After our drop-back down valley we return to BC. We are told that there will be a good weather window with no jetstream from May 22-26th, and we want to beat the crowds up high, so we leave BC at 4am on the 17th so that we are in position at the Col to go for it when the window opens. It takes us 12 hours to get to Camp 2. We are not speedy, but we are solid. We go through the icefall for the 2nd to last time. I will not miss this thing. Several times we see helicopters flying overhead and I can make out human figures dangling from haul lines. Are the figures at the end of the ropes moving or not? Are these rescues or body recoveries??? One of each I am told. Either way, that is not a helicopter ride I want to take.

I fall into my tent at C2. I am tired. I miss my friends Squash, Wosh and Ritta who I have shared a tent with on previous expeditions. They are my favorite climbing partners as we always laugh our heads off when we are together. I wish I were in the mood to laugh right now. Cramming 4 in a tent is of course a bit crowded but Ritta and I are small so we always make it work. I wish I had someone to encourage me as I am feeling insecure about whether or not I can actually make it to the summit. Meg, where are you? Oh, here you are. I need you to hold my hand. I am sorry I wasn’t there to hold yours before you left. I am holding it now…

We are scheduled to spend 2 nights at Camp 2 before moving up in order to recover from the long climb from BC. Decisions on when to move up are not only made based on weather but also based on what other teams are doing because we want to avoid the crowds as waiting on the fixed lines for too long can be dangerous and can jeopardize a summit bid. What is up with this weather??? Blasting snow, high winds… We end up staying at C2 until the 21st. We leave at 3:30 am for C3.The Lhotse Face is steep and icy and we are clipped in to the fixed lines for safety the entire time. I remember Peter Legate who slipped on the Face and died when I was on my last expedition in 2002. His climbing partners ran to our camp for help as we were still down at C2. But there was nothing anyone could do. His body was in pieces. He was a Brit who worked for the BBC. I will not slip and die as I am not British. This is good logic. It takes me 9.5 hours to climb that Face. I arrive at C3 and Garrett tells me I did a great job getting there. Liar. I am so slow. But I appreciate his encouragement. Always a smile and a pat on the back. It helps. We spend a night at C3 and I have a much better night there than I did during the last rotation. Thanks to sucking oxygen all night. We sleep on oxygen and will continue to use it from this point on until we get down from the summit. The scary thing is that once you start burning through your Os, the clock is ticking and your timing is no longer flexible. You have essentially started your summit bid because you have a limited amount of oxygen.

May 22nd. We make our way through the Yellow Band and across the Geneva Spur and we land at C4 at the South Col in about 6.5 hours. For the first time we can really get a good look at the summit pyramid. How the hell am I going to make it up THERE??? Now we are in the death zone. Yikes. We tuck ourselves into our tents and suck on oxygen. Rest day the next day. I am good at rest days.

May 23rd. Rest day for us, but many teams are moving up already. Anxious. We hear reports of long lines of people waiting at the Hillary Step. Apparently the delays are more than 90 minutes. People can get frostbite waiting around like that. I need to eat and hydrate all day so that I have the energy for the big push tomorrow, but it is so hard to get food/liquids down once you are in the death zone because your body is slowly starting to shut down and you have no appetite whatsoever. Best to eat foods that you really like and that are easy to digest. The Sherpas serve us some kind of spicy lentils over rice. Are they kidding with this food at Camp 4? Who can eat this stuff??? Not me. I can’t get it down. But I remember the story Michael shared with us about the guy who didn’t eat the day before his summit attempt and threw his food out the back vestibule of the tent. He didn’t have enough energy to climb during the final push and he didn’t make it to the summit. I knew I should not toss my food out the back vestibule of the tent. I’ll toss it out the front. Weather reports are still good for tomorrow, so we plan to head out at 11pm this evening. Mid morning radio call comes in to our sirdar Lakpa Rita. There is a climber from the Altitude Junkies team who is in trouble at the South Summit and his guide has left him. Lakpa grabs an extra tank of oxygen and some syringes of dexamethasone and prepares to go help with the rescue. He is one of the strongest climbers on the mountain. Everyone knows he has what it takes to save lives up high. Please don’t leave us Lakpa. We need you. Within minutes of the call coming in he is on his way up to help. He is a hero. He makes it back to the South Col in the late afternoon. He is superhuman.

10pm weather report – high winds and up to a foot of snow are expected. WHAT THE ?? Our weather guy SUCKS!!! Okay…I need to relax…We probably won’t go this evening. 10:30pm. Everyone is asking if I am ready to go. You guys are KIDDING, right? Winds are howling and it is snowing and visibility is sh*t. But we are already burning up our oxygen supply so we need to make a move. I get to climb with Chewang Nima Sherpa who is going for his 19th summit. One less than the record held by Apa Sherpa. I am honored to be climbing with such a famous guy. He looks me in the eye and asks me if I am ready to climb. Not really. I tell him yes.

Chewang: ”Are you good?”

Me: “Yes, I am good. What about you? Are you good?”

Chewang: “Yes. I am good. Good that you are good.”

Me: “Good that you are good too.” Who’s on first?

We have lost radio contact with base camp. They have no idea of the weather conditions up high where we are. In order to not worry people reading their blog they report on the cybercast that the weather is pretty good but there is an “increased chance of precipitation.” This is like saying that there is an “increased chance” Lindsay Lohan will be found passed out drunk of the floor of Les Doux. The reality was that just about every base camp manager of every major expedition on the mountain was worried about us and many stayed up throughout the entire night in their attempts to check in on us. It’s a tight group on the mountain. Everyone pulls together to help everyone. The good folks do anyway…

We leave the Col and start climbing in the howling winds. The snow is really coming down now. I am wearing clear goggles so that my eyeballs don’t freeze. Frozen corneas are often a problem for climbers on summit day. Within minutes my goggles fog up and are worthless. Arghhh. I scrap the goggles and just try to close my eyes for a few extra milliseconds in between steps. I am getting pelted in the face with snow. I can feel little icicles forming on my eyelashes.

There is no way we are going to climb for long in this weather. We keep moving. Lakpa is first in line and is leading the way, followed by Chewang and then me. They are breaking trail and are kicking in steps since there is a decent amount of new snow. Their steps are too big for me. I hate being short. Trying to use their steps is exhausting so I do my best to kick in my own. I look ahead and I see a few groups on the trail up ahead. Relatively speaking, not many people are going for the summit tonight which is good because it means we won’t have to deal with crowds on the fixed lines or at the Hillary Step. What do they know that we don’t know??? About 90 minutes into the climb I look up and see a big group of headlamps ahead of us. It takes me a minute to realize that the headlamps are pointing TOWARD us. That’s not the way to the summit guys. They finally reach us and their guide tells us that the weather conditions are too extreme for them to continue — they are calling it quits and are heading back to camp. He says, “I hope we don’t regret this decision.” There is a part of me that is hoping that we will turn around in the crappy weather too as the winds and snow are making me nervous. I don’t know if I can do this. I want to be able to blame the weather rather than my own weakness. We keep climbing. Visibility is horrible. I know Meg would tell me to ignore the pain/discomfort and to just put my head down and keep taking steps uphill. She was a fighter. Much moreso than I am.

We stop at the Balcony (27,500’) to switch out oxygen bottles. We have been climbing for about 5 hours. Surprisingly, I am staying pretty warm – even my hands and feet. I don’t understand how I am not an ice sculpture at this point but I’ll take it. I am glad it is dark because I think I would be even more intimidated if I could see the steepness of the route. I down a chocolate Gu and drink some water. Obviously you have to take off the oxygen mask to eat and drink. My lungs hurt. If Meg can cycle across the entire country on one lung, I can get up this mountain on two.

We keep climbing throughout the night and the early morning. The weather has started to actually get a bit better as we get higher. One step at a time, we are getting closer to the top. We reach a 90’ vertical rock pitch. No one told me about this!!! Apparently the fixed lines sometimes go around it but this year the lines go straight up and over. One by one, so do we. I am out of breath, even with my oxygen tank feeding me. We reach the South Summit (28,500’). This was where I turned around back in 2002 and was the highest point I had reached on this mountain. I don’t remember ever being here AT ALL. I have no idea how I even got this far on my last trip. I have no idea how I got his far on THIS TRIP. I am feeling totally dehydrated and I need calories. It’s so cold and the terrain has been steep, so we haven’t stopped much for food or water. Someone is right next to me all of a sudden. Michael Horst (mountain guide extraordinaire) is climbing alongside of me and pulls off his mask and starts to talk to me: “Hey… I need you to make me a promise…” He has to yell so I can hear him over the wind. WHAT do you want Michael? This is no time to be asking me for ANYTHING. Don’t you get that it is all I can do to put one foot in front of the other right now? I am not strong and tough like you are. I wish I had your long legs and your powerful lungs. I am huffing and puffing. I reply: “What?” He is still without his mask as he climbs next to me and speaks: “I need you to promise me…that you are going to go further than THIS (referring to where we were — the South Summit – my previous high point). I start to laugh and cry at the same time. We shake hands on the promise. I never break a promise to a friend. Now I HAVE to keep climbing. We keep moving. I look down. Southwest face on one side and Kangshung face on the other. Slipping is not an option. Up ahead, the Hillary Step. 40’ of vertical but much easier than the other rock face we already climbed so no sweat — and no lines! Because the weather was so marginal, few teams chose to climb on the 24th so there was no waiting at the Step. SCORE. Now I realize that the timing for our summit bid was perrrrfect because there are so few people on the route. This was a gamble that totally paid off. Brilliant you guys!

8:00am. I see something up ahead — a mound of snow, prayer flags, a small statue…I think I am hallucinating. 8:10am. I am standing on the summit of Mt Everest. I think ??? I am waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I have been punk’d. People start hugging me and congratulating me. It still hasn’t really hit me that I am where I am. I whip out the Team Meg t-shirt for a photo. I think about her family and loved ones and how lucky we all were to have her in our lives for the time that we did. She definitely taught us all about guts and grit. Now it hits me.

After photos and team hugs we head back down. It is important to remember that the summit is only the half-way point. Getting to the top is optional, getting down is NOT. Most of the accidents on Mt Everest occur on the way down from the summit because some climbers use every ounce of energy they have to get to the top and they have no reserves left to get back down. That isn’t going to happen to us. We make it back down to camp before noon.

I sit in my tent at the South Col thinking about the past 2 months and how hard it was. FRICKIN’ HARD. I was feeling drained as I had just climbed for nearly 14 hours on 3.5 packets of Gu and about 1/2 liter of water. Not recommended. At this point I think it still hadn’t sunk in that we actually made it. But…the climb is not over until you walk in the front door of your house. We still had to get all the way down the mountain. That meant one more trip through the icefall, so we could not yet let down our guard…

STAY TUNED FOR ONE LAST UPDATE and parting thoughts… Is anyone still even reading this thing??? No idea…