 or 4 feet wide and 80 feet deep. After Camp II, climbers face a near-vertical obstacle called the Lhotse Face. Avalanches have in the past played havoc with various attempts at scaling this monstrosity, several thousand feet high. Last year, a Canadian doctor was killed as he lay in his tent in Camp III (perched on the Lhotse Face); not by an avalanche but by snowfall. The snowfall was so heavy overnight that his tent was covered and he simply suffocated.

Get past Camp III and the Lhotse Face and you reach Camp IV, which lies in the so-called Death Zone. This is an altitude so extreme that your blood will thicken into a sludge not unlike motor oil, your breathing will increase rapidly, and you stand a prime chance at dying from a stroke, a heart attack, or swelling of the brain or lungs. After a few hours rest -sleeping is almost as difficult as eating and digesting food- you then brace yourself for the ascent to the summit. This, itself, is not too difficult, provided you are tall enough to cover the steps in the snow leading up to the Balcony and above, can climb up and across the Hillary Step, and don’t mind traversing the route from the South Summit to the proper summit, which lays along a nearly 8,000-foot drop that is extremely exposed. Of course, once you reach the summit after 9 to 12 hours of climbing, you must come back down. This is when many accidents occur, because climbers who reach the summit often let their guard down both from exhaustion and elation at reaching their goal.

While Everest has benefited from commercialization in the sense that ropes span most of the way from Base Camp to the summit, another, less encouraging aspect of this development is that so many climbers all try to reach the summit at the same time. With up to thirty climbers hanging on one section of rope, if one climber were to fall, he could possibly doom the other twenty-nine, as the rope is not strong enough to hold such a weight. Last year, after reaching the summit, Kenton Cool, Ang Namgel Sherpa and I sat atop the Hillary Step for over 45 minutes as we waited for wave after wave of climbers to come up the final technical obstacle before the summit. While waiting, we became concerned that our oxygen cylinders could be depleted, which would spell disaster.

Since we are keenly aware of the many dangers of climbing Everest, we take precautions that hopefully prevent any accidents. However, no matter how many people have climbed and continue to climb Mt. Everest, it is not an adventure that has become safe by any standards. We do believe that it is an adventure worth taking on in the name of the Navy SEAL Warrior Fund, the charity for which we are climbing. Please consider supporting this charity and our expedition by making a donation on their website, www.sealfund.org.

A huge section of the Khumbu ice fall collapsed in early April this year while Thundu Sherpa and Michael Kobold attempted to cross it. Sherpa and Kobold were scaling a three-ladder-tall incline as the football-stadium-sized section imploded, barely missing the two climbers.

In order to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, one must not only be in top physical condition, but many factors must also be in alignment. First, climbers have to acclimatize to the extreme altitudes in which they climb. That means going up and down the mountain successively, each time climbing to higher elevations. Hence the various camps (Camp I, Camp II, Camp III and Camp IV), which must be reached in stages, with breaks at Base Camp in between. Once acclimatized, we have to wait for good enough weather near the summit in order to stand a chance at completing our mission. Typically, the weather window opens near the end of May, but sometimes the mountain is shrouded in bad weather until the beginning of June.

On Thursday of last week, we received weather reports indicating optimal weather on the summit on May 6th. The window had opened, or so it appeared, and we were most excited about possibly reaching the summit so early in the season. A plan was immediately sprung into action. We would depart directly for Camp II the next morning, rest for a day, and then climb up to Camp III for a few hours, before going back down to Camp II. That would mean that after resting for another day, we would be in a position to go for the summit on May 4th. That day would have seen us back at Camp III, where we were to spend the night, then climb to Camp IV on May 5th. After resting for seven or eight hours, we were scheduled to depart for the summit at 9:00 PM on May 5th in order to reach the summit before noon on May 6th.

Unfortunately, this plan did not work out as intended. Weather in the mountains is rather unpredictable. When we talk about weather reports, those reports usually take into account precipitation (in the form of snow) and the jet stream. The position of the jet stream is, for some reason, easier to predict than the precipitation. (As an aside: Everest’s summit reaches far into the jet stream, which is so strong that it would blow a climber hundreds of meters off the mountain; in fact, we can hear the roar of the jet stream thundering against Everest’s side as we lay awake at night in our tents in Camp II). The weather reports we had indicated that the jet stream’s position would change around the 4th and that precipitation would be almost zero.

As it turned out, on our third day at Camp II -the day we were scheduled to head up the Lhotse Face to “touch” Camp III- we were forced to stay inside our cramped tent owing to a massive snowstorm. Within hours, more than 18 inches of snow had accumulated and we were kept awake at night not only by the jet stream (which still had a day or two to move out of the way) but by the noise of avalanches crashing down the Lhotse Face and neighboring Mt. Nuptse. We were cut off from Base Camp because it was deemed too dangerous for us to go through the Khumbu ice fall in such conditions.

After two days of this, we were running low on food at Camp II. While the weather had improved, the danger of avalanches persisted. Despite this, and the fact that the many crevasses between Camps I and II were hidden beneath fresh snow, a group of four of us made a dash for the ice fall. What we discovered there, was a rubble field after a massive portion of the ice fall had collapsed near Camp I, thus making our descent safer (because the risk of its imminent collapse had been eliminated). Three hours later, we reached Base Camp exhausted, and decidedly unhappy about our failed attempt at reaching Camp III, let alone the summit.

Ang Namgel Sherpa and Michael Kobold cross a pair of ladders above a 100-120 foot crevasse in the Khumbu ice fall. There are 14 pairs of ladders like this throughout the ice fall this season.

In order to acclimatize to the higher elevations, our team departed from Everest Base Camp last week to Camp I and then to Camp II. After gaining more than 3,500 vertical feet, we had to rest a few days before we could climb up the steep Lhotse Face and “touch” Camp III. Touching a camp means climbing to it, resting for a bit, and then climbing back down to the previous camp. This technique makes sense for climbers using supplemental oxygen from Camp III onwards. However, those climbers attempting to reach the summit without oxygen cylinders will eventually have to sleep at Camp III before “touching” Camp IV. Of course, ours is exactly such an expedition and we were quite surprised when reaching Camp III proved impossible -at least on this acclimatization climb. Anita, who is generally acknowledged to be the second-strongest climber of our team besides Kenton Cool, came down with a severe case of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS).

On the third day at Camp II Anita began to suffer pounding headaches, nausea, and lack of appetite. AMS can affect the most experienced climbers, and even people who have previously felt well at higher altitudes can suddenly develop the painful symptoms on their next climb. After a sleepless night, our expedition doctors, Robert Casserly -the world-renowned high-altitude medical specialist- and Richard (USN Res.) ordered an evacuation to lower altitude. Climbing from Camp II through the Khumbu ice fall to Base Camp is no easy feat, especially not without any sleep. Our friend, Ang Namgel Sherpa, assisted us down the mountain, where we were surprised to discover that another rescue was on its way.

A climber had received injuries after an avalanche hit the ice fall and was air lifted to Kathmandu. Just as we made it to Base Camp we watched as the helicopter attempted to lift off, narrowly missing several ice walls in the process. The thin air makes helicopter rescues at Base Camp a very dangerous undertaking. We were glad that Anita didn’t need to be air lifted but instead had enough strength to walk down the valley to a village more than 3,300 feet lower than Base Camp. There, she should be able to recuperate for a few days before ascending back to Base Camp.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast predicts heavy snow for the coming three or four days, so that we are stuck at Base Camp until further notice. This season being an extremely dry one, high up on the mountain, we are facing a number of additional challenges. According to our Sherpas, the route from Camp IV, on the South Col, to the summit will include several patches of rock. Walking on rock while wearing crampons is not only uncomfortable, but can also be unsafe, especially for those climbers who are not used to negotiating this kind of terrain in crampons. For this reason, we intend to practice walking around Base Camp and below while wearing these metal spikes beneath our boots.

We are hopeful that this will be an early season, meaning that we’ll be able to make an attempt for the summit in the first or second week of May. Of course, we can never be certain of this and while we were predicting an equally early season last year, the weather didn’t turn out to be as good as we had hoped until much later in the season. While boredom is one problem with long expeditions, losing weight and strength is a concern unique to Himalayan expeditions. Since we are living at such high altitudes, typically above 17,500 feet, our bodies deteriorate day by day. Above Base Camp, our muscles begin to slowly shrink permanently and our appetite is diminished. Once we reach Camp III, eating is almost impossible and sleep is elusive. Dark thoughts enter the mind and it is hard to stay focused and to think clearly. We therefore hope for an early window of opportunity to reach the summit. Of course, if AMS strikes again, the expedition may be over before we even get a chance at reaching the summit.

Sherpas, climbers and one yak look on at Everest Base Camp as a rescue helicopter takes off and narrowly misses ice bergs in the Khumbu glacier.