And then there were 11...

As if I still had an inkling of desire left to return to Everest someday, it disappeared completely yesterday on our descent from Gorak Shep, which by the way, is the biggest shithole on Earth. More on that later. The winds began howling at 8pm and it started to snow. Its the Himalayas afterall, but still, we've had 10 days of glorious weather. Leaving after choking down a hard boiled egg and some oatmeal, we hit the snowy trail at 8am. What was supposed to take 4 hrs and be our easiest day, easily took 7 hours in 20 degree weather and 30mph winds. I had 6 layers of clothes on and was warm except my fingers. But the blinding sleet was relentless and made every step precarious. We descended almost 3000 feet in slippery conditions with no place to take shelter. We were relieved to make it to Pheriche (photo) which had a decent lodge (read: indoor western toliets). So what if the stove was still heated by dry yak dung, we were warm. What made the day even more stressful was that another one of the group members developed extreme altitude sickness and needed to be evacuated. Since the weather was bad, he had to go down on horseback. He couldn't even stand or make a sentence. The only remedy for this, in order not to die, is immediate descent. You can't even imagine what his trip must've been like. His wife accompanied him in the blizzard, with a guide. This morning the weather cleared for a few hours and he was evacuated back to Kathmandu by helicopter.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T